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Dem proposes $12 public highway fee
'You're just reallocating money from time-sensitive to price-sensitive'

A representative for a government already collecting state fuel taxes, license fees, ownership taxes and other fees to fund highway work now is proposing another fee – of $12 – just to drive on a public highway, according to the Rocky Mountain News.

The new consumer cost is the brainchild of Colorado State Sen. Chris Romer, D-Denver, who suggests that such a "reallocation" of money is a basic economic solution to congestion on Interstate 70 between Denver and the state's ski resorts in the mountains.

"You're just reallocating money from those who are time-sensitive to those who are price-sensitive, and that's a perfect market-based solution," Romer told the newspaper.

He explained to the paper this is not a "toll" on a highway he considers the Colorado economy's "carotid artery," but is a plan for "congestion-based pricing."

According to Romer's explanation, the highway gets plugged on weekend mornings during the winter with skiers heading to the slopes, so a fee of $12 should be charged for driving Interstate 70 during those weekend rush hours.

He also suggests a check of $25 be sent to those who want to travel, but choose to do so outside of those "congestion" periods.

He guesses his pilot program would need to reduce skier traffic by 10-15 percent to get motorists moving at a decent speed, which currently can drop to below 10 miles per hour in some spots on the highway, even in reasonable conditions.

Romer, who skis, told the newspaper he's tired of sitting in such rush-hour traffic, and as an investment banker would be happy to pay for his "time-sensitive" family to get to the slopes if his payments would encourage others to get out of his way.

Another lawmaker, Rep. Rob Witwer, R-Genesee, whose district includes one section of the crowded highway, said the idea of an incentive is good, "but we should avoid big government solutions or something that looks more like a fee."

Romer told the newspaper he knows a new payment for people who already have paid for the highway would be a hard sell, so he's suggesting launching with the positive incentives and moving towards a fee structure later.

His plan proposes eventual charges of $5-$12 just to drive on the public highway between 6:30 and 8:30 a.m. on weekends.

"What teenager or college student wouldn't take $25 for gas money to move their departure time up 45 minutes," Romer told the newspaper. "Throw in a Chipotle burrito and you've probably got all of them."

As part of the infrastructure to regulate drivers, Romer envisions a website for signups, and parking lot attendants armed with scanners to note the arrival times for vehicles. An alternative would be a state highway department program to read license plates, he told the paper, although he would allow an exemption for "local traffic."

On the newspaper's forum, "ham," called it "genius."

"Just another incentive to NOT make the drive and the states cut of ticket sales drops. Genius."

"As one who travels I-70 each weekend and knows full well the traffic problems, I am pleased that Sen. Chris Romer, D-Denver, actually verbalized this idea. Now we know what the D after his name really stands for: Dumb, Dippy, Disgusting, Disingenuous, Deluded, Dope, and even possibly Deranged," added "Solpatroller."

"The Holy Grail of Democrats that will solve any and all problems is to INCREASE TAXES! Brilliant!" added "alanbl." "I especially am interested in how he plans to pay the $25 bribe to everyone who doesn't drive during those hours. That should be a nice little hit to the treasury."

And "Sasquatch" added, "This is just the type of financial moonbattery that led to the RECALL of California's Gray Davis. Wyoming is looking better every day."

"This is a classic … Is he saying that his 'time sensitive' family is more important than every other family on the road?" asked "NSRider."

Brattleboro to vote on arresting Bush, Cheney

January 26, 2008

By Susan Smallheer Herald Staff

BRATTLEBORO — Brattleboro residents will vote at town meeting on whether President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney should be indicted and arrested for war crimes, perjury or obstruction of justice if they ever step foot in Vermont.

The Brattleboro Select Board voted 3-2 Friday to put the controversial item on the Town Meeting Day warning.

According to Town Clerk Annette Cappy, organizers of the Bush-Cheney issue gathered enough signatures, and it was up to the Select Board whether Brattleboro voters would consider the issue in March.

Cappy said residents will get to vote on the matter by paper balloting March 4.

Kurt Daims, 54, of Brattleboro, the organizer of the petition drive, said Friday the debate to get the issue on the ballot was a good one. Opposition to the vote focused on whether the town had any power to endorse the matter.

"It is an advisory thing," said Daims, a retired prototype machinist and stay-at-home dad of three daughters.

So far, Vermont is the only state Bush hasn't visited since he became president in 2001.

Daims said the most grievous crime committed by Bush and Cheney was perjury — lying to Congress and U.S. citizens about the basis of a war in Iraq.

He said the latest count showed a total of 600,000 people have died in the war.

Daims also said he believed Bush and Cheney were also guilty of espionage for spying on American people and obstruction of justice, for the politically generated firings of U.S. attorneys.

Voting to put the matter on the town ballot were Chairwoman Audrey Garfield and board members Richard Garrant and Dora Boubalis.

Voting against the idea were board members Richard DeGray and Stephen Steidle.

Daims said the names submitted to the town clerk's office were the second wave of signatures the petition drive had to collect, because he had to rewrite the wording of the petition.

He said he gathered nearly 500 signatures in about three weeks, and he said most people he encountered were eager to sign it. He started the petition drive about three months ago.

"Everybody I talked to wanted Bush to go," he said, noting that even members of the local police department supported the drive.

"This is exactly what the charter envisioned as a citizen initiative," Daims said. "People want to express themselves and they want to say how they feel."

He said the idea is spreading: Activists in Louisville, Ky., are spearheading a similar drive, and he said activists were also working in Montague, Mass., a Berkshires town.

The article asked the town attorney to "draft indictments against President Bush and Vice President Cheney for crimes against our Constitution and publish said indictments for consideration by other authorities."

The article goes on to say the indictments would be the "law of the town of Brattleboro that the Brattleboro police ... arrest and detain George Bush and Richard Cheney in Brattleboro, if they are not duly impeached ..."

Daims said people in Brattleboro were willing to "think outside the box" and consider the issue.

Daims had no compunction in comparing Bush and Cheney with one of the most notorious people in history.

"If Hitler were still alive and walked through Brattleboro, I think the local police would arrest him for war crimes," Daims said.

Brattleboro to vote on arresting Bush, Cheney (http://www.rutlandherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080126/NEWS04/801260359/1003/NEWS02)

The New Crime of Thinking

It looks like the term “thought police” just might take on a whole new and real meaning. This depends on what happens in the U.S. Senate after receiving House bill H.R. 1955: Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007. This act (now S-1959 — Senate version) is now being considered by Senate committees and, if passed by the Senate and signed by the president, will become law. Common sense would indicate that something this vague and dangerous would not make it out of committee, but considering that the House passed it on October 23 with 404 ayes, 6 nays, and 22 present/not voting, I’m not holding my breath.

The most disturbing aspects of this bill, and there are many, are the definitions noted in Section 899a. The three offenses defined in this document that will warrant prosecution are:

“Violent Radicalization: The term ‘violent radicalization’ means the process of adopting or promoting an extremist belief system for the purpose of facilitating ideologically based violence to advance political, religious, or social change.”

“Homegrown Terrorism: The term ‘homegrown terrorism’ means the use, planned use, or threatened use, of force or violence by a group or individual born, raised, or operating primarily within the United States or any possession of the United States government, the civilian population of the United States, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.”

“Ideologically based violence: The term ‘ideologically based violence’ means the use, planned use, or threatened use of force or violence by a group or individual to promote the group or individual’s political, religious, or social beliefs.”

Besides the fact that this Act would greatly expand an already monstrous bureaucracy (Homeland Security Act of 2002), it is on its very face a threat to all ideological thinking not approved by the state. Any citizen at any given time could be considered a terrorism suspect and accused or prosecuted for “bad” thoughts. Since the very act of thinking could now be considered a crime, how would the populace react to this new paradigm? Would political debate among the citizenry become more subdued? Would watch groups, whether police or private, arise to monitor individual and group conversations? Would speaking out and writing against the government become a dangerous activity?

The language contained in this proposed legislation is not only vague, it is also broad, sweeping, and unclear. The tenebrous and obscure nature of the above definitions is obviously not an accident. The broader the net, the more who are caught; the more who are caught, the more who live in fear of being caught. Ambiguity and fear are mighty deterrents, and ambiguity and fear foster obedience. In this case, unconditional obedience to the mighty state and its many dictates.

In the definition of “violent radicalization,” it is a crime to adopt or promote an extremist belief system to facilitate ideologically based violence. Neither “extremist” nor type of political, religious, or social change is defined. And what about “ideologically” based violence? Is it violence to simply advocate radical change that might lead someone else to initiate violence? Who decides what beliefs are okay and what beliefs are not? The state, of course, is the final decider. The door is left open for interpretation, but for interpretation by government only.

“Homegrown terrorism,” although similarly defined, is notable in that it concentrates strictly on U.S.-born, U.S.-raised, or U.S.-based individuals and groups operating primarily within the United States or any possession of the United States. The Bush administration has had its problems in the courts at times concerning American citizens and their rights, sometimes setting it and its agenda back. This bill could help alleviate those problems. In addition, to intimidate or coerce the U.S. government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives, is forbidden and considered criminal. Let me repeat; to intimidate the government to further political or social objectives is forbidden. If this is allowed to stand, what does it do to demonstration, protest, petition, and the right to assemble?

Remember, this proposed act is attached to the Homeland Security Act of 2002. This is what gives it the teeth so that the enforcers can pursue and detain those considered guilty of holding or promoting an “extremist” belief system or wishing to advance political, religious, or social change. I use the word “enforcers” because this bill allows for the federal authorities, including intelligence and law enforcement, to use any state or local law-enforcement agencies. In addition, the commission may contract to enable enforcement. Also, “The Commission may request directly from any executive department, bureau, agency, board, commission, office, independent establishment, or instrumentality of the Government, information, suggestions, estimates, and statistics for the purposes of this Section.” (Section 899C.) What little privacy still exists will not exist for long with the passage of this bill.

One of the tenets of any totalitarian society is that the citizenry must acquiesce to government control. The state itself is supreme and sovereign, not the people. This has been true throughout history whether it was during Hitler’s, Stalin’s, Mao’s or any other of a number of brutal dictatorial rulers’ reigns. Dissent was stifled, whether it was ideological or physical, and accused parties faced humiliation, incarceration, or death for their unwillingness to conform. Is that where we’re headed?

The newest weapon we have at our disposal in our fight against tyranny is our advanced communication systems, especially the Internet. Reaching untold numbers of persons, something not possible only a few years ago, is now possible because of the Internet. With the mainstream media kowtowing to politicians and government, the Internet has become the major tool for those promoting liberty and truth. It has allowed many brilliant freedom lovers to reach and change minds. Even this has not escaped the watchful eye of Big Brother in this bill. In Section 899B Congress finds the following:

“The internet has aided in facilitating violent radicalization, ideologically based violence, and the homegrown terrorism process in the United States by providing access to broad and constant streams of terrorist-related propaganda to United States citizens.”

This bill, if passed into law, will do nothing less than muffle, if not destroy, our ability to speak out against government. Considering the combination of the USA PATRIOT Act, The Homeland Security Act, the Military Commissions Act, and the now-enhanced executive power, adding this single piece of legislation fills the only loophole left. With the passage of this abominable act, all U.S. citizens are at risk, not just those few radical persons and foreigners spoken about by government, but all of us. This very article could be considered as ideologically based violence, subjecting me to punishment by government. This could be the final piece of the puzzle.

This new proposed legislation will help an already tyrannical government in its effort to become supreme.

Judge: Counting petition signatures not required
Decision pushes state 'gay' marriage plans forward

A federal judge in Portland has concluded the state of Oregon doesn't need to count all of the signatures on a petition proposing a vote of the people on a state law to create same-sex domestic partnerships with rights and privileges identical to marriage couples.

U.S. District Judge Michael Mosman in December granted a temporary injunction requested by lawyers for the Alliance Defense Fund, who argued the state illegally disenfranchised registered voters who signed petitions to put the issue on a statewide ballot.

But Mosman now has lifted his earlier order, allowing the state law to take effect immediately. He concluded the state has little significant obligation to count voters' signatures on the petition. His ruling came at the end of a hearing on Friday.

Austin Nimocks, senior legal counsel for the ADF, called it "un-American" that Oregonians were being denied the right to have their votes counted.

"Our country is founded on the basic principle of government of the people, by the people, and for the people," he said of the dispute.

The organization had sued on behalf of several state residents in different counties after the secretary of state and clerks' offices in 12 counties invalidated their petition signatures for a referendum that would allow voters to decide, again, whether they in fact approve of "civil unions."

The ADF said it now is reviewing its options for appeal.

"The judge stated that voters in Oregon have no legal right to have their petition signatures counted," the organization said.

"In America, every citizen's voice counts," Nimocks said. "Government bureaucrats cannot decide what is best for the people of Oregon."

The signatures in question were on petitions to bring the plan approved by the legislature and signed by the governor to create institutions that effectively are same-sex marriages to a vote of the people of Oregon, who had rejected such plans earlier.

"Their signatures were genuine, and no legitimate reason existed to refuse to allow these registered voters to participate in the democratic process," Nimocks said.

The ADF had submitted briefs in the case showing county clerks simply refused petition signers' requests to count their signatures after they had been "wrongfully rejected."

The petition signature total fell just five short of what was needed in Oregon to put the issue to voters, prompting the proponents to seek a review.

"The right to exercise one's voice in the democratic process is a crucial one, and state and county officials must not infringe upon that right," Nimocks said.

The ADF's brief concluded, "The only real dispute in this case is whether the Secretary of State and county clerks can constitutionally refuse to give excluded signers notice that their signatures have been rejected and refuse to give them any opportunity – even when they learn of the disenfranchisement on their own – to verify their signatures and make sure that their vote counts.”

The Associated Press reported that advocates for legitimizing same-sex "couples," were "beaming."

"We're a family. We've been waiting for this a long time," the wire service reported Cathy Kravitz of Portland celebrating.

The judge's ruling concluded signatures on a petition "call for an election, not a substitution for an election."

Homosexuals who register now with the state will be granted permission to file joint state tax returns, inherit each other's property and other provisions ordinarily reserved for married couples.

The issue in question already had been rejected soundly by voters in Oregon. In 2004, several thousand same-sex couples were given marriage licenses in Multnomah County, prompting Oregonians to approve by a 57-43 percent margin a constitutional ban on homosexual marriages. A court nullified the licenses.

The result aligned with 148 years of precedent in the state. However, 54 legislators in the statehouse during 2007 and Democratic Gov. Ted Kulongoski ignored it, working together on the new homosexual couples proposal.

They even included a section in a new law suggesting schools address the "attitudes" of those who do not choose to support those relationships.

When the petition signatures total was announced, signers had sought, personally, to affirm their signatures in order to overcome the publicized referendum deficit of five names, but they were rejected by county officials.

The state already has begun implementation of the new law, with plans confirmed by prison officials to allow inmates who are part of a domestic partnership to live in the same prison facility, and in the same unit, a privilege specifically denied married inmates.

"The problem I have with this is that the department will not allow heterosexual inmates who are married to live together in the same institution or on the same housing unit," said one state Department of Corrections employee, whose name was being withheld from publication.

"The new policy gives homosexual RDP inmates the special privilege of living together but denies it for heterosexual married inmates, just the opposite of what the policy is trying to achieve, and discriminates against heterosexuals based on their sexual orientation," the employee continued.

"Not only is this a discriminatory policy but it will be an enforcement nightmare for correctional staff. If the RDP inmates are allowed to live on the same housing unit, are we going to allow them to shower together or … let them sleep next to each other? And if we don't allow them to do those things will we be sued for discrimination because of their sexual orientation? The whole thing is just nuts!" the employee said.

In a column on the issue, Alan Sears, chief of the ADF, noted that the issue of marriage consisting of – and only of – one man and one woman is supported overwhelmingly in the U.S. Twenty-seven of 28 states where voters have decided the question have limited marriage to one man and one woman.

"Those seeking to fabricate same-sex 'marriage' have long recognized the American public is a roadblock to their success. In 1998, after ADF-allied litigation allowed Alaska citizens to vote on (and pass) a constitutional amendment barring same-sex unions, the ACLU executive director declared: 'Today's results prove that certain fundamental issues should not be left up to a majority vote.'

"When the (new) referendum was submitted to the Oregon Secretary of State on Sept. 26, signatures exceeded the required number by more than 6,000. However, the Secretary of State announced there were not enough signatures to sustain the referendum. The evaluated 'sample' was said to be only five signatures short. If you wonder how this could happen, you aren't alone. As it turns out, there is a very clear explanation – many of the signatures were wrongfully rejected," Sears said.

"Signatures were invalidated for allegedly not matching their voter registration cards, being illegible, or coming from unregistered voters. But according to ADF attorneys who examined the signatures, several of those kicked out did match, were legible, and the affected voters actually were registered. In other words, many valid signers were ignored," he continued.

Clerks have "adamantly"' resisted efforts by signers to authenticate their signatures. "One county clerk even told a rejected signer, in person, and to their face, 'tough nuggets,'" Sears said.

Bill Burgess, the clerk in Marion County, confirmed the state had given county clerks instructions to follow a "precedent" and not correct any incorrectly classified signatures they may have been told about.

"We also have a legal obligation to follow the guidelines and precedents of the past and our attorney has told us, and the Secretary of State has advised us, that there is no place in this petition signature checking process for a person to come in later on and attest that that was their signature," he told WND.

Senate passes $170 billion stimulus package
Reid criticizes Republicans: 'They're following this president right off a cliff'

The House on Thursday quickly passed a Senate-approved economic stimulus package and sent the bill to the president's desk for his signature.

The House voted 380-34 to accept the Senate's $170 billion measure, just a few hours after Democratic and Republican senators reached accord and ended a days-long stalemate over the bill.

The deal, passed in the Senate on a 81-16 vote, includes rebate check amounts of $300 to $600 for people who have an income between $3,000 and $75,000, plus $300 per child.

Couples earning up to $150,000 would get $1,200.

But the plan also gives checks to more than 20 million Social Security beneficiaries and 250,000 handicapped veterans and their widows.

Two White House officials said President Bush will probably sign the bill next week.

Senior administration officials said the Internal Revenue service will start working to implement the rebate check program as soon as the final details are reached and will not wait for the president to sign the bill. Officials said checks could be sent to millions of Americans this spring.

"I'm very happy that the vast majority of the U.S. Senate agreed that we have to change the economic direction of this country, and we've done that," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, told reporters.
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But he expressed dismay the package omits a number of provisions Democrats had sought, including an extension of unemployment benefits and checks for people aided by the food stamp program and the low-income home energy assistance program, measures that Senate Republicans and President Bush opposed.

"They're following this president right off a cliff," Reid said. "What they don't realize is he's already over the cliff."

Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said he was happy with the outcome: "I think we've demonstrated to the American people that we are, once in a while, able to come together and do something important to the country with a minimum amount of bipartisan bickering and do it in a timely fashion."

McConnell said the Senate bill also fixed a "glitch" in the House bill that would have made it possible for illegal immigrants to receive checks.

Senate Democrats agreed to scale back their economic stimulus package in order to gain Republican support for the measure.

The measure stalled Wednesday over GOP concerns the bill was too big and loaded with special-interest provisions, said Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Montana.

Congressional leaders and the White House had hoped to pass a stimulus package quickly to address economic fears of recession.

The agreement came shortly after Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson urged Congress to move with haste on the package to reduce the odds of the nation's economy descending into recession.

"We believe that a growth package must be enacted quickly, it must be robust, temporary and broad-based, and it must get money into the economy quickly," he told the House Ways and Means Committee.

Earlier Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, in an effort to get the Senate-blocked economic stimulus package rolling, said the House was ready to respond.

"We are eagerly awaiting the decision of the Senate as to how they will go forward. ... If they do not, we stand ready to do so." Pelosi said.

"Decisions have to be made, and again we want this to be timely so that it makes a difference for people right away, targeted to those in the middle class, and those who wish to be in the middle class; and ... [timely], so that people will use it," she said.
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On Wednesday, seven Republicans joined 51 Democrats in supporting the broader Senate package, which would have injected about $50 billion more into the sagging economy than the plan President Bush and House leaders supported. But the Senate ended up two votes short of the 60 votes needed to advance the bill in the face of a GOP filibuster.

The nearly $150 billion package Bush proposed last month was approved overwhelmingly by the House January 29

GOP kills Senate stimulus bill

Senate Republicans yesterday blocked a Democrat-sponsored bill for a $40 billion expansion of the compromise economic-stimulus plan to which the House and President Bush agreed last month.

The bill — which called for more tax-rebate checks, more business tax breaks, extended unemployment benefits and home-heating aid for the poor — died in a 58-41 procedural vote, two shy of the 60 votes required under Senate rules to end debate and move to final consideration.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, chided Republicans for standing in the way of plans to add 20 million low-income retirees and 250,000 disabled veterans to the ranks of Americans to receive tax-rebate checks for up to $1,200.

"When given the opportunity to work in a bipartisan manner to help people hurt by our struggling economy, Republicans chose politics first," said Mr. Reid. "And while they may view this vote as a win, the American people lose."

The various measures in the Senate bill would have boosted the two-year price tag for the House-passed plan from $161 billion to $205 billion.

Republicans objected to the slew of add-ons, which they said decorated the bill like a "Christmas tree," including $100 million to pay a lawsuit settlement to coal companies and tax credits for renewable energy initiatives.

Mr. Reid stressed that the bill won support from a majority of senators, including eight Republicans, even if it didn't get the 60 votes.

The vote cut closely along party lines. The chamber's Democratic presidential hopefuls — Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois — voted yes. Republican front-runner Sen. John McCain of Arizona did not vote.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican, called on Democrats to take up the House bill with an amendment to send checks to seniors, disabled veterans and veterans' widows and to prevent illegal aliens from receiving the rebate checks.

The Republican plan would add about $10 billion to the House package.

"We didn't block this proposal," Mr. McConnell told reporters after the vote. "We said there is a better way to go."

Under the House plan, most workers get a tax rebate check for $600 and married couples get $1,200, with payments phased out for taxpayers earning more than $75,000 a year and couples making $150,000. Businesses receive tax breaks for investing in new plants and equipment.

Senate Democrats would cut checks for $500 to $1,000 for workers and families, but would include retirees and veterans and double the income ceiling to $150,000 for individuals and $300,000 for families.

They also would pay for government-insured bonds to help homeowners refinance mortgages and let businesses with losses write off previously paid taxes.

Both the Senate and House plans award families with children a $300 income tax credit per child.

Mr. Reid said he would meet with Mr. McConnell to negotiate a way to proceed. The majority leader had set a deadline of Feb. 15, when Congress starts a weeklong break for Presidents Day.

President Bush urged the Democrat-led Congress to speed the legislation to his desk so the Internal Revenue Service can start issuing checks. At this time, consumers would not receive the rebates until at least May.

Earlier in the day, House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer, Maryland Democrat, warned the Senate against slowing down the stimulus package with too much tinkering.

"I think the American people were pleased the House came together quickly and agreed with the president and moved a bill that both sides felt was something they could support," he said. "It wasn't what either side wanted, but that's the legislative process."

In a procedural move, Mr. Reid switched his vote from "yes" to "no" when the votes were tallied in order to preserve his right to recall the bill. The first vote count showed that the bill fell one vote short of the 60-vote majority.

The Democratic Party and Mrs. Clinton last night criticized Mr. McCain for skipping the vote, saying he was too busy campaigning to cast the sole vote needed to pass the stimulus package.

Looking Under a Rock: FBI and CIA Hit New Low in Recruitment Drive

In a frightening and bizarre turn, the two chief agencies tapped with safeguarding America's national security have started advertising in a publication that can only be described as objectively pro-terrorism.

The online edition of the Washington Report for Middle East Affairs (WRMEA), a publication linked to former Congressman Paul Findley, who once described himself as "Yasir Arafat's best friend in Congress," features recruiting advertisements seeking new agents for both the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency.

WRMEA's history of support for Hamas, other terrorist groups and individual terrorists is well known. Currently on the front page of its website, right in the center, is an homage, constituting of a collection of articles and hagiographies, to convicted Palestinian Islamic Jihad operative Sami Al-Arian.

Al-Arian was investigated by the FBI for a decade and finally brought to trial in 2005, prosecuted by the Department of Justice in Tampa. In April 2006, Al-Arian pled guilty to one count of "Conspiracy to make or receive contributions of funds, goods or services to or for the benefit of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), a Specially Designated Terrorist."

This is the same Al-Arian who once told an audience of Muslims, "Let us damn America. Let us damn Israel. Let us damn their allies until death. Why do we stop?"

And yet, the same FBI that sought to convict him as a terrorist is now advertising for recruits on a pro-Al-Arian (and pro-terrorist in general) website. The pro Al-Arian orientation is part of a long and documented history of pro-Islamic terrorist features published by WRMEA during the past 15 years. Reviewing just about any issue of this Saudi-financed magazine would clearly determine its pro terrorist bias.

It is the same lack of judgment that led the Department of Justice to set up a recruitment booth and serve as a co-host for the annual Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) convention in September. Four months earlier, the same Justice Department designated ISNA as an unindicted co-conspirator in Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF) case as part of the Hamas-Muslim Brotherhood conspiracy in the United States. U.S. Reps. Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., and Sue Myrick, R-NC, protested the Justice Department's recruitment effort with ISNA in a letter to then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales asserting that ISNA is a Jihadi organization.

The Justice Department blithely dismissed the concerns, saying other organizations did it, too. That was true. That willful blindness was evident in the fact that, in 2006, the Department of Defense dispatched Deputy Secretary Gordon England to an ISNA conference and sent another representative to the annual conference in 2007. The Department of Homeland Security was there, too, with its recruitment booth adjacent to the Hizb ut-Tahrir, a radical movement which endorses the use of violence and is devoted to establishing a global Islamic state governed by Shariah law.

After that embarrassment, the FBI placed a full-page recruiting ad in the November 2007 issue of ISNA's magazine Islamic Horizons. "Help us light the way to a new era of understanding," the ad reads.

Just what types of recruits are the FBI and CIA looking for? Apparently, these agencies do not learn from experience, even recent experiences. Just last November, former FBI and CIA agent Nadia Nadim Prouty was arrested and pled guilty to fraudulently obtaining American citizenship through a sham marriage, and using her illegally acquired status to attain employment with both the FBI and CIA. Prouty is the sister of Elfat Al Aouar, who is the wife of Talal Chahine – the Detroit-based restaurateur linked to Hizballah.

While it is too soon to determine where the breakdown occurred in allowing a Hizballah operative to infiltrate the FBI and the CIA, it is clear that these ads fall into the disturbing pattern where background checks of Islamic militants are not being pursued properly.

Prouty used her security clearance, in violation of the law and her job responsibilities (for which she also pled guilty), to do background searches into the FBI investigation of her sister and brother-in-law. But that hasn't stopped the FBI – or the CIA for that matter – from reaching out to a pro-terrorist crowd for its next batch of recruits. And it is Americans who will likely pay dearly for the fact that the FBI and CIA have failed to learn the obvious lesson from the Prouty case. And Prouty aside, the fact that the CIA and FBI are advertising for employment on a site that lionizes an Islamic Jihad kingpin and other terrorist groups should frighten everyone.

Congress should immediately investigate.

Georgians thirst to move Tennessee state line
200-year-old survey error puts river’s water tantalizingly out of reach

Feb. 8, 2008

COLE CITY HOLLOW, Tennessee - Nearly two centuries after a flawed survey placed Georgia's northern line just short of the Tennessee River, some legislators are suddenly thirsting to set the record straight.

A historic drought has added urgency to Georgia's generations-old claim that its territory ought to extend about a mile farther north than it does and reach into the Tennessee — a river with about 15 times greater flow than the one Atlanta depends on for its water.

"It's never too late to right a wrong," said Georgia state Sen. David Shafer, whose bill would create a boundary line commission that aims to resolve the dispute.

Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen's reaction: "This is a joke, right?"

In Cole City Hollow, an obscure border community where some northwest Georgia residents rely on Tennessee roads, the river is so close to crossing the state line it almost juts into the yard of a Georgia house.

If Tennessee's southern border were the 35th parallel — as Congress designated in 1796 —Georgia would have a share of the Tennessee River. But a surveying team sent by Georgia to chart the line in 1818 was a bit off the mark.

Historians say mathematician James Camak, who led the team, begged the state to provide him the latest equipment, but instead he had to rely on an English sextant, an instrument more familiar to sea captains than land surveyors. Other stories say Camak's team was scared away by an American Indian party.

Making of the 35th parallel line
Surveyors now know that the Georgia-Tennessee border was placed about 1.1 miles south of where it should be. But that, surveyor Bart Crattle said, is history.

"Just because you have more accurate equipment, you can't start moving border lines," said Crattle, a Georgian who works in Chattanooga and is licensed to survey in both states. "Can you imagine what would happen to our boundary lines? They'd be all willy-nilly.

"It's correct — no matter how wrong it is."

Here are just two side effects of making the 35th parallel Tennessee's southern line: Not only would Georgia get a chunk of Chattanooga, Mississippi would get a slice of Memphis.

The border has been in place for generations, though there is some dispute over whether Georgia ever formally agreed to it. In any case, Georgia partisans say they want what is rightly theirs.

"A state boundary can only be changed by the legislatures of the states, with the consent of Congress," said Shafer, a Republican from Duluth. "It cannot be changed by a mathematician with a faulty compass or a skittish surveying party afraid of the Indians."

Drought drives demand for water
The drought has whetted Georgia's thirst for the river, but this is far from the first attempt to redo Camak's math. Shafer's resolution traces efforts as far back as 1887, when North Carolina — another state affected by the line — authorized its governor to appoint commissioners and a surveyor to meet with neighboring delegations over the boundary. No record of such a meeting exists, it said.

The river winds closest to Georgia near the Camak Stone, a slab placed by surveyors to mark the corner where Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee meet. Georgians here drive on Tennessee roads to get to their homes, and few locals on either side of the line are happy with the idea of moving it.

"All they want to do is get them some water, and I'm against it," said 70-year-old Freddy McCulley, who lives on the Tennessee side. "They ought to control their growth in Atlanta. This has nothing to do with the people. It's the politicians."

He was standing at the Camak Stone, which resembled a picnic site Thursday as several neighbors gathered to vent about the Georgia proposal.

"That would be ridiculous. I'd have to move my phone line and everything," said Joe Dugger, a 63-year-old Tennessean. "This is a forgotten part of Georgia, and they have nothing to do out here except pave the roads every once in a while."

Jerry Body interrupted him.

"They don't have hardly anything — they don't even have dog catchers," quipped Body, a 66-year-old Georgia resident whose mailing address is in Tennessee.

Some influential Georgia politicians have suggested using old-fashioned horse trading to broker a water deal, saying Georgia should offer a high-speed rail line from Atlanta to Chattanooga in exchange for rights to the river. But Tennessee's governor said he was unaware of the Georgia legislation until he was told of it by The Associated Press earlier this week.

Bredesen, a Democrat, said he does not believe the resolution is a step toward a more heated battle over water rights in the region.

"I would say it represents the ratcheting up of a PR war, and nothing else," he said.

Just in case, he added, "We will protect our borders here in Tennessee.

Georgians thirst to move Tennessee state line (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23076509/)

U.S. braces for face-off over weapons treaties

February 11, 2008

By Nicholas Kralev and John Zarocostas - The United States is headed for a showdown with Russia and China this week over competing international treaties, one banning the production of nuclear materials and the other trying to prevent an arms race in space.

The squabble is certain to prolong an embarrassing stalemate at the U.N. Conference on Disarmament in Geneva that has received an unusual rebuke from U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, diplomats and analysts said.

U.S. officials said their top priority at the conference is beginning negotiations on the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (FMCT), which would ban the production of plutonium and highly enriched uranium for weapons purposes.

"We believe it is in everybody's interests to reduce the availability of fissile materials on the streets — [first] for producing bombs, which is a disarmament measure, and [second] preventing terrorists from getting hold of it, [which is] a nonproliferation measure," said Christina Rocca, the chief U.S. envoy to the conference.

Trying to reach an international agreement on such a ban has been one of the longest-running arms-control exercises since World War II. No agreement was secured during the Cold War, even after the groundbreaking deals between President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

The latest attempt to negotiate a treaty began more than a decade ago, but diplomats said getting 65 countries to agree to such a document has been difficult.

Now Russia and China have linked negotiations on the FMCT to a treaty that aims to prevent an arms race in space. They are expected to co-sponsor a draft in Geneva tomorrow.

Foreign diplomats and analysts suggested that Washington's push for the FMCT is an attempt to pre-empt that proposal. State Department officials countered that Moscow and Beijing are trying to upstage Washington with their draft.

"We put our FMCT draft forward in May 2006 and have been pushing it all along, before there was any talk of a treaty on outer space," one official said. "This is just another attempt to block the FMCT."

Another official said the United States opposes the Russian-Chinese proposal because it considers the 1967 Outer Space Treaty sufficient, although Washington is "prepared to look at new transparency and confidence-building measures."

"Given the dual nature of space activities, trying to negotiate something with the idea that you can prohibit the deployment of weapons in outer space but not their development is ludicrous," he said.

Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association in Washington, said the FMCT faces a "complex diplomatic web," because "everyone is saying that the other one is the bad guy."

Four of the five declared nuclear powers — the United States, Britain, France and Russia — have said publicly that they no longer produce fissile material. The fifth, China, has not made such a statement.

China opposes the FMCT, as do India and Pakistan, which still produce highly enriched uranium, analysts say. India also extracts plutonium, and Pakistan is expected to begin doing so in the near future.

India has said it would support the treaty only if it includes a verification mechanism. A verification provision was taken out of the text in the latest U.S. draft, which the Bush administration put on the table after a long review of a series of international treaties and proposals.

The administration said that effective verification was impossible to achieve.

Iran, Syria and Israel also are expected to object to the FMCT text.

The Conference on Disarmament, established in 1979, is desperate to break its long stalemate. Mr. Ban voiced frustration with the body's inability to overcome differences last month at its opening session for this year.

"Even with widespread agreement on the gravity of threats to international peace and security, you still have not been able to find common cause to address them," he told the delegates. "I'm deeply troubled by this impasse over priorities."

U.S. braces for face-off over weapons treaties (http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080211/FOREIGN/737263646/1003/FOREIGN&template=printart)

Bush criticizes Congress on terror bill
House Republicans stage walkout to protest Democrats' 'grandstanding'

In a day of political brinkmanship, President Bush pressured the House on Thursday to finish a bill giving the government more leeway to eavesdrop on phone calls and e-mails of suspected terrorists. House Democrats didn't budge and angry Republicans staged a walkout down the Capitol steps.

From the White House, Bush argued that the House has plenty of time to pass a bill before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act expires at midnight Saturday. The president plans to leave on a five-nation trip to Africa on Friday afternoon, but said he'd delay his departure and stay in Washington "if it will help them complete their work on this critical bill."

On Capitol Hill, House Republicans stormed out of the House chamber to boycott a vote to hold two presidential confidants in contempt for failing to cooperate with an inquiry into whether federal prosecutors were ousted for political reasons.

"We have space on the calendar today for a politically charged fishing expedition, but no space for a bill that would protect the American people from terrorists who want to kill us," said Rep. John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, the minority leader.

"Let's just get up and leave," he told his colleagues, before walking out with scores of Republicans in tow.

A short time later, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she had instructed Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes and Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers to meet with their Senate counterparts by Friday to start reconciling the House and Senate eavesdropping legislation - something she predicted could be done within 21 days.

The first step must be reconciliation of the two bills, she said, adding: "If the president wants to work together on that - we have been trying mightily to get the administration to engage."

Bush is backing the Senate-passed bill, which includes retroactive protection from lawsuits that telecommunications companies are facing because they cooperated with government eavesdropping following the Sept. 11 terror attacks. The House bill does not provide immunity from lawsuits for the telecommunications companies.

Rather than wait for the House and Senate to negotiate differences in their versions of the intelligence legislation, Bush wants a rubber-stamp of the Senate bill so he can sign it into law immediately. Bush has said he will not approve another extension, and House Republicans helped defeat a 21-day extension of the law on Thursday.

In his second statement on the bill at the White House in two days, Bush said that "it would be a mistake" if Congress allowed the law to expire. "Members of Congress knew all along that this deadline was approaching," he said. "They set it themselves. They've had more than six months to discuss and deliberate. And now they must act."

He rebuffed claims that the issue had turned into a political game of chicken.

"I certainly hope not," Bush said. "I can assure you al-Qaida, in their planning, isn't thinking about politics. They're thinking about hurting the American people again."

In a letter to Bush, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Democrats stand ready to reconcile the two bills, but that the current law should be extended until that could be accomplished.

"Your opposition to an extension is inexplicable. ... Nonetheless, you have chosen to let the Protect America Act expire," Reid wrote. "You bear responsibility for any intelligence collection gap that may result." Reid also said he saw no crisis that should lead Bush to cancel his trip to Africa.

Expiration of the current law would not mean an immediate end to eavesdropping on suspected terrorists. Existing surveillance could continue under the law for a year from when it began - at least until August. Any new surveillance the government wants to institute could be implemented through underlying FISA rules, which could require warrants from a secret court.

But the White House says that if the law expires, the attorney general and the director of national intelligence would be stripped of the power to authorize new certifications against foreign intelligence targets, including international terrorists abroad. The White House says the government would be unable to get assistance from private companies, which are not assisting the government now but may be called on in the future, to collect foreign intelligence information about terrorists and other foreign threats.

"Without this liability shield, we may not be able to secure the private sector's cooperation. ... and that of course would put the American people at risk," Bush said.

Pelosi, D-Calif., dismissed the Bush administration's warnings of dire consequences if the current law lapses. The underlying intelligence surveillance law that would be reverted to, along with other federal law and presidential orders, give Bush authority he needs for spying and other measures, she said.

"We are trying to pass a bill that protects the American people and protects the Constitution," she said. "We know the president has the authority to do everything he needs to do to protect the American people in the interim."

Speaking to the Senate Intelligence Committee, Mike McConnell, director of national intelligence, said the current law is not enough because it does not include immunity for the phone companies.

"We must rely on the private sector to be effective," McConnell said, adding that failure to pass the Senate bill will do "grave damage to our ability to protect the nation."

Silvestre Reyes, chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, disagreed.

"As someone who has been briefed on our most sensitive intelligence programs, I can see no argument why the future security of our country depends on whether past actions of telecommunications companies are immunized," Reyes wrote in a letter to Bush.

Pelosi's Witch Hunt

House Holds Bush Confidants in Contempt

The House voted Thursday to hold two of President Bush's confidants in contempt for failing to cooperate with an inquiry into whether a purge of federal prosecutors was politically motivated.

Angry Republicans boycotted the vote and staged a walkout.

The vote was 223-32 to hold presidential chief of staff Josh Bolten and former White House counsel Harriet Miers in contempt. The citations charge Miers with failing to testify and accuse her and Bolten of refusing Congress' demands for documents related to the 2006-2007 firings.

Republicans said Democrats should instead be working on extending a law - set to expire Saturday - allowing the government to eavesdrop on phone calls and e-mails in the United States in cases of suspected terrorist activity.

"We have space on the calendar today for a politically charged fishing expedition, but no space for a bill that would protect the American people from terrorists who want to kill us," said Rep. John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, the minority leader.

"Let's just get up and leave," he told his colleagues, before storming out of the House chamber with scores of Republicans in tow.

The White House said the Justice Department would not ask the U.S. attorney to pursue the House contempt charges. However, the measure would allow the House to bring its own lawsuit on the matter.

It is the first time in 25 years that a full chamber of Congress has voted on a contempt of Congress citation.

The action, which Democrats had been threatening for months, was the latest wrinkle in a more than yearlong constitutional clash between Congress and the White House.

The administration has said the information being sought is off-limits under executive privilege, and argues that Bolten and Miers are immune from prosecution.

Democrats said they were acting to protect Congress' constitutional prerogatives.

If Congress didn't enforce the subpoenas, said Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the No. 2 Democrat, it would "be giving its tacit consent to the dangerous idea of an imperial presidency, above the law and beyond the reach of checks and balances."

Republicans argued that there had been no evidence of wrongdoing in the prosecutors flap, and called the vote a waste of time that would actually damage Congress' standing.

"We don't have evidence that we can give to the U.S. attorney. What we're giving to him is the desire to continue a witch hunt which has produced up to today zero - nothing," said Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah.

Under former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Justice Department officials consulted with the White House, fired at least nine federal prosecutors and kindled a political furor over a hiring process that favored Republican loyalists.

Bush's former top political adviser, Karl Rove, has also been a target of Congress' investigation into the purge of prosecutors, although Thursday's measure was not aimed at him.

Fred Fielding, the current White House counsel, has offered to make officials and documents available behind closed doors to the congressional committees probing the matter - but off the record and not under oath. Lawmakers demanded a transcript of testimony and the negotiations stalled.

The White House blasted Democrats for scheduling action on the contempt measures instead of moving to extend the eavesdropping law.

"The American people will find it baffling that on a day that House leaders are trying to put off passing critical legislation to keep us safer from the threat of foreign terrorists overseas, they are spending scarce time to become the first Congress in history to bring contempt charges against a president's chief of staff and lawyer," said Dana Perino, the White House spokeswoman.

The contempt debate sparked an unusually bitter scene even in the fractious House. Democrats accused Republicans of marring the Capitol memorial for their fallen colleague Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., by interrupting it with a protest vote. GOP leaders shot back that it was Democrats who were responsible for dishonoring Lantos, by calling the House into session for the contempt debate before the service had ended.

It's not clear that contempt of Congress citations must be prosecuted. The law says the U.S. attorney "shall" bring the matter to a grand jury.

The House voted 259-105 in 1982 for a contempt citation against EPA Administrator Anne Gorsuch, but the Reagan-era Justice Department refused to prosecute the case.

The Justice Department also sued the House of Representatives in that case, but the court threw out the suit and urged negotiation. The Reagan administration eventually agreed to turn over the documents.

The last time a full chamber of Congress voted on a contempt of Congress citation was 1983. The House voted 413-0 to cite former Environmental Protection Agency official Rita Lavelle for contempt of Congress for refusing to appear before a House committee. Lavelle was later acquitted in court of the contempt charge, but she was convicted of perjury in a separate trial.

On Thursday, three Republicans joined 220 Democrats to support the contempt resolution, including Rep. Walter B. Jones of North Carolina, presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul of Texas and Rep. Wayne T. Gilchrest of Maryland, who was defeated this week in a primary. One Republican, Rep. Jon Porter of Nevada, voted "present."

Wolf to Georgetown: Detail Use of Saudi Millions

A U.S. congressman is asking Georgetown University about its academic scrutiny of Saudi Arabia and its use of $20 million donated by a Saudi prince in 2005.

U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) wrote to Georgetown President John DeGioia Thursday, saying he was concerned about how the money was being spent at the university's Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding. Of particular concern, Wolf said, was the university's role in training current and prospective U.S. foreign service personnel.

"The Saudi government continues to permit textbooks to contain inflammatory language about other religions," Wolf wrote. "Restrictions on civil society and political activists continue to be pervasive. No changes have been made to the underlying legal authority relating to non-Muslim worship that the Saudis have relied on to enforce these rules. The Saudis have cleansed their own country of religious liberties by severely restricting public religious expression to their interpretation and enforcement of wahhabism."

Wolf's letter seeks assurances the Georgetown center "maintains the impartiality and integrity of scholarship that befits so distinguished a university as Georgetown." He then asks whether:

· "the center has produced any analysis critical of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, for example, in the fields of human rights, religious freedom, freedom of expression, women's rights, minority rights, protection for foreign workers, due process and the rule of law."

· "the center has examined Saudi links to extremism and terrorism, including the relationship between Saudi public education and the Kingdom-supported clerical establishment, on the one hand, and the rise of anti-American attitudes, extremism and violence in the Muslim world, on the other."

· "the center has examined or produced any critical study of the controversial religious textbooks produced by the government of Saudi Arabia that have been cited by the State Department, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and non-governmental groups for propagating extreme intolerance."

· "any of the Saudi-sourced finds have been used in the training, briefing or education of those going into or currently employed by the U.S. government.

Harvard University also received $20 million from Prince Alwaleed bin Talal but that is not addressed in the letter. Wolf is the ranking Republican on the House Appropriations Committee's subcommittee on State-Foreign Operations and is co-Chair of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus.

The answer to his questions likely will be no, said Martin Kramer, former director of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University and a fellow at Harvard and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Prince Alwaleed's money wasn't designed to stop academic scrutiny of Saudi Arabian society and policies, Kramer said. The Georgetown center wasn't doing that anyway. Rather, "It's a move to change the subject [and say the roots of terrorism lie elsewhere]. For the Saudis after 9/11, changing the subject is important."

The Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding is run by John Esposito. His research has not delved into aspects of Saudi society or human rights to determine why 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers were Saudis, or why so many of the foreign fighters in Iraq have been from the Kingdom. Rather, Kramer said, Esposito's research places U.S. policy under the microscope and finds it responsible for fostering anger and resentment.

"He's not doing anything he wasn't doing before he got the Saudi money, he was doing it anyway," Kramer said. "The Saudis just rewarded him for it."

Esposito has a history of minimizing the threat of Islamic extremism and supporting Islamist regimes and movements. He has praised Muslim Brotherhood spiritual guide Yusuf al-Qaradawi as an intellectual who "reinterpreted Islamic principles to reconcile Islam with democratization and multiparty political systems and recast and expand traditional doctrine regarding the status (dhimmi) of non-Muslim minorities."

Qaradawi has expressed support for the killing of American forces in Iraq and praised Palestinian suicide bombers, writing "it is wrong to consider these acts as ‘suicidal,' because these are heroic acts of martyrdom, which are in fact very different from suicide."

In the summer of 2001, Esposito criticized those who emphasize the threat Osama bin Laden posed. "There's a danger in making Bin Laden the poster boy of global terrorism, and not realizing that there are a lot of other forces involved in global terrorism," Esposito wrote in The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs. "Bin Laden has become the new symbol, following in the footsteps of Qaddafi, Khomeini, and Sheikh Omar Abdur Rahman. Bin Laden is a perfect media symbol: He's tall, gaunt, striking, and always has a Kalashnikov with him. As long as we focus on these images we continue to see Islam and Islamic activism through the prism of ayatollahs and Iran, of Bin Laden and the Afghan Arabs."

In addition to his academic work, Esposito has been allied with a series of people directly involved in terrorist and extremist movements. He continues to consider Sami Al-Arian, an acknowledged member of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, to be a friend and "

ne of the most impressive people I have met under fire."

He served on the Board of Advisory Editors for the Middle East Affairs Journal, published by United Association for Studies and Research (UASR). The UASR was established by Hamas Deputy Political Director Mousa Abu Marzook and run by Ahmed Yousef, now a Hamas spokesman in Gaza.

When the gift was made, the $20 million was reportedly designed to finance scholarships, three faculty chairs and expand academic outreach to "beef up" what the center already had in place.

In 2001, Alwaleed's attempt to donate $10 million to a fund for 9/11 victims was rejected by New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani after Alwaleed suggested U.S. policy contributed to the attacks. In a news release, Alwaleed called on the U.S. to reexamine its Middle East policies "and adopt a more balanced stance toward the Palestinian cause."

Esposito defended the Prince's statement, saying "He was expressing his enormous sympathy with the United States but also trying to give people the context in which this [terrorist attack] occurred."

In addition to probing how the prince's money is being used at Georgetown, Wolf is asking the Bush Administration similar questions in opposition to a proposed $20 billion arms sale to the Saudi government.

In 2006, Freedom House's Center for Religious Freedom issued a report on Saudi Arabian education. Despite claims that it modernized its curriculum and text books to remove intolerant and extreme references, the study found "an ideology of hatred toward people, including Muslims, who do not subscribe to the Wahhabi sect of Islam."

The issue of Saudi education was highlighted in a 2006 study by the Freedom House Center for Religious Freedom. Nina Shea, the report's author and then-director of the Freedom House center, penned an op-ed piece in the Washington Post on May 21, 2006 saying, "The texts teach a dualistic vision, dividing the world into true believers of Islam (the "monotheists") and unbelievers (the ‘polytheists' and ‘infidels').

This indoctrination begins in a first-grade text and is reinforced and expanded each year, culminating in a 12th-grade text instructing students that their religious obligation includes waging jihad against the infidel to ‘spread the faith.'"

Among the many examples Shea cited was this, from a sixth grade textbook:

Just as Muslims were successful in the past when they came together in a sincere endeavor to evict the Christian crusaders from Palestine, so will the Arabs and Muslims emerge victorious, God willing, against the Jews and their allies if they stand together and fight a true jihad for God, for this is within God's power.

The heart of Wolf's concern in both his letter to Georgetown, his alma mater, and in his opposition to the arms sales, appears to be a question of how reliable an ally Saudi Arabia is in the fight against terrorism and extremism. In addition, Wolf seems concerned over a cumulative effect Saudi interest in the U.S. has on policy. The letter notes a request to the Government Accounting Office about investigating "the revolving door" of senior officials who leave government only to lobby on behalf of governments where they previously served. And he specifically asks Georgetown about training current and future foreign service officers.

He notes that there has been a fair amount of promising talk, but "the Saudi government's promises remain unfulfilled."

Info sought on secret IRS deal with Scientology
'Position represents unconstitutional favoritism of one religious group over another'

A federal appeals court is being asked to tell the Internal Revenue Service to open up a secret deal with the Church of Scientology that reportedly allows members to deduct certain educational, or "auditing," expenses, a benefit denied members of other faiths in the United States.

The report comes from the American Bar Association Journal, which outlined the situation involving a case pending before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in California.

The appellants in the case at hand, in which a decision hasn't been released yet, Michael and Marla Sklar, are Orthodox Jews who took deductions for some of the private religious school tuition they paid for their children, the report said, as well as after-school classes in Jewish law.

The IRS disallowed the deductions multiple times, and a first case was closed, even though "the agency meanwhile reportedly has allowed members of the Church of Scientology, under a 1993 settlement agreement, to take substantial deductions for 'religious training and services.'"

The Journal report said the judges on the 9th Circuit panel, now hearing a second appeal from the same family, "appeared sympathetic to the couple's claim that the federal agency isn't treating members of all religious groups fairly concerning charitable deductions for educational expenses."

The report said the IRS settlement with Scientologists is confidential, but it was reported by the Wall Street Journal in 1997. Now the Sklars are seeking access to the document to substantiate their own claim that their educational deductions are similar, and valid.

"The IRS contends that the settlement agreement is a private matter, and says that it involves religious training rather than the kind of religious education for children that is at issue in the Sklars' case," the report said. "However, their counsel argues the IRS position represents unconstitutional favoritism of one religious group over another, in violation of the Establishment Clause."

The report said Judge Kim Wardlaw noted during arguments that the issue "does intrude into the Establishment Clause," and that the "bottom line"' is whether the IRS has, in fact, agreed to treat members of one religious group differently from members of another group.

"Even if the IRS did discriminate by allowing the Scientology training deductions, that doesn't necessarily mean that the Sklars will get to take similar education deductions," concluded the report. "'Then the proper course of action is a lawsuit to [put a] stop to that policy,' explains a concurring judge in the 9th Circuit's 2002 written opinion on the Sklars' earlier case."

The New York Times reported under the "officially secret" agreement, Scientologists "can deduct the cost of religious education as a charitable gift," and the question at hand is whether members of other religious groups will be allowed to do the same.

The Times reported the judges in the original dispute concluded "it appears to be true" Scientologists have been given preferential tax treatment.

In that case, Judge Barry Silverman asked, "'Why is Scientology training different from all other religious training?'' There was no answer, he wrote, because the court wasn't faced with the question of whether "members of the Church of Scientology have become the IRS's chosen people."

Church spokeswoman Monique E. Yingling told the Times the 1993 agreement gave Scientologists charitable tax deductions.

"Scientologists now are being treated the same as everyone else, Catholics, Mormons, Hindus," she told the newspaper. "Auditing and training are both Scientology religious services." She said members participate in those to advance in the religion founded by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard.

Sklar, however, said that is his case: that there's no difference between services Scientologists cite for their deductions and the religious training his children get at two Hebrew schools.

The Sklars also said the IRS as much as admitted their contentions, because when the Sklars attempted to take the deduction the IRS sent them letters explaining the terms for Scientologists to take such deductions, but then disallowed theirs because they didn't provide receipts from the Church of Scientology.

"If the government is allowed to do this unchallenged, it means you have a state-favored religion, and that has never fared well for the Jews," Sklar told the newspaper.

Stupid is as stupid does: House OKs climate blueprint to set limits on greenhouse gases

House lawmakers have approved Gov. Christine Gregoire's plan to set limits on Washington's greenhouse-gas emissions, another step in the state's long-term drive to curb the causes of climate change.

The measure, which also directs the state to add 25,000 "green collar" jobs by 2020, was the last bill to clear the House by Tuesday's deadline for policy measures. The 64-31 vote sends the bill to the Senate for further consideration.

During debate, Rep. Hans Dunshee, D-Snohomish, said lawmakers had a choice: Try to seize control of climate-changing emissions by approving the bill or "sit and do nothing, and suffer the consequences of inaction and the status quo."

Republicans, however, bridled at the bill's strict emission limits and the possible effect on business. Even GOP supporters like Rep. Glenn Anderson, R-Fall City, criticized what they saw as a heavy-handed approach by government.

"If we jam it down their throats, we will lose both the confidence of the citizenry and we will not accomplish the changes that we need to help our planet," Anderson said.

The bill builds on work already started by the Legislature and Gregoire's Climate Advisory Team.

It has five major points, led by orders for the state Ecology Department to make dramatic cuts in Washington's greenhouse-gas emissions. The agency's eventual blueprint would have to curb emissions by 70 percent of expected levels in 2050.

Ecology regulators also would set up an emissions-reporting system, for industries that annually produce 10,000 metric tons of greenhouse gases and vehicle fleets that emit at least 2,500 metric tons per year. The first reports would be due in 2010, with deferrals possible for interstate-transport businesses.

At the same time, the Transportation Department would set up recommendations for cutting in half the annual per-capita vehicle miles traveled by 2050.

The green-jobs initiative would set up a special state account giving grants for training and other programs to encourage clean-energy businesses.

Washington officials also would be authorized to work with the Western Climate Initiative, a partnership of six states and two Canadian provinces, in developing a regional cap-and-trade system aimed at reducing greenhouse-gas emissions across the West.

The bill's definition of greenhouse gases includes carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. Such gases essentially trap energy from the sun, which warms the Earth's surface and lower atmosphere. Many scientists believe human activity that increases those gases is contributing to global warming.

K.C. Golden, policy director for the environmental group Climate Solutions, said some of the state's existing environmental initiatives are enough to get the state about halfway to its goal of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.

While the bill approved in the House on Tuesday doesn't offer solutions for meeting the larger reduction standards, it offers a way forward, he said.

"It's about charting the course, making a good, strong legal commitment to get it done," Golden said.

Stupid is as stupid does: Pollution bill

Pollution bill attacked

Effort to slow global warming carries high price, critics say

O'Malley administration officials said yesterday they don't yet know how they would achieve the governor's ambitious goal of cutting global-warming pollution by 90 percent by 2050.

But representatives of Maryland's only steel mill, the Domino Sugar factory in Baltimore and a paper mill in Western Maryland warned of closings or dire financial losses if the state passes a law with some of the nation's toughest limits on carbon dioxide.

"That plant is not going to survive," said Gene Burner, lobbyist for the ArcelorMittal steel plant at Sparrows Point, which employs 2,500 workers. "In order to make steel, you have to produce carbon dioxide. ... The only way to limit carbon dioxide is not to make it."

Gov. Martin O'Malley held a news conference to announce his support for legislation to cap greenhouse gas emissions on all industries, following laws in California, New Jersey, Washington, Oregon, Minnesota and Hawaii.

The law would use financial rewards and punishments - as well as voluntary energy efficiency programs - to cut greenhouse gas pollution by 25 percent by 2020 and by 90 percent by 2050.

Environmentalists, scientists, public health experts and alternative energy companies also pledged their support for the Global Warming Solutions Act during a Senate hearing yesterday. The supporters argue that state limits are necessary to spur federal action and will help to prevent deadly floods and economic chaos brought by climate change.

O'Malley and other proponents of the bill, sponsored by Sen. Paul Pinsky and Del. Kumar P. Barve, argue that the bill could boost the state's economy by adding jobs in the solar, wind and alternative-energy fields.

"The era of fossil fuels and the damage that they have done to the planet and the air we breathe, that era has to become an era of the past," O'Malley said at the news conference, flanked by environmental advocates.

The bill sets aggressive targets but doesn't say which industries should cut pollution or by how much. The language doesn't specify what technologies businesses should use instead of burning coal and oil, or how homeowners and commuters might be affected.

Instead, the proposal gives broad authority to the Maryland Department of the Environment to impose a series of regulations that could affect all sectors of the economy - including transportation, housing and power.

State Secretary of the Environment Shari T. Wilson conceded during a hearing on the bill yesterday that that her agency doesn't know how the state would reach the goals or if the technology even exists yet.

"It is clear that a lot of innovation and new programs would be needed to meet that goal," Wilson said. "But we are talking about 42 years in the future. And if you look over the last 42 years, at the kind of innovations that have taken place ... the goals are realistic."

As early steps toward fighting global warming, the O'Malley administration is proposing to require power companies to buy more electricity from wind farms and other renewable energy sources. The administration also wants to encourage customers to use 15 percent less electricity by 2015.

The O'Malley administration offered amendments to Pinsky's bill yesterday that would give the state the option of using "cap and trade" systems to cut pollution from a variety of sectors.

"Cap and trade" programs are systems that impose fees on businesses that pollute over a fixed limit and send cash to cleaner industries.

An analysis by the state Department of Legislative Services also says that the financial burden on businesses would be "meaningful." Costs "could increase significantly" for businesses because of new state fees on carbon dioxide emissions.

This uncertainty about the new regulations infuriated business representatives and some Republicans yesterday, who said state residents shouldn't be asked to take a leap of faith at a time of economic uncertainty.

John Holt, president of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Unions Local 1900 in Largo, which represents 1,700 power plant and electrical system workers in the state, predicted that the law could shut down power plants.

"They have basically said, 'Trust us: We won't lose any revenues and we won't lose any jobs,'" Holt said of the bill's sponsors.

State Sen. Andy Harris, a Republican, said the bill could impose fees up to $250 million a year on electric plants.

"That's a pretty high energy tax when our rate payers are already paying high taxes," Harris said.

Former California Environmental Protection Agency Secretary Terry Tamminen said costs for most customers and businesses would go down because regulations created by the state would encourage conservation. Tamminen said per capita energy consumption in California dropped 40 percent during the past decade because of its regulations.

States to take budget hit from rebates
'It is going to have a big impact'

A report from the House Finance Committee in Colorado's Legislature is estimating that the economic stimulus package signed by President Bush, and expected to put checks in taxpayers' hands in May, will cost that state about $54 million alone.

"It is going to have a big impact, in particular on the capital development projects," Rep. Joel Judd, D-Denver, chairman of the committee, told the Denver Post.

And Michael Bird, the federal affairs counsel for the National Conference of State Legislatures, said such impacts may be hitting many states, because a large number have similar taxing structures.

President Bush had promised when he signed the legislation allowing the tax rebate checks to be distributed that the program was "large enough to have an impact, amounting to more than $152 billion this year, or about 1 percent of the [gross domestic product]."

The goal of the government's plan is to prevent a recession, or mitigate the impact of one. Taxpayers are to get checks, as will disabled veterans and some senior citizens.

The plan also includes tax breaks for businesses that purchase equipment.

It took less than four weeks for the plan to be moved through Congress, and its specifics include generally $600 to individual taxpayers, $1,200 to married taxpayers filing joint returns as long as they are below income caps of $75,000 for individuals and $150,000 for couples, and a $300 per child credit.

According to CNN, most economists agree the economy "should" see a boost, but they expect the impact will be less than the total value of the package, primarily because some people are expected to save the money or use it to pay down already existing bills instead of making additional purchases.

David Wyss, of Standard & Poor's, told CNN his guess is that "about half will go to U.S. products and services."

Bird was more modest in his expectations of an impact, especially for state economies that historically lag behind the federal economy when recovering from a recession. He told WND he expects only a fraction of the total would be put into the economy and be subject to sales taxes.

"The most the states are going to see is about $5 billion collectively," he said. And some of what states otherwise might see could be offset if they don't act quickly to disallow some of the credits the federal plan includes.

He said the impact on the states will come because many states simply align their income tax collection to the federal system, allowing only certain additions or deductions.

With billions being deducted from federal taxes by businesses purchasing equipment, that revenue also will be lost to individual states unless they come up with a way to deal with it, he said.

He said the additional money distributed to taxpayers in most state cases won't be counted, or taxed, as income. And even the sales tax revenue will be limited because a number of recipients are expected to manage their rebates by saving it, or paying down previously acquired bills, which would mean whatever sales tax revenue trickles down would have already done so.

He said even if $5 billion comes to states, state budget officers have estimated the collective state budgets' deficit for next year to be $35 billion already.

Thirdly, he said it is a problem that the United States did not have the money to give out. And he said an additional complication is that much of the money that will be used for consumer goods will end up in China, or Korea, or Japan.

"It will be good for their economies, not ours," he said.

In Colorado, officials were worried about the federal tax breaks being allowed both businesses and individuals.

"What you owe Colorado is based on what you owe the federal government," said the Post report, "so the less paid to Uncle Sam, the less paid to Colorado."

The report said 35 other states also would see declines in revenue because of the package, according to the Center of Budget Policy and Priorities, of Washington, D.C.

The Colorado legislative staff said the package will cost Colorado $20.5 million in the current fiscal year, ending in June, and another $33.6 million in the year beginning in July.

The NCSL had suggested, instead of direct rebates, Congress authorize grants to states, state Medicaid assistance, child support enforcement payments, food stamp help, unemployment benefits, and capital projects, and if tax credits were used, to accelerate the scheduled increase in the child tax credit.

In Colorado, lawmakers said it was impossible to say exactly what projects may have to be deleted, but among the options is a science building on a Denver campus, building repairs at a community college and various projects at the University of Colorado.

Sen. John Morse, D-Colorado Springs, said the stimulus package might be good from a federal perspective, but not from the state's.

On the newspaper's forum, however, taxpayers were wasting no sympathy on the state's situation.

"Better in our pockets than in the state government's," wrote claude long. "Oh, wait! Did they say $54 million short??? We'd better jack up car registrations by $300 and get the foolish voters to pass another Ref. C kind of tax increase. Never mind that the state government wastes TONS of money. They should hit up the taxpayers first."

House Majority Shuts Down House GOP’s Earmark Reform Website

House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) today blasted the Majority’s decision to shut down the House Republicans’ earmark reform website, http://www.earmarkreform.house.gov. Boehner last summer requested to secure the web address and gained approval from the office of U.S. House of Representatives Chief Administrative Officer Daniel Beard to launch the site in an August 18, 2007 letter.

Earlier this month, House Republicans launched the website to serve as a hub for news and information regarding House GOP efforts to hold the Majority to its promises to fundamentally overhaul the taxpayer-funded earmark system. Throughout the year, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and her Democratic colleagues have rejected House Republican calls for an immediate moratorium on all taxpayer-funded earmarks.

Boehner wrote to Beard this afternoon, questioning his sudden decision to shut down the earmark reform website.

“I am writing today to register my protest over this belated change, and to request a detailed explanation of the events that led your office to make this dramatic reversal,” wrote Boehner. “Changing its address now will inevitably hamper the effectiveness of the new website, much to the convenience of the majority that runs the House.”

“[The] reversal comes just days after an independent report revealed that the freshman Democratic class in the House has been ‘showered in pork’ by the leaders of the current majority,” he continued. “[The] reversal comes just weeks after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) – who as leader of the Democrat-controlled House has the power to shut down the earmark process in our chamber immediately – declined to join me and more than 150 other House members in supporting a total moratorium on all earmarks.”

The full text of Boehner’s letter to Beard:

The Honorable Daniel P. Beard

Chief Administrative Officer

U.S. House of Representatives

Washington, DC 20515-6860

Dear Mr. Beard:

On Tuesday, February 12, 2008 I launched a new website, www.earmarkreform.house.gov, to serve as a clearinghouse for information on efforts to win bipartisan support in the House for a total moratorium on all taxpayer-funded earmarks. Since then, www.earmarkreform.house.gov has welcomed thousands of visitors and been mentioned prominently in many media and blog articles on efforts to change the earmark process and end wasteful pork-barrel spending in Congress.

On August 18, 2007, I was pleased to receive a letter from your office informing me that my office had been approved for use of the domain name www.earmarkreform.house.gov along with a second name I had requested for a separate, unrelated project. (“These domain names are ready for your use and we are standing by to initiate them,” stated the letter, a copy of which is attached.) I was surprised, then, to receive an e-mail message from your office on February 21, 2008 – nearly two weeks after the successful public debut of the new website – stating that www.earmarkreform.house.gov must be shut down and moved to a different location with a different domain name.

I am writing today to register my protest over this belated change, and to request a detailed explanation of the events that led your office to make this dramatic reversal. Changing its address now will inevitably hamper the effectiveness of the new website, much to the convenience of the majority that runs the House. Two recent developments in particular raise questions about the timing of HIR's reversal:

· HIR’s reversal comes just days after an independent report revealed that the freshman Democratic class in the House has been “showered in pork” by the leaders of the current majority. According to The Hill, “[House] Democratic leaders have sent tens of millions of dollars to freshman lawmakers’ districts in hope of protecting the party’s newfound majority come November,” ("Dem leaders shower pork on freshmen," February 14, 2008). “Based on figures compiled by the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense. . .House freshmen accounted for $263 million in personal, single-sponsor earmarks. Democratic freshmen accounted for $237 million of that," a CongressDaily report added the same day.

· HIR’s reversal comes just weeks after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) – who as leader of the Democrat-controlled House has the power to shut down the earmark process in our chamber immediately – declined to join me and more than 150 other House members in supporting a total moratorium on all earmarks.

The leaders of both parties in the House have discussed the need for greater transparency and “sunshine” in Congress, particularly with respect to the process by which our institution spends taxpayers’ hard-earned money. By serving as a public clearinghouse for real-time information on legislative efforts to reform the earmark practice in Congress, www.earmarkreform.house.gov contributes to this goal and helps to increase accountability in the use of taxpayer funds. Transferring the website to a different address now — nearly two weeks after its successful launch — will inevitably cause confusion for visitors and discourage some from continuing to utilize the website as a regular resource.

Thank you for your attention to this matter and your consideration of these points. I look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

John Boehner

House Republican Leader

This proves that the current leadership is not interested in making this country fiscally responsible. Nancy Pelosi and her ilk have done nothing to improve the situation. The GOP leadership say they've learned the lesson of 2006. This website that they shutdown today and the corresponding efforts on the floor of the House to put an moratorium on Earmarks makes this case.

Bottom line is that we cannot get control of earmarks with the porkers in charge.

Speaking of which, I think that the Dems need to change their mascot image from an Donkey to a Pig because of all the pork they use to keep control.

Bank on this as well, the MSM will not touch this move by the corrupt majority leadership.

From Roll Call via email from John Boehner's office -

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) is protesting a decision by Chief Administrative Officer Dan Beard to shut down a Web site designed to bring attention to the effort to enact earmark reform.

Boehner launched the Web site, earmarkreform.house.gov, on Feb. 12. The site features news links to articles about earmark reform, along with press releases from Republican leaders calling for reform and a link to Boehner’s leadership Web site.

The CAO’s office had given Boehner permission to use the domain name in August 2007. But Beard sent Boehner an e-mail message on Feb. 21 informing the Minority Leader that the Web site needed to be shut down and moved to a different location with a different domain name.

Boehner sent Beard a letter protesting that decision on Thursday afternoon, asking for “a detailed explanation of the events that led your office to make this dramatic reversal.”

“Changing its address now will inevitably hamper the effectiveness of the new website, much to the convenience of the majority that runs the House,” Boehner writes.

In the letter, Boehner notes that the decision comes after Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) declined to support a Boehner-initiated call for a moratorium on all earmarks. It also comes after reports that out of the $263 million spent by House freshmen on earmarks, $237 million of that was spent by Democratic freshmen, Boehner writes.

“The leaders of both parties in the House have discussed the need for greater transparency and ‘sunshine’ in Congress, particularly with respect to the process by which our institution spends taxpayers’ hard-earned money,” Boehner writes. “By serving as a public clearinghouse for real-time information on legislative efforts to reform the earmark practice in Congress, www.earmarkreform.gov contributes to this goal and helps to increase accountability in use of taxpayer funds. Transferring the website to a different address now — nearly two weeks after its successful launch — will inevitably cause confusion.”

A spokesman for Beard said the CAO’s office would respond shortly to Boehner’s letter. - Elizabeth Brotherton, Roll Call Staff

Speaker Pelosi and the New York Times' Blind Eye

Since the 2006 Congressional victory by Democrats, The New York Times has ignored a highly questionable situation involving Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi among other leading Democrats, instead focusing on alleged Republican offenses.

On August 2nd, 2007 Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) submitted a bill to the U. S. House of Representatives which raised a potential conflict of interest involving the Speaker's widely publicized family stock holdings, corporate sponsors, and former staffers turned lobbyists. The Speaker submitted the bill called the Early Treatment for HIV Act (ETHA) to the House with bipartisan support. It would allow states to decide whether or not to extend Medicare benefits for HIV treatment to some currently not covered.

Speaker Pelosi submitted ETHA one day after Medicare officials announced new rules to cut back on significant expenditures for the drugs PROCRIT® made by Johnson & Johnson and EPOGEN® made by Amgen. The new Medicare rules were primarily geared to reduce the use of the drugs for cancer patients. Those pharmaceuticals are used to treat anemia often seen as a side effect of HIV medications and for other conditions. Both companies enjoy massive revenues from the sales of those medicines, with Johnson & Johnson reporting $3.2 billion in earnings from PROCRIT® and a similar drug and Amgen showing $6.5 billion for EPOGEN® and a similar drug during 2006.

Last year Amgen started losing stock value as word of the cuts spread. A press release from Amgen at its' corporate website stated ""Recent changes in coverage rules and adjustments to Amgen's FDA approved labels for EPOGEN(R) and Aranesp have and will adversely affect Amgen's revenue." The company then announced layoffs.

The ETHA bill would increase the number of HIV infected persons able to receive government assistance. A PricewaterhouseCoopers analysis conducted in 2003 estimated that the act would increase eligibility for treatment by 30,000 people. In turn the government purchasing of the anemia medications associated with their treatment will certainly increase, making up some of the difference caused by the planned Medicaid purchasing reductions. In effect, this law could turn things around for Amgen and increase Johnson & Johnson stock values.

Considering that the bill was submitted only one day after the Medicare announcement, some viewed it as a reaction to the new guidelines and an attempt to improve the finances of those two drug makers. Unless Speaker Pelosi has divested herself of certain stocks that she held in 2006 by the time she sponsored ETHA, then she stood to profit from the bill. Inquiries to clarify her holdings have gone without response from her office. In addition she has strong connections to Amgen.

According to the ethics guidelines for the House of Representatives, an elected official must declare perosnal investments and holdings. Those declarations are available online and can be viewed at a website called opensecrets.org. The last declaration on record that covers the calendar year 2006 shows the Speaker owned over $500,000 dollars worth of Johnson & Johnson stock. Such a scenario creates the impression of a conflict of interest.

In addition, her close ties to biotech firm Amgen come into question. Two of her key staffers have left to become lobbyists working for Amgen directly or through lobbying firms. They include George Crawford, described by the San Francisco Chronicle as the Speaker's former chief of staff and Howard Moon, described in a Washington Post article as a former senior policy adviser who was named the government affairs director for Amgen.

In addition, Amgen has supported her campaigns through PAC money and by sponsoring fund raising events. While she does not appear to own stock in Amgen, the timing of the bill raises questions about just how closely she is tied to the company.

Between 2002 and 2006 Amgen became a superstar stock amid soaring price hikes and massive profits. Nancy Pelosi attempted and failed to pass the Early Treatment of HIV Act during that run-up. In 2006 Amgen sponsored a fund raiser for Pelosi.

The Democrats won Congress in 2006 on a pledge to clean up the "culture of corruption" they ascribed to the majority Republicans. In one example, a Republican congressman in 2004 announced that he was considering taking a position with a pharmaceutical lobbying firm after he had negotiated pharmaceutical legislature. Congresswoman Pelosi charged at the time that the move was an "abuse of power".

The pharmaceutical industry was expected to be hit hard as Democrats strove to lower prescription drug prices through government negotiations. Pharmaceutical stocks were expected to fall. Speaker Pelosi herself was viewed by many as a threat to ‘big pharma'. One common investment technique for drawing profit from the markets is to buy when prices fall and sell when they go high again. According to the Speaker's 2006 disclosure she was invested in multiple pharmaceutical and biotech firms that make medications.

This new scandal recalls the early 2007 incident in which the Speaker promoted a minimum wage hike that would include all U.S. areas except American Samoa. Some large companies with canneries in Samoa are headquartered in the Speaker's district. Amgen is a powerhouse in Northern California, with a significant presence in the Speaker's district. That fact mirrors the Samoa controversy in which critics accused Pelosi of playing favorites with her district. And in 2007 it was revealed that the Speaker sponsored a massive earmark that would probably affect the value of property in which her husband was invested.

This summer, under extreme pressure from Congress, led by Pelosi, Medicare dropped its' planned regulation changes. J&J and Amgen stock immediately soared as The New York Times reported:

Medicare has eased up on some of its proposed restrictions on the use of popular anemia drugs made by Amgen and Johnson & Johnson.

The decision, announced late yesterday, could provide some relief for the two companies, which have already experienced steep drops in sales of the drugs. [....]

The federal Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services had proposed in May to sharply limit coverage for the drugs - Aranesp from Amgen and Procrit from Johnson & Johnson. Some analysts had predicted at that time that use of the drugs could be cut by as much as 50 percent. [....]

But investors reacted favorably, sending shares of Amgen by more than $2 in early after-hours trading, though it then began to drop back. Shares had closed at $56.19, up 57 cents.

Shares of the larger and more diversified Johnson & Johnson rose about 30 cents after hours, having closed at $60.07, up 30 cents.

How very interesting that The New York Times invests the efforts of a cadre of writers to investigate the wisp of a rumor concerning McCain while the Democrat Speaker of the House gets a free ride on such an apparently blatent abuse of power to enrich herself and friends.

And it doesn't end there. Congress pressured Medicare to backdown from the regulations with votes in the House and the Senate. The Sense of the Senate nonbinding resolution was approved unanimously (with no votes recorded therefore). As a Senator, Hillary Clinton would have also voted on this measure that proved a financial boon for Amgen. Senator Clinton is also tied to Amgen.

Bloomberg recently reported that President Clinton's former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Steve Ricchetti, now a lobbyist, received a $1.7 million payment to his firm from Amgen. He serves as a bundler for Senator Clinton's campaign. That means she is now receiving financial contributions assembled by a lobbyist at a firm that profited from the success of earning her vote.

One of those contributions was from Howard Moon, a former Pelosi advisor who donated $2,300 to the Clinton campaign a few weeks after Clinton voted to stay the hand of Medicare. In addition, in the days just before and after Pelosi submitted the ETHA bill on Aug. 2nd, 2007 a slew of Amgen executives made almost $30,000 dollars in private donations to the Pelosi campaign.
Barrak Obama who claims not to take lobbyist money received over $12,000 in private donations from several Amgen corporate executives (listed as executives, directors, and vice presidents) as revealed by government watch dog group opensecrets.org. The donations listed occured just before the September 4th, 2007 Senate vote on the Sense of the Senate resolution and the day after.

It's easy to find the appearance of unethical behavior whenever lobbyists are involved. The fact that The New York Times saw fit to only look at McCain says much more about The New York Times's ethics problems than it does McCain.

IRS tells 7-year-old boy he owes back taxes - 60,000

Another Carpentersville resident has gotten a notice from the IRS, demanding back taxes on income.

The IRS says the resident owes taxes on $60,000.

Only this victim is 7. Yes, a second-grader.

He's the latest Carpentersville resident, police said Friday, to fall victim to identity theft.

He may, however, be the youngest.

His identity has been in use by someone else since 2001.

Detectives accused a Streamwood man of using the boy's personal information not long after the boy was born in 2001.

Cirilo Centeno, 29, of 1101 Sunnydale Blvd., was charged with felony identity theft, an offense that could land him in jail for between four and 15 years if he is convicted.

The victim's mother claimed the boy as a dependent on her 2007 income tax and was informed by the IRS she could not -- that his Social Security number was being used by someone else.

In 2005, she had filed a report with police because someone was using her son's Social Security number to obtain unemployment benefits and her son was only 4 years old at the time.

Police didn't get far in that investigation.

This time, Carpentersville police contacted the unemployment office in Elgin and learned the offender had just filed another claim to receive benefits.

They were able to locate a telephone number and called Centeno, who identified himself by the name of the 7-year-old, police said.

Police were able to obtain an address from the man on the telephone and two detectives drove to his home in Streamwood, police said.

According to a report, Centeno showed police a Social Security card bearing the name of the victim and Centeno's photo.

Centeno said he has used the Social Security card with the victim's information to obtain a truck, three separate jobs, gas and electrical service for his home, a credit card, unemployment benefits twice for a total of six months, and over $60,000 in pay and services, police said.

Centeno said he bought the card for $50 from a friend and used it because he is in the country illegally, police said.

Centeno's bond was set at $15,000 and he was sent to the Kane County jail.

His next court date is scheduled for March 12 at the Kane County Judicial Center.

IRS tells 7-year-old boy he owes back taxes - 60,000 (http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=140579)

Mississippi Enacts “Covenant Marriage”
Feb 27, 2008

Senate Bill 2550 passed as amended yesterday. The title is: An act to create a form of marriage to be known as covenant marriage requiring certain declarations; to provide that a covenant marriage may be dissolved in cases of adultery; to allow the deferred sale of property; to amend sections 93-1-5, 93-5-1 and 93-5-23, Mississippi code of 1972, in conformity thereto; and for related purposes. Basically a covenant marriage is a legally distinct kind of marriage, in which the marrying couple agree to obtain pre-marital counseling and accept more limited grounds for divorce. Other types of marriage in Mississippi include Common-law marriage and Traditional marriage.

Grounds for divorce in a Mississippi covenant marriage are as follows:

* Natural impotency.
* Adultery, unless it should appear that it was committed by collusion of the parties for the purpose of procuring a divorce, or unless the parties cohabited after a knowledge by complainant of the adultery.
* Being sentenced to any penitentiary, and not pardoned before being sent there.
* Wilful, continued and obstinate desertion for the space of one (1) year.
* Habitual drunkenness.
* Habitual and excessive use of opium, morphine or other like drug.
* Habitual cruel and inhuman treatment.
* Insanity or idiocy at the time of marriage, if the party complaining did not know of such infirmity.
* Marriage to some other person at the time of the pretended marriage between the parties.
* Pregnancy of the wife by another person at the time of the marriage, if the husband did not know of such pregnancy.
* Either party may have a divorce if they be related to each other within the degrees of kindred between whom marriage is prohibited by law.
* Incurable insanity.

In 1997, Louisiana became the first state to create covenant marriage as a legal category. Legislation has been introduced to create legal covenant marriage in a number of other states, including California, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, and West Virginia. Only a very small percentage of couples are choosing them in states where they are available. By the end of 2001, “Fewer than 3 percent of couples who marry in Louisiana and Arizona take on the extra restrictions of marriage by covenant.” While there are no real expectations for covenant marriages to severely lower the divorce rate in Mississippi, I believe it passed in hopes that it may lower them to some extent.

Pro-illegal immigration Dems undermining SAVE Act, says bill sponsor

House Democratic leaders are working to derail a bipartisan bill that would beef up border security, crack down on illegal aliens and employers who hire them, and reject amnesty.

Representatives Brian Bilbray (R-California) and Heath Shuler (D-North Carolina) are seeking an up-or-down vote on their bipartisan Secure America through Verification and Enforcement (SAVE) Act, which has 47 Democrat and 89 Republican co-sponsors. They need the need the signatures of 218 House members on a discharge petition for the vote to occur. The Washington Times reports that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) and other House Democratic leaders want to poison the bill by attaching an amnesty amendment to it.

Bilbray points out the amendment proposed by Representative Joe Baca (D-California) would give illegal aliens a visa for five years so that during that time period Congress could work on passing legislation that would grant citizenship, voting rights, and welfare benefits to the illegal alien population.

"We're talking about 20 million people who've broken the law being rewarded for their illegal activity," he says, "but more importantly, Washington officially announcing to the world that we will reward those who come to our country illegally."

Bilbray believes the amnesty agenda in Congress is designed to enlarge the Democratic electorate. "You've got Ms. Pelosi and the traditional Democrat groups basically wanting to see this population of 20 million illegals voting for Democrats," he states. "They want to give them residency, citizenship, and register them to vote so they can use this illegal population as a political bloc that's behooving to them because they're the one who empowered them with the votes."

Bilbray's last election opponent, Democrat Francine Busby, was caught on tape promising illegal aliens she would give them welfare, healthcare, and retirement benefits, and that they did not need papers to vote or work on her campaign.

The SAVE Act is currently languishing in the House Judiciary Committee.

No health insurance? Face fines
Failure to subscribe can cost residents up to $912 a year

Massachusetts has begun imposing stiff fines on residents who, for whatever reason, fail to purchase health insurance.

The program is the enforcement end of the state's universal health-insurance plan – and the fees reach up to $912 a year.

The state health-insurance initiative, signed into law by former Gov. Mitt Romney, has been compared to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's national universal health-care plan – especially on the enforcement side.

The penalties apply to anyone deemed able to afford health insurance by the Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector Authority, the state agency that oversees the entire program.

Fines accrue every month to individuals not insured and are due as part of the tax-filing process for the year. The assessments began this year for the first time.

"The hefty fines are an indication of the failure of the program to provide the affordable health insurance that was promised," Arnold King of the Cato Institute told Health Care News.

The highest penalty for lacking insurance last year was the loss of the personal exemption, worth $219, on the individual's state tax return. This year the fine increased to half the total cost of the cheapest health insurance plan available through the state health insurance agency.

Through the plan, the state makes subsidized insurance available to individuals earning up to $30,636 per year and to families of four earning up to $61,956.

"The Massachusetts universal coverage plan is overregulated and largely unworkable," said Devon Herrick,, senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis. "The least expensive plan would cost a 37-year-old male resident of Massachusetts $196 a month, and a fine for not having insurance could run half of that, or $98 a month. The same 37-year-old living in Dallas could buy coverage for $98 per month."

Herrick said deregulation of the insurance market in Massachusetts would bring the costs way down.

The 2-year-old program is already $147 million in the red, and the four carriers that provide the subsidized insurance estimate costs rising by 14 percent in the next year.

To deal with the crisis, state officials have ordered carriers to "cut payments to doctors and hospitals, reduce choices for patients, and possibly increase how much patients will have to pay," according to a report in the Boston Globe.

Minnesota plan: Clone embryos and kill them!
State House also would force taxpayers to fund program

Lawmakers in Minnesota have given their endorsement to a University of Minnesota plan to clone human embryos for "research," force taxpayers to pay for it, and then kill those embryos when the "research" work is finished.

The preliminary approval came on a recent 68-62 vote in which representatives rejected an amendment would be a true ban on cloning, and the "Kahn Cloning Bill, S.F. 100" could be brought up for a further vote at any time, opponents said.

The amendment provided language that would have promoted ethical adult stem cell research with a true ban on cloning human embryos, but that was rejected in favor of S.F. 100, sponsored by Rep. Phyllis Kahn, DFL-Minneapolis.

That plan has been described by supporters as a cloning ban, but it only bans "cloning" that results in a human being, not cloning that results in living human embryos.

"House members … had a chance to do the right thing and protect vulnerable human life, but instead they chose to treat human life as mere raw material for experimentation," said Andrea Rau, a legislative associate with the Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life. "Citizens are outraged to see their taxes being spent on such unjust treatment of human life."

At the center of the issue are the lives of the unborn embryos. WND had reported just a day earlier on GOP presidential race also-ran Gov. Mike Huckabee had endorsed Colorado's "personhood" plan.

That would simply declare that an embryo from the moment of conception is considered a human being.

"With this amendment, Colorado has an opportunity to send a clear message that every human life has value. Passing this amendment will mean the people of Colorado will protect the sanctity of life from conception until natural death occurs," Huckabee said.

The plan targets an opening created by the U.S. Supreme Court when it found, in the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, the right to an abortion. The opinion said: "(If the) suggestion of personhood [of the preborn] is established, the [abortion rights] case, of course, collapses, for the fetus' right to life is then guaranteed specifically by the [14th] Amendment."

Several other states are pursuing the same arguments, either through legislative efforts or, such as in the cases of Georgia and Colorado, through a process that would allow citizens to move forward with protections for the unborn.

Opponents said the Minnesota legislation defines cloning as the process that results in a baby born alive, essentially leaving those lives in the embryo stage as not human.

MCCL said the Kahn plan "provides taxpayer funding for the destruction of human embryos for experiments and also the wanton creation and destruction of human life through cloning at the University of Minnesota."

"The deadly Kahn Cloning Bill … also requires the U of M to kill all cloned human beings or face felony charges. The bill would allow millions of dollars in taxpayer funds to be used to kill living human embryos," the group said.

"The vast majority of Americans are opposed to research that requires human cloning and the killing of human embryos," noted Jenny Hoelscher, MCCL legislative associate. "It is difficult for taxpayers to believe that their elected officials are even considering legislation which would require such massive destruction of human life."

In fact, a report from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops confirms that only one in three Americans is supportive of the idea of government funding of embryonic stem cell research.

The group noted that researchers actually call the process Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer "so you won't know that cloning is being done."

"They want to use cloned human embryos because if they ever develop a treatment, the stem cell line that produces it can be patented and they can reap an enormous profit," the group said. "The cloning process is the same as for reproductive cloning but rather than placing the embryo in a womb, the stem cells are removed for experimentation, killing the embryo."

Bill Poehler, a spokesman for MCCL, told WND his organization believes the plan being pushed by university researchers actually would violate a statute Minnesota already has on the books.

That 1973 law prohibits experimentation on any development of the human being, from fertilization on. He said the experimentation going on at the university now, with private funding, probably violates that law as well, although researchers on the payroll of research efforts have disputed that.

The Kahn Cloning Bill was approved in the state Senate last year, but just now is going through the House, under the state's 2-year legislative session.

"We think it's pretty radical," Poehler told WND.

According to a recent report from the National Conference of State Legislatures, more than a dozen states have laws pertaining to human cloning.

California banned reproductive cloning in 1997, and since then Arkansas, Connecticut, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Rhode Island, New Jersey, North Dakota, South Dakota and Virginia have enacted similar plans.

Arizona and Missouri also have measures addressing the use of public funds for cloning, and Maryland bans the use of state stem cell research funds for reproductive cloning, the group said.

But the report said only Arkansas, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, North Dakota and South Dakota extended their laws to cover cloning for research.

California and New Jersey specifically allow cloning for research.

Pro-life organizers in Minnesota say they are aware that Gov. Tim Pawlenty has opposed the plan, instead urging lawmakers to "support ethical adult stem cell research," but the ultimate fate of the plan isn't certain.

Oregon ruling denying petitioners' rights appealed
'Government bureaucracy cannot be allowed to disenfranchise voters'

The Alliance Defense Fund has filed an appeal of a federal judge's ruling that Oregon residents have no right to have their signatures counted when they sign ballot initiative petitions, in an attempt to restore voters' rights in the state.

The issue arose over the state legislature's approval, and the governor's signature on, legislation that created "domestic partnerships" for homosexuals and lesbians in Oregon, legislation that overwrote the expressed will of voters in the state.

Several organizations worked to bring the new law to a vote of the people, but state officials said they had invalidated enough signatures on petitions for them to not allow voters to review the issue.

Because the margin of failure was only a handful of votes, several individuals went to their county offices to determine whether their valid signatures had been counted, and when they discovered they hadn't been counted, insisted that they be added.

County officials, citing orders from state officials, refused to do that, and the ADF sued.

Then U.S. District Judge Michael Mosman allowed the state law creating lookalike marriage for homosexuals to take effect, concluding the state has little significant obligation to count voters' signatures on petitions.

That decision now has been appealed to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

"Notice is hereby given that Plaintiffs Phillip Lemons, Susan Jarrett; Myrna Hines; Jay Sherman … and disenfranchised signers Nos. 1-26, hereby appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the 9th federal Circuit from the judgment denying the plaintiffs relief…," the ADF document said.

"In America, every citizen's voice counts," said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Austin R. Nimocks. "Government bureaucracy cannot be allowed to disenfranchise Oregon voters. One of their most important rights cannot be tossed aside."

The original lawsuit was on behalf of Oregonians who had their signatures "wrongfully rejected" from the petition on Referendum 303, which would allow voters to decide the "domestic partnership" issue.

Stunningly, at a Feb. 1 hearing, Mosman, "stated that voters in Oregon have no legal right to have their petition signatures counted," the ADF said.

"Their signatures were genuine, and no legitimate reason existed to refuse to allow these registered voters to participate in the democratic process," said Nimocks. "Our country is founded on the basic principle of government of the people, by the people, and for the people. It should stay that way in Oregon."

To Mosman's courtroom, the ADF had submitted briefs showing county clerks simply refused petition signers' requests to count their signatures after they had been "wrongfully rejected."

The petition signature total fell just five short of what was needed in Oregon to put the issue to voters, prompting the proponents to seek a review.

"The right to exercise one's voice in the democratic process is a crucial one, and state and county officials must not infringe upon that right," Nimocks said.

The ADF argued, "The only real dispute in this case is whether the Secretary of State and county clerks can constitutionally refuse to give excluded signers notice that their signatures have been rejected and refuse to give them any opportunity – even when they learn of the disenfranchisement on their own – to verify their signatures and make sure that their vote counts…"

The Associated Press reported that advocates for legitimizing same-sex "couples," were "beaming."

"We're a family. We've been waiting for this a long time," the wire service reported Cathy Kravitz of Portland celebrating.

The idea of same-sex couples already had been rejected soundly by voters in Oregon. In 2004, several thousand same-sex couples were given marriage licenses in Multnomah County, prompting Oregonians to approve by a 57-43 percent margin a constitutional ban on homosexual marriages. A court later nullified the licenses.

That aligned with 148 years of precedent in the state. However, 54 legislators in the statehouse during 2007 and Democratic Gov. Ted Kulongoski ignored that, working together on the new homosexual couples proposal.

They even included a section in a new law suggesting schools address the "attitudes" of those who do not choose to support those relationships.

The state already has begun implementation of the new law, with plans confirmed by prison officials to allow inmates who are part of a domestic partnership to live in the same prison facility, and in the same unit, a privilege specifically denied married inmates. Same-sex couples have have been registered since Mosman's ruling.

In a column on the issue, Alan Sears, chief of the ADF, noted that the issue of marriage consisting of – and only of – one man and one woman is supported overwhelmingly in the United States. Twenty-seven of 28 states where voters have decided the question, they have limited marriage to one man and one woman.

"Those seeking to fabricate same-sex 'marriage' have long recognized the American public is a roadblock to their success. In 1998, after ADF-allied litigation allowed Alaska citizens to vote on (and pass) a constitutional amendment barring same-sex unions, the ACLU executive director declared: 'Today's results prove that certain fundamental issues should not be left up to a majority vote.'

"When the (new) referendum was submitted to the Oregon Secretary of State on Sept. 26, signatures exceeded the required number by more than 6,000. However, the Secretary of State announced there were not enough signatures to sustain the referendum. The evaluated 'sample' was said to be only five signatures short. If you wonder how this could happen, you aren't alone. As it turns out, there is a very clear explanation – many of the signatures were wrongfully rejected," Sears said.

"Signatures were invalidated for allegedly not matching their voter registration cards, being illegible, or coming from unregistered voters. But according to ADF attorneys who examined the signatures, several of those kicked out did match, were legible, and the affected voters actually were registered. In other words, many valid signers were ignored," he continued.

Clerks then "adamantly"' resisted efforts by signers to authenticate their signatures. "One county clerk even told a rejected signer, in person, and to their face, 'tough nuggets,'" Sears said.

Bill Burgess, the clerk in Marion County, confirmed the state had given county clerks instructions to follow a "precedent" and not correct any incorrectly classified signatures they may have been told about.

Pro-Life Groups Hit by GOP Lawmaker's Alleged Fraud
Renzi Funneled Hundreds of Thousands from Pregnancy Crisis Centers to Fund First Run for Congress

Rep. Rick Renzi, R-Ariz., allegedly defrauded dozens of pro-life organizations for hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund his first congressional bid, according to an analysis of the recent indictment against him, a state insurance claim and an interview with an insurance lawyer involved in the case.

When federal prosecutors indicted Renzi, 49, on 35 felony counts two weeks ago, many reports focused on alleged crimes stemming from a complicated series of land swaps the congressman facilitated.

But the indictment also accuses Renzi, who ran an insurance firm before coming to Capitol Hill, of misappropriating hundreds of thousands of dollars in insurance premiums and using the money to fund his congressional campaign.

Organizations such as Arizona Right-to-Life, the Hope Crisis Pregnancy Center and the Wickenburg Pregnancy Resource Center paid insurance premiums to Renzi's insurance firm, Renzi & Company, but received notices their insurance coverage was going to be cancelled for nonpayment, according to a 2003 complaint filed with the State of Arizona. The complaint was first reported by the Phoenix New Times.

According to the indictment, Renzi funneled those payments -- totaling more than $400,000 -- through various accounts and finally to his campaign.

Renzi's congressional office has directed all legal questions to his lawyer, Reid Weingarten. Weingarten did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Renzi says he is innocent.

Renzi has positioned himself as staunchly anti-abortion. "The sanctity of human life should always be upheld, and I will continue to fight for the rights of the unborn in Congress," he said in 2003, as a freshman U.S. representative. In 2006, Renzi received a 100 percent rating from the National Right to Life Committee for his voting record.

The 2003 complaint was filed by an insurance broker who acted as an intermediary between Renzi & Company and the insurance company which held the pro-life groups' policy.

In an interview, a lawyer for the broker confirmed that the payments his company did not receive from the pro-life groups were the same prosecutors allege Renzi embezzled to pay for his congressional campaign.

The lawyer, who spoke on the condition his name not be used, represents North Island Facilities. The company brokered insurance coverage for roughly 50 pro-life organizations in "a multitude" of states through Renzi's firm, the lawyer said, and all had received cancellation notices because Renzi's company had not forwarded their payments.

Coverage for the organizations were never cancelled, the lawyer said, despite the lapse in payment. Months after NIF filed complaints against Renzi & Co. in Arizona, Virginia and other states, Renzi paid the pro-life groups' insurance bills with money from his father, the indictment shows.

According to the indictment, when the groups complained to Renzi that their premiums had not been paid, he said a new insurance company, "Jimcor," now insured the groups and created false certificates as evidence. He later told state officials that those certificates were issued in error, the indictment says.

Elected to Congress in 2002, Renzi has faced pressure to resign from GOP party leaders since the indictment against him was announced two weeks ago. Though he stepped down from his committee seats last year following FBI raids on the insurance business, Renzi has vowed to stay in Congress.

"I will not resign and take on the cloak of guilt because I am innocent," Renzi said earlier this week. "My legal team...will handle these legal issues while I continue to serve my constituents."

Anti-War Judge Won’t Allow Foster Child to Join Marines

Children’s Court Commissioner Marilyn Mackel of Simi Valley, California is against our actions in Iraq. With that said, this activist judge felt she had the right to prevent a foster child under her jurisdiction from joining the Marines. This refusal is an obscene abuse of power based solely on her hatred for the U.S. military. And she’s done this before.

The L.A. Daily News gives us the outrageous story of young Shawn Sage, a foster child, who appeared before judge Mackel to ask for permission to sign with the Marines for an early enlistment. Sage is 17 and would have been eligible for a $10,000 signing bonus upon signing. The young man has long dreamed of joining the Marines and is shocked that this judge denied him permission to join.

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“The judge said she didn’t support the Iraq war for any reason why we’re over there,” said Marine recruiter Sgt. Guillermo Medrano of the Simi Valley USMC recruiting office.

“She just said all recruiters were the same - that they `all tap dance and tell me what I want to hear.’ She said she didn’t want him to fight in it.”

According to the L.A. Daily News, Makel also denied another young foster child who wanted to join the Navy because she feels that all military recruiters are liars and just want “another warm body.”

As Mr. Sage stood before the judge he had the backing of several members of the military as well as his brother and his foster parents behind him. Yet regardless of all the adult support this young man had for his quest, this out of control judge ruled against his right to join our nation’s military.

But something good may be coming from this episode despite of all this military-hating judge’s actions. The legislature is stepping in and doing their job deflating some of this un-American judge’s power. As a result of this judge’s untoward acts, Shawn Sage submitted a proposal to a local California lawmaker’s write a bill challenge and Mr. Sage’s proposal has since become Bill AB2238.

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Assemblyman Cameron Smyth introduced legislation last month that would allow foster teens to enlist in the service without express permission from a judge.

“Here is one impressive young man who somehow made it through the challenge of the foster system, had a clear sense of a career path and was denied that opportunity by a judge basically because of her personal bias,” said Smyth, R-Santa Clarita, who will honor Sage today at a Royal High assembly. “I find that to be a horrific abuse of her power.”

Now here is as it should be. Instead of shuddering in a corner, afraid of the stolen power that this judge wields like a battering ram against our military, the legislature has stepped in to do something about this abuse of power. I hope all Californians reading this help this legislation along by urging their representatives to support it.

The only way to curb the undeserved power stolen by judges across this country is for the state legislatures to finally stand up to these out of control jurists and take that power away from them via legislation. For far too long judges have been abusing their power and our elected representatives have been shirking their duty to hold these judges in check.

We have allowed the judicial branches of government to get out of all control. It’s about time we brought them to heel.

So, a story of an anti-American judge abusing her power turns out to have a good ending… IF you Californians do the right thing and pass this new law. Otherwise, it will be just another disgusting story of a judge, mad with stolen power, who wrecks havoc with our American traditions.

New York governor linked to prostitution
Democrat Spitzer reportedly client of ring, Republican leader demands resignation

After a New York Times report broke today linking him to a prostitution ring, New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer read a brief statement to media saying he would take time to focus on his family.

"I have acted in a way that violates my obligations to my family ... my sense of right and wrong," he said at his Manhattan office. "I must now dedicate some time to rededicate my trust to my family."

Spitzer had been scheduled to speak today at a conference attended by more than a thousand Planned Parenthood supporters advocating access to abortion.

The Times cited a source saying the Democratic governor, 48, is identified as a client of the Emperors Club VIP, a high-end prostitution ring under investigation by federal prosecutors. Four people were arrested in the case last week.

A law enforcement official speaking on condition of anonymity told the Associated Press Spitzer's involvement in the ring was caught on a federal wiretap. The official said Spitzer, identified in court papers as "Client 9," was part of an investigation that opened in the last few months.

Spitzer – named by Time magazine as "Crusader of the Year" when he was attorney general – battled corruption on Wall Street, where he made many enemies. He won a record share of the vote in New York's 2006 gubernatorial election, vowing to clean up government.

Spitzer's travel records line up with a client described in court papers who arranged a meeting with a prostitute in Washington, D.C., the night of Feb. 13.

The Times noted that as attorney general, Spitzer prosecuted at least two prostitution rings and spoke with revulsion and anger after announcing the arrest of 16 people for operating a high-end prostitution ring out of Staten Island.

"This was a sophisticated and lucrative operation with a multi-tiered management structure," Spitzer said at the time. "It was, however, nothing more than a prostitution ring."

As WND reported, Spitzer was named last fall as a defendant in a lawsuit filed by the public-interest watchdog group Judicial Watch on behalf of a New York taxpayer over the state's policy to provide driver's licenses to illegal aliens. Spitzer's policy became a hot topic in the Democratic presidential race when New York Sen. Hillary Clinton initially indicated support for it but then backed off amid heavy criticism.

Former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo called the news "an excruciating personal tragedy for the governor, his family and the rest of our society to whom he has meant so much."

James Tedisco, the leader of Republicans in the New York state assembly, demanded Spitzer resign.

"He has disgraced his office and the entire state of New York," Tedisco said in a statement.

Spitzer said at his news conference this afternoon, "For the past nine years, eight years as attorney general, and one as governor, I have tried to uphold a vision of progressive politics that would rebuild New York and create opportunity for all. We sought to bring real change to New York and that will continue."

Saying he wanted to "briefly address a private matter," he admitted he "acted in a way that violates my obligations to my family and violates my, or any, sense of right and wrong. I apologize first and most importantly to my family. I apologize to the public, whom I promised better."

"I do not believe that politics in the long run is about individuals," he said. "It is about ideas, the public good, and doing what is best for the state of New York. But I have disappointed and failed to live up to the standard I expected of myself. I must now dedicate some time to regain the trust of my family.

Spitzer scandal reaction
'This is a guy who is so self-righteous, and so unforgiving'

eaction to prostitution allegations against Democratic New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer:

"I obviously am sending my best wishes and thoughts to the governor and to his family. ... Let's wait and see what comes out of the next days. Right now I don't have any comment. I think it's appropriate to wish his family well and see how things develop."—Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and presidential contender endorsed by Spitzer.

"I never try to take advantage or gloat over a personal tragedy. However, this is different. This is a guy who is so self-righteous, and so unforgiving. ... He has to step down. No one will stand with him."—Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y.

"It is an excruciating personal tragedy for the governor, his family, and the rest of our society to whom he has meant so much."—Former Democratic New York Gov. Mario Cuomo.

"I feel very badly for the governor's wife, for his children. The important thing for the people of New York state is that people in office do the right thing, because there are so many challenges out there and it's important that we govern, move forward to get a proper budget in place."—State Senate Republican leader Joseph Bruno, who Spitzer aides were accused of attempting to embarrass.

"For the good of his family, for the good of our state, for the good of the governorship, Eliot Spitzer must resign immediately. He is unfit to lead our state and unfit to hold public office."—state Assembly Republican leader James Tedisco.

"I feel bad for him and his family but until he makes a more complete statement, I have nothing more to say."—Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer.

"These are serious and disturbing accusations that are completely at odds with the man I know. They come as a complete shock. ... He will have to regain credibility not only with his family but with the public."—Democratic New Jersey Gov. Jon S. Corzine.

"It is hard to see how Gov. Spitzer can hope to govern effectively while the political, governmental and legal consequences of his behavior swirl about him. ... He should resign immediately, so New York's government can effectively return to serving its citizens."—New York Republican Party Chairman Joseph Mondello.

"Gov. Spitzer is a dedicated public servant with a long record of bringing positive change to New York. This is not the time to play politics, particularly as investigations are ongoing. Until all the facts of this case are known, we should all exercise caution and restraint."—Democratic Governors Association Executive Director Nathan Daschle.

Spitzer's hard, fast fall
'The Sheriff of Wall Street' built career on ethics

From Mr. Clean to Client 9, allegations that Gov. Eliot Spitzer was involved in a prostitution ring mark a mortifying fall for a politician whose career was built on ethics.

"Crusader of the Year" proclaimed Time magazine in 2002, when Spitzer was New York's wildly popular attorney general. Spitzer made his name taking on Wall Street barons and analysts who failed to play fair with everyday investors. Profiles of Spitzer then were rife with reverential references to his square jaw and his crime-busting predecessor, Eliot Ness.

None of that squares with explosive reports Monday that Spitzer's involvement in a prostitution ring was caught on a federal wiretap. Law enforcement officials said Spitzer is identified in court papers as Client 9.

"Here's a guy whose entire career has been based on being 'The Sheriff of Wall Street,' 'Mr. Morality,' the guy who is standing firm for ethics in government," said Maurice Carroll, director of Quinnipiac University's Polling Institute. "For Eliot Spitzer, it's a double surprise because it's his whole public persona."

Spitzer promised to tackle the notorious dysfunction of Albany with the same gusto he took on Wall Street. He won the New York governor's race in 2006 with a record-setting share of the vote and rumbled into office with his signature mix of aggression and cockiness. He signed five reform-related executive orders before he was officially sworn in on New Year's Day and was soon making trips to the home districts of lawmakers to denounce them if he felt were in the way of his reform agenda.

Spitzer allegedly described himself as a "steamroller" in a profanity-laced phone call to a Republican legislative leader. The nickname stuck. Some saw it as indication of a more arrogant side to Spitzer. In December 2005, John Whitehead, a former top Wall Street executive, wrote in the Wall Street Journal that Spitzer threatened him in a telephone conversation earlier that year, saying, "I will be coming after you. You will pay the price," for publicly criticizing Spitzer's investigation of an ally, AIG insurance magnate Maurice Greenberg.

Spitzer denied threatening Whitehead.

Though Spitzer came into office like gangbusters, he lost steam last summer amid a scandal involving efforts by top aides to governor to embarrass Republican state Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, a chief political rival, over use of state aircraft.

Bruno, who was back on his heels for months in the face of Spitzer's whirlwind, snatched back the offensive.

Spitzer's popularity plummeted even further last year when he proposed making it easier for illegal immigrants to get driver's licenses. Republicans opposing the unpopular plan were soon joined by Democrats and Spitzer eventually surrendered as polls showed most New Yorkers would be unwilling to re-elect him.

Only recently did Spitzer's poll numbers begin nudging back up. And this month, the Senate Democrats won a special election in a deep-red Republican district in northern New York with the help of Spitzer's political machine. It got them within one seat of capturing control of the Senate for the first time in 40 years, one of Spitzer's long-stated goals.

It looked like Spitzer was mounting a modest comeback.

Caution voiced on 'mental health parity' bill

Family Research Council, a prominent pro-family group based in Washington, DC, warns that legislation approved by the House requires employers to offer mental health coverage for people who need therapy because of their deviant sexual lifestyle.

The House easily passed a bill Thursday to require health insurers to provide the same level of coverage for mental illness and drug and alcohol addiction. But the so-called "mental health parity" bill is drawing criticism from the Family Research Council (FRC), which argues the legislation would "force businesses to provide healthcare for mental 'conditions' like necrophilia, pedophilia, cross-dressing, and gender identity confusion."

Tom McClusky, FRC's vice president for government affairs, says the legislation would include coverage for every bizarre "condition" found in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV).

"Everything from jet lag to gender identity disorder, transvestic fetishism, [and] a number of other categories I wouldn't even want to go into right here," says McClusky. "And there's no conscience protections for employers who would be then forced to possibly pay not only for whatever psychiatric care that these people needed, but also in certain cases this legislation could be used to help pay – make an employer and the insurance companies pay -- for sex change operations."

According to McClusky, says there is another troubling aspect to the bill.

"Both the Senate and the White House are in agreement that the House legislation just cannot pass and should not pass," he continues. "In both pieces of legislation though there also needs to be some protections that – [be]cause thanks to Doe v. Bolton, the companion case to Roe v. Wade – this bill could [force]...insurance companies...to pay for abortion when the abortions are incase of the mental health of mother -- something that Doe v. Bolton and Roe v. Wade both allow for."

The White House opposes the House mental health bill, but favors a less-expansive version passed unanimously by the Senate last September.

Bush says border solution includes swinging door
'Temporary worker program' to let people cross boundary needed

The solution to security issues on the United States' border with Mexico will need to include some sort of swinging door so that workers can come and go as they want, according to a spokeswoman for the White House.

The response came from spokeswoman Dana Perino, who answered a question from Les Kinsolving, WND's correspondent at the White Hosue.

He asked:

"Reuters reports that our Customs and Border Protection Commissioner admits that the U.S. may not meet the goal of essentially stopping illegal immigration from Mexico by 2011. And my question: What does the president believe would help most in this effort, more border security personnel, more miles of border fence, or more enforcement of immigration regulations nationwide?"

"The president thinks that all of those issues are important, but he would add another measure, which is a temporary worker program so that we could have a legal mechanism for people who want to cross the border and work in America, but also want to go back home," she said.

The Reuters report cited an admission from Ralph Basham, commissioner of the U.S. Customers and Border Protection, who said in 2005 the government projected having "operational control" of the border within five years.

However, in testimony before Congress, he said the Secure Border Initiative included several assumptions, and some of those underlying events have not happened.

"We're going to be pushing to meet those goals … but I cannot with any assurance tell you right now that we'll meet them," Reuters reported he told a meeting of the House of Representatives Appropriations subcommittee on homeland security.

One congressman, Kentucky Republication Hal Rogers, said the bottom line has to be, "We are going to secure our borders and end illegal immigration."

But Basham said one of the factors on which the protection was based was the assumption about a comprehensive immigration reform package, dubbed an amnesty program by opponents, which failed in Congress.

Officials also said the "virtual fence" that has been built along a 28-mile section of the border in Arizona has been delayed by technical problems, and opposition from landowners along the border also is delaying plans for 670 miles of fencing.

In a second question, Kinsolving asked, "Gov. Rick Perry of Texas has just written a new book entitled, 'On My Honor: Why the American Values of the Boy Scouts Are Worth Fighting For.' And my question: Does the former governor of Texas who is now president agree or disagree with this title?"

"I don't know if he's even aware of the book. And Gov. Perry was around last week and talked to him. I'm going to move on," said Perino.

Kinsolving followed with the question that: You don't want to leave the impression the president opposes both Perry and the Boy Scouts, do you?

"Of course he doesn't," Perino said.

Bush opposes 'Fairness Doctrine'
But spokeswoman warns Congress doesn't share opinion

President Bush believes the so-called Fairness Doctrine is "Orwellian" and disagrees with its very concept, but that isn't the case in the Democrat-controlled Congress, a spokeswoman said today, hinting perhaps a warning of what could come under a Democratic triumvirate in the Senate, House and White House.

The response came from White House spokeswoman Dana Perino, who said President Bush, "believes in a free press, yes."

The question was from Les Kinsolving, WND's correspondent at the White House, who asked:

"Yesterday in Nashville the president called the so-called Fairness Doctrine 'an Orwellian name,' whose supporters, by 'insisting on so-called balance they want to silence those they don't agree with.' And my question: This means the president believes that the First Amendment's freedom of both speech and of the press means that there must be as much freedom for the electronic or spoken or e-mailed press, as for the printed press, doesn't it?

Then Kinsolving continued. "The president also said, 'Republicans have drafted legislation that would ban reinstatement of the so-called Fairness Doctrine. Unfortunately, Democratic leaders have blocked action on this bill' My question: Does that mean the entire Democratic leadership in both Houses, or was it just San Francisco Speaker Pelosi and Nevada Majority Leader Reid?"

Perino said she wasn't sure and those congressional leaders would have to respond.

Former White House spokesman Tony Snow earlier told WND when he held the post that the Fairness Doctrine, which periodically is raised as an issue by members of Congress, is not needed. Such a provision requires broadcast outlets to air both sides of any issue, and was instituted when the industry often had only a single station outlet in many cities.

"Our views on the Fairness Doctrine are well known, which we don't think it's necessary," Snow said.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., has lobbied for the provision. "I have this old-fashioned attitude that when Americans hear both sides of the story, they're in a better position to make a decision."

In a column, WND founder and editor Joseph Farah, issued a warning about what would be coming if Democrats retain control of the Senate and House in November.

"Prepare for a major, frontal assault on the First Amendment – perhaps the worst in American history," he wrote, citing a letter written by U.S. Senate President Harry Reid, D-Ariz., to talk radio superstar Rush Limbaugh's network several months ago, demanding he apologize for something he never said.

"It was a shot across the bow by an arrogant group of petty, wannabe tyrants who would, if they could, use the coercive power of the state to stifle all dissenting views," Farah warned.

"They would do it under the rubric of 'hate speech' legislation. They would do it with the rationalization of 'fairness' and 'accuracy' – two qualities they wouldn't recognize if they tripped over them. They would do it in the name of campaign finance reform. In fact, they would do it without any excuse whatsoever," he continued.

"To them, the First Amendment doesn't actually protect the inalienable right to free speech and the free press. It only protects their speech and their press. They want a monopoly on media. They had it once and they got spoiled. They decided they can't live without it any more."

He said come January 2009, if Reid still is running the Senate and Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., still is running the house, "they are going to pass a law bringing back the so-called 'Fairness Doctrine.' If Barack Obama is in the White House, he will sign it. If Hillary Clinton is in the White House, she will sign it."

Its chilling effect can be assessed by the fact that in 1987, the last year it existed, there were 75 radio talk shows in the United States. Today there are more than 3,000, he said.

President Ronald Reagan saw to it that it died while he was in office, because it apparently required a balance of opposing views on radio and television airwaves, but in reality, opened the door to government to meddle in the content of radio talk shows and other mediums.

"If the Democrats and their me-too Republican allies are successful at sacking talk radio, there will be no stopping them," Farah warned. "Broadcast will be first. Then they will go after the Internet with taxes and new regulations and hate-crimes laws. And when they succeed at muzzling dissenting voices there, they will even turn to print. Remember, we are dealing with a neo-fascist mentality here," he said.

Ex-GOP treasurer diverted up to $1 million
National Republican Congressional Committee says money went to personal accounts

The former treasurer for the National Republican Congressional Committee diverted hundreds of thousands of dollars -- and possibly as much as $1 million -- of the organization's funds into his personal accounts, GOP officials said yesterday, describing an alleged scheme that could become one of the largest political frauds in recent history.

For at least four years, Christopher J. Ward, who is under investigation by the FBI, allegedly used wire transfers to funnel money out of NRCC coffers and into other political committee accounts he controlled as treasurer, NRCC leaders and lawyers said in their first public statement since they turned the matter over to the FBI six weeks ago.

"The evidence we have today indicated we have been deceived and betrayed for a number of years by a highly respected and trusted individual," said Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), the NRCC chairman.

The committee also announced that it has submitted to banks five years' worth of audits and financial documents allegedly faked by Ward, some of which were used to secure multimillion-dollar loans. It is a violation of federal laws to obtain loans through false statements; the crime is punishable by up to $1 million in fines and 30 years in prison.

Before yesterday, the committee, which raised $49 million in 2007, had not acknowledged that any money was missing. It announced on Feb. 1 that it had discovered "irregularities" that might involve fraud, dismissed Ward and called in federal investigators.

Robert K. Kelner, a lawyer with Covington & Burling, which has been hired to oversee an internal forensic audit, told reporters he is certain only that Ward had made "several hundred thousand dollars" in unauthorized money transfers since 2004. However, he said, the year-end report filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) in 2006 overstated the NRCC's cash on hand by $990,000.

That may be the upper level of what Ward allegedly skimmed from NRCC coffers, Kelner said. But the total will not be known until forensic auditors finish "drilling down" to determine how much money might have been misappropriated and how much may be missing as a result of sloppy bookkeeping, he said.

Kelner said Ward was the only NRCC official empowered to use wire transfers to shift money into any account without a second approval. After transferring the money into accounts he controlled, often for dormant fundraising committees associated with the NRCC, Ward allegedly moved it into accounts for his political consulting business or his personal bank accounts, Kelner said.

Kelner said the NRCC has had no contact with Ward since he was fired on Jan. 28. Ronald Machen, Ward's attorney, declined to comment on the investigation yesterday, as did the FBI.

The Washington Post reported Thursday that Ward had served as treasurer for 83 GOP committees this decade. In the past five years, the committees took in more than $400 million in contributions.

Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.) told The Post this week that Ward paid himself $6,000 from King's PAC in 2007 after the congressman thought he had closed down the committee.

Politico.com reported last night that Ward lent himself more than $4,200 from the political action committee of Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Tex.), an unusual expenditure for a campaign treasurer to make. Ward repaid the money early last month, after the FBI was called in to investigate his work at the NRCC, Politico.com reported.

According to a source familiar with the investigation, some of those committees were closed down in filings to the FEC but their accounts were left open at banks. That would have allowed Ward to divert money into their coffers and then to his political consulting firm or his personal bank accounts.

Kelner said the NRCC had not met with its outside auditors for nearly five years, describing that as unusual. Rep. Greg Walden (Ore.), who previously served as chairman of the NRCC's audit committee, said he had asked to meet with the outside auditing firm, Deloitte & Touche, and that the fake audits were almost perfect forgeries.

"I sought for several years to meet with the outside auditors," Walden said. "There was always some seemingly legitimate reason why that didn't happen." The scheme began to unravel this year, when Rep. K. Michael Conaway (Tex.), the new head of the audit committee, insisted on meeting the auditors.

The magnitude of the alleged fraud staggered Republicans, who are bracing for the final accounting from the forensic audit in six to eight weeks. Many said they expect a total far greater than the minimum cited yesterday.

The largest confirmed political fraud in the modern campaign finance era, after a 1974 law set strict contribution limits, is believed to be the embezzlement of $1 million from the 1992 presidential campaign of the late Sen. Paul Tsongas (D-Mass.).

Cole told reporters yesterday evening that the NRCC has spent about $370,000 on the audit being conducted by Kelner's firm and accountants from PricewaterhouseCoopers, draining precious dollars from a campaign committee that has badly trailed its Democratic counterpart in fundraising for more than a year.

Kelner said federal election and banking laws, which require proof that such frauds were done "knowingly," are likely to put the legal burden on Ward and not the NRCC. He said the internal probe so far has turned up no signs of "anybody else colluding with" Ward.

Alaska senators make another push for oil drilling in ANWR
Bill would allow extraction if price of crude hits $125 a barrel

Hoping to capitalize on consumer concern about gasoline prices, Alaska's two Republican senators introduced legislation Thursday that would allow oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge if the price of oil hits $125 a barrel.

With oil hovering near $110 a barrel and gasoline expected to reach $4 a gallon, Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Ted Stevens said that they hoped the continuing price spiral would spark consumer clamor and overcome opposition to opening the wildlife refuge to drilling.

"This has got to come from the ground up," Murkowski said. "From the constituents, from the American consumer saying 'Enough, Congress.' This is the No. 1 issue domestically in the country right now, what is happening with the price of energy."

Efforts to open up the refuge for drilling have had a long and storied history in Congress, with Stevens or Murkowski (or her father) offering up some form of legislation annually. In 2005, when Congress rejected yet another bid to open the refuge to development, Stevens called it the "saddest day of my life."

This year's proposal has a few new twists that Murkowski, the lead sponsor, says might help persuade some former skeptics.

After the state of Alaska gets a cut of the 12.5 percent royalties, 50 percent of the proceeds would go toward alternative energy research overseen by the Department of Energy. Another 33 percent would go toward federal low-income home energy assistance or weatherization programs. The final 17 percent would go toward the food stamp program.

Drilling in ANWR would do more than any economic stimulus package, Stevens said. It also would trim U.S. dependency on foreign sources of oil.

"The money we send overseas for oil could be spent in the United States, stimulate our economy," he said. "I think this country's going to need a real stimulus before this year's over."

The Bush Administration also sees the development of ANWR as a national security issue and continues to support the "environmentally responsible production of energy" from the refuge, said Shane Wolfe, a spokesman for Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne.

The Interior Department hasn't seen the legislation and wouldn't comment on it, but the president's 2009 budget assumes that ANWR would open for development, Wolfe said.

If drilling were to be allowed, the first lease sales in 2010 could bring in as much as $9 billion, Wolfe said.

"The coastal plain of ANWR is the nation's single greatest onshore prospect for future oil," he said.

But environmentalists say they're confident that Murkowski and Stevens simply don't have 60 votes in the Senate to overcome a filibuster that would allow the bill to be heard. It's equally unlikely that a Democratic-led House of Representatives would even consider hearing the legislation, said Myke Bybee, a spokesman for the Sierra Club.

Environmentalists also have a proven track record at rallying national opposition to drilling in the refuge and could mobilize their forces with a simple e-mail campaign. They're confident that outside of Alaska, there simply isn't public support for drilling in ANWR, Bybee said.

"No amount of oil and no amount of money is worth despoiling the Arctic Refuge," Bybee said. "I don't think there's support for opening up a special place like the Arctic Refuge at any cost, at any amount of oil or at any cost of oil."

Drilling in ANWR is "not going to be help anyone at the pump," said Cindy Shogan, executive director of the Alaska Wilderness League. "The consumer is not that naive."

It's an interesting tactic to tie the present-day price of oil to the decision whether to drill, said Frank Verrastro, senior fellow and energy expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington D.C. But even if Congress were to sign off on opening ANWR to development today, it would have little to do with the price a decade from now.

"You're talking eight to ten years," Verrastro said. "And during that time maybe we would have lost some production, maybe demand would have gone down because of sustained higher prices."

Sex offenders collect financial aid
'Most insane waste of taxpayer money that I have seen in my 8 years in Congress'

James Sturtz is not your ordinary college student struggling to pay tuition.

The 48-year-old rapist is one of Iowa's most dangerous sex offenders, locked up in a state-run treatment center for fear he will attack again if released. Yet he has received thousands of dollars in federal aid to take college courses through the mail.

Across the nation, dozens of sexual predators have been taking higher education classes at taxpayer expense while confined by the courts to treatment centers. Critics say they are exploiting a loophole to receive Pell Grants, the nation's premier financial aid program for low-income students.

Prison inmates are ineligible for Pell Grants under a 1994 law. Students convicted of certain drug offenses are also ineligible. But sexual predators qualify once they are transferred from prison to treatment centers.

"This is the most insane waste of taxpayer money that I have seen in my eight years in Congress," said Rep. Ric Keller, R-Fla., who is pushing to stop the practice. "It is a national embarrassment that we are wasting taxpayer dollars for pedophiles and rapists to take college courses while hardworking young people from lower-class families are flipping hamburgers to pay for college."

Moreover, some institutions report that sex offenders are putting the financial aid to questionable uses by buying such things as clothes, a DVD player and music CDs—sometimes, after they have dropped out of school. Pell Grants can legally be put toward expenses that are education-related. But the unused portion of a grant is supposed to be repaid when someone withdraws from school.

Keller's plan would affect 20 states that allow authorities to hold violent sex offenders indefinitely after they have served their prison sentences. He predicted the measure would save taxpayers millions.

Some say taking away the financial aid for correpondence courses would be a mistake. They say education could help sex offenders build stable lives and reduce their chances of committing another crime if they are ever released.

The U.S. Education Department does not track how many sexual predators confined to treatment centers have received aid, in part because the offenders do not have to disclose their living arrangements on the application forms. But within the past five years, at least several dozen have received Pell Grants. And the department is only following the law.

"They are eligible," Education Department spokeswoman Stephanie Babyak said. She said the department generally does not track how recipients pay their expenses, "but if there is an issue with people getting overawards, we would look into that. We'll be happy to check it out."

The institutions and the government do not keep count of how much money sexual predators receive. The maximum Pell Grant is $4,310 per year. The government generally sends payments to colleges for tuition, and any leftover is sent to the student to cover expenses.

At the Sand Ridge Secure Treatment Center in Mauston, Wis., six patients are getting Pell Grants, and others did so in the past. Some patients used their grants for living expenses that were already being covered by the state's taxpayers, according to administrators.

"I think that the current practice—which results in large checks being sent to the patients for living expenses—is pretty much indefensible," director Steve Watters wrote in an e-mail to an aide last year.

In Iowa, 14 offenders in the Cherokee Mental Health Institute have received Pell Grants in recent years, said administrator Jason Smith. He said nine of them dropped courses after receiving money.

Some patients used their money to buy a DVD player, a television, a radio, music CDs and movies, Smith said. Because of vague guidelines, staff members could not determine whether those were inappropriate expenditures, he said.

In California, a number of predators living at the Coalinga State Hospital receive Pell Grants, said Department of Mental Health spokeswoman Nancy Kincaid. But she said the hospital has no way of tracking who gets them or how much money they receive.

Representatives of other states, including Kansas and Minnesota, said they could not recall sex offenders signing up for Pell Grants. Other states said they had no idea whether that was the case.

"They don't really tell us what they are doing. They have a lot of liberties they want to exercise without our oversight," said Dr. Henry Richards, superintendent of the Special Commitment Center in Washington state, where some patients take correspondence courses.

Keller introduced his bill to ban the practice after a newspaper reported in 2003 that 54 offenders at one Florida center got $200,000 in Pell Grants in one year.

Some Democratic members of Congress and others say it would be counterproductive to put up a barrier to education for sex offenders who are trying to rehabilitate themselves.

"These are people who we want to prepare to go into the communities. They need to have access to educational programs," Richards said. "I think the numbers of committed persons aren't so large they would significantly preclude other citizens from taking advantage of educational support. To preclude them seems mean-spirited to me."

Sturtz illustrates both sides.

The Iowa man was convicted in 1980 of sexually assaulting a 4-year-old girl. He earned his high school equivalency diploma behind bars and trained to be a janitor. He was convicted again in 1989 of attempted rape after pulling a knife on a woman.

After another stint behind bars, he struck again in 1994. This time, he met a Coe College student waiting for a bus, persuaded her to get in his car and raped her at knifepoint. He was sent back to prison and then ordered to Cherokee after his sentence ended in 2006.

Sturtz said he signed up to take business courses through Kirkwood Community College and received B's in business communication courses. But he has put his schooling on hold.

He said he dropped algebra and two other courses that were too hard. And he said he was unable to complete one class because he was not able to watch the required movies. Like other sexual predators, he is not allowed access to the Internet, and that has complicated his schooling.

He said he used his $100 in leftover grant money to buy jeans and underwear and saved the rest in case he tries to take more courses.

So far, none of the 72 predators in the Iowa center has been released since it opened in 1999. Sturtz admitted he is not ready for freedom anytime soon.

"It wasn't about the money for me, man. It was about the education," he said. "God knows I'm going to need all the help to get a job."

How the U.S. Navy Inadvertently Supports Hugo Chávez

When U.S. Navy and Marine personnel purchase gasoline at their local Navy Base Exchange, they might be unknowingly supporting America's enemies. This is happening because the Navy Exchange buys its gasoline from a company owned by Venezuelan Dictator-President Hugo Chávez. A designation by the Bush Administration of Venezuela as a terrorist-sponsoring state would allow the Navy to end this awkward situation.

Hugo Chávez is on an arms-buying spree. Chávez has already bought $3.4 billion[1] worth of Russian weapons, including "100,000 AK-103s and AK-104 assault rifles, a munitions factory, 53 helicopters--including a dozen Mi-17 military helicopters--and 24 SU-30MK fighter jets."[2] Venezuela is negotiating a multi-billion dollar, multi-year contract to purchase from Russia "five Project 636 Kilo-class diesel submarines and four state-of-the-art Project 677 Amur submarines....and several Tor-M1 air defense missile complexes."[3] A Chávez military adviser boasts that the Russian submarines will "make Venezuela's navy the strongest in the region,"[4] potentially putting the U.S. Navy in harm's way at some point in the future.

The Chávez-Terrorist Connection

In addition to this military build-up, new evidence is emerging that documents Chavez's sinister intentions and actions in the region. The government of Colombia, assisted by the U.S. government and Interpol, is analyzing the contents of a laptop belonging to the second-in-command of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Raul Reyes,[5] who was killed by the Colombian military in an attack two kilometers inside Ecuador's border on March 1, 2008.[6]

The U.S. Secretary of State designated the FARC as a Foreign Terrorist Organization in 1997.[7] In 2003, President George W. Bush designated the FARC as a "significant foreign narcotics trafficker pursuant to the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act due to its extensive narcotics trafficking activities." The FARC has also been designated as a terrorist organization by the European Union,[8] Canada,[9] and the Latin American Parliament.[10]

Evidence from the three captured FARC laptops has revealed that Chávez was planning to send $300 million to the FARC[11] and was pressuring European governments to drop FARC's terrorism designation. With political legitimacy, FARC could then mount a political campaign against Colombian President ÁlvaroUribe's party in the 2010 national elections. There is also evidence from the laptops that Chávez funneled money to his Chavista ally, Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa, during Correa's 2006 election campaign.[12]

An Awkward Contract

Surprisingly, part of Chavez's oil-based financial windfall comes from the U.S. Navy. Its "Navy Exchange (NEX) Service Command" has a contract, running until 2010, which specifies that Citgo supply gasoline to all NEX service stations. Formerly known as Cities Service, an American-owned refiner and gasoline retailer, Citgo was sold in the 1990sand is now owned by PDV America, Inc., an indirect, wholly owned subsidiary ofthe state-owned oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PdVSA), which is in turn wholly owned and controlled by the Hugo Chávez-led government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.[13] Citgo's refineries are the only ones in the U.S. (and among the few in the world) built specifically to refine Venezuela's heavy, dirty, and high-sulfur crude oil,[14] so the Chávez regime is heavily reliant on them for income.

Given the aggressively anti-American actions of Hugo Chávez, it is at the least a great irony that the U.S. Navy is buying gasoline from him. A Navy press spokesman says that "Citgo's competitively bid $60 million-a-year contracts to supply the Navy Exchange with gas run through 2010....Citgo's relationship with the exchange dates back to 1989." The spokesman reported that any action to prohibit Citgo from bidding on future contracts could be taken only by Navy headquarters in Washington.[15] The Navy did demonstrate its sensitivity about the issue in 2006, however, when it replaced Citgo signs with "NEX" signs at all of its service stations in the aftermath of Chávez's speech in September of that year at the UN General Assembly, where he called President Bush "the Devil."[16]

A State Sponsor of Terror?

The Bush Administration is reportedly investigating whether the actions taken by the Chávez regime to support and promote the FARC could lead to Venezuela being placed on the U.S. government's list of state sponsors of terrorism. [17] This action would result in the imposition of four main sets of U.S. government sanctions: (1) a ban on arms-related exports and sales; (2) controls over exports of dual-use items for goods or services that could significantly enhance the terrorist-list country's military capability or ability to support terrorism; (3) prohibitions on economic assistance; and (4) imposition of miscellaneous financial and other restrictions, including: (a) requiring the United States to oppose loans by the World Bank and other international financial institutions; (b) lifting diplomatic immunity to allow families of terrorist victims to file civil lawsuits in U.S. courts; (c) denying companies and individuals tax credits for income earned in terrorist-listed countries; (d) denial of duty-free treatment of goods exported to the United States; (e) authority to prohibit any U.S. citizen from engaging in a financial transaction with a terrorist-list government without a Treasury Department license; and (f) prohibition of Defense Department contracts above $100,000 with companies controlled by terrorist-list states. [18]

Designation by the U.S. of Venezuela as a terrorist-sponsoring state would put into jeopardy the billions of dollars the Chávez regime takes in annually from the sale of oil to the United States. It would also, incidentally, give the Navy a way out of its awkward contract with Citgo.

[1]RIA Novosti, "Venezuela to Buy Russian Submarines, Air Defense Systems--Source," June 18, 2007, at http://en.rian.ru/world/20070618/67363794.html (March 12, 2008).

[2]Pablo Bachelet, "U.S. Alerted to Cuba Migration, Chávez Weapons," Miami Herald, February 27, 2008, at www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/cuba/story/435985.html (March 12, 2008).

[3]RIA Novosti, "Venezuela to buy Russian Submarines, Air Defense Systems--Source."

[4]James M. Roberts, "If the Real Simón Bolívar Met Hugo Chávez, He'd See Red," Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 2062, August 20, 2007, at www.heritage.org/Research/LatinAmerica/bg2062.cfm

[5]Frank Bajak, "Letters: Ecuador Leader Got Rebel Funds," The Washington Post, March 10, 2008, at www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/10/AR2008031000090.html (March 12, 2008).

[6]Ray Walser, "Hugo Chávez, the FARC, and Threats of War," Heritage Foundation WebMemo

No. 1834, March 4, 2008, at www.heritage.org/Research/LatinAmerica/wm1834.cfm.

[7]U.S. Department of State, Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs), Fact Sheet,October 11, 2005, at www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/fs/37191.htm (March 12, 2008).

[8]http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/site/es/oj/2005/l_272/l_27220051018es00150017.pdf (March 14, 2008)

[9]http://www.presidencia.gov.co/cne/2003/abril/03/03032003.htm (March 14, 2008)

[10]http://www.parlatino.org/news_cont.php?id=85&lg=es (March 14, 2008)

[11]Frank Bajak, "Colombian Leader's Raid Gamble Pays Off," The Washington Post, March 11, 2008, at www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/11/AR2008031102151_2.html?sub=AR (March 12. 2008).

[12]Bajak, "Letters: Ecuador Leader Got Rebel Funds."

[13]Citgo.com, Company History, at www.citgo.com/AboutCITGO/CompanyHistory.jsp (March 12, 2008).

[14]http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000086&sid=aP3vwKnY0rNU&refer=latin_america (March 14, 2008)

[15]Kevin McKenzie, "New Navy Brand; Bases Pull Off Citgo Logo for Their Own Label," The Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN), May 11, 2007, Page MTB 1.

[16]http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/americas/09/20/chavez.un/index.html (March 14, 2008)

[17]Sharon Behn and Carmen Gentile, "U.S. Examines Laptops Seized in Ecuador Raid," The Washington Times, March 12, 2008, p. 2, at www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080312/FOREIGN/875493344 (March 12, 2008).

[18]U.S. Department of State, Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Country Reports on Terrorism, Chapter 6: State Sponsors of Terror Overview, April 28, 2006, at www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/crt/2005/64337.htm (March 12, 2008).

Democrats: For higher gas prices or against higher gas prices?

One guy has answered: “BOTH!”

Michigan Congressman Wants 50-Cent Tax Hike on Every Gallon of Gas

Quote

A Michigan congressman wants to put a 50-cent tax on every gallon of gasoline to try to cut back on Americans’ consumption.

Polls show that a majority of Americans support policies that would reduce greenhouse gases. But when it comes to paying for it, it’s a different story.

Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., wants to help cut consumption with a gas tax…

Here’s the same Dingell buried with his own idiotic contradictions.

The Democratic Party: Congressman John Dingell (MI-15) Delivers Democratic Radio Address (2005)

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We must respond to the needs of the American consumers who are seeing the prospect of $4 a gallon gas

Yes! By creating the prospect of $4.50 a gallon gas! Brilliant!

But Dingell can explain why that’s OK:

Quote

That’s right; millions of your hard-earned tax dollars would go to the same companies reaping the benefit of $3 a gallon of gas and $60 a barrel of oil…We have proposed a tough anti-price gouging law.

So, it’s OK for the government to “gouge” Americans of their “hard-earned tax dollars” (notice the language — it’s not YOUR dollars, it’s TAX dollars). First off, this guy is an economic ignoramus. Second off, even IF the oil companies had been “price gouging” for their “windfall” profits (which is a lie), isn’t that better than the government putting to paper a policy that would purposely cripple the economy?

Sure, look into whether the oil companies are doing anything illegal. Let the facts speak. However, if you are going to scream about unaffordable fuel (which Dingle admits in his 2005 address hurts the economy), how can you then proposed ANOTHER tax that would visit havoc on this country?

Easy answer — the Democrats’ ONLY guiding principle is increased consolidation of centralized government power. Whatever eggs need to be cracked, so be it…we need that omelet.

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That's a negative 100 on the logic probe, Captain.

UnBan the Bulb

Last December, Congress thought they’d help us all out by banning the good old incandescent light bulb. Being the highly trained scientists that they are, Congress thought that by making rules supporting and promoting the use of CFL bulbs, they’d promote the kitschy ideas of forestalling global warming. Of course, the scariest words in the history of man are “I’m from the government and I’m here to help you,” and this idiot move by Congress is no exception.

In this case, the our government dolts thought that saving volts was better than worrying if the mercury inside the new CFL bulbs presented a contamination problem for anyone unfortunate enough to break one. It turns out that if someone were to drop and break one of these “earth saving” bulbs it would spread mercury contamination all over the house and special care must be taken to clean up the mess. Yes, the light bulbs that are supposed to save the world are poisonous to our health! (the EPA has published a 7 page instruction manual on cleaning up a broken CFL)

Well, now we can give Congresswoman Michele Bachmann of Minnesota a pat on the back for attempting to repeal the stupidity of forcing Americans to switch over to these hazardous bulbs with a bill that will repeal the requirements to get rid of the old incandescent bulbs with the Light Bulb Freedom of Choice Act. (H.R. 5616)

I hope everyone calls their Congressman and urges them to support this bill. Good job, Rep. Bachmann.

MSNBC has given us the latest on the danger that these newfangled CFL light bulbs present.

Quote

Compact fluorescent light bulbs, long touted by environmentalists as a more efficient and longer-lasting alternative to the incandescent bulbs that have lighted homes for more than a century, are running into resistance from waste industry officials and some environmental scientists, who warn that the bulbs’ poisonous innards pose a bigger threat to health and the environment than previously thought.

Remember, the government is only here to help!

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The light was turned off when this idea came up!

Bush administration seeks sweeping economic power
'Our present regulatory framework was born of Depression-era events'

The Bush administration is proposing a sweeping overhaul of the way the government regulates the nation's financial services industry from banks and securities firms to mortgage brokers and insurance companies.
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The plan would give major new powers to the Federal Reserve, according to a 22-page executive summary obtained by The Associated Press.

The Fed would be given broad authority to oversee financial market stability. That would include new powers to examine the books of any institution deemed to represent a potential threat to the proper functioning of the overall financial system.

The proposal, which will be outlined Monday in a speech by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, is certain to set off heated debates within different sectors of the financial services industry and in Congress, where some Democrats are likely to complain that the proposal does not go far enough to crack down on abuses.

The administration divided its recommendations into short-term goals that could be adopted quickly, intermediate recommendations and an "optimal" regulatory framework, which contains a radical restructuring of how the government supervises banks and other financial institutions.

The recommendations are the product of a yearlong review that was begun in an effort to modernize the government's regulatory structure so that the country's financial services industries could better compete in a fast-changing global economy.

The plan also seeks to address problems that have been brought to light in recent months since a severe credit crisis began roiling financial markets last August.

That crisis has already claimed as its biggest victim Bear Stearns, the nation's fifth-largest investment bank, which came to the brink of collapse before a government-arranged purchase by JP Morgan Chase & Co.

"I am not suggesting that more regulation is the answer, or even that more effective regulation can prevent the periods of financial market stress that seem to occur every five to 10 years," Paulson will say in the remarks he will deliver on Monday.

But the plan does seek to address problems highlighted by the current crisis in which the Fed in an unprecedented move has begun making direct loans to securities firms in an effort to shore up a system badly shaken by billions of dollars of losses stemming from sour mortgage loans.

The proposal would allow the Fed, in its new role as "market stability regulator," to dispatch examiners to check the books not just of commercial banks but of all segments of the financial services industry.

The administration proposal would also consolidate the current scheme of bank regulation by shutting down the Office of Thrift Supervision and transferring its functions to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which regulates nationally chartered banks.

The plan recommends that the Securities and Exchange Commission, which regulates stock trading, be merged with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which regulates futures trades for oil, grains and various other commodities.

The plan would create a national regulator for the insurance industry, which is now largely governed by the states, and would create a Mortgage Origination Commission to try to address the abuses exposed in the current tidal wave of mortgage defaults.

The role Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and his colleagues have been playing to shore up the financial system would be formalized in the administration plan by giving Fed officials greater power to detect where threats might be lurking in the system.

The proposal is certain to generate intense scrutiny in Congress and within the financial services industry, where past efforts to change how regulation is handled have met with fierce resistance.

Many Democrats in Congress are already pushing tougher proposals that would impose much stricter regulation in an effort to crack down on abuses exposed by the current credit crisis.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said he believed Paulson's plan offered some valid suggestions.

"In broad outlines, we agree with large parts of Secretary Paulson's plan," Schumer, chairman of the Joint Economic Committee, said in a statement. "He is on the money when he calls for a more unified regulatory structure, although we would prefer a single regulator to the three he proposes."

Under Paulson's approach, the long-term goal would be to designate the Fed as market stability regulator and to have a financial regulator who would focus on financial institutions that operate with government guarantees such as providing deposit insurance.

The administration plan, which was first reported by The New York Times on its Web site Friday night, also proposes a business conduct regulator who would be in charge of overseeing consumer protection issues.

The initial reaction from the securities industry was also positive.

"Treasury has delivered a thoughtful and sweeping plan which should provoke intense discussion, debate and potential legislative changes," said Tim Ryan, president of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association.

"Our present regulatory framework was born of Depression-era events and is not well suited for today's environment where billions of dollars race across the globe with the click of a mouse," Ryan said in a statement.

Supremes to allow 'Statue of Tyranny'?
Group seeking Liberty alternative actually targeting Ten Commandments, critics say

The Supreme Court today announced it will review a case that could be used to install a "Statue of Tyranny" to oppose the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor.

"We're delighted that the Supreme Court agreed to take this critical case – it's exactly what we were hoping for," said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice, which represents the city of Pleasant Grove, Utah, in the dispute.

"The Supreme Court is faced with a dramatic opportunity: Preserve sound precedent involving the well-established distinction between government speech and private speech – or permit a twisted interpretation of the Constitution to create havoc in cities and localities across America," Sekulow said. "The lower court decision – if left unchecked – would ultimately force local governments to remove long-standing and well-established patriotic, religious and historical displays."

The interpretation under review by the Supreme Court was made by the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver.

That court ruled in August against revisiting its original decision in a case involving the Utah cities of Pleasant Grove City and Duchesne City. A lower court had ordered the cities to allow monuments containing the "Seven Aphorisms" of an organization called Summum to be erected on public property. The alternative was for the cities to remove all monuments with other sayings, primarily the Ten Commandments, many of which were donated and erected decades ago.

"The lower court decision misses a key distinction between government speech and private speech," Sekulow said. "The government has to be neutral toward private speech, but it does not have to be neutral in its own speech. The 10th Circuit confused this rule when it said private parties have a First Amendment right to put up the monuments of their choosing in a city park, unless the city takes away all other donated monuments."

The ACLJ's petition argued: "When private speakers have the right to use government property to speak, there is a speech forum. But when, as here, the donor cedes and the government accepts ownership and control of something from a private party, that 'something' is no longer private property. It becomes government property. And if it is a message-bearing 'something,' any communication thenceforth is government speech, not private speech."

It continued: "Accepting a monument for permanent display as the government's own property does not require accepting other monuments in the name of content- or viewpoint-neutrality. Nor does the government's acceptance of a donated monument require that a government park be turned into a cluttered junkyard of monuments contributed by all comers.

"In short, accepting a Statue of Liberty does not compel a government to accept a Statue of Tyranny," the petition said.

The concept of allowing anything as a monument is "scary," Frank Manion, of the ACLJ, told WND earlier. "The Minutemen in Massachusetts? We need a Redcoat. A George Washington statue? Why not George the 3rd. A Holocaust memorial? How about a Hitler memorial?"

Summum lauds the principles of "psychokinesis, correspondence, vibration, opposition, rhythm, cause and effect, and gender," and promotes mummification of both people and pets.

The ACLJ said the Ten Commandments monuments are the real targets of the legal actions, because in many circumstances, cities or other governments likely would order such monuments removed, rather than order acceptance of others.

The ACLJ, which has worked on the case with the Thomas More Law Center, contends that the Constitution "does not empower private parties to force permanent displays into a park, crowding out the available physical space and trumping the government's own vision" for the parks.

"In the Duchesne case, even an attorney for Summum admitted to the federal district court that its position could lead to bizarre results. Summum's attorneys told the court that if a city park is required to display monuments contributed by all comers, the city park may well end up looking like a cemetery with many, many monuments," the ACLJ said.

Under Summum's theology, adherents believe the first set of stone tablets Moses received on Mt. Sinai contained its seven aphorisms, "made by a divine being."

"The first set of stone tablets was not inscribed with the Ten Commandments. Rather, they contained aphorisms of a Higher Law that held very profound and deep meanings," the organization's website says.

The group believes Moses "had been initiated into an understanding of the inner, esoteric source" of those aphorisms, but when he "observed the immature behavior and attitude of the Israelites" he realized they could not understand them too.

"So Moses destroyed the stone tables and revealed the aphorisms to a select few."

The ACLJ warned earlier: "In 1886, the United States government accepted from the people of France a donation of a 151-foot tall colossal statue called "Liberty Enlightening the World. Since that time, the government has displayed this Statue of Liberty in a traditional public forum in New York Harbor.

"For years, demonstrators with messages to deliver have assembled, handed out literature and otherwise expressed themselves at the site subject to certain regulations of the time, place and manner of their expression. But it probably never occurred to any such demonstrators that they enjoyed a constitutional right to insist that the government allow them to erect their own 151-foot tall statue or monument setting forth an alternative message to that conveyed by Lady Liberty," the law firm warned.

"Under the flawed private speech jurisprudence of the panel in this case – there exists no principled basis upon which the government could turn down for permanent display on Liberty Island a donation of a 'Statue of Tyranny,' or, perhaps, a new copper colossus bearing the message 'Pay No Attention to the Lady With the Torch – the Golden Door is Now Closed,'" the legal briefs argued.

House votes to protect coast from oil drilling

California moved a step closer to permanently protecting its shores from offshore oil drilling Monday when the House approved legislation to ban development in federal waters along all 76 miles of Sonoma County's coastline and off the southern tip of Mendocino County's coast.

The measure would more than double the size of two existing National Marine Sanctuaries near San Francisco and Marin - Gulf of the Farallones and Cordell Bank. The newly protected zone would stretch from Bodega Bay to Point Arena and would extend about 50 miles off the coast - 2,093 square nautical miles, an area roughly the size of Delaware.

Scientists say the expansion would protect the headwaters of one of the world's most productive ocean ecosystems, a nutrient-rich zone that is crucial to every marine species on the West Coast, from whales to sea lions to sea birds to salmon.

"These critical marine areas need our protection," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Monday, praising the effort to "preserve these areas and protect the diverse animal populations that reside in them."

The measure by Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Petaluma, had faced opposition last month from some Republicans on the House Natural Resources Committee, who warned that it would cut off access to potential future supplies of oil and gas. But the House passed it Monday on a voice vote without any fanfare.

The measure now goes to the Senate, where California Democratic Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein are pushing a similar version. A spokeswoman for Boxer said the senator is cautiously optimistic it can be moved through the Commerce Committee and passed by the Senate this year.

Woolsey said the bill offers a way to get around the annual debate in Congress where opponents of drilling battle to make sure the state's coast remains off-limits to drilling.

"This will put that to rest," Woolsey said. "Once it's passed out of the Senate, unless there is an act of Congress (to overturn it), there will be a permanent ban on exploration and drilling" off the coasts of Sonoma and southern Mendocino counties.

Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, who was a chief co-sponsor of the bill, said he is already talking to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration about evaluating other offshore areas in Mendocino, Humboldt and Del Norte counties to add to the sanctuary system.

"This section of the coast is a huge treasure," Thompson said. "We need to take the extra steps to protect it."

Already, portions of the California coast have been designated as off-limits to development, including the Monterey Bay and Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuaries. Environmentalists hope to stitch together a protective quilt of sanctuaries up and down the state.

The latest effort drew widespread support, including from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, whose scientists recognized the biological value of the area. The State Lands Commission, the Coastal Commission and the counties of Marin, Sonoma, Mendocino, and San Francisco all supported the legislation.

Fishermen's groups also backed the bill, which does not set any new limits on commercial or recreational fishing in the protected areas. The groups viewed the bill as a way to preserve the ocean food supply that supports healthy fish stocks.

"Some of the most intense upwellings any place in the world occur right there," said Zeke Grader, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations. "The upwelling brings nutrients up from the sea floor and when those hit the light, the photosynthesis creates the phytoplankton and zooplankton that are the whole base of the ocean food chain."

Susan Williams, a professor of ecology and evolution at UC Davis and the director of the university's Bodega Marine Laboratory, said the key reason to expand the sanctuaries is that the area near Point Arena is where the strongest upwelling begins. The current, driven by high winds, pushes the nutrient-rich waters south toward Bodega Bay.

"The huge biological ecosystem significance of this bill will be protecting the source waters for the Gulf of the Farallones and Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuaries," Williams said. "That means the food source - the conveyer belt of food for the sanctuaries - is now protected."

The expanded sanctuaries would also help protect threatened species like the Steller sea lions, who have a winter haul-out area near Point Arena. Gray whales use the area between Fort Ross and Point Arena regularly. Northern fur seals, a vulnerable species, use areas north and west of the current sanctuaries that would be protected by the bill.

Williams said the deep waters in the newly protected zones are also home to bamboo coral, which can live for hundreds of years and lay down growth rings, much like trees do. Scientists are already using them as key indicator of the effects of global warming on marine ecosystems.

"By protecting these areas we are also protecting a great source of information about recent climate change," she said.

A Good Day, Supreme Court Rules Against Foreign Precedent

In 2003, then Justice of the Supreme Court Sandra Day O’Connor famously posited that our judicial system should take into account foreign court rulings when deciding American cases prompting outraged conservatives to denounce her idea as endangering American sovereignty and destroying the Constitution of the United States of America. This year, the Roberts led SCOTUS has made an important decision that will serve to forestall that possibility.

In October of 2003, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor gave a speech in Atlanta where she predicted that “over time we will rely increasingly, or take notice at least increasingly, of international and foreign courts in examining domestic issues.” Naturally, Americans who revere the Constitution were outraged over the thought that we’d place foreign court rulings before our own law of the land, essentially allowing foreigners to decide questions of American jurisprudence.

The fear over allowing foreign precedent or areas of jurisdiction to overlap into ours raises discussion of the very differences between our system of government and legal traditions and that of the rest of the world. Should we rely on foreign precedent, for instance, the very concept of innocent until proven guilty is put into doubt because foreign rulings will not generally be based on that bedrock principle.

Further, should American courts recognize the kangaroo courts of The Hague and the so-called “International Court of Justice” (or the World Court), foreign institutions such as these would have the authority to incarcerate American citizens for their politically motivated, anti-American “trials” at any time. After all, should we cast away our Constitutional rights by allowing foreign rulings to take precedence over our system, this will be bound to occur. What would stop such a thing from happening, anyway?

In any case, the World Court has already made an effort to intercede in our court system with the case of Medellín v. Texas. In this 15-year-old case, a Mexican national named Jose Ernesto Medellín was charged with murder and was sentenced to the death penalty in the state of Texas. As a result of Medellín’s sentence, anti-death penalty advocates in Mexico and other nations took notice and made to intercede with a case brought before the World Court.

Medellín’s attorneys and advocates argued that the U.S. was bound by a World Court decision that Mexican officials had won “ordering” a new trial and that the death sentence be vacated. Not only that, but the World Court also “overturned” the sentences of 51 other foreigners who had become death row inmates in American prisons.

As Ted Cruz of Human Events Magazine writes, “The World Court ruling was unprecedented. In over 200 years of our Nation’s history, no foreign tribunal has ever before asserted the authority to bind U.S. courts, much less to reopen final criminal convictions. And, armed with the decision of the World Court, Medellín argued that American courts had no option but to obey.”

Well, good news was had with a 6 to 3 decision that favors U.S. sovereignty.

The Roberts court ruled that World Court rulings cannot be enforced inside the United States. Since the U.S. Constitution is the law of the land, this SCOTUS decision re-affirms that all jurisprudential power is vested in that document and foreign courts, then, hold no power.

As Cruz notes, “If Medellín had prevailed, it would have elevated the World Court above the Supreme Court of the United States, given that foreign court binding authority, and made its far-away judges the final arbiters of the law that governs American citizens.”

This ruling should effectively make the dangerous and absurd idea that U.S. courts should pay attention to foreign precedent null and void. Let’s hope it is the first of many more rulings that protects American sovereignty.

Federal credit cards misused
Employees paid for lingerie, gambling, iPods, Internet dating

Federal employees used government credit cards to pay for lingerie, gambling, iPods, Internet dating services, and a $13,000 steak-and-liquor dinner, according to a new audit from the Government Accountability Office, which found widespread abuses in a purchasing program meant to improve bureaucratic efficiency.

The study, released by Senate lawmakers yesterday, found that nearly half the "purchase card" transactions it examined were improper, either because they were not authorized correctly or because they did not meet requirements for the cards' use. The overall rate of problems "is unacceptably high," the audit found.

The GAO also found that agencies could not account for nearly $2 million worth of items identified in the audit -- including laptop computers, digital cameras and, at the Army, more than a dozen computer servers worth $100,000 each.

Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.), who requested the study along with Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), said that money "intended to pay for critical infrastructure, education and homeland security is instead being spent on iPods, lingerie and socializing."

"Too many government employees have viewed purchase cards as their personal line of credit," Coleman said. "It's time to cut up their cards and start over."

The audit is the culmination of a series of GAO reports over the past decade that have uncovered improper use of government-issued purchase cards at agencies, including the Defense Department and the Department of Homeland Security. Government employees spent nearly $20 billion last year using "SmartPay" cards and related convenience checks, for items ranging from pencils to computers to utility trucks.

Purchase cards, used by about 300,000 government employees in 2007, are essentially the federal government's equivalent of corporate credit cards. Issued by five major banks, they are primarily for transactions under $2,500 but can be used for larger contract payments. All transactions are supposed to comport with federal purchasing guidelines, including proper authorization and documentation.

The latest study used scientific sampling to gauge problems with the cards across numerous federal agencies from July 2005 to September 2006. The report singles out incidents for special criticism as "abusive," "improper" or "fraudulent."

In the fraudulent category, a longtime employee of the U.S. Forest Service in Oregon, Debra K. Durfey, wrote convenience checks worth more than $640,000 from 2000 to 2006 to a live-in boyfriend, who used the money for gambling, car expenses and mortgage payments, according to the GAO and the Justice Department.

The fraud went undetected until a whistle-blower forwarded a tip to the Agriculture Department's inspector general. Durfey, who headed her unit's purchasing office, pleaded guilty last year and was sentenced to 21 months in prison and restitution.

Another fraud case involved the U.S. Postal Service, where an unidentified postmaster used his card to charge $1,100 over a 15-month period for "various online dating services" while he was under investigation for viewing pornography on a government computer. The employee worked out an agreement to remain on sick leave until he retired in 2007 and paid back the money spent on the dating services, according to the GAO report and a Postal Service spokesman.

In a case the GAO deemed "abusive," the Postal Service spent $13,500 in 2006 on a dinner at a Ruth's Chris Steak House in Orlando, including "over 200 appetizers and over $3,000 of alcohol, including more than 40 bottles of wine costing more than $50 each and brand-name liquor such as Courvoisier, Belvedere and Johnny Walker Gold." The tab came to more than $160 a head for the 81 guests, the report said.

Postal Service spokesman Gerry McKiernan said the dinner was held to entertain large postal customers who were already in Florida for another conference, and actually saved money because it combined four events into one. He also defended the payments for alcohol.

"When you're having dinner with customers, it's normal to have a drink," McKiernan said.

In another case at the State Department, a cardholder spent $360 at the Seduccion Boutique in Ecuador to buy "women's underwear/lingerie for use during jungle training by trainees of a drug enforcement program." The report does not include further details, but it says a State Department official "agreed that the charge was questionable."

The GAO found that 41 percent of the transactions it examined did not follow government purchasing rules. The problem was worse with larger purchases: Forty-eight percent of transactions over $2,500 were in violation of federal rules, the report said.

Levin said in a statement that "although internal controls over government credit cards have improved, we still have a long way to go to stop the fraudulent use of these cards."

In a written response to GAO, acting Controller Danny Werfel of the Office of Management and Budget said the administration "is extremely concerned with the incidences of purchase card abuse highlighted in GAO's report," and said it has agreed to increase oversight to lower the number of problems.

OMB spokeswoman Jane Lee also said the White House supports proposed Senate legislation aimed at reducing "inappropriate purchase card transactions." The Government Credit Card Abuse Prevention Act would require regular audits and other steps to cut down on credit card fraud and abuse.

VA employees rack up $2.6 billion in credit card charges for veterans care

Veterans Affairs employees last year racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars in government credit-card bills at casino and luxury hotels, movie theaters and high-end retailers such as Sharper Image and Franklin Covey — and government auditors are investigating, citing past spending abuses.

All told, VA staff charged $2.6 billion to their government credit cards.

The Associated Press, through a Freedom of Information request, obtained the VA list of 3.1 million purchases made in the 2007 budget year. The list offers a detailed look into the everyday spending at the government's second largest department.

By and large, it reveals few outward signs of questionable spending, with hundreds of purchases at prosthetic, orthopedic and other medical supply stores.

But there are multiple charges that have caught the eye of government investigators.

At least 13 purchases totaling $8,471 were charged at Sharper Image, a specialty store featuring high-tech electronics and gizmos such as robotic barking dogs. In addition, 19 charges worth $1,999.56 were made at Franklin Covey, which sells leather totes and planners geared toward corporate executives.

Government reports in 2004 said these two companies, by virtue of the types of products they market, would "more likely be selling unauthorized or personal use items" to federal employees.

Many of the 14,000 VA employees with credit cards, who work at headquarters in Washington and at medical centers around the nation, also spent tens of thousands of dollars at Wyndham hotels in places such as San Diego, Orlando, Fla., and on the riverfront in Little Rock, Ark. One-time charges ranged up to $8,000.

On at least six occasions, employees based at VA headquarters made credit card charges at Las Vegas casino hotels totaling $26,198.

VA spokesman Matt Smith the department was reviewing these and other purchases as part of its routine oversight of employee spending. He noted that many of the purchases at Sharper Image and other stores included clocks for low-vision veterans, humidifiers, air purifiers, alarm devices and basic planner products.

Smith said all the casino hotel expenditures in 2007 were for conferences and related expenses. He said the spending was justified because Las Vegas is a place where "VA is building a new medical center and an increasing number of veterans are calling home."

"The Department of Veterans Affairs, like many public and private groups, hosts conferences and meetings in Las Vegas due to the ease of participant travel, the capacity of the facilities, and the overall cost associated with hosting a conference," he said.

According to VA policy, purchase cards may be used at hotels to rent conference rooms or obtain audiovisual equipment or other items for VA meetings. They should not be used to reserve lodging. Auditors long have urged the VA to adopt policies to encourage use of free conference rooms. Auditors previously faulted the agency for booking rooms at expensive casino hotels without evidence it first had sought free space.

In the coming weeks, auditors at the Government Accountability Office and the VA inspector general's office are to issue reports on purchase card use and spending controls at the VA and other agencies. The reports are expected to show lingering problems at the VA, which auditors cited in 2004 for lax spending controls that wasted up to $1.1 million.

The list of charges provided to the AP gives the vendor, amount purchased, location and employee name; in most cases it does not indicate the specific item purchased. Requests by the AP for lists of the additional data in a timely manner were repeatedly declined on privacy and proprietary grounds.

The VA list shows that some credit-card holders took a modest route. VA employees in locations such as Portland, Ore., Gainesville, Fla., and Sheridan, Wyo., had charges for Motel 6 and Travelodge inns. One VA headquarters employee appears to have passed up casino hotels by booking at a Holiday Inn Express in Las Vegas for $787.75.

"For government travel and other spending, you have to be mindful of the appearances you're creating," said Steve Ellis, vice president of the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense. "If you're staying at a hotel at a strip in Vegas, you better have a pretty good reason for why a taxpayer should be funding the stay."

"It's not like the VA hasn't gotten into trouble for credit card abuses in the past," he added. "I find it hard to justify any government purchase from Sharper Image — unless you get something really goofy, it's going to be cheaper elsewhere."

Penalties for misuse of government credit cards range from suspension of the credit card to a reprimand and disciplinary action. Employees may be criminally prosecuted for fraud. More serious cases in recent years involved purchases of computers, televisions, DVD players and other items that were then sold to friends or kept for personal use.

"It's all being looked at," said Belinda Finn, the VA's assistant inspector general for auditing, in a telephone interview. Pointing to Sharper Image purchases in particular, Finn said many of the VA expenses identified by the AP raised serious "red flags."

"For a lot of the transactions on purchase cards, to be effective you really need to keep a close watch," she said. "It's really the first-level supervisors who know what's going on the most."

Congressional leaders said the expenditures were troubling.

Rep. Harry Mitchell, chairman of the House Veterans' Affairs subcommittee on oversight, said he would question VA officials about the purchases at a hearing set for July. Mitchell, D-Ariz., said he feared there may be "a growing culture of wasteful spending at the VA."

He noted that former VA Secretary Jim Nicholson had awarded more than $3.8 million in bonus payments to senior officials despite their roles in crafting a flawed budget that fell $1 billion short.

"It seems irresponsible that while our veterans are waiting months for doctor's appointments, the VA is spending thousands of dollars at Las Vegas casino hotels and high-end retail shops instead of seeking out more affordable or cost-free alternatives," Mitchell said.

Sen. Daniel Akaka, who heads the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee, said he planned to closely review the upcoming audit reports to see if spending controls needed to be tightened.

"I remain concerned that the federal government may end up paying more than necessary when employees purchase items one-by-one," said Akaka, D-Hawaii. "While I am confident that the vast majority of these charges are appropriate and legal, I urge VA to aggressively investigate allegations of fraud."

Over the years, lawmakers and watchdog groups have pointed to the potential abuse of government purchase cards, particularly at large agencies such as Defense, Homeland Security and VA, where card spending for goods ranging from defibrillators and prosthetics to Starbucks coffee has climbed from $1.7 billion in 2003 to $2.6 billion today.

In the past, purchase cards have been improperly used to pay for prostitutes, gambling activity and even breast implants.

After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the GAO estimated that 45 percent of Homeland Security purchase card spending during a six-month period was improper and included iPods, designer rain jackets and beer-making equipment. The credit-card bills are directly payable by Uncle Sam.

In 2004, the GAO faulted the VA for at least $300,000 in questionable charges, citing 3,348 movie gift certificates totaling over $30,000 that lacked documentation. Echoing similar concerns by the department's inspector general, investigators urged greater use of volume discounts and flagged several high-end retailers as questionable vendors that would require detailed paperwork to justify.

Among the other areas investigators say raise "red flags":

_Movie expenses. VA employees in 2007 made 68 charges totaling roughly $21,000 at Regal Cinemas. In light of previous questionable purchases of movie tickets, investigators say they will review the transactions case by case to see if the 2007 purchases are supported by the proper paperwork.

_Charges of $227.50 for harbor cruises in Baltimore and seven expenses totaling more than $6,603 at various Macy's locations. Such vendors were cited by the GAO in 2004 as questionable by virtue of the goods they typically provided and would need full documentation by VA employees to justify.

In response, the VA said it often pays for movies or harbor cruises as part of outpatient recreational therapy it provides for patients with schizophrenia and other problems. The VA did not immediately say whether all the required paperwork was submitted.

"I'm very concerned about frivolous, wasteful spending at the VA," said Paul Sullivan, executive director of Veterans for Common Sense. "With hundreds of thousands of veterans homeless, VA employees don't need to be staying at ritzy-glitzy high-priced hotels, possibly gambling with taxpayers' money."

U.S. Peace Alliance Bill

There is currently a bill before the U.S. House of Representatives to establish a United States Department of Peace. This historic measure will augment our current problem-solving options, providing practical, nonviolent solutions to the problems of domestic and international conflict.

The legislation will pass from bill to law under one condition: that a wave of citizen interest rise up from the American people and make itself heard in the halls of Congress.

During the 20th Century, over 100 million people lost their lives to war -- most of whom were non-combatants. Now, at the dawn of the 21st century, the extent and current speed of nuclear proliferation makes the achievement of non-violent alternatives to war the most urgent need of the human race.

A Department of Peace will work to:

-- Provide much-needed assistance to efforts by city, county, and state governments in coordinating existing programs; as well as develop new programs based on best practices nationally

-- Teach violence prevention and mediation to America's school children

-- Effectively treat and dismantle gang psychology

-- Rehabilitate the prison population

-- Build peace-making efforts among conflicting cultures both here and abroad

-- Support our military with complementary approaches to peace-building.

-- Create and administer a U.S. Peace Academy, acting as a sister organization to the U.S. Military Academy.

From the growing rate of domestic incarceration to increasing problems of international violence, the United States has no more serious problem in our midst than the problem of violence itself. Prison-building is our largest urban industry, and we spend over 400 billion dollars a year on military-related expenditures. Yet there is within the workings of the U.S. government, no platform from which to seriously wage peace. We place no institutional heft behind an effort to address the causal issues of violence, diminishing its psychological force before it erupts into material conflict. From child abuse to genocide, from the murder of one to the slaughter of thousands, it is increasingly senseless to merely wait until violence has erupted before addressing the deeper well from which it springs.

The problem of violence is a many layered one, and its solution will be, as well. While no one action -- governmental or otherwise -- will provide a single solution to such an entrenched and deeply rooted problem, we must treat the problem itself as an all-systems breakdown requiring an all-systems response.

The campaign to establish a U.S. Department of Peace is only one aspect of a fundamental response to the problem of violence, but it is critical. It represents an important collective effort, as American citizens, to do everything we possibly can to save the world for our children's children.

Throughout America, there are countless peace-builders and peace-building projects. Those skilled in ameliorating the effects of violence - from conflict resolution experts to nonviolent communicators - have proven their effectiveness at treating root causes of violence. Peace is more than the absence of war; it is a positive state of being predicated on the presence of a peaceful heart. The mission of the Peace Alliance is to move this realization from the margins of our political dialogue to its rightful, central place within our national understanding. The humanitarian impulse to foster brotherhood and justice is not just an utopian ideal; it is an issue critical to our national security.

Domestically, the Department of Peace will develop policies and allocate resources to effectively reduce the levels of domestic and gang violence, child abuse, and various other forms of societal discord. Internationally, the Department will advise the President and Congress on the most sophisticated ideas and techniques regarding peace-creation among nations.

The Peace Alliance educates and inspires thousands throughout the country with the knowledge, skill and enthusiasm to become powerful citizen activists on behalf of the Department of Peace legislation. Our campaign has citizen organizers working in all 50 states. Local activists are mobilizing a mighty wave of momentum by working with their members of congress, writing editorials, doing local radio and TV interviews, organizing local talks and trainings, getting city council endorsements, visiting with Police Chiefs, Fire Chiefs, Military Officials, Prison Officials, Directors of Abuse Shelters, School Boards, etc. to share and discuss how a Department of Peace would benefit their community.

U.S. Peace Alliance Bill (http://www.thepeacealliance.org/content/view/76/68/)
~~~~~~~~~~~

How sad that mankind still believes there can be peace without God. :'(

I will be e-mailing my senators and congressman asking them to vote no on this bill.

Massachusetts suffering fallout from universal healthcare program

A leading healthcare reform expert says she's not surprised that the new universal healthcare program in Massachusetts brokered by former Governor Mitt Romney and Senator Ted Kennedy is running several hundred million dollars over budget.

Associated Press reports costs are soaring for the new healthcare law in Massachusetts. Bay State lawmakers are considering a dollar-a-pack hike in the state's cigarette tax to help pay for the larger-than-expected enrollment in the law's subsidized insurance plans. Under the law, anyone making less than the federal poverty level is eligible for free care. Those making up to three times the poverty level can get subsidized plans.

Grace-Marie Turner, president of the Virginia-based Galen Institute, says although the number of insured residents has risen by nearly 350,000 since Mitt Romney signed the law two years ago, virtually all of it is subsidized by the taxpayer.

"When you make health insurance virtually free, people will sign up -- but then somebody has to pay the bill," Turner explains. "And not only are they looking at new taxes [to pay that bill], but they're also trying to put more and more clamps on prices to try to keep the prices down ...." But as most people know, she adds, "price controls don't work."

The president of the Galen Institute contends the state practiced bad budgeting. "If they expected to get to universal coverage, they should have assumed that all the people who are going to get free or nearly free care would sign up," she argues. "So something's not connecting here.

"I think it shows the difficulty of starting out with a goal for universal coverage without first addressing the important issue of cost," she continues, posing questions that should have been addressed up front. "Why does healthcare [and] why does health insurance cost so much? What can we do about that? And then expand coverage to more affordable coverage rather than trying to clamp a lid on the current system, as Massachusetts did."

Turner points out while more Massachusetts residents now may have an insurance card, they also have a bigger tax burden as a result of the state's new universal healthcare law -- and on top of that, they do not have better access to a doctor. "[E]ven people who have private insurance [and] are paying their premiums are finding it increasingly difficult to find doctors who will see them," she notes.

Some Bay State residents, Turner explains, are being put on waiting lists of 6-8 weeks to just get a physical because there are not enough primary-care doctors see all the people who now have insurance.

Turner says it is unfortunate that when there is a bigger role for government in the health sector -- as there is now in Massachusetts -- it opens the doors for bureaucracy to increase price, create mandates, and ultimately take away individuals' freedom to find the kind of health insurance that would better suit them.

Despite admission, latest Hill scandal 'still a whodunit'
Rogue $1- million entry popped up in spending bill after vote, before sent to president

Even as more information leaks out about the latest Congressional scandal, Congress is struggling to decide how – or whether – to investigate itself.

The crux of the scandal, known as "Coconut Road," is simple: When Congress passes a law, its wording is not supposed to change before it goes to the president for his signature.

But in 2005, a rogue entry popped up in a spending bill after the House and Senate had already voted on it, but before it landed on President Bush's desk.

The entry directed $10 million to Florida authorities to build a highway interchange they didn't want, but which would open up thousands of acres to be developed. That land was owned by a major contributor to Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska.

Pursued by bloggers and a watchdog group, the source of the tiny provision – known as "Coconut Road" – has mushroomed into a full-blown scandal. The Department of Justice has opened an investigation into the matter, while Congress is debating how (and whether) to investigate how anyone could manage to pull such a fast one.

For months, no one has come forward to take credit. But this morning, unnamed members of Young's staff are quoted in the Washington Post saying that yes, unnamed committee aides for Young "corrected" the law after it had been passed by Congress. Young's office insisted that campaign donations were not the motive to make the change.

The earmarked money was always supposed to be for the interchange, but had been written as generic highway improvements, Young's spokeswoman said. So they changed it.

Mystery solved? Hardly, says Keith Ashdown, a spending watchdog whose group, Taxpayers for Common Sense, first investigated the Coconut Road earmark and took the rare step of asking the House Ethics Committee for an investigation – six months ago.

For one thing, the role of another Florida congressman, Republican Connie Mack, is unclear. Mack "disavowed any association with the earmark request," the Post reported Wednesday - yet he authored a letter at the time expressing support for the controversial interchange. He has since pushed to reverse the earmark.

"This is still a case of whodunit," said Ashdown. The identities of those involved are still unknown, he said, as well as those of anyone who may have directed the change – nor is it public knowledge what other staffers may have known about the illicit tweak.

"Other staff were involved," Ashdown said Wednesday. "We believe they didn’t intend to do wrong, but at best they were asleep at the switch. . . [but] they let this happen."

U.S. to provide nuke fuel to Arab states
Iran triggering proliferation concerns in Middle East

The Bush administration quietly signed an agreement to supply the United Arab Emirates with nuclear fuel and technology amid concerns Iran's continued enrichment of uranium will spur nuclear proliferation in the Middle East.

The decision to go ahead with the UAE nuclear program also follows Treasury Department talks with UAE Sovereign Wealth Funds, positioning the federation of seven Gulf states to make further investments in U.S. financial institutions this year.

Wall Street financial analysts remain concerned that U.S. banks and securities firms will need additional capital infusions later this year as their asset bases continue to erode in the unfolding crisis in mortgage-backed securities.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdulla bin Zayed Al-Nahyan signed a memorandum of understanding Monday in which the U.S. agreed to support the UAE in the development of domestic nuclear technology for generating energy.

The UAE's Nuclear Energy Program Implementation Organization set the stage Sunday for the agreement with the State Department by issuing a white paper recommending the UAE forgo the domestic enrichment of uranium in favor of importing nuclear fuel from other nations, including the U.S.

In issuing the white paper, UAE Foreign Minister Sheik bin Zayed al-Nahayan emphasized the UAE created the Nuclear Energy Program Implementation Organization to develop the nation's peaceful nuclear energy program, complying with the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency requirements.

The State Department emphasized the agreement falls under the principles spelled out in the Joint Declaration on Nuclear Energy and Nonproliferation, issued by President Bush and then-Russian President Vladimir Putin July 2, 2007.

The agreement exemplifies a growing interest in nuclear technology by Middle East countries, including Saudi Arabia, in response to Iran's decision to continue enriching uranium, despite a U.S.-led move to intensify U.N. sanctions against Tehran.

Iran has consistently rejected a Russian proposal backed by the U.S. and the International Atomic Energy Commission to supply Russian-enriched uranium in exchange for Tehran agreeing to stop its enrichment program.

Earlier this month, Iran reportedly begun installing 6,000 centrifuges at its uranium enrichment plant in Natanz.

Iran now is using advanced IR-2 centrifuges that can enrich uranium at approximately double the rate of the older model P-1 centrifuges.

WND previously reported Arab nations are preparing to invest some $1.7 trillion accumulated in Sovereign Wealth Funds – greatly augmented by windfall profits from this year's oil-price spike – into U.S. companies, including banks and brokerage firms.

WND has reported Dubai and Abu Dhabi, two of the largest United Arab Emirate states, have been in quiet discussions with the U.S. Treasury, offering reassurances that their investments in U.S. banks and security firms would not impose restrictions usually dictated by Islamic law.

In September 2007, Dubai acquired 19.9 percent of the NASDAQ in New York, placing the Arab government in an ownership position of the second largest stock market exchange in the U.S.

In January, the Abu Dhabi government invested $7.5 billion in Citibank for a 4.9 percent provision plus a preferred coupon return of 11 percent, providing Citibank badly needed capital to make up for losses in bank assets suffered as Citibank-held mortgage-backed securities lost value.

'Jihadist' booted from government lexicon

Don't call them jihadists any more.

And don't call al-Qaida a movement.

The Bush administration has launched a new front in the war on terrorism, this time targeting language.

Federal agencies, including the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the National Counter Terrorism Center, are telling their people not to describe Islamic extremists as "jihadists" or "mujahedeen," according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. Lingo like "Islamo-fascism" is out, too.

The reason: Such words may actually boost support for radicals among Arab and Muslim audiences by giving them a veneer of religious credibility or by causing offense to moderates.

For example, while Americans may understand "jihad" to mean "holy war," it is in fact a broader Islamic concept of the struggle to do good, says the guidance prepared for diplomats and other officials tasked with explaining the war on terror to the public. Similarly, "mujahedeen," which means those engaged in jihad, must be seen in its broader context.

U.S. officials may be "unintentionally portraying terrorists, who lack moral and religious legitimacy, as brave fighters, legitimate soldiers or spokesmen for ordinary Muslims," says a Homeland Security report. It's entitled "Terminology to Define the Terrorists: Recommendations from American Muslims."

"Regarding 'jihad,' even if it is accurate to reference the term, it may not be strategic because it glamorizes terrorism, imbues terrorists with religious authority they do not have and damages relations with Muslims around the world," the report says.

Language is critical in the war on terror, says another document, an internal "official use only" memorandum circulating through Washington entitled "Words that Work and Words that Don't: A Guide for Counterterrorism Communication."

The memo, originally prepared in March by the Extremist Messaging Branch at the National Counter Terrorism Center, was approved for diplomatic use this week by the State Department, which plans to distribute a version to all U.S. embassies, officials said.

"It's not what you say but what they hear," the memo says in bold italic lettering, listing 14 points about how to better present the war on terrorism.

"Don't take the bait," it says, urging officials not to react when Osama bin Laden or al-Qaida affiliates speak. "We should offer only minimal, if any, response to their messages. When we respond loudly, we raise their prestige in the Muslim world."

"Don't compromise our credibility" by using words and phrases that may ascribe benign motives to terrorists.

Some other specifics:

_ "Never use the terms 'jihadist' or 'mujahedeen' in conversation to describe the terrorists. ... Calling our enemies 'jihadis' and their movement a global 'jihad' unintentionally legitimizes their actions."

_ "Use the terms 'violent extremist' or 'terrorist.' Both are widely understood terms that define our enemies appropriately and simultaneously deny them any level of legitimacy."

_ On the other hand, avoid ill-defined and offensive terminology: "We are communicating with, not confronting, our audiences. Don't insult or confuse them with pejorative terms such as 'Islamo-fascism,' which are considered offensive by many Muslims."

The memo says the advice is not binding and does not apply to official policy papers but should be used as a guide for conversations with Muslims and media.

At least at the top level, it appears to have made an impact. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who once frequently referred to "jihad" in her public remarks, does not appear to have used the word, except when talking about the name of a specific terrorist group, since last September.

The memo mirrors advice distributed to British and European Union diplomats last year to better explain the war on terrorism to Muslim communities there.

It also draws heavily on the Homeland Security report that examined the way American Muslims reacted to different phrases used by U.S. officials to describe terrorists and recommended ways to improve the message.

Because of religious connotations, that report, released in January and obtained by AP this week, counseled "caution in using terms such as, 'jihadist,' 'Islamic terrorist,' 'Islamist,' and 'holy warrior' as grandiose descriptions."

"We should not concede the terrorists' claim that they are legitimate adherents of Islam," the report said, adding that bin Laden and his adherents fear "irrelevance" more than anything else.

"We must carefully avoid giving bin Laden and other al-Qaida leaders the legitimacy they crave, but do not possess, by characterizing them as religious figures, or in terms that may make them seem to be noble in the eyes of some," it said.

House passes Coast Guard bill despite Bush veto threat

Defying President Bush's threatened veto, the House on Thursday overwhelmingly approved a bill making the Coast Guard enforce security zones around eight liquefied natural gas terminals and any arriving tankers _all potential terrorism targets.
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The White House has complained that the requirement would divert the Coast Guard from other high-priority missions and provide an "unwarranted subsidy" for LNG owners.

The 395-7 vote margin on the $8.4 billion Coast Guard bill was well beyond the two-thirds needed to override a presidential veto. Seven Republicans voted against the measure.

After the vote, the White House praised the passage of a GOP-backed amendment to the bill that permits the Coast Guard to take into account agency, state and local government security resources when deciding on security plans for LNG sites.

"The administration remains concerned about several key provisions in the House bill," said White House spokesman Trey Bohn. "However, the veto threat prompted members to adopt a Republican amendment which made significant changes to the bill. We will continue to work with members of Congress as this legislation moves forward."

The Senate is considering its own version of the bill.

Democrats scoffed at the White House's objections, saying Bush is ignoring the huge security threat posed by LNG sites on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts.

"I am simply appalled that this administration would refer to protecting our families as an unwarranted and unnecessary subsidy," said Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., who chairs the House Transportation subcommittee that oversees the Coast Guard.

A dozen more LNG terminals are being planned due to increased demand for natural gas and limited domestic supplies.

Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., said the LNG security provision could hamper the flow of much-needed natural gas as energy prices and demand rise. "We're creating more red tape and more impediments," Mica said.

The Government Accountability Office says a terrorism attack on an LNG tanker arriving at a terminal could ignite an explosion and fire so fierce that people a mile away would be burned. But GAO auditors also say the Coast Guard is already stretched too thin to meet its own standards for protecting arriving LNG tankers from attack.

The bill also sets stricter crime reporting requirements for cruise ships and requires double hulls around fuel tanks on large cargo ships to prevent catastrophic oil spills like the one in San Francisco Bay in November.

To address complaints that crimes aboard cruise ships are underreported, the bill makes line operators report to the Homeland Security Department all security incidents, including deaths, serious bodily injuries and sexual assaults.

Cruise lines also are required to post crime statistics on an Internet site maintained by the Coast Guard, with links from the cruise line public Web sites.

"Sometimes, even cruise ships need sunshine," said Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Calif.

Cruise lines last year announced a voluntary agreement with the FBI and the Coast Guard to improve and standardize crime reporting.

"The bottom line is, the crime statistics provided by the cruise industry are inaccurate and inadequate," said Rep. Chris Shays, R-Conn. "This has got to change."

Cruise line industry officials say the reporting requirement is redundant, since they are already doing so voluntarily.

The bill also addresses a problem that has plagued the Great Lakes region: invasive species that sneak into U.S. waters aboard oceangoing cargo ships and wreak havoc. Oceangoing ships would be required to install ballast water treatment equipment to keep foreign species from U.S. waters.

Ballast tanks help stabilize ships in rough ocean waters. But ballast water is widely considered a leading source of aquatic invaders, which compete with native species for food and habitat.

At least 185 invasive species have been identified in the Great Lakes, including zebra and quagga mussels, which clog water pipes and do more than $150 million worth of damage a year.

"This is a great day for the Great Lakes and the coastal areas," said Rep. Vernon Ehlers, R-Mich. "Let's get out there and fight those nasty zebra mussels."

The bill also would increase the Coast Guard by 1,500 members to 47,000. Another provision would tighten agency management controls over Deepwater, the $24 billion program to modernize the agency's aging fleet. It has been plagued by cost overruns, design flaws and lax oversight.

Measure would benefit injured, disabled vets

Congressman Steve Pearce is touting a bill that would make it easier for injured or disabled military members to land a non-combat job in their branch of the armed forces.

Pearce (R-New Mexico) says very few of the American young people who are wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan get the opportunity to remain in uniform and make a career. To address that issue, he has introduced the Wounded Warriors Retention Act, a measure that would allow those injured or disabled in combat to get preferential consideration for desk jobs that serve logistical support roles.

"We got to looking all the way back to the Vietnam War and found that our disabled vets really did have difficulty just living life," the lawmaker points out. "Now these are the people who we sent over to fight for us, and then we kind of forget them. So we said let's not forget; most of them can make their own way -- they just need some sort of ability to stay in the service."

Pearce notes it takes seven people to put every soldier on the field. He argues it is a "tremendous" waste of human service unless those returning from the battlefield are given an opportunity to continue to serve their country.

"And the consequence of not doing that is that if we just pitch these people out on the street, they're looking at a 50 percent chance of being unemployed," he points out. "I have a brother in a wheelchair, so I've watched that since 1974 -- he's always found a job, but he's in that community of disabled."

Pearce, who says he does not anticipate opposition to the bill, calls it "a powerful piece of legislation that speaks to the heart of America." He also says "it's the right thing to do" for individuals who have "made a deep sacrifice."

The Republican from the Land of Enchantment is giving up his House position to run for the seat being vacated by longtime Senator Pete Domenici (R-New Mexico), who is retiring.

New York strikes blow for 1st Amendment
Governor signs law protecting residents against suits in foreign courts

New York state fought back today against terrorism apologists who have used foreign libel laws to silence opponents as Gov. David Paterson signed a law granting protections under the First Amendment.

The Libel Terrorism Protection Act was inspired by New York-based author Rachel Ehrenfeld's battle with a British court over her 2003 book, "Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Funded and How to Stop It."

New York officials said the law will make it more difficult for "libel tourists" to threaten authors and publishers with foreign libel suits. It bars enforcement of a libel judgment in foreign courts unless a New York court determines the decision is consistent with the free speech and free press protections guaranteed by the U.S. and New York state constitutions.

"New Yorkers must be able to speak out on issues of public concern without living in fear that they will be sued outside the United States, under legal standards inconsistent with our First Amendment rights," said Paterson. "This legislation will help ensure the freedoms enjoyed by New York authors."

Ehrenfeld, a WND contributor, called the law "a wonderful precedent," according to Publisher's Weekly.

She intends to "go back to court and win the case" and hopes "other American authors will continue to expose what needs to be exposed and that publishers will not be shy in publishing it."

Britain's libel law has been used in a number of instances against writers who speak out against international terrorism.

As WND reported, Saudi banker Khalid Bin Mahfouz filed suit against Ehrenfeld after she named him in her New York-published book as a funder of Islamic charities that supported terrorism.

She asserts there are more than 10 lawsuits outstanding by numerous plaintiffs in the U.S. claiming billions of dollars in damages from Mahfouz's alleged involvement in financing the 9/11 attack of the World Trade Center.

Only 23 copies of her book were sold in the United Kingdom, but Mahfouz took advantage of the country's liberal laws and filed the suit there, charging damage to his reputation.

The British court issued a $225,000 judgment against Ehrenfeld after she refused to appear, on advice of her counsel in Britain. The author then sought a judgment in New York declaring the British decision unenforceable in the U.S., because her work is protected under American law.

The New York Court of Appeals ruled Ehrenfeld's suit could not be heard under state law unless legislature made changes.

Paterson, who succeeded disgraced Gov. Eliot Spitzer last month, urged the federal government to take similar action.

"Although New York state has now done all it can to protect our authors while they live in New York, they remain vulnerable if they move to other states, or if they have assets in other states," said Paterson. "We really need Congress and the president to work together and enact federal legislation that will protect authors throughout the country against the threat of foreign libel judgments."

State Sen. Dean G. Skelos noted "the truth is a critically-important component of the war on terror."

"American authors, like Dr. Ehrenfeld, who expose terrorist networks and their financiers should not be subject to intimidation and lawsuits in foreign courts designed to circumvent our First Amendment rights," he said. "This is important legislation, and I thank Governor Paterson for signing it into law."

WND reported last year Cambridge University Press defaulted on a libel suit filed by Mahfouz, issuing an apology and agreeing to pay court fees and damages and destroy all unsold copies of a 2006 book by two American authors.

Daniel Pipes, director of the Middle East Forum, said at the time that Cambridge University Press's apology had "ominous implications" for investigators of terrorism financing.

National DNA database gets kickstart from feds
Tests could reveal facts 'making individual less useful to society'

With virtually no fanfare, President Bush signed into law a plan ordering the government to take no more than six months to set up a "national contingency plan" to screen newborns' DNA in case of a "public health emergency."

The new law requires that the results of the program – including "information … research, and data on newborn screening" – shall be assembled by a "central clearinghouse" and made available on the Internet.

According to congressional records, S.1858, sponsored by Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., was approved in the Senate Dec. 13, in the House April 8 and signed by Bush April 24.

"Soon, under this bill, the DNA of all citizens will be housed in government genomic biobanks and considered governmental property for government research," said Twila Brase, president of the Citizens' Council on Health Care. "The DNA taken at birth from every citizen is essentially owned by the government, and every citizen becomes a potential subject of government-sponsored genetic research."

Brase has objected extensively to plans in Minnesota to provide state government the same option now handed to the federal government by Congress.

The bill, she said, strips "citizens of genetic privacy rights and DNA property rights. It bill also violates research ethics and the Nuremberg Code.

"The public is clueless. S. 1858 imposes a federal agenda of DNA databanking and population-wide genetic research," Brase continued. "It does not require consent and there are no requirements to fully inform parents about the warehousing of their child's DNA for the purpose of genetic research.

"Already, in Minnesota, the state health department reports that 42,210 children of the 780,000 whose DNA is housed in the Minnesota 'DNA warehouse' have been subjected to genetic research without their parent's knowledge or consent," she said.

The federal plan sets up the coast-to-coast DNA collections then report the results to "physicians and families" as well as educate families about newborn screening.

"We now are considered guinea pigs, as opposed to human beings with rights," said Brase, warning such DNA databases could spark the next wave of demands for eugenics, the concept of improving the human race through the control of various inherited traits. Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, advocated eugenics to cull from the population types of people she considered unfit.

In 1921, Sanger said eugenics is "the most adequate and thorough avenue to the solution of racial, political and social problems," and she later lamented "the ever increasing, unceasingly spawning class of human beings who never should have been born at all."

Such DNA collection programs are offered as screening requirements to detect treatable illnesses. Currently, the type of tests conducted varies from state-to-state, but the Health Resources and Services Administration has requested a report that would "include a recommendation for a uniform panel of conditions."

"Fortunately," Dodd said when his plan was launched, "some newborn screening occurs in every state. … This legislation will provide resources for states to expand their newborn screening programs."

So what's the big deal about looking into DNA to hunt for various disease possibilities?

Nothing, said Brase, if that's where the hunt would end.

However, she said, "researchers already are looking for genes related to violence, crime and different behaviors."

"This isn't just about diabetes, asthma and cancer," she said. "It's also about behavioral issues."

"In England they decided they should have doctors looking for problem children, and have those children reported, and their DNA taken in case they would become criminals," she said.

In fact, published reports in the UK note that senior police forensics experts believe genetic samples should be studied, because it may be possible to identify potential criminals as young as age 5.

In Britain, Chris Davis of the National Primary Headteachers' Association warned the move could be seen "as a step towards a police state."

Brase said efforts to study traits and gene factors and classify people would be just the beginning. What could happen through subsequent programs to address such conditions, she wondered.

"Not all research is great," she said. Classifying of people could lead to "discrimination and prejudice. … People can look at data about you and make assessments ultimately of who you are."

The Heartland Regional Genetics and Newborn Screening is one of the organizations that advocates more screening and research.

It proclaims in its vision statement a desire to see newborns screened for 200 conditions. It also forecasts "every student … with an individual program for education based on confidential interpretation of their family medical history, their brain imaging, their genetic predictors of best learning methods…"

Further, every individual should share information about "personal and family health histories" as well as "gene tests for recessive conditions and drug metabolism" with the "other parent of their future children."

Still further, it seeks "ecogenetic research that could improve health, lessen disability, and lower costs for sickness."

"They want to test every child for 200 conditions, take the child's history and a brain image, and genetics, and come up with a plan for that child," Brase said. "They want to learn their weaknesses and defects.

"Nobody including and especially the government should be allowed to create such extensive profiles," she said.

The next step, said Brase, is obvious: The government, with information about potential health weaknesses, could say to couples, "We don't want your expensive children."

"I think people have forgotten about eugenics. The fact of the matter is that the eugenicists have not gone away. Newborn genetic testing is the entry into the 21st Century version of eugenics," she said.

The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons has posted a position statement on the issue, noting that many good things can result from genetic testing.

However, it expressed two significant areas of concern.

"History shows that this information will sometimes be leaked or misused, regardless of who controls it. When private companies leak information and break people's confidence, they have often been exposed and punished, as people no longer buy their services or sue. In contrast, when government agencies do the same, the guilty bureaucrats have often been protected and rewarded instead of suffering meaningful consequences," the group said.

The AAPS said in order to do the best possible job of protecting privacy, anyone who has access to DNA data should be "individually liable in the event of unlawful disclosure of genetic testing information. …"

The other area of concern is equally significant.

"Genetic testing could be used for purposes found immoral in the Hippocratic medical tradition. For example, a utilitarian use of testing, in this example also immoral, would be to test for conditions which would make an individual less useful to society for the purpose of killing that person, as has been done in some totalitarian systems, such as Nazi Germany. Likewise, the use of genetic testing in attempts to breed a super race would be immoral and unethical. In these examples, the utility of the person to the society is the deciding factor, a position antithetical to the Hippocratic tradition of primary responsibility to the individual patient rather than to an amorphous society or relativistic social policies," the group said.

U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, was one of the few voices to warn of the dangers. Before the plan's approval, he said, "I cannot support legislation, no matter how much I sympathize with the legislation’s stated goals, that exceed the Constitutional limitations on federal power or in any way threatens the liberty of the American people. Since S. 1858 violates the Constitution, and may have untended consequences that will weaken the American health care system and further erode medical privacy, I must oppose it."

Paul said, "S. 1858 gives the federal bureaucracy the authority to develop a model newborn screening program. Madame Speaker the federal government lacks both the constitutional authority and the competence to develop a newborn screening program adequate for a nation as large and diverse as the United States. …"

He also said as the federal government assumes more control over health care, medical privacy is coming under assault.

"Those of us in the medical profession should be particularly concerned about policies allowing government officials and state-favored interests to access our medical records without our consent … My review of S. 1858 indicates the drafters of the legislation made no effort to ensure these newborn screening programs do not violate the privacy rights of parents and children," Paul continued.

"In fact, by directing federal bureaucrats to create a contingency plan for newborn screening in the event of a 'public health' disaster, this bill may lead to further erosions of medical privacy. As recent history so eloquently illustrates, politicians are more than willing to take, and people are more than willing to cede, liberty during times of 'emergency," he said.

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Brothers and Sisters,

This is illegal and Unconstitutional. It isn't just borderline - rather outrageous. As far as I'm concerned, they will need to learn one of three options: 1 ) NO!; 2 ) Get a court order for cases involving reasonable grounds that the person has committed a crime; 3 ) Whistle Dixie in the key of the person's choice. Invasion of a person's body is a serious matter and can only be done with either the person's consent or a court order. If it involves consent for medical treatment, the person receiving treatment decides who has access to that information and must sign a release of information form designating who can get that information.

There are cases involving serious crimes where various identifiers can be taken without the person's consent. Fingerprints and photographs are normal and have been authorized for many years. Other identifiers are quite possible, but they nearly always involve either the person's consent or a court order. In many cases, the other identifiers are used to eliminate the person as a suspect, so it's common for the innocent to consent and clear themselves. The difference here is the limited scope of what those OTHER identifiers can be used for: MAJOR CRIMES.

It's already common for hospitals to take finger and palm prints and footprints to identify newborn babies. This is more than sufficient for positive identification and has one purpose of settling disputes that the parents may have taken the wrong baby home. It also provides proof for a birth certificate and location of birth. OTHER testing is done for MEDICAL TREATMENT ONLY for possible or existing health problems or diseases in the baby. Pre-natal care is for the same purpose. The only other thing that comes to play in some cases involves dangerous communicable diseases that could potentially infect many other people. I might have missed some reasonable uses of identifiers, BUT ESTABLISHING A GOVERNMENT DOSSIER ON NEWBORN BABIES WILL NEVER BE LEGAL OR CONSTITUTIONAL WITHOUT THE PARENT'S CONSENT OR A COURT ORDER!

These OTHER IDENTIFIERS are none of the government's business without consent or the appropriate cause in a COURT ORDER. Invasion of a person's body is considered to be the WORST kind of invasion of privacy. It also involves the WORST CASE OF UNREASONABLE SEARCH AND SEIZURE! Property certainly involves a lower level of SEARCH AND SEIZURE, but that also most involve either PROBABLE CAUSE in a CRIME and/or A COURT ORDER. Acceptable methods of SEARCH AND SEIZURE are established by the LAW of the People and the CONSTITUTION of the People. It definitely involves a PERSON'S CIVIL AND CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS that can't be taken away without a change OF THE LAW AND THE CONSTITUTION BY THE PEOPLE! In the absence of a LAWFUL change, those participating in the acts of this article would be subject to CIVIL DAMAGES AND CRIMINAL PROSECUTION. The only way I know of that LAWFUL changes could be made INVOLVES A VOTE OF THE PEOPLE because RIGHTS in the Constitution would have to be removed! IN OTHER WORDS: THE GOVERNMENT CAN FORGET THIS OUTRAGEOUS, ILLEGAL, AND UNCONSTITUTIONAL CONDUCT! ANY ATTEMPT TO DO IT ANYWAY SHOULD INVOLVE PRISON! This would be a SERIOUS VIOLATION of civil and Constitutional RIGHTS UNDER THE COLOR OF LAW!

Congress to transform America to socialism?

The classic definition of socialism is: government control of the sources of production. A bill now before Congress, H.R. 2421, will give the federal government absolute control over all sources of production. This bill, if enacted, will instantly convert the United States into a socialist nation.

The debate, however, is not about the merits of socialism over capitalism and free markets; the debate is about water. The bill will give to the federal government control over all water in the United States, and control over all "… activities affecting these waters."

Water is essential in the production of virtually everything. If the government controls water, and all "activities affecting these waters," then the government controls the sources of production.

There is absolutely no need for the government to take this draconian step. Water is already regulated far beyond necessity. The control and regulation of water has stripped property rights from people in every state – often for no definable public benefit. This bill will destroy the last vestige of the idea of private property rights.

For more than a generation, the liberal philosophy that government should "manage" society has prevailed in the education system and in practice. The 1973 Endangered Species Act gave the federal government power to declare private property to be "critical habitat" under the jurisdiction of the federal government. Court decisions in the 1980s defined privately owned "wetlands" to be the jurisdiction of the federal government. The 1990s saw the rise of comprehensive planning as the most effective way to control the use of land. Now, we're faced with a bill to give government the power to control the use of water and all "activities affecting these waters," and with it goes all claims to private property rights.

Americans have accepted the idea that the protection of a single population of a sub-species of some bug or weed is more important than the rights of the property owner. Americans have accepted the idea that some appointed planning council knows better how land should be used than the people who own and pay taxes on the land. Now, Americans are expected to accept the notion that government should control the water supply, and thereby control the sources of all production.

With all the wailing and gnashing of teeth about the current economic downturn, no one seems to be pointing to government's involvement in and mismanagement of the marketplace. Why Americans sat by and allowed government to take their freedom away piecemeal is a mystery posterity will surely ponder. Historically, Americans rallied behind whatever effort it took to keep socialism from overtaking this nation. Now, Congress is moving rapidly toward enacting a law that will effectively embrace socialism.

The voices in Washington in opposition to this transformation are few and are drowned out by big-name officials who command media attention. This condition did not occur overnight. For a generation, a government-controlled education system has produced people who actually believe that government should be the master of society, rather than society being the master of government.

For a generation, these people have been gaining political power in local, state and federal offices. Now, it is difficult to find an elected body of government anywhere that is not dominated by people who believe the power of government must supersede the power of the people.

This condition will not be corrected overnight – if ever. Someone has to teach a new generation why the U.S. Constitution produced the most prosperous nation ever. Someone has to explain to a new generation the difference between a free market and a market managed by government. Someone has to teach a new generation that the exercise of freedom does not require the government's permission.

The "someone" here will be the people who are elected to local, state and federal offices over the next several years. If the people who cherish freedom over government control fail to find and elect like-minded representatives, then freedom will continue to fade and government control – socialism – will continue to flourish.

Listen carefully to the candidates for every office, and reject those who campaign for more government programs and more government control. Identify those in the city council, county commission and in the state legislatures who vote for expanded government control – and vote for their opponents (if they advocate more freedom). Look at the list of cosponsors of H.R. 2421, and tell them to vote against this socialist bill. Read the bill yourself, and don't let your representative tell you that it doesn't expand government power over all "activities affecting these waters."

This bill is expected to see floor action within the next several weeks. If it is enacted, it will not likely ever be undone. Once government gets its hands on new power, it is never relinquished.

Emissions bill could harm economy

A new piece of legislation designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, blamed for creating manmade "catastrophic" global warming, will lead to even higher energy costs and a nearly unprecedented expansion of federal government – says a climate change researcher.

The bill sponsored by Senators Joe Lieberman (I-Connecticut) and John Warner (R-Virginia) calls for capping carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, transportation and industrial sources to achieve a 70 percent reduction in greenhouse gases by 2050. Lieberman argues the bill "curbs global warming without harming the U.S. economy."

But Marc Morano, minority communications director for the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, says the Lieberman-Warner bill would do untold damage to the country.

"The U.S. unilaterally trying to reduce emissions by 2050 [or] 2070, as various bills call for, will not have any detectable impact on the climate, pure symbolism – that's point one," he debates. "Point two, now we have a host of government and private sector studies that have come out now just showing that Lieberman-Warner will raise home energy [costs]...[and] it's going to cost jobs all across the board, there is no way to slice it," warns Morano.

The Energy Information Administration projects the Lieberman-Warner bill could lead to increases in Americans' average annual household energy bills of up to $325 in 2020 and $723 by 2030.

Morano also warns that the bill will also create new government agencies that will handle carbon pricing or carbon cap and trade. He believes that creating this type of bureaucracy will expand the federal government to record size.

Senator Jim Inhofe (R-Oklahoma) recently dared his colleagues to stand up on the Senate floor a month from now and support a bill that will further raise gas prices. The bill is expected to be debated in the Senate in June, but Republicans have vowed to filibuster the measure if it is not amended.

Same-sex marriage dispute on fast track
9th Circuit expedites appeal of decision to invalidate petition drive

Oregon citizens who say their rejection of same-sex marriage was quashed by the state legislature scored a small legal victory in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

The appeals court granted a motion by the Alliance Defense Fund to expedite the appeal of a federal court judge's decision that invalidated a voter petition drive.

As WND reported, a coalition of citizen groups want Oregonians to decide on a law that created "domestic partnerships" for homosexuals and lesbians in the state. But state officials contended the petition drive failed because there were too many invalid signatures.

With the margin of failure a mere five votes, several citizens went to their county offices to find out whether their valid signatures had been counted and discovered they had not.

But county officials, citing orders from state officials, refused to count the signatures, prompting a lawsuit from the Alliance Defense Fund.

At a Feb. 1 hearing, U.S. District Judge Michael Mosman essentially determined voters in Oregon have no legal right to have their petition signatures counted, the ADF said.

ADF Senior Legal Counsel Austin R. Nimocks contended "no legitimate reason existed to refuse to allow these registered voters to participate in the democratic process."

"Our country is founded on the basic principle of government of the people, by the people, and for the people," he said. "It should stay that way in Oregon."

The ADF submitted evidence showing county clerks simply refused petition signers' requests to count their signatures after they had been "wrongfully rejected."

Oregon voters already have rejected same-sex marriage. In 2004, several thousand same-sex couples were given marriage licenses in Multnomah County, prompting Oregonians to approve by a 57-43 percent margin a constitutional ban on homosexual marriages. A court later nullified the licenses.

Pastors Urged to Preach About Politics, in Hopes of Toppling IRS Ban

NEW YORK — Conservative legal advocates are recruiting pastors nationwide to defy an IRS ban on preaching about politicians, in a challenge they hope will abolish the restriction.

The Alliance Defense Fund, based in Scottsdale, Ariz., will ask the clergy to deliver a sermon about specific candidates Sept. 28. If the action triggers an IRS investigation, the legal group will sue to overturn the federal rules, which were enacted in 1954.

Under the IRS code, churches can distribute voter guides, run voter registration drives, hold forums on public policy and invite politicians to speak at their congregations.

However, they cannot endorse a candidate, and their political activity cannot be biased for or against a candidate, directly or indirectly.

The Alliance Defense Fund said Friday that the regulations amount to an unconstitutional limit on free speech and government intrusion into religion.

“It certainly does have a chilling effect,” said Mike Johnson, senior counsel for the fund. “I think that there is a lot of fear and intimidation and disinformation about the parameters that do exist.”

Johnson said about 100 pastors have expressed interest in participating so far.

The IRS has stepped up monitoring of nonprofit political activity during the 2008 election. Punishments can range from a financial penalty to loss of tax-exempt status.

IRS investigations are confidential and the agency does not discuss the cases.

However, the United Church of Christ, which counts Sen. Barack Obama as a member, has said that it is under IRS review because of a speech given by the Democratic presidential candidate at the denomination’s national meeting last year.

Americans United for Separation of Church and State, an advocacy group in Washington, monitors church political activity and consistently files complaints with the IRS. They said Friday that they will notify the agency of any pastor who participates in the ADF campaign.

Some religious groups support keeping politics out of the pulpit.

J. Brent Walker, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty in Washington, which advocates for religious freedom, said churches should be involved in public issues, but partisan activity can “compromise the essential calling to spread the Gospel.”

“The church can’t raise prophetic fist at a candidate or at a party,” Walker said, “when it’s locked up in a tight bear hug with that candidate or party.”

The Senate is set to consider competing energy packages on Monday or Tuesday, including a Republican proposal that would allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Republican and Democratic leaders recently unveiled separate energy packages designed to show voters Congress is serious about tackling high gasoline prices at the pump. Analysts, however, have given both proposals the thumbs down for containing little that's actually likely to be signed into law.

Republicans – including Sens. Ted Stevens and Lisa Murkowski – are pushing a plan to boost domestic production off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and in Alaska.

Murkowski, a member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, has said she believes oil companies should be allowed to drill for oil along the coast of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and that it can be done in an environmentally sound way.

Republicans claim opening new areas to drilling offshore and in Alaska would produce an additional 24 billion barrels of oil, or enough to satisfy U.S. consumption for five years, which could help knock as much as $63 off the price of a barrel of oil.

The price of West Texas Intermediate light sweet crude oil closed Friday at a record $125.96 a barrel.

"Opening ANWR would allow us produce more here at home, help wean us off foreign oil and provide capital and tax revenue to invest in alternative energy projects" said Aaron Saunders, spokesman for Stevens.

The GOP package includes a number of measures that have failed to pass muster in the past – even some Republicans acknowledge the package is not likely to get out of the starting gate.

The ANWR proposal faces stiff opposition from Democrats and their environmental allies, but Stevens and Murkowski insist it will provide a shot in the arm to the sluggish economy and provide additional domestic oil supplies in the future.

"Opening ANWR is part of a long-term approach to dealing with an energy crisis that is apparent every time consumers fill up their gas tanks or pay their home heating bills," Saunders said. "Americans are simply tired of paying astronomical energy prices because Congress would rather import oil than produce it domestically. It just doesn't make sense."

Allowing oil companies to tap ANWR would eventually add 1 million barrels of oil a day to the nation's supply, but environmentalists argue that new oil is at least 10 years away from reaching the market and will do little to ease energy prices in the near term.

"At some point Congress must change course and do what is best for America," Saunders said. "Yet attempt after attempt is blocked by one party. At some point, this opposition, which is based primarily on misinformation, has to end."

Democrats, meanwhile, introduced their own energy package last week to combat soaring gasoline prices. It focuses on reducing market speculation and reducing drilling incentives for major oil and gas companies.

Big Oil's loss would be renewable energy's gain as Democrats are proposing using revenue from repealing tax breaks for the oil and gas industry to invest in alternative forms of energy.

Members of both parties are expected to support a measure calling for a temporary halt to squirreling away crude oil in the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve while prices remain at record levels.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, is expected to offer an amendment to flood insurance legislation that would suspend filling the reserve if the 90-day average price of crude oil remains above $75 a barrel.

Republicans have already offered a similar measure to stop placing oil in the reserve, however it's expected to face opposition from Democrats because it includes language opening ANWR. The flood insurance bill is expected to come up on the Senate floor as early as Monday night.

Both parties say taking oil off the market tightens supply and exacerbates already high gasoline prices.

The U.S. Department of Energy is putting about 70,000 barrels of oil a day in the reserve as a hedge against future supply disruptions. President George W. Bush has rebuffed calls to halt the program, saying the amount of oil being taken off the market is not enough to affect prices.

Democrats are also unlikely to win support for their broader energy package because of measures that Republicans and the Bush administration see as targeted to punish the oil and gas industry.

The Democrats' plan includes a repeal of $17 billion in tax incentives for oil and gas companies and smacks the biggest oil companies with a tax on windfall profits.

Democrats are not expected to have the votes in the Senate to overcome a Republican filibuster threat or a potential White House veto.

Lawmakers have two weeks to finish work before the start of the Memorial Day recess when they have to go home to face voters frustrated over skyrocketing prices at the pump.

Regular unleaded reached $3.92 a gallon at some stations around Fairbanks over the weekend.

The motorist advocacy group AAA expects the average price in the Lower 48 to reach the $4 a gallon as the summer driving season heats up, which only means higher prices around Fairbanks.

Shielding Official Leakers

There is something unique about what has come to be called the War on Terror. In this conflict, as the U.S. government struggles to defeat the enemy and keep our people safe, it is up against not only those who overtly and unambiguously seek to destroy us. It also confronts those prepared to reveal classified information and programs, even when that makes it harder to vanquish our foes and protect this country.

The latter fall into four principal categories:

• Some call themselves "journalists" who work for traditional news organizations, notably the New York Times. On occasion, they win Pulitzer Prizes for compromising the nation's secrets.

• Some are members of what has come to be called the "new media" or "alternative media." Most traditional journalists detest the idea their trade is practiced by people who find in outlets like online publications, the blogosphere, YouTube and FaceBook vehicles to disseminate information worldwide and instantaneously. But the reach of the Worldwide Web is, well, worldwide and so is the impact of its "journalists."

• Among those making use of these "New Age" tools are some who use the guise of journalism as a cover for our enemy's disinformation and propaganda. In fact, some of the most capable users of the Internet routinely engage in information warfare on behalf of Islamofascist terrorist organizations like al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas and their state sponsors.

• Then there are the individuals who hold positions of trust in the federal government itself. They have been given access to secret data and capabilities on the promise not to reveal such knowledge without authorization. Yet, some choose to violate their oaths in the furtherance of divergent policy agendas. Of course, folks in this category are not journalists. They are called "sources."

It is imperative to consider these four categories as the U.S. Senate prepares to consider legislation with the unobjectionable-sounding name of the "Free Flow of Information Act (FFIA) of 2007." The bill, S. 2035, is better known as the "media shield" law. It would be more accurate to call it the "Leaker and Other Enemies Shield Act."

Freedom of the press is, of course, one of the bedrock principles upon which this nation was founded. And those who dare criticize the media and its efforts to expand privileges it enjoys under the rubric of press freedoms — notably, officials responsible for prosecuting journalists' "confidential government sources" for illegally revealing classified information — generally are subjected to very bad notices.

It is a terrible idea — particularly in time of war — to provide "media shields" to anyone who can claim to be a journalist and to their lawbreaking government sources. Yet S.2035 would do precisely that.

The FFIA creates a highly problematic journalist's privilege. It would effectively prevent the federal government from compelling anyone "engaging in journalism" to give testimony or produce any document revealing that journalist's source, if the source gave the information under cover of confidentiality.

Were S.2035 to become law, investigators and prosecutors charged with bringing to justice sources who have engaged in criminal leaks would have to prove all of the following to the satisfaction of a federal judge:

(1) The government has first exhausted all other avenues besides the journalist to obtain a source's identity.

(2) There are reasonable grounds to believe a crime has taken place.

(3) The source's identity is "essential" to the investigation.

(4) The information disclosed was "properly classified" to begin with.

(5) The person who leaked the information had authorized access to it.

(6) The source's unauthorized disclosure "has caused or will cause significant, clear, and articulable harm to the national security."

(7) And nondisclosure of the source's identity would be contrary to the public interest when weighed against the other public interest in "gathering news and maintaining the free flow of information."

As a practical matter, as an array of Cabinet and sub-Cabinet officers responsible for keeping us safe and enforcing the law have warned the Senate, no source is going to be held accountable under this law. For example, Attorney General Michael Mukase and Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell advised the Senate's leadership they would be hobbled by myriad Catch-22s inherent in the FFIA.

Consider two of these cited by the AG and DNI: How can a prosecutor show that a person who leaked information had authorized access to it (Requirement 5), without first knowing the identity of the source? How can a prosecutor show a leak "has caused or will cause significant, clear, and articulable harm to the national security" (Requirement 6), without first having to offer evidence to a judge that will reveal even more classified information?

By assuring "journalists" — the bill's definition is broad enough to cover all of the first three categories described above — they need not fear having to divulge the source of a leak, sources will feel even less compunction than they do today to break their promises and leak with impunity.

In short, the Free Flow of Information Act is not about freedom of the press. It is about freeing government officials of their legal responsibilities and enabling those who would do us all harm — whether intentionally or in the name of "the people's right to know."

The president's senior advisers have rightly indicated they will recommend his veto should this bill make it to his desk. Senators should ensure that the Leakers and Other Enemies Protection Act never gets there.

Naked truth: Court flays state strip-search of children
Social worker enters Christian school without cause, tells kids to remove clothing

Two children who attended a private Christian school in Wisconsin were illegally strip-searched and had their constitutional rights violated by a state social worker, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled Monday.

In Michael C. v. Gresbach, the court said state worker Dana Gresbach violated the children's Fourth Amendment rights to freedom from unreasonable search when she entered Good Hope Christian Academy in Milwaukee, Wis., had the children pulled from the classrooms and told them to remove their clothing when she suspected the parents of spanking in February 2004.

Stephen Crampton, vice president of legal affairs and general counsel for Liberty Counsel, represented the parents of 8-year-old Ian and 9-year-old Alexis when they sued the Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare and the caseworker.

"We are obviously pleased with the result, but candidly, we wish they had been more harsh on this renegade department that has ruined the lives of so many well-intentioned families already," he told WND.

Crampton said this type of overstep is common among social workers, and they often do not give it a second thought.

"The social worker performed these strip searches as a matter of routine, estimating that in perhaps one-half of the 300 or so cases she handled every year she subjected kids to a partial disrobing," he said. "In fact, she testified that she considered it so routine that she did not bother to discuss her intentions with her supervisor, even though she spoke to her on her way to the school."

The state had several social workers file affidavits saying they would have followed the same procedure. Crampton said, "That is an alarming admission, and we suspect you would find a similar pattern in social service offices all over America."

When Gresbach entered the school, she handed her business card to Principal Cheryl Reetz and told her she needed to see Ian and Alexis. Reetz asked the social worker if she could call the children's parents, but Gresbach refused to allow it, saying she would contact them at a later time. The principal then asked if she could remain in the room to observe the interview, but she was denied permission to do so.

According to court documents, state officials claimed they made efforts to speak with the parents and stepparents of the children, but the visits never occurred.

Crampton said the mindset of most social workers is that parents are the problem.

"They go to great lengths to lock parents out of the process, treating them as the enemy, and ultimately doing more harm than good by driving something of a wedge between the children and their parents," he said.

The social worker spent nearly 15 minutes alone in the room with each child. She searched Ian's wrists for bruising and asked him to pull up his shirt. He complied, and she examined his back for suspicious marks. Gresbach then privately inspected Alexis, asking her to pull down her tights and lift up her dress. The worker was unable to find any sign of injury on the children's bodies.

Gresbach's behavior is not a one-time incident uncommon among social workers. In Doe v. Carla Heck, the court addressed an eerily similar child abuse investigation where children's rights to freedom from unreasonable search were violated by the same state agency on the premises of another private educational facility.

"The problem almost always arises only in private schools," Crampton said. "Public schools, as agents of the government, routinely roll over and give social workers access to any student they wish to see, provide a room for them, and in short serve up our children on a platter, without bothering to contact parents," he said.

Gresbach claimed she was entitled to qualified immunity because her actions were reasonable under the Fourth Amendment; however, the court disagreed.

"We do not exempt child welfare workers from adhering to basic Fourth Amendment principles under non-exigent circumstances – to do so would be imprudent," the court stated. "… we do not believe that requiring a child welfare caseworker to act in accordance with basic Fourth Amendment principles is an undue burden on the child welfare system, particularly when it is necessary to conduct an examination of a child's body, which is undoubtedly 'frightening, humiliating and intrusive' to the child."

Crampton said Christian families have the freedom to follow scriptures in administering corporal punishment and should not have their rights violated by power-hungry government officials.

"That social workers and bureaucrats don't like it is no reason to allow the trampling of the constitutional rights of parents and their children," he said. "It is the high privilege and high responsibility of parents to oversee the care, custody and education of their children, not the state."

House passes bill to sue OPEC over oil prices

The House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved legislation on Tuesday allowing the Justice Department to sue OPEC members for limiting oil supplies and working together to set crude prices, but the White House threatened to veto the measure.

The bill would subject OPEC oil producers, including Saudi Arabia, Iran and Venezuela, to the same antitrust laws that U.S. companies must follow.

The measure passed in a 324-84 vote, a big enough margin to override a presidential veto.

The legislation also creates a Justice Department task force to aggressively investigate gasoline price gouging and energy market manipulation.

"This bill guarantees that oil prices will reflect supply and demand economic rules, instead of wildly speculative and perhaps illegal activities," said Democratic Rep. Steve Kagen of Wisconsin, who sponsored the legislation.

The lawmaker said Americans "are at the mercy" of OPEC for how much they pay for gasoline, which this week hit a record average of $3.79 a gallon.

The White House opposes the bill, saying that targeting OPEC investment in the United States as a source for damage awards "would likely spur retaliatory action against American interests in those countries and lead to a reduction in oil available to U.S. refiners."

The administration said less oil going to refineries would limit available gasoline supplies and raise fuel prices.

Foreign investment in U.S. oil infrastructure has declined in the last decade. But the state-owned oil companies of several OPEC nations are owners of U.S. refineries, and those investments could be affected if the legislation becomes law, said Arlington, Virginia-based FBR Capital Markets Corp.

The bill also requires the Government Accountability Office to carryout a study on the effects of prior oil company mergers on energy prices.

The Senate would still have to approve the House measure.

The Senate previously approved similar legislation as part of a broad energy bill. However, the OPEC-suing provision was removed after White House opposition in order to get the underlying energy legislation signed into law.

OMB chief says Congress awaiting 'President Obama'
'It appears they believe they might have a better deal then'

The chief of the president's Office of Management and Budget says Congress appears to be awaiting "President Obama" for some budgeting decisions, hoping for a better result than they would get from President Bush.

Jim Nussle, head of the OMB, today was discussing the farm bill and a war supplemental appropriations plan at a White House press briefing.

Nussle was critical of Congress' performance, saying, "There are those who are suggesting we do need domestic spending – instead of accelerating the appropriations process for this coming year, instead it appears that Senate leaders, in particular, and even some in the House, are making the strategic decision to punt all of those appropriation bills until next year."

He continued, "So if the need is so urgent for spending, domestic spending, why not get your work done? Why not work on the appropriation bills instead of basically punting that until the middle of next year – which factually or technically they will be doing by waiting for what they believe is a Democrat president to make a better deal with?"

He said that suggests the issue is not about domestic spending, but is about "trying to hold the troops hostage in order to get a few pet projects."

Then he responded to the question: "What makes you think that they're punting until next year on the appropriation?"

"First of all, no appropriations bills are making it through the process. It appears through all of their announcements that they have made that – or many of the announcements that they have made that they believe that they might have a better deal with the next president. I assume they mean a President Obama. That being the case, they've decided instead to go for a continuing resolution strategy and wait for a better deal," he said.

He didn't correct the reference to "President Obama" or elaborate, so Les Kinsolving, WND's correspondent at the White House, then asked, "I believe I heard you mention the words 'President Obama.' Does this mean the Bush administration is contending there is no chance for a President Hillary?"

"You know, as soon as that word came out of my mouth I thought, I should have made sure I attributed that to Sen. [Harry] Reid. I believe Sen. Reid was suggesting that. I have no prediction on the Democratic primary," Nussle then clarified.

In two other questions, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino dodged answering about measures to address the energy situation in America.

Kinsolving first asked: "Scott Stanzel, during Monday's briefing, spoke of the need to expand oil exploration in ANWR, the Outer Continental Shelf, which columnist Cal Thomas notes has an estimated 86 billion barrels of oil and 420 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. But President Clinton vetoed exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. And my question: Does the president believe that this veto compares to those claims of environmentalists that the Alaska pipeline would destroy the caribou?"

"I don't know – I'd have to consult Scott Stanzel on that," Perino said.

"Beg your pardon?"

"I was kidding. There's no room for humor," Perino said.

"There is room for humor. I'd be delighted to have humor," Kinsolving said.

"Not in this room. Look, our position on why we need to increase domestic exploration and production here in our own country is well known. It is critical if we are going to send a signal to the world market that we are serious about becoming more self-sufficient in our own country. And concerns about the caribou I believe have been taken into consideration, and that we have demonstrated that we have the technologies to be able to drill in a way that would protect the environment – not only the natural resources there, but also the caribou," Perino said.

Kinsolving also asked: "Reuters reports the House of Representatives voted 324-84 to have the Justice Department sue OPEC …"

"That's seems like a really large Congress," Perino said.

"…for limiting oil supplies and colluding on prices. And my question: Does the president believe the Senate will not follow the House in a similar veto-proof vote? And if not, why not?" Kinsolving finished.

"I don't know," Perino said.

Federal court rules against military's 'gay' policy
Some believe decision could mean end of 'don't ask, don't tell'

The U.S. military cannot automatically discharge people because they are gay, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday in the case of a decorated flight nurse who sued the Air Force over her dismissal.

The three judges from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals did not strike down the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy. But they reinstated Maj. Margaret Witt's lawsuit, saying the Air Force must prove that her dismissal furthered the military's goals of troop readiness and unit cohesion.

The "don't ask, don't tell, don't pursue, don't harass" policy prohibits the military from asking about the sexual orientation of service members but requires discharge of those who acknowledge being gay or engaging in homosexual activity.

Wednesday's ruling led opponents of the policy to declare its days numbered. It is also the first appeals court ruling in the country that evaluated the policy through the lens of a 2003 Supreme Court decision that struck down a Texas ban on sodomy as an unconstitutional intrusion on privacy.

Military policy
When gay service members have sued over their dismissals, courts historically have accepted the military's argument that having gays in the service is generally bad for morale and can lead to sexual tension.

But the Supreme Court's opinion in the Texas case changed the legal landscape, the judges said, and requires more scrutiny over whether "don't ask, don't tell" is constitutional as applied in individual cases.

Under Wednesday's ruling, military officials "need to prove that having this particular gay person in the unit really hurts morale, and the only way to improve morale is to discharge this person," said Aaron Caplan, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington state who worked on the case.

Witt, a flight nurse based at McChord Air Force Base near Tacoma, was suspended without pay in 2004 after the Air Force received a tip that she had been in a long-term relationship with a civilian woman. Witt was honorably discharged in October 2007 after having put in 18 years — two short of what she needed to receive retirement benefits.

She sued the Air Force in 2006, but U.S. District Judge Ronald B. Leighton dismissed her claims, saying the Supreme Court's ruling in Lawrence v. Texas did not change the legality of "don't ask, don't tell."

The appeals court judges disagreed.

"When the government attempts to intrude upon the personal and private lives of homosexuals, the government must advance an important governmental interest ... and the intrusion must be necessary to further that interest," wrote Judge Ronald M. Gould.

End of 'don't ask, don't tell'
Gay service members who are discharged can sue in federal court, and if the military doesn't prove it had a good reason for the dismissal, the cases will go forward, Caplan said.

Another attorney for Witt, James Lobsenz, hailed the ruling as the beginning of the end for "don't ask, don't tell."

"If the various branches of the Armed Forces have to start proving each application of the policy makes sense, then it's not going to be only Maj. Witt who's going to win," Lobsenz said. "Eventually, they're going to say, 'This is dumb. ... It's time to scrap the policy.'"

An Air Force spokeswoman said she had no comment on the decision and directed inquiries to the Defense Department.

Lt. Col. Todd Vician, a Defense spokesman, said he did not know specifics of the case and could not comment beyond noting that "the DOD policy simply enacts the law as set forth by Congress."

Witt joined the Air Force in 1987 and switched from active duty to the reserves in 1995. She cared for injured patients on military flights and in operating rooms. She was promoted to major in 1999, and she deployed to Oman in 2003 in support of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan.

A citation from President Bush that year said, "Her airmanship and courage directly contributed to the successful accomplishment of important missions under extremely hazardous conditions."

Her suspension and discharge came during a shortage of flight nurses and outraged many of her colleagues — one of whom, a sergeant, retired in protest.

"I am thrilled by the court's recognition that I can't be discharged without proving that I was harmful to morale," Witt said in a statement. "I am proud of my career and want to continue doing my job. Wounded people never asked me about my sexual orientation. They were just glad to see me there."

Names of those opposing oil plan 'interesting'
'Certain United States senators from Illinois and New York' on list

The White House says it certainly is "interesting" to see the names of U.S. senators who opposed a plan to allow oil exploration and production in a tiny fragment of the massive Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, including the names of "certain" senators from Illinois and New York.

The comment came in response to a question from Les Kinsolving, WND's correspondent at the White House. He asked:

"Senate Minority Leader [Mitch] McConnell, [R-Ky.] and 28 other Republican senators introduced the Domestic Energy Production Act to allow oil production in only eight percent of the entire ANWR area. And my question: Does the White House believe that the nation needs to know that among those senators who voted to defeat this bill, which could have cut the now huge cost of gasoline, were certain United States senators from Illinois and New York?"

"No; it's very interesting, though. Thanks for pointing it out," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said today.

"The president realizes this, doesn't he?" continued Kinsolving.

"I don't know if he did a whip count," Perino said.

With gasoline costs for consumers skyrocketing in recent months to a level of around $4 a gallon now, McConnell's plan, the American Energy Production Act, S.2958, was added this week to the Flood Insurance Bill "as a solution to combat increases in oil prices and their effects on energy and commercial products," according to a report on the ANWR website. Opposing it were Democrat presidential candidates Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y.

McConnell said a previous highly touted "commonsense" plan from Democrats to lower gasoline prices had failed.

McConnell, instead of releasing oil from reserves, is calling for the opening of the outer continental shelf as well as the 10-02 Area of ANWR in Alaska, both of which are known to hold vast amounts of oil and gas reserves that right now are locked up by Congressional bans on exploration and production.

The ANWR report said, "decreasing supply when demand is going through the roof, McConnell argues, is a sure way to raise the price not lower it."

Theh report continued that McConnell noted that had then-President Clinton not vetoed successful ANWR legislation in 1995 the U.S. would be getting more than a million barrels of oil a day from the 10-02 area alone.

Also recommending action regarding the ANWR oil reserves are Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Reps. Mike Ross, D-Ark., and Devin Nunes, R-Calif.

The ANWR report said oil from that location "is predicted to increase American production by over one million barrels per day which at $100-plus per barrel prices is a tremendous savings to our national debt and boost to our economy."

The report continued, "This will be compounded by the hundreds of thousands of jobs that will be created nationwide from production in the 10-02 and also the up to $280 billion in tax royalties the federal government would gain from production."

In another question, Kinsolving asked about the status of U.S. currency.

"After six years of legal effort, the American Council for the Blind has finally won a decision in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia that since all paper money, from $1s to $100s, are the same size, this discriminates against the blind. And my question: Since a federal judge noted that more than 100 other countries vary the size of their bills, does the White House believe we should as well?"

"That is something that the Treasury Department has been handling. They are named in the lawsuit, and they are taking it very seriously. And they'll be talking with the Justice Department, I'm sure, to determine their next steps, because I don't think – the litigation is not completed yet," said Perino.

That ruling affirmed a 2006 decision from a lower court, and observers speculate it could be the trigger to a redesign of U.S. currency.

The government had argued that even though the bills all are the same size, there are alternatives, such as using credit cards for using store clerks for help.

But the court opinion said the government failed to explain why changing the money would be an undue burden, noting the currency already has undergone changes in recent years, and adding raised marks or something to accommodate the blind would cost little.

FCC considers stealthy 'Fairness Doctrine'

An English-language advocate is encouraging citizens to sign a petition expressing opposition to proposed new regulations by the FCC that would amount to a backdoor Fairness Doctrine.

In a 2007 report, an ultra-liberal think tank known as The Center for American Progress issued a report called "The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio." Jim Boulet of English First says its agenda was to cleverly recast the so-called "Fairness Doctrine" by using the term "localism."

"In 2007, they issued a report in which they bragged that if they could get more women and minorities to own stations, there'd be fewer stations carrying programs like Rush Limbaugh. What the regulations also do is we create a board of censors, really, who the radio station would have to meet with four times a year to listen to all their complaints -- and if they weren't satisfied, the radio station could lose its license," Boulet points out.

Unfortunately, he says, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has bought into the agenda with its "Report on Broadcast Localism and Notice of Proposed Rulemaker."

"Because the American people know how diabolical the Fairness Doctrine is, those who want to re-impose it on the airwaves and shut down programs have found a backdoor way to do it with the so-called 'localism' doctrine," Boulet contends.

One of the proposed regulations would require racial and sexual quotas for station ownership, and another would require that all "licensees should convene and consult with permanent advisory boards." Boulet says he knows what that will mean.

"These boards are going to be made up of people like the [Council on] American-Islamic Relations, The National Council of La Raza – all a bunch of professional grievance mongers who will never be satisfied until programs like Rush Limbaugh are no longer on the air," Boulet explains.

According to Boulet, the review process is expected to end on June 11, at which time the FCC will decide what to do. Should the proposals go into effect, he says Congress would need to pass a Resolution of Disapproval in both the House and the Senate to void the regulations. The website keeprushontheair.com carries a petition allowing individuals to let the FCC and elected officials know of their opposition to the localism doctrine.

Scouts sue after Philly demands rent or new policy

A Boy Scouts chapter engaged in a long fight over gay rights has sued the city of Philadelphia to try to avoid paying $200,000 a year in rent to stay in the city-owned space that has been its headquarters for 80 years.

The Cradle of Liberty Council currently pays $1 annually for the space, but the city has given it until Saturday to open their membership to gays or start being charged fair-market rent.

The federal suit filed Friday accuses the city of censorship for targeting the Scouts but maintaining free or nominal leases with other groups that limit membership, such as Baptist and Roman Catholic church groups and The Colonial Dames of America.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2000 that the Boy Scouts, as a private group, have a First Amendment right to bar gays. But the policy has had consequences, with municipalities, charities and donors withholding support.

"We will not allow discrimination in providing services on city property," Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter said Tuesday.

A 1982 city ordinance bans discrimination based on sexual orientation and other grounds.

"We're not punishing them for not admitting homosexuals," City Solicitor Shelley Smith said. "But they can't get free rent and violate our policy."

Smith said the city was unaware of any discrimination by other groups with city-subsidized space, but that it would investigate any complaints.

The Cradle of Liberty Council oversees about 300 troops in Philadelphia and suburban Delaware and Montgomery counties. It serves about 70,000 children, including 50,000 in the city, the suit said.

The Scouts say the higher rent would force them to cut programs, and represents the cost of sending about 800 needy children to summer camp.

"They're providing a tremendous public benefit. They're giving back a whole lot more than what they get from the city," said lawyer Jason Gosselin, who represents the Cradle of Liberty Council.

The group adopted an explicit nondiscrimination policy in 2003 after negotiations with the city. But it was forced to rescind it when the Boy Scouts of America said Philadelphia Scout officials could not deviate from national rules barring participation by anyone who is openly gay.

The Cradle of Liberty Council then negotiated compromise language that barred "unlawful discrimination."

"It was a non-issue once the 2004 agreement was reached, and then sort of out of the blue it's being brought up again," Gosselin said.

Smith said the city fears that the language does not go far enough—and provides the Scouts wiggle room to ban gays by citing the Supreme Court ruling.

"I think they think that their First Amendment right trumps our local ordinance," Smith said.

The city owns the Beaux Arts headquarters constructed by the Scouts in 1928 and the land beneath it. The Scouts have spent about $60,000 a year to maintain the building, and another $1.5 million for renovations in 1994, the suit said.

The building would be far from the first loss associated with the Boy Scouts' policy on homosexuals.

Film director Steven Spielberg resigned from the national group's advisory board. The city of Berkeley, Calif., stopped lending its marina for free to the Berkeley Sea Scouts. United Way chapters stopped funding programs, and the Defense Department stopped sponsoring troops.

Voters to decide whether unborn 'persons'
Nation's 1st statewide initiative seen by some as threat to Roe v. Wade

Colorado voters in November will become the first statewide electorate in the nation to decide whether the unborn should be granted "personhood" under the law, pro-life advocates announced today.

Officials with Colorado for Equal Rights, which is sponsoring the proposed state constitutional amendment, confirmed state officials notified them enough valid signatures had been verified to place the issue on the election ballot.

The Colorado secretary of state's office confirmed 103,377 valid signatures, far surpassing the 76,047 required for the amendment, the group said. Officials with Colorado for Equal Rights said it will be the first time in U.S. history the issue of personhood will be decided in a statewide election.

"The people of Colorado have spoken, the secretary of state's office has certified our signatures and our equal rights amendment will be on November's ballot," said Kristi Burton, a spokeswoman for the organization.

"All humans should be protected by love and by law, and this amendment is a historic effort to ensure equal rights for every person," she said.

The group earlier turned in more than 131,000 signatures, officials said. The voters now are being asked to extend the U.S. Constitution's protections to the unborn, something supporters say the U.S. founders intended all along.

In a campaign that opponents fret is a direct challenge to the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the Consitution grants a right to abortion, the Colorado personhood amendment is a simple proposal.

"This proposed constitutional amendment will define a person in Colorado as a human being from the moment of fertilization, the moment when life begins," according to a statement at Colorado for Equal Rights.

"This amendment will establish a cornerstone for protecting human life in our society … and we all know this is the right thing to do," the statement said. "This campaign is not about the power of money – it is about the power of truth.

"We are giving Colorado voters an opportunity to vote their conscience and protect the most innocent and helpless ones among us. If life is protected from the very beginning, Colorado for Equal Rights believes that we can transform our nation from a culture of death into a culture of life," the group said.

The sponsors assembled more than 1,300 volunteer petition circulators.

"We at Colorado for Equal Rights are incredibly thankful for our many volunteers who worked so hard for each signature we delivered to the secretary of state's office and the churches who stood behind us and supported us," Burton continued. "This victory is the voice of the people and all credit goes our Creator."

Officials said the effort puts Colorado, where the nation's first state law allowing abortion was written by Dick Lamm, a former governor, at the front of efforts to protect life in the U.S.

"It gives us a foundation before we can make other pro-life laws," Burton said.

The same plan has been put forward in several state legislatures, but Colorado's campaign is the most advanced across the nation, she said.

Abortion industry leaders such as Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado are opposed to the plan.

But personhood arguments started gaining momentum after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the procedure known as partial-birth abortion can be restricted.

Groups, including Focus on the Family, noted it was the first court opinion in years that actually supported abortion restrictions and said it was a moral victory, while others, including the America Life League, countered that the court ruling actually would not prohibit a single abortion, just a way of doing them.

The Colorado plan targets a loophole U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun created when he wrote the original abortion opinion.

He concluded: "(If the) suggestion of personhood [of the preborn] is established, the [abortion rights] case, of course, collapses, for the fetus' right to life is then guaranteed specifically by the [14th] Amendment."

By defining the unborn as a person, supporters believe, voters can simply spread the covering of constitutional protection over them, too.

As WND reported, a recent Colorado case highlighted what supporters describe as the need for the change.

In the case, a Colorado judge dismissed some charges against a man who caused a fatal car crash, because the victim, at 8½ months of a pregnancy, had not yet been born.

"'Person' is a defined term for purposes of the homicide statutes," wrote Judge Richard Gurley in a March decision in the case involving the death of Lileigh Lehnen, the born-alive daughter of 26-year-old Shea Lehnen.

"The definition states that 'person,' when referring to the victim of a homicide, means a human being who had been born and was alive at the time of the homicidal act," the judge said.

Lileigh Lehnen was born during an emergency C-Section after the November 2007 accident that was triggered when Logan Lage, 24, apparently drove on the wrong side of the road and crashed his vehicle headon into Lehnen's car.

Lileigh Lehnen lived several hours and died of asphyxia, according to Mesa County Deputy Coroner Rob Kurtzman, who concluded the baby's death was a homicide and said the collision damaged the mother's placenta, limiting blood flow to the newborn.

Lage was facing a series of charges because of the baby's death, but his public defender, Will McNulty, challenged them on the grounds that the state law excluded the baby from the possibility of being a homicide victim.

The judge's order said Colorado law doesn't allow Lileigh Lehnen to be considered either a "person" or a "child" at the time of the crash.

"This outrageous ruling is a clear example of they hypocrisy of Colorado law," said Burton at the time. "If a child like Lileigh is not a person, what is she? There is no other answer."

Leslie Hanks, a longtime activist in the pro-life movement in Colorado, has said the affirmation that all "persons" have certain natural, essential and inalienable rights including the right to life is exactly what the nation's founders had in mind when they established the country.

"Colorado, which regrettably was in the forefront of the movement to deny the right to life to millions of the unborn, has now taken the first step to restore the right to life to all Americans, regardless of age, dependency, national origin or condition," said John Archibold, a founder of Colorado Right to Life as well as National Right to Life.

Plan transforms doctors from healers to killers
State bill mandates physicians tell patients about assisted suicide

By the narrow margin of two votes, a bill has passed the California State Assembly that detractors are saying allows doctors to push patients toward medically assisted suicide.

The bill, AB 2747, would change the law by enabling doctors to first declare a patient as having less than a year to live, then requiring the doctor to provide the patient with a long list of end-of-life options, including a last-moments option that looks suspiciously like euthanasia.

Critics of the bill, which was advanced yesterday, point to a provision that adds "palliative sedation" and VSED (voluntary stopping of eating and drinking) to a patient's end-of-life options, extreme measures that have been previously reserved for patients within a few hours to a few days of death.

If the bill becomes law, critics say, a doctor could pronounce a patient within a year of death, encourage him to consider complete (sometimes irreversible) sedation, then proceed with VSED until the patient, unconscious and unaware, starved and dehydrated to death – in effect, physician-assisted suicide for anyone deemed "within a year of death."

Assemblymember Patty Berg, who co-sponsored the bill, wrote in California's Capitol Weekly that AB 2747 merely "requires healthcare providers to give complete answers to their terminal patients."

The bill itself states that "lack of communication between health care providers and their terminally ill patients can cause problems" and that "those problems are complicated by social issues, such as cultural and religious pressures." Further, "a recent survey found that providers that object to certain practices are less likely than others to believe they have an obligation to present all of the options to patients and refer patients to other providers."

Randy Thomasson, president of president of Campaign for Children and Families, a California-based pro-life group, says, however, "This deceptive bill will cause death and shorten life, despite its claims."

Thomasson sees an imminent danger that unscrupulous or cost-driven doctors might use the bill's provisions for communication as license to tell patients their death is coming within the year and move them toward life-ending choices.

"Some people are told they have a year to live," he points out, "then go on to live healthily for 12."

He also points out that in a state where food and hydration are considered "extraordinary measures" in living wills, patients stunned by the news they have less than a year to live may opt for choices that lead directly to their death. Depressed or confused patients might agree to the sedation, then die through VSED.

"Drying up and shriveling to death through dehydration is a fate worse than lethal injection," says Thomasson. "By transforming palliative sedation into a vehicle for assisted suicide, AB 2747 would transform doctors and nurses from healers and comforters into killers."

AB 2747 marks the fourth time in four years that Berg has attempted to pass legislation regarding end-of-life circumstances. Her previous attempts were more clearly euthanasia-related, including a bill in 2007 that would have permitted death by lethal injection.

Berg insists AB 2747 is not of the same mold: "Unlike my previous end-of-life bill," she wrote, "my new bill doesn’t give anyone any new options…Some, however, are still fighting last year’s battle and are trying to convince the gullible that my new bill is a Trojan horse, designed somehow to legalize aid-in-dying."

Thomassom sees Berg's value on "knowing all the options" as misguided.

"People who are ill need support, spiritual care, and counseling," he says, not dire predictions of death and options for dying. "Just as the assisted-suicide bills of the last three years have been rejected, so should the California Legislature reject AB 2747. Assisted suicide by total sedation ignores the sanctity of human life and violates life-affirming medical ethics."

Matthew 24:23-31 NASB
"Then if anyone says to you, 'Behold, here is the Christ,' or 'There He is,' do not believe him. "For false Christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect. "Behold, I have told you in advance. "So if they say to you, 'Behold, He is in the wilderness,' do not go out, or, 'Behold, He is in the inner rooms,' do not believe them. "For just as the lightning comes from the east and flashes even to the west, so will the coming of the Son of Man be. "Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather. "But immediately after the tribulation of those days THE SUN WILL BE DARKENED, AND THE MOON WILL NOT GIVE ITS LIGHT, AND THE STARS WILL FALL from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. "And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the SON OF MAN COMING ON THE CLOUDS OF THE SKY with power and great glory. "And He will send forth His angels with A GREAT TRUMPET and THEY WILL GATHER TOGETHER His elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other.

Matthew 24:32-44 NASB
"Now learn the parable from the fig tree: when its branch has already become tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near; so, you too, when you see all these things, recognize that He is near, right at the door. "Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place. "Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away. "But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone. "For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah. "For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away; so will the coming of the Son of Man be. "Then there will be two men in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. "Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one will be left. "Therefore be on the alert, for you do not know which day your Lord is coming. "But be sure of this, that if the head of the house had known at what time of the night the thief was coming, he would have been on the alert and would not have allowed his house to be broken into. "For this reason you also must be ready; for the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not think He will.

Revelation 11:1-13 NASB
Then there was given me a measuring rod like a staff; and someone said, "Get up and measure the temple of God and the altar, and those who worship in it. "Leave out the court which is outside the temple and do not measure it, for it has been given to the nations; and they will tread under foot the holy city for forty-two months. "And I will grant authority to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for twelve hundred and sixty days, clothed in sackcloth." These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth. And if anyone wants to harm them, fire flows out of their mouth and devours their enemies; so if anyone wants to harm them, he must be killed in this way. These have the power to shut up the sky, so that rain will not fall during the days of their prophesying; and they have power over the waters to turn them into blood, and to strike the earth with every plague, as often as they desire. When they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up out of the abyss will make war with them, and overcome them and kill them. And their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city which mystically is called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified. Those from the peoples and tribes and tongues and nations will look at their dead bodies for three and a half days, and will not permit their dead bodies to be laid in a tomb. And those who dwell on the earth will rejoice over them and celebrate; and they will send gifts to one another, because these two prophets tormented those who dwell on the earth. But after the three and a half days, the breath of life from God came into them, and they stood on their feet; and great fear fell upon those who were watching them. And they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, "Come up here." Then they went up into heaven in the cloud, and their enemies watched them. And in that hour there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city fell; seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the rest were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven.

Ezekiel 7:1-9 NASB
Moreover, the word of the LORD came to me saying, "And you, son of man, thus says the Lord GOD to the land of Israel, 'An end! The end is coming on the four corners of the land. 'Now the end is upon you, and I will send My anger against you; I will judge you according to your ways and bring all your abominations upon you. 'For My eye will have no pity on you, nor will I spare you, but I will bring your ways upon you, and your abominations will be among you; then you will know that I am the LORD!' "Thus says the Lord GOD, 'A disaster, unique disaster, behold it is coming! 'An end is coming; the end has come! It has awakened against you; behold, it has come! 'Your doom has come to you, O inhabitant of the land. The time has come, the day is near--tumult rather than joyful shouting on the mountains. 'Now I will shortly pour out My wrath on you and spend My anger against you; judge you according to your ways and bring on you all your abominations. 'My eye will show no pity nor will I spare. I will repay you according to your ways, while your abominations are in your midst; then you will know that I, the LORD, do the smiting.

Ezekiel 7:14-20 NASB
'They have blown the trumpet and made everything ready, but no one is going to the battle, for My wrath is against all their multitude. 'The sword is outside and the plague and the famine are within. He who is in the field will die by the sword; famine and the plague will also consume those in the city. 'Even when their survivors escape, they will be on the mountains like doves of the valleys, all of them mourning, each over his own iniquity. 'All hands will hang limp and all knees will become like water. 'They will gird themselves with sackcloth and shuddering will overwhelm them; and shame will be on all faces and baldness on all their heads. 'They will fling their silver into the streets and their gold will become an abhorrent thing; their silver and their gold will not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the LORD. They cannot satisfy their appetite nor can they fill their stomachs, for their iniquity has become an occasion of stumbling. 'They transformed the beauty of His ornaments into pride, and they made the images of their abominations and their detestable things with it; therefore I will make it an abhorrent thing to them.

Ezekiel 7:25-27 NASB
'When anguish comes, they will seek peace, but there will be none. 'Disaster will come upon disaster and rumor will be added to rumor; then they will seek a vision from a prophet, but the law will be lost from the priest and counsel from the elders. 'The king will mourn, the prince will be clothed with horror, and the hands of the people of the land will tremble. According to their conduct I will deal with them, and by their judgments I will judge them. And they will know that I am the LORD.'"

Ezekiel 38:14-23 NASB
"Therefore prophesy, son of man, and say to Gog, 'Thus says the Lord GOD, "On that day when My people Israel are living securely, will you not know it? "You will come from your place out of the remote parts of the north, you and many peoples with you, all of them riding on horses, a great assembly and a mighty army; and you will come up against My people Israel like a cloud to cover the land. It shall come about in the last days that I will bring you against My land, so that the nations may know Me when I am sanctified through you before their eyes, O Gog." 'Thus says the Lord GOD, "Are you the one of whom I spoke in former days through My servants the prophets of Israel, who prophesied in those days for many years that I would bring you against them? "It will come about on that day, when Gog comes against the land of Israel," declares the Lord GOD, "that My fury will mount up in My anger. "In My zeal and in My blazing wrath I declare that on that day there will surely be a great earthquake in the land of Israel. "The fish of the sea, the birds of the heavens, the beasts of the field, all the creeping things that creep on the earth, and all the men who are on the face of the earth will shake at My presence; the mountains also will be thrown down, the steep pathways will collapse and every wall will fall to the ground. "I will call for a sword against him on all My mountains," declares the Lord GOD. "Every man's sword will be against his brother. "With pestilence and with blood I will enter into judgment with him; and I will rain on him and on his troops, and on the many peoples who are with him, a torrential rain, with hailstones, fire and brimstone. "I will magnify Myself, sanctify Myself, and make Myself known in the sight of many nations; and they will know that I am the LORD."'

Ezekiel 39:1-7 NASB
"And you, son of man, prophesy against Gog and say, 'Thus says the Lord GOD, "Behold, I am against you, O Gog, prince of Rosh, Meshech and Tubal; and I will turn you around, drive you on, take you up from the remotest parts of the north and bring you against the mountains of Israel. "I will strike your bow from your left hand and dash down your arrows from your right hand. "You will fall on the mountains of Israel, you and all your troops and the peoples who are with you; I will give you as food to every kind of predatory bird and beast of the field. "You will fall on the open field; for it is I who have spoken," declares the Lord GOD. "And I will send fire upon Magog and those who inhabit the coastlands in safety; and they will know that I am the LORD. "My holy name I will make known in the midst of My people Israel; and I will not let My holy name be profaned anymore. And the nations will know that I am the LORD, the Holy One in Israel.

Ezekiel 39:17-22 NASB
"As for you, son of man, thus says the Lord GOD, 'Speak to every kind of bird and to every beast of the field, "Assemble and come, gather from every side to My sacrifice which I am going to sacrifice for you, as a great sacrifice on the mountains of Israel, that you may eat flesh and drink blood. "You will eat the flesh of mighty men and drink the blood of the princes of the earth, as though they were rams, lambs, goats and bulls, all of them fatlings of Bashan. "So you will eat fat until you are glutted, and drink blood until you are drunk, from My sacrifice which I have sacrificed for you. "You will be glutted at My table with horses and charioteers, with mighty men and all the men of war," declares the Lord GOD. "And I will set My glory among the nations; and all the nations will see My judgment which I have executed and My hand which I have laid on them. "And the house of Israel will know that I am the LORD their God from that day onward.

Ezekiel 39:25-29 NASB
Therefore thus says the Lord GOD, "Now I will restore the fortunes of Jacob and have mercy on the whole house of Israel; and I will be jealous for My holy name. "They will forget their disgrace and all their treachery which they perpetrated against Me, when they live securely on their own land with no one to make them afraid. "When I bring them back from the peoples and gather them from the lands of their enemies, then I shall be sanctified through them in the sight of the many nations. "Then they will know that I am the LORD their God because I made them go into exile among the nations, and then gathered them again to their own land; and I will leave none of them there any longer. "I will not hide My face from them any longer, for I will have poured out My Spirit on the house of Israel," declares the Lord GOD.

Isaiah 2:1-5 NASB
The word which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. Now it will come about that In the last days The mountain of the house of the LORD Will be established as the chief of the mountains, And will be raised above the hills; And all the nations will stream to it. And many peoples will come and say, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, To the house of the God of Jacob; That He may teach us concerning His ways And that we may walk in His paths." For the law will go forth from Zion And the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. And He will judge between the nations, And will render decisions for many peoples; And they will hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, And never again will they learn war. Come, house of Jacob, and let us walk in the light of the LORD.

Isaiah 9:2-7 NASB
The people who walk in darkness Will see a great light; Those who live in a dark land, The light will shine on them. You shall multiply the nation, You shall increase their gladness; They will be glad in Your presence As with the gladness of harvest, As men rejoice when they divide the spoil. For You shall break the yoke of their burden and the staff on their shoulders, The rod of their oppressor, as at the battle of Midian. For every boot of the booted warrior in the battle tumult, And cloak rolled in blood, will be for burning, fuel for the fire. For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace, On the throne of David and over his kingdom, To establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness From then on and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will accomplish this.

Isaiah 65:17-25 NASB
"For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; And the former things will not be remembered or come to mind. "But be glad and rejoice forever in what I create; For behold, I create Jerusalem for rejoicing And her people for gladness. "I will also rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in My people; And there will no longer be heard in her The voice of weeping and the sound of crying. "No longer will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, Or an old man who does not live out his days; For the youth will die at the age of one hundred And the one who does not reach the age of one hundred Will be thought accursed. "They will build houses and inhabit them; They will also plant vineyards and eat their fruit. "They will not build and another inhabit, They will not plant and another eat; For as the lifetime of a tree, so will be the days of My people, And My chosen ones will wear out the work of their hands. "They will not labor in vain, Or bear children for calamity; For they are the offspring of those blessed by the LORD, And their descendants with them. "It will also come to pass that before they call, I will answer; and while they are still speaking, I will hear. "The wolf and the lamb will graze together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox; and dust will be the serpent's food. They will do no evil or harm in all My holy mountain," says the LORD.

Brothers and Sisters, there will be a literal RULE AND REIGN OF CHRIST! Israel will be restored, and these are the Promises of GOD to Israel! However, Israel is FORE-ORDAINED by GOD to endure much more suffering in the Tribulation Period before GOD will fulfill HIS Promise. Make no mistake - GOD will fulfill this promise, and it will be after THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST!

Isaiah 2:1-5 NASB
The word which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. Now it will come about that In the last days The mountain of the house of the LORD Will be established as the chief of the mountains, And will be raised above the hills; And all the nations will stream to it. And many peoples will come and say, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, To the house of the God of Jacob; That He may teach us concerning His ways And that we may walk in His paths." For the law will go forth from Zion And the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. And He will judge between the nations, And will render decisions for many peoples; And they will hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, And never again will they learn war. Come, house of Jacob, and let us walk in the light of the LORD.

Isaiah 9:2-7 NASB
The people who walk in darkness Will see a great light; Those who live in a dark land, The light will shine on them. You shall multiply the nation, You shall increase their gladness; They will be glad in Your presence As with the gladness of harvest, As men rejoice when they divide the spoil. For You shall break the yoke of their burden and the staff on their shoulders, The rod of their oppressor, as at the battle of Midian. For every boot of the booted warrior in the battle tumult, And cloak rolled in blood, will be for burning, fuel for the fire. For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace, On the throne of David and over his kingdom, To establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness From then on and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will accomplish this.

Think oil prices hurt now? Just wait

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN2248967220080522?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=10005 (http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN2248967220080522?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=10005)

Sky-high oil prices are causing pain at the pump, but bills for air conditioning this summer and heating next winter -- combined with rising food costs -- promise to squeeze U.S. consumers even more.

With gas at $4.00 a gallon, households already have less to spend on a new grill at Home Depot; a vacation at Walt Disney's Disney World; a new TV from Best Buy Co; or a new "hog" from Harley-Davidson Co.

And there are no signs things will get better soon for the consumer, long the driving force of U.S. economic growth.

"For the areas of the economy that rely on heating oil, high fuel prices are going to be another blow to the consumer this winter," said Jack Kyser, chief economist at the LA County Economic Development Corp.

"The hotter states will feel the pinch during the summer months but in the mid-America states where you get hot summers and cold winters, it's going to be very uncomfortable," he said.

"This is going to eat into the disposable income of American consumers -- supposing they have any left."

Oil prices, now $130 a barrel, have risen six-fold since 2002. On Wednesday, heating oil reached a record high above $3.90 a gallon and the price is expected to stay high.

Heating oil, which cost $3.29 a gallon in January, will likely cost $3.83 in December, according to the government's Energy Information Administration.

Those costs come at a time of rising food prices, forcing people to spend more on basics as wages fail to keep up. The effects on the economy could be profound.

"The American consumer will continue to pay for fuel, food and heat," said University of Maryland economist Peter Morici.

"But they will give everything else up," he said. "That's going to make it harder to sell the average consumer a television, a suit, or even a meal at a restaurant."

HARD TIMES

This could become an especially depressing reality in July and August, when back-to-school shopping starts, and in November, when holiday shopping gets under way.

Without strong sales during both of those shopping seasons, retailers including Wal-Mart, Target, J.C. Penney and Sears could post bleak results for the last two quarters of 2008 and the first quarter of 2009.

For many years, the consumer has been the engine of U.S. growth, accounting for around 70 percent of the economy.

But much recent spending has been done on credit, leaving Americans with a negative savings rate.

Now that consumers have been hit by the double-whammy of a weak economy and higher costs, the question is how much damage the engine has sustained and how long it will take to fix it.

Peter Schiff, president of money manager Euro Pacific Capital, warns that after years of profligate spending, the "chickens are finally coming home to roost".

"Our whole phony standard of living is imploding," he said. "We have borrowed and spent ourselves into oblivion."

"It's amazing that people can't figure out that America is broke."

WINTER OF DISCONTENT

Diane Swonk, chief economist of Mesirow Financial, says one of her biggest concerns for the short term is that the Bush administration's tax rebates, which were designed to stimulate the economy, will be used by consumers to fill their tanks and use air conditioning as usual rather than cutting back.

Many retailers, like Wal-Mart and Sears and supermarkets Kroger and Supervalu, have offered customers incentives to spend their rebate checks with them.

President George W. Bush signed into law a $152 billion fiscal stimulus package earlier this year to provide tax rebates to 130 million Americans. Some $107 billion of the total was allocated for households.

"The tax rebate is going to be a double-edged sword for consumers," Swonk said. "When the heating bills start coming in the fall things will not look so good."

"That should contribute to a contraction in consumer spending in the fourth quarter," she added.

Swonk said that among the industries that will continue to feel the pinch is the auto industry, a major employer.

That likely means that Thursday's announcement by Ford Motor Co that it was abandoning its long-touted goal of returning to profitability by 2009 will be followed by more bad news from Detroit.

With Ford and General Motors shares getting a battering on Thursday, investors were asking if the long-term prognosis of the Detroit automakers was becoming even bleaker.

"The economic circumstances are not good for Ford and they are not good for any of the automakers really; this isn't anything that is a Ford exclusive," said Erich Merkle, director of forecasting for consulting firm IRN Inc.

Edward Leamer, head of the UCLA Anderson Forecast Center, said that thanks to the combination of high spending in recent years and rocketing fuel costs, the consumer-engine of U.S. economic growth is close to failing.

"The global markets are telling us we are not as wealthy as we think we are and that we have spent beyond our means," he said. But Leamer said while the engine may be broken, the U.S. economic model is not: it just needs a new engine.

Thanks to the "rosy spot" of exports helped by a weak dollar, plus strength in commodities like coal and grains, the UCLA Anderson Forecast Center predicts the U.S. economy will suffer only a mild recession this year.

But without that retail engine of growth, "our long-term prospect is for sluggish U.S. economic growth," Leamer said.

"Unfortunately, there is nothing on the horizon in the U.S. economy that will take over from the consumer."

Quote from: grammyluv on May 31, 2008, 05:03:18 PM

Seems to me that this is where we are.

Hello GrammyLuv,

Sister Yvette, there are portions of the Holy Bible that give very harsh and graphic descriptions. I still think that we're only close. I think we could multiply what we're seeing now by 100 and be there. I think the times will become so bad that many skeptics will start taking another look at the HOLY BIBLE. I think that the harsh and graphic descriptions will match perfectly at GOD'S Appointed time, and there will be little doubt for someone who can read a BIBLE. However, we are told that many will be deceived. As an individual, I don't believe that Christians will be here, but this is simply a matter of opinion on my part. I think that much depends on how one defines "WRATH". The CHURCH WHICH IS THE BODY OF CHRIST was not formed for WRATH - rather RESCUE AND SALVATION. Regardless of opinion, the times of the Tribulation Period may be rapidly approaching. Daniel called it a time "DETERMINED AGAINST ISRAEL", and the last half of the Tribulation period is known as "JACOB'S TROUBLE". The last 3 1/2 years of the Tribulation Period is much worse, and this is why many people feel that the CHURCH will be RAPTURED "Mid-Tribulation". Others believe the RAPTURE is "Post-Tribulation". Regardless, it will be a horrible time. Daniel and other Old Testament Prophets knew NOTHING about the CHURCH WHICH IS THE BODY OF CHRIST. In fact, nobody knew about it until it was revealed to the Apostle Paul. THE TWELVE knew nothing about it until Paul taught them and convinced them. This is still causing great confusion today.

Israel is still waiting for her KING and MESSIAH. As Christians, we already have HIM, and HE rescued us from the curse of sin and death. In other words, Israel is waiting for an EARTHLY KING AND KINGDOM. As Christians, we have already been given a HEAVENLY KING AND KINGDOM. There's another interesting way to put this: 1) Israel is still waiting for a promised EARTHLY HOME and rescue by a promised KING and MESSIAH; 2) As Christians, we've already been rescued and have a HEAVENLY HOME with JESUS CHRIST. We're waiting to go HOME.

Love In Christ,
Tom

Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable GIFT, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour Forever!

Prop. 13 property taxes in the voters' hands

Thirty years ago today, California voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 13 as a way to keep seniors from losing their homes to skyrocketing property taxes. But the 1978 vote also ignited a revolution that dramatically changed the way people across America look at government and taxes.

The grassroots initiative has saved California property owners billions of dollars since it was passed, but the shackles Prop. 13 put on the ability of state and local governments to increase taxes could turn out to be its most important legacy. Even today, with the state facing a $17 billion budget shortfall, tax increases face certain opposition from many legislators and voters.

"Clearly, the Prop. 13 movement had the general attitude ... that government and its ability to tax people isn't to be trusted," said Mark Baldassare, head of the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California. "That's very much the theme that Ronald Reagan picked up when he ran for president in 1980, and it's had a dramatic impact on national politics, particularly on the Republican side."

When GOP Rep. Newt Gingrich of Georgia put together his "Contract with America" in 1994 as part of the successful Republican effort to take control of Congress, his call for requiring a three-fifths majority vote on tax increases was straight out of Prop. 13. And when liberal Democratic Illinois Sen. Barack Obama says that, as president, he would reverse President Bush's tax cuts only for the wealthiest Americans, he recognizes the same middle-class antipathy to taxes that Prop. 13's backers saw three decades ago.
A distrust of officials

Both Howard Jarvis and Paul Gann, the public faces of Prop. 13, disliked government almost as much as they despised taxes, and neither was willing to trust elected officials to do the right thing with the public's money.

That's one reason the measure not only put tight limits on property taxes but also required a two-thirds vote of the Legislature for state tax increases and a two-thirds vote of the people for most local tax boosts.

"The disaster of the moment was that people were being taxed out of their homes," said Joel Fox, past president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. "But Howard Jarvis and others behind the initiative were determined that they were going to control the tax monster."
More than property tax relief

The heated discussions backers of Prop. 13 had when they were putting the initiative together make it clear they were looking for more than property tax relief, said Ted Costa, who runs the People's Advocate, an organization founded by Gann.

"The overwhelming opinion was that the purpose of Prop. 13 was to limit the size of government," he said. "By the month before the election, it was clear that blue-collar voters and homeowners everywhere were using Prop. 13 to send a message to government."

It's a message that even many opponents of the initiative admit was needed.

For decades before 1978, property tax in California was based on a percentage of the assessed value of a home. Every two or three years, the county assessor would look at the sales prices of homes in a neighborhood and set a new and generally higher assessment, which generally meant higher property taxes.

But this low-key process went haywire in the runaway inflation of the 1970s, which sent home prices - and assessments - soaring. Homeowners paying $500 a year in property taxes in 1972 found themselves looking at a $2,000 tax bill in 1978. Between 1974 and 1978, the average value of a California home jumped from $34,000 to $85,000, and property taxes rose with it.

Homeowners, many of them seniors on fixed incomes, couldn't come up with the cash for their dramatically higher property tax bills and faced the terrifying prospect of losing the houses they had lived in for decades.

In one of the great grassroots political efforts in California history, Jarvis and Gann, joined by an army of angry and anxious homeowners, collected more than twice as many signatures as needed to get the initiative on the ballot. On election day, Prop. 13 passed with 65 percent of the vote.

But those angry voters didn't just celebrate and go home. After tasting the political power of ballot-box democracy, they quickly went back for more.

A year later, Gann wrote an initiative to limit government spending that passed with 74 percent of the vote. In 1982, Proposition 7, which prevented state income tax from rising with inflation, passed. Proposition 218, a 1996 initiative, required a public vote on many local assessment increases.
Tightening the screws

Each new measure tightened the screws on state and local government, either limiting revenues or making it tougher to raise money through taxes.

"Because of Prop. 13, taxpayers felt they needed to be in control because government wasn't giving them a fair shake," said Teresa Casazza, president of the nonpartisan California Taxpayers Association. "Taxpayers have a real skeptical view of how the government is taking care of the money it's receiving."

Requiring a two-thirds vote for any type of statewide tax increase has tied the Legislature in knots because Republicans, who make up more than a third of both the Assembly and the state Senate, have adamantly opposed any tax hikes.

California voters don't see the restrictions as a bad thing. In a Field Poll released today, 72 percent of those surveyed disapproved of changing Prop. 13 to allow the Legislature to raise taxes by a simple majority vote. When they were reminded that the state faces a multibillion-dollar deficit, the numbers barely moved.

"The huge deficit and state debt don't make a difference," said Mark DiCamillo, director of the poll. "Voters want to set a fairly high bar for increases in taxes and want to see bipartisan support."
Bureaucrats unhappy

Complaints about Prop. 13 come mainly from government officials and bureaucrats unhappy with the way the initiative transferred the power of the purse to the people paying taxes, said Fox, who worked closely with Jarvis.

"What was revolutionary is that under Prop. 13, certainty goes to the taxpayer," he said. "Before 1978, the certainty belonged to the tax collector."

Reagan, both as governor of California and as president, took the view that government was more the problem than the solution. But with the passage of Prop. 13, conservative voters saw a solution, a way to shrink government by starving it of revenue.

Costa, who took over People's Advocate after Gann died in 1989, has involved the organization not only in tax battles but also in ballot fights on such issues as term limits, victim's rights, legislative reform and the 2003 recall of Gov. Gray Davis. He's talking about a ballot initiative that would define taxes to include several of the government charges and fees that don't now fall under Prop. 13's rules.

"We want to reduce the size of government," he said. "Our ballot measures don't say it in so many words, but that's understood to be on the top of any initiative we put out."

Prop. 13 conference

A conference on the 30th anniversary of Proposition 13 will be held today at UC Berkeley. The event, which is free and open to the public, examines the political, economic and fiscal impacts of the tax-limiting initiative. The conference begins at 9:30 a.m. in the Lipman Room on the eighth floor of Barrows Hall.

Noah's Ark
The Lord spoke to Noah and said, "In six months I am going to make it rain until the whole world is covered with water and all the evil things are destroyed. But, I want to save a few good people and two of every living thing on the planet. I am ordering you to build an ark." And, in a flash of lightning, he delivered the specifications for the ark.

"OK," Noah said, trembling with fear and fumbling with the blueprints, "I'm your man."

Six months passed, the sky began to cloud up, and the rain began to fall in torrents. The Lord looked down and saw Noah sitting in his yard, weeping, and there was no ark.

"Noah!" shouted the Lord, "Where is My ark?" A lightning bolt crashed into the ground right beside Noah.

"Lord, please forgive me!" begged Noah. "I did my best, but there were some big problems. First, I had to get a building permit for the ark's construction, but Your plans did not meet their code. So, I had to hire an engineer to redo the plans, only to get into a long argument with him about whether to include a sprinkler system. My neighbors objected, claiming that I was violating zoning ordinances by building the ark in my front yard, so I had to get a variance from the city planning board. Then, I had a big problem getting enough wood for the ark, because there was a ban on cutting trees to save the spotted owl. I tried to convince the environmentalists and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that I needed the wood to save the owls, but they wouldn't let me catch them, so no owls. Next, I started gathering up the animals but got sued by an animal rights group that objected to me taking along only two of each kind. Just when the suit got dismissed, the EPA notified me that I couldn't complete the ark without filling out an environmental impact statement on Your proposed flood. They didn't take kindly to the idea that they had no jurisdiction over the Supreme Being. Then, the Corps of Engineers wanted a map of the proposed flood plan. I sent them a globe! Right now, I'm still trying to resolve a complaint with the Equal Opportunities Commission over how many minorities I'm supposed to hire. The IRS has seized all my assets claiming that I am trying to leave the country, and I just got a notice from the state that I owe some kind of use tax. Really, I don't think I can finish the ark in less than five years."

With that, the sky cleared, the sun began to shine, and a rainbow arched across the sky. Noah looked up and smiled. "You mean you are not going to destroy the world?" he asked hopefully.

"No," said the Lord. "The government already has."

(Forgive me but.....I just HAD to put this HERE!)

Child abuse investigators 'bullied' into falsifying reports
State welfare chief says D.A. office willing to 'cuss, scream, threaten' social workers

A parental rights advocacy group in Kansas was "floored" when the state child welfare chief admitted his social workers were being "bullied" into falsifying the reports that lead to children being taken out of their homes and placed in foster care.

In a meeting with Citizens for Change, Don Jordan, secretary of the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services, had his comments recorded on tape: "In Sedgwick County oftentimes we end up writing things because it's what our social workers get bullied by the District Attorney's Office into writing."

Later in the meeting Jordan said, "I am working on our staff that we do our assessments properly and we not get bullied into writing things we don't believe. But then the reality comes down to, you send a 25-year-old social worker into a room with a 15-year county A.D.A. (assistant district attorney) who is willing to yell at them, cuss at them, scream at them and threaten them."

The reports Jordan was referring to, called affidavits, are official permanent records of a child abuse investigation, containing a social worker's summary of circumstances and interviews with parents, children and others who may have evidence of abuse.

Judges rely on the affidavits to determine the level of a child's risk and the potential necessity for removal into temporary custody or foster care.

Marlene Jones, a Wichita resident who contends her family lost custody of her grandson based on false information in an affidavit, was at the meeting where Jordan spoke. "I was so floored at what he said," she told The Wichita Eagle, "that this man acknowledged… he was aware of what was going on."

Vickie Burris, president of Citizens for Change, a non-profit group that supports families accused of abuse and opposes children being placed with strangers, said the recording of the comments was done by an observer, not a member of the group. Nonetheless, she told The Eagle that Jordan's comments confirm the group's suspicions, based on numerous complaints from families, that affidavits too often include false information.

Jordan has since sought to modify his comments and the use of the word "bullied," saying, "It was a poor choice of words. … I don't believe anybody's asked to perjure themselves or lie."

Deputy District Attorney Ron Paschal, who oversees juvenile cases in the mentioned Sedgwick County, told The Eagle that Jordan had called him to apologize. "He was pandering to this particular group," said Paschal, "He used 'pandering.' Those were his words."

Nola Foulston, the district D.A., called Jordan's comments "outrageous," and foresees fallout from the incident. "You can't un-ring the bell," she told The Eagle. "He's left the impression with citizens and individuals in the community that the District Attorney's Office is doing something we shouldn't be doing."

The fallout would come at a bad time for Foulston's office, which only last year came under fire for its involvement in Kansas' publicized "Tiller the Killer" case. Former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline called Foulston a "loose canon" who "unlawfully usurped" the A.G.'s authority for political purposes during the saga of George Tiller, a late-term abortionist who faced 30 counts of violating Kansas' abortion laws.

District Judge Jim Burgess, who presides over Sedgwick County custody cases, told The Eagle he has heard complaints of social workers getting pressured, but he's never seen any evidence of it.

Kansas State Rep. Jim Morrison told The Eagle that he's heard the rumors, too, and that concerns about child custody cases aren't limited to Sedgwick County. He was one of a couple of state politicians who actually praised Jordan's candor. "I think it's good that (Jordan) is as frustrated as a lot of people who are complaining," he said.

Bush Signs Order Requiring Federal Contractors to Ensure Employees' Immigration Status
Monday, June 09, 2008

WASHINGTON — President Bush has signed an executive order requiring contractors and others who do business with the federal government to make sure their employees can legally work in the U.S.

Bush signed the order Friday and the White House announced the order Monday.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez planned an afternoon news conference to discuss the order and other ways the administration has stepped up its crackdown on illegal immigration.

The order says federal departments and agencies must require contractors to use an electronic system to verify that the workers are eligible to work in the U.S.

The order is aimed at cracking down on hiring of illegal immigrants. But people who overstayed visas or came to the country legally but do not have permission to work, such as some students or those awaiting work permits, also could be snagged with the system.

"It is the policy of the executive branch to enforce fully the immigration laws of the United States, including the detection and removal of illegal aliens and the imposition of legal sanctions against employers that hire illegal aliens," in the executive order says.

The order comes as a worker verification bill has essentially stalled in Congress. A Democratic immigration enforcement bill would require employers to check the citizenship and legal status of all their employees.

The issue has long been debated but has run into opposition over the years from business groups who say the E-Verify system is flawed and civil libertarians who say it will lead to discrimination and job losses by U.S. citizen workers misidentified as illegal workers.

Comprehensive immigration bills considered by Congress in 2006 and 2007 included worker verification measures. But after they failed, states began passing their own laws to keep employers from hiring undocumented workers.

Redefine marriage ... get sued

The governor of New York has tried to redefine marriage in the Empire State. For his efforts, he is getting sued.

New York Governor David Paterson signed an executive order on May 14 decreeing that all state agencies and programs must recognize same-sex "marriages" that are legally performed in other jurisdictions, even though New York law makes no provision for such partnerships.

Austin R. Nimocks, senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), says the governor has stepped far beyond the scope of his legitimate authority. "What the governor of New York did was completely illegal because he has no authority to unilaterally redefine marriage," notes the attorney. "It's a complete assault on the people of New York and the democratic process. Marriage is a public policy matter to be decided by the people, not by elite government officials issuing executive edicts," Nimocks explains.

Paterson based his order on a lower-court decision in a case that is still under appeal and, therefore, is not binding on the state. ADF, on behalf of lawmakers and taxpayers in New York, has filed suit asking the court to block implementation of the policy. Nimocks says that Paterson, in pursuit of a radical political agenda, may not even realize the effect of his own order.

"He's subjected New Yorkers to foreign law in order to impose a radical redefinition of marriage on the people. The end effect here is that he's basically said that New York law on marriage is going to be what any other state or foreign jurisdiction says it is," the ADF attorney contends.

Nimocks does not believe Paterson will get away with this political stunt. "What he's done is wrong, and we expect the court to set him right because there is a separation of powers in this country. He's only the executive branch. It's the prerogative of the people and the legislative branch to set policy for their state," Nimocks says.

Paterson's decree came on the heels of a California Supreme Court decision legalizing marriages between people of the same sex. Pro-family advocates expect hundreds of homosexual activists to travel to the West Coast, get "married," and then return home to sue their respective states when they are denied the same benefits as legitimately married heterosexual couples. That could begin as early as next week -- the Golden State is due to begin issuing marriage licenses to homosexual couples at 5:00 p.m. (Pacific) on Monday, June 16.

Bush orders feds to collect biometric data on terrorists
Presidential directives establish new authority with no congressional involvement

Two new directives signed by President Bush establish sweeping authority for federal executive departments and agencies to establish a coordinated "framework" to collect and retain biometric data on U.S. citizens identified as "known and suspected terrorists," without requiring public or congressional disclosure of the procedures.

Although the directives run over 1,700 words in length, Congress is not mentioned once, nor is there any specification of how the coordinated "framework" will be disclosed to the public.

WND contacted the White House press office for comment but received no return call.

The directives also do not specify any procedures for citizens to challenge their inclusion in the biometric database or any resulting consequences, such as restricted travel or additional government surveillance.

Biometric technologies use electronic means to capture individual-specific data on physical characteristics, including fingerprints, eye retina scanning, face recognition mapping and body imaging.

The contextual data that accompanies biometric data includes information on date and place of birth, citizenship, current address and address history, current employment and employment history, current phone numbers and phone number history, use of government services and tax filings.

Other contextual data may include bank account and credit card histories, plus criminal database records on a local, state and federal level. The database also could include legal judgments or other public records documenting involvement in legal disputes, child custody records and marriage or divorce records.

The new orders, issued Thursday, are identified as National Security Presidential Directive 59, or NSPD 59, and Homeland Security Presidential Directive 24, or HSPD 24, and titled "Biometrics for Identification and Screening to Enhance National Security." They instruct federal executive departments and agencies to use "mutually compatible methods and procedures in the collection, storage, use, analysis and sharing of biometric and associated biometric and contextual information" of individuals considered a national security risk.

In similar language, the presidential directives repeatedly stress that the coordinated data collection and storage procedures mandated across a wide range of federal bureaucratic structures will respect information privacy and other legal rights under United States law.

The directives, however, do not require the federal agencies collecting, sharing and storing biometric information on citizens to disclose to the American people or Congress their criteria for identifying targeted individuals or their data procedures.

The directives require the attorney general to provide legal policy guidance in coordination with the secretaries of state, defense, homeland security and the director of national intelligence, without reporting to Congress or the American people.

The directives also require the attorney general and the agency heads to "develop and implement mutually compatible guidelines for each respective agency for the collection, storage, use, analysis, and sharing of biometric and associated biographic and contextual information, to the fullest extent practicable, lawful, and necessary to protect national security."

The attorney general is given one year to implement the directives and report to the president through the assistant to the president for national security affairs, a position currently held by Stephen J. Hadley, and to the assistant to the president for homeland security and counter-terrorism, currently Frances Townsend.

WND previously reported President Bush signed NSPD-51 and HSPD-20 on May 9, 2007, allowing the president to declare a "national emergency" and take over the direction of all federal state, local, territorial and tribal governments, as well as private sector organizations, to continue functioning under the president's directives, without specifically requiring the approval of Congress.

Democrats Try to Make Military Press Conferences Illegal

Congressional Democrats announced early in May that they wanted to make “military propaganda” illegal. To achieve this goal they passed new legislation that strengthened previous legislation that is supposed to ban the Pentagon from indulging in “propaganda” for the military.

This bill is supposed to stop the military from sending “any form of communication in support of national objectives designed to influence the opinions, emotions, attitudes or behavior of the people of the United States in order to benefit the sponsor, either directly or indirectly.”

In other words, the military is not allowed to talk to the American people or Congress for fear of disseminating “propaganda.”

The only way to fulfill this idiotic policy is to stop anyone in the military from ever speaking in public because, when you get right down to it, nearly any communication from the Pentagon, or any command staff in theater, will have the effect of “influencing” those who hear it. That is the nature of human communication, after all.

Of course this is a silly concept that the Democrat Party has come up with. Every single thing that man conceives of must be “sold” to everyone else to get implemented. The idea is born in the minds of one or a few and then those disciples of the idea go forth and begin a campaign to convince those who can put that idea into place that the idea is worthy of support. In essence, that is propaganda in its simplest form. The happy face is put on, the hands are shaken, and the plan is laid out for discussion. This is called being human! It’s how we all get things done.

Besides, what level of information becomes propaganda and what just “information”? To a rabid, anti-military nut any words from the Pentagon is “propaganda.” To the highest booster, none are. Who is to determine when what is being said becomes “propaganda”?

My guess is no one in the Democrat caucus is smart enough to know.

But, let’s look at the real reason this simple-minded policy was created. The real reason the Democrats want such a policy in place is to silence the military entirely. Democrats aren’t interested in keeping the tender ears of the people from being assaulted with “propaganda.” No, they want to be able to shut the military off from being able to appear before the American people to defend themselves against Democrat attacks. THAT is the true goal.

If the Democrat Party can keep the Pentagon in the can, then Congress and the Democrat Party will be the conduit of information between the military and the people. And the Democrat Party finds an enemy in the American military. So, what better way to further their own propaganda then by making sure the enemy’s will never be heard.

Stalin would be proud of Congressional democrats.

Biblical message
now criminalized
Penalties created for those criticizing
homosexuality outside church walls

A new Colorado law is helping homosexual activists achieve their goal of forcing Christians to teach biblical condemnation of homosexuality only behind the closed doors of their sanctuaries.

The as-yet untested state law promotes sexual identity "perception" to the level of skin color under state discrimination laws.

Some opponents are calling it a "bona fide censorship law," and top analysts for Focus on the Family, the Christian publishing and broadcast powerhouse, are expressing concern over the "mischief" they expect to follow the signing by Gov. Bill Ritter.

As WND reported, Ritter, a Democrat, struck gender-specific restrooms and locker rooms statewide when he signed the plan into law in May.

The law makes it illegal to deny a person access to public accommodations, including restrooms and locker rooms, based on gender identity or the "perception" of gender identity.

"Who would have believed that the Colorado state legislature and its governor would have made it fully legal for men to enter and use women's restrooms and locker-room facilities without notice or explanation?" said James Dobson, founder of Focus.

"Henceforth, every woman and little girl will have to fear that a predator, bisexual, cross-dresser or even a homosexual or heterosexual male might walk in and relieve himself in their presence," Dobson said.

But now an analyst for Focus, Bruce Hausknecht, has told WND there are other, significant, potential ramifications hidden in the fine print of the new law.

The law provides an exemption allowing religious groups to continue teaching, inside their doors, the Bible's condemnation of homosexuality. But the exemption itself is ultimately harmful to the church, Hausknecht contends.

"It tends to marginalize the church," he said. "They'll say, 'It's just a church.' It will allow gay activists to continue to marginalize Christians. They'll say, 'Keep it within your four walls. That's all.'"

But there's further possible mischief that can result from a ban on discrimination based on sexual orientation or "perception" when deciding "full and equal enjoyment of facilities, accommodations" and other factors, he said.

Religious publishers, he acknowledged, could be accused under the law for publishing biblical condemnation of homosexuality. Colorado Springs, where Focus in located, also is home to the huge Christian publishing operations of NavPress and the International Bible Society.

"There are those who simply by publishing Christian materials could find themselves charged with a violation of this statute," he said.

A spokesman for Ritter did not respond to a WND request for comment.

The actual impact of the new ban on people responsible for "public accommodations" expressing beliefs that do not support homosexuality are unclear at this point, largely because charges haven't been brought and challenges weighed regarding the law and its potential impact on First Amendment guarantees of freedom exercise of religion.

However, Hausknecht warned there is "danger" in those waters for any church that provides any service to its community.

It is possible the law's anti-"discrimination" demands could be triggered when outside groups come in to use a church meeting room, auditorium or recreation facility. For the safety of the churches, perhaps outsiders will have to sign a document stating agreement with the church's religious beliefs before being allowed in, he said.

The targets of complaints likely won't be churches themselves, but more likely church schools, programs that offer services to communities and the like, critics of the law said.

"The intent of the homosexual activists who put this law in [was to] marginalize the church, keep it inside the sanctuary," Hausknecht said.

Worse yet is that many small or medium size churches will have to go out of their way, including halting programs, to avoid a potential conflict, because they don't have the resources to wage a war over their beliefs, he added.

"It's a lot easier to avoid the conflict than incur the costs of fighting," he said.

Dobson earlier had nothing but criticism for Colorado's elected officials.

"This is your government in action. It represents a payback to Tim Gill and two other billionaires who have essentially 'bought' state legislators with enormous campaign contributions. Coloradans deserve better!" Dobson said.

"And by the way, because of the way this bill is written, it is not subject to the initiative process. There is no recourse," Dobson said.

Pastor Bob Enyart, a Denver-area activist on Christian issues, agreed with Focus' concerns over what appears to be a newly minted state discrimination against Christian beliefs. But he went further.

"WND reported on Canada banning opposition to homosexuality; likewise, Colorado's SB200 has 'forbidden' much publishing of Christian teaching on homosexuality, cohabitation, etc.," he said.

"This censorship aspect of the law has been utterly ignored," he said.

"The law exempts churches, but that's not good, that's an insult. I.E., bigotry is allowed only in churches. Whereas every other place of public accommodation including bookstores, retail & wholesale businesses, etc. cannot sell or even 'give away' anything that would advocate discrimination [against] gay adoption, homosexual marriage, etc.," Enyart said.

He cited one part of the new law:

Section 8. 24-34-701. Publishing of discriminative matter forbidden. No person, being the owner, lessee, proprietor, manager, superintendent, agent, or employee of any place of public accommodation... shall publish, issue, circulate, send, distribute, give away, or display in any way, manner, or shape or by any means or method, except as provided in this section, any communication, paper, poster, folder, manuscript, book, pamphlet, writing, print, letter, notice, or advertisement of any kind, nature, or description THAT is intended or calculated to discriminate or actually discriminates against... SEXUAL ORIENTATION, marital status... in the matter of furnishing or neglecting or refusing to furnish to them or any one of them any lodging, housing, schooling, or tuition or any accommodation, right [marriage], privilege [adoption], advantage, or convenience... on account of... SEXUAL ORIENTATION, marital status... [which] is unwelcome or objectionable or not acceptable, desired, or solicited."

The Old Testament condemns homosexuality as an "abomination," Enyart told WND. The New Testament includes a reference in 1st Timothy calling for the use of laws against crimes such as murder and homosexuality.

"There are free speech rights to condemn cohabitation, homosexuality, state that homosexuals should not marry, should not adopt children," Enyart said. "It's now illegal in Colorado for anyone involved in a facility or business of public accommodation to give any communication that would advocate discrimination based on marital status or sexual orientation."

He said many people simply choose not to believe what's happening.

"I have a hard time believing [it myself]," said Enyart.

He said he expects the law to be only "lightly" enforced until "it just becomes an entrenched part of our legal framework. They're not going to go out and arrest somebody for selling a Bible at Barnes and Noble."

But then in a few years, watch out, he said.

Enyart has printed a document he hands out that says, "This Anti-homosexual Flyer is Illegal in Colorado." It condemns the promotion of homosexuality in no uncertain terms.

"Homosexuality should be re-criminalized in Colorado," it states.

Lesbian activist sworn in as judge of family court
Governor ignores council vote, installs advocate of same-sex marriage

Massachusetts Gov. Duval Patrick has appointed lesbian activist and lawyer Maureen Monks as associate justice of the Middlesex Probate and Family Court, effectively ignoring a dissenting vote by the Massachusetts Governor's Council.

WND received official word from the court that Monks was sworn in and formally assumed her position Friday despite the council's recorded 4-4 vote denying confirmation. Monks is required to win 5 votes to be confirmed by the council.

Monks, 49, a member and co-chair of the Massachusetts Lesbian and Gay Bar Association, is an advocate for "gay" and women's rights. She has represented homosexuals pro bono for Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders.

The Governor's Council verbally voted 5-2 in favor of her appointment, but Democrat Mary-Ellen Manning arrived behind schedule and cast her vote against Monks. Democrat Marilyn Devaney switched her verbal "yes" to a recorded "no" before the meeting adjourned – effectively creating a 4-4 tie and failing to confirm Monks. Lt. Gov. Tim Murray was present but declined to cast a deciding vote.

Councilor Manning presented a statement explaining her objection to Monks' nomination, saying the lawyer did not disclose her history of "teaching same-sex marriage concepts to high school students" to the Governor's Council.

Manning also said Monks was prone to side with women over men and that her appointment would be in conflict with the public's perception of fair treatment. While the lawyer claimed to have represented "hundreds of women and men" in her questionnaire, a court review indicated that she had only represented one man in the last eight years.

Gov. Patrick said he considers the 5-2 verbal vote to be an official count, though the Massachusetts Constitution requires that all official votes be recorded. It does not indicate that verbal votes may be counted.

Justices let stand mayor's grant of same-sex benefits
Washington Supreme Court won't review decision creating conflict with state law

The Washington Supreme Court has refused to review a lower court's decision that allows the mayor of Seattle to grant same-sex marriage benefits to employees of the city, in apparent conflict with the state's Defense of Marriage Act, which had been upheld by the same Supreme Court.

The Pacific Justice Institute, a values-oriented public interest firm, brought the request to review the conflict with the state law.

The state's Defense of Marriage Act, which was upheld by the Washington Supreme Court, requires that the state not recognize same-sex marriages from outside the state.

However, the mayor of Seattle issued an executive order in direct contradiction of the state law, instructing all city departments to recognize same-sex marriages from other jurisdictions now, including California, for the purposes of employee benefits.

Pacific Justice challenged the order by filing suit, arguing the mayor did not have the authority to contradict state law. PJI staff attorney Matthew McReynolds argued the case at the Washington Court of Appeal earlier.

PJI said, "the appellate judges seemed to realize that the mayor's actions were setting a precedent for other mayors to grant benefits for bigamous and incestuous 'marriages.' However, the three judges on the panel sided with the mayor anyway."

Now the Supreme Court has declined to overturn that decision.

"This decision by the highest court in Washington is just another example of the serious attack by judicial and political activists to undermine the voices of voters and the will of the people," Brad Dacus, Pacific Justice president, said. "It is critical that voters amend their state constitutions to ensure the traditional definition of marriage is not thwarted by a handful of government officials."

Pacific Justice Institute encourages church leaders who are concerned about safeguarding their view of marriage to contact their offices. The organization said it already has received dozens of phone calls and e-mails.

In both California and Massachusetts, it was rulings from state Supreme Courts that found it unconstitutional to prevent same-sex duos from having the title "married." The Washington state Supreme Court decision contradicted those.

In a 5-4 ruling, the court concluded state law limiting marriage to one man and one woman does not violate the state constitution.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs, 19 same-sex couples, had argued the ban violates a constitutional prohibition against granting privileges to one group of citizens but not another.

The high court got involved in that decision after a lower court ruled the state's Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional.

But the state Supreme Court noted in its ruling in 2006, "Although marriage has evolved, it has not included a history and tradition of same-sex marriage in this nation or in Washington State. … It cannot be overemphasized that our state constitution provides for a representative democracy and that the people, who have consented to be governed, speak through their elected representatives. When no fundamental right or suspect class exists, the public consensus, as evidenced by legislation adopted after robust debate, must be given great deference."

Supreme Court opens up Gitmo lawsuit floodgates; Scalia: “The Nation will live to regret what the Court has done today. I dissent.”

What’s that sound? The thunder of left-wing lawyers and Gitmo detainees jumping up and down for joy at the Supreme Court’s ruling this morning. Brace yourselves. Dissenting Justice Antonin Scalia warns that the ruling “will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed” and concludes “The Nation will live to regret what the Court has done today. I dissent.”

Chief Justice John Roberts says the rule of law and the American people have lost out–and with this ruling, we “lose a bit more control over the conduct of this Nation’s foreign policy to unelected, politically unaccountable judges.”

Quote

In a stunning blow to the Bush Administration in its war-on-terrorism policies, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday that foreign nationals held at Guantanamo Bay have a right to pursue habeas challenges to their detention. The Court, dividing 5-4, ruled that Congress had not validly taken away habeas rights. If Congress wishes to suspend habeas, it must do so only as the Constitution allows — when the country faces rebellion or invasion.

The Court stressed that it was not ruling that the detainees are entitled to be released — that is, entitled to have writs issued to end their confinement. That issue, it said, is left to the District Court judges who will be hearing the challenges. The Court also said that “we do not address whether the President has authority to detain” individuals during the war on terrorism, and hold them at the U.S. Naval base in Cuba; that, too, it said, is to be considered first by the District judges.

The Court also declared that detainees do not have to go through the special civilian court review process that Congress created in 2005, since that is not an adequate substitute for habeas rights. The Court refused to interpret the Detainee Treatment Act — as the Bush Administration had suggested — to include enough legal protection to make it an adequate replacement for habeas. Congress, it concluded, unconstitutionally suspended the writ in enacting that Act.

I’m reminded of what one DHS source pointed out to me when the high court ruled in favor of habeas corpus rights four years ago: “Hmm, now that the Gitmo detainees are entitled to habeas challenges and hearings by American courts and American judges, I wonder how long before they and their lawyers claim that they are entitled to asylum hearings as well?”

Won’t be long now!

Justice Scalia’s dissent says it all:

Quote

Both the Chief Justice and Justice Antonin Scalia issued dissenting opinions, and all four dissenters joined in both dissents. In his dissent, Justice Scalia writes, “The game of bait-and-switch that today’s opinion plays upon the Nation’s Commander in Chief will make the war harder on us. It will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed.” Justice Scalia’s 25-page dissenting opinion concludes, “The Nation will live to regret what the Court has done today. I dissent.”

Quote from: Pastor Roger on June 12, 2008, 12:02:44 PM

The U.S. is falling step by step and state by state. Yes, this is most assuredly an un-Constitutional law but little by little the courts and the governments are "reinterpreting", twisting or totally ignoring the Constitution for their own personal agendas. Yes, it is time for a new Constitutional Convention and not one that excludes The People of The United States and only includes dictatorial government employees that are NOT properly representing THE PEOPLE.

Pastor Roger,

You've already hit the nail on the head. Regardless, they can't remove the civil and constitutional rights of the majority of the country without changing the Constitution - due process - and most certainly requiring a vote of the people. With or without the consent of each individual, civil and Constitutional RIGHTS remain the same. This law is grossly illegal and Unconstitutional "ON ITS FACE" because it is in direct violation of existing RIGHTS that can't be removed. SO, enforcement "UNDER COLOR OF LAW" would be malicious prosecution. If an arrest was attempted - it would be an UNLAWFUL ARREST and FORCE IS AUTHORIZED TO RESIST AN UNLAWFUL ARREST! Any pre-law student could figure this one out in about 5 minutes, SO IT WOULD BE A KNOWN FACT UP FRONT THAT THE STATE KNEW OR SHOULD HAVE KNOWN WHAT THEY WERE DOING WAS ILLEGAL AND UNCONSTITUTIONAL!

This actually amounts to a mini-dictator taking power that is not his to take because power of that type does NOT exist in this country. Maybe this will turn out to be a good thing, and I'm completely serious. Some of my family and many Christians I know live in Colorado, and I can already tell you they won't pay any attention at all to this law - AND NO CHRISTIAN SHOULD PAY ANY ATTENTION TO THIS LAW! The exact opposite should be done by every Christian in Colorado DAILY and EXERCISE THEIR CIVIL AND CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS THAT CAN'T BE REMOVED! Take the arrest and do NOT resist - refuse to pay any fines - and immediately give notice of pending civil and criminal actions IN FEDERAL COURT! Colorado would learn a VERY EXPENSIVE lesson before the criminal and civil cases even began. It appears that the government of Colorado has already made COMPLETE MORONS of themselves. It wouldn't take long at all to teach Colorado government a lesson. If Colorado government wanted to hold a hard line, Federal Troops could even be called in to FORCE COLORADO to honor the civil and Constitutional Rights of the Citizens. Minimal determination on the part of Christians just for a matter of days would result in a lesson and EXAMPLE for all. This would certainly be worth going to jail over. Every person charged or arrested would have easy civil and criminal recourse against the state, and the state government would become a laughing stock in about 2 or 3 days.

If one thinks about the options available for decent people, WHAT ARE THEY? They either stand up and keep their rights or LEAVE THE STATE! THERE MUST BE A STANDING UP TIME AND PLACE EVENTUALLY, AND THIS ONE SOUNDS LIKE THE BEST I'VE HEARD OF! We are either a free country operating under the Laws and Constitutions of THE PEOPLE or we lower ourselves to third-world dictatorship status. IF THIS ISN'T WORTHY OF STANDING UP - WHAT IS?

Democrat voter drive investigated for fraud
Louisiana authorities say clerks flooded with fake registrations

Louisiana's top election official has launched an investigation into a voter registration drive by the Washington-based Voting is Power organization, which is sponsored by the Muslim American Society and was hired by Democrats, after registrars were "flooded" with fake forms, including a couple for a gentleman named George W. Bush.

Secretary of State Jay Dardenne said this week he already has met with Voting Is Power, which has a stated goal of signing up millions of Muslims to vote in U.S. elections, and the discussions were cordial.

He said he's seeking information about the company's methodology and information on why so many voter registration applications turned out to be incomplete, duplicates, or just plain fraudulent.

According to a report from the Associated Press, the Washington-based VIP was hired by national Democrats to register up to 70,000 new voters before this fall's election.

But Dardenne said the organization's drives in Shreveport, Baton Rouge, New Orleands and Jefferson Parish resulted in "piles of sketchy applications" that demanded investigators' time.

The result, he said, was "busy work that is not leading to productive registration of voters," according to the AP.

Bloggers were having a good time with the allegations about the registrations of Bush and others.

"It has been a long-running joke amongst pundits that Election Day should be renamed 'Zombie Day' given all the dead people who seemingly rise from the graves and vote," concluded the FedPapers blog.

"Mind you, this is just one of many reasons why states are starting to get more stringent when it comes to voters needing identification before they can vote. Many people – the majority on the Left – have had a tizzy over the enforcement of such laws. Arizona was challenged when they enacted tougher laws regarding voter identification, but that was due to the illegal alien population here, and their tendency to vote when they are not legally allowed to do so," the blog continued.

"Chicago has the 'zombie' problem. Apparently, so does Louisiana," the blog said.

"We have some very real concerns about the data we are getting from them," Dardenne told a website for the Baton Route Advocate.

That report said Democrats were aware of some problems.

"With an effort this big there's always going to be glitches and problems along these lines," Brian Welsh, a spokesman for Democrats' Louisiana Victory 2008, said. "Obviously, we are ready to work with the registrars of each parish to make sure it's going as efficiently as possible."

Roger Villere, the state Republican Party chief, said the issue needs to be investigated.

Dardenne reported the cards being submitted include those for people already registered but others were incomplete and some had "blatantly false information."

Caddo Parish, for example, had George W. Bush as a voter applicant; other cards have been filed for inmates who cannot vote as well as various dead people, Dardenne confirmed.

"We want to safeguard the integrity of the process by making sure any group seeking to register Louisiana voters provide specific information and it's not bogging down registrars offices with work premised on false information," he said, according to the Advocate report.

On the newspaper site, an anonymous poster identified as Elliott expressed a high level of concern over those doing the signature collections.

"I wonder why a Muslim organization with links to the Muslim Brotherhood is hired by the Democratic National Party. I wonder why Barack Obama is the choice of Hamas," he wrote.

"Whether through violent or economic means, losing our identity in submission to this minority will prove our national undoing. The fault is not with Islam. The fault is our losing our traditional biblical moorings, the foundation upon which our republic was built!" he continued.

On the website for the MAS-VIP organization, its organizers state: "Islam mandates every Muslim to be unequivocally committed to social justice. Civic engagement may be the most powerful way to fulfill that mandate in a democracy. Our collective involvement with the electoral process allows us as a community to express our views, and influence the laws and policies which govern America."

It continued that "many dangerous laws were passed in the name of national security."

"Whether these laws and policies increase our national security is highly questionable. But these have been widely used to profile and persecute Muslims in America," the group said.

"Only with our vigorous commitment to the electoral process, we can begin to change this unfavorable climate," it says.

Judicial supremacy strikes in Oklahoma

The elected representatives in Oklahoma passed a law to stem the tide of illegal immigrants and, faster than you can say "judicial supremacy," a federal judge blocked its enforcement. The court suspended key sections of the law even before it was due to take effect on July 1.

The Oklahoma Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act was designed to prevent illegal immigrants from taking jobs from Americans and from evading taxes by working in the underground economy.

The Oklahoma law passed the State Legislature by overwhelming, bipartisan, veto-proof majorities (88-9 in the House, 41-1 in the Senate) and was signed by Democratic Gov. Brad Henry. Public opinion polls reported that the law enjoys 88 percent public approval, and it was recognized as a model for other states to copy.

The law required employers who have contracts with the state of Oklahoma to use the Oklahoma Status Verification System to verify the legal status of their employees. The law expanded the definition of "discrimination" to include firing a U.S. citizen while retaining an illegal as an employee.

The penalty for violating this law was requiring the employer to withhold state taxes in a manner to ensure that Oklahoma would receive all proper employment taxes, including taxes for those employees who are not legally in this country. Oklahoma should certainly be able to protect itself against the non-payment by illegal immigrants of taxes that Americans pay as a matter of course.

Even though the new Oklahoma law didn't go into effect, it is credited with reducing Oklahoma unemployment significantly below the national average. The bill's sponsor, State Rep. Randy Terrill, said, "Oklahoma is no longer OK for illegal aliens."

The big national news this month is the Department of Labor announcement that U.S. unemployment has surged to 5.5 percent, the sharpest monthly spike in 22 years. The unemployment figures are particularly painful for teenagers; only about one-third of 16- to 19-year-olds are likely to get summer jobs.

The employment picture in Oklahoma is quite different: Oklahoma's unemployment rate is now only 3.1 percent and dropping. That's because after the Citizen Protection Act was passed a year ago, illegal immigrants began leaving the state.

The lawsuit to overturn the Oklahoma statute was brought by the leading trade group for large corporations profiting from hiring illegal immigrants at the expense of U.S. citizens. The name of the case is Chamber of Commerce of the United States v. Brad Henry.

The judge granted standing to the Chamber of Commerce to sue even though it had not been hurt one iota by the law that had not yet taken effect. The judge, in effect, legislated from the bench by blocking the statute from taking effect, so all its benefits might never be known.

The judge accepted the chamber's argument that Congress has pre-empted state laws by federal statutes about immigration. But we all know the federal government is incapable or unwilling to carry out the necessary enforcement of existing laws that the American people deserve to have enforced.

There is even a federal law called the Tax Injunction Act that prohibits federal courts from interfering with state taxation. The court sidestepped that law, declaring that the federal court could interfere because the Oklahoma statute is more like a regulation than a tax.

Across the country, 43 states have passed more than 182 immigration-related laws. Several leading decisions, such as the federal decision reviewing the ordinance passed in Valley Park, Mo., have upheld the laws against challenges.

Taxes and jobs are not the only reasons why states need to protect their citizens against illegal immigrants. Terrill says, "Our Bureau of Narcotics here in Oklahoma estimates that something in excess of 40 percent of the drug trafficking through Oklahoma is directly attributable to our illegal alien problem."

Courts should not interfere with legislative remedies to protect U.S. citizens from losing jobs to illegal immigrants who might not even be paying taxes on their wages. And we certainly should not tolerate drug trafficking coming in from Mexico.

Overturning the massive votes in the Oklahoma Legislature and the will of the people makes this decision one more example of how courts are trying to make themselves an elite branch of government whose every pronouncement is accepted as "the law of the land." It's time for Americans to rise up and reject the rule of judges and return to rule by our elected representatives.

Congress can and should withdraw jurisdiction from federal courts to interfere with prudent attempts by states to protect their governments and lawful residents. Congress could simply amend the Tax Injunction Act to clarify that federal courts lack authority to entertain any challenge to a state law that involves the collection of taxes from illegal immigrants.

Homosexuality takes Congress by storm

The two openly homosexual members of the U.S. House of Representatives have recruited 50 of their colleagues to officially join them in promoting the homosexual agenda in Congress.

Democrats Barney Frank of Massachusetts and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin are the only open homosexuals serving in Congress. They have joined with Republicans Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida and Christopher Shays of Connecticut, and 50 other Democrats to create the House Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Caucus. Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality, says it is a sad day when Congress enshrines official promotion of sexual immorality.

"How interesting that we now have a homosexuality, transsexual caucus – I guess you could call it – at the congressional level. It's just unbelievable that there are this many congressmen who are promoting homosexuality and transsexual perversion," LaBarbera laments.

While LaBarbera criticized the two Republicans for lending the appearance of bipartisanship to the group, he reserved his primary wrath for the Democrats.

"I think what this shows is that the hard-core Democratic Left is extremely pro-homosexual," he states. "Big city populations have many homosexual activists, and they're disproportionately powerful compared to the rest of the people in the district. Do I think that the average person in the district knows that these members are promoting homosexuality in this way? No way! But there are probably powerful homosexual constituencies in each one of these districts," LaBarbera explains.

Christians, according to LaBarbera, could learn something from the success of homosexual activists. With very small numbers, they have managed to create the perception of a much larger constituency and, thereby, have many of their political demands met.

"The gays are all about political power. They know how to vote. They're very committed. They're not apathetic like many Christians," says the activist. "And they've 'earned' this extraordinary total: 52 congressmen coming right out and saying, 'We are going to vote for homosexuality and transsexuality in Congress," LaBarbera contends.

The 52 members of the LGBT Caucus are: Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Barney Frank (D-MA), Rob Andrews (D-NJ), Xavier Becerra (D-CA), Lois Capps (D-CA), Yvette Clarke (D-NY), Joseph Crowley (D-NY), Diana DeGette (D-CO), Keith Ellison (D-MN), Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ), Mike Honda (D-CA), Barbara Lee (D-CA), James McGovern (D-MA), Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Linda Sánchez (D-CA), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Hilda Solis (D-CA), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), Henry Waxman (D-CA), Anthony Weiner (D-NY), Peter Welch (D-VT), Howard Berman (D-CA), Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), Robert Brady (D-PA), Michael Capuano (D-MA), Susan Davis (D-CA), Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), Eliot Engel (D-NY), Anna Eshoo (D-CA), Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), Phil Hare (D-IL), Rush Holt (D-NJ), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX), Patrick Kennedy (D-RI), Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), Doris Matsui (D-CA), James Moran (D-VA), Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-Washington, D.C.), Frank Pallone (D-NJ), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), Steven Rothman (D-NJ), José Serrano (D-NY), Chris Shays (R-CT), Pete Stark (D-CA), Betty Sutton (D-OH), Ellen Tauscher (D-CA), Niki Tsongas (D-MA), Robert Wexler (D-FL), Lynn Woolsey (D-CA).

LaBarbera argues that the average voter in most of those 52 congressional districts has no idea that their elected representative is openly promoting sexual immorality.

China to drill off U.S. coast

President Bush has been urged in a letter to do away with the moratorium on offshore drilling in the U.S.

The Institute for Energy Research sent the letter to President Bush urging him to exercise his authority to repeal the Executive Order banning energy production on America's outer continental shelf. The ban has been in effect since 1990. Congress also passes a similar ban on offshore drilling on a yearly basis.

Brian Kennedy is senior vice president for public affairs with the Institute for Energy Research. He argues the rationale behind his group's request that he believes would force Congress to take a longer view.

"We've gone ahead and asked the president to lead by ripping up the executive moratorium," Kennedy explains. "That would create a situation whereby the Congress would have to come up with a long-term strategy – not some annual ban that expires every year, but a long-term plan that would put some common sense and some flexibility into our offshore energy laws."

He wonders why the ban is still in place, seeing that China has plans to drill for energy 60 miles off the U.S. coastline. "The Cuban government has entered into contracts with China and a few other countries to begin to look at producing energy at the offshore, just 60 or so miles from the United States," says the Institute spokesman. "The U.S. is the only developed country in the world that restricts access to its offshore energy resources in the way that we do. It is what one senator called 'economic and strategic masochism.'"

Kennedy also contends there is no justifiable or defensible reason for the government to be restricting access to these supplies, especially considering the current energy situation. According to a Reuters article, House Republicans have recently vowed to push for more energy development within the United States. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) says Republicans will fight every single day over the next five months to hold the Democrats accountable for their "dismal record on producing more energy" in the U.S.

Oklahoma to feds: Don't tread on me
State House defends its sovereignty from D.C. intrusion

Steamed over a perceived increase in federal usurping of states' rights, Oklahoma's House of Representatives told Washington, D.C., to back off.

Joint House Resolution 1089, passed by an overwhelming 92-3 margin, reasserts Oklahoma's sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and, according to the resolution's own language, is "serving notice to the federal government to cease and desist certain mandates."

The Tenth Amendment states, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."

Traditionally, this language has meant that the federal government is limited in its scope and cannot usurp the sovereign powers of states. In recent decades, however, as the size and reach of the federal government has expanded, many have come to question whether Washington has stepped on states' rights and gotten too big for its breeches.

Charles Key, the Republican state representative who authored the resolution, told WND that he introduced it because he believes the federal government's overstepping of its bounds has put our constitutional form of government in danger.

"The more we stand by and watch the federal government get involved in areas where it has no legal authority, we kill the Constitution a little at a time," he said. "The last few decades, the Constitution has been hanging by a thread."

Specifically, Resolution 1089 says the following:

"The State of Oklahoma hereby claims sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States over all powers not otherwise enumerated and granted to the federal government by the Constitution of the United States."

The resolution resolves that Oklahoma will "serve as notice and demand to the federal government, as our agent, to cease and desist, effective immediately, mandates that are beyond the scope of these constitutionally delegated powers."

It also instructs that "a copy of this resolution be distributed to the president of the United States, the president of the United States Senate, the speaker of the United States House of Representatives, the speaker of the House and the president of the Senate of each state's legislature of the United States of America, and each member of the Oklahoma congressional delegation."

The resolution does not, as some have speculated, amount to secession, but it does send a warning signal to Washington: Oklahoma does not intend to be bullied by big brother government.

The Sooner State became a hotbed of federal vs. state authority clashes earlier this month when a federal judge blocked a portion of Oklahoma's tough immigration laws, ruling that plaintiffs would likely establish that the state mandates preempted federal immigration laws.

Oklahoma's immigration statute, known as the Oklahoma Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act of 2007, originated as House Bill 1804 (co-authored, incidentally, by Key). It has been characterized by USA Today as "arguably the nation's toughest state law targeting illegal immigration."

The statute prohibits illegal immigrants from receiving tax-supported services and makes it a state crime to transport or harbor illegal immigrants. It also mandates that businesses take measures to verify the work eligibility of employees and independent contractors.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and individual chambers of commerce in Oklahoma challenged the latter mandates, set to go into effect July 1, in court.

On June 4th, U.S. District Judge Robin J. Cauthron issued an injunction against enforcing the July 1 mandates.

"We've just had a federal judge say that our immigration law's employer provisions are unconstitutional, claiming it as federal government territory," said Key in response. "That goes right to the issue of (Resolution 1089). The federal government doesn't have the right to have sole domain over that issue or many of the issues it has spilled over into."

Though House Joint Resolution 1089 received great support in Oklahoma's House of Representatives, it has now hit a roadblock. In the state's Senate, where the seats are split, 24-24, between Republicans and Democrats, the resolution was sent to the Senate's rules committee, where it languished without action until the legislature adjourned.

According to Key, the Senate has worked out agreements on how to manage the political tie, including power given to the Democratic senators to not hear certain bills. Those senators, says Key, refuse to even hear Resolution 1089.

In the House, where Republicans enjoy a 57-44 majority, Resolution 1089 received a hearing and was supported overwhelmingly on both sides of the aisle.

"I was on the Democratic side of the floor," said Key, "and one member went off talking about how far we've gotten, how bad (federal overreaches of power) are getting – it's the kind of thing you hear in coffee shops."

Key said his bill "is making a difference" in the way legislators in Oklahoma are talking and thinking about state's rights. "I think it will make even more of a difference," he said, "when I bring it up again." He vows to put the pressure on Oklahoma's Senate to pass a resolution like 1089, and he plans to begin communicating the cause with legislators around the country, urging them to bring up the issue in their states.

Key passed a similar resolution in 1994, when he was serving a previous tenure in the legislature. But that attempt was only a House resolution. He authored 1089 as a joint resolution because, he said, he wanted to increase its exposure. "As people who believe in this constitutional form of government," he said, "we need to bring this issue to a national level and debate."

Senate sends Jindal bill on evolution

A bill to overhaul the way evolution is taught in Louisiana public schools easily cleared its final legislative hurdle Monday despite threats of a lawsuit.

Opponents, mostly outside the State Capitol, contend the legislation would inject creationism and other religious themes into public schools.

However, the Senate voted 36-0 without debate to go along with the same version of the proposal that the House passed last week 94-3.

The measure, Senate Bill 733, now goes to Gov. Bobby Jindal, who is expected to sign it.

Backers said the bill is needed to give science teachers more freedom to hold discussions that challenge traditional theories, including Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.

“It provides assurances to both teachers and students that academic inquiries are welcome and appropriate in the science classroom,” said Gene Mills, executive director of the Louisiana Family Forum.

Mills’ group touts itself as one that promotes traditional family values. It was called an influential mover behind the bill.

However, officials of the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana and Americans United for Separation of Church and State in Washington, D.C., said the bill represents an intrusion of religion into public schools that may warrant a lawsuit.

“It is the ACLU’s position that we intend to do whatever is necessary to keep religion out of our science classrooms.” said Marjorie R. Esman, executive director of the group in New Orleans.

The legislation is called the Louisiana Science Education Act.

It would allow science teachers to use supplemental materials, in addition to state-issued textbooks, on issues like evolution, global warming and human cloning.

The aim of such materials, the bill says, is to promote “critical thinking skills, logical analysis and open and objective discussion of scientific theories being studied,” including evolution.

“I just believe that it is important that supplemental scientific information be able to be brought into the school system,” state Sen. Ben Nevers, D-Bogalusa and sponsor of the bill, said after the vote.

Nevers said that, despite the rapid pace of changes in science, textbooks are only updated every seven years.

Critics said DVDs and other supplemental materials with religious themes will be added to classrooms to try to undercut widely accepted scientific views.

The bill cleared its final legislative hurdle in less than five minutes.

Nevers noted that the key change made in the House would allow the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education to toss out science supplemental materials that it considers inappropriate.

Opponents contend the bill is a bid to allow the teaching of creationism and intelligent design. Christian creationism is the view that life began 6,000 years ago in a process described in the Bible’s Book of Genesis.

Intelligent design advocates believe that the universe stems from an intelligent designer rather than chance.

The Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said in a prepared statement that the bill “is clearly designed to smuggle religion into the science classroom, and that’s unwise and unconstitutional.” Joe Conn, a spokesman for the group, said attorneys will review the bill.

Lynn’s group calls itself a national watchdog organization to prevent government-backed religious teaching.

Barbara Forrest, of Holden, a member of the group’s board of trustees and a professor of philosophy at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, also criticized passage of the measure.

“I think what the Legislature has done is an embarrassment to the state in the eyes of the entire country,” Forrest said.

Nevers downplayed talk of legal action against his bill.

“I don’t think any lawsuits will be brought because of this act,” he said.

Mills predicted that the bill will survive any legal challenge.

In 1987 the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a 1981 state law that required equal time on creationism when evolution was taught in public schools.

'Statue of Tyranny' case advances
Attorneys argue 10th Circuit ruling also would permit 'Hitler memorial'

Could some wealthy private party force the U.S. to allow a "Statue of Tyranny" in New York harbor alongside the famed Statue of Liberty? Yes, unless the U.S. Supreme Court reverses a confused free speech decision from a split 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, according to a law firm advocating for constitutional rights.

"The court of appeals' approach would make the government's display of the Statue of Liberty the speech of France, not the United States, entitling others to erect counter-monuments," said a brief filed with the high court by the American Center for Law and Justice, which represents the city of Pleasant Grove, Utah, in the dispute.

"Likewise, the Vietnam, Korean, World War II, and upcoming Martin Luther King, Jr., monuments in the nation's capital would likely be deemed private speech, not government speech, entitling Summum and everyone else with a monument to occupy their own corner of the National Mall," the brief said.

The case arose from a demand by the group Summum to have its "Seven Aphorisms" monument erected near a Ten Commandments monument on display, among other monuments and memorials, in Pioneer Park in Pleasant Grove, Utah. When the city declined, Summum sued. The ACLJ came to the defense of the city, and a federal district court in Utah refused to order the city to erect Summum's monument. Then a three-judge panel at 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Denver said Summum could insist upon erecting its own "Seven Aphorisms" monument because the city already displayed a monument of the Ten Commandments which was donated decades ago by the Fraternal Order of Eagles.

The ACLJ yesterday filed its opening brief on behalf of the city's rights in the case that could impact local, state and federal government decisions across the continent. The case essentially will decide, the ACLJ said, if cities will be faced with the choice of dismantling all monuments, memorials and other displays, "including long-standing patriotic and historical displays," or let "all comers install privately owned monuments or displays, regardless of content."

"The Supreme Court is faced with what we believe is an easy choice: preserve sound precedent involving the well-established distinction between government speech and private speech – or permit a twisted interpretation of the Constitution to create havoc in cities and localities across America," said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the ACLJ, who will present oral arguments to the high court on behalf of Pleasant Grove.

"We're hopeful the high court will correct a troubling decision that ultimately would force local governments to remove long-standing and well established patriotic, religious and historical displays," he said.

The ACLJ's brief says the First Amendment does not require that a government park be turned into a "cluttered junkyard of monuments contributed by all comers," but the 10th Circuit ruling made several crucial errors and failed to recognize that.

"First, the court below fundamentally misapprehended the distinction between government speech and private speech in this case," the brief said. "Second, the court below misidentified the relevant 'forum.' Third, the court erroneously held that city parks are traditional public fora for private, unattended, permanent monuments. Fourth, the lower court erred by holding that a city's acceptance of donated monuments creates a designated public forum for private speech through such monuments," the brief said.

The concept of allowing anything as a monument is "scary," Frank Manion, of the ACLJ, told WND earlier. "The Minutemen in Massachusetts? We need a Redcoat. A George Washington statue? Why not George the 3rd. A Holocaust memorial? How about a Hitler memorial?"

The brief describes Summum as a "corporate sole and a church" founded in 1975 with headquarters in Salt Lake City. The "organization" lauds the principles of "psychokinesis, correspondence, vibration, opposition, rhythm, cause and effect, and gender," and promotes mummification of both people and pets.

The ACLJ said the Ten Commandments monuments are the real targets of the legal actions, because in many circumstances, cities or other governments likely would order such monuments removed, rather than order acceptance of others.

The ACLJ, which has worked on the case with the Thomas More Law Center, contends that the Constitution "does not empower private parties to force permanent displays into a park, crowding out the available physical space and trumping the government's own vision" for the parks.

"In the [related] Duchesne case, even an attorney for Summum admitted to the federal district court that its position could lead to bizarre results. Summum's attorneys told the court that if a city park is required to display monuments contributed by all comers, the city park may well end up looking like a cemetery with many, many monuments," the ACLJ said.

Under Summum's theology, adherents believe the first set of stone tablets Moses received on Mt. Sinai contained its seven aphorisms, "made by a divine being."

"The first set of stone tablets was not inscribed with the Ten Commandments. Rather, they contained aphorisms of a Higher Law that held very profound and deep meanings," the organization's website says.

The group believes Moses "had been initiated into an understanding of the inner, esoteric source" of those aphorisms, but when he "observed the immature behavior and attitude of the Israelites" he realized they could not understand them too.

"So Moses destroyed the stone tables and revealed the aphorisms to a select few."

The ACLJ warned earlier: "In 1886, the United States government accepted from the people of France a donation of a 151-foot tall colossal statue called 'Liberty Enlightening the World.' Since that time, the government has displayed this Statue of Liberty in a traditional public forum in New York Harbor.

"For years, demonstrators with messages to deliver have assembled, handed out literature and otherwise expressed themselves at the site subject to certain regulations of the time, place and manner of their expression. But it probably never occurred to any such demonstrators that they enjoyed a constitutional right to insist that the government allow them to erect their own 151-foot tall statue or monument setting forth an alternative message to that conveyed by Lady Liberty," the law firm warned.

"Under the flawed private speech jurisprudence of the panel in this case – there exists no principled basis upon which the government could turn down for permanent display on Liberty Island a donation of a 'Statue of Tyranny,' or, perhaps, a new copper colossus bearing the message 'Pay No Attention to the Lady With the Torch – the Golden Door is Now Closed,'" the legal briefs argued.

The brief notes "while 'The Great Gatsby' is admittedly not a government speech, the selection of that book for placement on a public library's shelves is government speech. F. Scott Fitzgerald (were he still alive) could neither insist on the book's inclusion … nor object to its removal from the shelves to make way for the latest Harry Potter book."

Unless overturned, the 10th Circuit ruling "threatens to wreak havoc upon governments at every level in their ability to control the permanent physical occupation of government land."

Dems want control
over U.S. oil flow
Hinchey joins Waters, says
'We should own refineries'

The itch to control the U.S. oil industry is spreading among Democrats in Washington, with Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., joining in the chorus to nationalize the energy company assets.

"We (the government) should own the refineries," Hinchey said today, according to a Fox News alert. "Then we can control how much gets out into the market.

WND earlier reported when U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., during a grilling of oil executives by a panel of U.S. House members, threatened to nationalize the industry if executives were unsuccessful in bringing pump prices for gasoline down.

A report by Fox News, captured in a clip posted on YouTube.com, showed Waters challenging the president of Shell Oil, John Hofmeister, to guarantee the prices consumers pay will go down if the oil companies are allowed to drill wherever they want off of U.S. shores.

Hofmeister replied: "I can guarantee to the American people, because of the inaction of the United States Congress, ever-increasing prices unless the demand comes down."

The Shell exec said paying $5 at the pump "will look like a very low price in the years to come if we are prohibited from finding new reserves, new opportunities to increase supplies."

Waters responded, in part, "And guess what this liberal would be all about. This liberal will be about socializing … uh, um. …"

The congresswoman paused to collect her thoughts.

"Would be about, basically, taking over, and the government running all of your companies. …"

The oil executives responded, according to Fox News, by saying they've seen this before, in Hugo Chavez's Venezuela.

Fox reported today the latest statements from Hinchey came as Democrats responded to President Bush's call for Congress to lift the moratorium on offshore drilling.

Democrats also said the reason the Appropriations Committee markup, where the vote on an amendment to lift a ban on offshore drilling was to be, was cancelled so that representatives could focus on a supplemental Iraq spending bill.

Hinchey, one of the more ardent opponents of off-shore drilling, simply said Congress will do what is "in the best interest of the American people. Not major corporations."

State denies cancer treatment, offers suicide instead
'To say, we'll pay for you to die, but not pay for you to live, it's cruel'

State officials have offered a lung cancer patient the option of having the Oregon Health Plan, set up in 1994 to ration health care, pay for an assisted suicide but not for the chemotherapy prescribed by her physician.

The story appears to be a happy ending for Barbara Wagner, who has been notified by a drug manufacturer that it will provide the expensive medication, estimated to cost $4,000 a month, for the first year and then allow her to apply for further treatment, according to a report in the Eugene Register-Guard.

But the word from the state was coverage for palliative care, which would include the state's assisted suicide program, would be allowed but not coverage for the cancer treatment drugs.

"To say to someone, we'll pay for you to die, but not pay for you to live, it's cruel," Wagner told the newspaper. "I get angry. Who do they think they are?"

She said she was devastated when the state health program refused coverage for Tarceva, the drug her doctor ordered for treatment of her lung cancer.

The refusal came in an unsigned letter from LIPA, the company that runs the state program in that part of Oregon.

"We had no intent to upset her, but we do need to point out the options available to her under the Oregon Health Plan," Dr. John Sattenspiel, senior medical director for LIPA, told the newspaper.

"I understand the way it was interpreted. I'm not sure how we can lift that. The reality is, at some level (doctor-assisted suicide) could be considered as a palliative or comfort care measure."

The 64-year-old Wagner lives in a low-income apartment in Springfield with her dog, the newspaper said.

State officials say the Oregon Health Plan prioritizes treatments, with diagnoses and ailments deemed the most important, such as pregnancy, childbirth and preventive care for children at the top of the list. Other treatments rank below, officials said.

"We can't cover everything for everyone," Dr. Walter Shaffer, a spokesman for the state Division of Medical Assistance Programs, told the paper. "Taxpayer dollars are limited for publicly funded programs. We try to come up with policies that provide the most good for the most people."

He said many cancer treatments are a high priority, but others reflect the "desire on the part of the framers of this list to not cover treatments that are futile."

Wagner, however, is ending up with the treatment needed when her lung cancer, in remission for two years, returned.

She reported a representative for the pharmaceutical company called and notified her the drug would be provided for at least the first year.

"We have been warning for years that this was a possibility in Oregon," said the "Bioethics Pundit" on the Bioethics blog. "Medicaid is rationed, meaning that some treatments are not covered. But assisted suicide is always covered."

"This isn't the first time this has happened either," the blogger wrote. "A few years ago a patient who needed a double organ transplant was denied the treatment but would have been eligible for state-financed assisted suicide. But not to worry. Just keep repeating the mantra: There are no abuses with Oregon's assisted suicide law. There are no abuses. There are no abuses!

Constitutionality of light bulb ban questioned
Congressman doubts China imports answer to U.S. energy crisis

Members of Congress are beginning to have second thoughts about the ban on incandescent light bulbs effective in 2014 as a result of an energy bill signed into law earlier this year.

Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, says his objection is very basic – the Constitution doesn't authorize Congress to do anything remotely like banning a product that has been used safely and efficiently for more than 100 years in favor of Chinese-imported compact fluorescent light bulbs that pose considerable health and safety risks.

Poe cited the dangers associated with CFLs, which carry small amounts of mercury that can enter the environment through breakage and disposal. He also objected to reliance on the CFL alternatives when, currently, all are made in China.

"Congress passed an energy bill that should be called the anti-American non-energy bill because it punishes Americans for using energy when it should be finding new sources of available energy," Poe stated.

From the floor of the House, Poe addressed the dangers of the CFL bulbs, explaining the extensive cleanup required by the Environmental Protection Agency for simply breaking a bulb. When a bulb, which contains mercury, is broken, according to the EPA, the room must be evacuated for 15 minutes and aired out with windows, but not before all glass is removed, placed in a sealed glass jar and disposed of outside. Any remaining glass must be picked up with tape. In addition, central heating or air conditioning units must be turned off.

This is what the EPA officials say about light bulbs they want the public to use.

In addition, the bulbs cause photographs to fade and can interfere with radio signals, television and remote controls, according to Poe.

"Madam speaker, I have a Constitution here, like most members of Congress," Poe said. "I carry it with me, I've read it through and through but I don't see anywhere in the U.S. Constitution where it gives the government the right to control the type of light bulbs used in Dime Box, Texas, or anywhere else in the United States."

Poe criticized Congress' focus on regulation rather than working to develop natural resources during an energy crisis.

"I yearn for the day when Americans took care of America by developing our own abundant natural resources like coal, natural gas and crude oil to provide affordable energy to Americans," Poe remarked.

House passes new surveillance law
Compromise bill easily approved, shields telecoms from related lawsuits

The House Friday easily approved a compromise bill setting new electronic surveillance rules that effectively shield telecommunications companies from lawsuits arising from the government's terrorism-era warrantless eavesdropping on phone and computer lines in this country.

The bill, which was passed on a 293-129 vote, does more than just protect the telecoms. The update to the 30-year-old Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is an attempt to balance privacy rights with the government's responsibility to protect the country against attack, taking into account changes in telecommunications technologies.

"This bill, though imperfect, protects both," said Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., and a former member of the intelligence committee.

President Bush praised the bill Friday. "It will help our intelligence professionals learn enemies' plans for new attacks," he said in a statement before television cameras a few hours before the vote.

The House's passage of the FISA Amendment bill marks the beginning of the end to a monthslong standoff between Democrats and Republicans about the rules for government wiretapping inside the United States. The Senate was expected to pass the bill with a large margin, perhaps as soon as next week, before Congress takes a break during the week of the Fourth of July.

The government eavesdropped on American phone and computer lines for almost six years after the Sept. 11 attacks without permission from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the special panel established for that purpose under the 1978 law. Some 40 lawsuits have been filed against the telecommunications companies by groups and individuals who think the Bush administration illegally monitored their phone calls or e-mails.

The White House had threatened to veto any surveillance bill that did not also shield the companies.

The compromise bill directs a federal district court to review certifications from the attorney general saying the telecommunications companies received presidential orders telling them wiretaps were needed to detect or prevent a terrorist attack. If the paperwork were deemed in order, the judge would dismiss the lawsuit.

It would also require the inspectors general of the Justice Department, Pentagon and intelligence agencies to investigate the wiretapping program, with a report due in a year.

Critics of the bill say dismissal is a foregone conclusion.

"These provisions turn the judiciary into the administration's rubber stamp," said Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif. She opposes the bill.

Opponents of immunity believe civil lawsuits are the only way the full extent of the wiretapping program will ever be revealed.

Key senators voiced strong opposition to the compromise, although they're unlikely to have the votes to either defeat or filibuster the bill. Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, condemned the immunity deal. He said that nothing in the new bill would prevent the government from once again wiretapping domestic phone and computer lines without court permission.

Specter said the problem is constitutional: The White House may still assert that the president's Article II powers as commander in chief supersede statutes that would limit him actions.

"Only the courts can decide that issue and this proposal dodges it," Specter said.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi of California disputed that, saying FISA would from now on be the authority for the government to conduct electronic surveillance.

"There is no inherent authority of the president to do whatever he wants. This is a democracy, not a monarchy," she said.

Some civil liberties and privacy groups are also opposing the bill. They object not only to the immunity provision but to what they consider the weakening of the FISA court's oversight of government eavesdropping. For example, the government can initiate a wiretap without court permission if "important intelligence" would otherwise be lost. It has a week to file the request for approval with the court, and the court has 30 days to act on it. But if the court objects to how the government is carrying out the wiretap, it could be weeks before those methods are changed or stopped.

"What we have here is the opportunity for the government to commit mass untargeted surveillance," said Texas Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee.

Opponents also contend the privacy of Americans who communicate with people overseas is not adequately protected. The bill would allow the government to tap the foreigner's calls without court approval, and critics contend that innocent American conversations can be swept up in that.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendment bill also would:

* Require FISA court permission to wiretap Americans who are overseas.
* Prohibit targeting a foreigner to secretly eavesdrop on an American's calls or e-mails without court approval.
* Allow the FISA court 30 days to review existing but expiring surveillance orders before renewing them.
* Allow eavesdropping in emergencies without court approval, provided the government files required papers within a week.
* Prohibit the government from invoking war powers or other authorities to supersede surveillance rules in the future.

Israel-Hating Republican

Forty-eight-year-old Rima Barakat-Sinclair has been a resident of Denver since 1987. Never having held political office before, she is currently running as a Republican for a State House seat in Colorado’s Sixth District, which is heavily Democratic and features the largest per capita Jewish population in the state. With the self-identified aim of working “for better understanding among peoples of different backgrounds,” Barakat-Sinclair has participated in numerous “interfaith dialogues” to promote “more tolerance” and create “a stronger united America.” She pledges undying allegiance to such ideals as “upholding the Constitution,” defending “individual freedom,” promoting “small government,” enacting “prudent tax and spending policies,” “investing in our children,” guaranteeing “freedom of religion,” and recognizing “the sanctity of human life.”

Oh, and by the way, she is a Muslim activist who considers Israel to be a nation of bloodthirsty monsters who indiscriminately murder innocent Palestinian women and children for no reason other than to satisfy their own beastly compulsions.

While working as a contract translator for CNN in 2003, Mrs. Barakat-Sinclair was part of an interfaith delegation of Christians and Muslims who paid a friendly visit to Yasser Arafat at his Ramallah headquarters, where, since December 2001, Israeli troops had been keeping him under virtual house arrest in an effort to derail his terrorist activities. Favorably impressed by the most prolific Jew-killer since Adolf Hitler, Barakat-Sinclair would later reflect: “I know the accusations about him [Arafat] supporting terror, but he was so confined and surrounded that to me it seemed more like visiting a tourist attraction than visiting a head of state. It was very, very weird.” Arafat’s main message to his visitors, she expanded, was that he felt “robbed of his legacy” because “the peace process had not gone forward.” Added the star-struck woman, “He [Arafat] flirted [with me] a bit, in a very nice way, you know, saying, ‘I like your hair, your long braids.’”

Barakat-Sinclair was a key participant in an October 2005 conference sponsored by Sabeel, a Jerusalem-based organization that supports a “one-state solution” to the Arab-Israeli conflict, where Israel would continue to exist, but not as a Jewish state. Barakat-Sinclair led a workshop on the topic of the so-called “Right of Return” of those Palestinian refugees who (for the most part) voluntarily had left the region during the 1948 Arab invasion of Israel. At that time, the refugees sought out safe haven during what they anticipated would be a brief war that the Arab allies undoubtedly would win, and they fully expected to return to their homes within a few weeks -- once the fighting had stopped and the Jews had been crushed. Instead, the Arab armies were defeated. Barakat-Sinclair now calls for the re-admittance not only of the relatively few surviving people who were among those 725,000 original refugees, but also for the admittance of several millions of their descendants, a move that would transform Israel overnight into an Arab-majority state dominated by Muslims sympathetic to the aims of Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

In a July 2006 interview with CBS television, Barakat-Sinclair stood truth on its head when she condemned Israel’s “imprisonment of five million Palestinians” who, for their part, were “trying to resolve this conflict peacefully.” Israel had responded to those peace efforts, she said, by engaging in “more and more land-grabbing,” by erecting a wall “literally imprisoning hundreds of thousands of people,” and by incarcerating more than “ten thousand prisoners,” including women and children, “for no reason.” “Israeli soldiers now are known to be just bombing and killing babies,” she added for good measure. (Click here for video of this interview.)

Four months later, Barakat-Sinclair charged that a “depraved” Israel routinely carried out “massacres” by means of “the regular use of disproportionate firepower against a trapped population in Gaza” -- thereby demonstrating “the level of contempt with which the Israel government views Palestinian lives.” She told tales of sadistic Israeli soldiers beating handicapped people, gunning down women and babies, opening fire on crowds of beachgoers, breaking into homes at night and murdering entire families in their beds, and riddling children with bullets while the youngsters were merely harvesting strawberries. Likening Israel’s “mass slaughter” of Palestinians to the horrors that existed under “slavery, [South African] apartheid and Nazi concentration camps,” Barakat-Sinclair said that Israel “has turned back the clock to the time of the barbarians” by engaging in “the systematic indiscriminate murder of civilians and the illegal collective imprisonment of a whole nation.”

“As Americans we must understand that the world sees the United States as a collaborator in this endless carnage,” says Barakat-Sinclair. “The F-16s that drop Israeli death decrees upon the Palestinians were ‘Made in the USA.’ We finance and enable the perpetrators to commit these crimes with impunity and in violation of our own laws.”

Just as Barakat-Sinclair places no limits on the lies she is willing to tell about Israel, so is she prepared to go to any lengths to avoid criticizing Islamic terrorists. Indeed she has claimed on the air that the Hamas Charter does not in any way call for Israel’s destruction. Yet that document decrees plainly, “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.” The Charter further contains numerous calls for violent jihad to counter “the Jews’ usurpation of Palestine.”

Barakat-Sinclair also has defended Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi against his critics, calling him “a renowned Muslim scholar.” A disciple of the Muslim Brotherhood -- which Islam expert Robert Spencer describes as “the parent organization of Hamas and al-Qaeda” -- Qaradawi is a supporter of Palestinian terrorism who has been barred from entering the United States since 1999.

Barakat-Sinclair is a member of the Steering Committee of Muslims Intent on Learning and Action (MILA), an organization that seeks to increase Muslims’ involvement in the American political process. Her own current candidacy is a reflection of that mission.

To pass herself off as a conservative Republican, Barakat-Sinclair has had to resort to considerable deception. For instance, she falsely represented herself at the District Assembly as a pro-life opponent of abortion. Her duplicity on this issue eventually would come to light, however, when a researcher tracked down a quote where Barakat-Sinclair had told the Rocky Mountain News on August 14, 2004: “I would like to have a president who is pro-choice.”

Barakat-Sinclair’s opponent in the upcoming Republican primary (slated for August 12th) will be Joshua Sharf, a contract web developer whose professional career also has included work as a talk radio host, a financial analyst, and a defense and intelligence consultant for such projects as satellite systems and missile defense. In 2004 and 2005, Sharf served as an election judge, and in 2006 he was a delegate to the Colorado Republican state assembly. A blogger at his own View From a Height website and at Brent Bozell’s Newsbusters, Sharf is running as a traditional conservative Republican, and not, despite the overwhelmingly Democratic makeup of the district, as an identity candidate.

cont'd

Sharf has accurately characterized Barakat-Sinclair as “a terror apologist, and an avowed enemy of Israel, with no credible conservative credentials.” “When engaged in anti-Israel propaganda,” Sharf observes, she usually goes by [the name] Rima Barakat. When engaged in broader political work, she goes by Rima Sinclair.…”

Taking a page directly out of the leftist playbook, Barakat-Sinclair has cast herself as a victim, dismissing Sharf’s criticisms of her affinity for Islamic extremism as evidence of her opponent’s Islamophobic bigotry. Complaining that “these attacks on me have intense emotions of hate and militancy behind them,” she laments that her detractors “hate my religion, my very being.”

In an effort to gain favorable press coverage for her political campaign, Barakat-Sinclair has turned to the Washington Report for Middle East Affairs, a project of the Council for the National Interest (CNI). CNI’s stated mission is “to restore a political environment in America in which voters and their elected officials are free from the undue influence and pressure of a foreign country, namely Israel.” Specifically, the organization calls for: “total withdrawal of Israel from all occupied territory”; “an end to all acts of aggression, provocation, and retaliation by Israel”; “American recognition of a totally independent state of Palestine”; and “an elimination of all unaudited U.S. aid to Israel.” In short, CNI is no friend of Israel.

Barakat-Sinclair’s case is vitally important because it offers a vivid illustration of how a Muslim radical can effectively wage bloodless jihad against the West by infiltrating the government and gaining a platform from which to infect the entire body politic. Her strategy is wholly consistent with the plans that were laid out in a secret 1991 Muslim Brotherhood memorandum on “the General Strategic Goal…in North America.” Explaining that the Brotherhood’s mission was to establish “an effective and...stable Islamic Movement” on the continent, this document outlines a “Civilization-Jihadist Process” for achieving that objective. It states that Muslims “must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands...so that...God’s religion [Islam] is made victorious over all other religions.’”

Rima Barakat-Sinclair is the living embodiment of that strategy. Those who oppose this strategy must place their principles above party identification.

Quote

Barakat-Sinclair’s case is vitally important because it offers a vivid illustration of how a Muslim radical can effectively wage bloodless jihad against the West by infiltrating the government and gaining a platform from which to infect the entire body politic. Her strategy is wholly consistent with the plans that were laid out in a secret 1991 Muslim Brotherhood memorandum on “the General Strategic Goal…in North America.” Explaining that the Brotherhood’s mission was to establish “an effective and...stable Islamic Movement” on the continent, this document outlines a “Civilization-Jihadist Process” for achieving that objective. It states that Muslims “must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands...so that...God’s religion [Islam] is made victorious over all other religions.’”

Rima Barakat-Sinclair is the living embodiment of that strategy. Those who oppose this strategy must place their principles above party identification.

This would be the best way to conquer this nation, and it appears to be happening now. There is much more than just Islam working from within. The powers of darkness are out in the open and working around the clock. The devil is very skilled in destroying and deceiving - especially the weak. Sadly, many of our self-professed Christians aren't very strong, and many of them might not be Christians at all. When adversity comes, real Christians are still strengthened in the ancient ways: 1) Prayer; 2) THE HOLY SPIRIT OF GOD living in our hearts; 3) GOD'S WORD; 4) CHRIST - OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR forever. I'm not hinting that Christians enjoy difficult times, but I will do more than hint that Real Christians are Children of the KING OF KINGS regardless of the times or difficulties. In fact, times of difficulty many times makes us STRONGER - not WEAKER! WHY? - We were bought with a price and are not our own. The Promises of GOD to us will be fulfilled regardless of what happens in this short life. AND, WE KNOW THIS WORLD ISN'T OUR HOME! Hopefully, we will yield ourselves for GOD'S Use - regardless of what it is.

Love In Christ,
Tom

Ephesians 1:18-23 NASB I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.

Battle over 'Fairness Doctrine' heats up
Support for 'censorship' largely divided on political lines

The president isn't going to blame the Democrats – yet – for not fully supporting a plan that would assure broadcasters in the United States their freedom from government-imposed censorship on their views and comments.

The issue concerns the ongoing battle over the so-called "Fairness Doctrine" by which the federal government used to require radio broadcasters to "balance" their comments between conservative and liberal viewpoints.

There have been a multitude of calls in recent years for that doctrine to be reasserted by the federal government, in light of the overwhelming success of more traditional perspectives on radio airwaves today.

A spokeswoman for President Bush today said he doesn't believe there's any need for such censorship.

"The president believes that the First Amendment, freedom of speech and the press, should not be denied to radio and television by the so-called Fairness Doctrine, doesn't he?" asked Les Kinsolving, WND's correspondent at the White House.

"That's correct," said Dana Perino, the White House spokeswoman.

"Republican congressman Mike Pence of Indiana has introduced the Broadcaster Freedom Act, which needs only 24 more signatures on a discharge petition to go to the House floor for a vote. And my question: Since, in the House, both of Maryland's Republicans have supported the Broadcaster Freedom Act, but all six of Maryland's Democrats have refused to do so, the president recognizes this as an indication the Democrats generally want the return of the Fairness Doctrine's on-air censorship, doesn't he?," Kinsolving continued.

"I don't know if that's necessarily the case, but it sounds like you have some lobbying work to do up on Capitol Hill, so we should dispatch you up there and see if you can get it done," Perino said.

CBS then noted, "He (Kinsolving) is not allowed to lobby and hold a press pass at the same time, remind him."

While that generated a laugh, the issue of "Fairness" censorship is serious for broadcasters around the nation.

Pence, in introducing his plan earlier, noted the Federal Communications Commission and its precursor developed the "Fairness Doctrine" in the 1930s and 1940s, but it fell by the wayside under President Ronald Reagan's veto in 1985.

"The lifting of the Fairness Doctrine has opened the public airwaves to free and vigorous discussion of controversial issues by individuals of all political stripes," he said. "Talk radio has emerged as a dynamic forum for public debate."

But he said the recent discussion has focused on "the need to level the playing field … A liberal think tank recently condemned what they called the 'massive imbalance' on the radio airwaves."

"Bringing back the Fairness Doctrine would amount to government control over political views expressed on the public airwaves. It is a dangerous proposal to suggest the government should be in the business of rationing free speech," he said.

Pence, a former broadcaster, said his Broadcasters Freedom Act would ensure that "true freedom and fairness will remain on our radio airwaves."

He now is trying to assemble the signatures on a discharge petition that would force a House floor vote on the issue. The Indiana Republican needs two dozen more.

WND reported earlier when Bush expressed the opinion that the doctrine is "Orwellian."

Former White House spokesman Tony Snow also told WND when he held the post that the Fairness Doctrine is not needed, even though Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., has lobbied for the provision.

In a column, WND founder and editor Joseph Farah, issued a warning about what would be coming if Democrats retain control of the Senate and House in November.

"Prepare for a major, frontal assault on the First Amendment – perhaps the worst in American history," he wrote, citing a letter written by U.S. Senate President Harry Reid, D-Ariz., to talk radio superstar Rush Limbaugh's network several months ago, demanding he apologize for something he never said.

"It was a shot across the bow by an arrogant group of petty, wannabe tyrants who would, if they could, use the coercive power of the state to stifle all dissenting views," Farah warned.

"They would do it under the rubric of 'hate speech' legislation. They would do it with the rationalization of 'fairness' and 'accuracy' – two qualities they wouldn't recognize if they tripped over them. They would do it in the name of campaign finance reform. In fact, they would do it without any excuse whatsoever," he continued.

"To them, the First Amendment doesn't actually protect the inalienable right to free speech and the free press. It only protects their speech and their press. They want a monopoly on media. They had it once and they got spoiled. They decided they can't live without it any more."

He said come January 2009, if Reid still is running the Senate and Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., still is running the House, "they are going to pass a law bringing back the so-called 'Fairness Doctrine.' If Barack Obama is in the White House, he will sign it."

Court rejects death penalty for raping children
Ruling states execution would violate ban on cruel and unusual punishment

The Supreme Court on Wednesday outlawed executions of people convicted of raping a child.

In a 5-4 vote, the court said the Louisiana law allowing the death penalty to be imposed in such cases violates the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

"The death penalty is not a proportional punishment for the rape of a child," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in his majority opinion. His four liberal colleagues joined him, while the four more conservative justices dissented.

There has not been an execution in the United States for a crime that did not also involve the death of the victim in 44 years.

Patrick Kennedy, 43, was sentenced to death for the rape of his 8-year-old stepdaughter in Louisiana. He is one of two people in the United States, both in Louisiana, who have been condemned to death for a rape that was not also accompanied by a killing.

The Supreme Court banned executions for rape in 1977 in a case in which the victim was an adult woman.

Forty-five states ban the death penalty for any kind of rape, and the other five states allow it for child rapists. Montana, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas allow executions in such cases if the defendant had previously been convicted of raping a child.

'National consensus against'
The court struggled over how to apply standards laid out in decisions barring executions for the mentally retarded and people younger than 18 when they committed murder. In those cases, the court cited trends in the states away from capital punishment.

In this case, proponents of the Louisiana law said the trend was toward the death penalty, a point mentioned by Justice Samuel Alito in his dissent.

"The harm that is caused to the victims and to society at large by the worst child rapists is grave," Alito wrote. "It is the judgment of the Louisiana lawmakers and those in an increasing number of other states that these harms justify the death penalty."

But Kennedy said the absence of any executions for rape and the small number of states that allow it demonstrate "there is a national consensus against capital punishment for the crime of child rape."

Kennedy also acknowledged that the decision had to come to terms with "the years of long anguish that must be endured by the victim of child rape."

Still, Kennedy concluded that in cases of crimes against individuals — as opposed to treason, for example — "the death penalty should not be expanded to instances where the victim's life was not taken."

The decision does not affect the imposition of the death penalty for other crimes that do not involve murder, including treason and espionage, he said.

Louisiana case
Patrick Kennedy was convicted in 2003 of raping his stepdaughter at their home in Harvey, La., outside New Orleans. The girl initially told police she was sorting Girl Scout cookies in the garage when two boys assaulted her.

Police arrested Kennedy a couple of weeks after the March 1998 rape, but more than 20 months passed before the girl identified him as her attacker.

His defense attorney at the time argued that blood testing was inconclusive and that the victim was pressured to change her story.

The Louisiana Supreme Court upheld the sentence, saying that "short of first-degree murder, we can think of no other non-homicide crime more deserving" of the death penalty. State Chief Justice Pascal Calogero noted in dissent that the U.S. high court already had made clear that capital punishment could not be imposed without the death of the victim, except possibly for espionage or treason.

A second Louisiana man, Richard Davis was sentenced to death in December for repeatedly raping a 5-year-old girl in Caddo Parish, which includes Shreveport. Local prosecutor Lea Hall told jurors: "Execute this man. Justice has a sword and this sword needs to swing today."

The high court's decision leaves intact Kennedy's conviction, but will lead to a new sentence. The case is Kennedy v. Louisiana, 07-343.

Feds boot Boy Scouts
for Rainbow Family
'It appears the group has managed
to intimidate an entire federal agency'

About 1,000 members of the honor society for the Boy Scouts of America have been booted from a long-planned national service project in Wyoming by federal officials in favor of a gathering by the "Rainbow Family," an unorganized annual assembly of "free spirits" who commune with nature and each other.

The action has left local leaders infuriated.

"It's a matter of intimidation," Sublette, Wyo., County commissioner Joel Bousman told WND. "It appears the Rainbow group has managed to intimidate an entire federal agency."

As WND has reported, the honor society for the Scouts, the Order of the Arrow, has been working for several years to put together this year's public service project called ArrowCorps5.

The plans include about 5,000 top Boy Scouts from across the country donating an estimated 250,000 hours of time to restore, repair, rebuild, reclaim and refurbish miles of trails, acres and glens in the nation's forests.

"ArrowCorps5 is the largest, most complex, most challenging conservation project ever conceived by the Order of the Arrow and Boy Scouts of America," said Brad Haddock, chairman of the National Order of the Arrow Committee. "This project provides a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for each participant to set an example of leadership in service to those who treasure our national forests."

The week-long projects already have taken place in Mark Twain National Forest in Missouri and Manti-La Sal in Utah. The projects in George Washington and Jefferson National Forest in Virginia are going on this week. Work in Shasta-Trinity in California starts July 12 and at Bridger-Teton in Wyoming, the work was set to begin July 26.

But the conflict arose with the Wyoming location and dates, because Rainbow Family participants announced they would meet in the same general location as the Scouting work was to take place. The Rainbow Family events are not organized, there is no official website, and the makeup of the assemblage varies. Their activities grow to a peak over the July 4th weekend and then taper off, but the cleanup from the estimated 25,000 people expected to invade Wyoming's Sublette County, population 6,000, is expected to take the time the Scouts otherwise would have been doing repairs.

Mary Cernicek, a spokeswoman for the Bridger-Teton National Forest, told the Casper Star-Tribune federal officials will look for other work in another location to substitute for the Scouts.

"We're heartbroken, but we're committed to giving the Boy Scouts a good experience and providing them with the education and leadership skills they're seeking," she told the newspaper.

Bousman said it's fairly simple: The Scouts applied for permission for their project, filled out forms, went through red tape, and got permission. Then came the announcement from Rainbow members they've chosen the same location.

Mark Rey, the federal undersecretary supervising the U.S. Forest Service, met with Rainbow Family members recently in Pinedale, and urged them to move their gathering, the Star-Tribune said. They refused.

Rey told WND he thought the decision to move the Scouts to somewhere else and leave the Rainbow Family alone was the best under the circumstances. He said the government allows the Rainbow Family to bypass its regular permit requirements in favor of an "operating plan" but the bottom line was that the government didn't want to be arresting hundreds or thousands of people.

"They couldn't be expelled without a fairly significant amount of law enforcement activity," he told WND.

Sue Bradford, a Montana woman who has attended Rainbow gatherings since the 1990s, said the group told the Forest Service where members would assemble, but no one informed them of the conflict until it was "too late," according to the newspaper.

"The Boy Scouts have been planning this since 2004," Bousman told WND. "They've been through the planning process and have been working very cooperatively with our Forest Service. They've spent lots of money planning the biggest venture ever for the Boy Scouts.

"They did everything legally, they had their permits. But because of the fact Undersecretary Rey, for whatever reason, took it on himself to do what he has referred to as an experimental process by which he does not require the Rainbow Group to have any permit, the conflict developed," Bousman said.

The problem for the county is simple: Time and money to prepare for any law enforcement, public health, environmental impact or other needs for an itinerant group numbering roughly four times the county's permanent population.

"It basically undercuts the ability of our county's law enforcement team to prepare," he said.

"It's hypocritical to allow this group with no permit to replace the Scouts," he said.

One of the websites run by a volunteer who publicizes information about the Rainbow Family calls it "the largest non-organization of non-members in the world. We have no leaders, and no organization … I think it's safe to say we're into intentional community building, non-violence, and alternative lifestyles.

"We also believe that peace and love are a great thing, and there isn't enough of that in this world. Many of our traditions are based on native American traditions, and we have a strong orientation to take care of the the (sic) Earth."

Garrick Beck, a New Mexican who has attended Rainbow gatherings since 1972, blamed the federal government.

"It's a mess, and it's unfortunate, and there's plenty of blame," he told the newspaper. "But this never would have happened, or could have happened, if the Forest Service at the very beginning had said, 'No, this is not a workable site.'"

He said there already were several hundred people living on the land when the Forest Service raised the issue of the conflict.

Forest Service officials disagreed. They reported they warned Rainbow representatives during their initial meeting this site created a conflict with the Scouts.

Scott Scheffler, a volunteer spokesman for the Scouts, told WND the various work projects are making "immediate" changes. In Missouri, for example, 100 acres of invasive salt cedar was removed, restoring the area's water table, allowing grasslands to re-grow and restoring the area's beautiful vistas.

Not only are Scouts donating their time and talents, they are paying their own expenses to travel in most cases and fees of about $250 per person per week, to cover the costs of food, housing, equipment and the like, officials said.

There are about 4.7 million people ages 7-20 in the scouting program run by more than 300 councils across the United States and its territories. The Order of the Arrow involves about 180,000 of those. The Forest Service manages about 193 million acres of land across the U.S., roughly the equivalent of the state of Texas.

Dem pledges: I'll 'rip apart' child-rape victims on stand
'I'm going to make sure rest of their life is ruined'

Massachusetts politician and defense attorney Rep. James Fagan is under intense public scrutiny after he promised to "rip apart" child victims of rape who testify if the state imposes strict sentences for sex offenders.

Fagan, a Democrat, made his controversial remarks on the state House floor, Fox News reported.

"I'm gonna rip them apart," Fagan said of child victims. "I'm going to make sure that the rest of their life is ruined, that when they're 8 years old, they throw up; when they're 12 years old, they won't sleep; when they're 19 years old, they'll have nightmares and they'll never have a relationship with anybody."

As a defense attorney, Fagan said he would prevent accused child sex offenders from experiencing a "mandatory sentence of those draconian proportions."

According to the report, his statements angered both colleagues and activists.

"I thought his comments were over the top and unnecessary," said Bradley Jones, Massachusetts House minority leader. "I appreciate that he's a defense attorney, and felt he had a point to make, but I think it was unnecessary. It was excessive."

Mark Lunsford, a Florida father who lost his 9-year-old daughter after she was kidnapped, wrapped in a trash bag and buried alive by a sex offender in 2005, said he was shocked by Fagan's remarks. He told the Boston Herald that Fagan should have more respect for the rights of sexually abused children.

"Why doesn't he figure out a way to defend that child and put these kind of people away instead of trying to figure ways for defense attorneys to get around Jessica's Law?" Lunsford asked. "These are very serious crimes that nobody wants to take serious. What about the rights of these children?"

The bill Fagan was so strongly opposed to designates mandatory minimum sentences of 10 to 15 years for crimes against children. It has passed in the House and made its way to the Senate.

According to Fox News, law professor Phyllis Goldfarb said Fagan comments were somewhat truthful in that they describe a defense attorney's obligation to find holes in the prosecutor's case when a person accused of sexually abusing a child faces mandatory sentencing.

"It is fundamentally true … if the proof is coming almost exclusively through a child witness you may have to find a way to test it," Goldfarb said. "That's the attorney-client obligation there."

Goldfarb said Fagan's language might have been dramatic, but she said he was just describing his profession.

"You do have to challenge a witness," she told Fox News. "Some people find ways of doing that that are loyal to their role as defense attorneys – testing the proof (in ways) that aren't abusive to a witness, but it's very hard. And I think being put in that hard position is what he seems to be railing against here, using language that's probably a little bit hyperbolic."

According to Boston Herald reports, Lunsford plans to appear before the Massachusetts Senate to convince lawmakers to incorporate fixed prison sentences into the state's final version of Jessica's Law.

Jindal condemns Supreme Court, signs castration bill
Governor glad for new law to punish sex offenders on same day as 'atrocious ruling'

Shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court announced it struck down the death penalty for child rape in his state, Louisiana Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal signed a bill authorizing castration of sexual offenders.

Jindal – frequently mentioned as a potential vice-presidential nominee – said he was "especially glad" to sign the Sex Offender Chemical Castration Bill "on the same day the Supreme Court has made an atrocious ruling against our state's ability to sentence those who sexually assault our children to the fullest extent."

"Those who prey on our children are among the very worst criminals imaginable," Jindal said in a statement.

In a 5-4 vote announced yesterday, the Supreme Court's majority said imposing the death penalty in child rape cases violates the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

"The death penalty is not a proportional punishment for the rape of a child," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote.

Hailing the new state castration law, Jindal said that as a father of three children, as well as a governor, he believes "sexually assaulting a child is one of the very worst crimes, and I am glad we have taken such strong measures in Louisiana to put a stop to these monsters’ brutal acts."

"I want to send the message loud and clear – to the Supreme Court of the United States and beyond – make no mistake about it, if anyone wants to molest children and commit sexual assaults on kids they should not do so here in Louisiana," said the governor.

"Here, we will do everything in our power to protect our children, and we will not rest until justice is won and we have fully punished those who harm them," Jindal said.

The Louisiana bill, SB 144, gives the court the option of castration on a first conviction of aggravated rape, forcible rape, second degree sexual battery, aggravated incest, molestation of a juvenile when the victim is under the age of 13, or an aggravated crime against nature.

Castration is required on a second conviction of the listed crimes.

The bill also allows a court to order physical castration instead of chemical castration. Convicted sex offenders who undergo castration must still serve their full sentence.

In the case addressed by yesterday's Supreme Court ruling, 43-year-old Patrick Kennedy was sentenced to death for the rape of his 8-year-old stepdaughter. The assault was so severe the girl needed surgery to repair some of her organs.

Kennedy is one of two people in the country condemned to death for a rape not accompanied by a killing.

Both cases are in Louisiana, where proponents of the law argued there is a national trend toward the death penalty for child rape cases. Justice Samuel Alito pointed that out in his dissent, arguing the "harm that is caused to the victims and to society at large by the worst child rapists is grave."

"It is the judgment of the Louisiana lawmakers and those in an increasing number of other states that these harms justify the death penalty," Alito wrote.

Justice Kennedy contended, however, "there is a national consensus against capital punishment for the crime of child rape," based on the absence of any executions for rape and the fact that only five states allow it.

Montana, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas allow executions for child rape if the defendant had a previous conviction for the crime.

'Religion in private' OK, says ACLU
New limits on Christians leave family groups reeling

Colorado's new state law that was based on the apparent belief that free speech rights are not unalienable and they sometimes must be restricted is scaring residents who now fear expressing their opinions in public.

WND has reported previously that the law, SB200, which was promoted as an "anti-discrimination" plan favoring alternative sexual lifestyles and gender perceptions, has made it a criminal offense to discriminate against someone based on those lifestyles or perceptions.

The Christian publishing house Focus on the Family has called it a payback by the Democrat-controlled legislature and Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter to homosexual activists such as millionaire Tim Gill, who has donated widely to pro-homosexual political candidates.

The Focus analysis of the plan, according to spokesman Bruce Hausknecht, shows that besides the obvious impacts of opening restrooms and locker rooms statewide to members of either sex, depending on a perception of their gender, "the biggest danger this law poses is to the religious or moral consciences of small business owners who may object to doing business with people whose lifestyle they do not want to promote."

"Who would have believed that the Colorado state legislature and its governor would have made it fully legal for men to enter and use women's restrooms and locker-room facilities without notice or explanation?" Focus founder James Dobson said. "Henceforth, every woman and little girl will have to fear that a predator, bisexual, cross-dresser or even a homosexual or heterosexual male might walk in and relieve himself in their presence."

Other groups also have issued warnings.

Colorado Family Action wrote of the plan: "This bill lays groundwork for state-sanctioned abuse of individuals and organizations who have faithfully held religious convictions and refuse to offer or sell goods or services to homosexuals, bisexuals, transgendered, or transsexual individuals because of such beliefs.

"This desire to limit the constitutionally guaranteed right to the 'free exercise of religion' can be seen in Cathryn Hazouri's, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, testimony given before the Colorado House Judiciary Committee," the group said.

"One may practice one's religion in private; however, once a religious person comes into the public arena, there are limitations in how the expression of their religion impacts others," she had said.

Individual residents also now are beginning to realize the potential of the new law, which was approved by the legislature with a declaration that it is needed for "public safety" so it is not subject to any vote of the people.

"Now, as I stand outside of a movie theater bathroom or a swimming pool shower room door and guard the most precious thing in my life: my wife and daughter's safety, modesty and privacy, I can no longer stop a man from entering a woman's domain," wrote a concern resident whose name was withheld. "(I will anyway, that's why I'm a criminal!)"

"An act that once was criminal is now legitimate, and what was taught to me as a virtue is now a vice. Not only am I liable for civil penalties but criminal, as I can be sentenced for up to a year in jail," he wrote.

"I immediately contacted my state representative, Wes McKinley, to ask him what his stand was on this bill. He proudly told me he supported it. I brought to his attention the recent case in New Mexico that was in national news. A photographer refused to photograph a lesbian ceremony. The lesbian couple found another photographer who would and then turned around and sued the Christian photographer for refusing. They won the suit and the photographer was fined over $6,000.00. I asked Rep. McKinley if he thought this was right. He told me no and assured me that wouldn't happen with this bill," the resident wrote.

"I then contacted my attorney who told me that SB200 does, indeed, open the door to this kind of litigation, and that I would have to be careful to not express my convictions in public in this kind of situation," he wrote.

He also reacted to Hazouri's comments, which were unchallenged by the state legislature.

She said, "You give up some of your rights when you go into the public square," the resident said. "Wow, I didn't know that. I was taught in school that these rights of free speech were 'unalienable.' Apparently, gay rights trump heterosexual rights, as well as the First Amendment."

"So, as long as I keep my convictions to myself and only express them in my home or church, I'm legal. Somehow, I don't think this is what the Bill of Rights meant," he said.

"Will SB200 be the end of it? No. Next, hate crime legislation must be passed so that it is illegal for me to write this letter (as it is now illegal in Canada); then enforced homosexual/transsexual indoctrination of our children in the public educational system; finally, all other alternative forms of education must be outlawed. Impossible, you say? It's already happened in California," he said. "As I'm being forced into this 'shotgun wedding' with the radical homosexual agenda, I hope it's not too late to 'speak now, or forever hold my peace.' What is it called when you are forced, against your will, to participate in a sexual lifestyle that you find objectionable? I believe that is called 'rape.' My state legislature has 'violated' me and charged me with the crime."

Tom Minnery, the senior vice president of government and public policy for Focus, told the Denver Post there are "multiple problems" with the plan, "but the problem of restrooms is the most breathtaking one. … With SB200, however, we no longer have two 'sexes,' we enter a brave new world with a myriad of 'sexual orientations' that must not be discriminated against, upon pain of the substantial civil and criminal penalties contained in the bill.

"Woe to the first women's fitness facility or mall owner who objects to a man dressed as a woman who wants to enter previously forbidden territory. And what an opportunity for sexual predators," he wrote.

He said every Christian, Jewish or Muslim business owner now is under a threat.

"We've seen … charges brought by homosexuals against a video reproduction business in Virginia, a medical clinic in California, an adoption service in Arizona and a church in New Jersey," he continued. "Colorado tops them all on the potential outrage meter, however, because in addition to civil fines and penalties, small-business owners can be prosecuted under the criminal laws of Colorado and spend up to one year in jail for trying to live according to their faith."

There are other groups preparing for full-scale war in Colorado.

"American RTL [Right to Life] Action is a political 527 group headquartered a half-block from the Colorado capitol, and we're not going to hire someone cohabitating outside of marriage, let alone a homosexual," said Steve Curtis, the group's president and former chairman of the Colorado Republican Party. "SB200 also makes it a crime for us to publish biblical teaching on immorality, so we are prepared to violate this anti-Christian government censorship. The liberals always said what homosexuals do in private could never affect anyone else; of course that was always a lie; they're trying to criminalize traditional Christianity. The fight is on."

State frees teachers
to criticize evolution
Global warming, origins of life,
cloning also may be scrutinized

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal this week signed into law the Louisiana Science Education Act, which allows school districts to permit teachers to present evidence, analysis and critique of evolution and other prevalent scientific theories in public school classrooms.

The law came to the governor's desk after overwhelming support in the legislature, including a unanimous vote in the state's Senate and a 93-4 vote in the House.

The act has been criticized by some as an attempt to insert religion into science education and hailed by others as a blow for academic freedom in the face of pressure to ignore flaws in politically correct scientific theories.

Robert Crowther, director of communications for The Discovery Institute, a Seattle-based think tank on science and culture, called the act necessary.

In an article posted on The Discovery Institute's evolution news website, Crowther wrote, "The law is needed for two reasons. First, around the country, science teachers are being harassed, intimidated, and sometimes fired for trying to present scientific evidence critical of Darwinian theory along with the evidence that supports it. Second, many school administrators and teachers are fearful or confused about what is legally allowed when teaching about controversial scientific issues like evolution. The Louisiana Science Education Act clarifies what teachers may be allowed to do."

Specifically, the act allows teachers in the state's public schools to present evidence both for and against Darwinian theories of evolution and allows local school boards to approve supplemental materials that may open critical discussions of evolution, the origins of life, global warming, human cloning and other scientific theories.

Teachers are still required by the act to follow the standardized science curriculum, and school districts are required to authorize both the teachers' classes and additional materials. The state's Board of Elementary and Secondary Education will have the power to prohibit materials it deems inappropriate, and the act prohibits religious instruction.

Section 1D of the act states that the law "shall not be construed to promote any religious doctrine, promote discrimination for or against a particular set of religious beliefs, or promote discrimination for or against religion or nonreligion."

Despite section 1D, many national voices, including the Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a New York Times editorial, and the American Civil Liberties Union opposed the measure.

Marjorie Esman, state director of Lousiana's ACLU told the New Orleans Times-Picayune, "To the extent that this might invite religion in the public school classroom, we will do everything we can do to keep religion out."

John West, a senior fellow of the Discovery Institute, however, said opponents of the bill are misunderstanding it. Rather than being about infusing intelligent design or creationism into the classroom, he contends, the bill is about giving teachers the freedom to talk about the debates that already exist in science, even among evolutionists themselves.

"This bill is not a license to propagandize against something they don't like in science," West told the Times-Picayune. "Someone who uses materials to inject religion into the classroom is not only violating the Constitution, they are violating the bill."

Gov. Jindal released a statement at the time of the signing that read, in part: "I will continue to consistently support the ability of school boards and (the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education) to make the best decisions to ensure a quality education for our children."

Court affirms law calling unborn 'living human beings'
Ruling lifts Planned Parenthood injunction against state's abortion statute

A federal court ruled against Planned Parenthood and rejected an injunction against a state law requiring doctors to tell women seeking abortions that they may face serious medical conditions and will "terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being."

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit issued a 7-4 ruling Friday to lift an injunction against the South Dakota informed consent abortion law. Attorneys representing the Alliance Defense Fund filed a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of the Family Research Council in defense of the law.

"A woman's life is worth more than Planned Parenthood's bottom line," said ADF Senior Counsel Jordan Lorence in a press release. "Anyone truly concerned about the interests of women supports making sure they have access to all the information necessary to make a fully informed decision. Planned Parenthood, on the other hand, has argued adamantly to restrict the information women have about the lives of their pre-born babies. We're pleased the court's decision today will make sure women have access to the information they need and deserve."

The court said U.S. Supreme Court rulings allow a state to "use its regulatory authority to require a physician to provide truthful, non-misleading information relevant to a patient's decision to have an abortion, even if that information might also encourage the patient to choose childbirth over abortion."

The South Dakota act defines a human being as "an individual living member of the species Homo sapiens, including the unborn human being during the entire embryonic and fetal ages from fertilization to full gestation."

According to the law, a woman is not considered to be informed unless she receives written notice stating:

* That the abortion will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being;
* That the pregnant woman has an existing relationship with that unborn human being an that the relationship enjoys protection under the United States Constitution and under the laws of South Dakota;
* That by having an abortion, her existing relationship and her existing constitutional rights with regards to that relationship will be terminated;
* A description of all known medical risks of the procedure including depression and related psychological stress and increased risk of suicide

Planned Parenthood moved for the preliminary injunction against the law, arguing that it would "violate physicians' free speech rights by compelling them to deliver the State's ideological message."

The new ruling reverses a federal district court opinion barring enforcement of the 2005 informed consent law and sends the case back to district court.

Attorney challenges ruling over justice's links to 'gays'
Lawyer in preacher's defamation case hit with $90,000 penalty

A Wisconsin attorney is challenging a state Supreme Court decision that he should pay a $90,000 penalty because the deciding vote was cast by a justice who accepted money from the attorney's opponents.

The case that sparked attorney James Donohoo's dispute with the high court was brought against a "gay' activist group called Action Wisconsin, which later called itself Fair Wisconsin. That group had described visiting pastor Grant Storms, who appeared at a conference on homofascism, as having advocated the murders of homosexuals.

Donohoo, on Storms' behalf, brought a defamation action, which a trial court judge, Patricia McMahon, dismissed as frivolous. An appeals level panel reversed the decision, concluding that the jury should have been given the dispute to resolve.

The state Supreme Court, however, stepped in and with the vote of Justice Louis B. Butler Jr., who had accepted campaign contributions from those opposing Donohoo, reinstated the order for him to pay about $90,000 in legal fees incurred because of the case.

Now Donohoo has filed paperwork with the court petitioning that Butler be excluded from making decisions in his case because of the more than $1,000 in contributions his opponents gave the judge.

Butler declined to return a WND call requesting comment on the situation. But Donohoo said Butler had reported a $300 donation from Lester Pines, a lawyer for Fair Wisconsin, but failed to report a donation of $125 from Peter Bock and donations of $100 and $1,000 from Ruth Irvings, both board members for the organization.

Donohoo told WND Butler had made a public commitment not to take contributions from parties with cases pending during his re-election campaign, and to report any contributions from attorneys for parties in pending cases.

"Equally disturbing, the Centers Advocate PAC held a hardcore intimate fundraising 'Garden Party' on August 26, 2007. This PAC's sole purpose is to advance the cause of LGBT equality, including same-sex marriage, and they work together for the same goals with Fair Wisconsin (Action Wisconsin). On January 22, 2008, the PAC endorsed Justice Butler, and an additional PAC Internet posting in March of 2008 again endorsed Justice Butler, explaining that Justice Butler had attended the August 26, 2007 'Garden Party,' and had spoken in support of LGBT equality," Donohoo told WND.

"A PAC Internet posting entitled 'Garden Party at Joseph Pabst Home' Sunday, August 26, 2007, reported that this fund raising event raised an unprecedented amount of $21,000 to work towards LBGT equality in Wisconsin," Donohoo said.

The PAC endorsement explained Center Advocates is "Wisconsin's only group dedicated to electing candidates who will work for and defend equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) people."

It lists "Justice Louis Butler – Wisconsin Supreme Court" among those being endorsed.

"These candidates have a long history of advancing LGBT equality through legislation or support of current legislation that protects LGBT people," the PAC stated. "Each one has either voted in their positions against the amendment to ban same-gender marriage or have spoken out on behalf of fair and equal treatment of LGBT families in Wisconsin."

Should Butler be disqualified and no other votes changed, the Supreme Court opinion would deadlock 3-3, which would mean the appeals court decision that the case was not frivolous would stand, Donohoo said.

In Wisconsin, judges are not required to withdraw from cases involving people or groups over a campaign contribution. However, the code of conduct for judges requires avoiding even the appearance of impropriety.

"How can I feel it was impartial … when he's got these ties to the opposing party?" Donohoo said.

Another group, Wisconsin Family Action, Inc., also has raised similar issues about Butler's "impartiality."

Butler eventually lost in his April 1 election to Circuit Judge Michael Gableman of Burnett County.

"This pattern of conduct on the part of Justice Butler … including his failure to disclose to Attorney Donohoo the facts illustrating his bias and prejudice in cases involving LGBT issues, even after a judicial complaint was filed against him, constituted a violation of the Code of Judicial Conduct," Donohoo wrote.

"It also fatally compromised Justice Butler's ability to participate in Attorney Donohoo's case. In light of the above facts, his participation in Attorney Donohoo's case reeks with the appearance of impropriety and undermines the public's confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary," he wrote.

"To pretend that Justice Butler's decision was not influenced by this homosexual issue would be disingenuous," he wrote.

He said the high court needs to answer whether is is "acceptable for a Supreme Court justice to continue to participate in a case where, while campaigning for re-election, the justice accepts serial contributions from a party " in the case.

Latest buzz: Shock bracelets for all airline passengers
'Just when you thought you've heard it all'

A columnist at the Washington Times has issued a warning that the U.S. government actually has considered having airline passengers wear electronic bracelets that could be triggered like Tasers to stun the victim into immobility.

The alert comes from columnist Jeffrey Downing, who wrote that not only has a Canadian company proposed such a product and is advertising it, the U.S. government has put its interest in writing.

"It is conceivable to envision a use to improve air security, on passenger planes," said the letter posted on the company's website. It was purported to come from Paul S. Ruwaldt, of the Department of Homeland Security.

"Just when you thought you've heard it all," wrote Denning.

According to a company video on the website for Lamperd Less Lethal, the bracelets would be a help to the pilots and crew members on commercial air carriers, the "last line of defense" against terror attacks.

The video says passengers could be fitted with such "electronic ID bracelets" that they would wear until they disembark their flights. It is promoted as being able to replace a ticket, carry passenger information, track passengers through terminals, and track carryon luggage.

But the best part is that the bracelets could be discharged, as a gun, and leave the wearer "immobile for several minutes" although without causing "permanent injury."

"For a businessman on his way home, to a young family going south for a winter holiday, wearing an EMD bracelet during flight is a small inconvenience to assure their safe arrival," says the company. "Many, if not most, passengers would happily opt for the extra security."

The company even acknowledged the story about its product, because its video has been viewed constantly in the few days since Denning raised his concerns.

"It is amazing how much controversy our new research project has created," the company said on its website.

Denning, who according to The Aviation Nation writes a new aviation safety blog for the Times, was horrified.

"Clearly the Electronic ID Bracelet is a [euphemism] for the EMD Safety Bracelet, or at least it has a nefarious hidden ability, thus the term ID Bracelet is ambiguous at best. EMD stands for Electro-Muscular Disruption," he wrote.

"So is the government really that interested in this bracelet? Yes!," he continued.

"[Ruwaldt] wrote, 'To make it clear, we [the federal government] are interested in…the immobilizing security bracelet, and look forward to receiving a written proposal,'" Denning said.

"Would every paying airline passenger flying on a commercial airplane be mandated to wear one of these devices? I cringe at the thought," wrote Denning. "Not only could it be used as a physical restraining device, but also as a method of interrogation, according to the same aforementioned letter from Mr. Ruwaldt.

"Would you let them put one of those on your wrist? Would you allow the airline employees, which would be mandated by the government, to place such a bracelet on any member of your family?"

On the Times forums page, some readers ridiculed the idea of such measures.

"If you boarded the plane with the intent of terrorism, what would you do first? 1. Try to light your bomb shoes on fire. 2. Place your plastic explosives on the flight door to gain access to the cockpit. 3. Wave your weapon about and start shouting. 4. Remove your bracelet," posed "BrainGouge. "Ding ding ding, you chose #4, unless you sir are an idiot."

Lamperd, of Sarnia, Ontario, Canada, also provides training and designs and specialized civil defense-related equipment. It boasts of expertise in "less-lethal tactics and equipment" that is used by military and police departments around the world for crowd control and "peacekeeping."

It also responded to the publicity about its proposal with a website statement:

"We wish to clear up any misconceptions regarding the EMD Safety Bracelet for Airline Security," the company said. "The bracelets remain inactive until a hijacking situation has been identified. At such time a designated crew member will activate the bracelets making them capable of delivering the punitive measure – but only to those that need to be restrained. We believe that all passengers will welcome deliverance from a hijacking, as will the families, carriers, insurance providers etc. The F-16 on the wingtip is not to reassure the passengers during a hijacking but rather to shoot them down. Besides activation using the grid screen, the steward/stewardess will have a laser activator that can activate any bracelet as needed by simply pointing the laser at the bracelet - that laser dot only needs to be within 10 inches of the bracelet to activate it."

Congress' approval plunges to 9 percent
1st time ever rating for lawmakers sinks to single digits

This month's release of Rasmussen Reports' survey of congressional approval ratings serves a scathing reproach of politicians on Capitol Hill. For the first time since Rasmussen has been tracking congressional approval ratings, less than 10 percent of Americans say Congress is doing a good or excellent job.

Against President Bush's much-publicized poor approval ratings, today's poll shows Congress' numbers have plunged to less than a third of the president's.

The most recent report calculates a mere 9 percent approve of congressional performance, while a majority of Americans, 52 percent, say Congress is doing a poor job, which also ties a record high.

The Democrat-controlled Congress enjoys its highest rating among Democrat respondents, 13 percent of whom rated the Congress favorably. Only 8 percent of Republicans were willing to say Congress is doing a good job, while an almost non-existent 3 percent of unaffiliated voters gave Congress a positive rating.

The polling company also asked respondents if they thought Congress has passed any legislation in the last six months to improve life in this country. 12 percent said yes, while 62 percent said Congress has done nothing to improve life in America. A further 55 percent said it was unlikely that Congress would do anything in the near future to address important problems facing the nation.

Despite dismal ratings for the Democrat Congress, another Rasmussen Report released today shows Americans are unwilling to vote the majority party out of office. When given the choice, 47 percent of voters said they would vote for their district's Democratic candidate, while 34 percent said they would vote Republican.

In related Rasmussen Reports, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama holds a 6 percent lead over rival John McCain (46 percent to 40 percent) in a poll released today, and President Bush scored a 32 percent approval rating in a poll released last week.

Senate passes telecom immunity, eavesdropping rules
Bows to Bush's demand to protect companies from lawsuits for helping spy on Americans

The Senate approved and sent to the White House a bill overhauling controversial rules on secret government eavesdropping today, bowing to President Bush's demand to protect telecommunications companies from lawsuits complaining they helped the U.S. spy on Americans.

The relatively one-sided vote, 69-28, came only after a lengthy and bitter debate that pitted privacy and civil liberties concerns against the desire to prevent terrorist attacks. It ended almost a year of wrangling over surveillance rules and the president's warrantless wiretapping program that was initiated after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The House passed the same bill last month, and President Bush is expected to sign it soon. He scheduled a 4 p.m. EDT White House statement to praise the passage.

The long fight on Capitol Hill centered on one main question: whether to shield from civil lawsuits any telecommunications companies that helped the government eavesdrop on American phone and computer lines without the permission or knowledge of a secret court created by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

The White House had threatened to veto the bill unless it immunized companies such as AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. from wiretapping lawsuits. About 40 such lawsuits have been filed, and all are pending before a single U.S. District court.

Numerous lawmakers had spoken out strongly against the no-warrants eavesdropping on Americans, but the Senate voted its approval after rejecting amendments that would have watered down, delayed or stripped away the immunity provision.

The lawsuits center on allegations that the White House circumvented U.S. law by going around the FISA court, which was created 30 years ago to prevent the government from abusing its surveillance powers for political purposes, as was done in the Vietnam War and Watergate eras. The court is meant to approve all wiretaps placed inside the U.S. for intelligence-gathering purposes. The law has been interpreted to include international e-mail records stored on servers inside the U.S.

"This president broke the law," declared Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis.

The Bush administration brought the wiretapping back under the FISA court's authority only after The New York Times revealed the existence of the secret program. A handful of members of Congress knew about the program from top secret briefings. Most members are still forbidden to know the details of the classified effort, and some objected that they were being asked to grant immunity to the telecoms without first knowing what they did.

Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Arlen Specter compared the Senate vote to buying a "pig in a poke."

But Sen. Christopher Bond, R-Mo., one of the bill's most vocal champions, said, "This is the balance we need to protect our civil liberties without handcuffing our terror-fighters."

Just under a third of the Senate, including Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, supported an amendment that would have stripped immunity from the bill. They were defeated on a 66-32 vote. Republican rival John McCain did not attend the vote.

Obama ended up voting for the final bill, as did Specter. Feingold voted no.

The bill tries to address concerns about the legality of warrantless wiretapping by requiring inspectors general inside the government to conduct a yearlong investigation into the program.

The measure effectively dismisses about 40 lawsuits that have been bundled together. But at least three other lawsuits against government officials will go forward.

In one of those cases last week, a judge decided that surveillance laws trumped the government's claim that state secrets were imperiled by the lawsuit. However, the judge said the plaintiff could not use classified government documents it had accidentally received to prove it was subjected to illegal eavesdropping. It must instead use unclassified information to show it was wiretapped without court approval. FISA makes provisions for the use of secret evidence once a case is accepted.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a California civil rights organization, intends to challenge the constitutionality of the immunity provision.

Beyond immunity, the new surveillance bill also sets new rules for government eavesdropping. Some of them would tighten the reins on current government surveillance activities, but others would loosen them compared with a law passed 30 years ago.

For example, it would require the government to get FISA court approval before it eavesdrops on an American overseas. Currently, the attorney general approves that electronic surveillance on his own.

The bill also would allow the government to obtain broad, yearlong intercept orders from the FISA court that target foreign groups and people, raising the prospect that communications with innocent Americans would be swept in. The court would approve how the government chooses the targets and how the intercepted American communications would be protected.

The original FISA law required the government to get wiretapping warrants for each individual targeted from inside the United States, on the rationale that most communications inside the U.S. would involve Americans whose civil liberties must be protected. But technology has changed. Purely foreign communications increasingly pass through U.S. wires and sit on American computer servers, and the law has required court orders to be obtained to access those as well.

The bill would give the government a week to conduct a wiretap in an emergency before it must apply for a court order. The original law said three days.

The bill restates that the FISA law is the only means by which wiretapping for intelligence purposes can be conducted inside the United States. This is meant to prevent a repeat of warrantless wiretapping by future administrations.

The bill is very much a political compromise, brought about by a deadline: Wiretapping orders authorized last year will begin to expire in August. Without a new bill, the government would go back to old FISA rules, requiring multiple new orders and potential delays to continue those intercepts. That is something most of Congress did not want to see happen, particularly in an election year.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which is party to some of the lawsuits that will now be dismissed, said the bill was "a blatant assault upon civil liberties and the right to privacy."

Congress warned: U.S. risks
'catastrophe' in EMP attack
Expert: Growing threat posed by Iran,
Russia, China, North Korea, terrorists

A top scientist today warned the House Armed Services Committee America remains vulnerable to a "catastrophe" from a nuclear electromagnetic pulse attack that could be launched with plausible deniability by hostile rogue nations or terrorists.

William R. Graham, chairman of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack and the former national science adviser to President Reagan, testified before the committee while presenting a sobering new report on "one of a small number of threats that can hold our society at risk of catastrophic consequences."

It is the first report from the commission since 2004 and identifies vulnerabilities in the nation's critical infrastructures, "which are essential to both our civilian and military capabilities."

Not taking the steps necessary to reduce the threat in the next three to five years "can both invite and reward attack," Graham told the committee.

The scariest and most threatening kind of EMP attack is initiated by the detonation of a nuclear weapon at high altitude in the range of 25 to 250 miles above the Earth's surface. The immediate effects of EMP are disruption of, and damage to, electronic systems and electrical infrastructure. Such a detonation over the middle of the continental U.S. "has the capability to produce significant damage to critical infrastructures that support the fabric of U.S. society and the ability of the United States and Western nations to project influence and military power," said Graham.

"Several potential adversaries have the capability to attack the United States with a high-altitude nuclear weapon-generated electromagnetic pulse, and others appear to be pursuing efforts to obtain that capability," said Graham. "A determined adversary can achieve an EMP attack capability without having a high level of sophistication. For example, an adversary would not have to have long-range ballistic missiles to conduct an EMP attack against the United States. Such an attack could be launched from a freighter off the U.S. coast using a short- or medium-range missile to loft a nuclear warhead to high altitude. Terrorists sponsored by a rogue state could attempt to execute such an attack without revealing the identity of the perpetrators. Iran, the world's leading sponsor of international terrorism, has practiced launching a mobile ballistic missile from a vessel in the Caspian Sea. Iran has also tested high-altitude explosions of the Shahab-III, a test mode consistent with EMP attack, and described the tests as successful. Iranian military writings explicitly discuss a nuclear EMP attack that would gravely harm the United States. While the commission does not know the intention of Iran in conducting these activities, we are disturbed by the capability that emerges when we connect the dots."

Graham reminded the committee even smaller nuclear weapons can create massive EMP effects over wide geographic areas. He also pointed out that United Nations investigators recently found that "the design for an advanced nuclear weapon, miniaturized to fit on ballistic missiles currently in the inventory of Iran, North Korea and other potentially hostile states, was in the possession of Swiss criminals affiliated with the A.Q. Khan nuclear smuggling network."

Theoretically, an EMP attack is devastating because of the unprecedented cascading failures of major infrastructures that could result. Because of America's heavy reliance on electricity and electronics, the impact would be far worse than on a country less advanced technologically. Graham and the commission see the potential for failure in the financial system, the system of distribution for food and water, medical care and trade and production.

"The recovery of any one of the key national infrastructures is dependent upon the recovery of others," he said. "The longer the outage, the more problematic and uncertain the recovery will be. It is possible for the functional outages to become mutually reinforcing until at some point the degradation of infrastructure could have irreversible effects on the country's ability to support its population."

Graham took the EMP debate out of the realm of science fiction by reminding the committee that as recently as May 1999, during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, Russian leaders threatened a U.S. congressional delegation with the specter of such an attack that would paralyze the U.S.

He also quoted James J. Shinn, assistant secretary of defense for Asian and Pacific Security, who two weeks ago told the same House committee that China's arms buildup includes exotic experiments with electromagnetic weapons that can devastate electronics with bursts of energy similar to those produced by a nuclear blast.

"The consequence of EMP is that you destroy the communications network," Shinn said. "And we are, as you know, and as the Chinese know, heavily dependent on sophisticated communications, satellite communications, in the conduct of our forces. And so, whether it's from an EMP or it's some kind of a coordinated [anti-satellite] effort, we could be in a very bad place if the Chinese enhanced their capability in this area."

Graham says terrorists who get their hands on one or a few unsophisticated nuclear weapons might well calculate they could get the most bang for their buck from attempting an EMP attack.

Recovery from a widespread EMP attack could take months or years, Graham warned. The fact that key components of the U.S. electrical grid are not even manufactured in America and must be ordered a year in advance from foreign suppliers suggests just how complicated and time-consuming recovery might be. The high state of automation within America's utilities further complicates recovery. There just might not be sufficient trained manpower available to get the job done in a timely way.

"The commission's view is that the federal government does not today have sufficient human and physical assets for reliably assessing and managing EMP threats," said Graham. "The commission reviewed current national capabilities to understand and to manage the effects of EMP and concluded that the U.S. is rapidly losing the technical competence and facilities that it needs in the government, the national laboratories and the industrial community."

Graham said it's not too late for Congress to take the bull by the horns and take the steps necessary to prepare for the threat – and thereby reduce it.

"A serious national commitment to address the threat of an EMP attack can lead to a national posture that would significantly reduce the payoff for such an attack and allow the United States to recover from EMP, and from other threats, man-made and natural, to the critical infrastructures," said Graham.

Graham's predecessor as chairman of the commission had equally tough words on the impact of the EMP threat.

"Their effects on systems and infrastructures dependent on electricity and electronics could be sufficiently ruinous as to qualify as catastrophic to the nation," Lowell Wood, acting chairman of the commission, told members of Congress in 2005.

The commission's previous report went so far as to suggest, in its opening sentence, that an EMP attack "might result in the defeat of our military forces."

Housing bailout includes new fingerprint demand
Hundreds of thousands of individuals, never suspected of crime, are targeted

Mortgage lenders and brokers and even office assistants and secretaries could be subjected to new federal demands to be fingerprinted under a provision of a massive housing bailout plan – with attachments – that is moving through Congress.

An alert about the fingerprinting requirement comes from John Berlau, director of the Center for Entrepreneurship, Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington.

"We are creating this burden that adds risks of identity theft with really no additional safeguards," he told WND of the plan included in the housing bailout, which was advanced in the U.S. Senate today on an 84-12 vote.

The bill was launched to address the wave of failing loans across the United States that have sent financial markets into a slide. President Bush has expressed a high level of concern over the plan, but is expected to face pressure from members of both parties to endorse it as the 2008 presidential election season advances.

At its heart is a government-backed mortgage insurance fund and new regulations for mortgage-finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Yet the plan also includes other features that civil libertarians are finding alarming.

WND reported earlier when FreedomWorks chairman Dick Armey said its provisions would require credit card companies, eBay, Amazon, Google and other companies to report what consumers buy to the federal government.

"This is a provision with astonishing reach," he said. "Not only does it affect nearly every credit card transaction in America, such as Visa, MasterCard, Discover and American Express, but the bill specifically targets payment systems like eBay's PayPal, Amazon and Google Checkout."

"What is the federal government's purpose with this kind of detailed data? How will this database be secured, and who will have access? Many small proprietors use their Social Security number as their tax ID. How will their privacy be protected? What compliance costs will this impose on businesses? Why is Sen. Chris Dodd putting this provision in a housing bailout bill?"

The bill's summary, FreedomWorks said, states:

Payment Card and Third Party Network Information Reporting. The proposal requires information reporting on payment card and third party network transactions. Payment settlement entities, including merchant acquiring banks and third party settlement organizations, or third party payment facilitators acting on their behalf, will be required to report the annual gross amount of reportable transactions to the IRS and to the participating payee. Reportable transactions include any payment card transaction and any third party network transaction.

Now Berlau said representatives from groups as diverse as the American Civil Liberties Union and the American Conservative Union also are objecting to the mandate for continuous fingerprint tracking.

Others joining in expressing their objections to Congress are officials for the American Policy Center, Center for Financial Privacy and Human Rights, Natural Solutions Foundation, International Association of Whistleblowers, Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, Liberty Coalition and others.

Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Mel Martinez, R-Fla., have defended the requirement, saying their plan "would not violate the privacy rights of anyone."

They said the practice isn't even new.

But Berlau said the bill states fingerprint information will be used for continuous "tracking" rather than a one-time background check.

"The broad scope and lack of justification for the fingerprint mandates are the reason that diverse groups from the American Conservative Union and the American Civil Liberties Union have signed on to a recent letter opposing these very provisions of the bill," he said.

The major thrust of the bill is to provide tax credits to first-time buyers of unoccupied homes and assign $4 billion to help communities buy foreclosed homes. The bill also would authorize local housing authorities to issue billions in tax-exempt bonds to refinance subprime loans and provide low-income rental housing.

Berlau said the fingerprinting would be demanded of "hundreds of thousands of individuals never convicted nor even suspected of committing a crime." They would end up in government databases for "tracking."

Such statements leave the policy groups "troubled by the scope of this requirement and the lack of a justification as to how this would serve the goal of reducing mortgage fraud."

Berlau told WND that it wasn't secretaries in offices across the nation who took advantage of loopholes and made off with millions during the recent bubble in the mortgage industry.

In a commentary in the Wall Street Journal, Berlau said, "Even when a fingerprint registry will likely help fight terrorism or crime, many still fear it will lead to a surveillance state."

"Yet this week a measure creating a federal fingerprint registry totally unrelated to national security or violent crime may clear the Senate with little debate," he said.

State troopers rebuke students for singing national anthem
Dems send security to halt patriotism in capitol rotunda

School students attending a youth leadership conference have been scolded by armed security officers in the California Capitol in Sacramento for singing the "Star-Spangled Banner" and "God Bless America" in the rotunda, according to organizers of the conference.

"The patriotic expression was apparently so egregious that state troopers were called in to the rotunda to rebuke the students," a statement from The Capitol Resource Institute said today.

"This was a ghastly overreaction to some students expressing their patriotism in the seat of government," said Karen England, executive director of CRI, and director of the youth conference. "These young leaders have sacrificed a week of their summer to come learn about our government system and this is the 'welcome' they receive from the government."

Conference organizers said several armed troopers entered the rotunda, accompanied by several capitol sergeants-at-arms, and they confronted conference organizers and students for singing without a permit from the legislature's rules committee.

The 45 students from all across California were in the statehouse as part of their participation in the City on the Hill Youth Leadership Conference. At the intensive study sessions they learn the legislative and political processes.

"After spending the day meeting with lawmakers and their staff, the youth aged 14-18, engaged in a spontaneous expression of passion for their country by singing the national anthem and God Bless America," CRI reported. "Tourists walking through the capitol stopped to listen to the singing and clapped enthusiastically."

A similar expression of patriotism was exhibited by participants in the same conference just two years ago.

Officials said, however, it was a good lesson in liberty for those students, especially the two young participants whose father was held in a Communist prison in Romania and another student who is a Russian immigrant.

"These future leaders have seen first-hand how we are losing our liberties – including simply expressing our patriotism in public," said Meredith Turney, the legislative liaison for CRI Impact and a graduate of City on the Hill.

"I am deeply saddened by the treatment these young patriots received at our state capitol," she said.

In comments published on FlashReport, she elaborated: "A few years ago the students started the tradition of singing our national anthem in the rotunda at the end of the mock legislative session. While they were at the capitol today, the students wanted a practice run before their legislative session on the Assembly and Senate floors this Saturday. One student suggested singing God Bless America as well as the national anthem, and the other students enthusiastically agreed.

"Just moments after the students finished their impromptu patriotic expression, no less than four CHP officers descended upon the rotunda, along with two sergeant-at-arms. They confronted our staff and demanded to know why our students were singing in the rotunda without a permit from the rules committee. Apparently in the five minutes it took to sing the two patriotic songs, someone had called security and complained," she wrote.

"The City on the Hill students were absolutely shocked … Why would their elected officials send armed guards to stop them from expressing such love for their country? And why do citizens need a permit to sing patriotic songs in their public buildings?" she said.

The young leaders, however, were undeterred. They asked for and received a government "permit" to sing the national anthem in the capitol rotunda tomorrow at 1:15 p.m. and are inviting friends and family to join them.

"City on the Hill students are extremely grateful to Assemblyman Doug LaMalfa and his outstanding staff for obtaining the last-minute permits we need to exercise our 'freedom' in the place where freedom should be most fervently guarded," Turney said.

Of course such objections would happen in California.

Quote from: Pastor Roger on July 12, 2008, 01:28:46 PM

Let me leave you with a quote from another thread.....

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Senate fast-tracks same-sex marriage expansion
Voice vote moves plan to state House, guv's signature expected shortly after

A resurrected plan to expand homosexual "marriage" opportunities has been fast-tracked by the state Senate in Massachusetts with a vote that moves the proposal immediately to the state House, with the governor's signature expected before the end of this month.

The proposal, previously put in a "kill" file by lawmakers, suddenly was resurrected today and given a voice approval by senators who did not even take a roll call vote.

Pro-family organizations say the plan will allow out-of-state same-sex duos to fetch drive-in "marriage" certificates in Massachusetts, then return home and create "havoc" by demanding their companies, cities, counties and states recognize them as married.

The conflict comes in that voters in 27 states already have approved state constitutional amendments limiting "marriage" to one man and one woman, and California is expected to vote on its similar plan in November.

Brian Camenker, chief of Mass Resistance, watched his state senate in action and described it as "completely orchestrated" by homosexual activists.

"It was horrible," he said. "It was as if the gays were playing them like a violin."

The voice vote, "was just a sort of murmur and that was it," he said.

"I'll tell you there's no more democracy in Massachusetts, no constitutional government. They were completely being run by the homosexual lobby," he said.

"The general population would never vote for that. The extent to which the state senate just rolled over for the homosexual lobby is absolutely breathtaking," he said.

"You would have thought they would have at least had a debate," he said.

What the senators decided to do was repeal a 1913 law that bars out-of-state couples from marrying in the state unless their "marriage" would be legal in their home state. That has precluded a mass assembly of homosexuals to "marry" in Massachusetts because until this year Massachusetts was the only state where such "marriages" were recognized.

California's state Supreme Court in May said it was unconstitutional in that state for officials to deny the status of "married" to homosexuals, and California does not have the same residency requirement imposed by Massachusetts.

Observers say the Massachusetts House likely will hold a vote later this week, and Gov. Deval Patrick is supportive of the change.

Opponents of the 1913 law said it was racist, even though Massachusetts has allowed interracial marriages since 1843.

Camenker said his organization and others lobbied earlier this year and the state senators placed the idea into a "study," which effectively stopped its advance. Suddenly, how, however, it was resurrected.

"The recent events in California have apparently energized the homosexual lobby. They apparently persuaded Sen. Robert Creedon (D-Brockton), Senate chairman of the judiciary committee, to take the unusual step of resurrecting it from the study to be voted on. Creedon, normally a pro-life, moderately pro-family senator, isn't running for re-election this fall. According to press reports, Sen. Diane Wilkerson (D-Mattapan), who led the charge to push for huge taxpayer-funding for homosexual programs in the schools, is the major force behind this also," Camenker said.

In California, however, same-sex "marriages" face an uncertain future, since a proposed constitutional amendment promoted by the ProtectMarriage.com organization already has been approved for this November's election ballot.

The amendment reads: "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California."

And one of the followup questions would be: What happens to the "marriages" performed for same-sex couples between the time of the Supreme Court's opinion, and the possible veto of that opinion by the people of California.

In fact, homosexual groups now are actively trying to prevent the California vote, saying the five majority justices on the state Supreme Court simply can change the definition of a traditional social institution by vote, but the people cannot vote to protect it.

In Massachusetts, the mandate for same-sex "marriages" does not face that same uncertain future.

"This … would allow any homosexual couple in America to get 'married' here (in Massachusetts) – and cause havoc in their home states," Mass Resistance said. Such "couples" then would demand (using court challenges) that their home states legally recognize those marriages because of the US Constitution's 'full faith and credit' clause."

"This would make Massachusetts a sort of Mecca for gay weddings, and there will be instability around the country," Camenker told WND.

Congress spares Vt., other states Medicare cuts

President George Bush vetoed federal legislation Tuesday that would have prevented cuts in Medicare payments to doctors, but within hours both the U.S. House and Senate had overridden that veto.

That reduction in payments for doctors treating Medicare patients went into effect at the start of the month.

Vermont and other rural states would have been hit the hardest if the president's veto had not been overridden. Doctors in Vermont and some other states faced not only the nationwide 10.6 percent cut, but the loss of an additional 1.6 percent differential for rural districts.

In addition, Vermont is facing an increase in Medicare-eligible patients as a large part of the population of the state grows older.

The U.S. House — which originally passed the bill 359-55 — overrode the veto by 383-41. Its fate was less certain in the U.S. Senate, which passed the original bill by 69-30. But that chamber voted to override by a 70-26 vote.

Bush wrote in his veto message that the bill "is objectionable" because it would reduce enrollment in privately administered Medicare Advantage plans.

"I support the primary objective of this legislation, to forestall reductions in physician payments," the president said in his statement. But he also urged Congress to send a new bill "that reduces the growth in Medicare spending."

U.S. Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., said the debate was really about whether Medicare is to be privatized or not. The Medicare Advantage program essentially paid insurance companies more.

"The administration's priority was protecting insurance companies," Welch said. "Congress stood up to the president and rejected his priorities and decided on the side of family doctors and patients."

"It is a stunning defeat of his goal of privatizing Medicare," Welch said.

"Vermonters depend on Medicare insurance being there when they need it. Overriding this veto helps keep that promise by averting disastrous cuts that would have affected all Vermonters who rely on Medicare," U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said in a statement. "I'm proud that there was a strong showing in Congress to stand up to the president and to the wealthy corporate interests who opposed this bill."

"Congress put the interests of 44 million American seniors covered by Medicare and the doctors who care for them over the interests of the insurance industry," said Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in a release.

Sanders noted that the measure also boosts reimbursements for community health centers that play a critical role in providing cost-effective primary health care and dental services to more than 86,000 Vermonters.

In his statement, Bush said the Medicare Advantage program has provided drug coverage to more Americans than would otherwise have had it.

Over the Fourth of July break members of Congress heard from constituents about the bill and that may be why the override vote in the House was stronger than the original vote for passage, Welch said.

"They heard loud and clear from their local docs and seniors," he said.

Doctors across the country, including in Vermont, have warned that some physicians may reduce the number of Medicare patients they see if the cuts go into effect.

"Our family doctors would have been on the verge of being driven out of business," Welch said.

Democrats plan second economic stimulus bill

Democrats controlling Congress ratcheted up expectations Tuesday for additional legislation to jump-start the dragging economy.

"We will be proceeding with another stimulus package," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said after meeting with several economists.

Pelosi said that recently issued tax rebate payments of $600 to individuals and $1,200 for married couples have helped the economy but that more is necessary to offset the drag of higher gasoline prices and other costs.

But President Bush cautioned in a White House press conference that lawmakers should "wait for the stimulus package to fully kick in" before passing another.

The Democratic effort is still in its formative stages, but most of the proposals mentioned by Democrats were rejected by Bush during negotiations that produced the earlier stimulus measure. A new package probably won't be acted on before Congress returns in September from its annual summer vacation.

New legislation could include: additional tax rebates, heating and air conditioning subsidies for the poor, infrastructure projects, higher food stamp payments and aid to the states.

Pelosi told reporters that she "would hope that (tax rebates) would be part of any package" but that some of the Democratic elements need to be attached. Pelosi said later Tuesday that she hopes proposals such as boosting food stamps and home energy subsidies would have more GOP support now, considering the sharp spikes in gasoline and food prices.

For his part, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., sounded less than enthusiastic about another round of tax rebates.

"The first thing we need to look at before we look at tax rebates is, what can we do to stimulate the economy?" Reid said. "And that's infrastructure development. That's bridges, highways, dams, and to put massive amounts of money into an infrastructure for renewable energy."

The discussion over a new economic stimulus bill comes as Congress is working to complete a broad housing rescue package to give new mortgages to hundreds of thousands of homeowners facing foreclosure.

And a voter revolt over record gas prices has generated heated debate about further opening up the Outer Continental Shelf to oil exploration.

"To my Democratic colleagues who want this Congress take up a massive, taxpayer-funded 'stimulus' package, I offer them this piece of simple advice: the best way to stimulate our economy would be to take meaningful steps to reduce the price at the pump," said House GOP Whip Roy Blunt of Missouri.

Bush called for Congress to focus first on housing and energy legislation before turning to a new economic stimulus bill.

"Let's see how this stimulus package works and let us deal with the housing market with a good piece of housing legislation, and the energy issue with good energy legislation, and the trade issue with good trade legislation," Bush said.

State Dept. promote 'Mosques in America'
Publishes '09 calendar featuring worship sites for only 1 religion

This now available from the U.S. State Department: "2009 Mosques of America Wall Calendar: Limited Edition for Ramadan."

"Yep, you read that correctly. It's 'perfect for Muslim outreach efforts," according to a commentary at the Gates of Vienna blog. "Where's the ACLU on this one?"

The product was being advertised by "Global Publishing Solutions," a division of the U.S. State Department, until bloggers started talking about it.

Officials then apparently hid the page behind the security of a password-protected wall. However, the page is still viewable in a Google cache of the website.

According to the Gates of Vienna, the government advertised:

In celebration of Ramadan, Global Publishing Solutions (GPS) is offering a limited edition of the 2009 Mosques in America Wall Calendar. This 12-month calendar is perfect for Muslim outreach efforts, as well as office and event giveaways.

The wall calendar features a vibrant photograph or photomontage for each month, displaying the beauty of mosques in America.

The upper half of the hanging calendar depicts mosque facades or interiors, and the lower half displays a monthly calendar grid. The 28-page calendar is saddle-stitched and measures 23 x 30 1/2 cm (9 x 12 inches)

This item is on sale until August 1st, 2008 in shrink-wrapped packs of 20 pieces.

"Remember," said the Internet commentator, "This was on an official State Department (state.gov) web page. GPS describes itself this way: 'The Global Publishing Solutions, manages this site as a gateway to information and transactions for their U.S. State Department clients."

On the Gates of Vienna site, a reader posted a comment recommending the State Department "adorn the calendar with equally vibrant Quranic verses and hadiths, samples of what is preached in those mosques. For example: January: Kill the infidels wherever you find them. February: Allah's Apostle said: I've been made victorious with terror – and so on and so forth."

JihadWatch.org pointed out the page was pulled after the weblog Snapped Shot posted an image of it yesterday. Snapped Shot said it seems the public servants at State "get all nervous when We, The People actually notice" what they're doing.

JihadWatch also made available captured screen shots of the top half and the bottom half of the page.

Gates of Vienna commented: "Since Islam is not really a religion, but a political ideology, the government's sale of an Islamocentric calendar evidently doesn't violate the separation of church and state. It's like selling photos of local Democratic Party Headquarters."

The cached page reveals the prices are $44 per pack if you order from 6-10 packs of 20.

State's 'So Gay' campaign goes bust
Taxpayers fuming over funds to lure homosexual tourists from London

South Carolina's taxpayer-paid advertisement describing it as "So Gay" has backfired and could cost the state precious tourism dollars following a firestorm of criticism.

According to a report by the Palmetto Scoop last week, the state's Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism budgeted $5,000 to promote South Carolina's "gay"-friendly atmosphere in time for London's "Gay" Pride Week that ended Saturday. The operation promoted South Carolina and five major U.S. cities to homosexual travelers, touting "gay" beaches and Civil War plantations.

State distribution of funds for the campaign was called off following public protest from angry citizens, 2 million people observed the posters plastered in London subways.

State Sen. David Thomas, R-Greenville, claimed he had no knowledge of the campaign and demanded an audit of the Tourism Department's $14 million advertising budget.

"South Carolinians will be irate when they learn their hard earned tax dollars are being spent to advertise our state as 'so gay,'" Thomas told the Scoop. "South Carolina is a wonderful, family friendly destination not a Southern version of San Francisco. This campaign goes against our core values."

The Gay and Lesbian Pride Movement criticized "conservative 'Bible Belt' politicians" for cancelling the publicity stunt, saying the state stands to lose "gay" tourism funds. Ryan Wilson, president of South Carolina Pride, announced an effort to bring the promotion back by displaying South Carolina "Will Be So Gay" posters in London.

"South Carolina may not be 'so gay' currently – but we are going to show the world that we can be and we will be so gay, and gay friendly some day," Wilson said.

According to an MSNBC report, when the campaign was unveiled last month, the state tourism board confidently promoted the ad, saying "it sends a powerful positive message."

"For our gay visitors, it is actually quite wonderful for them to discover just how much South Carolina has to offer – from stunning plantation homes to miles of wide sandy beaches," a statement said.

An unidentified "low-level" employee who is said to be responsible for authorizing the campaign resigned his position with the state tourism agency following the backlash.

NOTE: I have imbeded links into this news article.

State Dept. promotes 'Mosques in America'
Publishes '09 calendar featuring worship sites for only 1 religion
Posted: July 18, 2008
12:10 am Eastern

© 2008 WorldNetDaily

This now available from the U.S. State Department: "2009 Mosques of America Wall Calendar: Limited Edition for Ramadan."

"Yep, you read that correctly. It's 'perfect for Muslim outreach efforts," according to a commentary at the Gates of Vienna blog. "Where's the ACLU on this one?"

(http://www.worldnetdaily.com/images/misc/mosquestwo.jpg)

The product was being advertised by "Global Publishing Solutions," a division of the U.S. State Department, until bloggers started talking about it.

Officials then apparently hid the page behind the security of a password-protected wall. (http://gps.state.gov/features/publications?go=view&id=50) However, the page is still viewable in a Google cache of the website. (http://209.85.215.104/search?q=cache:H_xbUgu-Nb0J:gps.state.gov/features/publications%3Fgo%3Dview%26id%3D50+%22mosques+of+America+wall+calendar%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=us)

According to the Gates of Vienna, the government advertised:

In celebration of Ramadan, Global Publishing Solutions (GPS) is offering a limited edition of the 2009 Mosques in America Wall Calendar. This 12-month calendar is perfect for Muslim outreach efforts, as well as office and event giveaways.

The wall calendar features a vibrant photograph or photomontage for each month, displaying the beauty of mosques in America.

The upper half of the hanging calendar depicts mosque facades or interiors, and the lower half displays a monthly calendar grid. The 28-page calendar is saddle-stitched and measures 23 x 30 1/2 cm (9 x 12 inches)

This item is on sale until August 1st, 2008 in shrink-wrapped packs of 20 pieces.

"Remember," said the Internet commentator, "This was on an official State Department (state.gov) web page. GPS describes itself this way: 'The Global Publishing Solutions, manages this site as a gateway to information and transactions for their U.S. State Department clients."

On the Gates of Vienna site, a reader posted a comment recommending the State Department "adorn the calendar with equally vibrant Quranic verses and hadiths, samples of what is preached in those mosques. For example: January: Kill the infidels wherever you find them. February: Allah's Apostle said: I've been made victorious with terror – and so on and so forth."

JihadWatch.org pointed out the page was pulled after the weblog Snapped Shot posted an image of it yesterday. Snapped Shot said it seems the public servants at State "get all nervous when We, The People actually notice" what they're doing.

JihadWatch also made available captured screen shots of the top half and the bottom half of the page.

Gates of Vienna commented: "Since Islam is not really a religion, but a political ideology, the government's sale of an Islamocentric calendar evidently doesn't violate the separation of church and state. It's like selling photos of local Democratic Party Headquarters."

The cached page reveals the prices are $44 per pack if you order from 6-10 packs of 20.
~~~~

Sure I'll order some to burn, I need some more fire starter for the fireplace. ;D

Quote from: DreamWeaver on July 19, 2008, 03:10:56 AM

(http://www.worldnetdaily.com/images/misc/mosquestwo.jpg)

This is an absolute outrage! The excuse is also BALONEY, especially considering that "Separation of Church and State" as interpreted today is a manufactured LIE that never existed! This was and is a Christian Nation - just not a Baptist, Church of Christ, ABC, XYZ, or any other Christian denomination Nation. This is what the founders installed, and they installed it for a Christian people who fought a revolution for their Christian FREEDOM. GOD IS OUR SUPREME COMMANDER, AND JESUS CHRIST - VERY GOD - IS OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR! This is our roots - our heritage, and the ONLY TRUTH! Over 200 years of HEAVILY documented history serves as absolute PROOF for this only TRUTH. Our public buildings, public records, Constitutions, and documents that would require huge warehouses BEAR WITNESS OF ALMIGHTY GOD AND JESUS CHRIST! THIS MASSIVE TRUTH IS IMPOSSIBLE TO ERASE, HIDE, OR FORGET! It's simply an inconvenient ABSOLUTE TRUTH to the devil and the powers of darkness with the devil.

Every generation has fought, bled, and died to preserve our Christian ways of life and our Christian FREEDOMS guaranteed by our Laws and our Constitutions! Our Laws and Constitutions are still in place, and the majority of the people are still self-professing Christians. At present, we do have rogue courts and a rogue government VIOLATING our Laws, Our Constitutions, our Freedoms, and our Rights. HOWEVER, THE ROGUES HAVE NO POWER EXCEPT THAT WHICH IS GIVEN BY THE PEOPLE! We haven't given THIS POWER, and WE WON'T!

Why Democrats don't want to lower gas prices
Senator lets cat out of the bag on Bloomberg TV show

A Democratic senator on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee inadvertently explained why her colleagues have no intention of ending the moratorium on offshore oil drilling or increasing the areas open for exploration and production – no matter how popular the idea might be with gas prices soaring.

In an interview with Bloomberg TV's "Money and Politics" last night, Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., explained Democrats don't want to increase supplies of oil and gasoline because they want to wean Americans off of petroleum products.

Asked point-blank if Democrats in the Senate would consider how increasing the supply of oil would lower the prices that are pinching U.S. consumers, Cantwell replied: "Oh, we definitely want to move beyond petroleum. And so there will be a supply side offered by the Democrats and it will include everything from battery technology to making sure that we have good home domestic supply, and looking, as I said about moving faster on those kind of things like wind and solar that can help us with our high cost of natural gas."

In other words, no.

The point was underlined by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, who said Democrats are not even permitting debate on legislation and amendments designed to increase the supply of oil and gasoline to U.S. consumers.

"Today, the appropriations markup that was going to include amendments that would open up the outer continental shelf and maybe even shale in Colorado and Utah was canceled," she told the same Bloomberg interviewer. "It wasn't postponed, it was canceled. So that indicates to me that the majority is not going to try to have an open debate, but I hope I'm wrong. If they have an open debate, and we're allowed to have amendments, and we have a balanced plan that includes production in all the sectors, then I believe we can meet this problem in a bipartisan way, and that's what we should be doing for America."

WND's Joseph Farah is spearheading a grassroots battle to flood Congress – and particularly the Democratic leadership – with e-mails, phone calls, letters and text messages demanding action that can lead the country in the direction of energy independence.

"Right now, that means lifting the moratorium," he says. "That's the first step. If we can't agree on that as Americans today, then we are in for a long period of national economic decline. If we can't push Congress to do the right thing with even a strong majority of Democrats behind us, then this country is simply no longer a place where the will of the people means anything."

Farah's goal is to force Congress to act in the next two months – before it adjourns for the year.

"There's an election coming up one month after that adjournment date and even the most entrenched incumbents know how sensitive this issue is," says Farah. "Now is the time to let them hear you."

Farah's plan is simple: "I want to bring Congress to its knees," he says. "I want to melt down their phones. I want to flood their e-mail boxes. I want to hold them as political hostages. The ransom demand is to unleash the free market to begin exploring and pumping domestic crude oil and getting it to market as fast as possible. We've got two months to make our voices heard. Let's make history by bringing this recalcitrant body of elitists into compliance with the will of the people and the rule of law."

After eagerly waiting for someone else to take the lead on demanding action of Congress, Farah came to the conclusion no one else was going to do it.

"We're running out of time," Farah says. "If we let these rascals, these scoundrels, leave town before they lift all their ridiculous bans and restrictions on drilling for domestic oil, this country is headed for a major recession. Even worse, we'll head into a new year and a new presidency with the Washington elite thinking they put one over on us again."

Farah says the only thing that can prevent the disaster of gasoline prices of $6, $7, even $8 a gallon in the near future is a general uprising of the American people.

Besides the call to action, Farah is also devoting the current issue of Whistleblower magazine, the monthly print complement to WND, to the critical topic of "the energy independence revolution."

"It's time to stop business as usual," he says. "Every day, you need to make some phone calls, you need to write some emails, you need to use Skype and text messages and even send some letters through the Post Office. This grass-roots movement has to build steadily for the next two months. We cannot allow Congress to adjourn without lifting the ban on drilling in ANWR, offshore and on public lands under which we know there are vast reserves of oil."

Farah says it's a national emergency and needs to be treated as such.

"I hope radio talk show hosts across the country will embrace this bipartisan, non-partisan movement," he says. "There is no question in my mind this is what the American people want. Now it's just time for them to impose their will on their elected representatives who, in their chauffeured limousines and taxpayer-supported travel, are hopelessly out of touch with their constituents, with people who are finding it difficult to make ends meet."

Farah says he is convinced Congress will act only if the people steamroll members into action. He points to the way the Dubai port deal and so-called "comprehensive immigration reform" were killed by popular uprisings in recent years.

"We can make this happen, again," he says. "But this time, we won't just be stopping something bad from happening. We will be doing something that is very good for the country – something that will improve the lives of all of us, something that will improve national security, something vital for the future of the nation."

Congress is set to adjourn in late September.

"I'm going to do everything in my power to push Congress into action in the next two months," Farah says. "I know I can't do it by myself. But I know if the American people get mobilized nothing can stop them. You have to let members of Congress know you are serious. You have to persuade them and their staffs they are not returning to Washington next year if they fail to act in America's interest before they leave town."

Before then, you can reach members of the House by calling 202-224-3121 or 202-225-1904. The official House website contains web pages for all members and includes email addresses for most.

You can reach members of the U.S. Senate by calling 202-225-6827. The official Senate website also contains web pages for all members and includes email address for some.

Louisiana the Only State to Promote Academic Freedom (So Far)

Last month, Louisiana became the only state to set into law some measure of academic protection for teachers who wish to present more than one side of the origins debate. The Louisiana Academic Freedom Act, authored by State Senator Ben Nevers, will shield public school teachers from discrimination or job termination if they introduce material on controversial topics in the science classroom, including evidence against biological evolution.

The bill was signed into law by Governor Bobby Jindal, who has already received criticism for his Christian background. Critics, including well-known evolution supporters from the National Center for Science Education and Americans United for Separation of Church and State, say the bill’s intention is to introduce creationism into the classroom.

But just what exactly in the bill’s provisions irks these critics?

The bill states Louisiana recognizes that “an important purpose of science education is to inform students about scientific evidence and to help students develop critical thinking skills that they need in order to become intelligent, productive, and scientifically informed citizens.” Also, that “the teaching of some scientific subjects, such as biological evolution, the chemical origins of life, global warming, and human cloning, can cause controversy, and that some teachers may be unsure of the expectations concerning how they should present information on such subjects.”1

Rather than promoting a specific religious agenda, Section E of the bill “protects the teaching of scientific information, and this section shall not be construed to promote any religious doctrine, promote discrimination for or against a particular set of religious beliefs, or promote discrimination for or against religion or non-religion.”1

There is no doubt that problems exist in Darwin’s evolutionary and natural selection theories, but rather than inform students of these truths, evolutionists would prefer to only have their brand of science presented to the impressionable minds of the next generation, with no questions asked. Critics have accused creation and intelligent design proponents of “using” legislative bodies to pass laws favoring an open origins debate in the classroom. They fail, however, to mention their own use of the judicial system to support evolution-only teaching (as in the highly-publicized 2005 Dover case2).

A basic U.S. government high school course should remind us that in a democracy, legislators vote on policy to reflect the will of the people who elected them. The judicial system exists to interpret those laws, not to create new ones to fit the will of the few. According to a Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life nationwide survey,3 in 2005 a significant number of Americans did not think evolution was the best explanation for the origins of human life.

Similar legislative bills have failed in South Carolina, Alabama, Michigan, Missouri, and Florida. Hopefully, these states and the rest of the nation will follow Louisiana’s example to offer our nation’s students the freedom to learn and the opportunity to become objective and critically-thinking adults.

U.S. government: We know parenting better than you
Proposals would give Washington unprecedented control over kids

The U.S. House of Representatives is scheduled to debate two bills that could give the federal government unprecedented control over the way parents raise their children – even providing funds for state workers to come into homes and screen babies for emotional and developmental problems.

The Pre-K Act (HR 3289) and the Education Begins at Home Act (HR 2343) are two bills geared toward military and families who fall below state poverty lines. The measures are said to be a way to prevent child abuse, close the achievement gap in education between poor and minority infants versus middle-class children and evaluate babies younger than 5 for medical conditions.

'Education Begins at Home Act' – HR 2343

HR 2343 is sponsored by Rep. Danny Davis, D-Ill., and cosponsored by 55 Democrats and 11 Republicans. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that implementing the Education Begins at Home Act would cost taxpayers $190 million for state home visiting plus "such sums as may be necessary" for in-hospital parent education.

While the bill may appear to be well-intentioned, Pediatrician Karen Effrem told WND government provisions in HR 2343 to evaluate children for developmental problems go too far.

"The federal definition of developmental screening for special education also includes what they call socioemotional screening, which is mental health screening," Effrem said. "Mental health screening is very subjective no matter what age you do it. Obviously it is incredibly subjective when we are talking about very young children."

While the program may not be mandatory for low-income and military families, there is no wording in the Education Begins at Home Act requiring parental permission for treatment or ongoing care once the family is enrolled – a point that leads some to ask where parental rights end and the government takes over. Also, critics ask how agents of the government plan to acquire private medical and financial records to offer the home visiting program.

"There's no consent mentioned in the bill for any kind of screening – medical, health or developmental," Effrem said. "There are privacy concerns because when home visitors come into the home they assess everything about the family: Their financial situation, social situation, parenting practices, everything. All of that is put into a database."

Effrem said it does not specify whether parents are allowed to decline evaluations, drugs or treatment for their children once they are diagnosed with developmental or medical conditions.

"How free is someone who has been tagged as needing this program in the case of home visiting – like a military family or a poor family?" she asked. "How free are they to refuse? Even their refusal will be documented somewhere. There are plenty of instances where families have felt they can't refuse because they would lose benefits, be accused of not being good parents or potentially have their children taken away."

When WND asked Effrem how long state-diagnosed conditions would remain in a child's permanent medical history, she responded:

"Forever. As far as I know, there isn't any statute of limitations. The child's record follows them through school and potentially college, employment and military service."

Effrem said conflicts could also arise when parents do not agree with parenting standards of government home visitors.

"Who decides how cultural tolerance is going to be manifested?" she asked. "There's some blather in the language of the bill about having cultural awareness of the differences in parenting practices, but it seems like that never applies to Christian parents."

'Providing Resources Early for Kids'

The Pre-K Act, or HR 3289, is sponsored by Rep. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, and cosponsored by 116 Democrats and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla. Estimated to cost $500 million for each of fiscal years 2008 through 2013, the bill provides funds for state-approved education. Government workers would reach mothers and fathers in the hospital after a baby has been delivered to promote Pre-K programs.

"They give them information about Child Care Resource and Referral Network so they can get the child into a preschool or daycare that follows the state standards and get the mom working as quickly as possible," she said. "It's always that sort of thing: It's a list of resources, it's intruding on parental autonomy and authority and it's not necessarily accurate or welcome information."

While parents may choose to be involved in preschool programs, Effrem said the Pre-K Act poses similar concerns about government trumping parents' rights.

"Once they are involved, they don't have any say over curriculum," she said. "There's plenty of evidence of preschool curriculum that deals with issues that have nothing to do with a child's academic development – like gender, gender identity, careers, environmentalism, multiculturalism, feminism and all of that – things that don't amount to a hill of beans as far as a child learning how to read."

Effrem said the Pre-K Act extends a "really messed-up K-12 system" to include even younger, more vulnerable children.

"This is an expansion of the federal government into education when there really is no constitutional provision for it to do so."

*CAIR Islamofascist-Symp Dawud Walid Whines As Michigan Reps Amend Intelligence Bill: "None of the funds authorized to be appropriated by this act may be used to prohibit or discourage the use of the words or phrases 'jihadist,' 'jihad,' 'Islamo-fascism,' 'caliphate,' 'Islamist' or 'Islamic terrorist' by or within the intelligence community or the Federal Government"

Hoekstra fights ban on terms that describe terrorists

The Bush administration advises officials to avoid the use of certain words when describing terrorism, saying the terms are inappropriate and counter-productive. But four members of the Michigan congressional delegation want to ban federal funds for initiatives that prohibit the use of the words, like "jihadist" and "Islamist."

Muslims have long considered the words slurs. The American and British governments now say the words unintentionally honor terrorists while marginalizing moderate Muslims, who believe that Islam provides no rationale for extremism, let alone terrorism.

Regardless, U.S. Rep. Peter Hoekstra, R-Holland, offered an amendment last week to the 2009 Intelligence Authorization Act that would ban financing for any restriction on such words. Reps. Joe Knollenberg, R-Bloomfield Hills, Thaddeus McCotter, R-Livonia, and Bart Stupak, D-Menominee, also voted for the amendment.

"None of the funds authorized to be appropriated by this act may be used to prohibit or discourage the use of the words or phrases 'jihadist,' 'jihad,' 'Islamo-fascism,' 'caliphate,' 'Islamist' or 'Islamic terrorist' by or within the intelligence community or the Federal Government," the amendment reads. It was approved by a 249-180 vote in the House. The Senate is working on its own authorization bill, and no such amendment has been offered, to date.

"I am sympathetic to the argument that if used inappropriately, the words can be counterproductive, but I find that the people who are criticizing this are very short on alternatives," Hoekstra said. "So how do they want us to describe al-Qaida and what they are involved with?"

Muslim leaders said that even the Bush administration, which they blame for critical errors in the war on terrorism, now realizes the terms are ill-advised.

"We believe that Rep. Hoekstra's misguided decision reinforces the positions of extremists and may unintentionally legitimize al-Qaida and other anti-American forces," said Dawud Walid, executive director of the Council on American Islamic Relations-Michigan. "CAIR supports using terminology such as 'criminals,' 'murderers' or 'terrorists' that helps isolate extremists and remove the false cloak of religiosity they use to justify their barbaric actions."

Muslims and government officials say jihad often in everyday life, against immorality and evil. Jihad is a spiritual pursuit to which they are called, Muslims say, and those who embrace jihad bring themselves closer to God. The fact that terrorists like Osama bin Laden and others brandish the word to rationalize murder demonstrates how far they exist beyond the bounds of Islam.

A memo issued to state department employees this year cautioned against the usage. The Department of Homeland Security and the National Counterterrorism Center followed with similar advisories.

Spokesmen for McCotter and Knollenberg said while they are aware Muslims find the words objectionable, they believe intelligence officials must be free to describe events as they see them.

The American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, the Arab American Institute, the Muslim Public Affairs Council and CAIR have all urged officials to adopt a broader view of Islam, to more effectively counter the extremists.

Quote from: Pastor Roger on July 25, 2008, 09:45:17 AM

That "other country" is already in their sites and is being worked on for quite some time now as that "other country" has been standing in the way of their objective. Not only have we been under attack violently but are also seeing a fifth column that is working on destroying us all from within. There are a large number of not so sleepy "sleeper cells" within the U.S. that has already taken over a considerable amount of our government (cities, counties and starting on states and federal) and is already instilling sharia law in those areas. We see the rest of our government kowtowing to the "rights" of islamists all the while ignoring the legal rights of others.

Had anything even close to this happened 50 years ago, could you guess what the reaction would have been? In fact, something much smaller would have resulted in a drastic response. The response to many circumstances of today would have been radically different 50 years ago in just about every major controversy of society. Some would say that we were less civilized 50 years ago, but I would disagree completely and believe the opposite. We were obviously a more Godly society 50 years ago. There were some exceptions, but we also treated each other better 50 years ago. I'll just say that overall, we had a greater desire to please GOD. Also overall, our expectations were much higher, and what we would tolerate was much different.

Many would quickly cite medical and scientific advances over the last 50 years and state that the quality of life is better today. They would also cite that we live longer. However, I think that the quality of life was much better 50 years ago, even though we had the worries of the Cold War. Remember, I know there were exceptions. We were pretty poor, so my views were not clouded by wealth or advantage.

Love In Christ,
Tom

Christian Quotes 10 - Now blest in heavenly places In Christ at God's
right hand; And filled with all His fulness Complete in Him to stand.
Sing to the praise and glory Of Him Who thus hath shown Such gracious
love and mercy, To call us for His own. -- William Hallman

Here is the form letter that I got back from Senator Cantwell's office. I doubt that she ever saw my email. My brother got the same one as near as I can tell.

Dear Ms. Bainter,

Thank you for contacting me with your concerns about the high energy prices in Washington state. I appreciate hearing from you on this matter of utmost importance to families and businesses across our nation.

As I'm sure you know, the last few months have seen the highest recorded average gasoline and diesel prices ever seen in Washington. With volatile oil prices over $135 per barrel, and gasoline and diesel pump prices topping $4 per gallon across the country, consumers are struggling to make ends meet with ever shrinking disposable incomes. Airlines are going bankrupt, truckers aren't getting paid enough to cover skyrocketing diesel prices, and families are cutting down on trips to the mall and cancelling summer vacation plans - further exacerbating our economic downturn. Average national gasoline prices are the highest they've ever been, double what they were just a year ago, and still climbing. Our state continues to have some of the highest prices in the country, despite the fact that Washington's refineries are supplied primarily by Alaskan oil, produce almost twice the refined product that we need for in-state consumption, and have a comprehensive pipeline distribution system.

I recognize the tremendous burden these unprecedented prices have put on families and Washington businesses and I am concerned that the lack of transparency in U.S. energy futures markets may explain some of the record prices we face. Energy market experts, oil company executives, and major industrial energy consumers have testified to Congress that the price of oil and gas can no longer be explained or predicted by normal market dynamics or their historic understanding of supply and demand fundamentals. Numerous experts have concluded that unprecedented jumps in crude oil prices are due in large part to rampant speculation in the energy commodities markets.

To combat this speculation, on June 23, 2008, I introduced the Prevent Unfair Manipulation of Prices (PUMP) Act (S. 3185), the Senate companion to a bill (H.R. 6330) introduced by Congressman Bart Stupak (D-MI). If enacted, the PUMP Act would close the full range of loopholes being used by oil market speculators and dark market exchanges and give the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) the ability to better prevent traders from establishing powerful positions in commodity markets that could be used for manipulative purposes. In addition, the bill would require public monthly reporting of index fund data and strengthen Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) authority to prosecute manipulation in natural gas and electricity markets. Industry experts have testified before Congress that enacting the PUMP Act into law could bring down the world price of oil to the marginal cost of production, which oil industry and market experts believe is around $60 a barrel, within 30 days.

Furthermore, the landmark 2007 Energy Bill included language I authored giving the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) new authority to prosecute and impose fines of up to $1 million per day on anyone who uses a manipulative or deceptive device or contrivance to distort the crude oil, gasoline, or petroleum distillate markets. In the months since the Energy Bill was enacted, I have put pressure on the FTC to make sure they utilize this new regulatory authority as soon as possible. With petroleum prices at unprecedented levels, we need a cop-on-the-beat to make sure Americans aren't being exploited by bad marketplace actors. On May 2, 2008, I welcomed the FTC's decision to issue an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, a critical first step in a rulemaking process , and I plan to continue to push the commission to finalize this rule in the next few months.

To further address the threat of market manipulation, on April 21, 2008, I sent a letter with Representative Jay Inslee (D-WA-1) to the President calling for the creation of a Department of Justice Oil and Gas Market Fraud Task Force to examine fraud and manipulation of oil and gas markets. The Department of Justice stepped in to help investigate Enron's manipulation of electricity prices a few years ago, now it needs to step up and investigate potential corruption in oil and gas markets. Washingtonians felt the economic pain of an Administration slow to act while Enron and other bad market actors were pillaging West Coast ratepayers and now they deserve vigilant oversight from the feds when it comes to gas prices.

Rapidly growing energy needs in Washington state, and across the country, call for diverse solutions. In the search for answers, some have called for expanding domestic oil and gas exploration, including in the pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), to decrease the price Americans are paying at the pump. While the intent behind this suggestion is surely sincere, it simply won't fix the problem. The truth of the matter is that the Unites States only holds about three percent of the world's oil reserves and will never affect world oil prices. In fact, the Energy Information Administration, an agency within the Department of Energy, reported recently that drilling in all the offshore areas currently "would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030." The United States simply cannot become an energy leader through domestic exploration, but we should seize the opportunity to become a world leader in energy efficiency, conservation technology, and renewable energy technology.

While Washingtonians like you have been working harder to pay the tab at the gas pump and on heating bills, oil companies have been reaping record profits. Exxon Mobil announced their 2007 net profit earlier this year - $40.6 billion - breaking records for the highest quarterly and annual profits ever for a U.S. company. Combined oil company profits exceed $600 billion since 2001. While I want U.S. companies to be successful, hugely profitable companies don't need taxpayer subsidies and shouldn't be allowed to avoid paying royalties for oil and gas taken from public lands. I believe it is time to level the playing field by removing decades-old subsidies to the mature oil and gas industries and invest in clean energy technologies that will keep more money here at home. I recently led an effort to pass legislation in the Senate that, if enacted, would extend clean energy tax incentives scheduled to expire at the end of 2008. On April 10, 2008, the bipartisan Clean Energy Tax Stimulus Act (S. 2821), which I introduced with John Ensign (R-NV) just a week earlier, was included as an amendment to the Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2008 (H.R. 3221) that passed the Senate later that day by a vote of 88 to 8. This legislation, cosponsored by 43 of my Senate colleagues, would provide the continuation of clean energy production incentives for wind, solar and other renewable sources, and incentives to improve energy efficiency that will create hundreds of thousands of jobs, save people and businesses money, and reduce energy costs over time.

Please be assured that, as a member of the Senate Energy, Commerce, and Finance Committees, I will continue working to develop responsible solutions to the current energy crisis and to provide price relief to Washingtonians. At the same time, I am working with my colleagues to develop balanced and sustainable solutions to our nation's long-term energy needs.

Thank you again for contacting me to share your thoughts on this matter. Finally, you may be interested in signing up for my weekly update for Washington state residents. Every Monday, I provide a brief outline about my work in the Senate and issues of importance to Washington State. If you are interested in subscribing to this update, please visit my website at http://cantwell.senate.gov. Please do not hesitate to contact me in the future if I can be of further assistance.

Sincerely,
Maria Cantwell
United States Senator

Congress' bailout opens doors to eminent domain seizures
Warning issued about 'bonanza' of potential property confiscations

The congressional plan to bail out the U.S. housing and mortgage industries, which could be approved by Congress and signed by the president as early as this weekend, actually endangers Americans' housing, according to the director of the Center for Entrepreneurship at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

"Of all the unintended consequences of the housing bill that passed the House – of which there will likely be many – one of the most ironic and far-reaching may be this: that whatever security marginal homeowners have from foreclosures, their homes will be far less safe from being taken by a bureaucrat through eminent domain," John Berlau wrote on the organization's website.

According to the Wall Street Journal the White House says the bill needs to be enacted soon so its new authorities will start taking effect.

The sweeping package, the report said, "is the government's most aggressive response to rising foreclosures and fragile credit markets. It creates a new regulator for ailing mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and establishes a $300 billion program to expand the Federal Housing Administration's ability to guarantee mortgages."

However, some of the details included in the hundreds of pages of the bill are likely to surprise – and concern – Americans. For example, there's a requirement for a new fingerprint registry for those who are associated with the mortgage industry, raising privacy concerns for many.

There's also a provision many are interpreting as allowing the federal government to obtain information about online spending, money transfers and purchases, including ordinary eBay purchases.

Now comes the concern that the new proposal's affirmation of the Kelo decision by the U.S. Supreme Court actually could make the situation worse for homeowners.

That still-bitterly opposed Supreme Court opinion in Kelo v. New London decided in 2005 that the U.S. Constitution allows the taking of private property for private economic development, a decision decried by WND columnist Ellis Washington as "a blatant violation of citizen property rights, also an obvious misinterpretation of the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment, which mandates, 'nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.'"

Berlau explains his worries about the wake of the Kelo verdict, and the new provisions in the housing bailout plan.

"Some states have passed laws protecting property owners by barring eminent domain solely for economic development purposes. But for the many states that still allow this practice, the federal government is often the source of funds for the projects that result in the use of eminent domain. Efforts to bar federal funds to be used on projects that make use of this type of eminent domain have stalled in this and the last Congress," he said.

"To their credit, the drafters of the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008, which passed the Senate on July 11, at least recognized this danger of throwing billions in construction grants to state and local governments. So they put in a clause stating, 'No funds under this title may be used in conjunction with property taken by eminent domain, unless eminent domain is employed for a public use.' The clause then adds that 'public use shall not be construed to include economic development that primarily benefits any private entity," he said.

"But this language has vanished from the House bill," he said.

Replacing it is language that "would give governments substantially more leeway to take land."

That provision changes the Senate's prohibition on funds "used in conjunction with property taken by eminent domain" with the looser ban of using funds for a "project that seeks to use the power of eminent domain."

"This new language in the House bill would give property-grabbing bureaucrats an easy way around the supposed prohibition on using eminent domain," Berlau said. "All they would have to do is take property for any reason that Kelo allows, and then come up with another project for the specific use of that property. If land were grabbed for general economic development, as Kelo permits, and then a new project were created for a city to sell this land to developers, this would likely not be a violation of the House bill. After all, the new project isn’t 'seeking' to use eminent domain, it is merely using land that had already been confiscated."

He warned of the potential for the bill to "stimulate a bonanza of state and local property confiscation of the type green-lighted in the Supreme Court's 5-4 deciion Kelo v. New London."

"This new language means … there will be virtually nothing stopping states and localities from using the federal housing grants to help themselves to confiscate housing," he said.

Senators can be reached through the Capitol HIll switchboard at 202-224-3121.

This is from my brother this morning...

Hi Sis,
You know Senator Murray surprised me a bit here. She does make a very important point. Just because we open more land for drilling is no guarantee that the oil companies will drill. They are having record profits right now, why drill more and lower those profits. Maybe it is time for a publicically/government owned oil company that is not interested in record profits for shareholders, etc., but one that is interested in that 90 years of oil for the public. Oh my gosh, did I just say that - more government control? I do think that she has a point though. Who says that the oil companies will drill and lower prices? She did give me food for thought there - at least I think she wrote her own letter, unlike Cantwell.
Randy

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Forwarded Message: Response from Senator Murray Response from Senator MurrayTuesday, July 29, 2008 8:23 AMFrom: Senator@murray.senate.

Dear Mr. -----:

Thank you for writing me regarding your support for oil drilling in the United States. I appreciate hearing your views on this important matter.

Just this week, I filled up my gas tank in Washington State at $4.45 a gallon. I understand and share your concern about how high gas prices are affecting families, businesses, and our entire economy, and I am dedicated to finding solutions to this problem. There are many options that I am discussing with my colleagues, from addressing speculation in the futures market to expanding the number of leases for land available to oil companies.

As you know, President Bush recently proposed expanding the amount of area available for domestic oil production in the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). Bans on oil drilling and development were placed on parts of the OCS by both Congressional legislation in 1982 and by President George H.W. Bush in 1990, and later extended by President Clinton until 2012. President Bush is calling on Congress to lift the ban and allow for expanded offshore drilling in the OCS, arguing that lifting the ban will lower oil prices and allow for more domestic production of oil.

However, oil companies have made it clear they would not necessarily choose to increase refining or production of gasoline and other petroleum products even if those OCS acres were made available. In fact, there are currently 41 million acres in the OCS that are leased for oil drilling, and of those, just over 8 million are being drilled, according to the Minerals Management Service (MMS). That leaves approximately 33.5 million acres of OCS lands that are already open for drilling, and yet oil companies have chosen to not drill there. In addition, MMS estimates that roughly 79 percent of America's technically recoverable offshore oil reserves are available for leasing, while just 21 percent are covered by the current ban. Since oil companies have failed to increase domestic production by using the acres open to them, there is no guarantee that they would increase production even if additional OCS acres were made available.

Rather than giving oil companies access to more land and allowing them to drill at their own pace, I believe Congress should strongly encourage the utilization of lands already available for drilling. That is why I am working closely with Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) on a proposal to speed up domestic oil production on federal lands that are already leased by shortening lease terms and requiring oil companies to comply with benchmarks on their progress. In addition, the proposal would accelerate leasing in acres that are currently open to leasing. These areas are estimated to contain 78.5 million barrels of oil, which is enough to displace our imports from the Persian Gulf for 90 years.

The proposal would also target reducing demand for oil by investing in public transportation and clean, renewable fuels and battery technologies to decrease our dependence on oil and diversify our energy supplies. Also, this proposal would target oil companies and the tax breaks they currently receive. Even though large oil companies have reported years of record profits, they have failed to make adequate investments in increasing supply and instead are using their excessive profits to buy back their own stock. I firmly believe in making short-term investments to help resolve this situation while also making long-term investments in fuel efficiency, renewable fuels, and limiting our dependence on fossil fuels.

As you know, there is evidence that speculation in the futures market may also be impacting the price of oil. I am working with my colleagues to prevent excessive speculation and manipulation and to ensure that energy trading markets are properly regulated. That is why I coauthored S. 3268, the Stop Excessive Speculation Act of 2008, to help address speculation on the energy futures market. This bill will increase the monitoring capabilities of our regulatory agencies and require traders to disclose more information that could be helpful in tracking and prosecuting illegal practices. Once implemented, these measures will ensure the price of oil is not being artificially inflated by traders who stand to benefit from high oil prices.

Easing the price at the pump and reducing America's dependence on oil are two of my top priorities. I am working to accelerate oil production on lands that are already available, repeal tax breaks for oil companies, and invest in energy efficiency and create a cleaner, more diversified energy supply using American workers and innovation. I know real families are struggling, and I share your concerns and will keep your thoughts in mind as the 110th Congress continues to debate energy legislation. Thank you for contacting me, and please don't hesitate to write again.

I hope all is well in Yakima.

Democrat Senate Passed 94% of Bills without Debate or Roll Call Vote

Sens. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) dismissed Democratic claims of obstructionism and expressed outrage last week over a government report that shows the majority of bills that have passed in the Democrat-controlled Senate of the 110th Congress have done so without any debate or even a vote.

“The U.S. Senate has a nine percent approval rating, because the American people believe that much of our work is done in secret with no debate, no transparency and no accountability,” Coburn told reporters at press conference Wednesday at the Capitol.

“This report shows that the reality is worse than the public’s fears. Instead of encouraging open debate, I’m disappointed that Majority Leader Reid often chooses secrecy or demagoguery,” he added.

Coburn was referring to a non-partisan study released on June 10 by the government’s Congressional Research Service (CRS), which indicates that 855 of the 911 bills passed by the Senate of the 110th Congress have been streamlined by Democratic Party leadership with a procedural tactic known as Unanimous Consent (UC), which requires no debate or even a vote.

With the Senate’s traditional August recess about to start, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has repeatedly accused Republicans, however, and especially Coburn and DeMint, of blocking UC on legislation that he says is critical to the well-being of many Americans.

Coburn and DeMint have a reputation for reading and objecting to bills that would have otherwise passed without debate or objection, Bryan Darling, director of Senate relations for the conservative Heritage Foundation, told CNSNews.com.

Reid has also objected to a procedural tactic know as filibuster, which Republicans have used to block legislation they oppose.

“I had out here earlier today our Velcro chart, 79 [Republican] filibusters,” said Reid on June 25. “Is it any wonder that the House seats that came up during the off-year went Democratic? Is it any wonder that the State of Mississippi sent us a Democratic House Member? … It is no wonder because they see what is going on over here.”

Reid was referring to a flip chart that the Democrats use to tally the number of GOP filibusters. As of Friday, July 25, there were 85 Republican filibusters, according to Reid’s press office.

On Thursday, Reid introduced the Advance America’s Priorities Act, which is nicknamed the “Coburn Omnibus” because it patches together 40 bills, many of which Coburn has already stopped from passing through the Senate by Unanimous Consent.

Reid’s press secretary, Jim Manley, told The Hill on June 27 that the omnibus is a reaction to Coburn’s obstruction.

“Look what happened last time we did this: Sen. Coburn held up action on dozens of bills for narrow, personal reasons, demanding debate and four amendments,” said Manley.

“These bills were held up for months. The Senate had to waste precious time to allow him to offer a few amendments. That is not debate and amendment. It is abuse, obstruction and delay,” he said.

“Things have gotten so bad that Republican senators have approached Reid to ask that their bills be included in the package,” Manley added.

But Coburn said on Wednesday that forcing costly bills before Congress right before a recess is typical of the Democratic leadership’s approach to legislating.

“They [Democrats] have tried to ram them [bills] through right before recess to pressure us to give up,” said Coburn. “But senators shouldn’t fear debate on these important bills.

“It’s in the best traditions of our republic to demand the Senate actually do its job and have a public debate on bills that expand government and increase the burden on taxpayers. Senator Reid can complain all he wants, but Republicans represent millions of Americans whose voices are being silenced by Democrat strong-arm tactics,” he added.

Oil? Ah, let Russia have it
State Department gives away 125,000 square miles of Alaskan ocean floor

Even if Congress follows President Bush's lead in opening off-shore oil exploration, there exist over 125,000 square miles of sea bottom that won't be explored, because the State Department – amid controversy and against the will of Alaskans – has surrendered the land to Russia.

Eight islands and their surrounding sea floors were ceded to the former Soviet Union as part of the U.S.-U.S.S.R. Maritime Boundary Treaty in 1991, a treaty signed by the U.S. Senate and President George Bush but never ratified by the Soviets. Nonetheless, an executive agreement enforcing the terms of the treaty until ratification has been in place through three presidencies, meaning the State Department officially recognizes the islands as Russian territory.

Alaskan legislators, who were given no input or authority on the island giveaway, have long protested the treaty, declaring it null and void without Russian ratification.

And since last week's U.S. Geological Survey estimating that 90 billion barrels of oil lie undiscovered and technically recoverable above the Arctic Circle, those 125,000 square miles of seabed have taken on newly appreciated value. Five of the islands lie north of the Artic Circle, and the other three sit at the western end of Alaska's Aleutian island chain.

Carl Olson, a retired U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander and chairman of State Department Watch, a nonpartisan foreign policy watchdog group, explained to WND the significance of the State Department's stance: "The area off the coast of an island that a nation may use is called the exclusive economic zone. The group in charge of defining that is the State Department. So (the president and Congress) can say the off-shore areas are opened up, but still not recognize these quarter of a million square miles available for American oil exploration."

Alaska state Rep. John B. Coghill told WND earlier, "The issues involve not only state sovereignty over vital territories but also significant national defense concerns and substantial economic losses over fisheries and petroleum."

The Alaskan legislature and a sympathetic California legislature have both passed resolutions asking Congress to allow Alaska at the bargaining table with Russia to resolve the islands' ownership. After almost 20 years of official protests, the U.S. State Department has yet to acknowledge Alaska's arguments.

"It's totally anti-public, anti-Congress, anti-state actions – but unfortunately the State Department thinks it has the power to adopt this boundary line with the Russians without anybody's consent outside themselves, " Olson told WND. "The State Department is basically chopping off a piece of Alaska and giving it to a foreign government without Alaska having any say in it."

The lands in dispute include the islands of Herald, Bennett, Henrietta, Jeanette, Copper Island, Sea Lion Rock, Sea Otter Rock, and Wrangel, which is the largest of the eight, roughly the size of Rhode Island and Delaware combined.

The U.S. purchased Alaska from Russia in 1867, including the Aleutian Islands, which presumably would include Copper Island, Sea Otter Rock and Sea Lion Rock. In 1881, U.S. Captain Calvin L. Hooper landed on Wrangel Island and claimed it for the U.S. Also in 1881, the U.S. Navy claimed the islands of Bennett, Jeannette, and Henrietta. The British held Herald Island, but they gave up that claim, permitting the U.S. to take it.

American citizens had occupied Wrangel Island from approximately 1881 to 1924, when Russian soldiers landed and forcibly removed the American occupants from its shores. The Russians then reportedly used the island as a concentration camp.

Many Alaskan legislators believe the islands were part of their state, even after the Wrangel invasion, though the U.S. State Department officially disagrees. Without a ratified treaty designating them as Russian, those same legislators and Carl Olson believe the islands still are American territory and can be reverted to the U.S. easily.

The only thing binding the islands to Russia is "in the form of an executive agreement," Olson told WND, "which means it can be changed with the stroke of a pen by the president, because it has no force of law."

"We have been steadily maintaining the pressure," said Olson. "It's just a matter of finding sympathetic people in Washington and the other states to go for it. There's plenty of organizations who have endorsed our efforts, so we keep up the drumbeat."

Coghill has also sought the support of other states, claiming that the federal State Department has overstepped its authority in giving away a state's land. "If they can do this to Alaska," he warns, "they can do this to any state."

U.S. State Department officials did not return WND telephone calls to discuss the matter, but a State Department webpage devoted to the island controversy denies that islands were ever claimed by the United States and explains that though the treaty between the U.S. and Russian Federation was never fully ratified, "In a separate exchange of diplomatic notes, the two countries agreed to apply the agreement provisionally."

The webpage concludes, "The U.S. has no intention of reopening discussion of the 1990 Maritime Boundary Treaty."

Military 'gay' ban supporters demonized by Congress
'Show hearing would have made Stalin proud'

The chief of The Center for Military Preparedness says the reaction to her testimony before a congressional hearing has proven her point: That allowing open homosexuality in the U.S. military will create an atmosphere of intense persecution for those who disagree with the lifestyle choice.

Further, it would damage the military's morale, handicap its capabilities and deprive it of thousands of good service members, Elaine Donnelly told WND.

She was reacting to the recent hearing before the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Personnel and committee chief U.S. Rep. Susan Davis, D-Calif.

Robert Knight, of the Culture and Media Institute, described the hearing like this: "Surrounded by hostile faces in the gallery, hostile faces of the liberal congressmen who dominated the 'hearing,' and the skeptical faces of reporters from liberal media, Mrs. Donnelly listened stoically while other witnesses trashed her personally during their testimony. Because of the rules, she was not able to respond until called late in the proceedings for her own testimony."

At issue was the 1993 imposition by President Bill Clinton of the so-called "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policies that allow homosexuals who did not publicly announce their lifestyle choice to participate in the U.S. military even though the underlying law still banned that.

Congress now is on a campaign to correct such "rights" violations and is considering changing that law.

But according to reports, Donnelly's invited testimony was met with derisive comments about her objections to homosexuals in the military, and her supporting arguments for those objections.

Donnelly said such a reaction simply confirmed her premise.

"Show me members of Congress who verbally abuse witnesses testifying before them, and I will show you a group of liberals doing everything they can to prevent the witnesses from being heard," she said.

"My mission as an invited witness was to defend the 1993 statute that Congress actually passed, which states that homosexuals are not eligible to serve in the military," she said. "Accompany me was Brian Jones, a retired sergeant major of the U.S. Army's elite Delta Force.

"We did our best to present testimony on the consequences of repealing that law, and our statements are on the record. We had difficulty being heard, however, because liberal members of the committee avoided relevant issues by attacking our motives and asking absurd questions," she said.

She continued, "The barrage of personal insults and diversionary insinuations, ironically, served to prove my point. If the 1993 law is repealed:

* "The new policy will be forced cohabitation with homosexuals, 24/7, in all military communities, including Army and Marine infantry battalions, Special Operations Forces, Navy SEALS, and all the ships at sea, including submarines. This would be tantamount to forcing female soldiers to cohabit with men in intimate quarters, 24/7, with no recourse but to leave or avoid the military all together.

* "Taking the 'civil rights' argument to its logical, misguided conclusion, the military will be required to give special rights to professed (not discreet) homosexuals, and enforce a corollary policy of 'zero tolerance' of anyone who disagrees. The military does not do things halfway. Commanders will not be able to improve the situation, since they might be accused of 'intolerance' themselves.

* "Current incidents of sexual misconduct involving men and women will be increased three-fold, to include male/male and female/female issues.

* "To make the new policy 'work,' valuable training time will be diverted to 'diversity' training reflecting the attitudes of civilian gay activist groups. This training will attempt to overcome the normal human desire for modesty and privacy in sexual matters – a quest that is inappropriate for the military and unlikely to succeed.

* "Any complaints about inappropriate passive/aggressive actions conveying a homosexual message or approach, short of physical touching and assault, will be met with career-killing presumptions about the motives of the person who complains: bigotry, homophobia, racism, or worse. As a result, untold thousands of people to leave or avoid the all-volunteer force."

Tommy Sears, the executive director for the center, agreed.

"It quickly deteriorated into a show hearing that would have made Stalin proud," he wrote. "Elaine and Sgt. Major Jones gave their opening statements, and shortly the rout was on. The Democrats' tactic was to ask a lengthy question (which more times than not turned into a polemic against Elaine), expending much if not all of their allotted time. Any time left for a response from Elaine or Sgt. Maj. Jones was of little consequence, as they were cut off or shouted down by congressmen or congresswomen who then would launch into another mini-speech."

He said members of Congress clearly intended to "demonize as morally repugnant (bigoted, homophobic, or worse) anyone who dared disagree with the Democrats' and homosexual activists' point of view."

He said, "Since the hearing, staff and other regular observers of Congress have commented to me that Wednesday's session was the shoddiest display of decorum, particularly on the House Armed Services Committee, that they had ever seen."

"Particularly capricious was Rep. Vic Snyder, D-Ark.," Sears said. "I found outrageous his gratuitous comments with regard to Elaine's submitted testimony and motives. He insinuated that had Congressman [Barney] Frank been there, Elaine would find his presence objectionable because Frank would 'sexualize the atmosphere.' Snyder's sarcastic manner and interruption of Elaine's answer made it difficult for her to counter with the obvious – members of Congress do not cohabit with Barney Frank."

"Chris Shays, R-Conn., showed up, even though he is not a member of the committee. He tried very hard to get Elaine to say something – anything – personally critical of the female Navy captain who was there. When she refused to do that and said she was there to discuss public policy, he began demagoguing Elaine, her testimony, and her arguments," Sears said.

One woman even asked: "Mrs. Donnelly, when did you realize that you were a heterosexual?

But Sears said such behavior provides Congressional documentation for Donnelly's point: If the ban on homosexuals in the military is repealed and people are subjected to passive/aggressive behavior that sexualizes the military's no-privacy atmosphere, anyone who "objects" will be condemned for "homophobia" or worse.

"So no one will complain. They will just leave – or avoid the military in the first place. As a result, the military will lose thousands of good people," Sears said.

Knight said Donnelly kept her cool throughout, and "carefully laid out the case for the law that Congress passed in 1993 and which has been upheld by multiple courts."

He also explained he's seen such behavior before.

"A few years ago I was debating the topic of 'gay marriage' at an Ivy League college with a prominent lesbian activist. At one point, she lost her cool, got off message and started loudly denouncing the Bush Administration's Iraq policies and people like me. Finally, the moderator reined her in. I never raised my voice. I stayed on point. Afterward, when we talked in a student lounge, she exclaimed that she didn't know what had happened, but that 'both of us just started yelling at each other.' No, she had been yelling at me. She projected her anger on to me, which is something I see certain gay activists doing quite often, accusing their opponents of hate where there is none.

"This is what military personnel who oppose homosexuality as immoral can expect to face in a new climate of politically correct enforcement of pro-homosexual sentiments if the ban is lifted," Knight said.

Donnelly told WND the behavior of the committee simply was unprofessional and rude.

"The one good thing that may come out of this hearing; it remains to be seen whether the responsible members of the committee will understand the behavior, the treatment I received is exactly the kind of presumption of motive gays in the military will cause," she said.

New York to sell roads, bridges, tunnels to close budget gap?
Governor cites 'private-public partnerships' as way to stem tide of red ink

Warning of an approaching economic calamity, Gov. Paterson yesterday called an emergency session of the state Legislature - and raised the specter that New York may have to sell off roads, bridges and tunnels to close a massive budget deficit.

In a rare televised address, the Democratic governor cited "private-public partnerships" involving the sale of state assets - widely condemned by critics as fiscal gimmickry - as one way to stem a tide of red ink brought on by the sagging economy and woes on Wall Street.

"We can't wait and hope that this problem will resolve itself," Paterson said. "These times call for action, and today I promise you there will be action."

Profit-tax collections from the state's 16 biggest banks, which were at $173 million in June 2007, fell to $5 million last month, Paterson noted. That's a shocking 97 percent plunge.

But the governor's five-minute speech offered few specific solutions to a three-year budget deficit. The gap has ballooned to $26.2 billion from $21.5 billion - a whopping 22 percent increase - in just 90 days.

Next year alone, the state expects to face a budget deficit of $6.4 billion, up from a projection in March of $5 billion.

Paterson promised to examine ways to trim the state work force and consider deeper budget cuts beyond the 3.3 percent he ordered after taking office this spring.

"We're going to end the legislators' vacations and bring them back to Albany to reprioritize the way we manage New York state's finances," he said.

Paterson said he would ask lawmakers during the session on Aug. 19 to take up his proposal to cap school property taxes at 4 percent a year.

In a nod to the tax cap's chief opponent, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan), the governor also promised action on Silver's pet proposal to increase home-heating subsidies.

But Silver reacted coolly.

"If it is our intention to ask working families to shoulder the burden of these cuts, we must ensure that our most affluent citizens share that burden," he said.

Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos (R-LI) cautioned Paterson that any cuts to school funding were off the table.

The "sale" of state assets has been tried in the past during difficult economic times and has been met with condemnation from budget watchdogs.

The most famous - or infamous - example: former Gov. Mario Cuomo's sale of Attica prison to a semi-independent state agency in 1991 to raise $200 million. Many critics noted that the bond sale cost the state hundreds of millions extra over the next few years.

"One gets a little concerned when 'selling off state assets' and 'budget deficits' get mentioned in the same sentence," said Elizabeth Lynam, a state policy expert with the Citizens Budget Commission.

"If it's used to close a budget gap, it's a one-shot. It's doesn't help you in the long run. It's a fiscal gimmick."

Mayor Bloomberg last night praised Paterson's effort "to tackle the serious problems we face" this year.

"The governor demonstrated that he is ready to stand up to the interest groups that will no doubt protest before the State House, just as they took to the steps of City Hall earlier this year," Bloomberg said.

Bush set to lift ban on HIV-positive foreign visitors
$48 billion AIDS relief bill will lift law targeting tourists, immigrants

President Bush appears poised to sign into law a multibillion-dollar AIDS relief bill that will lift a long-standing ban on HIV-positive foreign visitors and immigrants.

The U.S. Senate and House voted to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to remove a statutory ban on foreign visitors and immigrants infected with HIV. Bush has said publicly that he plans to sign the $48 billion AIDS bill, also known as the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, this week.

John Nechman, a Houston immigration lawyer who specializes in immigration cases involving HIV-positive clients and has lobbied for changes in the law, called the ban's removal significant and symbolic.

"It's kind of like the homosexual conduct statute that existed forever," Nechman said. "It stigmatized gay and lesbian people so much by its very existence, even if it wasn't enforced. This law being in immigration code as the only disease that was listed as an excludable disease was sort of that same stigma. It came about at a time when people feared that HIV could be contracted by sneezing in a room or from mosquitoes."

The ban was enacted in 1987 and amounts to one of the world's most restrictive policies for dealing with HIV-infected immigrants and travelers. Under U.S. law, foreigners with HIV are not permitted to immigrate to the U.S. — or even visit temporarily — unless they qualify for narrowly defined waivers.

Misunderstanding, hysteria
The U.S. remains one of only 12 countries that bar the admission of those with HIV.

"In the early days, it was a bit easier to understand why the ban was in effect," said Dr. Mark Kline, head of retrovirology at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and director of the school's AIDS International Training and Research Program. "There was a substantial amount of misunderstanding and hysteria associated with the evolving epidemic. Now, we're 20 years later, and we know definitely that the virus is not passed from person to person in any casual way."

The House voted on Thursday 303-115 to approve a bill that would reauthorize the AIDS relief package through 2013. The Senate version of the bill passed July 16 on an 80-16 vote.

Rep. Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio, circulated a letter dated July 23 to his colleagues before the House voted on the bill, urging them to oppose lifting the ban. His spokeswoman, Kim Smith, could not be reached for comment on Tuesday.

"Allowing thousands of aliens with HIV/AIDS into the U.S. inevitably will threaten the health and lives of Americans," he wrote. "Why should we take this risk?"

Bush has said he will sign the bill, but that does not remove all of the barriers for HIV-positive tourists and would-be immigrants. It will then fall to Health and Human Services to decide whether HIV should remain on the list of diseases that bar entry to the U.S.

HHS has discretion to determine what constitutes "communicable diseases of public health significance" that would bar a noncitizen from entering the U.S. The agency now lists eight diseases — including HIV, tuberculosis, leprosy and gonorrhea — as basis for denying admission to the U.S. as a tourist or immigrant.

A spokeswoman at the HHS press office in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday referred comment to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. CDC spokeswoman Christine Pearson said she could not comment since the AIDS bill has not yet been signed and is "pending legislation."

Rachel B. Tiven, executive director of Immigration Equality, a New York organization that has lobbied for repeal of the ban, said it is difficult to predict HHS' actions.

"We're reluctant to read the tea leaves too aggressively, but we're certainly optimistic that HHS will act," she said, calling Congress' actions "an incredible advance."

In 2007, 938 immigration applicants were denied admission to the U.S. because they had a communicable disease, according to U.S. State Department statistics. However, of those applicants, 478 were later allowed entry after receiving waivers from the federal government. State Department officials say there's no breakdown of the applicants' diseases available.

The U.S. does not require HIV tests for all foreign visitors — only for people planning to immigrate permanently. However, short-term visitors are asked in the visa application process whether they have a communicable disease.

'A positive message'
Kelly McCann, CEO of AIDS Foundation Houston, said the ban hurt attendance at international AIDS conferences hosted in the U.S. in recent years and called its lifting overdue.

News of plans to lift the ban coincides with the International AIDS Conference, which starts Sunday in Mexico City.

"I think it's a very positive message to the world that the president is sending — that there is no reason to discriminate against people soley on the basis of their HIV status," Kline said.

I've posted the responses I've gotten from my senators to emails I had written, I think. Here is the one I just received from my congressman.
What an idiot....(http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x125/luvmarley_bucket/CF-silly-mouth.gif)

Dear Yvette:

Thank you for contacting me with your concerns about rising gas prices. I appreciate hearing from you about this important issue.

With oil well over $100 per barrel and gas prices averaging over $4 a gallon, I am very concerned that consumers are suffering both at the pump and at the grocery store. Food prices are continuing to rise, largely due to increased transportation and fertilization costs. For this reason, I recently voted for HR 6022, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) Fill Suspension and Consumer Protect Act, which passed the House and Senate overwhelmingly and was signed into law by President Bush. This legislation will temporarily suspend oil shipments to the SPR, which is currently 97% full, through the end of the year. It is estimated that the increased supply available on the American market from suspending shipment to the SPR could bring gas prices down by as much as 24 cents a gallon.

At the same time, I do not think that suspending SPR deliveries will solve our problems, nor can it replace long-term strategies to bring down gas prices. Accordingly, I have supported a number of different approaches that have been passed through the U.S. House of Representatives this Congress, including legislation to increase fuel efficiency standards for automobiles, crack down on price gouging and manipulation in the oil markets, and increase investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. I do not, however, support drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). The limited resources that might be extracted from these lands, and the minimal impact that it might have on prices, cannot compare to the potentially catastrophic environmental effects of drilling. We cannot drill our way to energy independence and any attempt to do so seriously contradicts our responsibly combat global warming.

As the 110th Congress progresses, I will keep your remarks in mind and will continue to advocate for policies that will reduce our dependence on foreign oil, bring down gas prices, and reduce our nation's carbon footprint.

(As soon as we get your big clodhoppers out of the way maybe we can make some progress on real issues.)

Kerry: 'Al-Qaida Leadership is More Capable of Attacking Today' than on 9/11
Senator proposes $7.5 billion in 'non-military' aid; says 'winning the war of ideas' against al-Qaida important to climate change, AIDS.

Al-Qaida poses a bigger threat to the United States today than it did on Sept. 11, 2001, and the only way to prevent more attacks is to spend money on non-military international aid, according a July 31 speech by one-time presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.

“[T]he statistics tell the story. And as John Adams reminded us, facts are stubborn things. Today, terrorist attacks are at historic highs. The al-Qaida leadership is reconstituting along the Afghan-Pakistan border,” said Kerry at the Center for American Progress. “The al-Qaida leadership is more capable of attacking today than they were on September 11 of 2001. The Taliban is resurgent. Hamas is tightening its grip on Gaza and Hezbollah is running a state within a state.”

A 2007 report from the State Department suggested that al-Qaida had reconstituted only “some of its pre-9/11 operational capabilities,” but that there had been and increase in deaths and injuries as a result of terrorism. Dell Dailey, coordinator of the Office for Counterterrorism attributed that increase to more frequent use of suicide bombers.

Kerry used the Washington, D.C. speech to unveil what he called a “new approach” to fighting terrorism. The approach amounted to $7.5 billion in expenditures on non-military aid over five years to support Pakistan, a U.S. ally in the war on terror.

“[W]e must make better use of our foreign aid to improve our standing with the Pakistani people,” Kerry said. “We’ve tried to do this now with a bill that we just passed out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee yesterday. And it is a bill to provide a sustained commitment to dramatically increase non-military assistance – $7.5 billion over five years. And we want to ensure that it goes directly to the people, while ensuring that we get what we pay for in terms of military assistance.”

The end result of winning the “war of ideas,” as Kerry labeled it, would improve the United States’ standing in the world and put the country in a better position to solve problems ranging from global climate change to the AIDS epidemic.

“So looking at all these conflicts, the big picture is this – focusing on winning a war of ideas as opposed to just killing terrorists, will not only enable us to defeat our enemies, it will restore our ability to have a positive impact on change in other areas,” Kerry said.

“All of these things are connected,” according to Kerry. “[G]lobal climate change, AIDS, the efforts with respect to failed states, counter-narcotics efforts, consistency on human rights and understanding and defining the real relationship with the nation of Islam (sic) and our leadership role with respect to our values.”

The issue of a potential terrorist attack recently generated criticism of Sen. John McCain’s campaign. The Republican presidential candidate’s adviser Charlie Black told Fortune magazine a terrorist attack would be of “a big advantage” to McCain in the presidential elections in a story published on June 28, some media and Obama surrogates were critical.

“Well, I mean it’s just a breathtakingly stupid thing to say,” CNN’s Jack Cafferty said on the June 23 “The Situation Room. “However, it’s probably true. And in the twisted logic of politics, John McCain is perceived as the guy who is more capable of handling the war on terror. So it's probably true. But you just don’t say stuff like that in polite company – not that we're polite company, but we’re company and you don’t talk that way to us.”

Even Obama, himself, told Iowa caucus voters to reject “the politics of fear” in a speech in late December. Kerry formally endorsed Obama in a speech shortly after the Iowa caucuses on January 10 in Myrtle Beach, S.C.

Yep, Let's just throw more money into the problem instead actually fixing the problem.

Leaders to debate Palestinian refugee problem

A leading Christian Zionist thinks the Palestinian refugee problem has been propagated by Arab countries and the U.N. at the expense of U.S. taxpayers and the state of Israel.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will reportedly be proposing ideas to the United Nations, the European Union, and Russia on how to resolve differences between Israel and the Palestinians over Palestinian refugees. Rice is expected to present a draft document in a meeting that will be held under the auspices of the U.N. General Assembly in September in New York.

Jim Hutchens, president of The Jerusalem Connection International, believes Rice's document needs to address the issue of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which was set up uniquely for Palestinian refugees. "It's unlike any refugee program in the world or refugee program that the U.N. sponsors -- and for all practical purposes, it's been a hoax," he contends. "It's been something that has perpetuated rather than solve the Palestinian problem." Hutchens adds that there has been no commitment or goal to resolve this problem, and he accuses the U.N. and Arab nations of perpetuating the problem in order to delegitimize Israel.

Hutchens says UNRWA needs to be dissolved because the billions of dollars funneled into the agency have mostly been "squandered or squirreled away by Yasser Arafat and other Palestinian leaders into Swiss banks." The U.S. contributes millions of dollars to the U.N. agency annually.

Instead he suggests that a viable solution to the refugee problem would be to relocate them in Jordan. But Hutchens acknowledges that Jordan's King Abdullah will be hesitant to embrace the idea because of his past experience with the Palestinians. "Yasser Arafat attempted to go in and take over Jordan under King Abdullah's father King Hussein in the early [19]70s," Hutchens points outs. "We had the 'Black September' event that took place there when King Hussein recognized that Yasser Arafat wanted to take over Jordan. Matter of fact, Arafat said that Jordan is Palestine. Arik Sharon said the same thing, but that notion has been shelved over the last several years," he says.

Hutchens notes that Palestinian refugees could be relocated to a number of Arab countries and resettled, but those countries are also unwilling to allow that to happen.

State: Just in case,
we'll take your gun
Cops allowed to seize firearms
even before crime is committed

A new report to the Connecticut state legislature shows police have used the state's unique gun seizure law to confiscate more than 1,700 firearms from citizens based on suspicion that the gun owners might harm themselves or others.

The state's law permits police to seek a warrant for seizing a citizen's guns based on suspicion of the gun owner's intentions, before any act of violence or lawbreaking is actually committed.

The law was first proposed in 1998, following a mass shooting at the Connecticut Lottery Corporation that left five dead, including the gunman. Since the law went into effect Oct. 1, 1999, according to new Office of Legislative Research report, police have made more than 200 documented requests for warrants to seize firearms from citizens, and only two of the requests have been denied.

The law has remained hotly debated since its passage, as some point to possible murders and suicides it may have prevented, and others worry that police would abuse the law.

"It certainly has not been abused. It may be underutilized," Ron Pinciaro, co-executive director of Connecticut Against Gun Violence, told the Waterbury Republican American. "The bottom line from our perspective is, it may very well have saved lives."

Attorney Ralph D. Sherman, who has represented several of the gun owners whose firearms were confiscated under the law, disagrees.

"In every case I was involved in I thought it was an abuse," he told the newspaper. "The overriding concern is anybody can report anybody with or without substantiation, and I don't think that is the American way."

Joe Graborz, executive director of the Connecticut Civil Liberties Union, an affiliate of the ACLU, told WND the law "continues to invest unusual and far-reaching powers in police authority that does not belong there" by requiring "police to act as psychologists in trying to predict and interpret behavior."

"What is the standard of proof on this?" he asked. "The way this law is written, it can and will be easily abused by police."

Under the statute, dubbed the "turn in your neighbor" law by opponents, any two police officers or a state prosecutor may seek a warrant, following a specified process of investigation, to confiscate guns from people deemed a risk to harming themselves or others. The vast majority of cases, however, begin when a person – usually a spouse or live-in, according to the OLR report – file a complaint.

Shortly after the law was passed, Thompson Bosee of Greenwich, Conn., had his guns and ammunition seized by police. Bosee told WND in 1999 he suspects a neighbor, with whom he has had words regarding the neighbor's driving on Bosee's property, might have reported him.

"They had a warrant for my guns, they arrested my guns," said Bosee.

A member of both the NRA and the American Gunsmithing Association, Bosee said he works on his guns in his garage and is not ashamed of it.

Although Greenwich Police would not comment, they released a list of the guns and ammunition they seized from Bosee, including six handguns, three rifles, one shotgun, one submachine gun and 3,108 rounds of ammunition.

The new OLR report shows that in most cases, relatives or neighbors of the gun owner filed the complaint when they feared for their own safety or feared the owner was suicidal. In a case from Southington, however, a man had his gun taken for threatening to shoot a dog.

Attorney Ralph Sherman told WND the law's cruelty to animals justification for gun seizure worries him.

"If I throw a rock or a newspaper at a dog in my yard or in my garden, that doesn't mean I'm mentally unbalanced," he said. "What if a neighbor doesn't like me and sees that?"

In October 2006, according to the Republican American, police obtained a seizure warrant after a man made 28 unsubstantiated claims of vandalism to his property. The police application for seizure described the man as paranoid and delusional, citing extensive self-protection measures installed on the man's property, including alarms, cameras and spotlights.

Four months after the man's guns were taken, a judge ruled that police had failed to show the man posed any risk and ordered the guns returned. According to the ruling, the gun owner had no history of documented illness, criminal activity or misuse of firearms. "In fact, the firearms were found in a locked safe when the officers executed the warrant," the ruling said.

The law dictates that courts hold a hearing within 14 days of a seizure to determine the eventual fate of the guns. In most cases, according to the OLR report, the guns are held for a period of up to a year, destroyed or sold. The Republican American reports that in 22 of the more than 200 cases, the guns were ordered returned.

Connecticut State Rep. Michael P. Lawlor, House chairman of the Judiciary Committee and one of the chief authors of the law, told the Republican American he wasn't aware of any pending challenges to the law's constitutionality.

"The whole point was to make sure it was limited and constitutional," he said.

Sherman however, said the law hasn't been challenged yet, simply because it is used sparingly and a test case would prove too costly for the average gun owner.

Builder sent to jail for flood mitigation
Local officials demanded work, feds claim regulations banned it

An Idaho man is being sent to prison for meeting his local government's demands during a subdivision development to fix a drainage problem that periodically had left the town of Driggs flooded, after federal officials then said their regulations banned such work.

The dire situation for developer Lynn Moses is being publicized by Bryan Fischer, the chief of Idaho Values Alliance, who said the "crime" for which Moses has been sentenced to 18 months in prison was, "Protecting the city of Driggs from flooding."

Moses' lawyer, Blake Atkin of Salt Lake City, confirmed the circumstances of the case, explaining that although the federal government repeatedly has denied having jurisdiction over the work involved, an opinion shared by the U.S. Supreme Court, Moses nevertheless was convicted on charges relating to his work on the streambed of Teton Creek, an intermittent runoff channel that has water in it for about eight weeks out of the year.

"Worse, Mr. Moses has been convicted of 'pollut(ing) a spawning area for Yellowstone cutthroat trout,' despite the fact that there have been no fish in this stream bed for more than 150 years," Fischer wrote. "[A resident] who has lived near the flood channel for 18 years, says he has never seen fish in this stream bed. And it's not even possible for the stream bed to serve as a spawning ground since it only has water two months out of every year in the first place."

Atkin told WND the issue began nearly 30 years ago when Moses started developing a parcel of ground adjacent to the creek.

"The county said, 'You have got to take care of this flooding or we will not let you build. By the way, we want a new road and while you're building this subdivision, build us a drainage channel to make sure the water goes (where we want it),'" Atkins said.

Moses hired an engineer and contacted the federal government to obtain permission the project, and the Corps of Engineers told him there was no federal jurisdiction, since it was an intermittent stream without any regular water flow.

The same conversation took place several times over the years, including in the 1990s when a Corps of Engineers staff member tried to convince a federal prosecutor to bring a case against Moses.

"The U.S. attorney told him to take a hike since the Corps had no jurisdictional authority to initiate legal action," Fischer said. "According to former state legislator Lee Gagner, the Corps 'discussed his process many times with him, but could not show where they had jurisdiction on the seasonal, intermittent stream,' Gagner adds, '[T]o this day they do not have written rules indicating this to be true," Fischer said.

Atkins said that very issue has been raised several times in the course of the case against Moses, but no court ruling ever has addressed it.

Then came a new a decision to pursue the case and the conviction after jurors were told by Judge Lynn Winmill to disregard Moses' attempts to submit the project to the Corps of Engineers and statements about U.S. government determinations regarding the channel in the 1980s and 1990s.

However, on the day Moses was sentenced to 18 months in prison, the U.S. Supreme Court released its Rapanos case, in which Justice Antonin Scalia confirmed the Clean Water Act gives the federal government jurisdiction only over "relatively permanent, standing or continuously flowing bodies of water," not intermittent streams.

Explicitly, he said, "The 'waters of the United States' does not include channels through which water flows intermittently or ephemerally, or channels that periodically provide drainage for rainfall."

Corps of Engineers' rules then were modified to include that provision.

However, Fischer said, the actual determinations and conclusions didn't matter.

"Mr. Moses has been forced to spend almost $400,000 of his own money in a losing effort to defend himself for protecting the city of Driggs from catastrophic flooding," Fischer said.

Now Moses is facing prison, and his daughter, 17, is facing the loss of her sole surviving parent as she approaches her senior year in high school. Moses' wife died of a heart attack about a year and a half ago, and Fischer said friends reported the stress of the 25-year battle with the government probably contributed.

Atkins told WND that under the various government definitions, the location where Moses did work is not wetlands, not a stream or river and on uplands.

He said his latest effort on behalf of Moses is a motion that essentially asks the trial court voluntarily to reverse the conviction, since there are none of the essential elements of a crime to be prosecuted. It was a year ago when Moses lost an appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The U.S. Supreme Court recently decided against hearing the case.

Fischer said the longtime problem in the location was that city property several times had been flooded by high water flows triggered by the buildup of gravel bars and downed trees.

"Teton County required him to implement an engineer's plan to modify the Teton Creek stream bed to prevent the flooding of subdivision property, caused by the buildup of gravel bars and downed trees, during high water flows in the spring," Fischer said. Federal officials concluded they had no jurisdiction over intermittent streams.

"For years he has walked the entire length of the creek to evaluate conditions and then remove gravel bars, sand, logs and debris as necessary to keep the channel clear and satisfy the subdivision's obligation to the county," Fischer said.

"When Driggs flooded in the spring of 1981 – due to a clogged culvert under a county road – the county approached the Corps a second time, asking for funding and help to replace the culvert with a bridge to prevent future flooding. Once again, the Corps said, Nope, not our problem, not our fault, not our responsibility to fix, we don't have jurisdiction," Fischer said.

In fact, in 1984 the U.S. Forest Service needed to build a road and took about 5,000 cubic yards of gravel from the streambed.

"Although the director of the EPA in Idaho, Jim Wernitz, asserts that Mr. Moses had damaged 'wetlands' associated with the stream, there are no wetlands there! The very word requires that land be, well, wet, but the stream bed is bone dry for at least 10 months out of every year," Fischer wrote.

"His attorney calls the whole thing 'a travesty,' which is just about the mildest thing that can be said about this unconscionable miscarriage of justice," Fischer wrote.

White House strongly denies forged-letter claim
Author contends administration concocted evidence of Saddam link to al-Qaida

California Democrat Nancy Pelosi may be trying to save the planet — but the rank and file in her party increasingly are just trying to save their political hides when it comes to gas prices as Republicans apply more and more rhetorical muscle.

But what looks like intraparty tension on the surface is part of an intentional strategy in which Pelosi takes the heat on energy policy, while behind the scenes she’s encouraging vulnerable Democrats to express their independence if it helps them politically, according to Democratic aides on and off Capitol Hill.

Pelosi’s gambit rests on one big assumption: that Democrats will own Washington after the election and will be able to craft a sweeping energy policy that is heavy on conservation and fuel alternatives while allowing for some new oil drilling. Democrats see no need to make major concessions on energy policy with a party poised to lose seats in both chambers in just three months — even if recess-averse Republicans continue to pound away on the issue.

“The reality is we will have a new president in three months, and what Bush and the Republicans are trying to do amounts to a land grab for the oil companies,” said one senior House Democratic aide involved with party strategy. “I don’t think we have to give in at all pre-election — we have many more options postelection.”

It’s a reality that Rep. Nick J. Rahall (D-W.Va.) personally delivered to President Bush recently.

Rahall spent more than an hour last week talking to the president about energy. Bush spent the entire flight aboard Air Force One, and much of a subsequent limousine ride, grilling the West Virginia Democrat about legislative solutions to the high price of gasoline, Rahall said last week.

So, does the president think Congress can get anything done this year?

“No,” Rahall replied in a short interview with Politico. “He’s realistic about it.”

Asked if Congress will produce a comprehensive energy bill in September before Congress adjourns again for elections, Rahall replied, “This year? No.”

Instead, the chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources believes Democrats are all about 2009.

“We’ve laid the groundwork this year,” Rahall said.

Democratic House aides say the energy agenda has been carefully gamed out in strategy sessions, and Pelosi always intended to take heat on gas prices while tacitly encouraging more vulnerable Democrats to publicly disagree with her and show their independence.

Freshman Democrats like Jason Altmire of Pennsylvania and Don Cazayoux of Louisiana have taken her up on the offer.

Altmire has said a drilling vote “will happen,” while Cazayoux, hoping to hang on to his seat in a conservative Baton Rouge-area district, on Friday sent a letter to Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) demanding a vote on more domestic oil exploration.

“There will be a vote,” said Altmire, who faces a rematch with former GOP Rep. Melissa Hart this fall in the Pittsburgh suburbs.

Indeed, Congress must vote before Sept. 30 to renew the annual moratorium; otherwise, it will lapse on its own, giving states the right to decide whether private companies can search for potential drilling sites three miles offshore. .

“My view is that if we have a vote, let’s make it a rational policy,” said Altmire, whose district includes viable coal and nuclear industries. “We can’t let Republicans hold this issue hostage because of one vote.”

Cazayoux, in his letter, says “the current debate seems to be bogged down in partisan one-upmanship.”

To some extent, House Republicans seem to be playing right along with the strategy, taking Pelosi’s name in vain dozens of times during their rebel House sessions over the past few days and making her the villain who won’t allow oil drilling votes.

“It’s grossly unfair to the Democrats who want a vote,” said Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas). “[Pelosi] needs to cut that out.”

The Senate has also gone with a run-out-the-clock strategy, with Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) calling for a bipartisan energy summit but promising no major energy votes. Reid embraced the drilling and conservation proposals of the bipartisan Senate “Gang of 10” last week, but he made further commitment on the energy debate.

Reid, like Pelosi, is expecting to have a much stronger governing majority in the Senate next year, so he has little incentive to give in to Republicans on energy policy as long as he thinks it won’t hurt Democrats.

Even as they face heat from constituents during the August break, Democrats say they aren’t going to cave in to popular pressure.

“We feel pretty comfortable with where we are,” said Rep. Michael E. Capuano (D-Mass.), who is close to the Democratic leadership. “This is a not a new issue. This just didn’t happen today. We’ve been working on this for months.”

Democratic insiders said that Pelosi and other party leaders were “not rattled” by the GOP floor rebellion, and at this point, it’s not clear if the Democrats will even pay a price on energy. State-level polling conducted by Democrats suggests that voters still view President Bush and the GOP as the incumbent power in Washington, and Democratic strategists believe any anti-incumbent wave would hurt Republicans more than Democrats.

Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas, one of the leaders of the rogue GOP House session, said he realizes that Democrats are “in a four-corners stall right now,” and admits that “it gets more challenging” for Republicans if they lose more seats in Congress.

Democrats are also comforted somewhat by the fact that crude oil prices have gone down more than 10 percent from their summer highs, and if the U.S. economy enters a recession, prices may fall further due to slackening demand.

“There is no crisis on our side of the aisle,” a top House Democratic leadership aide said. “We have a plan, and we will stick to it.”

Not sure if this was posted already, or if this is the right place to post it:

States face increasingly tough choices as budget crises deepen nationwide

Juliet Williams
Associated Press

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is laying off as many as 22,000 state employees. New York's raising the possibility of selling - or more accurately, leasing - the Brooklyn Bridge. Nevada is burning through its rainy-day fund like a gambler on a losing streak. And Maryland is pinning its hopes on slot machines.

With the economy in a slide and the housing market crisis, states are rolling up tens of billions of dollars in budget deficits in one of the worst financial crunches in the U.S. since the 1970s.

The startlingly rapid drop-off in tax revenue is forcing many states to make some hard decisions: Raise taxes? Cut programs and jobs? Dip into reserves? Borrow money? Lease or sell state assets?

"They're all terrible choices," Nevada Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley said of the cuts her state made in a special session last month. "I believe we should never have to make these kinds of choices ever again."

Worse, economists say the red ink is only going to get deeper later in the fiscal year when 2008 tax returns start coming in.

"The big question is when will states hit the bottom? We don't know," said Arturo Perez, a fiscal analyst with the National Conference of State Legislatures in Colorado.

As of June, more than 30 states faced deficits totalling a projected $40 billion, or more than triple the gap of the previous year, according to the NCSL.

California, which still does not have a budget for the fiscal year that began July 1, is looking at a 15.2 billion dollar deficit, an amount that dwarfs that of all other states.

The next highest at the start of the fiscal year was New York's, at $5.2 billion.

California lawmakers are at odds over how to deal with the problem. The Democrats are proposing a combination of spending cuts and $8.2 billion in higher taxes. The Republicans oppose any new taxes but haven't come up with the spending cuts to close the gap.

In addition to eliminating up to 22,000 part-time and temporary jobs Thursday, Schwarzenegger imposed a hiring freeze and ordered that as many as 200,000 state workers receive the federal minimum wage of $6.55 an hour until a budget is passed - a move that is certain to be challenged in court, even though the employees will get their back pay eventually.

"I will not be able to pay my rent, buy food or put gas in my car to transport my children," said Roz Myers, a receptionist for a state agency who protested in front of the Capitol this week over the plan.

Among those facing the loss of their jobs are retired state employees who work under contract, temporary and part-time workers such as those who fill in at the Department of Motor Vehicles, seasonal employees and student assistants.

San Francisco fest features public sex with no arrests (AGAIN!)
'This is what the gay agenda is all about'

I'm only posting a portion of this article because I feel that even the modified somewhat version given it are still too sickening and immoral a thing to post here.

The article explains in simple terms the depravity that was allowed by the San Francisco mayor and the fact the police officers were prevented by the mayor to act on laws that prevented these acts. Not only were there live acts of homosexuality there was also allowed vivid acts of sexual slavery and personal violence against others during aberrant sex all in the name of "civil rights" and "freedom of expression".

As one reader of the article commented it is "vomit inducing".

A report from one of the organizations reporting on this said, "It is telling to us that the same city whose mayor, Gavin Newsom (D), ignited the 'same-sex marriage' crusade in California by illegally issuing 'gay marriage' licenses – openly tolerates and celebrates gross perversions, nudity and sexual lawlessness on its streets.

These photos do not fit in with the slick, national 'gay' marketing plan, to be sure. Nevertheless, the pathetic and debased spectacle is as much an offspring of the 'GLBT' movement as the current quest for homosexual 'marriage.' The latter radically redefines and corrupts an ancient institution created by God to order relations between man and woman as the basis for family life. Perverse events like 'Up Your Alley' … mock any notion of right and wrong – as the reckless pursuit of anything-goes 'tolerance' leads governmental authorities to enable and promote evil, turning freedom into sexual anarchy while causing a breakdown in law and order.

They don't want Americans to see this side of their agenda … But we must face reality and come to grips with the truth that 'rights' based on aberrant sex are not genuine civil rights.

Like the pantless perverts wandering around in sneakers-only at 'Up Your Alley,' the liberals' pro-homosexual 'tolerance and diversity' program is now fully exposed as a soulless and bankrupt ideology. According to its precepts, nothing can be judged as wrong (sexually-speaking) – except, of course, normal, historic Judeo-Christian mores."

World Net Daily reports:

"WND made multiple attempts to reach officials in San Francisco for a comment on the apparent lack of obscenity and indecency regulation enforcement during the festival.

Officials with the San Francisco police department's media relations office declined to return a message left by telephone. Also declining to return a message requesting a comment was the office of Newsom. Officials in the media office for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who represents the district, also declined to comment at all on the XXX-rated festival."

Quote from: Barbara on August 07, 2008, 09:41:03 PM

We read that in Sodom and Gomorrah the officials had allowed places to 'bed down' in the streets and that was why the people wanted to drag the Angels out into the streets. This sounds exactly like that, a shadow picture painted for us to show the depths to which a human soul can sink. But then comes sudden destruction.

blackeyedpeas, are you saying there's anything we can do - like writing our own representatives? If so, we'll get something written and sent tomorrow!

This has to be stopped - for the sake of our children and all of us around the country. There are too many 'special interest' groups that live outside of the law, and those that live according to the law and live decent, hardworking lives are swept aside in order to placate, and encourage these groups. But the people of this country are being manipulated by the media, and they are getting the country they 'think' they want.

May the Lord wake them up to the folly of their ways!

Hello Sister Barbara,

Representatives and the Governor were contacted on the last gay parade that involved public nudity and gay sexual acts on the street in full view of children. Nothing was done, and those contacted ignored it. I'm talking about something much more active involving individual effort. I would actually be talking about organized mass filings of criminal charges and civil actions by people who were actually there and witnessed it. It would probably have to involve photographs, video, etc. - not just of the event, but every action following it with the police, prosecutors, etc. San Francisco is far beyond just writing a letter to a representative. As far as I know, the representatives are among the organizers of these public, obscene events. The representatives will be among those charged.

Any citizen can file a citizen's arrest statement of charges to be filed. In this case, the most appropriate charges should be filed on various people, and legal guidance would be best throughout the entire process. As an example, it would be great for 200 to 500 decent people to organize themselves on the next event. I would be talking about appropriate collection of evidence and proper procedures being followed in a lengthy chain of actions that would all have to be recorded. It could easily take 6 months to a year of many actions and many filings to force the cases to be heard and force the appropriate actions. Local and state actions would have to be exhausted first, and there is ever reason to believe they would do nothing. However, this would be part of the case, and the denial or refusal to enforce the law would be the main part of the case. The first tactics would be to record their denials and refusals as evidence to be used against them. By the way, there would be NO reason for the 200 to 500 participants to violate the law themselves at any point in the process. In fact, violation of the law should be avoided by the participants because it would hurt their cases.

I'm actually talking about an organized approach by a group of citizens to put the RULE OF LAW back in place and appropriately deal with a lawless, rogue government refusing to serve the people. All in this group would have to be willing to testify numerous times in open court. There would also need to be a determination NOT to accept any kind of settlement that would let the government off the hook. Nobody would be exempt from criminal and civil remedies, including the Governor. It would be horrible to expend this type of effort and not follow it through to the maximum allowed by law. Pelosi rode in the last gay parade, and she obviously refused to do anything. I'm almost sure that the State Attorney General's Office was also involved. I'm talking about ALL of them going to jail and paying criminal and civil penalties to the limit of the law. Any future government that took their place would know that things WOULD BE DONE ACCORDING TO THE LAW!

Electronic cuffs planned for dads
'I don't see any safeguards. This presumes men guilty'

Illinois has joined a growing contingent of states to adopt a law that will put electronic GPS tracking bracelets on men who have not been convicted of any crime, but might be involved in a messy divorce.

The plan, named in memory of Cindy Bischoff, who was attacked and murdered by a former boyfriend, was signed into law just days ago, and is scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1.

And while its goal of protecting women and children from out-of-control husbands and fathers is good, it goes too far and violates the civil rights of innocent fathers, according to a lawyer for a group that will challenge it.

"Electronic tagging devices can be appropriate as a condition of parole or probation," said attorney Jeffery M. Leving, who is a nationally known fathers' rights advocate, the author of "Fathers' Rights" and "Divorce Wars" and founded DadsRights.com. "The Cindy Bischof Law goes far beyond this, placing long-term electronic tags on men who have never been found guilty of any crime."

According to a website set up in memory of Cindy Bischoff, there are about a dozen states, including Washington, Minnesota, Utah, Colorado, Michigan, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Florida and Massachusetts, that now have similar provisions. The campaign's goal is to prevent what happened to Bischof from happening to others.

But Leving said there are major constitutional issues that need to be resolved.

"The law carries a presumption of guilt," Leving said, "without the benefit of a trial, yet the foundation of our entire criminal justice system is based on a defendant being presumed innocent until proven guilty."

He said such restraining orders are not unusual at all.

A recent article by two leaders of the State Bar of California's Family Law Section said such orders "are increasingly being used in family law cases to help one side jockey for an advantage in child custody." And the Illinois Bar Journal has described them as part of the "gamesmanship" of divorce.

But Leving said the full impact of Illinois' new law is that judges can order anyone – mostly men and fathers – to wear a GPS tracking device if they simply are accused of violating an order of protection, with no court conviction or adjudication required.

In fact, he said, "such orders are generally done ex parte, without the accused's knowledge and with no opportunity afforded for him to defend himself."

Such lack of information for the men can result in unknowing violations, Leving said.

"A man can accidentally be in the same park or mall as his ex-wife/girlfriend, and the electronic monitoring device could lead to his arrest even if he never actually saw her. Some men have even been tricked into violating the orders by former spouses. The device will make this easier-a woman could call her estranged husband, tell him she needs him to come to her house because of a crisis with their children, and then have an electronic record of his violation," he said.

"Perhaps such a drastic measure would be warranted if the men forced to wear the devices had meaningful and fair trials, and were found to be guilty of violent or dangerous crimes. However, the Bischof Law empowers judges with the ability to mandate the GPS tracking device on anyone who is accused of violating an order of protection," he said.

"Unfortunately, the rush to protect the abused is so incredibly aggressive that the rights of the accused have been violated," he said. "I don't see any safeguard in this law. This law basically presumes in these situations [men] are guilty."

He said his organization will be working with lawmakers to make them aware of the potential pitfalls of their new law, and will be watching cases as they develop in order to pursue a court challenge to its constitutionality.

Fairness Doctrine to control online content?
FCC commissioner warns reinstated powers could require balance on websites

There’s a huge concern among conservative talk radio hosts that reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine would all-but destroy the industry due to equal time constraints. But speech limits might not stop at radio. They could even be extended to include the Internet and “government dictating content policy.”

FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell raised that as a possibility after talking with bloggers at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. McDowell spoke about a recent FCC vote to bar Comcast from engaging in certain Internet practices – expanding the federal agency’s oversight of Internet networks.

The commissioner, a 2006 President Bush appointee, told the Business & Media Institute the Fairness Doctrine could be intertwined with the net neutrality battle. The result might end with the government regulating content on the Web, he warned. McDowell, who was against reprimanding Comcast, said the net neutrality effort could win the support of “a few isolated conservatives” who may not fully realize the long-term effects of government regulation.

“I think the fear is that somehow large corporations will censor their content, their points of view, right,” McDowell said. “I think the bigger concern for them should be if you have government dictating content policy, which by the way would have a big First Amendment problem.”

“Then, whoever is in charge of government is going to determine what is fair, under a so-called ‘Fairness Doctrine,’ which won’t be called that – it’ll be called something else,” McDowell said. “So, will Web sites, will bloggers have to give equal time or equal space on their Web site to opposing views rather than letting the marketplace of ideas determine that?”

McDowell told BMI the Fairness Doctrine isn’t currently on the FCC’s radar. But a new administration and Congress elected in 2008 might renew Fairness Doctrine efforts, but under another name.

“The Fairness Doctrine has not been raised at the FCC, but the importance of this election is in part – has something to do with that,” McDowell said. “So you know, this election, if it goes one way, we could see a re-imposition of the Fairness Doctrine. There is a discussion of it in Congress. I think it won’t be called the Fairness Doctrine by folks who are promoting it. I think it will be called something else and I think it’ll be intertwined into the net neutrality debate.”

A recent study by the Media Research Center’s Culture & Media Institute argues that the three main points in support of the Fairness Doctrine – scarcity of the media, corporate censorship of liberal viewpoints, and public interest – are myths.

Congressional Republicans are poised to shut down the government if they are not allowed a vote on new oil drilling legislation.

This comes even as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi indicated she could budge on allowing a drilling vote, which so far she and her Senate counterpart have blocked from seeing daylight in Congress.

Current bans on the Outer Continental Shelf and oil shale drilling expire on the first day of the coming fiscal year: Oct. 1. Now, Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., is leading a group of GOP senators celebrating the day, which they have dubbed "American Energy Freedom Day."

"The overwhelming majority of Republican Senators have pledged to protect October 1 as American Energy Freedom Day so we can reduce dependence on foreign oil and lower the cost of gas at the pump," DeMint said, according to a release from his office.

"Many people aren’t aware that the bans on drilling must be renewed every year, and all we have to do is allow these prohibitions to expire on October 1. In just 50 days, Americans will have the freedom to pursue their own energy resources here at home. Our letter is very straightforward: we will actively oppose any effort to extend the bans on offshore drilling and oil shale," DeMint said.

This is setting the stage for a showdown in September with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and most other Demorats who oppose this drilling.

In response to DeMint, Reid spokesman Jim Manley said: "Isn't this the same day that Republicans would be endangering the delivery of Social Security checks because of their misguided attempts to promote energy policies that will do nothing to deal with the short term problems facing the country?"

Reid and Pelosi have avoided holding votes on drilling because of growing support among their own ranks for such legislation amid rising energy prices. Democratic leadership maintains new drilling won't change prices in the near term.

Reid and Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., even cancelled markups of spending bills that renewed the moratoria, a move that was a tacit admission that there were enough votes to override Democratic opposition to drilling.

Reid has said he intends to try to renew the bans when Congress returns in September through a continuing spending resolution -- a measure used to bypass the annual spending bills, and adopt the current spending levels until the new Congress takes its seat. But to pass his version, Reid will need a filibuster-breaking 60 votes, which could prove difficult.

In a letter from DeMint to Reid, DeMint indicates the GOP has the votes to sustain any veto of a continuing resolution that might get 60 votes.

But if Congress can't agree to a continuing resolution before Oct. 1, the government shuts down.

Pelosi, speaking Monday on CNN's "Larry King Live," said "We can do that. We can have a vote on (oil drilling)."

The Hill newspaper reported she indicated that a vote would be part of a larger package that included one of her pet projects, releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. She says she believes that would reduce gasoline prices immediately, whereas, she says, oil drilling might never reduce prices.

"But it has to be part of something that says we want to bring immediate relief to the public and is not just a hoax on them,” Pelosi said.

She even indicated that she might support a package that includes drilling, according to The Hill.

“It’s not excluded, let’s put it that way,” Pelosi said.

But Republicans who have been protesting Democrats' anti-drilling stance said they are not impressed with Pelosi's apparent change of heart. Lawmakers told reporters Tueday morning her comments don't go far enough, and they still want a vote.

Pelosi's apparent change in heart comes as Republicans on Capitol Hill have taken the diminished bully pulpit to decry Democrats' actions over energy prices. Although the House is officially out of session, House Republicans have stayed in Washington grab whoever they can, whether its reporters or tourists, to criticize Democrats, they say, for not holding a vote on drilling.

Republicans believe that lifting a ban on offshore drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf not only would increase long-term domestic fuel capacity, but drop prices immediately by sending a signal to the oil markets.

Democrats instead have sought more market controls, the release from the petroleum reserve, and a requirement that federal lands already under lease be explored before more federal land, like the OCS, is doled out to oil companies.

U.S. green lights
'anything into oil'
Defense Department OKs facilities
turning natural produce into energy

A Georgia company looking to solve America's energy problem has finally teamed up with the federal government, hoping to make millions of barrels of oil every day from virtually anything that grows out of the Earth.

Bell Bio-Energy, Inc. says it has reached an agreement with the U.S. Defense Department to build seven test production plants, mostly on military bases, to quickly turn naturally grown material into fuel.

"What this means is that with the seven pilot plants – the military likes to refer to them as demonstrations – with those being built … it gives us the real-time engineering data that we need to finish the designs for a full-scale production facility," J.C. Bell, the man behind the project, told WND today.

"In 18 months or so, we will start manufacturing oil directly from waste and we will build up to about 500,000 barrels a day within two years. In another six months, we'll reach a million barrels a day."

As the United States now imports about 13 million barrels of oil a day, the only obstacle then to total energy independence from foreign sources will be the money needed to develop the processing plants, he said.

"Working with the USDA we've identified enough waste material around the country, we truly believe we can make the United States totally energy independent of foreign countries in about five years," he said.

WND originally reported on the project in March as Bell, an agricultural researcher, confirmed he'd isolated and modified specific bacteria that will, on a very large scale, naturally and rapidly convert plant material – including the leftovers from food – into hydrocarbons to fuel cars and trucks.

That means trash like corn stalks and corn cobs – even the grass clippings from suburban lawns – can be turned into oil and gasoline to run trucks, buses and cars.

He said he made the discovery standing downwind from his cows at his food-production company, Bell Plantation, in Tifton, Ga.

"Cows are like people that eat lots of beans. They're really, really good at making natural gas," he said. "It dawned on me that that natural gas was methane."

WND also reported how the national news media more or less ignored his announcement of a potential solution to America's dependence on Middle East nations for its oil.

But the U.S. military was listening. And Bell now confirms his agreement with the Department of Defense, the Defense Energy Support Center and the Army will have seven demonstration facilities built at Fort Benning and Fort Stewart in Georgia, Fort Bragg in North Carolina, Fort AP Hill in Virginia, Fort Drum in New York and Fort Lewis in Washington, as well as one more installation in San Pedro, Calif.

"We should have all of the plants running within 60 days," he said. "This is a big step in our growth, from the engineering that we develop with these plants, we will be able to build our full-scale production facilities and be in full production in the next 12 to 18 months.

"Everyone now accepts the fact that we can make oil through bacterial action and now it is just a matter of time and money until we are turning out one million to two million barrels per day," he said.

He told WND the first full-scale facility probably will cost $100 million to $125 million to build, and that an investment of $2.5 billion likely will be needed to reach a production level of a million barrels per day.

But he said the return – even if the oil were sold for $70 a barrel, just half of what it was going for six weeks ago and still substantially lower than the current market rate of about $110 a barrel – would be significant.

"It will feel very, very good to be to the point where we finally turn off the spigot from overseas," he said.

The process previously had been verified, said Dr. Art Robinson, a research professor of chemistry at the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine who publishes the Access to Energy newsletter. "These other ways [of producing energy] work; the only question is if they're competitive in price. Any hydrocarbon under pressure and temperature can turn into oil."

How big does Bell believe the process eventually could be?

"With minor changes in the agricultural and forestry products, we could create two to two and a half billion tons of biomass a year, and you're looking at five billion barrels of oil per year," he said.

Libya to receive reparations for Reagan air strike
Country will be paid 'settlement' for U.S. retaliation after terrorist attack

Despite 189 American lives lost in the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing, the U.S. settled all lawsuits against Libya for terrorist killings and restored diplomatic relations with the country today – with reparations to be paid to Libya.

President Ronald Reagan ordered air strikes on Tripoli and Benghazi on April 15, 1986, after Libyan terrorists planted 6 pounds of plastic explosives packed with shrapnel on the dance floor of La Belle discotheque in Berlin, killing three people – including two U.S. soldiers – and maiming 200 others.

Two years later, Pan Am Flight 103 exploded in a terrorist attack by a Libyan intelligence agent. The blast killed 268 people from 21 countries, including 189 Americans. U.S. families filed 26 lawsuits against Libya for the 1988 bombing of the plane en route to New York from London.

The Bush administration began to consider restoring a relationship with the country in 2003 after Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi promised to end production of weapons of mass destruction, halt terrorist activities and reimburse U.S. families of victims of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 and other terrorist bombings. Following its pledge, U.N., U.S. and European sanctions were lifted, Libya was taken off the State Department's list of state sponsors of terrorism and the country was granted membership in the U.N. Security Council.

An agreement required Libya to complete $2.7 billion in payments it had said it would provide to the families of victims. According to Associated Press reports, a senior Libyan government official claims there were also three lawsuits filed on behalf of Libyan citizens in response to Reagan's air strikes – attacks that Libya says killed 41 of its people and Gadhafi's adopted daughter.

Susan Cohen, mother of a 20-year-old woman killed in the Pan Am Flight 103, expressed outrage upon hearing news of the U.S.-Libya settlement.

"Gadhafi is an absolute horror," Cohen told WND. "He has done many, many terrible things. He blew up the French plane, and he blew up the American plane. And what does the Bush administration do? The Bush administration is far more on the side of the Libyans than it is as far as the victims of terrorism go, though it talks a good line about caring about terrorism. If they can make friends with Moammar Gadhafi because they want his oil, then that tells you where they stand."

Cohen said she cannot understand why the U.S. would reimburse Libyans for Reagan's air strikes – attacks that were a result of Gadhafi's bombing of the disco. She believes the U.S. pushed for diplomatic relations because the agreement could result in more contracts for American oil companies.

"I think this is absolutely horrible," she said. "It's really sickening, and it's really dirty. They are being very private and secretive about it."

While Libya has given $8 million of the $10 million it owed to many of the 268 families involved in the Pan Am explosion, it had refused to pay $2 million because of a disagreement with the U.S. about reciprocal obligations.

Nicole Thompson, a State Department spokeswoman, told WND, "The settlement goes to both sides. The settlement is for outstanding claims on the part of Libya as well as the United States."

When asked whether the U.S. will make reparations payments to Libya, Thompson responded, "Yes."

An Associated Press report reveals that foreign companies conducting business in Libya – including U.S. companies – will begin paying into a fund to award damages to both Libyan and American claimants.

When WND asked the State Department spokeswoman if oil companies would have any part in paying reparations, she said, "I don't have any information on that, but the fund has been established. I have no information on what the financial agreement will be or the financial compensation that will be paid."

While Thompson said Libyans will receive a settlement as part of the agreement, she declined to reveal the source of the money.

"None of this will be U.S. government funding," she said.

The State Department has provided little information about the agreement. It issued a short press release stating only the following:

The United States and Libya concluded a comprehensive claims settlement agreement on August 14 in Tripoli. Both parties welcomed the establishment of a process to provide fair compensation for their respective nationals, and thereby turn their focus to the future of their bilateral relationship. They also underscored the benefits an expansion of ties would provide for both countries as well as for the American and Libyan peoples.

The U.S now plans to open an embassy in Tripoli, confirm a U.S. ambassador to Libya and grant Gadhafi's government immunity from more terror-related lawsuits, according to the Associated Press. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice plans to visit Libya before the year's end.

"Condoleezza Rice is going to Libya to kiss Gadhafi's feet," Cohen said. "So this is what has come? He blew up an American plane. And I am supposed to have faith in the government of this country?"

U.S. diplomat David Welch delivered a personal letter from President George Bush to Gadhafi and signed the new agreement with Ahmed al-Fatouri, head of America affairs in Libya's Foreign Ministry.

"We went through a long path of negotiations until we reached this agreement," al-Fatouri said. "It opens new horizons for relations based on mutual respect. ... The agreement turns the page on the negative past forever."

However, Cohen doesn't share his sentiment.

"This is done after the murder of my innocent daughter and 270 people killed," she said. "Gadhafi was the one who was behind the attack on that disco, and Reagan responded. Does that mean the Republican administration is saying that Ronald Reagan and Gadhafi are equivalent terrorists?"

Lawmakers take up battle against light bulb ban
'Government has substituted its choice for the American consumer's'

U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., and 24 other representatives on Capitol Hill have asked the government to reconsider mandating that all Americans use exclusively compact fluorescent bulbs, or CFLs, in light of growing concerns over the safety and environmental impact of the bulbs.

As WND reported, the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 was signed into law in December, phasing out the use of traditional, incandescent light bulbs in favor of CFLs beginning in 2012 and culminating in a ban on incandescent bulbs in 2014.

"Most Americans, if you ask them, have no idea that the government has already made a choice for them," Bachmann said in a televised MSNBC interview. "The government has substituted its choice for the American consumer's choice. Most Americans have no idea they won't be able to choose their own light bulbs."

Now, concerns about mercury in the bulbs and mercury vapor released when a CFL is broken have led Bachmann and a group of legislators in the House to second-guess the government's choice.

"Each light bulb contains between 3-6 milligrams of mercury," Bachmann said. "There's a question about how that mercury will fill up our landfills, and also if you break one in your home, you'll have mercury that instantaneously vaporizes in your home. That poses a very real threat to children, disabled people, pets, senior citizens. And I just think it's very important that Americans have the choice to decide, would they like an incandescent or a (CFL)?"

Bachmann and a group of 24 other representatives – including nationally-known figures such as Rep. Ron Paul and Rep. Tom Tancredo – have sponsored H.R. 5616, the Light Bulb Freedom of Choice Act.

The act repeals the parts of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 that dictate the use of only CFLs unless the comptroller general can submit a report that finds specific financial benefits of using the bulbs, environmental benchmarks achieved by their use, and evidence that alleviates concerns of mercury dangers from CFLs.

Bachmann introduced the bill in March because, she said, she thought Congress had "acted a bit prematurely" in taking a popular environmentalist cause and making it a government dictate.

"I just don't think it's a good idea for Congress to jump on board fads every time a fad comes along," she said. "I think we can trust the intelligence of the American consumer to make the choice that they'd like to make."

Following the introduction of H.R. 5616, the bill was sent to the House Energy and Commerce Committee and then sent to the Subcommittee on Energy & Air Quality, where it has languished without action or a hearing for five months.

"I have nothing against those light bulbs," Bachman said. "But I think the American public should have the right to choose which light bulb they'd like to purchase because there are some real environmental concerns with the [CFL]."

"It really isn't an example where you have to choose between the environment and personal choice. You can have both," she said.

Court trashes right to vote
'That is a dangerous precedent for the future of the democratic process in America'

An appeals court ruling has trashed the right of Oregon residents to vote on issues in their state by affirming the state's refusal to count referendum signatures even when they were verified in person by the voter.

"In America, every citizen's vote should count. The court has tossed aside one of the most important rights we have as Americans," Austin R. Nimocks, a senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, said.

"Oregon voters deserve to be heard on this referendum. More than enough Oregonians signed the petitions for it. The people didn't thwart this effort; government bureaucracy did. That is a dangerous precedent for the future of the democratic process in America," he said.

The ruling from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed an Oregon judge's decision denying state citizens the right to vote on a referendum on a new state law critics contend violates the state's voter-approved definition limiting marriage to one man and one woman.

The appeals court cited the opinion of a handwriting analyst instead of the voters who signed the petition and called the state's "interests" more important than voters' rights.

At issue was the refusal on the part of state officials to count individual voters' signatures on the petition even after the voters themselves verified their signatures.

"Although regulations on the referendum process implicate the fundamental right to vote, the state's important interests justify the minimal burden on plaintiffs' rights," the ruling from Judge Ted Goodwin said.

The law at issue, along with another one, provides all the rights of marriage to unmarried, same-sex couples in the state despite voters' expressed wishes. The ADF's lawsuit over the state's refusal to put the issue on the 2008 election ballot first generated a restraining order to prevent the new law from taking effect while the lawsuit over the petition signatures was heard. That legal action later, however, was abandoned by the court.

The district court at that point simply ruled that Oregon voters have no legal right to have their signatures counted, and the appeals court has upheld the ruling.

The state reviewed the tens of thousands of signatures submitted on the referendum issue by a sampling method, ultimately determining there were 55,083 valid signatures, 96 short of what was required. However, a change in just a half a dozen signatures in the sampled portion would have tipped the decision the other way.

At the time the state made that announcement, individual voters checked with their local county officials and found their valid signatures had been arbitrarily disallowed, and state officials had issued orders that county election offices not allow anyone to correct the mistakes.

"No county gave notice to voters with rejected signatures. The counties also refused to consider extrinsic evidence presented by voters," the appeals court ruling said, agreeing the actions were proper.

"Oregon's important interests justify this minimal burden on the right to vote," the court concluded.

Restore America, one of the organizations that promoted the referendum plan, asserted the court's ruling has "swept under the carpet, out of sight, out of mind," the important issue of counting votes.

The court opinion, instead of citing the voters who signed the petition on the issue of the validity of their signatures, cited a handwriting analysts' opinion on whether the signatures were valid or not.

A second related plan approved by Oregon lawmakers that was challenged by voters also will not be on the 2008 ballot, officials confirmed earlier.

Senate Bill 2 was the other half of the package of bills approved by lawmakers that essentially created lookalike "marriage" in Oregon for same-sex duos.

Opponents wanted the votes since voters had in 2004 affirmed by a wide margin that marriage was to be reserved for couples of only one man and one woman.

Restore America leaders said the Oregon Supreme Court simply refused for 10 weeks to make a decision on the wording of the petition to repeal SB2.

The group said as a result, the court simply "ran out the clock" by preventing critics of the law from having enough time to gather the essential signatures that cannot be collected until after the wording is approved.

Opponents of the homosexual "marriage" plans were left by the court decision with less than a week to collect about 100,000 signatures, Restore America said.

The group says the campaign on the recognition of same-sex relationships now will be restarted with plans for voter decisions on the issues in November 2010. Volunteers are being coordinated at Concerned Oregonians.

The 21st-Century Boston Tea Party

Republicans in Congress are staging a historic 21st-century Boston Tea Party on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives.

On Aug. 1, Speaker Nancy Pelosi - without addressing gas prices that continue to hover near $4 per gallon - adjourned Congress for five weeks, dimmed the lights, turned off the microphones and C-SPAN cameras and attempted to remove the press and visitors from the House chamber.

Republicans refuse to leave the chamber because the issue is about much more than gas prices. It is about much more than energy. It is about the U.S. economy, jobs and national security. It is about who we are as a people.

It is about the U.S. airline industry, which is laying off flight attendants, mechanics, pilots and airport workers. It is about the American auto industry laying off assembly workers and closing plants. It is about the tourism industry and hundreds of other industries and workers from coast to coast.

The Capitol is the People's House, not the Speaker's House. More than 70 percent of Americans favor increased American energy exploration, yet the Speaker of the House refuses to allow a vote on a real energy bill that reflects the people's will. Over the last 30 years, radical environmentalists - represented by Mrs. Pelosi and her allies who better reflect her San Francisco congressional district rather than the rest of America - have effectively prevented any meaningful American energy production.

They shut down nuclear energy, oil and gas exploration in the Outer Continental Shelf and the Arctic National Wildlife Refugee, and the construction of new oil refineries.

The net result of such a radical agenda is that our dependence upon foreign sources - that use less environmentally conscious methods than the United States - has escalated from 20 percent of the gas we use to 70 percent. We send $1.2 billion a day overseas to buy oil from foreign countries, damaging our economy and enriching countries that, in many instances are not our friends.

We can no longer defend buying oil from the Middle East, Russia or South America when we have our own supply off our coasts, under public lands in the Western United States and in Alaska, and in millions of tons of oil shale. Liberal Democrats in Congress are forcing us to compete in the global free market with one hand tied behind our back.

Every month the United States runs a trade deficit of $60 billion, most of which is related to energy. Imagine the impact on the U.S. economy if we invested that money in the exploration and production of American energy. It would lead to job creation, it would ripple through the economy, the dollar would strengthen and we would finally see some stability in energy prices.

Look at the extraordinary development in Dubai, the unfettered spending by Venezuela, and the vigorous economic boom in the Middle East. The United States has the ability to benefit from a similar economic opportunity, but Mrs. Pelosi is ensuring that the U.S. economy remains a bust that fails the people of Michigan and Arizona.

Our refusal to use American oil and natural gas resources also emboldens hostile nations and leaves our economy vulnerable to acts of terrorism.

Democrats frequently say America is funding both sides of the fight with radical jihadists, and they are right. Every dollar we spend on oil from the Middle East or Venezuela, costs us jobs while funding our enemies either directly or by providing income to people who bankroll them.

Why not resolve the problem by allowing for bold solutions that produce more American energy and allow us to achieve energy independence?

An "all of the above" strategy that includes U.S. energy sources, improving energy efficiency, emerging technologies and renewable supplies such as wind, solar and geothermal and conservation must guide America's energy future, and will allow us to realistically wean our economy off fossil fuels.

Ingenuity is the essence of the American people. We have faced and overcome every challenge placed in our way; we won our independence from Britain, the most powerful nation in the world at the time; we defeated fascism and communism; we conquered polio; and we put a man on the moon. We will overcome this energy crisis, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other defeatists notwithstanding.

Republicans should continue the 21st-century Boston Tea Party in Washington until Democrat leaders heed the American public's call to action and allow America to access the significant energy resources we have placed off-limits for purely political reasons.

Not one more barrel of foreign oil. Not one more American laid off because we choose to leave our vast energy resources untapped. And, not one more dollar spent to fund our enemies.

Wait. We Have How Much Oil?

Republicans may be planning a crude surprise for Democrats this October. I mean crude in the sense that it will involve unrefined petroleum.

Since the House recessed earlier this month, Republicans have been demanding that Speaker Nancy Pelosi call it back into special session to vote on whether to allow new offshore oil-drilling.

The Republicans know Pelosi won’t do that. So, what do they really want?

Let’s start with some sense of the oil resources America could develop if Congress would allow it.

In 2006, the Interior Department estimated that about 85.9 billion barrels of “undiscovered technically recoverable” oil sits offshore on the Outer Continental Shelf within U.S. territory.

In 2007, the Energy Department’s “Task Force on Strategic Unconventional Fuels” reported that: “America’s oil shale resource exceeds 2 trillion barrels, including about 1.5 trillion barrels of oil equivalent in high quality shale concentrated in the Green River Formation in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. ... Depending on technology and economics, as much as 800 billion barrels of oil equivalent could be recoverable from oil shale resources yielding (more than) 25 gallons per ton.”

This combined 885.9 billion barrels of recoverable oil that the government estimates lies undeveloped within U.S. territory is almost three and a half times as much as the 260 billion barrels in proven oil reserves that lie under Saudi territory.

America is an oil-rich country.

Since 1982, however, each year’s Interior appropriation has included language forbidding Interior from selling oil-drilling leases in about 85 percent of the acreage comprising the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf. (In July, President Bush lifted an executive order -- originally imposed by his father -- that essentially duplicated this congressional moratorium.)

Since this fiscal year, the Interior appropriation has also included a moratorium, sponsored by Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo., that forbids Interior from issuing final regulations governing the sale of leases to develop oil shale lands. This effectively stops leases from being sold.

Because these moratoria are part of an appropriations bill that runs for only one fiscal year, they also run for one year. If not renewed by Sept. 30, they expire.

Unless Congress enacts a new law banning offshore leases and oil-shale leases, Interior can legally start selling these leases on Oct. 1.

This fact was not lost on House Minority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo., when I interviewed him on Aug. 7. I asked him if President Bush should veto any bill that includes a moratorium.

“My view is that the president should just take the position right now that these moratoriums will end on September the 30th and the Democrats have to be responsible for putting them back in,” said Blunt.

“Well, the Democrats wouldn’t be responsible, congressman,” I said. “With all due respect, President Bush would have to sign the moratorium into law for it to exist.”

“And I don’t think he should do that,” said Blunt.

“So, if a bill passes Congress that has that moratorium, your belief is President Bush, your advice to him is: Mr. President, veto that bill?” I asked.

“That’s right,” said Blunt. “And my advice to him today would be to start the process up right now for what we do on Oct. 1 when this moratorium is ended and move forward assuming that there will be no moratorium after September the 30th.”

“You would tell him to instruct those people in the Interior Department, who are responsible for administering these leases for the offshore oil and the shale oil, to begin the process of getting ready so that on Oct. 1 he can sell a lease?” I asked.

“I would,” said Blunt.

“And you would go ahead and sell those leases? You would say: ‘Let’s do it. Let’s move ahead’?” I asked.

“Well, after Oct. 1 when there is no moratorium,” said Blunt. “The studies are there. The resource is there. We know you can safely go after it. The American people are hurting. We need to do whatever is necessary.”

The Democrats would likely attempt to pre-empt such a strategy by using the traditional method Congress uses for ramming through legislation that cannot stand on its own: They will roll almost all fiscal 2009 appropriations into one monstrous continuing resolution and attach to that monstrosity the offshore oil and shale oil moratoria.

They will say to President Bush, If you want to develop U.S. oil resources, you must first shut down most of the U.S. government. You must be willing to face a massive national controversy over oil drilling and government spending.

President Bush might balk at that. For conservatives, it’s a two-fer.

'Civilian national security force' redux

It was just over a month ago that I broke the story of what I called "Barack Obama's $439 billion secret."

That was his initiative to create something he called a "civilian national security force" he promised would have a budget as big as the U.S. military's.

Obama made the campaign promise in a July 2 speech in Colorado Springs – then inexplicably deleted references to the initiative from his website while others mysteriously disappeared from transcripts of the speech distributed by the campaign.

In talking about his plans to double the size of the Peace Corps and nearly quadruple the size of AmeriCorps and the size of the nation's military services, he made this rather shocking (and chilling) pledge: "We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded."

I mentioned that I had never heard anyone inside or out of government use the phrase "civilian national security force" prior to that speech. But that doesn't mean no one ever used it. I think I have tracked down the answer to what this force is all about. I think I know who coined the term, who came up with the idea and who is pushing for the future.

And the bad news is it is someone in a prominent position in the Bush administration and likely to remain in that post no matter who is elected president Nov. 4

You might ask: "Now, how can that be? You're telling me there is a Cabinet-level operative in the Bush administration who will continue in his post whether John McCain is elected or Barack Obama?"

Yes, that is exactly what I am saying. And it is this powerful person who is the mastermind behind the "civilian national security force."

Enough of the mystery – let me tell you who this high-level Bush administration Cabinet officer is and why he will remain in his powerful position no matter who Americans send to the White House in 2009.

His name is Robert Gates, and he is the defense secretary.

Are you shocked?

Are you surprised that a Bush administration defense secretary would find favor in the eyes of both McCain and Obama?

Don't be. It's true. There really isn't that much difference between McCain and Obama, as I keep telling you. When it comes right down to it, even on matters of defense policy, they both like Robert Gates and want him to continue running the Defense Department.

Obama said as much in an interview with the editors of the Army Times July 13: "I do think that Secretary Gates has brought a level of realism and professionalism and planning to the job that is worthy of praise. I think that the Pentagon is operating more effectively. I think he has improved greatly the relationships with the Joint Chiefs and the military generally."

That's high praise from a candidate who won the nomination of his party by telling the American people the Iraq war was a lost cause.

But what does Gates have to do with the concept behind the "civilian national security force"?

Gates invented the idea.

Last fall Gates began giving a series of speeches about the need to create a more modern State Department and a "civilian national security force" that could "deploy teams that combine agricultural specialists and engineers and linguists and cultural specialists who are prepared to go into some of the most dangerous areas alongside the military."

Gates' idea was big – seemingly as big as Obama's $439 billion vision: "If we've got a State Department or personnel that have been trained just to be behind walls, and they have not been equipped to get out there alongside our military and engage, then we don't have the kind of national security apparatus that is needed. That has to be planned for; it has to be paid for. Those personnel have to be trained. And they all have to be integrated."

While McCain hasn't personally suggested keeping Gates on in McCain administration, his national security adviser has.

Besides that, Gates is the establishment's man. Check out the editorials calling on both McCain and Obama to keep him in his position – the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, why even the Roanoke Times, for heaven's sake. The media establishment is gaga over Gates.

So, just wanted to let you know, whether you vote for McCain or Obama, you are very likely to get a very expensive if slightly ill-defined "civilian national security force" either way.

But don't expect any debate about this.

Don't expect either Obama or McCain to tell you they want to create a new multibillion-dollar bureaucracy – within the State Department, of all things.

This is on a need-to-know basis, at this point. And, right now, neither Obama or McCain believe you have any need to know.

New Guidelines Would Give F.B.I. Broader Powers

A Justice Department plan would loosen restrictions on the Federal Bureau of Investigation to allow agents to open a national security or criminal investigation against someone without any clear basis for suspicion, Democratic lawmakers briefed on the details said Wednesday.

The plan, which could be made public next month, has already generated intense interest and speculation. Little is known about its precise language, but civil liberties advocates say they fear it could give the government even broader license to open terrorism investigations.

Congressional staff members got a glimpse of some of the details in closed briefings this month, and four Democratic senators told Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey in a letter on Wednesday that they were troubled by what they heard.

The senators said the new guidelines would allow the F.B.I. to open an investigation of an American, conduct surveillance, pry into private records and take other investigative steps “without any basis for suspicion.” The plan “might permit an innocent American to be subjected to such intrusive surveillance based in part on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, or on protected First Amendment activities,” the letter said. It was signed by Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island.

As the end of the Bush administration nears, the White House has been seeking to formalize in law and regulation some of the aggressive counterterrorism steps it has already taken in practice since the Sept. 11 attacks.

Congress overhauled the federal wiretapping law in July, for instance, and President Bush issued an executive order this month ratifying new roles for intelligence agencies. Other pending changes would also authorize greater sharing of intelligence information with the local police, a major push in the last seven years.

The Justice Department is already expecting criticism over the F.B.I. guidelines. In an effort to pre-empt critics, Mr. Mukasey gave a speech last week in Portland, Ore., describing the unfinished plan as an effort to “integrate more completely and harmonize the standards that apply to the F.B.I.’s activities.” Differing standards, he said, have caused confusion for field agents.

Mr. Mukasey emphasized that the F.B.I. would still need a “valid purpose” for an investigation, and that it could not be “simply based on somebody’s race, religion, or exercise of First Amendment rights.”

Rather than expanding government power, he said, “this document clarifies the rules by which the F.B.I. conducts its intelligence mission.”

In 2002, John Ashcroft, then the attorney general, allowed F.B.I. agents to visit public sites like mosques or monitor Web sites in the course of national security investigations. The next year, Mr. Bush issued guidelines allowing officials to use ethnicity or race in “narrow” circumstances to detect a terrorist threat.

The Democratic senators said the draft plan appeared to allow the F.B.I. to go even further in collecting information on Americans connected to “foreign intelligence” without any factual predicate. They also said there appeared to be few constraints on how the information would be shared with other agencies.

Michael German, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union and a former F.B.I. agent, said the plan appeared to open the door still further to the use of data-mining profiles in tracking terrorism.

“This seems to be based on the idea that the government can take a bunch of data and create a profile that can be used to identify future bad guys,” he said. “But that has not been demonstrated to be true anywhere else.”

The Justice Department said Wednesday that in light of requests from members of Congress for more information, Mr. Mukasey would agree not to sign the new guidelines before a Sept. 17 Congressional hearing.

Dem Mantra of More Deaths By Terror Under Bush Disproven

A new independent study shows that deaths from terrorism have actually declined by more than 40 percent since 2001. This flies in the face of the constant Democrat mantra that states the opposite, that terrorism has increased since Bush initiated the War on Terror. It is a mantra that the media have helpfully spread for their friends at the DNC.

We’ve heard it again and again from the left in this country; deaths by terror have increased under George W. Bush and his War on Terror has failed. Along with so many on the left side of the aisle in the U.S., Barack Obama has said this several times in the past, too. At the Democratic debate at Saint Anselm College on Jun 3, 2007, for instance, Obama said that Bush’s war has failed. “We live in a more dangerous world,” Obama said on that stage, “partly as a consequence of Bush’s actions…”

Of course, this talking point ignores one small bit of common sense. When a battle is joined, casualties are sure to rise until an end is declared. After all, when both sides are joined in battle (as opposed to but one), deaths are sure to rise before they fall, it being always darkest before the dawn, and all.

But that bit of common sense aside, the Democrats have been fond of using a study by Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank, research fellows at the Center on Law and Security at the NYU School of Law, to prove that terrorism is worse under Bush. In fact, this study appears right on Obama’s own website in an entry by one of his bloggers, Deb Henry.

Bergen and Cruickshank claimed to have found a 607 percent increase in terrorism since 2003. They defined terrorism as an act of violence, or the threat of violence, calculated to create an atmosphere of fear and alarm. They didn’t just count actual deaths and attacks, but added threats to their statistics. Who cannot see that such a method would wildly inflate the numbers?

But the new study by Simon Fraser University in Canada tells a far different tale than the favorite lefty study.

First of all, they found a major flaw in past studies.

Quote

The reason that the NCTC, MIPT, and START global fatality tolls rise so dramatically after 2003 is because all three datasets are counting a large percentage of all civilian fatalities from intentional violence in Iraq’s civil war as deaths from“terrorism.” For example, NCTC’s estimate for fatalities from terrorism in Iraq in 2006 is 13,343. This is nearly 80 percent of the total Iraqi civilian fatality toll of 16,657 for that year as estimated by the independent US organization, icasualties.org.

…But they are unusual because counting the intentional killing of civilians in civil wars as terrorism,” as all three datasets do, is a sharp departure from customary practice. As Ohio State University’s John Mueller has noted: “When terrorism becomes really extensive in an area we generally no longer call it terrorism, but rather war or insurgency.” Moreover, as a July 2007 US Congressional Research Service report noted, NCTC’s Iraq data are “largely the product of sectarian violence, rampant criminal activity, and home-grown insurgency–[and therefore] grossly distort the global terrorism picture.”

As reported by the Moblie Press-Register, Newsweek columnist Fareed Zakaria wrote in praise of the study that “it ‘makes no sense’ to count civilian casualties in a war zone as deaths caused by terrorism, Mr. Zakaria wrote. Since the mid-1990s, thousands of civilians have been killed in war zones in other countries around the world, and those victims weren’t counted as casualties related to terrorism.”

Other polls also support the claim that the world is not “more dangerous” since the war on terror began.

Quote

A 2002 Pew Research Center poll of Muslim countries found alarming levels of support for al-Qaida and its tactics. In Lebanon, for instance, 74 percent of the respondents said they believed suicide bombing was justified.

Four years later, Pew polled again in Muslim nations and discovered very different attitudes. The percentage of people in Lebanon who said they thought suicide bombing was justified had fallen to 34 percent. In Jordan, support for suicide bombing plummeted 20 points between 2002 and 2007.

Such polls show a sharp decline for support of terrorism in the Muslim world since the invasion of Iraq. “Obviously, the war didn’t fuel extremist views in Muslim countries,” as the Press-Register notes.

Even more amazingly, this new study finds a 65 percent decline in terrorist attacks since 2004.

Also…

Quote

There has been an “extraordinary, but largely unnoticed, positive change” in the sub-Saharan African security landscape, with the number of conflicts being waged reduced by more than half between 1999 and 2006, and the combat toll dropping by 98 per cent.

A decline in the total number of armed conflicts and combat deaths around the world also continues.

All this seems to explode that old the-world-is-more-dangerous myth that the Democrats have promulgated for the last six or seven years. Chances are the media will not talk much about this study, the Democrats will continue on as if it never happened, and Bush Derangement Syndrome will continue unabated.

Feds protect doctors from being forced to perform abortions
'Freedom of conscience is not to be surrendered upon issuance of a medical degree'

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released information yesterday about a proposed new rule that would strengthen protection for medical professionals who refuse to perform abortions for moral or religious reasons.

"Health care professionals should not be forced to provide services that violate their own conscience," said Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt, in a conference call with reporters.

The Associated Press quoted Leavitt saying, "Freedom of conscience is not to be surrendered upon issuance of a medical degree."

The rule, if confirmed, would apply to the nation's several hundred thousand medical institutions that receive federal funding. It would compel them to certify in writing their compliance with three currently existing federal laws that allow health professionals to exempt themselves from performing procedures contrary to their conscience.

Leavitt told reporters the new rule would severely penalize violating institutions, including the loss of government funding, and make it easier for health care professionals who feel they've faced retaliation for their decisions of conscience to file a complaint.

The wording of the 42-page proposed rule also makes it clear that the right of conscience does not extend to doctors only but to any who "assist in the performance" of abortions. The rule specifically cites the example of nurses and workers who clean the equipment used in abortion and sterilization procedures.

Several organizations, including Planned Parenthood, have objected that the proposed rule is too vague and could limit patients' access to reproductive services.

Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, told the AP that the rule "fails to give assurances that current laws about abortion will not be stretched to cover birth control."

Leavitt, however, confirmed in his blog that while an earlier version of the rule leaked out with wording that may lead to that conclusion, the current wording strictly covers abortion and sterilization.

"Nothing in the new regulation in any way changes a patient's right to any legal procedure," Leavitt told the AP.

"This regulation is not about contraception," he said. "It is very closely focused on abortion and a physician's conscience."

Meanwhile, pro-life groups are lauding the new rule.

"This proposal ensures that doctors and other medical personnel will retain the constitutional right to listen to their own conscience when it comes to performing or participating in an abortion," Tony Perkins, president of Family Research Council, told the AP. "These regulations will ensure that pro-life medical personnel will not be forced to engage in the unconscionable killing of innocent human life."

The proposed rule makes the case for its necessity within the text:

"There appears to be an attitude toward the health care professions that health care professionals and institutions should be required to provide or assist in the provision of medicine or procedures to which they object, or else risk being subjected to discrimination," the rule states. "In some instances the standards of professional organizations have been used to define the exercise of conscience to be unprofessional, forcing health care professionals to choose between their capacity to practice in good standing and their right of conscience."

Leavitt explained on his blog recent guidelines from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, for example, could be interpreted to require a doctor to perform abortions to be considered competent. If a doctor won't, he or she can't practice medicine.

"Freedom of expression and action are unfit barter for admission to medical employment or training," Leavitt told reporters.

Before the rule is finalized, the Department of Health and Human Services has established a 30-day public comment period. The text of the rule contains an invitation for people to submit comments directly to www.Regulations.gov or via email at consciencecomment@hhs.gov. If commenting online, people are asked to click on the "Comment or Submission" link and enter the keywords "provider conscience."

Dangerous Ground - US to guarantee treaty dividing Jerusalem

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, completing a visit to the region today, has been pressing Israel to sign a document by the end of the year that would divide Jerusalem by offering the Palestinians a state in Israel's capital city as well as in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, according to top diplomatic sources involved in the talks.

The Israeli team, led by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, has been negotiating the division of Jerusalem – despite claims to the contrary – but would rather conclude an agreement on paper by the end of the year that would give the Palestinians a state in the West Bank, Gaza and some Israeli territory, leaving conclusions on Jerusalem for a later date, the informed diplomatic sources told WND.

The sources said the Palestinian team has been pushing to conclude a deal by January on all core issues, including Jerusalem, and has been petitioning the U.S. to pressure Israel into signing an agreement on paper that offers the Palestinians eastern Jerusalem.

Rice, the sources said, has asked Israeli leaders to bend to what the U.S. refers to as a "compromise position," concluding an Israeli-Palestinian agreement by the end of the year that guarantees sections of Jerusalem to the Palestinians. But Israel would not be required to withdraw from Jerusalem for a period of one to five years.

The diplomatic sources said the plan is that once an Israeli-Palestinian deal is reached on paper by January, Bush would issue an official letter guaranteeing that the U.S. supports the conclusions of the document.

Any Israeli-Palestinian paper agreement is to finalize a process that began at last November's U.S. backed Annapolis conference, which seeks to create a Palestinian state, at least on paper, before Bush leaves office.

One Palestinian negotiator speaking to WND described as "crazy" the intensity and frequency of Israeli-Palestinian talks in recent weeks, saying both sides have been meeting on a daily basis, usually at the highest levels. The negotiator said Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Chief Palestinian Negotiator Ahmed Queri have been leading the talks.

The negotiator said Jerusalem is being discussed by both sides and that the two teams are "closer than ever" on coming to an agreement on the status of the city.

This claim was verified to WND by other diplomatic sources involved in the negotiations.

The Palestinian negotiator said Jerusalem would be divided along the framework of the 2000 U.S.-brokered Camp David accords. He said the general philosophy for dividing Jerusalem would be "Arab for Arab and Jew for Jew," meaning that most Arab-majority eastern sections of Jerusalem would be granted to the Palestinian Authority while Israel would retain Western, Jewish-majority sections.

Israel recaptured eastern Jerusalem, including the Temple Mount – Judaism's holiest site – during the 1967 Six Day War. The Palestinians have claimed eastern Jerusalem as a future capital. About 244,000 Arabs live in Jerusalem, mostly in eastern neighborhoods. Jerusalem has an estimated total population of 724,000, the majority Jewish.

A number of Arab-majority eastern Jerusalem neighborhoods widely regarded as slated for a Palestinian state include large numbers of Arabs who live on Jewish-owned land illegally. The Jewish National Fund, a U.S.-based nonprofit, owns hundred of acres of eastern Jerusalem land in which tens of thousands of Arabs illegally constructed homes the past few decades. Arabs are now the majority on the Jewish-owned land in question.

Asked by WND whether Jerusalem is currently being negotiated, Mark Regev, Olmert's spokesman, simply stated, "No."

Olmert has several times denied Jerusalem is being negotiated. Members of his government coalition have promised to bolt his government and precipitate new elections if Jerusalem is discussed in talks.

Olmert, facing several criminal investigations described as "serious," recently announced he will resign after his Kadima party holds primaries next month to chose a new leader. That leader is widely expected to continue Israeli-Palestinian talks, especially if frontrunner Livni takes Olmert's place.

The diplomatic situation in Israel is such that many commentators believe Olmert has an interest in concluding some sort of agreement quickly. Many believe he would like his input in an Israeli-Palestinian agreement to be among his final "achievements."

WND first exclusively reported Aug. 1 that Olmert told the PA he intends to accelerate negotiations to reach some understanding on paper as soon as September.

Over the weekend, the Israeli media quoted officials close to Olmert stating the prime minister is working for an interim document as soon as next month to be presented to the United Nations. The document likely will not be the conclusion of negotiations but an outline of some of the breakthroughs regarding the West Bank and Gaza.

One PA negotiator told WND of the planned paper: "Papers are very important. It puts limits on the new prime minister. For example, the weak point of Israeli-Syrian negotiations are papers signed by former prime ministers that now must be abided during current negotiations."

U.S.-influenced plan splits nation

Regarding the expected agreement on the Gaza Strip and West Bank, the general plan, according to top diplomatic sources, is to create a Palestinian state in the vast majority of the West Bank, but for Israel to retain large West Bank Jewish community blocs of Ma'aleh Adumim, Gush Etzion and the areas surrounding Jerusalem, and some land in the northern West Bank adjacent to Israel.

A plan being floated and heavily influenced by the U.S. grants the Palestinians passage between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip on territory that would be jointly patrolled by Israel and the PA. The passageway would give the Palestinians access to areas close to central Israeli population centers.

An area from the Israeli Negev nearly equivalent in land mass to the territory Israel would retain in the West Bank would be transferred to the West Bank – marking the first official Israeli plan that calls for pre-1967 land to be given to the Palestinians. Pre-1967 refers to Israeli territory that was not reconquered in the 1967 Six Day War. Much of the plan previously was published by WND in a series of articles in recent months and was published last week by Israel's Haaretz daily.

The plan would be set out on paper and implemented on the Israeli side in stages, while the PA would need to first retake control of the Gaza Strip from Hamas before Israel would give them most of the West Bank.

Jerusalem division plan revealed

Regarding the division of Jerusalem, top diplomatic sources said both sides are close to agreements on specific issues.

One PA negotiator claimed the U.S. has guaranteed the Palestinians that sensitive areas in eastern Jerusalem in which what he termed "extremist Jews" are purchasing real estate would be handed to the Palestinians.

"The Israelis had no problem with this," the PA negotiator claimed. "We were also told not to worry too much about scattered Jewish properties in Arab neighborhoods, or yeshivas (Jewish seminaries) in the Old City."

The PA negotiator's claim could not be verified by sources in Jerusalem.

According to informed Israeli and Palestinian sources, officials from the State Department in 2008 presented both negotiating sides with several proposals for consideration regarding the future status of Jerusalem. It was unclear whether the U.S. proposals were accepted.

One U.S. plan for Jerusalem obtained by WND was divided into timed phases, and among other things called for Israel eventually to consider forfeiting parts of the Temple Mount, Judaism's holiest site.

According to the first stage of the U.S. proposal, Israel would initially give the PA some municipal and security sovereignty over key Arab neighborhoods in eastern Jerusalem. The PA would be allowed to open some official institutions in Jerusalem, could elect a mayor for the Palestinian side of the city and would deploy some kind of so-called basic security force to maintain law and order. The specifics of the force were not detailed in the plan.

The initial stage also calls for the PA to operate Jerusalem municipal institutions, such as offices to oversee trash collection and maintenance of roads.

After five years, if both sides keep specific commitments called for in a larger principal agreement, according to the U.S. plan the PA would be given full sovereignty over agreed upon eastern Jerusalem neighborhoods and discussions would be held regarding an arrangement for the Temple Mount. The plan doesn't specify which parts of the Temple Mount could be forfeited to the Palestinians or whether an international force may be involved.

The PA also could deploy official security forces in Jerusalem separate from a non-defined basic force after the five year period and could also open major governmental institutions, such as a president's office, and offices for the finance and foreign ministries.

The U.S. plan leaves Israel and the PA to negotiate which Jerusalem neighborhoods would become Palestinian.

According to diplomatic sources familiar with the plan, while specific neighborhoods were not officially listed, American officials recommended sections of Jerusalem's Old City as well as certain largely Arab Jerusalem neighborhoods such as Jabal mukabar, Beit Hanina, Abu Dis, and Abu Tur become part of the Palestinian side. Also recommended were the Jerusalem neighborhoods of Shoafat, Kfar Akev and Qalandiya

Brothers and Sisters,

I get sick and angry reading about men negotiating and debating the land of Israel and Jerusalem. Think about this for a moment and try to understand that this land isn't subject to mankind's whims, treaties, negotiations, and debates. GOD has already ruled on this issue, and HIS Ruling is final. I realize that mankind will disobey GOD'S ruling, but CHRIST will take what is HIS at HIS SECOND COMING.

Christians, believe it or not - JESUS CHRIST HIMSELF IS THE ANOINTED KING OF ISRAEL, AND HE WILL NOT BE DENIED! CHRIST will take HIS Throne - the Throne of David in Jerusalem - and HE will Rule and Reign over the earth. Mankind won't be taking anything that belongs to GOD - at least for long. I consider it disrespectful to GOD for men to discuss dividing what belongs to GOD! GOD will give mankind what HE pleases, but mankind WILL NOT take from GOD what mankind pleases. Who in their right mind wants to steal something that belongs to the CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE? GOD HAS ALREADY CLAIMED THIS LAND, AND IT IS PART OF HIS PROMISES TO ISRAEL! Anyone who reads the Holy Bible can easily understand this. My question is simple, "What kind of fool wants to go directly against what ALMIGHTY GOD has claimed and Promised?" Do we have anyone negotiating the peace who knows how to read the BIBLE?

Love In Christ,
Tom

Famous Christian Quotes 56 - "All of us who were engaged in the
struggle must have observed frequent instances of superintending
providence in our favor. To that kind providence we owe this happy
opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our
future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful
friend? Or do we imagine that we no longer need his assistance? I have
lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing
proofs I see of this truth - that God governs in the affairs of men.
And if a sparrow cannot fall to the Ground without his Notice, is it
probable that an Empire can rise without his Aid?" -- Benjamin
Franklin (To Colleagues at the Constitutional Convention)

Dem cops cuff, stuff Christian girls
Sidewalk chalk messages challenged Obama's moral positions

Two teenagers who had been given city permission to write their messages protesting Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama's support for abortion on public sidewalks during the Democratic National Convention this week were shoved to the sidewalk, cuffed and arrested for doing just that.

The two are part of the Survivors organization, a Christian, pro-life activism group dedicated to educating and activating high school and college age individuals.

It is called Survivors because those born after 1972 are survivors of the abortion holocaust, the group said. "One-third of your generation has been killed by abortion in America."

Spokeswoman Danielle Versluys told WND the group had consulted with Denver city officials as well as police prior to the DNC, and had been told that chalk messages on sidewalks would be allowed. Even though the city's deputy chief was in the meeting, that message apparently didn't get forwarded to officers on the street.

Just about the time Obama, an ardent abortion supporter whose advocacy for the procedure has gone even further than that of the National Abortion Rights Action League, was making a surprise visit to the DNC meeting at which vice presidential candidate Sen. Joe Biden was speaking to the crowds, the girls were participating in "A Prayer for Change" protest outside the hotel where Obama was staying.

"I was peacefully sidewalk chalking when I was forcefully pushed to ground by a police officer from behind," Jayne White, 17, described. "As I was being cuffed on the ground, the police officer pushed his knee into the back of my neck. I was pulled roughly off the ground and taken away. I was given no warning to stop and was completely shocked when I was arrested.'

Julia Giacopuzzi, age 15, was surprised by a police officer twisting her arms behind her back and using them to lift her off the ground to be handcuffed.

"I was rushed by a police officer without warning and lifted up off the ground and was cuffed. I was then dragged by the police into the Westin Hotel," she said.

Throughout the DNC, the youthful members of the organization have been using sidewalk chalk to raise attention to the issue of life with the permission of City Attorney David Fine and Denver Deputy Chief of Police John Lamb.

"It was understood by the young women that sidewalk chalk was an accepted medium, and they were given no warning by the police before being cuffed and dragged away," the group said.

Versluys told WND the two later were released, and it was unclear whether they will face a prosecution in Denver yet.

"It blows my mind," she said. "I think the officers were keyed up. We're not sure whether they acted of their own accord or had orders."

Also arrested in the incident was Rev. Patrick Mahoney, director of the Christian Defense Coalition in Washington. Officials said he was threatened with a felony for "leading" the event.

"I am horrified and outraged at the treatment of these two girls. Not only were they legally expressing their opinions on the public sidewalk, but they were doing so peacefully and without incident. The officers acted without provocation, and should be ashamed of themselves for terrorizing two young women," Versluys said.

"I am also appalled that the city of Denver boasted of the city's preparation for the convention but clearly neglected to train their police force to respect the First Amendment and the rights of citizens to peacefully demonstrate," she said.

"The city of Denver sent a clear message to civic-minded young people this week: the First Amendment doesn't apply here," she said.

(The arrests were video taped. The tape, which starts well before any police action, shows that there was no verbal warning from police and that these girls were being very peaceful in their protest when the police quickly moved in and took the girls down, handcuffing them. )

"I am shocked at how cowardly these police officers behaved by attacking little girls without warning or provocation," said Troy Newman, chief of the Operation Rescue campaign in Wichita, Kan.. "There was absolutely no reason for [any violence.]"

He said his organization the chalk protesters "conducted themselves peacefully and appropriately at all times."

Brothers and Sisters,

We should remember that a lot of weird and evil things are happening in Colorado right now. I would suspect that just about all kinds of demonstrations - EXCEPT CHRISTIAN - were welcome. It's hard to say what was communicated to the officers or what their orders were. I spent my life in law enforcement, so I have reflected on things like this. I give thanks that I was only asked a very few times to do anything I knew was wrong, and I refused. They did attempt discipline, but the Grievance Board over-ruled the discipline and dismissed it. Regardless, disciplinary actions in police work are usually harsh, expensive, and hard to deal with whether the disciplinary action sticks or not. Very few people could take something like that very often, so I would suspect that they've hired some pretty liberal cops and many others have probably left the state or sought other employment. Bluntly, I don't know any police officers who hate Christians, and I certainly don't know any who would purposely mistreat Christians or violate the rights of Christians. The Police Department I served on for 25 years was staffed by nearly ALL Christians, and I really didn't think that was unusual for this part of the country. Most of the officers I know from other agencies are also Christians, so stories like this are hard to understand. I've only been retired since 2001, but maybe things have changed. Things have definitely changed in Colorado, but I have no idea how long those changes took.

As far as I know, conduct like this by police officers on my department would still result in harsh discipline. Further, I don't know any officers who would obey an order to go rough up a bunch of Christians and make false arrests. These arrests would be FALSE ARRESTS unless there is much more to the story than what we're hearing. It's important to note that a False Arrest can result in much more than just harsh department discipline. There can be serious criminal charges involved and civil remedies that would immediately bankrupt any police officer. As a conclusion, it would be stupid for any police officer to obey an illegal order given by a superior. If the police officer was forced to make an immediate choice, the only wise choice would be to resign. SO, I'll have to say that I don't understand this case.

California plans to drug depressed patients to death
'Nothing in the bill prohibits this horror'

Just as Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama was in Denver preaching to a crowd of thousands of fans about the "change" he wants to see in the United States, his party compatriots in the California Legislature were making a "change," by approving a controversial plan that would allow nurses to assist terminally ill patients with suicide.

"AB 2747 allows a physician assistant or a nurse to opine that a patient is 'terminal,' and then push for unnatural death by 'palliative sedation,'" said Randy Thomasson, chief of the Campaign for Children and Families shortly after the vote.

"Depressed patients who succumb to this pressure will be drugged unconscious and die from dehydration, usually within five to 10 days. Nothing in the bill prohibits this horror," he said.

Forty-two Democrats in California voted in favor of the plan: 30 Republicans and two Democrats opposed the plan.

"AB 2747 pushes suicide through the back door at the hands of non-physicians taking advantage of depressed patients," Thomasson said. His organization has been alerting Californians to raise their concerns about the plan for sudden death with floor alerts, phone calls and e-mails.

"AB 2747 cheapens the value of human life by endorsing suicide as an option. Gov. Schwarzenegger should pledge to veto this very dangerous bill," Thomasson said, describing how the author, Assemblywoman Pattie Berg of Eureka, "deceptively changed" the bill to appear that "voluntarily stopping of eating and drinking" and "palliative sedation" no longer were on a list of "symptom management" options.

But the final bill "is broad enough to easily include these suicide techniques," Thomasson said.

The specific references to those treatments simply were changed to "other clinical treatments useful when a patient is actively dying."

According to the CCF report, Assemblyman Van Tran of Costa Mesa warned the bill has no protections for patients "who could be mistakenly diagnosed as 'terminally ill' but would have many, many full years of life ahead."

"The bill does not otherwise attempt to expressly define terminal illness that each of these health care professionals would have to diagnose to trigger the offer of counseling end of life options. It is not clear why nurse practitioners and physician assistants could make such a significant diagnosis. It is further not clear from the bill how making such significant diagnoses on a case-by-case basis can be done by such practitioners and assistants based on so-called 'standardized procedures and protocols' not further defined by the bill. The potential effect of AB 2747 is extremely broad and could cause irrevocable harm."

Added Republican Doug La Malfa of Yuba City: "We really go down a slippery slope when we contemplate the ending of life in such a way that it could be coerced. You have people in a very precarious situation, in a very awkward situation, that when thrust upon them with options to end their life, you have people that may feel like they have no use anymore. They feel like they're not of value anymore, and that taking one of these options, they may feel, is the only way out, that they've become a burden to their family or to someone else. I would hate to put people in that kind of position. They're already feeling vulnerable, and now, confronted with ways to end your life – this is a very delicate and, I think, dangerous idea here. You could have people like heirs that are anxious to get the estate started and quietly coercing people into making decisions like this."

"Total sedation (TS) – called by some 'terminal sedation,' 'palliative sedation,' or 'slow euthanasia' – is a protocol recently added to the lexicon of contemporary medical interventions and is a construct actively promulgated by the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO)," wrote Dr. Howard M. Ducharme, past chair of the philosophy department at the University of Akron. "It is defined as 'the application of pharmacotherapy to induce a state of decreased or absent awareness (unconsciousness) in order to relieve the burden of otherwise intractable suffering. However, any quick acceptance of TS would be ill-advised because of the many 'devils in the details.'"

Texas to teachers: Bible will be taught
Plan requires instruction in both Old and New Testaments

The Bible's history and literature will be required to be taught in public schools in Texas under a new law that has been clarified by the state attorney general to mean exactly what it says.

"This is a huge victory for the people of Texas and, I think, for people across the country for academic freedom," said Jonathan Saenz, a lawyer for Liberty Legal. "There are 1,300 references to the Bible in the works of Shakespeare alone. Over 60 percent of the allusions studied in [advanced placement] English come from the Bible. Students are going to be better academically and culturally when they hear about the Bible."

The decision is a result of work by the state legislature as well as an opinion from Greg Abbott, the state's attorney general, in a letter to Education Commissioner Robert Scott. House Bill 1287 was approved by state lawmakers in the spring of 2008, and it was signed into law by Gov. Rick Perry. It states all school districts must offer the course as an elective at the high school level by the 2009-2010 school year.

Rep. Warren Chisum, R-Pampa, the author of the plan, said if 15 or more students express interest in the course, districts must provide it.

"A lot of schools don't know they can have the course, and this bill notifies them that the Supreme Court ruled school districts can offer it," Chisum said earlier in advocating for the plan. "School districts should know they can offer the course because it better prepares students for college literature and history classes."

Kevin Franck, of the People for the American Way, told the San Antonio newspaper his group isn't necessarily opposed to the plan, but will be watching its implementation.

And Chisum said the legislature specifically addressed the Bible, not the Quran or any other religious writing, because "the Bible as a text … has historical and literary value."

"It can't go off into other religious philosophies because then it would be teaching religion, when the course is meant to teach literature," he said.

Saenz told WND the actual curriculum – whether schools use only the Bible or another text – is left up to the local school district boards.

"Students more and more have been demanding the courses," he said. "The problem has been that school districts have been threatened [by activists] for offering the courses.

"Now they've got the state board of education's clear guidelines, and support from the attorney general," he said.

He said his organization has been involved in the adoption of the law from its beginning. Counting members of both houses in the legislature, the vote in Texas was 167-3 for the plan.

Liberty Legal, a group committed to defending religious freedoms and First Amendment rights, had been asked to submit a brief on the issue of requiring schools to teach the Bible.

Saenz told WND the requirement allows such education to be either in a regular class or a separate class.

He noted that in one school district close to Dallas, already 160 students have signed up for the class.

Among the subjects that must now be taught in Texas are English, math, science, social students, health, physical education, fine arts, economics, technology and "religious literature, including the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) and New Testament."

"A school district must, of course, offer instruction in the subject matter … 'as required curriculum,'" said the attorney general's opinion, confirming for state education officials the legislature's intent. "The Legislature did not mandate that this curriculum instruction be provided in independent courses.'

One group, the Greensboro, N.C.-based National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools, promotes its curriculum as the only one that uses the Bible as its primary textbook. Supporters include the conservative American Family Association, Eagle Forum and Plano-based Liberty Legal.

Council President Elizabeth Ridenour said the group's material already is being used in 54 Texas school districts. There also are other curriculums that use their own textbooks.

Court gives Planned Parenthood 'license to lie'
Abortion opponents incorrectly accused of advocating violence
Posted: September 04, 2008
12:20 am Eastern

By Bob Unruh
© 2008 WorldNetDaily

A state judge in Illinois has given the billion-dollar Planned Parenthood corporation "a license to lie," according to pro-life activists incorrectly accused by the company of having a "well-documented history of advocating violence against both persons and property."

The ruling, which dismissed parts of a libel action brought by the activists, came from Judge Judith Brawka, who interpreted the published accusations by Planned Parenthood and its executive, Steve Trombley, against the citizens opposing a new abortion mega-clinic in Aurora, Ill., as protected under the state's Citizen Protection Act.

The allegations were found in several locations, including an ad in the Aurora Beacon News that was headlined "Don't Let the Extremists Deny Vital Health Care to the People of Peoria," and it warned "Joe Scheidler and his Pro-Life Action League have a well-documented history of advocating violence against both persons and property, as well as other related criminal activity."

Lawyers with the Thomas More Society of Chicago sued over the claims, saying they apparently were drawn from an old court case against Scheidler and the League brought by the National Organization for Women on behalf of abortion clinics nationwide.

But any accusation in that case later was turned into a "legal nullity," Brejcha told WND, because of the U.S. Supreme Court's decisions to reject the claims on votes of 8-1, and 8-0.

As WND reported, Brejcha earlier demanded a retraction from Planned Parenthood and Trombley. Instead Trombley repeated them.

"He stood up 5 feet away from me in the lobby of the federal building and repeated these outrageous lies," Brejcha said.

The unsuccessful NOW case essentially accused pro-lifers of using organized crime tactics against clinics.

WND reported in 2006 that the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled for the third time in favor of pro-life activists who were sued by NOW over their aggressive demonstrations at abortion clinics under the federal RICO organized crime statute.

In 2003, WND reported NOW had lost its second round in the Supreme Court in a decisive 8-1 ruling. The feminist group charged that protests organized by Scheidler's Chicago-based Pro-Life Action League amounted to extortion under RICO.

However, Planned Parenthood argued in the current libel action brought on behalf of the pro-life organization and its members that under the state's Citizen Participation Act the billion-dollar tax-subsidized corporation had "absolute immunity" because it made the statements "in furtherance of the constitutional rights to petition, speech, association, and participation in government" and those carry immunity from liability "regardless of intent or purpose."

"Planned Parenthood has been granted a license to lie," said Eric Scheidler, the son of Joe Scheidler and the communications director for the Pro-Life Action League. He's among the Aurora, Ill., residents who brought the libel suit.

"This ruling gives Planned Parenthood, and any other organization with deep pockets, total immunity for making false, defamatory statements against private citizens," he said.

The Aurora residents have opposed the abortion mega-clinic that was built by Planned Parenthood using a front company so that residents would not realize what was being constructed.

According to officials with PLAN, the state's Citizen Participation Act was established in 2007 to protect small grassroots organizations lobbying for government action from large corporations who want to scare them into silence with the threat of costly lawsuits.

But PLAN said in this case, it’s the billion-dollar company, Planned Parenthood, that is alleging it is intimidated by the small group of city residents who oppose its abortion business.

"Because the ad [Planned Parenthood] ran contained a line urging readers to call their local alderman in support of the new clinic, Judge Judith Brawka interpreted it and the letter to city council as being protected," PLAN said.

"The judge didn't decide Steve Trombley is innocent of libeling us, but that it didn't matter even if he were guilty," said Scheidler.

The judge is allowing Scheidler to file an amended complaint based on four specific items in which Planned Parenthood made similar statements and did not include the appeal for government action, and PLAN said it is possible under the judge's interpretation they may not be protected.

Scheidler also said an appeal was being considered.

"Illinois lawmakers drafted the Citizen Participation Act to protect people's freedom to speak their minds, not to keep citizens from defending their good names," said Scheidler. "If this ruling stands, anyone can spread deliberate, malicious lies about another person, as long as their statements can be construed as seeking action from any unit of government, including voters. That should scare all Illinoisans who care about honesty and accountability."

Scheidler said he could be forced to pay all of Planned Parenthood's legal costs associated with the libel suit, which he estimates could be more than $50,000. That would mean bankruptcy for him and his family, but he said that's a price he's willing to pay.

"No matter what lies Steve Trombley and Planned Parenthood may tell about us, pro-lifers in Aurora are peacefully saving babies from abortion at Planned Parenthood every week," he said.

The next hearing on the four remaining counts is scheduled in October.

PLAN was launched by Joseph Scheidler in 1980 with the aim of saving unborn children through non-violent direct action. Through prayer vigils outside abortion facilities and sidewalk counseling, the League reaches out to abortion- bound women and couples with abortion alternatives, confidential counseling and access to pregnancy resources.

As WND has reported, the same mega-clinic also is being targeted by other action alleging city officials violated their own zoning codes in allowing the construction project to move forward.

The Thomas More Society said it has filed formal appeals to both the Aurora Building Code Board of Appeals and the Zoning Board of Appeals on behalf of Fox Valley Families against Planned Parenthood.

"The appellants claim that the city continues to refuse to apply the correct ordinance to Planned Parenthood, even after the city conceded that its outside attorneys applied the wrong ordinance to the facility during their legal review in September of last year," the law firm announcement said.

The situation also has been clouded by reports Planned Parenthood's subsidiary, Gemini Office Development (GOD), falsified permit applications, obtained an invalid building permit, had invalid building inspections, and violated other city laws during the construction process.

Shocking trend: U.S. courts citing Wikipedia
Department of Homeland Security, immigration judge consult 'free encyclopedia'

An immigration judge is under fire after he cited Wikipedia in his ruling, and some say it is just the newest example of a disturbing trend.

The online "free encyclopedia," written and edited by its users, has been considered an unreliable source by teachers, authors, editors, patent examiners, librarians and researchers. But now a judge has based part of his ruling on a Wikipedia entry, Bender's Immigration Bulletin reported.

Homeland Security cites Wikipedia

An Italian woman named Lamilem Badasa entered the United States using fraudulent papers and applied for asylum under Article III of the Convention Against Torture. It was denied because she did not have valid identification. However, she acquired a travel document from Ethiopia to prove her identity – a pass known as laissez-passer.

The Bureau of Immigration Appeals agreed to resubmit her case to an immigration judge. After reviewing her documents, Department of Homeland Security officials claimed laissez-passer does not establish identity – and to explain the purpose of the travel document, they provided an entry from Wikipedia.

At the time of this WND report, the website's laissez-passer entry was four paragraphs long and did not cite a single reference or source. Yet, an unnamed immigration judge took DHS' information, ruled against Badasa, denied asylum and rejected her appeal.

Following his decision, the Bureau of Immigration Appeals claimed it "did not condone or encourage the use of resources such as Wikipedia.com in reaching pivotal decisions in immigration proceedings," according to last week's ruling filed by Judge Steven M. Colloton of the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. It said the immigration judge's decision "may have appeared more solid had Wikipedia.com not been referenced."

The self-described "free encyclopedia that anyone can edit" tells the public, "Don't be afraid to edit – anyone can edit almost any page, and we encourage you to be bold! Find something that can be improved, whether content, grammar or formatting, and make it better." The organization simultaneously claims federal law protects it from liability of its users' edits because it operates an "interactive computer service."

The Bureau of Immigration Appeals "presumably was concerned that Wikipedia is not a sufficiently reliable source on which to rest the determination that an alien alleging a risk of future persecution is not entitled to asylum," according to court documents.

Badasa was granted a new review by the appeals court, and the case was sent back to the Bureau of Immigration Appeals.

Courts catch Wikipedia fever

In "Courting Wikipedia," the American Association for Justice recently revealed an alarming trend toward courts referencing the website in more than 100 published opinions.

"The citations are sometimes inexplicable," Jason Richards wrote. "The Seventh Circuit, for example, cited Wikipedia in a recent drug case to provide background information on the defendant ("Radomski is a former trainer of the Polish boxer Andrew Golota – the world's most colorful boxer"), even though Judge Richard Posner, who wrote the opinion, had firsthand experience of the Web site's unreliability."

In another Seventh Circuit case, John M. Rickher v. Home Depot, Inc., the plaintiff cited Webster's II New College Dictionary and Random House Webster's College Dictionary definitions for "wear and tear" in a class action suit against the company's damage waiver for tool rentals. The court opted instead to use a definition found on Wikipedia:

Although it is true that dictionary definitions of "wear and tear" often employ the word "damage," that does not mean that damage and "wear and tear" are synonymous. Wear and tear is a more specific phrase that connotes the expected, often gradual, depreciation of an item. See Wear and Tear, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wear_and_tear , last visited May 30, 2008.

"t provides an example of a disturbing trend," Richards continued. "More and more law students and law professors are citing to entries in this publicly authored Web site in their papers, attorneys are relying on it in their legal briefs, expert witnesses are using it to support their opinions, and courts are citing the source either tangentially or, even worse, as the primary legal basis for their opinions."

The report reveals the Eleventh Circuit was the first court to cite Wikipedia in its 2004 published opinion. It did so to explain the Department of Homeland Security's threat-level system after antiwar protestors claimed their First and Fourth Amendment rights were violated when authorities conducted magnetometer searches.

Why did the federal court rely on Wikipedia instead of government documents?

Richards does not offer a reason for the trend. However, he wrote, "Surely issues concerning national security, free speech, and unreasonable searches and seizures should command more deference and attention."

Cops strip-search 'loitering' pro-lifers
Protesters heckled, arrested, jailed for opposing abortion

The allegations in the case sound like a 3rd World dictatorship: Police officers talk over before the arrests what charges they'll use, there are no explanations when the arrests are made, the suspects are denied access to legal counsel while in custody, and cops subject suspects to semi-public strip-searches.

Only this was in Bel Air, Md., and the pro-life protesters subjected to the treatment now have brought a legal action against the officers and town for violating their Constitutional rights.

"The truth of the matter is that our clients were heckled, arrested, imprisoned, shackled, and strip-searched twice for exercising their First Amendment rights," said attorney Daniel Cox, who is allied with the Alliance Defense Fund is serving as local counsel. "No excuse exists for how our young clients were treated."

The lawsuit accuses Bel Air, seven police officials and Harford County of violating the rights of 18 pro-life advocates who were arrested when they held signs and shared their message along a public street. Those arrested included three young women who faced repeated strip-searches while being cited for loitering, disorderly conduct and failure to obey.

Prosecutors later simply stopped prosecution of the case. City officials did not respond to WND attempts to reach them for a comment today.

The lawsuit now alleges a multitude of violations of the U.S. Constitution in actions by police who first ordered the pro-lifers off of county property, and later when they were complied and moved to city property, swooped down on them in seven marked police cars, shackled and jailed them, and performed the strip searches.

"This incident paints an ugly picture of the state of religious freedom and free speech in American today," Kevin Theriot, ADF senior counsel, said. "The state shouldn't prosecute Christians for expressing their beliefs on important social issues, nor deny them their constitutional rights."

As least a dozen police officers broke up the peaceful protest set up by members of Defend Life. They were standing apart from each other on city property holding their anti-abortion signs touching the ground so they would not obstruct any sight lines, the ADF said.

The officers had ordered them off of county property because they did not have a permit to engage in free speech, the report said. And after the arrests, "Three young female participants – including teenagers – were subjected to two rounds of strip-searches," the lawsuit said.

"The first search took place in the police station parking lot in front of other males. A female officer pulled out the young ladies' shirt collars to inspect their breasts before reaching down their pants to feel around their waistlines. The Harford County Detention Center administered the second strip-search after the pro-life participants were transferred there. A female officer took the women one by one into a bathroom with a partially open door and ordered them to lift up their shirts and brassieres," the lawsuit said.

The case also alleges although attorneys Steve Peroutka and Scott Whiteman arrived to consult with the defendants late in the evening, they were not allowed to contact those who had been jailed, some of whom were not released until mid-morning of the next day.

The pro-life protesters, some of whom also were being represented by the Thomas More Society of Chicago and the American Catholic Lawyers Association, named as defendants the town and the county, as well as officers Terrence Sheridan, Donald Ravadge, Mark Zulauf and Armand Dupre and three state patrol troopers.

"Defendants' requirement to obtain a permit prior to peaceful assembly and protest on public property violates time-honored free speech practice under the First and Fourteenth Amendments," the lawsuit said. The plaintiffs are seeking a declaratory judgment, injunctions and damages.

Among those arrested as Angela Swagler, 18, Elizabeth Walsh, 20, and Joan Walsh, 18.

They moved into Bel Air after being told to get off of county property. The officers then approached them inside Bel Air.

"Plaintiffs were put in handcuffs and held alongside the heavily trafficked public road for over a half hour, making them appear to be criminals to the public, putting both them and their message into disrepute, and exposing them to shouted ridicule," the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit said the sexually invasive searches then were performed, once in a public parking lot, and the second time in a jail restroom with a door partly open. The lawsuit said another inmate held on a separate case related that she had not been subjected to that type of search.

"As a result of the defendants' past and present refusal to allow plaintiffs to exercise their political and social speech rights in traditional public forums, plaintiffs are suffering irreparable harm for which there is no adequate remedy at law," the lawsuit said.

Brothers and Sisters,

If there is any blockage of public streets or sidewalks, permits are required. The same is true for use of sound equipment or any act that could result in elevated danger for members of the public. Activities requiring permits usually boil down to plain common sense, but it's still best for Christians to consult city authorities about actions requiring permits. There is NO example of anything in this article that seems should require a permit. If an action does require a permit, normal procedures are to inform the people that a permit is required, why, and how to obtain one. It rarely involves arrests unless there are other significant violations of the law. As easy examples, there are no rights to assault other people or commit actions that put innocent members of the public in danger.

This case sounds like NOTHING but abuse and malicious prosecution of Christians simply because they are Christians! If there isn't any aggravating circumstances we haven't been told about in the article, the arrests WERE FALSE and the CIVIL AND CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS of the arrested people were violated! In fact, the RIGHTS VIOLATIONS would involve the most basic RIGHTS that make America American!

If one wants to contrast lawful actions with unlawful actions, one can look at the huge variety of criminal acts committed by demonstrators at the Republican Convention. People were assaulted, fires were started, property was destroyed, and innocent members of the public were put in great danger by a variety of extremely STUPID ACTS! I find it ironic that the police gave many a pass who obviously committed CRIMINAL ACTS! Only the worst ones were arrested. In contrast, there is no mention of criminal acts committed by the Christians who were arrested. If there was any kind of violation by the Christians, it might have been a technical violation of something requiring a permit. BUT, there is insufficient information given to indicate even a technical violation on something as small as a permit.

I'm very sad to say that it appears we are watching a quick and horrible change in our society. It's dramatic and sickening. NUDE PERVERTS have been allowed to perform obscene sexual acts on public streets, but Christians can't give away BIBLES on those same public streets. I realize this example is extreme, but extreme examples are becoming more common by the day. As Christians, do we really need to guess what we see coming? It's UGLY and EVIL!

Want to know what law says? You'll have to pay
California copyrights regulations, forbids storage, distribution without consent

California's building codes, plumbing standards and criminal laws can be found online.

But if you want to download and save those laws to your computer, forget it.

The state claims copyright to those laws. It dictates how you can access and distribute them -- and therefore how much you'll have to pay for print or digital copies.

It forbids people from storing or distributing its laws without consent.

That doesn't sit well with Carl Malamud, a Sebastopol resident with an impressive track record of pushing for digital access to public information. He wants California -- and every other federal, state and local agency -- to drop their copyright claims on law, contending it will pave the way for innovators to create new ways of searching and presenting laws.

"When it comes to the law, the courts have always said there can be no copyright because people are obligated to know what it says," Malamud said. "Ignorance of the law is no excuse in court."

Malamud is spoiling for a major legal fight.

He has begun publishing copies of federal, state and county codes online -- in direct violation of claimed copyright.

On Labor Day, he posted the entire 38-volume California Code of Regulations, which includes all of the state's regulations from health care and insurance to motor vehicles and investment.

To purchase a digital copy of the California code costs $1,556, or $2,315 for a printed version. The state generates about $880,000 annually by selling its laws, according to the California Office of Administrative Law.

Malamud isn't just targeting California. He posted safety and building codes for nearly all 50 states, and some counties and cities such as Sonoma County and Los Angeles.

This is not uncharted territory for Malamud. In 1994, he pushed the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to post corporate filings online, opening the door for companies such as Google and Yahoo to create elaborate financial Web sites. In June, Malamud helped convince the state of Oregon to stop claiming copyright over its laws.

Now Malamud wants to do the same for California -- and everywhere else. And he's willing to go to court to make his point. He thinks the court system will rule in his favor, establishing a precedent that all government agencies must follow.

"If that happens, it opens the doors to innovation," Malamud said.

To get the California Code online, he digitally scanned a stack of documents that weighed 150 pounds. Now anyone can download the 33,000 pages, and print whatever they want from his Web site, public.resource.org.

Traditionally, governments provided publishing companies such as LexisNexis copies of laws to print and bind for people. It was practically the only way to get the laws distributed to people. LexisNexis claims to have the "world's largest collection of public records."

But the Internet has changed how people can share information. Increasingly, government agencies -- including Sonoma County -- contract with LexisNexis and other publishers to post their laws online.

"Most of the county staff now just look up the codes on the Internet," said Jennifer Barrett, Sonoma County's deputy planning director. "You can quickly search for keywords or a section. It's quite easy to find what you are looking for."

But LexisNexis does not format the online laws for easy printing or downloading, Malamud said. And that hampers how people can access the laws.

LexisNexis is the exclusive distributor of Sonoma County statutes, selling print versions for $220. It offers free access to the county's codes on the Internet, but its Web site is relatively archaic and doesn't include the features common in newer sites.

If the county provided those laws in a free, standardized digital format, others could design Web sites with more modern search and presentation features, Malamud said. Social Web sites could pop up where, for instance, plumbers could provide useful annotations to building codes -- perhaps blending Wikipedia with Facebook for a more useful law site.

LexisNexis declined to comment for this story. Its primary competitor, Thomson West, which publishes California laws under a contract with the state, does not claim copyright over government statutes, a spokesman said.

California asserts copyright protections for its laws, contending it ensures the public gets accurate, timely information while generating revenue for the state.

"We exercise our copyright to benefit the people of California," said Linda Brown, deputy director of the Office of Administrative Law, which manages the state's laws. "We are obtaining compensation for the people of California."

Malamud must get permission from the state to post codes online, Brown said. She was not familiar with Malamud's actions, and could not comment on what steps would be taken to protect the state's copyright.

Malamud might be seriously outgunned in regards to the financial and legal resources of the governments he is facing. But Malamud has a track record of defeating much larger foes, said Lawrence Lessig, a professor at Stanford Law School and founder of its Center for Internet and Society.

"I think his work is extraordinarily important," Lessig said.

While there is a lot of commercial interest in stopping Malamud, his strategy of showing how easy it is for governments to post laws themselves makes a strong argument to the public, Lessig said.

Malamud thinks it will take him another three years to establish that no one can assert copyright over any U.S. law.

Like in his previous battles, he's not going it alone. His nonprofit has received about $2 million so far, with money coming from Internet pioneers such as the foundation of Pierre Omidyar, who founded eBay. Malamud expects it will take several million more to finish his campaign.

He also has some heavy-hitting legal academics on his side.

Professor Pamela Samuelson, co-director of the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology, has also questioned the legality of copyrighting standards and laws.

"If it's the law, the public should have access to it," she said.

Samuelson points out that the idea of copyright was established to provide people incentive to create. People are given exclusive legal rights to their paintings, writings and other works because by selling those rights they can attempt to make a living.

There is no similar need for financial incentives to establish standards such as building codes, Samuelson said. For the most part, volunteers spend long hours drafting proposed standards for things like plumbing and building. Governments often take those standards and adopt them into law.

Once the standards become law, she doesn't think people can claim copyright protections. But like Malamud, she sees the courts making the final ruling.

"I don't think it's an airtight case for either side. But I think the law favors that if something is a law, it's in the public domain," she said.

Judges endorse coed restrooms
Court says challenge to 'discrimination' ban failed because dead voters not represented

Maryland's highest court has endorsed Montgomery County's plans for coed restrooms and showers, concluding that a challenge to the new law had to fail because there were not enough signatures on the referendum petitions to represent dead voters.

Opponents of the law say they are reviewing their options for continuing their challenge to the extraordinary law that essentially leaves private homes and private clubs as the only locations where a person would not have the "right" to use the restroom or shower room designated for whatever gender that person feels on that given day.

"The court's ruling today is a loss for democracy, a loss for Montgomery County and a loss for common sense," said Dr. Ruth Jacobs, president of Maryland Citizens for a Responsible Government.

The organization has been fighting the law since it was adopted by the county board last year in its campaign for "nondiscrimination" against individuals with "gender identity" issues. In that effort, the county failed to provide an exemption from the "nondiscrimination" law for locations of shared nudity, such as restaurant restrooms, community swimming pool shower rooms. Nor are there exemptions for religious organizations.

The opinion from the state Court of Appeals overturned a decision by a judge who found that voters should be allowed to determine the future of the "discrimination" ban." The reasoning by the high court was available only through comments made during the hearing, since the actual court order is a terse two-paragraph demand that the circuit court order be overturned, and the "reasons" would "be stated in an opinion later to be filed."

Circuit Judge Robert A. Greenberg previously concluded Bill 23-07, approved by the county board and signed into law by county executive Isiah Leggett, should be on the November ballot for voters, despite the wishes of Equality Maryland, an activist group for homosexuals, which did not want voters to have their say.

But the higher court's ruling left its opponents stunned.

"The court ruled … that the [Board of Elections] should have included 'inactive voters' when calculating the number of signatures that were required to place the issue on the ballot. Months after the deadline for turning in signatures, the court increased the number of valid signatures required from 25,001 signatures to over 27,000," the organization said, including the emphasis in its prepared statement.

Inactive voters are those who have failed to vote in two elections and have not responded to two letters from the government. Most are either dead or have moved out of state.

"We're very disappointed with this court's ruling, which suggests that, in America, every citizen does not have a voice," said Amy Smith, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, which was working with MCRG. "[The] court decision sends a clear message that groups with narrow, extreme political agendas can disenfranchise the voters of an entire county."

Jacobs said the citizens' group collected more than the number of signatures set by the county for the referendum.

"Amazingly, Equality Maryland demanded that inactive voters who have likely died or moved out of state be considered in the calculation to determine the number of valid signatures needed. This simply demonstrates that they will go to any lengths to prevent living, breathing county residents from determining public policy," Jacobs said.

The MRCG said Bill 23-07 specifically orders no discrimination based on "gender perception" in all "public accommodations."

"The existing non-discrimination code, which Bill 23-07 amends, was written over 20 years ago. The existing non-discrimination code desegregated bathrooms, buses, restaurants and all kinds of public accommodations. Montgomery County points at the 'distinctly private and personal' existing part of the code (which precedes Bill 23-07 by 20 years) and implies that it somehow was written with bathrooms in mind," an analysis by the organization said.

MCRG documented the law defines gender identity as "an individual's actual or perceived gender, including a person's gender-related appearance, expression, image, identity, or behavior, whether or not those gender related characteristics differ from the characteristics customarily associated with the person's assigned sex at birth."

"This means that a male appearing as or perceiving he is a female, regardless of his DNA, anatomy, and chromosomal makeup, could gain the legal right to call himself a woman, and use the woman's facility in any public accommodation," the group said.

The group further argued the law could violate the privacy rights of the county's 500,000 women and children, since the county's public accommodations code would be revised to read:

"An … agent … of any place of public accommodation in the county must not, with respect to the accommodation: … make any distinction with respect to … race, color, sex, marital status, religious creed, national origin, disability, sexual orientation, or gender identity in connection with … use of any facility," the organization said.

Jordan Lorence, a senior counsel with the ADF, told WND the next step in the case is being assessed right now. He said the high court allowed the pro-homosexual activists to participate in oral arguments, but there were no arguments presented from those who oppose the special-rights law.

Jacobs told WND the right of voters to "act as a check-and-balance on their government has been thwarted."

Not only was the number of signatures changed after the fact, a deadline for complaints to be filed about the referendum process apparently was ignored by the court, officials said.

WND previously reported county officials approved the sprawling expansion of their anti-"discrimination" law, sponsored by county council member Duchy Trachtenberg, D-At Large.

County officials have told WND they have interpreted the law to mean that showers and restrooms would be excluded.

But Theresa Rickman, a founding MCRG member, argues, "With all due respect, if one accepts the council's assertion that the 'gender identity' law does not cover bathrooms, one would also have to accept that the county's public accommodations code never intended to racially desegregate bathrooms. Race and gender identity are both listed in the same sentence."

WND also has reported on the implementation of a similar plan in Colorado that would encompass the entire state. Critics have accused Gov. Bill Ritter of paying off wealthy homosexual political supporters with his decision to sign the plan into law.

The Maryland pro-family organization also has publicized a YouTube video it explains shows an assistant to Trachtenberg apparently trying to intimidate petition signature collectors and would-be signers.

The video shows the person telling volunteers, "An e-mail went out; you're going to be asked to leave. Any petitions gathered today are illegal."

Return of 'hate crimes' plan looms in Congress
Legal crackdown on biblical condemnation of homosexuality feared

A federal "hate crimes" plan to criminalize speech or thoughts critical of homosexuality – dropped from Congress' agenda earlier because of a veto threat from President Bush – may be resurrected before the election, according to an opponent of such advocacy laws.

"Here's ultimately what we expect," Mathew Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel and dean of the Liberty University School of Law, told WND today. "The hate crimes plan is to be offered as an amendment to the Fiscal Year 2009 Department of Defense reauthorization bill. That's what the word is, that it's going to be offered as an amendment."

Pro-homosexual advocates long have sought such a law but opponents fear it would be used to crack down on those who maintain a biblical perspective that condemns homosexuality as sin. Observers note that it would criminalize speech and thought, since other criminal actions already are addressed with current statutes.

Canada already has an aggressive "hate crimes" law, and there authorities there have gone so far as to tell a Christian pastor he must recant his faith because of the legislation that bans statements that can be "perceived" as condemning another person.

Some states already have similar statutes, too, and in New Mexico, a photography company run by two Christians was fined $6,600 by the state for declining to provide services to a lesbian couple setting up a lookalike "marriage" ceremony. Also, Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter recently signed a bill into law that opponents describe as draconian, with one analyst expressing the opinion that it actually could be read as outlawing publication of the Bible in the state because of its injunctions against homosexuality.

Staver said his Washington sources said the defense bill was planned for a vote this week only hours after Congress was scheduled to reconvene, but the work was delayed and the apparent schedule for the vote now is Monday.

Given an affirmative cloture vote in the Senate, the bill then could be on the floor for a formal approval within as little as 24-48 hours.

Staver said the proposal had been made to include the "hate crimes" legislation in the Fiscal Year 2008 appropriations, but the spending bill was passed last winter without the amendment because of Bush's veto threat.

The House already had passed the proposal as a stand-alone bill and had it a significant amount of support in the Senate, but its support base started fracturing there when Bush said it was unneeded and promise a veto, Staver said.

Bush has gone on record specifically noting the "hate crimes" legislation would create special privileges for those who identify themselves with an alternative sexual lifestyle.

Staver said since criminal acts already are addressed with existing law, the only impact of "hate crimes" legislation would be to criminalize free speech and religious speech and a person's thoughts. For example, an assailant convicted of attacking a heterosexual might get six months in jail. Under a "hate crimes" plan, if the victim reported being homosexual, the sentence might be enhanced significantly, analysts said.

Those who are concerned now should contact their members in the U.S. Senate to express their concerns, he said.

Bush also used the threat of a veto to head off another pro-homosexual congressional plan, called the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, that would have granted special employment privileges to homosexual individuals.

Bush's advisory then also cited the plan as being "inconsistent with the right to the free exercise of religion."

According to Rev. Ted Pike, who also has battled "hate crimes" plans, Staver's concern "is justified."

"According to the August 22nd Washington Blade, 'Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass), a lead sponsor of the bill in the House, has called on the Senate to pass the measure this year as a freestanding bill…' Frank, a homosexual, is as much a bellwether of pro-homosexual legislative trends in the House, as is Sen. Edward Kennedy in the Senate," Pike reported.

"The administration favors strong criminal penalties for violent crime, including crimes based on personal characteristics, such as race, color, religion, or national origin. However … if [the "hate crimes" plan] were presented to the president, his senior advisers would recommend that he veto the bill," the White House said during the earlier discussion.

The statement said state and local criminal laws already provide penalties for the violence addressed by the new federal crime defined in the bill.

"State and local law enforcement agencies and courts have the capability to enforce those penalties and are doing so effectively. There has been no persuasive demonstration of any need to federalize such a potentially large range of violent crime enforcement…" the statement said.

It said the administration believes all violent crimes are unacceptable, regardless of the victims, and should be punished "firmly."

Former White House insider Chuck Colson, in his Breakpoint commentary, at one point decried what he described as a "Thought Crimes" plan.

"This bill is not about hate. It's not even about crime. It's about outlawing peaceful speech – speech that asserts that homosexual behavior is morally wrong," he said.

"Some say we need this law to prevent attacks on homosexuals. But we already have laws against assaults on people and property," Colson continued. "Moreover, according to the FBI, crimes against homosexuals in the United States have dropped dramatically in recent years. In 2005, out of 863,000 cases of aggravated assault, just 177 cases were crimes of bias against homosexuals…"

He noted, as WND earlier reported, in other locations, such as England, Sweden, Canada, and even Philadelphia, where similar laws have been approved, the "Thought Police" already have prosecuted Christians.

In Philadelphia, a grandmother was hauled to jail and threatened with 47 years in prison for proclaiming her Christianity on a public street, Repent America has reported.

The woman, Arlene Elshinnawy, 75, and grandmother of three, was holding a sign: "Truth is hate to those who hate the truth," before she was hauled off by police officers.

House passes Democrat drill bill
Republicans criticize plan for leaving 88% of offshore oil off-limits

Offshore oil drilling, which has dominated energy debates in the U.S. presidential campaign, is now coming to the Senate.

The House late Tuesday approved on a 236-189 vote legislation that would open waters 50 miles (80 kilometers) off the Pacific and Atlantic coasts to oil and natural gas development -- if the adjacent states agree to go along.

The legislation now goes to the Senate, where Democratic leaders are expected to mold it to their liking in the next few days.

So far, the Senate has indicated it has no intention of going as far as the House in expanding offshore oil and gas drilling beyond the western Gulf of Mexico, where energy companies have been pumping oil and gas for decades.

At least two proposals being crafted in the Senate would allow drilling in some areas along the southern Atlantic from Virginia to Georgia. But the Pacific and remainder of the Atlantic seaboard would not be affected.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democratic, also has said he would make way for a vote on a broader Republican drilling proposal that would allow states to opt for offshore exploration from New England to the Pacific Northwest and share in the royalties that are collected.

Congress has renewed bans on drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and the eastern Gulf of Mexico off Florida annually for the past 26 years.

But expanded offshore drilling has become a mantra of Republican energy policy that has been felt in both presidential and congressional campaigns, even though lifting the drilling ban would have little if any impact on gasoline prices or produce any more oil for years.

Republican presidential nominee John McCain vowed at the recently concluded Republican convention to push for new offshore oil and natural gas drilling as delegates chanted "drill, baby, drill." His Democratic rival, Barack Obama, also has said he supports more drilling as part of a broader energy package.

But in the Senate the issue of drilling remains divisive.

No matter what the proposal, it is expected to face a filibuster and no one has yet to predict with certainty that any drilling bill will garner the 60 votes needed to overcome such a roadblock.

The drilling measure passed late Tuesday in a largely party-line vote by the House is unlikely to survive the Senate.

President George W. Bush, who has called for ending the offshore drilling bans, signaled he would veto the legislation if it reached his desk, arguing that it would stifle offshore oil development instead of increasing it.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democratic, called the bill "a new direction in energy policy ... that will end our dependence on foreign oil" by shifting federal subsidies from promoting the oil industry to spurring development of alternative energy sources and energy efficiency.

The House measure would allow drilling in waters 50 miles (80 kilometers) from shore almost everywhere from New England to Washington state as long as a state agrees to go along with energy development off its coast. Beyond 100 miles (160 kilometers), no state approval would be required. The drilling ban would remain in the eastern Gulf of Mexico.

But Republicans called the drilling measure a ruse to provide political cover to Democrats feeling pressure to support more drilling at a time of high gasoline prices.

"How much new drilling do we get out of this bill? It's zero. Just zero," declared House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio. "It's a hoax on the American people. This is intended for one reason ... so the Democrats can say we voted on energy."

The bill would not share royalties from energy production with the adjacent states, which Republicans said would keep states from accepting any new drilling off their beaches. Republicans also cited Interior Department estimates that 88 percent of the 18 billion barrels of oil believed to be in waters now under drilling bans would remain off-limits because they are within the 50-mile (80-kilometer) protective coastal buffer.

The House-passed bill calls for rolling back nearly $18 billion in tax breaks over 10 years for the five largest oil companies and using the revenue for tax incentives to help commercialize alternative energy such as solar, wind and biomass, and programs that foster energy efficiency.

The bill also would require the president to make available oil from the government's Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Pelosi said such a move is needed to drive down gasoline prices, although oil prices have dropped dramatically in recent weeks and many energy experts believe gasoline prices will fall as well after refineries recover from Hurricane Ike.

Democrats added a provision at the last minute that makes it a federal crime for oil companies with federal leases to provide gifts to government employees, a response to a recent sex and drug scandal involving the federal office that oversees the offshore oil royalty program and energy company employees.

The House bill also would:

--Provide tax credits for wind and solar energy industries, the development of cellulose ethanol and other biofuels.

--Require utilities nationwide to generate 15 percent of their electricity from solar, wind or other alternative energy sources.

--Give tax breaks for new energy efficiency programs, including the use of improved building codes, and for companies that promote their employees' use of bicycles for commuting.

Supremes to consider 'Statue of Tyranny'
Ruling in Utah case could impact U.S. monuments from shore to shore

Arguments over whether there ultimately is to be a Statue of Tyranny in New York Harbor or a tribute to Adolf Hitler among a collection of World War II memorials have been scheduled before the U.S. Supreme Court in just a few weeks, and a law firm arguing against those ideas has submitted its response brief.

"The basic question is whether a city gets to decide which permanent, unattended monuments, if any, to install on city property," said the document filed by the American Center for Law & Justice. "The answer is 'Yes.'"

The case stems from a claim from a Utah organization called Summum that it has the First Amendment right to demand erection of a monument to its seven "aphorisms" in the city of Pleasant Grove, Utah.

A federal district court declined to order the city to erect Summum's monument, but a three-judge federal appeals court panel in the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the ruling, opening the door wide for any organization to post virtually any type of monument on any public property for any reason.

The ACLJ then took the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, which agreed to review the arguments and make a decision.

"Summum's assertion of a right to force its monument upon the city has no legitimate basis in Supreme Court case law," said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the ACLJ. He'll present the oral arguments to the high court on Nov. 12.

"We're hopeful the high court will overturn the 10th Circuit's decision that ultimately would cause havoc for local governments," Sekulow said.

If the ruling is not reversed, the alternative to allowing any monument for any reason would be to remove all monuments, the brief argued.

The case began with the demand from Summum, which was begun in Salt Lake City in 1975 and calls itself a church. It sued Pleasant Grove in federal court, alleging because the city had a donated Ten Commandments monument in a city park, the First Amendment required the city to accept and display a monument to Summum's seven aphorisms.

Those, according to a church website, predate the 10 Commandments and include: The principle of psychokinesis, the principle of correspondence, the principle of vibration, the principles of opposition, the principle of rhythm, the principle of cause and effect and the principle of gender.

The "church" claims the aphorisms were written on the original stone tablets given by God to Moses, the tablets he broke when he saw the Israelites had manufactured a golden calf idol during his absence. The organization says they were broken because Moses realized people couldn't understand the aphorisms, so he came down a second time with the Ten Commandments.

But the dispute over erecting a local monument has national consequences, the ACLJ said.

"The court of appeals' approach would make the government's display of the Statue of Liberty the speech of France, not the United States, entitling others to erect counter-monuments," the ACLJ said. "Likewise, the Vietnam, Korean, World War II, and upcoming Martin Luther King, Jr., monuments in the nation's capital would likely be deemed private speech, not government speech, entitling Summum and everyone else with a monument to occupy their own corner of the National Mall."

"A comparison between Pleasant Grove's acceptance and placement of the Ten Commandments monument donated by the Eagles, and the 1877 Congressional Resolution accepting thet Statue of Liberty reveals striking similarities as to the manner of acceptance, placement, and purpose of these monuments," the ACLJ outlined in its newest filing.

* "Just as the president of the United States was 'authorized and directed to accept' the Statue of Liberty, the monument donated by the Eagles was erected 'with the specific permission and approval of Pleasant Grove and its governing council,'" the brief said.

* "Just as Congress directed the president 'to designate and set apart for the erection' of the Statue of Liberty 'a suitable site…,' the mayor of Pleasant Grove directed 'that a letter be written the Fraternal Order of Eagles accepting the monolith of 'The Ten Commandments' and stating it would be placed in a prominent place in the Rose Garden Park,'" the brief continued.

* "Just as the 'citizens of the French Republic' were to 'erect at their own cost a colossal bronze statue of 'Liberty enlightening the world,'' the Fraternal Order of Eagles 'paid for the creation and installation of [the Ten Commandments,]'" the brief compared.

* "Just as the completion of the Statue of Liberty was 'to be inaugurated with such ceremonies as will serve to testify the gratitude of our people for this expressive and felicitous memorial of the sympathy of the citizens of our sister Republic,' the 'unveiling ceremony' of the Ten Commandments monument 'took place in connection with the Fraternal Order of Eagles sixty-first convention,' where 'Mayor Cook said he thought the monument 'would serve to remind the citizens of their pioneer heritage,'" the brief said.

"If Pleasant Grove did not go far enough in demonstrating 'government speech' in accepting and placing the Ten Commandments monument in 1971, neither did Congress in accepting the Statute of Liberty in 1877. And if the Statue of Liberty remains private speech, despite government acceptance, placement, and purpose – the same government acceptance, placement, and purpose found in Pleasant Grove – then Congress should be prepared to make room for a Statue of Tyranny," the brief said.

The ACLJ said 15 friend-of-the-court briefs have been filed on behalf of the city, including those representing 14 states and New York City.

Even organizations that typically oppose the ACLJ, including Americans United for Separation of Church and State and People for the American Way, supported the ACLJ's First Amendment free speech questions in the case.

The ACLJ has argued the First Amendment does not require that a government park be turned into a "cluttered junkyard of monuments contributed by all comers," but the 10th Circuit ruling made several crucial errors and failed to recognize that.

"First, the court below fundamentally misapprehended the distinction between government speech and private speech in this case," the arguments said. "Second, the court below misidentified the relevant 'forum.' Third, the court erroneously held that city parks are traditional public fora for private, unattended, permanent monuments. Fourth, the lower court erred by holding that a city's acceptance of donated monuments creates a designated public forum for private speech through such monuments."

The concept of allowing anything as a monument is "scary," Frank Manion, of the ACLJ, told WND earlier. "The Minutemen in Massachusetts? We need a Redcoat. A George Washington statue? Why not George the 3rd. A Holocaust memorial? How about a Hitler memorial?"

The ACLJ said the Ten Commandments monuments are the real targets of the legal actions, because in many circumstances, cities or other governments likely would order such monuments removed, rather than order acceptance of others.

The ACLJ, which has worked on the case with the Thomas More Law Center, contends that the Constitution "does not empower private parties to force permanent displays into a park, crowding out the available physical space and trumping the government's own vision" for the parks.

Washington judge rules for same-sex benefits
'Domestic partners' included under state law

A Washington man who quit his job to care for his dying, same-sex domestic partner is entitled to unemployment benefits, a Thurston County judge has ruled.

State law lets a worker leave a job for "good cause" and receive benefits for 11 reasons. Those include a death, an illness or a disability affecting the person's immediate family, according to the Northwest Women's Law Center's Unemployment Law Project.

In his ruling, Superior Court Judge Richard Hicks found that in the case of Dean Lake, the definition of immediate family included Lake's domestic partner of 12 years, Tony Sisneros. Lake had quit a job to care for Sisneros, who had terminal brain cancer and died in September 2007, according to the law center.

"The Employment Security Act, read in its entirety, includes stable domestic partnerships within the definition of 'immediate family' " under two pertinent laws, Hicks said in a one-page, hand-written order entered into the Superior Court record Friday.

The ruling appeared to be the first to address the issue of same-sex domestic partners, said Janet Chung of the law center. But Employment Security spokesman Mark Varadian said the ruling "doesn't apply beyond this particular case," and the agency "would still be looking at cases like this on a case-by-case basis."

In his ruling, Hicks reversed the Employment Security position on Lake and sent the matter back to the department for the awarding of benefits and attorney fees. Varadian said the agency won't appeal and understands it is "on the hook" for legal fees for Northwest Women's Law Center and The Unemployment Law Project, which handled Lake's 2007 suit.

Lake and Sisneros were in a committed relationship and owned bank accounts and property together, Women's Law Center executive director Lisa Stone said in a news release. After Lake used all of his vacation and sick leave to care for his partner, his employer denied him additional leave and he left the job.

"It is unfair and immoral to force people like Mr. Lake who are in stable, long-term relationships — especially couples who are unable to marry — to choose between their economic security and caring for the persons they love during times of illness," Stone added. "Now the judge has affirmed that is it also illegal and that such partners are equally entitled to unemployment benefits."

Employment Security defines "immediate family" to include "spouses and children, but also step-children, foster children, parents of either spouse, and other relatives who temporarily or permanently reside in the same household," the law center said in its release.

Lake could not be reached immediately to comment.

I saw this following article on the Stop The ACLU blog and just couldn't help but post it here.

Surrender Monkey Friday: Dem Congress Punts

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The Surrender Monkey is simply thrilled by news that came out Thursday, and demanded that he be allowed to cover it

Quote

The Democratic-controlled Congress, acknowledging that it isn’t equipped to lead the way to a solution for the financial crisis and can’t agree on a path to follow, is likely to just get out of the way.

Lawmakers say they are unlikely to take action before, or to delay, their planned adjournments — Sept. 26 for the House of Representatives, a week later for the Senate. While they haven’t ruled out returning after the Nov. 4 elections, they would rather wait until next year unless Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, who are leading efforts to contain the crisis, call for help.

One reason, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said yesterday, is that “no one knows what to do” at the moment.

So, we have major financial turmoil in the markets, problems with housing, particularly Freddie and Fannie, and what does, the Democrat controlled congress do? Punt. On first down. To President Bush. The guy they have been maligning for days over the latest financial problems (not to mention since 1/21/2001.)

Queen Nancy and Dingy Harry say “Save us, Dubya, save us!” Glad to know we are getting value for the money Congress appropriates to itself.

Captain Ed:

Quote

First Pelosi adjourns the House in the middle of an energy supply crisis that hammered the working class with sharp hikes in fuel and food costs. Now both Pelosi and Reid want to adjourn both chambers of Congress rather than deal with the credit crisis that Washington created with its heavy-handed mandates to issue credit to marginally qualified borrowers and lack of oversight over government-guaranteed entities. Given their ineptitude, we probably should be grateful — as Bloomberg notes. But considering their rhetoric over the last few days, their retreat may be one of the most cowardly acts in domestic policy seen in a very long time.

He dubs the Congress the Brave Sir Robin Congress. That character is Surrendie’s favorite from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Tancredo Proposes Anti-Sharia Bill...

Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo has taken the Islamic bull(y) by the horns and has drawn up legislation that would bar entry to those Muslims who stand for Sharia Law and calls for the deportation for those that are already here who advocate Sharia law. Regardless of the out come of this, Tancredo's legislation opens up two new debates. The first is how can any of our lawmakers actually vote against this? Are any of our lawmakers actually crazy enough to vote in favor of Sharia over our Constitution? Another debate is where will American Muslims stand on this, will they scream freedom of religion on this? Because we can never truly give them freedom of religion, because to do that would mean to allow Sharia to be the law of the land. So American Muslims where do you stand, with the freedoms of America or the brutality of Sharia?

Amid disturbing revelations that the verdicts of Islamic Sharia courts are now legally binding in civil cases in the United Kingdom, U.S. Representative Tom Tancredo (R-Littleton) moved quickly today to introduce legislation designed to protect the United States from a similar fate.

According to recent news reports, a new network of Sharia courts in a half-dozen major cities in the U.K. have been empowered under British law to adjudicate a wide variety of legal cases ranging from divorces and financial disputes to those involving domestic violence.

“This is a case where truth is truly stranger than fiction,” said Tancredo. “Today the British people are learning a hard lesson about the consequences of massive, unrestricted immigration.”

Sharia law, favored by Muslim extremists around the world, often calls for brutal punishment – such as the stoning of women who are accused of adultery or have children out of wedlock, cutting off the hands of petty thieves and lashings for the casual consumption of alcohol. Under Sharia law, a woman is often required to provide numerous witnesses to prove rape allegations against an assailant – a near impossible task.

“When you have an immigration policy that allows for the importation of millions of radical Muslims, you are also importing their radical ideology – an ideology that is fundamentally hostile to the foundations of western democracy – such as gender equality, pluralism, and individual liberty,” said Tancredo. “The best way to safeguard America against the importation of the destructive effects of this poisonous ideology is to prevent its purveyors from coming here in the first place.”

Tancredo’s bill, dubbed the “Jihad Prevention Act,” would bar the entry of foreign nationals who advocate Sharia law. In addition, the legislation would make the advocacy of Sharia law by radical Muslims already in the United States a deportable offense.

Tancredo pointed to the results of a recent poll conducted by the Centre for Social Cohesion as evidence that the U.S. should act to prevent the situation in Great Britain from replicating itself here in the United States. The poll found that some 40 percent of Muslim students in the United Kingdom support the introduction of Sharia law there, and 33 percent support the imposition of an Islamic Sharia-based government worldwide.

“We need to send a clear message that the only law we recognize here in America is the U.S. Constitution and the laws passed by our democratically elected representatives,” concluded Tancredo. “If you aren’t comfortable with that concept, you aren’t welcome in the United States.”

Dos Palos students protest after school forces sophomore to remove American flag shirt

Students at Dos Palos High School protested Thursday -- by wearing patriotic regalia to school -- after a sophomore student was forced to remove a T-shirt depicting the American flag.

Officials at the Merced County school confirmed Thursday that Jake Shelly was forced to take off a red, white and blue tie-dyed American flag T-shirt on Tuesday. The shirt said nothing offensive, just: "United States of America, Washington, D.C."

The school's assistant principal issued Shelly a bright yellow T-shirt that read "DCV: Dress Code Violator" to wear for the rest of the day. He was given his shirt back after classes ended.

"It was really embarrassing and humiliating to have to wear that all day -- and just for supporting your country," his sister Kaycee Shelly said.

Kaycee Shelly told members of the media at lunchtime that her brother was overwhelmed and did not want to do any more interviews.

Earlier in the day, he was speaking with a local news station when an unidentified teacher walked up to him, ripped off the microphone clipped to his shirt and told him he was not allowed to talk to the media.

District officials said they apologized to the student, his family and the local American Legion on Wednesday -- Constitution Day.

"In reviewing the dress code at the time, an administrator felt the shirt was in violation of that section of the dress code," said Superintendent Brian Walker. "She asked him to remove it and he did."

The assistant principal initially thought Shelly's T-shirt violated a clause of the school dress code that does not allow "shirts/blouses that promote specific races, cultures, or ethnicities."

School officials said they will now interpret that clause of the dress code -- which was written at the beginning of this school year -- differently.

Defiance when asked to remove an article of clothing is an automatic 3- to 5-day suspension, according to the dress code.

"Certainly we are taking responsibility for it and it will not happen again," Walker said. "A shirt that has an American flag, a shirt that has a Chinese flag or a Mexican flag, is certainly not a violation of that part of the dress code."

Jake Shelly was wearing the tie-dyed T-shirt as part of a hippie dress-up day during homecoming week.

Students on campus started a campaign to wear as much red, white or blue clothing and carry as many flags as possible Thursday in protest of Tuesday's decision, despite the apology. Jake Shelly wore the same shirt he wore Tuesday and was not disciplined.

"I am glad so many people are supporting this and wearing red, white and blue," his sister said. She believes the swift change in rules was because of the overwhelming student action.

A.J. Galindo is one student who wore a patriotic shirt to school.

Galindo's shirt honored Marine Cpl. Joshua Pickard, a family member who died in Iraq in 2006. Pickard's two brothers remain active in the Marines.

"I think it is horrible that you can't wear an American flag to school without something like this happening," he said, referring to the flurry of activities during the school's lunch hour. "We have people fighting for our country and dying every day, but we can't wear an American flag at a public school?"

A.J. said he was proud of the patriotism displayed by his classmates.

His mother, Julie, said she was upset when she first heard the news Tuesday but feels better about the situation now.

"Initially, I was really concerned about what I heard, but after asking a few questions I realized the whole controversy is just the result of one person's misinterpretation of the rule," she said.

Julie Galindo said everyone makes mistakes and accepted the apologies by the school's administration.

She added that Dos Palos is a patriotic town and erected a veteran's memorial just last year. Several members of the education community served on a committee to erect the memorial that stands on the grounds of Marks Elementary School.

"I wouldn't want anyone to think of Dos Palos as an unpatriotic place," Julie Galindo said. "I feel very proud of my town and very proud of my country and very proud to wear the American flag."

Dos Palos High School sophomore Jake Shelly wore the same shirt Thursday that was the subject of administrative action earlier in the week. Many of Shelly’s schoolmates showed solidarity with the student by sporting their own patriotic T-shirts on Thursday.

Terri Gill, principal of Dos Palos High School attended the district's board meeting tonight and issued a formal apology.

Here is what she said:

"I would like to make a formal apology to our students, our community and our country. By no means was this done with the intent to ban our students from expressing their patriotism. The rule was actually written to encourage patriotism and school spirit, since we are all Americans and Dos Palos Broncos.

“A new administrator read the rule at face value. When the administrator talked with me, she then realized her error. The administrator then called the parent, who did accept her sincere apology and she then called in the student who too accepted her apology.

“We are very proud to be Americans. We wouldn’t be able to be involved in a meeting like this if we lived in many other countries in our world. Men and women have fought and many have died to afford us our freedom. I was raised by a father that was a member of the first Special Forces in the Marine Corp, he was a Marine Raider. Please know that God, Country and Family are engrained in my being.

“We wish we could reverse this situation, but we all know that is impossible. With that, we do hope that our students, community and country accept our wrong-doing, and know that Dos Palos High School waves our American flag with honor and will continue to promote patriotism with our young people. Thank you.”

After Gill concluded her statements, Roy Hart from the local American Legion made a short speech. Here are some of his comments:

“The last words of our Pledge of Allegiance – which we all just said – are ‘liberty and justice for all.’ That includes old guys like me and young men like Mr. Shelly.”

“A mistake was made in the last 36 hours and I have been in constant turmoil.”

“I had a speech all prepared; I stayed up most of the night last night. I was ready to unload several barrels, maybe even a Howitzer.”

But after the apologies – which Hart accepted – he decided to be a little less severe. Then he was watching the television news and saw a microphone ripped off of Shelly’s chest, which sent his “blood pressure through the roof.”

“It is hard for me to believe that a person in power might not know the laws and freedoms afforded to all citizens,” he said.

Hart was visibly upset during his comments, trembling and with tears in his eyes. He said Marks Elementary School (the site of the meeting) has one of the most beautiful Veteran’s Memorials “this side of the Mississippi” where he finds solace on Veteran’s Day.

“I hope we can put this behind us and I hope we can get something good out of this.”

“There is nothing stronger than the Constitution of the United States and that red, white and blue flag there protects it all. And we protect it,” he concluded to resounding applause.

There was also applause as Gill concluded her statement.

Congress still protecting you – from lightbulbs!
Bachmann says Republican challenge to reverse law forced to 'collect dust'

An act sponsored by 25 representatives asking the government to reconsider its ban on incandescent light bulbs has been stalled in committee – and the leading sponsor is faulting Democratic leadership.

The Light Bulb Freedom of Choice Act highlights growing concerns over the safety and environmental impact of compact fluorescent bulbs, or CFLs. Before the sale of incandescent bulbs is banned, the representatives are asking the comptroller general to prove replacement with CFLs will be cost-effective, reduce overall carbon dioxide emissions by 20 percent in the United States by 2025 and that the bulbs will not pose a health risk to the general public.

However, the act has been delayed in the Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality since March 14 – more than six months. U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., leading sponsor of the legislation, told WND Democrats are not concerned about pushing the act through.

"The Light Bulb Freedom of Choice Act, H.R. 5616, is currently collecting dust in the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, held up by Democrat leadership that refuses to make this legislation a priority," Bachmann said. "The Democrat leadership fills the congressional schedule with naming post offices and ends the work week early rather than do the people's business."

She continued, "They don't want to take up the real issues that make a difference in people's lives because those issues require them to make tough choices."

As WND reported, the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 was signed into law in December, phasing out the use of traditional, incandescent light bulbs in favor of CFLs beginning in 2012 and culminating in a ban on incandescent bulbs in 2014.

Concerns about mercury in the bulbs and mercury vapor released when a CFL is broken led Bachmann and a group of legislators in the House to second-guess the government's choice.

"Each light bulb contains between 3-6 milligrams of mercury," Bachmann said earlier in an MSNBC interview. "There's a question about how that mercury will fill up our landfills, and also if you break one in your home, you'll have mercury that instantaneously vaporizes in your home. That poses a very real threat to children, disabled people, pets, senior citizens. And I just think it's very important that Americans have the choice to decide, would they like an incandescent or a (CFL)?"

Bachmann introduced the bill in March because, she said, she thought Congress had "acted a bit prematurely" in taking a popular environmentalist cause and making it a government dictate. She told WND Democrats want control, and forcing Americans to buy CFLs is just one more way to interfere with their daily choices.

"The light bulb ban exposes the Democrat mindset," she said. "They want to limit consumer choice and tell American families what products they can and can't buy.

"The light bulbs they are forcing on American families are not new," she continued. "Consumers have just been rejecting them for a variety of reasons: cost, aesthetics, health and environment concerns. At a time when hard-working taxpayers are struggling to make ends meet, the last thing they need is to have the government forcing them to purchase a more expensive and potentially unsafe product."

Following the introduction of H.R. 5616, the bill was sent to the House Energy and Commerce Committee and then sent to the Subcommittee on Energy & Air Quality, where it has languished without action or a hearing for since March. But Bachmann has not given up.

She said, "This act is important because the American people deserve the ability to choose what products they purchase for their homes and families."

Brand new push in Congress to prevent Shariah invasion
Bill intended to assure citizens they won't be governed by Islam

Congressman Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., introduced a bill to the House of Representatives that seeks to prevent Islam's radical Shariah law from gaining a foothold in the U.S. legal system, as it has in other countries.

Tancredo introduced HR 6975, the Jihad Prevention Act, last week. If made into law, the bill would allow American authorities to prevent advocates of Shariah law from entering the country, revoke the visa of any foreigners that did champion Shariah law and revoke naturalization for citizens that seek to implement Shariah law in the U.S.

The radical form of Islam's Shariah religious law includes several statutes often objectionable to Western minds, including stoning for adulterous women, amputation for thieves and the death sentence for converting from Islam.

"When you have an immigration policy that allows for the importation of millions of radical Muslims," Tancredo said in a press release, "you are also importing their radical ideology – an ideology that is fundamentally hostile to the foundations of Western democracy – such as gender equality, pluralism and individual liberty."

"The best way to safeguard America against the importation of the destructive effects of this poisonous ideology is to prevent its purveyors from coming here in the first place," Tancredo said.

As WND reported earlier, large Muslim populations in Canada seeking to live out their faith have convinced the Canadian government to permit the enforcement of Shariah law.

The journal of the American Bar Association reported last week that Islamic court rulings are now enforceable in the United Kingdom as well.

Tancredo said he "moved quickly" to prevent similar legal entanglements in the U.S.

"We need to send a clear message that the only law we recognize here in America is the U.S. Constitution and the laws passed by our democratically elected representatives," concluded Tancredo. "If you aren't comfortable with that concept, you aren't welcome in the United States."

WND contacted the Council on American-Islamic Relations for comment on the bill, but received none.

HR 6975 has been referred to the House Committee on Judiciary for review.

Court slams lesbian 'adoption'
'Judicial activism is a cancer that eats away at the rule of law'

A pro-family law organization is praising an appeals court decision in Kentucky that blasted a lower court for literally ignoring state law and creating an "adoption" for two lesbian women in violation of expressed state law.

"Judicial activism is a cancer that eats away at the rule of law and undermines the confidence of the people in the legal system," said Mathew D. Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel and dean of Liberty University School of Law. "There is a clear distinction between the role of a judge and the role of a legislator. One interprets law and one makes law. The psychological dysfunction known as 'judicioactivism' is easily cured by a good dose of the Constitution, bed rest and removal from the bench to prevent relapse."

The ruling from the Kentucky Court of Appeals came in the case of two lesbians, identified only as T and S, who decided that T, the half of the pair unrelated to a child, Z, born from artificial insemination, should "adopt" the child, even though state law in Kentucky forbids that.

The lesbians, even though they were separated and moving on to other "life partners," convinced an activist judge that the case should be handled as a "stepparent" adoption, a set of circumstances that normally arise when a single parent gets married, and the newcomer to the family adopts the spouse's children.

But Kentucky doesn't allow lesbians to be "married," so those procedures did not apply.

"The family court's ruling that 'this is a stepparent adoption' presupposes a factual determination that T was, in fact, Z's stepparent. This was clear error. A stepparent is defined by one's indirect legal relationship to a child. A stepparent to a child is one, other than a biological or adoptive parent of that child, who marries one of the child's biological or adoptive parents," the appellate ruling said.

"Stepparent status requires a legal marriage to the child's parent. We do not see how this elemental concept eluded the court below and can only conclude that it was knowingly ignored."

The ruling said stepparent adoptions are only legal when the stepparent is married to a biological parent, and reaffirmed that marriage can exist only between one man and one women.

"It's not this or any court's role to judge whether the legislature's prohibition of same-sex marriage … is morally defensible or socially enlightened," wrote Judge Glenn Acree in the opinion. "Nor is it this or any court's role … to craft any means by which the legal consequences of such a prohibition may be negated or avoided."

"What occurred here amounted to 'reinstituting by judicial fiat common law marriage which by expressed public policy is not recognized,'" the court ruling said.

"We cannot ignore – and the family court should not have ignored – the fact that the parties' relationship 'simply does not exist as a 'marriage' of any kind,'" the court said.

"Without question, it is inappropriate to use a legal fiction to sidestep a public policy so clearly expressed by the Legislature in statute and by the People of the Commonwealth in its ratification of a Constitution provision," the court said. "Failure to strictly adhere to the adoption laws have resulted in some painful decisions… The decision in this case was destined to join their ranks."

Liberty Counsel said an activist Florida county circuit court has issued a similar opinion, suggesting Florida's 31-year-old law banning adoptions by homosexuals was "somehow unconstitutional," despite the fact the same law has been ruled constitutional by both state and federal courts.

"In fact, Liberty Counsel successfully defended the same law at the federal court of appeals that upheld the law. Despite the fact that these decisions by the appeals courts are binding on the Florida trial judge, he lawlessly disregarded these binding precedents," Liberty Counsel said.

The Kentucky court opinion noted that in the particular case at issue, there will be no happy endings. State law affirms that an "adoption" order is final one year after issuance and that deadline already has passed. The appeals court judges returned the case to family court, where a judge will have to work the dispute over custody, since the earlier "permanent joint custody" order was void.

__________

We need more Judges like this one and those "lawless" ones do indeed need to be removed from the bench.

Bill would boot U.N. from U.S.
Tancredo cites anti-American, anti-Jewish grandstanding

With the clock ticking on his final days in Congress, Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., a former presidential candidate, is introducing a flurry of controversial legislation – the latest, a bid to kick the United Nations out of the U.S.

"The U.N. has coddled brutal dictators, anti-Semites, state sponsors of terrorism, and nuclear proliferators – while excluding democratic countries from membership and turning a blind eye to humanitarian tragedies and gross violations of human rights around the globe," Tancredo said. "The U.N.'s continued presence in the United States is an embarrassment to our nation, and the time has come for this ineffective organization to pack its bags and hit the road."

This week Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is back in New York to address the U.N. His speech has drawn thousands of protesters in New York City.

Tancredo's bill, dubbed the U.N. Eviction Act, would direct Attorney General Michael Mukasey to initiate condemnation proceedings against all United Nations properties within the United States, and sell the property to the highest bidder on the open market. The proceeds will be given to the Treasury Department to pay down the national debt. The bill would also bar the future purchase of property in the United States or U.S. territories by the U.N. or any of its agencies, and revokes the diplomatic privileges and immunities that U.N. officials and representatives currently enjoy.

"I refuse to sit idly by while Americans are forced to host Islamofascist dictators, like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, so they can spew anti-American rhetoric just blocks from Ground Zero," Tancredo continued.

Tancredo said the U.N. is an organization known for its bureaucracy and has become a showcase for anti-American dictators like Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro and, of course, Ahmadinejad. He said it has also become little more than a rubber stamp for Chinese and Russian foreign policy initiatives – blocking membership by the democratic nation of Taiwan in the world body, and failing to take any meaningful steps to halt the ongoing genocide in Sudan or the illicit nuclear programs in North Korea and Iran.

"If the U.N. is so keen to accommodate the foreign policy demands of rogue nations and dictatorships, perhaps the world body might be more comfortable relocating to one," concluded Tancredo. "I'm sure Ban Ki-Moon will have no trouble securing a new location in downtown Pyongyang or Tehran."

Last week, Tancredo made news by introducing legislation to prevent Islamic law from gaining a foothold in the U.S. legal system, as it has in other countries.

HR 6975, the Jihad Prevention Act, would allow American authorities to prevent advocates of Islamic law, or Shariah, from entering the country, revoke the visa of any foreigners that champion it and revoke naturalization for citizens that seek to implement it in the U.S.

Quote from: Pastor Roger on September 25, 2008, 01:01:28 AM

WOW! Now THAT is NEWS! WOW! And hip hip hooray! That's what I'm talking about! We need to write, email our officials in the backing of this guy! I've written my senators, congressmen, and Pelosi before and I will certainly do it again on this! WOW!
Lets not miss how this pertains to end times either. The moving of the U.N. This brings us even closer I think, as we indeed get closer each day. Getting closer is good news to me!

I got this in an email today so I'm leaving it as is. Feel free to copy and paste and send it on!

The Colonel and Lincoln…….POWERFUL

TAKE A FEW MOMENTS AND READ THIS LETTER. THESE ARE STRONG,
POWERFUL AND COURAGEOUS WORDS COMING FROM A RETIRED COLONEL, AND READ
WHAT LINCOLN HAD TO SAY AT THE END. WOW!

33 Senators Voted Against English as America's Official Language on June 6,
2007.

On Wed. 6 June 2007, Colonel Harry Riley, USA, Ret. wrote:

Senators: Your vote against an amendment to the immigration Bill 1348.... to
make English America's official language is astounding.

On D-Day, no less, when we honor those that sacrificed in order to secure
the bedrock, character and principles of America, I can only surmise your
vote reflects a loyalty to illegal aliens.

I don't much care where you come from. What your
religion is. Whether you're black, white, or some other color...male or
female......Democrat, Republican or Independent.....
But I do care when you are a United States Senator representing Citizens of America ...and Vote against English as the official language of the United States .

Your vote reflects Betrayal. Political Surrender. Violates Your Pledge of
Allegiance. Dishonors historical principle. Rejects Patriotism. Borders on
traitorous action and, in my opinion, makes you unfit to serve as a United
States Senator ... impeachment ... Recall ...Or other appropriate action is
warranted, or worse.

Four of you voting against English as America's Official Language were
Presidential Candidates: Senator Biden, Senator Clinton, Senator Dodd and
Senator Obama.

Four Senators vying to lead America, but won't, or don't, have the courage
to cast a vote in favor of English as America's Official Language when 91%
of American Citizens want English officially designated as our language.

This is the second time in the last several months this list of Senators
have disgraced themselves as 'political Hacks'..... Unworthy as Senators and
certainly unqualified to serve as President of the United States .

If America is as angry as I am, you will realize a backlash
so stunning it will literally 'rock you out of your socks'... And
preferably totally out of the United States Senate.

The entire immigration bill is a farce.... Your action only confirms this
really isn't about America... it is about self-serving politics......
despicable at best. It has been said: 'Never Argue with an Idiot....They'll drag you down to their level!'

PRESIDENT ABRAHAM LINCOLN SAID:
'Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damages morale
and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, quickly
tried and hanged!!!'

PLEASE KEEP THIS GOING AROUND THE UNITED STATES UNTIL THE
ELECTION IN NOVEMBER...

President would review 'hate crimes' plan
Reports say legislation expected to be resurrected

The White House would have to review any "hate crimes" plan that would arrive on the president's desk from Congress, a spokeswoman said today.

WND earlier reported on the expectation the plan, which was defeated a year ago when President Bush indicated it was not needed and he would veto it, would be returned to the agenda.

"Here's ultimately what we expect," Mathew Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel and dean of the Liberty University School of Law, told WND at the time. "The hate crimes plan is to be offered as an amendment to the Fiscal Year 2009 Department of Defense reauthorization bill. That's what the word is, that it's going to be offered as an amendment."

Pro-homosexual advocates long have sought such a law, but opponents fear it would be used to crack down on those who maintain a biblical perspective that condemns homosexuality as sin. Observers note it would criminalize speech and thought, since other criminal actions already are addressed with current statutes.

Canada already has an aggressive "hate crimes" law, and there authorities have gone so far as to tell a Christian pastor he must recant his faith because of the legislation that bans statements that can be "perceived" as condemning another person.

Some states already have similar statutes, too, and in New Mexico, a photography company run by two Christians was fined $6,600 by the state for declining to provide services to a lesbian couple setting up a lookalike "marriage" ceremony. Also, Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter earlier this year signed a bill into law that opponents describe as draconian, with one analyst expressing the opinion that it actually could be read as outlawing publication of the Bible in the state because of its injunctions against homosexuality.

That, of course, was just before the Wall Street scandal broke and grabbed the attention of Congress. Les Kinsolving, WND's correspondent at the White House, raised the issue at today's briefing.

"This May 3, 2007, executive order of the president statement says, 'H.R. 1592, the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act was unnecessary and constitutionally questionable.' And my question, if the provisions of this bill are revived and passed by Congress, will the president veto it?" he asked.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino promised a review.

"I think I'd have to take a look. I'm not familiar with that legislation," she said.

In the earlier discussion, Bush went on record specifically noting the "hate crimes" legislation would create special privileges for those who identify themselves with an alternative sexual lifestyle.

Staver said since criminal acts already are addressed with existing law, the only impact of "hate crimes" legislation would be to criminalize free speech and religious speech and a person's thoughts. For example, an assailant convicted of attacking a heterosexual might get six months in jail. Under a "hate crimes" plan, if the victim reported being homosexual, the sentence might be enhanced significantly, analysts said.

According to Rev. Ted Pike, who also has battled "hate crimes" plans, Staver's concern "is justified."

Citing an Aug. 22 Washington Blade story, Pike said Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass, a lead sponsor of the bill in the House, has called on the Senate to pass the measure this year as a freestanding bill.

"Frank, a homosexual, is as much a bellwether of pro-homosexual legislative trends in the House, as is Sen. Edward Kennedy in the Senate," Pike said.

Senate sends $634 billion spending bill to Bush to sign
Automakers gain $25 billion in taxpayer-subsidized loans, drilling ban nixed

Automakers gained $25 billion in taxpayer-subsidized loans and oil companies won elimination of a long-standing ban on drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts as the Senate passed a sprawling spending bill Saturday.

The 78-12 vote sent the $634 billion measure to President Bush, who was expected to sign it even though it spends more money and contains more pet projects than he would have liked.

The measure is needed to keep the government operating beyond the current budget year, which ends Tuesday. As a result, the legislation is one of the few bills this election year that simply must pass. Bush's signature would mean Congress could avoid a lame-duck session after the Nov. 4 election.

The Pentagon is in line for a record budget. In addition to $70 billion approved this summer for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Defense Department would receive $488 billion, a 6 percent increase. The spending bill also offers aid to victims of flooding in the Midwest and recent hurricanes across the Gulf Coast.

Such a huge bill usually would dominate the end-of-session agenda on Capitol Hill. But it went below the radar screen because attention focused on the congressional bailout of Wall Street.

The measure settles dozens of battles that have brewed for months between the Democrats who run Congress and the White House and its GOP allies.

The administration won approval of the defense budget. Democrats wrested concessions from the White House on $23 billion for disaster-ravaged states, a doubling of low-income heating subsidies, and smaller spending items such as $24 million more for food shipments to the elderly.

The loan package for automakers would reward them with $25 billion in below-market loans, costing taxpayers $7.5 billion to subsidize the retooling of plants and development of technologies to help U.S. carmakers to build cleaner, more fuel efficient cars. Companies would not have to begin repaying the loans for five years, drawing objections from Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., who predicted they would return for more help when the money is due.

Republicans made ending the coastal drilling ban a central campaign issue this summer as $4-plus per gallon gasoline stoked voter anger and turned public opinion in favor of more exploration.

The action does not mean drilling is imminent and still leaves the oil-rich eastern Gulf of Mexico off limits. But it could set the stage for the government to offer leases in some Atlantic federal waters as early as 2011.

Also in the bill is money to avert a shortfall in Pell college aid grants and solve problems in the Women, Infants and Children program delivering healthy foods to the poor.

In addition to the Pentagon's budget, there is $40 billion for the Homeland Security Department and $73 billion for veterans' programs and military base construction projects. Combined with the Defense Department's spending, that amounts to about 60 percent of the budget work Congress must pass each year.

Democrats came under criticism from the GOP for short-circuiting the normal process for a spending bill after it became clear that Republicans would force difficult votes on the drilling ban.

Democrats also wanted to avoid an election-year clash with Bush that would have played in his favor. They are willing to take their chances that Democrat Barack Obama will be elected president in November and permit increases for scores of programs squeezed by Bush each year.

Bush had threatened to veto bills that did not cut the number and cost of pet projects in half or cause agency operating budgets to exceed his request. Democrats ignored the edict as they drafted the plan and the White House has apparently backed down.

Taxpayers for Common Sense, a watchdog group, discovered 2,322 pet projects totaling $6.6 billion. That included 2,025 in the defense portion alone that cost a total of $4.9 billion. Critics of such "earmarks" promise to scrutinize them in coming weeks and months for links to lobbyists and campaign contributions.

Members of Congress seek Planned Parenthood investigation
50 members ask Health and Human Services Secretary to look for fraud

More than 50 members of Congress have asked the Health and Human Services Secretary to conduct an audit of Planned Parenthood over allegations that the abortion provider has overbilled the federal government.

The request for the audit was initially made by a coalition of faith-based groups, including the American Family Association. Planned Parenthood receives federal funding through the Title X Family Planning Program, a 90-percent Medicaid match for family planning, and a federal program to purchase drugs from manufacturers at a reduced price.

Four years ago, state auditors in California began reviewing Planned Parenthood affiliates, but the audit was stopped after only one review was completed. That review found that Planned Parenthood of San Diego and Riverside counties overbilled the government more than $5.2 million.

Ray Ruddy, president of Gerard Health Foundation, is leading the call for a federal investigation. He says, unlike other federal contractors, Planned Parenthood does not have to bill the government at cost, but is able to bill at what they call "normal and customary rates."

"Let's say, right now, everybody bills the federal government at their cost, plus eight percent. Most vendors, ...whether they're wholesalers or retailers, actually bill out and mark up their stuff anywhere between 50 and 100 percent," Ruddy explains. "If you take everybody who's billing the federal government and they start to mark up their stuff, their materials they provide, by 50-to-100 percent -- I have not even begun to make a calculation of that, but I bet that would be in the billions of dollars."

Ruddy also alleges that officials in California redefined the term "at cost" to validate what he says are fraudulent billing practices of Planned Parenthood. He believes Planned Parenthood could have fraudulently billed the federal government in excess of $180 million.

Mexico funding U.S. Spanish classes for illegal aliens
Educators keep quiet, fear stoking 'anti-immigrant backlash'

For more than a decade, as the immigration debate has swelled on both sides of the border, the Mexican government has been quietly providing money, materials and even teachers to American schools, colleges and nonprofit organizations.

The programs aren't substitutes for U.S. curricula, but educators familiar with them say they provide a lifeline for adult students with little formal education by helping them become literate in Spanish — and by extension, English.

Yet many educators are wary of even talking about the programs, fearing they might stoke an anti-immigrant backlash.

The Mexican government, which spends more than $1 million annually on the programs, has many reasons to provide the aid to the immigrants and their children. The programs allow it to give back to the growing number of Mexicans living legally and illegally in the U.S. Behind oil, remittances from these individuals are the second-largest source of foreign income for the Mexican economy — almost $24 billion last year.

"We don't want the Mexicans in the exterior to feel like milk cows being expressed for the resources they were sending back," said Carlos Gonzalez Gutierrez, head of the Mexican government's Institute for Mexicans Abroad, which oversees most of the programs.

Mexicans abroad need an education to represent the country well, he said.

"The image and prestige of Mexico is inextricably linked to the image and prestige of these communities in the U.S.," Gonzalez said.

He also acknowledged that many of the adult participants are likely illegal immigrants, a group the U.S. government doesn't want to allow to stay, let alone have to support.

"Mexican involvement in American public education is another symptom of how things are different than the Ellis Island era," said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which seeks to limit immigration. "With technology, distance doesn't really matter. You never really leave the old country behind."

Krikorian said the U.S. shouldn't rely on Mexico to help integrate immigrants.

"Both the public and a lot of lawmakers want immigration on the cheap," he said. "Contracting out to the Mexican government is a cop-out."

Such responses are exactly what educators fear might take the few educational opportunities away from people like Alfredo Ortiz, 43, of Chattanooga, Tennessee, who came to the U.S. from the state of Chiapas with a third-grade education in 1992 and began picking cucumbers before becoming a landscaper. For years, he says, he didn't have time to study, but more than that, the thought of re-entering school terrified him.

Then he heard about a new program called "Plaza Comunitaria," or Community Plaza, at Chattanooga State Technical College, where he could study Mexican elementary and middle school subjects online, with assistance from volunteers who receive stipends from Mexico. That seemed less daunting than jumping directly into English, and he quickly enrolled.

Much to his surprise, he was soon confident enough to study an hour a night in Spanish and an hour a night in English, earning his middle school diploma from Mexico along the way.

"When I achieved understanding of the Spanish and how to conjugate those verbs, it was so much easier to understand how to conjugate in English," he said. "It also sets an example for my kids. They see I struggled, so they should reach even farther."

Plaza Comunitaria is the Mexican government's biggest educational export program. It began in 2002 in San Diego and now operates at 370 sites in 35 states from Oregon to Florida, providing $1 million in grants. But it's not the only one. Mexico also donates nearly 10,000 Spanish-language school books a year to U.S. academic institutions and community centers, sends more than 100 teachers to the U.S. to teach summer classes and has a pilot program with the University of Texas to help immigrant students receive U.S. credit for classes they took in Mexico, among other programs. Gonzalez said the costs of most of those programs were mostly in-kind and did not have the numbers.

Sonia Jaramillo, who has helped coordinate Plaza Comunitaria programs through California's Monterey County Office of Education, says experiences like Ortiz's are common. Many of her adult students come in for the Mexican classes because they feel more comfortable, but they quickly move on to English, or even courses in parenting and computers.

In western Oregon, the Estacada School District is using the online classes not just for adults but to help immigrant teens keep up with other subjects as they learn English.

"There's all this curriculum online. It's interactive, it's pretty cool, and it's free," said Joni Tabler, a former ESL teacher turned charter school principal. "A lot of their curriculum is a lot higher level than what we teach."

In St. Lucie County, along Florida's eastern coast, public school superintendent Michael Landon said the district was thrilled to receive crates of free textbooks from Mexico. They aren't part of the curriculum, but students can use them while they learn English or Spanish.

Across the state in Clearwater, near Tampa, the Mexican government has paid for several teachers to offer the young children of immigrants summer enrichment classes at a community center. On a hot summer day, the students skipped to the tune of traditional Mexican jigs before learning Spanish stories.

Juan Carlos Baldizar, 10, of Clearwater, was born in the U.S. but has shuttled between the two countries with his parents, both indigenous Mayans. He said the classes are cool because he learns "new stuff about Mexico," things his parents tried to tell him but he never really paid attention to, like the Mayan calendar.

Juan Carlos said being able to practice his written Spanish also helped him feel more comfortable at home and at school.

"If your mom was born in Mexico, and like the children are born in the United States, you have to learn two cultures," he said. "It's confusing sometimes."

The Mexican government is not the only foreign government to provide educational assistance in the U.S. France, for instance, has provided resources for years, and Japan offers books and other materials through the Japanese Foundation.

But neither country supplies anywhere near the number of immigrants Mexico sends to the U.S. each year, and their target populations tend to be more affluent and better educated, making them far less likely targets for anti-immigration sentiment.

In St. Lucie, angry e-mails and letters to the editor bombarded the school following reports of the donated Mexican texts after some local media mistakenly reported the books were replacing standard Florida texts. The controversy eventually died down.

Tabler faced a similar backlash in Oregon, at least at first.

"We don't want to get into political issues. We just want to educate kids," she said. "And if the curriculum from Mexico is a good tool for us to be successful, then we're going to use it."

Schwarzenegger: Communism still bad idea
Vetoes plan that would have opened public schools to avowed party members

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has decided that communism still is a bad idea, and opening up public schools and other public facilities to avowed party members who may seek to overthrow the U.S. government is not a good idea.

"Many Californians have fled Communist regimes, immigrated to the United States and sought freedom in our nation because of the human rights abuses perpetuated in other parts of the world," the governor said in a message accompanying a veto of a plan lawmakers had approved.

"It is important particularly for those people that California maintains the protections of current law," he said. "Therefore, I see no compelling reason to change the law that maintains our responsibility to ensure that public resources are not used for purposes of overthrowing the U.S. or state government, or for communist activities."

The proposal, SB 1322, had been submitted by Democratic state Sen. Alan Lowenthal of Long Beach.

"The Austrian upbringing of Arnold Schwarzenegger apparently taught him to dislike communism. If only he disliked the homosexual-bisexual-transsexual agenda that is attacking moral values of people of conscience," said Randy Thomasson, of the Campaign for Children and Families, a group that is active in monitoring California's social agenda.

WND reported earlier when members of the California Legislature approved the plan.

The lawmakers wanted to give unfettered access to public schools and facilities to activist communists who seek the "elimination" of the system of capitalism and who blame problems ranging from "homophobia" to "sexism" on the freer market system.

The plan by Lowenthal was viewed with horror by Campaign for Children and Families as well as officials with the pro-family Capital Resource Institute.

"[Legislative] passage of SB 1322 comes just as three Americans were arrested and aggressively removed from Tiananmen Square by communist police for peacefully protesting their opposition to China's brutal violation of human rights," the family group CRI said in its statement at the time of the vote. "The peaceful activists capitalized on international media coverage of the Beijing Olympics to draw attention to China's human rights abuses, including forced abortions and sterilizations, religious persecution of its citizens, and the denial of fundamental civil liberties."

Officials said the bill would "banish from current law the ability of schools to fire teachers for being communists. It will also allow communists to use public school property for their meetings."

Said Karen England, executive director of Capitol Resource. "Every parent should have the assurance that their child will not be exposed communist brainwashing in their classroom. In addition to approving such brainwashing, Democrat lawmakers also decided that children's safety is not as important as their radical political agenda. They rejected their chance to protect students from terrorists infiltrating their schools."

The lawmakers had, as part of their discussions, refused to endorse amendments that would crack down on terrorism.

According to current postings on the website for the Communist Party USA, racism, sexism and male supremacy, national chauvinism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, and anti-communism all can be blamed on capitalism.

"The problems of exploitation, oppression, and survival facing humankind can only be solved, ultimately, by the elimination of the exploitative system of capitalism," the organization states. "Our survival depends on a transformation to socialism. The U.S. working class, with a long revolutionary history and many powerful mass movements and organizations, has the potential to make this transition happen."

Capital Resource said promoters of the bill said communism is a "failed ideology" that no longer is a threat to the U.S.

"But simply visiting the Communist Party USA website shows that communists have no desire to support our government and still embrace radical beliefs," CRI said.

The Gun Owners of America said Democrats "who now want communists to start teaching your kids demonstrated amazing chutzpah."

"They praised Ronald Reagan for winning the Cold War and argued that 'it is now time to move on' and let these anti-freedom Marxists teach in our schools. Wow! Aren't these Democrats the same people who wanted to coddle the Soviets and who opposed Reagan's military build-up every step of the way? Now they are praising Reagan, but all in an effort to immobilize us," the group said in a statement.

"Never mind the fact that communism is still alive in countries like Cuba and China ... not to mention our own country. The Revolutionary Communist Party of the USA still calls for 'mass armed insurrections' which will lead to a civil war 'to finally and completely defeat the old ruling class," the GOA said.

Lowenthal represents the state's 27th District, including the towns of Artesia, Avalon, Bellflower, Cerritos, Downey, Lakewood, Long Beach, Lynwood, Paramount, Signal Hill and South Gate.

Quote from: Pastor Roger on October 01, 2008, 09:27:38 AM

WOW! - This is a perfect example of ABSOLUTE INSANITY. Average people with any common sense reading this article might think this is a joke, but it's not! The California Legislature actually passed this bill. I think that the people of California should secure and lock down their legislature immediately and make it a mental institution. Those folks are definitely a danger to themselves and others, so they should not be released from this facility. Maybe this could be seen as positive since they already have some of the worst NUTS in one place and they don't have to spend time hunting them down.

Green candidate claims government killed 5,000
McKinney: 'Data was entered into a Pentagon computer'

The former Democratic congresswoman from Georgia who now is the Green Party's candidate for president has claimed the government killed 5,000 prison inmates during Hurricane Katrina, dumping their bodies in a Louisiana swamp, according to a Fox News report.

Cynthia McKinney told a news conference in Oakland., Calif., Sunday that she heard the story from the mother of a National Guard soldier and that she checked it with "insiders" who want to remain anonymous.

"And these were mostly males and her son was afraid to talk because he had signed a silence agreement," McKinney said, according to Fox. "So he only complained to his mother. But the data was entered into a Pentagon computer."

She alleged the government authorized the executions to be done with a bullet to the head.

"I suspect that these are prisoners. ... So this investigation of the whole prison industrial complex is extremely important and it should not end with just a question of the nature of prisons in our country. These 5,000 souls also need some justice too," Fox reported she said.

Lt. Col Les Melnyk, a spokesman for the Defense Department, called it "outrageous."

"The claim ... doesn't merit any further consideration," he told Fox. "It would be inconceivable that 5,000 people would go missing in America without anyone noticing it prior to this."

Psychologists and psychology professors contacted by Fox declined expressed shock at the assertion.

"Wow! What a conspiracy theory," one professor exclaimed, Fox said.

Those commenting on the Fox website forum were pretty much of an opinion:

* "I am surprised she didn't claim it was 5,000 black men and a racist plot by Bush! Liberals eliminated all mental hospitals; now I know why! They would fill them all up!"

* "I have never heard of her, this lady is a FRUIT LOOP."

* "Life must be really scary on her planet."

* "Obviously not the brightest crayola in the box. ... Cynthia...stick a fork in yourself dear....your DONE!"

Fox said McKinney's presidential campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

She was in Congress for 12 years until 2007. She has, in the past, suggested President Bush knew in advance about the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks but didn't warn Americans because of his father's business interests.

In 2006, she was accused of slugging a Capitol police officer when she went through a security checkpoint without a congressional lapel pin for identification.

3 in 5 voters: Boot
every congressman
59 percent say they'd kick out
all members of House, Senate

If given the choice, a new poll reveals, 59 percent of Americans would sweep Capitol Hill clean of the current batch of senators and representatives to elect an entirely new Congress.

Only 17 percent of those polled said they would be willing to keep the current Legislature.

Rasmussen Reports conducted the national telephone survey on the heels of Congress passing a widely unpopular financial bailout bill, revealing a significant amount of voter dissatisfaction with the nation's current legislators.

The polling firm records a mere 30 percent of voters approved of the bailout, while 45 percent were opposed, and yet Congress passed it, leaving behind some highly critical voters.

The new poll shows only 23 percent of Americans have even a little confidence in the ability of Congress to address the nation's economic problems, and 76 percent doubt that most federal legislators even understand bills before they vote on them.

Further, less than half (49 percent) believe the current Congress is any more capable than a group of people plucked from the phone book, and nearly a third (33 percent) think the phone book congress would do a better job.

Despite the Legislature's dismal 11 percent approval rating, Rasmussen Reports pointed out that 90 percent of Congress is likely to remain following this November's election.

Rasmussen Reports dug into history to reveal that for well over 100 years after the U.S. Constitution was adopted, congressional turnover in national elections averaged about 50 percent. Following the New Deal era, however, those numbers began to decline. Since 1968, no national election has managed to muster even a 10 percent turnover.

The poll showed, however, that despite overall dissatisfaction, Democratic voters were more hesitant to throw the out the current, Democrat-controlled Congress.

Only 43 percent of those polled from Barack Obama's party were willing to sweep Capitol Hill clean. Among Republicans, 74 percent wanted to throw the whole batch out, and 62 percent of unaffiliated voters were willing to join in.

Even so, when asked if they would vote to keep the current Legislature, only 25 percent of Democrats polled wished to retain the current Congress.

Civil libertarians stunned at poll center dress code
'Policy undermines First Amendment, likely will affect right to vote'

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: October 17, 2008
8:20 pm Eastern

© 2008 WorldNetDaily

Civil liberatarians have been stunned by an announcement by Virginia officials that there will be a dress code at polling locations on Nov. 4, a move that will "most likely affect the right to vote."

Now John W. Whitehead, the chief of the Rutherford Institute, which pursues issues involving freedom and rights, has written to the state Board of Elections seeking a policy change.

"If you will not stand for the people of this commonwealth, we will," he said.

The state Board of Elections recently adopted a policy that provides, among other restrictions: "No person shall be allowed to show, display, or exhibit any material, object, item, advertisement, or piece of apparel, which has the purpose of expressly advocating the election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate."

Thus, T-shirts, pins, buttons and other "apparel" on behalf of a candidate is banned.

The policy, Whitehead said, has pitted the state board "against the ideals of free expression embodied in the United States and Virginia Constitutions."

"Thomas Jefferson understood that the first duty of government is to protect the freedom of expression," said Whitehead. "Regrettably, the State Board of Elections shirked this important civic duty when it adopted what essentially amounts to a dress code policy. This policy not only undermines the First Amendment right to free speech but will most likely affect the right to vote."

The ban on displaying political messages on apparel at polling places was proposed and approved at the Oct. 14 meeting of the Virginia State Board of Elections. Since its passage, the Rutherford Institute, along with other civil liberties advocates in the state, has voiced concerns that the policy's language is overly vague, which could very well result in local officials across the state gagging free speech and/or disenfranchising Virginia voters.

While courts have recognized that states may regulate speech in and around polling places in order to protect the right of persons to vote freely for the candidate of their choice, and to protect against fraud and preserve the integrity of the voting process, the Virginia policy goes much further, he said.

In his letter to Jean Cunningham, chairman of the SBE, Whitehead said, "This statutory attempt to protect voters from political harassment is a far cry from doing away with free speech altogether, especially the kind of passive political expression exhibited on apparel, buttons or other paraphernalia that is now being targeted for censorship by the SBE."

Whitehead said his institute already has been contacted by numerous individuals who are concerned that if they choose to exercise their constitutionally protected rights of the freedom of speech and expression, they will be denied the right to vote.

"Political speech is essential to and is the essence of self-government," Whitehead said. "It is for this reason that the protections afforded to expression under the law have the fullest and most urgent application to speech that relate to politics. In no way does passive political speech as expressed on clothing, buttons, stickers or other paraphernalia threaten the order of polling places or the freedom of other voters to cast their ballots according to the conscience," he said.

Whitehead said absent a response or a change in the policy by Monday means he would consider other options "legal or otherwise."

WND previously reported Missouri state law-enforcement officials supporting Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama were threatening those connected to campaign ads that appeared to be false or misleading, according to their interpretation.

Gov. Matt Blunt likened the intimidation to "police state tactics."

"What Senator Obama and his helpers are doing is scandalous beyond words, the party that claims to be the party of Thomas Jefferson is abusing the justice system and offices of public trust to silence political criticism with threats of prosecution and criminal punishment," he said.

Hawaii drops universal health coverage
Governor cites budget shortfalls, other options available

Hawaii is dropping the only state universal child health care program in the country just seven months after it launched.

Gov. Linda Lingle's administration cited budget shortfalls and other available health care options for eliminating funding for the program. A state official said families were dropping private coverage so their children would be eligible for the subsidized plan.

"People who were already able to afford health care began to stop paying for it so they could get it for free," said Dr. Kenny Fink, the administrator for Med-QUEST at the Department of Human Services. "I don't believe that was the intent of the program."

State officials said Thursday they will stop giving health coverage to the 2,000 children enrolled by Nov. 1, but private partner Hawaii Medical Service Association will pay to extend their coverage through the end of the year without government support.

"We're very disappointed in the state's decision, and it came as a complete surprise to us," said Jennifer Diesman, a spokeswoman for HMSA, the state's largest health care provider. "We believe the program is working, and given Hawaii's economic uncertainty, we don't think now is the time to cut all funding for this kind of program."

Hawaii lawmakers approved the health plan in 2007 as a way to ensure every child can get basic medical help. The Keiki (child) Care program aimed to cover every child from birth to 18 years old who didn't already have health insurance—mostly immigrants and members of lower-income families.

It costs the state about $50,000 per month, or $25.50 per child—an amount that was more than matched by HMSA.

State health officials argued that most of the children enrolled in the universal child care program previously had private health insurance, indicating that it was helping those who didn't need it.

The Republican governor signed Keiki Care into law in 2007, but it and many other government services are facing cuts as the state deals with a projected $900 million general fund shortfall by 2011.

While it's difficult to determine how many children lack health coverage in the islands, estimates range from 3,500 to 16,000 in a state of about 1.3 million people. All were eligible for the program.

"Children are a lot more vulnerable in terms of needing care," said Democratic Sen. Suzanne Chun Oakland. "It's not very good to try to be a leader and then renege on that commitment."

The universal health care system was free except for copays of $7 per office visit.

Families with children currently enrolled in the universal system are being encouraged to seek more comprehensive Medicaid coverage, which may be available to children in a family of four earning up to $73,000 annually.

These children also could sign up for the HMSA Children's Plan, which costs about $55 a month.

"Most of them won't be eligible for Medicaid, and that's why they were enrolled in Keiki Care," Diesman said. "It's the gap group that we're trying to ensure has coverage."

Feds confiscate, pirate investor's gun-shop software
Advocates now fear government has 'back door' to private info

A small software company trying to create a program to help gun dealers comply with federal regulations now believes that the government purposefully stalled and then swiped the technology to create a copycat program of its own.

James LaMonte is the CEO and founder of Coloseum Software Corp. in Mansfield, Mass. He believes the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE) used the government's muscle to extract technology from his business for its own use.

LaMonte told Gun Owners of America, a non-profit lobbyist group defending Second Amendment gun rights, "As a small business owner, I never would have thought that our biggest competition was the United States government."

The GOA's website likens what the government allegedly did to Coloseum Software to the IRS creating a "government version" of Turbo Tax to shove the popular tax preparation software company out of business.

The GOA also fears that by muscling a government software program into gun stores, the BATFE may also be seeking an electronic "back door" for unrestricted access to gun dealers' records.

LaMonte explained to WND that when a customer purchases a firearm from a federal firearm license (FFL) gun dealer, the dealer must fill out the complicated Firearms Transaction Record, or form 4473.

Simple and common errors on the form, however, such as writing an "N" instead of the required "NO," are deemed in violation of federal law. If a gun dealer is discovered to commit too many even innocent clerical errors, the BATFE can revoke the dealer's license.

LaMonte cited the case of Red's Trading Post in Twin Falls, Idaho, which has fought for years to survive after the BATFE revoked its license for what the store's manager has called mostly human error in filling out forms.

"This isn't speculation," LaMonte told WND. "The facts are fact: an 85% decrease in FFL dealers in the last 10 years as a result of revocations from clerical errors. … That's the procedure; put them out of business for clerical errors."

So for the last seven years, LaMonte and Coloseum Software Corp. have been working on a program that would check and correct form 4473, guaranteeing it is filled out correctly and in compliance with government regulation.

In April, an FFL dealer filed for permission to use Coloseum's program, which led to a series of meetings between the BATFE and the software company to ensure that the program would be in compliance with the new 4473 form the government will require next month.

As the months and meetings went by, however, LaMonte claims his company was required to surrender extensive information about the specifics of its software, while the BATFE stalled on giving specifics needed to update the program.

"During this six- or seven-month period," LaMonte told WND, "we suspected the government was working with us to get this technology out there for the betterment of the FFL dealers, but it was actually just the opposite. They were using our technology processes in order to stall us in order to get their own technology ahead of us."

The BATFE then shocked Coloseum earlier this month by announcing to the FFL dealers that it was set to release its own electronic form 4473 program.

"We had no idea they were even considering creating their own technology," LaMonte said. "Had we known that, we certainly never would have met with them. We certainly never would have submitted an application to them, because the application was extremely thick with a step-by-step play manual on how the technology works. Had they mentioned it to us, we would have cancelled the meeting."

LaMonte told WND that the government has yet to release November's new 4473 form to his company so Coloseum can update its product.

An official at BATFE deferred to external affairs for comment, though the department has not returned WND's inquiries.

"How can a small business compete with the government?" LaMonte asked. "We can't, because we have to go to them for approval."

Military report: Terms 'jihad,' 'Islamist' needed

A U.S. military "Red Team" charged with challenging conventional thinking says that words like "jihad" and "Islamist" are needed in discussing 21st-century terrorism and that federal agencies that avoid the words soft-pedaled the link between religious extremism and violent acts.

"We must reject the notion that Islam and Arabic stand apart as bodies of knowledge that cannot be critiqued or discussed as elements of understanding our enemies in this conflict," said the internal report, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Times.

The report, "Freedom of Speech in Jihad Analysis: Debunking the Myth of Offensive Words," was written by unnamed civilian analysts and contractors for the U.S. Central Command, which is responsible for the Middle East and South Asia. It is thought to be the first official document to challenge those in the government who seek to downplay the role of Islam in inspiring some terrorist violence.

"The fact is our enemies cite the source of Islam as the foundation for their global jihad," the report said. "We are left with the responsibility of portraying our enemies in an honest and accurate fashion."

The report contributes to an ongoing debate within the U.S. government and military over the roots of terrorism, its relationship to Islam and how best to counter extremist ideology.

• Read the internal report, "Freedom of Speech in Jihad Analysis."

It cites two Bush administration documents that appear to minimize any link between radical Islam and terrorism.

A January 2008 memorandum from the Department of Homeland Security's Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties stated that unidentified American Muslims recommended that the U.S. government avoid using the terms "jihadist," "Islamic terrorist," "Islamist" or "holy warrior," asserting that would create a "negative climate" and spawn acts of harassment and discrimination.

Dan Sutherland, Homeland Security officer for civil rights and civil liberties, said the document is not department policy.

"This was a compilation of recommendations and thoughts provided to us by some prominent American Muslim thinkers and never was intended to be Department of Homeland Security policy," he said in an interview.

"If a paper from another part of government says this doesn't make sense, that's a valid point. This memo is a thought piece meant to stir discussion."

Mr. Sutherland said he agrees that a debate on terrorist terminology is needed in describing "the very serious threat we face."

A second document mentioned by the report was developed for the State Department by the National Counterterrorism Center's Extremist Messaging Branch.

It urges officials to use the term "violent extremist" and never to use "jihadist" because that will "legitimize" terrorists.

Michael E. Leiter, director of the counterterrorism center, questioned some of the memo's conclusions during a July 10 Senate hearing, said spokesman Carl Kropf.

"I do think you cannot separate out the fact that the terror fight we are fighting today involves Islam as a religion," Mr. Leiter said under questioning from Sen. Joe Lieberman, Connecticut independent. He added, however, "the ideology which motivates these terrorists has very little to do in reality with the religion of Islam."

One of the most sensitive issues in the new report involves the word jihad.

An Arabic word derived from the verb meaning "to strive," it appears about 30 times in the Koran, but "the preponderance of references refer to internal striving to prove one's piety," said William Graham, a professor of Middle East Studies at Harvard University.

About 10 references are clearly to fighting, said Mr. Graham, who is also dean of the university's divinity school.

The word, often translated as "holy war," has been used in a military context throughout Muslim history, said Princeton University Professor Emeritus Bernard Lewis, a leading authority on Islam.

Several terrorist groups, including Palestinian Islamic Jihad, include the word in their titles.

The Red Team report said jihad is an obligation of all Muslims under Islamic law and must be performed "until the whole world is under the rule of Islam."

However, the Koran states that the embrace of Islam must be voluntary, Mr. Graham said.

Jim Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute, said he had no problem using words such as jihad, provided it was made clear that militant groups were misusing the terms to justify their violent actions.

"They're not talking about jihad in a theological sense," Mr. Zogby said. "Jihad means to struggle or strive for the good and against evil. These people are talking about violent revolution."

Stephen Suleyman Schwartz, executive director of the Center for Islamic Pluralism in Washington, cautioned against interpreting the debate as a dispute between those who think Islam as a whole is bad and those who think Islam as a whole is good.

"Islam is manifestly in crisis, with bad people who are Muslims fighting against good people who are Muslims. That should be the point - how to mobilize the good people against the bad people," Mr. Schwartz said.

The Red Team report said the government documents in question reflect "the views and opinions of a very small [number] of Americans whose contributions may have escaped critical review. ... While there is concern that we not label all Muslims as Islamist terrorists, it is proper to address certain aspects of violence as uniquely Islamic," the report says.

The report notes that some terms for terrorists, such as "Islamo-fascist," are "conspicuously offensive."

The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), a prominent U.S. Muslim group, has argued that government terminology should minimize any connection between Islam and terrorism to avoid fanning religious hatred.

A council spokesman said Corey Saylor, CAIR's legislative director, recently stated the group's views on the issue in a Detroit News Op-Ed article.

Mr. Saylor said CAIR opposes the use of "jihadist" and other Islamic terms because the use of non-Islamic terms "serves the strategic purpose of isolating extremists and removing the false cloak of religiosity that they use to justify their barbarism."

Marine Corps Maj. Joseph D. Kloppel, a Central Command spokesman, said Red Team reports "are often controversial."

"But the resulting debate sharpens reasoning, forces intellectual integrity, and improves decision making and subsequent action," he said in an e-mail, noting that its products are "designed for internal use" and not meant to represent the personal views of the Centcom commander.

___________

In the US Army, Red Teaming is defined as: “structured, iterative process executed by trained, educated and practiced team members that provides commanders an independent capability to continuously challenge plans, operations, concepts, organizations and capabilities in the context of the operational environment and from our partners’ and adversaries’ perspectives.” (TRADOC News Service, July 13, 2005)

Voter fraud arrest leaves Republicans seething
GOP says trumped-up count designed to distract from ACORN

The arrest of a GOP voter registration recruiter on the eve of California's registration deadline has outraged the state's Republicans, who now say California's secretary of state, a Democrat, timed the arrest to distract the public from ACORN's voter fraud scandals.

Mark Jacoby, 25, was arrested this weekend for allegedly falsifying his own voter registration by fraudulently claiming his parents' Los Angeles County address so he could legally gather voter signatures in California.

Secretary of State Debra Bowen's office alleges Jacoby did not live at the address, thereby perjuring himself and committing a felony for falsely claiming voter eligibility. If convicted, Jacoby faces up to 3 years in prison.

Hector Barajas, communications director for the California Republican Party, however, told WND that the charges are bogus, claiming that while Jacoby travels the nation working on voter registrations, his childhood home is still his home.

"He still has his car payment that comes into his parents address, he still has his bills that come into his parents address and he files his taxes here in the state of California," Barajas said. "It begs the question … where else is an individual supposed to register to vote?"

Further, California Republicans are charging that the arrest of a GOP voting registration worker is a deliberate attempt to distract the public from the abuses of the more Democrat-friendly Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN.

California Republicans released a statement that reads, "It's clear that Bowen, herself the recipient of an ACORN endorsement (still displayed on her campaign website), has elevated these issues to achieve maximum political benefit and deflect attention from the Democratic Presidential nominee's high-profiled problems and associations with the radical community activist group ACORN.

"While we condemn voter fraud in all forms, it is evident that Debra Bowen is using her office to play politics with the public's perception of political parties. This is inappropriate at least, and an abuse of her office and a willing suspension of her duties at worst," the statement says.

"Voter registration fraud is a serious issue," Secretary Bowen said in a statement released immediately following the arrest, "which is why I vigorously investigate all allegations of elections fraud. Where there's a case to be made, I will forward it to law enforcement for criminal prosecution."

WND contacted Bowen's office for comment on the Republicans' assertions, but our phone call was not returned.

Both Republicans and the ACORN group have made headlines in Southern California in the past week.

On Friday, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported on ACORN voter registration violations, citing over 1,850 invalid registration cards turned into San Diego County and quoting the county's chief deputy of voter services saying some of the errors "were intentional because there were people who were being paid to turn in these forms, something similar to what we have been seeing in other parts of the country."

On Saturday, the Los Angeles Times ran a feature story on area voters claiming they were duped into registering as Republicans, a charge the state's GOP denies.

The Times story focused on Jacoby, whose company, Young Political Majors, was accused of tricking voters.

Late Saturday night, Jacoby was arrested, though not for anything directly tied to the Times story, but on a warrant outstanding since Oct. 3 for allegedly falsifying his own registration card.

"Why go out and arrest an individual the weekend before the deadline of voter registration?" Barajas asked WND. "They had an arrest warrant issued on Oct. 3. … But yet they used nine officers and seven squad cars, they held this individual for 19 hours."

Barajas told WND he believes Debra Bowen is turning a selective eye upon who she seeks to charge with voter fraud.

"In her statement [Bowen] talked about making sure they protect the integrity of voter registration," Barajas said. "Where's her denouncement of ACORN, when this last week the San Diego Union Tribune reported the district attorney found there were a lot of improprieties?"

He added, "Our kids have been assaulted, have been threatened … Where's the denouncement there? Where's the press release there? Where are the arrests there?

"The secretary of state is supposed to protect the rights of all. When you have this official engaged in partisan politics and not willing to denounce those on the left … it cries out for foul play in this election," Barajas said.

Limbaugh fights 'Hush Rush' push
Democrat senator thinks America 'well-served' by Fairness Doctrine

On-the-air comments by a Democratic senator looking to bring back the Fairness Doctrine are sparking new fears the voices of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly and Michael Savage could be silenced if Democrats control the White House and Congress.

Speaking on Albuquerque station KKOB, Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., told host Jim Villanucci,"I would want this station and all stations to have to present a balanced perspective and different points of view, instead of always hammering away at one side of the political [spectrum]."

Instituted in 1949 when radio ruled the airwaves, the Fairness Doctrine required broadcasters to allot airtime for controversial public matters, as well as time for opposing viewpoints. It was repealed in 1987 by President Ronald Reagan's Federal Communications Commission, leading to an explosion in the numbers of talk shows and hosts.

Bingaman said when the doctrine was in effect, "there were a lot of talk stations that seemed to do fine."

"For many, many years, we operated under a Fairness Doctrine in this country. I think the country was well-served. I think the public discussion was at a higher level and more intelligent in those days than it has become since."

Limbaugh, the most-listened to radio host in American history, blasted Bingaman's comment that there were "a lot of talk stations" before 1987.

"A hundred twenty-five radio stations talking about carrot cake recipes for the holidays," Limbaugh said. "Senator Bingaman, do you know how many talk-radio stations there are in America today? Try over 2,000 since the Fairness Doctrine was lifted, and on those 2,000 radio stations are countless points of view, from the extreme communist left to the wacko whatever it is way out on the fringe right. They're all over the place."

Limbaugh said it was clear that Bingaman "wants all of this kind of conservative talk, because it's effective, shut down."

Brian Maloney, who runs the Radio Equalizer blog, stated:

If enacted, the Fairness Doctrine (which is anything but) would create logistical nightmares for radio programmers, leading quickly to shuttered stations. The need to "balance" every viewpoint presented would also destroy the entertainment value of talk radio, driving away the audience.

With most major operators currently in deep financial trouble for unrelated reasons, these new restrictions on free speech could represent the final blow for the commercial broadcasting industry.

Even when confronted with the fact that Albuquerque is home to conservative and liberal commercial outlets, as well as public and satellite radio offerings, Bingaman still indicated he would support the move to silence talk radio.

In August, a poll by Rasmussen Reports found 47 percent of Americans believe the government should require stations to "balance" the political viewpoint expressed over the airwaves.

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Rasmussen found, however, 71 percent say it is already possible for just about any political view to be heard in today's media.

President Bush believes the so-called Fairness Doctrine is "Orwellian" and disagrees with its very concept.

Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama has expressed his opposition to bringing back the Fairness Doctrine, and an Obama aide told Broadcasting and Cable magazine in June that the debate is "a distraction from the conversation we should be having about opening up the airwaves and modern communications to as many diverse viewpoints as possible."

This is what the hate crimes law does and it will get worse if it isn't stopped.

Felony 'hate crime' against Christian dropped
Student pushed homosexual who got 'in his face'

A Christian college student who was accused of a felony hate crime and faced up to three years in jail after a confrontation with a homosexual who got "in his face" has pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count, and the hate crime has been dropped.

According to a report in the Champaign, Ill., News Gazette, Parkland College student Brett Vanasdlen, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor battery and was sentenced to two years of court supervision.

WND reported when it happened Peter LaBarbera of the activist group Americans for Truth said it appeared it was a confrontation between two students: one hollering at the second, and the second pushing the first away.

According to reports, on April 12 Vanasdlen and a friend saw two homosexuals leaning on each other and holding hands, walking toward them on the sidewalk. Vanasdlen commented on "two guys holding hands."

Then, reports said, one of the "two guys" grabbed Vanasdlen by the shoulder and shouted at him. Brett told him to go away, then pushed him away, the reports said. The homosexual fell to the ground and called police.

Vanasdlen not only was the only one arrested, he was accused of a felony because the alleged victim is homosexual, reports said.

LaBarbera said at the time the circumstances were confirmed by VanAsdlen's mother, Rona Lee, when he talked with her.

He reported she confirmed her son did not initiate physical contact with the other participant in the dispute, 20-year-old homosexual University of Illinois student Steven Velasquez.

"She said Velasquez was yelling at Brett and 'in his face' and that Brett told him twice to get away from him before pushing him away," he said.

The mother told WND at the time she'd been asked by legal counsel not to talk with reporters.

"I just ask for prayers," she said, identifying the state's "hate crimes" as the problem.

"This would never have even been an event if this was another heterosexual male and he had a conflict with, and that's just unfair," she said. "I am a conservative Christian, and my son is. All we are doing is asking for prayers and support from people that may be opposed to this sort of thing happening.

"The true danger of hate-crimes laws is selective prosecution and unequal protection under the law. If a homosexual were to push an obnoxious Christian onto the ground, or things got out of control after a verbal spat, would he be facing a felony hate-crime conviction and possible jail time in Champaign, Ill., right now?" LaBarbera said at the time.

AMEN!

Rom 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.
Rom 1:17 For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.

Salvation, salvation from death under the law by God's perfect grace.

Rom 3:10 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:
Rom 3:11 There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.
Rom 3:12 They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.

Rom 3:23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

Rom 5:12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:

Rom 6:23 For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Rom 1:18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;

Rom 3:20 Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

Rom 3:27 Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith.

Rom 5:8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Rom 5:9 Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.

Rom 2:4 Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?

Rom 3:22 Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference:

Rom 3:28 Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.

Rom 10:9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

Rom 4:21 And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform.

Rom 4:24 But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead;

Rom 5:1 Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:

Rom 10:10 For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

Rom 10:13 For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Democrats rule Senate – but not with super majority
Party falls short of securing 60 votes

Democrats fell short of securing a 60-vote majority in the Senate to effectively defeat attempts to block legislation.

They currently hold a 51-49 Senate majority, including two Democrat-leaning independents, but they quickly picked up several Republican seats.

Twelve Democrat and 23 Republican seats were up for election this year, and Democrats have successfully taken at least five of the coveted nine votes from the GOP.

Democrats taking Republican-held seats

Virginia Democrat Mark Warner secured a Senate seat long held by the GOP, replacing retiring Republican Sen. John Warner. In New Hampshire, Democrat Jeanne Shaheen defeated Republican incumbent John Sununu. North Carolina's Republican Sen. Elizabeth Dole lost her seat to Democrat Kay Hagan. Democrat Tom Udall took New Mexico, while Democrat Mark Udall will replace retiring Republican Wayne Allard of Colorado. Democrat Jeff Merkley defeated incumbent Republican Gordon H. Smith of Oregon.

Returning Democrats

Democratic vice-presidential candidate Joe Biden won another six-year term representing Delaware. Democratic Sen. John Kerry kept his Massachusetts seat, as did Democrat Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia. Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J.; Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.; Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark.; Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont.; Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa; Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I.; Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich.; Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D. and Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., also won new terms in the Senate.

Returning Republicans

Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.; Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.; Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine; Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn.; Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas; Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss.; Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga.; Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.; Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan.; Sen. Michael Enzi, R-Wyo.; Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo.; Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., kept their Senate seats. Mike Johanns, R-Neb., won the seat of retiring Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel, while Idaho Republican Jim Risch has beaten Democrat rival Larry LaRocco to replace Republican Larry Craig in the Senate.

Assisted suicide green-lighted in Washington
Following Oregon in allowing death by prescription

Voters in Washington are endorsing by a 56 percent to 44 percent margin a plan that makes the state the second in the union to allow residents to choose to die.

According to the campaign group NoAssistedSuicide.com, measure I-1000 will legalize assisted suicide and redefines suicide as a medical treatment.

"It would allow doctors to order lethal drug overdoses to people with life-limiting illnesses, even if they are depressed," opponents said.

With returns not completed, the vote was 421,592 to 331,270 in favor of the plan, according to state officials.

But there are potential problems, opponents said.

"People who are diagnosed with a life-limiting illness often become depressed," the opponents said. "This depression is usually temporary and treatable. I-1000 does not require assessment or treatment for depression. [I-1000, Section 6]. Because the waiting period is only 15 days, a suicidal 'cry for help' could be met with a bottle of lethal drugs, instead of encouragement and treatment."

The measure also does not require family members to be told and could create a situation similar to Oregon, the only other state that allows assisted suicide, in which a state health plan pays for assisted suicide for a cancer patient but not treatment.

It also has no requirement for a witness, creating the opportunity "for an heir or stressed-out caregiver to administer the lethal overdose to the patient without his consent."

Supporters of the plan raised $5.5 million to promote it, while opponents worked with about $1.5 million, largely raised from Christian groups and individuals.

Suicide proponents say it offers solutions.

"All it does is give terminally ill patients the choice of how and when to end their suffering," says the Yes on 1000 "Death with Dignity Facts" website. "People who choose Death With Dignity have few medical options left. At the end stages, it is compassionate to allow terminally ill patients the choice of ending their suffering."

But the Washington plan has been opposed by a wide range of leaders, including actor Martin Sheen.

"It's a dangerous idea that could be imposed on the poor, disabled and most vulnerable in our society," he said. "People who are ill need real medical care and compassion, not lethal drugs."

The New York Times reported last year 341 people died by their own "choice" in Oregon.

Among the prominent supporters has been a group called Compassion and Choices, formerly was known as the Hemlock Society.

Colorado voters deny unborn are 'persons'
Reject plan to set up challenge to Roe v. Wade

Voters in Colorado have denied that the unborn are "persons," rejecting a proposed constitutional amendment.

With full returns not yet reported, a measure that would have afforded the unborn constitutional rights was trailing 1,201,202 to 432,390, or 74 percent to 26 percent.

Voters in South Dakota also were approving a Planned Parenthood-funded campaign to defeat a near-total ban on abortion, and California voters were considering a plan to require parents of minors to be notified before abortionists performed operations on their children. Results from that vote were not yet available.

The vote in South Dakota, which just a few weeks earlier had celebrated a court victory over the abortion industry, was trailing 190,936 to 155,931, or about 55 percent to about 45 percent. In California, early returns had the notification requirement split almost 50-50.

Kristi Burton, a pro-life activist who organized Colorado's campaign, said the issue already is being considered in a number of other states for future elections.

"We consider this a victory regardless," she told WND. "This is a new issue."

"This goes to the foundation of the [abortion] issue. It does challenge Roe vs. Wade," she said. "We should consider this, as a nation, and I think we will."

The plan by ColoradoForEqualRights.com would have granted to the unborn the status of "personhood."

"All humans should be protected by love and by law, and this amendment is a historic effort to ensure equal rights for every person," said Burton.

Opponents fretted the campaign is a direct challenge to the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the Constitution granted a right to abortion.

"This proposed constitutional amendment will define a person in Colorado as a human being from the moment of fertilization, the moment when life begins," according to a statement at Colorado for Equal Rights.

"This amendment will establish a cornerstone for protecting human life in our society … and we all know this is the right thing to do," the statement said. "This campaign is not about the power of money – it is about the power of truth."

Officials said the effort had put Colorado, where the nation's first state law allowing abortion was written by Dick Lamm, a former governor, at the front of efforts to protect life in the U.S.

Personhood arguments started gaining momentum after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the procedure known as partial-birth abortion can be restricted.

The Colorado plan targeted a loophole U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun created when he wrote the original abortion opinion.

Blackmun concluded: "(If the) suggestion of personhood [of the preborn] is established, the [abortion rights] case, of course, collapses, for the fetus' right to life is then guaranteed specifically by the [14th] Amendment."

By defining the unborn as a person, supporters believe, voters can simply spread the covering of constitutional protection over them, too.

The South Dakota plan would have allowed abortion only for rape and a few other rare circumstances.

It was in the Plains state where an appeals court recently affirmed the constitutionality of a state law requiring abortionists to provide to potential patients scientific and accurate information about abortions.

Activists reported then that the new state law requiring abortionists to inform women – before an abortion – that the procedure "will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being" apparently led to a temporary shutdown at Planned Parenthood's abortion facility.

The law, endorsed by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, provides for penalties of up to two years in jail as well as loss of a medical license for abortionists who fail to follow its requirements.

The abortion ban had even been endorsed by one of the founding members of the National Abortion Rights Action League, Dr. Bernard Nathanson.

WND also reported just days ago when pro-life activists accused abortion promoters of attempted voter fraud.

The evidence was assembled by VoteYesForLife.com organization, which had a volunteer, equipped with a tape recorder, visit the abortion activists who organized opposition to Measure 11.

He then appeared on a YouTube video, describing how he was instructed to not only lobby against the abortion limits, but also vote, even though he was a temporary visitor to the state.

"They … told me that many of them have registered to vote in South Dakota and they have no intention of staying here," he said.

The activist identified only as Eduardo said, "They gave me posters, they gave me literature, and they also gave me instructions on how I could do the same thing they are doing which is to influence the election South Dakotans should decide."

The pro-life organization said it has asked South Dakota Attorney General Larry Long to investigate.

The ban included several exceptions: the life of the mother, the health of the mother, the rape of the mother and incest.

The South Dakota Legislature previously approved a complete ban on abortion, without such exceptions, which was endorsed by 44 percent of the voters in the state in 2006 in a ballot measure attacked by a multi-million dollar ad campaign by abortion providers.

In California, voters were asked to require parental notification before an abortion could be performed on a minor.

The group called YesOn4.net said girls under 18 cannot get a tan, a cavity filled or an aspirin from a school nurse without a parent knowing.

"But a doctor can perform a surgical or chemical abortion … without informing a parent."

The plan simply requires physicians to notify "at least one adult family member before performing an abortion on an under-18-year-old girl."

It's English-only for Missourians
89% of voters approve making language official

With support from 89 percent of the voting public, Missourians have decided English will be the official language of their state.

"Voters spoke decisively Tuesday on a ballot measure in Missouri to enact English as the official language of their state government," said K.C. McAlpin, executive director of ProEnglish.

"Our organization urged Missourians to vote 'yes' on constitutional amendment No. 1 to enshrine English as the official language in the state constitution," McAlpin said. "Unfortunately the United States is one of the few countries in the world without an official language. So having official English in a state constitution is important to protect it from being thrown out by activist judges who want to substitute their own rule for that of the people."

He said although the Missouri vote was split almost evenly between Barack Obama and John McCain, a huge majority approved the English plan.

(Story continues below)

"This landslide vote confirms national polls reflecting that a vast majority of Americans – Democrat, Republican and independent – reject costly and confusing multilingualism and support English as our nation's official language."

WND recently reported when the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 5642 in Montrose, Pa., delivered a new message for the many telemarketers who call its answering machine: Speak English.

Those who call the post when no one's around to answer the telephone will be greeted by a pleasant, female voice on the answering machine saying, "Hi, you've reached the Montrose VFW, Post 5642. We are an English-speaking, American establishment. If you do not speak English or believe in America, please hang up."

The one-story, white VFW post is a popular gathering point for veterans along Pennsylvania's Route 706, according to a WNEP-TV report. According to its post commander, the VFW's phone number is also a popular target of telemarketers, many of whom speak in broken English.

"We are living in America," Post Commander John Miner told WNEP. "We should be able to speak English."

Democrats target private retirement accounts
Party leaders in U.S. House discuss confiscating 401(k)s, IRAs

Democrats in the U.S. House have been conducting hearings on proposals to confiscate workers’ personal retirement accounts — including 401(k)s and IRAs — and convert them to accounts managed by the Social Security Administration.

Triggered by the financial crisis the past two months, the hearings reportedly were meant to stem losses incurred by many workers and retirees whose 401(k) and IRA balances have been shrinking rapidly.

The testimony of Teresa Ghilarducci, professor of economic policy analysis at the New School for Social Research in New York, in hearings Oct. 7 drew the most attention and criticism. Testifying for the House Committee on Education and Labor, Ghilarducci proposed that the government eliminate tax breaks for 401(k) and similar retirement accounts, such as IRAs, and confiscate workers’ retirement plan accounts and convert them to universal Guaranteed Retirement Accounts (GRAs) managed by the Social Security Administration.

Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., chairman of the House Committee on Education and Labor, in prepared remarks for the hearing on “The Impact of the Financial Crisis on Workers’ Retirement Security,” blamed Wall Street for the financial crisis and said his committee will “strengthen and protect Americans’ 401(k)s, pensions, and other retirement plans” and the “Democratic Congress will continue to conduct this much-needed oversight on behalf of the American people.”

Currently, 401(k) plans allow Americans to invest pretax money and their employers match up to a defined percentage, which not only increases workers’ retirement savings but also reduces their annual income tax. The balances are fully inheritable, subject to income tax, meaning workers pass on their wealth to their heirs, unlike Social Security. Even when they leave an employer and go to one that doesn’t offer a 401(k) or pension, workers can transfer their balances to a qualified IRA.

Mandating Equality

Ghilarducci’s plan first appeared in a paper for the Economic Policy Institute: Agenda for Shared Prosperity on Nov. 20, 2007, in which she said GRAs will rescue the flawed American retirement income system (www.sharedprosperity.org/bp204/bp204.pdf).

The current retirement system, Ghilarducci said, “exacerbates income and wealth inequalities” because tax breaks for voluntary retirement accounts are “skewed to the wealthy because it is easier for them to save, and because they receive bigger tax breaks when they do.”

Lauding GRAs as a way to effectively increase retirement savings, Ghilarducci wrote that savings incentives are unequal for rich and poor families because tax deferrals “provide a much larger ‘carrot’ to wealthy families than to middle-class families — and none whatsoever for families too poor to owe taxes.”

GRAs would guarantee a fixed 3 percent annual rate of return, although later in her article Ghilarducci explained that participants would not “earn a 3% real return in perpetuity.” In place of tax breaks workers now receive for contributions and thus a lower tax rate, workers would receive $600 annually from the government, inflation-adjusted. For low-income workers whose annual contributions are less than $600, the government would deposit whatever amount it would take to equal the minimum $600 for all participants.

In a radio interview with Kirby Wilbur in Seattle on Oct. 27, 2008, Ghilarducci explained that her proposal doesn’t eliminate the tax breaks, rather, “I’m just rearranging the tax breaks that are available now for 401(k)s and spreading — spreading the wealth.”

All workers would have 5 percent of their annual pay deducted from their paychecks and deposited to the GRA. They would still be paying Social Security and Medicare taxes, as would the employers. The GRA contribution would be shared equally by the worker and the employee. Employers no longer would be able to write off their contributions. Any capital gains would be taxable year-on-year.

Analysts point to another disturbing part of the plan. With a GRA, workers could bequeath only half of their account balances to their heirs, unlike full balances from existing 401(k) and IRA accounts. For workers who die after retiring, they could bequeath just their own contributions plus the interest but minus any benefits received and minus the employer contributions.

Another justification for Ghilarducci’s plan is to eliminate investment risk. In her testimony, Ghilarducci said, “humans often lack the foresight, discipline, and investing skills required to sustain a savings plan.” She cited the 2004 HSBC global survey on the Future of Retirement, in which she claimed that “a third of Americans wanted the government to force them to save more for retirement.”

What the survey actually reported was that 33 percent of Americans wanted the government to “enforce additional private savings,” a vastly different meaning than mandatory government-run savings. Of the four potential sources of retirement support, which were government, employer, family, and self, the majority of Americans said “self” was the most important contributor, followed by “government.” When broken out by family income, low-income U.S. households said the “government” was the most important retirement support, whereas high-income families ranked “government” last and “self” first (www.hsbc.com/retirement).

On Oct. 22, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Argentinean government had seized all private pension and retirement accounts to fund government programs and to address a ballooning deficit. Fearing an economic collapse, foreign investors quickly pulled out, forcing the Argentinean stock market to shut down several times. More than 10 years ago, nationalization of private savings sent Argentina’s economy into a long-term downward spiral.

Income and Wealth Redistribution

The majority of witness testimony during recent hearings before the House Committee on Education and Labor showed that congressional Democrats intend to address income and wealth inequality through redistribution.

cont'd

On July 31, 2008, Robert Greenstein, executive director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, testified before the subcommittee on workforce protections that “from the standpoint of equal treatment of people with different incomes, there is a fundamental flaw” in tax code incentives because they are “provided in the form of deductions, exemptions, and exclusions rather than in the form of refundable tax credits.”

Even people who don’t pay taxes should get money from the government, paid for by higher-income Americans, he said. “There is no obvious reason why lower-income taxpayers or people who do not file income taxes should get smaller incentives (or no tax incentives at all),” Greenstein said.

“Moving to refundable tax credits for promoting socially worthwhile activities would be an important step toward enhancing progressivity in the tax code in a way that would improve economic efficiency and performance at the same time,” Greenstein said, and “reducing barriers to labor organizing, preserving the real value of the minimum wage, and the other workforce security concerns . . . would contribute to an economy with less glaring and sharply widening inequality.”

When asked whether committee members seriously were considering Ghilarducci’s proposal for GSAs, Aaron Albright, press secretary for the Committee on Education and Labor, said Miller and other members were listening to all ideas.

Miller’s biggest priority has been on legislation aimed at greater transparency in 401(k)s and other retirement plan administration, specifically regarding fees, Albright said, and he sent a link to a Fox News interview of Miller on Oct. 24, 2008, to show that the congressman had not made a decision.

After repeated questions asked by Neil Cavuto of Fox News, Miller said he would not be in favor of “killing the 401(k)” or of “killing the tax advantages for 401(k)s.”

Arguing against liberal prescriptions, William Beach, director of the Center for Data Analysis at the Heritage Foundation, testified on Oct. 24 that the “roots of the current crisis are firmly planted in public policy mistakes” by the Federal Reserve and Congress. He cautioned Congress against raising taxes, increasing burdensome regulations, or withdrawing from international product or capital markets. “Congress can ill afford to repeat the awesome errors of its predecessor in the early days of the Great Depression,” Beach said.

Instead, Beach said, Congress could best address the financial crisis by making the tax reductions of 2001 and 2003 permanent, stopping dependence on demand-side stimulus, lowering the corporate profits tax, and reducing or eliminating taxes on capital gains and dividends.

Testifying before the same committee in early October, Jerry Bramlett, president and CEO of BenefitStreet, Inc., an independent 401(k) plan administrator, said one of the best ways to ensure retirement security would be to have the U.S. Department of Labor develop educational materials for workers so they could make better investment decisions, not exchange equity investments in retirement accounts for Treasury bills, as proposed in the GSAs.

Should Sen. Barack Obama win the presidency, congressional Democrats might have stronger support for their “spreading the wealth” agenda. On Oct. 27, the American Thinker posted a video of an interview with Obama on public radio station WBEZ-FM from 2001.

In the interview, Obama said, “The Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society.” The Constitution says only what “the states can’t do to you. Says what the Federal government can’t do to you,” and Obama added that the Warren Court wasn’t that radical.

Although in 2001 Obama said he was not “optimistic about bringing major redistributive change through the courts,” as president, he would likely have the opportunity to appoint one or more Supreme Court justices.

“The real tragedy of the civil rights movement was, um, because the civil rights movement became so court focused that I think there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change,” Obama said.

Scalia: Foreign law isn't ours
At Houston gala, he criticizes courts that cite countries' trends for rulings
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle
Nov. 17, 2008, 11:01PM

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia prepares to speak to judges and lawyers Monday night in Houston. He was also promoting a book he co-wrote with Dallas-based author Bryan Garner.

Share Print Email Del.icio.usDiggTechnoratiYahoo! BuzzJudges who use foreign laws to interpret the U.S. Constitution are rewriting it rather than respecting its founders, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia told a roomful of judges and top lawyers in Houston on Monday night.

"I fear the courts' use of foreign law in interpreting the Constitution will continue at an accelerated pace," the 72-year-old conservative jurist said.

Scalia spoke at a $150-a-head steak and potatoes dinner sponsored by the local chapter of the Federal Bar Association and held at the Hyatt Regency Houston downtown. Before talking for about 30 minutes, the jurist autographed copies of a book he co-authored.

Scalia promised to be noncontroversial but frequently used the example of Lawrence v. Texas, a Houston case in which he disagreed with the majority that struck down Texas' anti-sodomy law. Scalia complained that foreign laws were cited in that case.

Scalia was typically evangelical in his advocacy of "originalism," or strictly adhering to what the Constitutional authors meant more than 200 years ago. He criticized those who see the Constitution as an evolving or "living document" that adapts to the times.
The 1986 Reagan appointee said he'll only become a believer in those who cite foreign law if they do it more universally, like in abortion cases where more countries prohibit it than don't. "The court has ignored foreign law in its abortion cases," he said.

Scalia said the founders of this country did not want us to emulate Europe.
He told the 50 tables of lawyers that when judges use foreign laws or even U.S. legislative history, they are straying from their true purpose. He said judges do it to expand their own power because they wrongly consider "the views of all segments of mankind" and to make it appear they have something to rely upon.

Scalia said some leeway can be found even sticking only with the Constitutional text.

"It doesn't mean you can't twist the Constitution," he said lightly. "You just do it the good old-fashioned way: You just lie about it."

The self-proclaimed social conservative, known for both his combativeness and his humor, Scalia spoke in Houston in part to promote his book Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges. It's written with Bryan Garner, a Dallas-based legal writing author.

The book's acknowledgments include a thanks to Houston-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Chief Judge Edith Jones, who introduced Scalia on Monday night.

In response to a question from Jones, Scalia said he disagrees with his alma mater Harvard Law School's decision to copy Yale and scrap grades in favor of a pass/fail system. "I want to know who's best in the class. I don't want to know just who went to Yale," he said.

In response to another question, the jurist said he thinks law schools have gotten away from teaching students to be lawyers, and some academics have even developed a contempt for the practice.

He argued legal academics should spend more time with legal practitioners.

Mayor suggests Jesus would allow same-sex marriage
City boss vows to take fight for homosexuals to schools, Congress, White House
© 2008 WorldNetDaily

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa told a crowd of cheering homosexuals that Jesus wouldn't discriminate against "gays," suggesting that God would allow same-sex marriage.

He then vowed to take the battle for homosexual marriage to schools, churches, Congress and the president.

Villaraigosa, former president of the ACLU of Southern California, addressed the "No on Prop 8" protest outside Los Angeles City Hall on Nov. 15.

"Some have said, 'Well Mr. Villaraigosa, I don't like your position on Proposition 8,'" the mayor said. "They said, 'Who are you to get involved in this issue?' Well, I think we got elected to stand up for a constitution."

He continued, "I think we got elected to stand up for the idea that in the eyes of the law and in the eyes of God, thou shalt not discriminate."

Protesters held signs stating, "Who would Jesus hate?" and "CA gays are the victims and Mormons are the persecutors."

Many chanted, "Yes we can!" – a slogan popularized by the Barack Obama campaign.

Villaraigosa suggested Jesus stood for individual rights, including "rights" to same-sex partnerships.

"You know, I didn't live – and none of us did – during the time of Jesus," he said. "But I like to believe that the Jesus I love, the Jesus I pray to, didn't just talk about being a shepherd. He knew that the role of the shepherd was to bring the flock in – all of the flock, every one of us. The constitution has always been a document that speaks out for rights, the fundamental rights of people, for the liberty that we cherish and love, for the liberty that we fight and die for."

Then the mayor promised to continue the fight for "gay" marriage beyond protests.

"We come today to begin a conversation because it's not just going to be about demonstrations," Villaraigosa said. "It's not just going to be about the Internet. We're going to have conversations in our neighborhoods, in our schools, in our churches and every civic institution, in our unions, in city hall and the halls of Congress and the legislature.

"We're going to take every opportunity to begin that conversation – all the way to the White House."

(An obvious flamer, blasphemer, and horse's pa'toot)

Romans 1:22-28 KJV Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, 23 And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. 24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: 25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. 26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: 27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet. 28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;

1 Corinthians 6:9 KJV Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,

Ephesians 4:18-19 KJV Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart: 19 Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.

Ephesians 5:11-12 KJV And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. 12 For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret.

1 Timothy 1:9-10 KJV Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, 10 For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine;

Jude 1:6-10 KJV And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. 7 Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. 8 Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities. 9 Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee. 10 But these speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves.

Calif. Supreme Court to take up gay marriage ban

SAN FRANCISCO – California's highest court agreed Wednesday to hear several legal challenges to the state's new ban on same-sex marriage but refused to allow gay couples to resume marrying before it rules.

The California Supreme Court accepted three lawsuits seeking to nullify Proposition 8, a voter-approved constitutional amendment that overruled the court's decision in May that legalized gay marriage.

All three cases claim the measure abridges the civil rights of a vulnerable minority group. They argue that voters alone did not have the authority to enact such a significant constitutional change.

As is its custom when it takes up cases, the court elaborated little. However, the justices did say they want to address what effect, if any, a ruling upholding the amendment would have on the estimated 18,000 same-sex marriages that were sanctioned in California before election day.

Gay rights groups and local governments petitioning to overturn the ban were joined by the measure's sponsors and Attorney General Jerry Brown in urging the Supreme Court to consider whether Proposition 8 passes legal muster.

The initiative's opponents had also asked the court to grant a stay of the measure, which would have allowed gay marriages to begin again while the justices considered the cases. The court denied that request.

The justices directed Brown and lawyers for the Yes on 8 campaign to submit arguments by Dec. 19 on why the ballot initiative should not be nullified. It said lawyers for the plaintiffs, who include same-sex couples who did not wed before the election, must respond before Jan. 5.

Oral arguments could be scheduled as early as March, according to court spokeswoman Lynn Holton.

Both opponents and supporters of Proposition 8 expressed confidence Wednesday that their arguments would prevail.

But they also agreed that the cases present the court's seven justices — six of whom voted to review the challenges — with complex questions that have few precedents in state case law.

The lawsuits argue that voters improperly abrogated the judiciary's authority by stripping same-sex couples of the right to wed after the high court earlier ruled it was discriminatory to prohibit gay men and lesbians from marrying.

"If given effect, Proposition 8 would work a dramatic, substantive change to our Constitution's 'underlying principles' of individual on a scale and scope never previously condoned by this court," lawyers for the same-sex couples stated in their petition.

The measure represents such a sweeping change that it constitutes a constitutional revision as opposed to an amendment, the documents say. The distinction would have required the ban's backers to obtain approval from two-thirds of both houses of the California Legislature before submitting it to voters.

Over the past century, the California Supreme Court has heard nine cases challenging legislative acts or ballot initiatives as improper revisions. The court eventually invalidated three of the measures, according to the gay rights group Lambda Legal.

GOP congressman on carmaker bailout: 'It is not your money'

A Republican congressman seeking a $25 billion bailout of the troubled U.S. auto industry made a stunning statement about taxpayer funds to benefit Detroit, claiming, "It is not your money."

Rep. Joe Knollenberg, R-Mich., made the remark during a discussion with Fox News anchor Neil Cavuto yesterday as the pair debated sending billions of federal dollars to prop up the Big Three carmakers.

Cavuto asked Knollenberg: "When the housing industry CEOs come to you and say, 'You know, [if] we go under and all the ancillary businesses – the dishwasher manufacturers, the washer-and-dryer manufacturers, the Lowe's and the Home Depots that vastly depend on our being alive and vibrant – if we go under, there's hell to pay. And then the textile manufacturer comes to you and says, 'If we go down, there's hell to pay.' And on and on and on we go. Where do you draw the line with our money?"

"It is not your money," said Knollenberg.

Cavuto screamed back, "It is! It is taxpayers money!"

Knollenberg claimed dealers are not selling cars right now because "there's no credit to get."

He explained, "If we could just remove that problem, and this is what we're trying to do, then we'd be in the position to sell cars."

Cavuto fired back: "There's nothing in the $25 billion or $50 billion that will open up credit for folks to buy cars that in good times and bad, they had not wanted to get from these guys."

Knollenberg explained, "The purpose of the $25 billion is to give them some money for the time being to make sure they stay alive, that they stay in place."

He claimed there would be a massive negative ripple effect through the economy if even one of the major automakers is allowed to fail.

Cavuto closed the discussion by saying, "Congressman, there's a line of people behind them who are going to make a similar argument. I hope you're ready for it."

Knollenberg held his seat for 16 years in the House of Representatives, but was just defeated this month by Democrat Gary Peters, who will be the first Democrat to hold that district since 1893.

Today on the CBS "Early Show," Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala. said automakers should file for bankruptcy and fire their management.

"I don't believe that they have immediate plans to change their model, which is a model of failure," Shelby said.

He argued against any bailout, saying, "It will just prolong the agony. These companies are failures now, unless we get rid of the management."

Report: U.S. Dominance and Influence Predicted to Fade
Alarming government report predicts environmental catastrophe, threat of nuclear war and the decline of America as the dominant global power by 2025.
FOXNews.com

The next two decades will see a world living with the daily threat of nuclear war, environmental catastrophe and the decline of America as the dominant global power, according to a frighteningly bleak assessment by the U.S. intelligence community.

"The world of the near future will be subject to an increased likelihood of conflict over resources, including food and water, and will be haunted by the persistence of rogue states and terrorist groups with greater access to nuclear weapons," said the report by the National Intelligence Council.

The analysts said that the report had been prepared in time for Barack Obama's entry into the Oval office on January 20, where he will be faced with some of the greatest challenges of any newly-elected president.

"The likelihood that nuclear weapons will be used will increase with expanded access to technology and a widening range of options for limited strikes," the 121-page assessment said.

The analysts draw attention to an already escalating nuclear arms race in the Middle East and anticipate that a growing number of rogue states will be prepared to share their destructive technology with terror groups.

"Over the next 15-20 years reactions to the decisions Iran makes about its nuclear program could cause a number of regional states to intensify these efforts and consider actively pursuing nuclear weapons," the report Global Trends 2025 said. "This will add a new and more dangerous dimension to what is likely to be increasing competition for influence within the region," it said.

The spread of nuclear capabilities will raise questions about the ability of weak states to safeguard them, it added. "If the number of nuclear-capable states increases, so will the number of countries potentially willing to provide nuclear assistance to other countries or to terrorists."

The report, a year in the making, said that global warming will aggravate the scarcity of water, food and energy resources. Citing a British study, it said that climate change could force up to 200 million people to migrate to more temperate zones. "Widening gaps in birth rates and wealth-to-poverty ratios, and the impact of climate change, could further exacerbate tensions," it said.

The report says the warming earth will extend Russia and Canada's growing season and ease their access to northern oil fields, strengthening their economies. But Russia's potential emergence as a world power may be clouded by lagging investment in its energy sector, persistent crime and government corruption, the report says.

"The international system will be almost unrecognizable by 2025, owing to the rise of emerging powers, a globalizing economy, a transfer of wealth from West to East, and the growing influence of non-state actors. Although the United States is likely to remain the single most powerful actor, the United States' relative strength -- even in the military realm -- will decline and US leverage will become more strained."

Global power will be multipolar with the rise of India and China, and the Korean peninsula will be unified in some form. Turning to the current financial situation, the analysts say that the financial crisis on Wall Street is the beginning of a global economic rebalancing.

The U.S. dollar's role as the major world currency will weaken to the point where it becomes a "first among equals."

"Strategic rivalries are most likely to revolve around trade, investments and technological innovation, but we cannot rule out a 19th-century-like scenario of arms races, territorial expansion and military rivalries." The report, based on a global survey of experts and trends, was more pessimistic about America's global status than previous outlooks prepared every four years. It said that outcomes will depend in part on the actions of political leaders. "The next 20 years of transition to a new system are fraught with risks," it said.

The analysts also give warning that the kind of organized crime plaguing Russia could eventually take over the government of an Eastern or Central European country, and that countries in Africa and South Asia may find themselves ungoverned, as states wither away under pressure from security threats and diminishing resources..

The intelligence community expects that terrorism would survive until 2025, but in slightly different form, suggesting that Al Qaeda's "terrorist wave" might be breaking up. "Al Qaeda's inability to attract broad-based support might cause it to decay sooner than people think," it said.

On a positive note it added that an alternative to oil might be in place by 2025. ;D :o

America's 1st openly transgendered mayor
City leader promises 'change' – in form of breast implants, lipstick, high heels
© 2008 WorldNetDaily

Stu Rasmussen (photo: Stu rasmussen for Mayor)
(http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x125/luvmarley_bucket/transmayor2.png)

Oregon voters have just elected the nation's first openly transgendered mayor.

Stu Rasmussen, 60, served as mayor of Silverton, Ore., in 1988 and 1990 – but not while wearing a skirt and high heels.

The new Rasmussen, or Carla Fong, as he calls himself, sports a new pair of breast implants, dresses and makeup.

And 52 percent of town residents re-elected him this month.

"My first two terms, I was a very straight-looking guy," Rasmussen, a software engineer, told the Los Angeles Times. "Now, I write under the name Carla Fong, but basically I'm Stu in Silverton. Honestly, it would be too much trouble to retrain the whole town."

Rasmussen wears deeply plunging tops, as photos reveal on his campaign website. He likes to wear tight miniskirts and long red nails to complement his red mane.

Rasmussen took a break from his position as mayor and spent four years on the City Council. His recent mayoral campaign promised "reasoned discourse … where everybody's going to be participating for a change."

But when he walked into a city council meeting sporting his new look, the dress code was immediately changed to allow only "business casual."

(http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x125/luvmarley_bucket/transmayor6.jpg)
Rasmussen's campaign photo

"We're doing business for the city, and he's showing up in outfits that frankly were embarrassing," outgoing Mayor Ken Hector told the Times. "Miniskirts and halter tops to a City Council meeting? Imagine that in Seattle or L.A. When you're dressing, I'm sorry, like a $3 hooker, it's disrespectful to your community."

However, Rasmussen refused to cooperate and cover up.

"He wanted no cleavage, no short skirts, no high heels," he said. "He'd made his point; he'd won the game. So I just proceeded to ignore it."

The new transgendered mayor enjoys showing off his new look.

"If I could have a face transplant, it'd be perfect. A face like this, only a mother could love," he told the Times. Then he glanced down at his cleavage and said, "But people overlook the face now because there's all this other real estate."
---------------
My son, who lives not far from Silverton, has friends who have seen this guy and tell him that it's pretty freaky.

Quote from: grammyluv on November 21, 2008, 12:27:50 PM

I saw this on the news and thought I would fall out of my chair. This isn't funny at all - JUST SAD, and it's simply more evidence of a SICK AND DYING SOCIETY.

First the Fairness Doctrine and Now the Government Comes After the Bloggers?

Wash. regulators ask: Can blogging be lobbying?

Blogger beware? State regulators are wondering whether online political activism amounts to lobbying, which could force Web-based activists to file public reports detailing their finances.

In a collision of 21st century media and 1970s political reforms, the inquiry hints at a showdown over press freedoms for bloggers, whose self-published journals can shift between news reporting, opinion writing, political organizing and campaign fundraising.

State officials are downplaying any possible media rights conflict, pointing out that regulators have already exempted journalistic blogging from previous guidelines for online campaign activity.

But the blogosphere is taking the notion seriously. One prominent liberal blogger in Seattle is already issuing a dare - if the government wants David Goldstein to file papers as a lobbyist, it will have to take him to court.

Goldstein, publisher of the widely read horsesass.org, wants to know how his political crusades could be subject to financial disclosures while newspaper writers, radio hosts and others in traditional media get a pass.

For most bloggers, Goldstein said, the work "is a hobby, a sideline. And yet they contribute greatly to the public debate and to the new journalism."

"When you start talking about regulating Internet activity, you open up a Pandora's Box," he said.

Political money in Washington is regulated by the state Public Disclosure Commission, which compiles reports on candidates' and lobbyists' finances and makes the information available to the public.

The agency was created after voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure in 1972. A second measure in 1992 added contribution limits and other reforms, leading to a set of rules that the state calls "one of the most exhaustive disclosure laws in the country."

Under the law, lobbyists must register with the state, and submit regular reports about who pays them, how they spend money, and which issues they're working on.

Groups that don't fit the traditional definition of "lobbyist" also have to file reports, provided they meet certain spending thresholds while leading public campaigns intended to influence public policy.

Earlier this year, the PDC was asked by some lobbyists whether calls to action made over the Internet fell under any lobbying regulations, and the agency began probing the topic.

advertising

"One of the issues was the grass roots involvement, in terms of prompting individuals, in a call to action, to contact legislators, to send in letters," said Doug Ellis, the PDC's assistant director.

Business interests asked, "Can we do the same kind of thing? Is it proper? Do we have to report it?" Ellis said.

The question of blogging soon entered the picture. For online political junkies like Goldstein, stirring up the public and urging readers to sound off about public policy is a key part of the mission.

But, as Goldstein pointed out in a recent public meeting on the topic, the same could be said for newspaper editorialists or radio commentators - and they're exempt from reporting their income and spending under an exemption created to protect the media.

"What you're basically saying is, if you want to raise any money at all, now you have to report," Goldstein said. "It's treating us entirely different than other media outlets."

Much of the discussion about blogging as lobbying boils down to the evolving distinction of who is and is not a member of the media.

While blogs and other online-only information sources are showing greater influence, traditional outlets - particularly newspapers - are struggling with a deeply wounded business model.

"Our definitions of all of this are changing so dramatically, right in front of our eyes," said Sree Sreenivasan, of Columbia University's journalism school.

Laws have often defined media by describing the form in which the information is delivered - a newspaper, a magazine, or a licensed TV or radio station. But the Internet is eroding those tried-and-true distinctions, making such definitions sound hopelessly outdated.

In this environment, Sreenivasan said, regulators facing a question about who qualifies as media might need to undertake a much more detailed examination of the content being produced.

"It's very hard to put them in a box: 'This is OK, this is not OK,'" Sreenivasan said. "It's a waste of everybody's time. I'd say, what is the work they're doing?"

The PDC's Ellis doesn't expect commissioners to impose financial reporting for bloggers who a perform a journalistic function. Since that type of activity was excluded in campaign finance rules, he said, "I don't see any reason why they would veer from past practice."

Lobbyist Steve Gano, who represents business clients in Olympia, said he's not troubled by activist bloggers who practice a form of journalism. But the increasing presence of Web-based advocacy groups are a different story, he said.

If an online group doesn't have to report the type of activities that would otherwise be considered lobbying, Gano asked, why shouldn't lobbyists just close up shop and relaunch their efforts online?

"There's a new business model out there," Gano said. "I can just sit at home, e-mail folks from here, and never have to disclose who my financial backers are."

Next will they go for anyone talking politics over a cup of coffee?

Pentagon to deploy 20,000 troops in U.S.
Trained to help state, local officials respond to attack, catastrophe

The U.S. military expects to have 20,000 uniformed troops inside the United States by 2011 trained to help state and local officials respond to a nuclear terrorist attack or other domestic catastrophe, according to Pentagon officials.

The long-planned shift in the Defense Department's role in homeland security was recently backed with funding and troop commitments after years of prodding by Congress and outside experts, defense analysts said.

There are critics of the change, in the military and among civil liberties groups and libertarians who express concern that the new homeland emphasis threatens to strain the military and possibly undermine the Posse Comitatus Act, a 130-year-old federal law restricting the military's role in domestic law enforcement.

But the Bush administration and some in Congress have pushed for a heightened homeland military role since the middle of this decade, saying the greatest domestic threat is terrorists exploiting the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

Before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, dedicating 20,000 troops to domestic response -- a nearly sevenfold increase in five years -- "would have been extraordinary to the point of unbelievable," Paul McHale, assistant defense secretary for homeland defense, said in remarks last month at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. But the realization that civilian authorities may be overwhelmed in a catastrophe prompted "a fundamental change in military culture," he said.

The Pentagon's plan calls for three rapid-reaction forces to be ready for emergency response by September 2011. The first 4,700-person unit, built around an active-duty combat brigade based at Fort Stewart, Ga., was available as of Oct. 1, said Gen. Victor E. Renuart Jr., commander of the U.S. Northern Command.

If funding continues, two additional teams will join nearly 80 smaller National Guard and reserve units made up of about 6,000 troops in supporting local and state officials nationwide. All would be trained to respond to a domestic chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or high-yield explosive attack, or CBRNE event, as the military calls it.

Military preparations for a domestic weapon-of-mass-destruction attack have been underway since at least 1996, when the Marine Corps activated a 350-member chemical and biological incident response force and later based it in Indian Head, Md., a Washington suburb. Such efforts accelerated after the Sept. 11 attacks, and at the time Iraq was invaded in 2003, a Pentagon joint task force drew on 3,000 civil support personnel across the United States.

In 2005, a new Pentagon homeland defense strategy emphasized "preparing for multiple, simultaneous mass casualty incidents." National security threats were not limited to adversaries who seek to grind down U.S. combat forces abroad, McHale said, but also include those who "want to inflict such brutality on our society that we give up the fight," such as by detonating a nuclear bomb in a U.S. city.

In late 2007, Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England signed a directive approving more than $556 million over five years to set up the three response teams, known as CBRNE Consequence Management Response Forces. Planners assume an incident could lead to thousands of casualties, more than 1 million evacuees and contamination of as many as 3,000 square miles, about the scope of damage Hurricane Katrina caused in 2005.

Last month, McHale said, authorities agreed to begin a $1.8 million pilot project funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency through which civilian authorities in five states could tap military planners to develop disaster response plans. Hawaii, Massachusetts, South Carolina, Washington and West Virginia will each focus on a particular threat -- pandemic flu, a terrorist attack, hurricane, earthquake and catastrophic chemical release, respectively -- speeding up federal and state emergency planning begun in 2003.

Last Monday, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates ordered defense officials to review whether the military, Guard and reserves can respond adequately to domestic disasters.

Gates gave commanders 25 days to propose changes and cost estimates. He cited the work of a congressionally chartered commission, which concluded in January that the Guard and reserve forces are not ready and that they lack equipment and training.

Bert B. Tussing, director of homeland defense and security issues at the U.S. Army War College's Center for Strategic Leadership, said the new Pentagon approach "breaks the mold" by assigning an active-duty combat brigade to the Northern Command for the first time. Until now, the military required the command to rely on troops requested from other sources.

"This is a genuine recognition that this [job] isn't something that you want to have a pickup team responsible for," said Tussing, who has assessed the military's homeland security strategies.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the libertarian Cato Institute are troubled by what they consider an expansion of executive authority.

Domestic emergency deployment may be "just the first example of a series of expansions in presidential and military authority," or even an increase in domestic surveillance, said Anna Christensen of the ACLU's National Security Project. And Cato Vice President Gene Healy warned of "a creeping militarization" of homeland security.

"There's a notion that whenever there's an important problem, that the thing to do is to call in the boys in green," Healy said, "and that's at odds with our long-standing tradition of being wary of the use of standing armies to keep the peace."

McHale stressed that the response units will be subject to the act, that only 8 percent of their personnel will be responsible for security and that their duties will be to protect the force, not other law enforcement. For decades, the military has assigned larger units to respond to civil disturbances, such as during the Los Angeles riot in 1992.

U.S. forces are already under heavy strain, however. The first reaction force is built around the Army's 3rd Infantry Division's 1st Brigade Combat Team, which returned in April after 15 months in Iraq. The team includes operations, aviation and medical task forces that are to be ready to deploy at home or overseas within 48 hours, with units specializing in chemical decontamination, bomb disposal, emergency care and logistics.

The one-year domestic mission, however, does not replace the brigade's next scheduled combat deployment in 2010. The brigade may get additional time in the United States to rest and regroup, compared with other combat units, but it may also face more training and operational requirements depending on its homeland security assignments.

Renuart said the Pentagon is accounting for the strain of fighting two wars, and the need for troops to spend time with their families. "We want to make sure the parameters are right for Iraq and Afghanistan," he said. The 1st Brigade's soldiers "will have some very aggressive training, but will also be home for much of that."

Although some Pentagon leaders initially expected to build the next two response units around combat teams, they are likely to be drawn mainly from reserves and the National Guard, such as the 218th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade from South Carolina, which returned in May after more than a year in Afghanistan.

Now that Pentagon strategy gives new priority to homeland security and calls for heavier reliance on the Guard and reserves, McHale said, Washington has to figure out how to pay for it.

"It's one thing to decide upon a course of action, and it's something else to make it happen," he said. "It's time to put our money where our mouth is."

Homeland Security: Turn to God in time of terrorism
State law stresses 'dependence on Almighty' for protection from threats

To whom should Homeland Security officials turn when faced with terrorist threats?

They should turn to God, according to one state's law.

When Kentucky formed its state Office of Homeland Security in 2006, it listed the department's initial duty as "stressing the dependence on Almighty God as being vital to the security of the Commonwealth."

According to the Lexington Herald-Leader, Homeland Security must proclaim God's protection in its reports. The office also features a plaque at its Emergency Operations Center declaring, "The safety and security of the Commonwealth cannot be achieved apart from reliance upon Almighty God."

State Rep. Tom Riner, D-Louisville, included the stipulation to acknowledge God in an amendment to the legislation. Lawmakers overwhelmingly approved it, according to the report.

The office is now required to put God above all else – including allocation of government grants and threat-risk analysis.

Riner, a Southern Baptist minister, told the Herald-Leader giving God glory for his protection is of utmost importance.

"This is recognition that government alone cannot guarantee the perfect safety of the people of Kentucky," Riner said. "Government itself, apart from God, cannot close the security gap. The job is too big for government."

Under Gov. Ernie Fletcher, Homeland Security mounted the plaque as directed and gave God credit in its annual reports – until last month.

Now the office of current Gov. Steve Beshear is saying it did not know about the plaque. Regardless, Homeland Security Chief Thomas Preston said he has no plans for its removal.

"I will not try to supplant almighty God," Preston said. "All I do is try to obey the dictates of the Kentucky General Assembly. I really don't know what their motivation was for this. They obviously felt strongly about it."

While God is not mentioned on Homeland Security's website or in its mission statement, Riner said he would like to see references to Him.

"We certainly expect it to be there, of course," he said.

But state Sen. Kathy Stein, D-Lexington disagreed. She said the office should concern itself with terrorist threats rather than evangelizing.

"It's very sad to me that we do this sort of thing," she told the Herald-Leader. "It takes away from the seriousness of the public discussion over security, and it clearly hurts the credibility of this office if it's supposed to be depending on God, first and foremost."

Obama effigy case heads to grand jury
No criminal charges filed in other political cases, including Sarah Palin

Two Kentucky men who previously apologized for hanging an effigy of President-elect Barack Obama on the University of Kentucky campus want their case heard by a Fayette County grand jury.

Defense attorney Fred Peters said Joe Fischer, 22, and Hunter Bush, 21, waived their right to a preliminary hearing on Monday, opting instead to go directly to grand jurors in hopes they will dismissed the charges.

Fayette County Commonwealth's Attorney Ray Larson declined to comment Monday on whether he will present charges to a grand jury.

"We haven't officially gotten the case," he said.

Campus police charged the men after they admitted to what Peters described as "a political prank." He said they did nothing illegal.

"They're certainly not guilty of a felony," Peters said.

Peters said on Oct. 31 the two men were "extremely sorry" for hanging the effigy on the campus.

Fischer and Bush were arrested in late October after the effigy — an Obama mask atop a stuffed shirt and pants — was found hanging from a tree with a noose around its neck.

Charges included theft and burglary for allegedly taking the shirt and pants from the Farm House International Fraternity. The men were also charged with disorderly conduct for hanging the effigy.

Peters said both men are former members of the fraternity. He disputed allegations by campus police that they didn't have permission to take the clothing.

The effigy was the second of two found on college campuses in the weeks leading up to the Nov. 4 election. George Fox University, a small Christian college in Oregon, punished four students who confessed to hanging a likeness of Obama from a tree there.

No criminal charges were filed in other cases of political effigies displayed leading up to the election, including a likeness of GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin that hung from a tree in a California man's yard.

Peters said news of the Palin effigy prompted Fischer and Bush to display the Obama effigy in Lexington.

Illinois governor taken into custody
FBI alleges Blagojevich conspired to sell Obama's Senate seat

Illinois Governor Arrested on Corruption Charges
Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and his chief of staff were arrested in Chicago Tuesday on two counts each of corruption charges relating to trying to sell President-elect Barack Obama's vacated Senate seat.

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and his chief of staff John Harris were arrested Tuesday morning in Chicago on two counts each of federal corruption charges stemming from allegations Blagojevich was trying to sell President-elect Barack Obama's vacated Senate seat to the highest bidder.

The arrest is part of a three-year probe of "pay-to-play politics" in the governor's administration. The criminal complaint by the FBI says each man was arrested on two charges of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and solicitation of bribery.

The charges also relate to allegations that Blagojevich and Harris schemed with previously convicted defendants and Obama associates Antoin Rezko, Stuart Levine, Ali Ata and others to arrange financial benefits in exchange for appointments to state boards and commissions, state employment, state contracts and access to state funds.

Blagojevich and Harris will have an initial appearance in U.S. District Court Tuesday.

A statement by U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald and FBI Special Agent-in-Charge Robert Grant said Blagojevich and Harris "allegedly conspired to sell U.S. Senate appointment, engaged in pay-to-play schemes and threatened to withhold state assistance to Tribune Company for Wrigley Field to induce purge of newspaper editorial writers."

"The breadth of corruption laid out in these charges is staggering," Fitzgerald said in a statement.

"Blagojevich put a for sale sign on the naming of a United States Senator; involved himself personally in pay-to-play schemes with the urgency of a salesman meeting his annual sales target; and corruptly used his office in an effort to trample editorial voices of criticism," he added.

Grant noted that Blagojevich was elected in 2002 after Illinois Gov. George Ryan retired in the face of federal corruption charges. He was convicted and sentenced in 2006 to six and a half years in prison.

"Many, including myself, thought that the recent conviction of a former governor would usher in a new era of honesty and reform in Illinois politics. Clearly, the charges announced today reveal that the office of the Governor has become nothing more than a vehicle for self-enrichment, unrestricted by party affiliation and taking Illinois politics to a new low," Grant said.

Federal authorities were permitted by a judge to record the governor secretly before the November election after raising concerns that a replacement for Obama would be tainted.

Fitzgerald's office said the 76-page FBI affidavit alleges that Blagojevich was taped conspiring to sell or trade Obama's vacated U.S. Senate seat for financial and other personal benefits for himself and his wife, including an annual salary of $250,000-$300,000 at a nonprofit foundation or an organization affiliated with labor unions.

They also allege Blagojevich is heard on tape demanding a corporate board seat for his wife worth as much as $150,000 a year; promises of campaign funds, including cash up front; and a Cabinet post or ambassadorship for himself.

The Chicago Tribune was first to report the arrests. Informed Monday of the wiretap, Blagojevich told reporters that his discussions were "always lawful" and he defended a close confidant, John Wyma, who turned on him. Wyma as "an honest person who's conducted himself in an honest way," Blagojevich said.

"I should say if anybody wants to tape my conversations, go right ahead, feel free to do it," he said.

However, the Tribune was also named in the affidavit because tapes allegedly play Blagojevich directing Harris to inform the newspaper's owners and advisers that "state financial assistance would be withheld unless members of the Chicago Tribune's editorial board were fired, primarily because Blagojevich viewed them as driving discussion of his possible impeachment."

The Tribune Company, which declared bankruptcy on Monday, owns the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Cubs, and had explored the possibility of obtaining assistance from the Illinois Finance Authority as part of the effort to sell the Cubs and finance the sale of Wrigley Field.

Conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. Solicitation of bribery carries a maximum of 10 years in prison. Both carry a maximum fine of $250,000.

FBI: Blago wanted payoff to give Obama adviser Senate seat

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was captured on tape saying that unless he received “something real good” for the appointment of a top adviser to Barack Obama to fill the president-elect’s Senate seat he would appoint himself, according to the criminal complaint.

“Unless I get something real good [for Senate candidate 1], ****, I’ll just send myself, you know what I’m saying,” Blagojevich was taped saying on November 3rd, the day before Election Day.

Blagojevich, a Democrat, added that the Senate seat “is a ******* valuable thing, you just don’t give it away for nothing.”

The complaint does not mention her name, but the description makes clear that Blagojevich is referring to Valerie Jarrett, a senior campaign adviser to Obama who has been tapped as a top White House aide.

And on November 7th, three days after the election, Blagojevich made clear what he wanted in exchange for appointing the Obama adviser to the Senate: the Department of Health and Human Services.

In a discussion with John Harris, his chief of staff, and another adviser that was taped by the FBI, the governor said if Obama picked him to serve as Secretary of HHS he would appoint “Senate Candidate 1.”

Harris responded that the “ask” had to “be reasonable and rather than. . .make it look like some sort of selfish grab for a quid pro quo.”

Blagojevich also tried to shake down a union in exchange for appointing a senator who was favorable to the union, prosecutors allege.

Obama’s transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Obama was not accused of any wrongdoing.

The charges upend the process of filling the open Senate seat and threaten to subject the president-elect to an onslaught of press scrutiny about what he knew about the investigation.

The governor and his chief of staff John Harris were also charged with demanding the firing of members of the Chicago Tribune’s editorial board in exchange for helping the Tribune Co. with the sale of Chicago’s Wrigley Field. Additionally, Blagojevich sought a seat for his wife on corporate boards where she could reap significant salaries.

The complaint details conversations between Blagojevich and Tony Rezko, a major Chicago fundraiser and one-time benefactor to Obama.

"I want to make money," the affidavit quotes the governor as saying.

U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald said in a statement that "the breadth of corruption laid out in these charges is staggering."

"They allege that Blagojevich put a for sale sign on the naming of a United States senator," Fitzgerald said."

The Illinois Republican Party called on the governor to resign his office effective immediately.

“If Governor Blagojevich does not resign his position, we urge the General Assembly to move swiftly with impeachment proceedings,” the party said in a statement. “Furthermore, Governor Blagojevich should not, under this cloud of extremely serious allegations, appoint a United States Senator. While there is a presumption of innocence, in these troubling economic times, the people’s work should be placed ahead of Governor Blagojevich’s legal troubles.”

Ill. Governor Arrested by Feds, Media Ignored Connection To Obama

Media ignored Guv’s party today, but also links to Rezko corruption and Barack Obama and his chief strategist David Axelrod during presidential campaign.

As folks in Illinois were waking up or just getting to work, news hit like an avalanche that Governor Rod Blagojevich had been taken into custody by federal authorities this morning. The news was flying hot and heavy, and still is, over what the feds are alleging that Blago (as we call him in Chicago) did. There are reports of wiretaps, solicitations for bribes, mail and wire fraud… the list is long and shocking.

But one thing seems to be missing from many of these news reports. You guessed it, the fact that Blago is a Democrat seems to have slipped under the radar. But also his connections to Obama and his associates has continually gone unnoticed.

Now, as usual, we cannot really smack around the home papers or TV reports. After all, people in Chicago and Illinois already know that their governor is a Democrat. But it is the news wires and outlets outside Illinois that should be questioned.

News outlets like CNN, AFP, MSNBC’s First Read Blog, The AP, have mysteriously forgotten that Blago was a Democrat.

So, what did Blago do to get snapped up by the feds?

As of now, it concerns Blago’s choice for a replacement for Obama’s Senate seat. Apparently Blago had some pay back in mind from whomever he was to appoint. The feds are alleging that he wanted…

* a substantial salary for himself at either a non-profit foundation or an organization affiliated with labor unions;
* a spot for his wife on paid corporate boards, where he speculated she might garner as much as $150,000 a year;
* promises of campaign funds — including cash up front;
* a Cabinet post or ambassadorship for himself.

… and that is all they are saying now. There is probably more to come.

We know it’s worse than that. In Chicago we have been informed that Blago has been under the cloud of an indictment for at least a year. The feds had what they were calling “Public Official A” in their sites for quite a while and no one in the state doubted that the “A” was spelled “Rod Blagojevich.”

Blagojevich has been linked to some very shady business deals with convicted back room wheeler-dealer and corruption merchant Antoin “Tony” Rezko. Just recently we’d also found out that federal officials had admitted that they had incriminating taped phone calls with Blago, too. (Check out Obama’s link to Rezko, too.)
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/21/080721fa_fact_lizza?currentPage=3

Blagojevich is also a close associate of Barack Obama and Obama’s chief strategist David Axelrod.

Few national media outlets, though, ever mentioned the thicket of corruption that Blago had been wallowing in, nor that he was linked to Obama, Rezko, or Axelrod. All throughout the election as everyone in Illinois knew how corrupt he was, not a word of it seemed to be brought out in the national media during Obama’s campaign. It was as if the media thought Obama had never even met Blago.

Cyber cops on their way?
Obama urged to establish new office for regulating Internet

A panel of web experts from government, private and the military sectors released a report yesterday urging the next president to establish a new office of cyberspace security and begin federal regulation of the Internet.

The report, "Securing Cyberspace for the 44th Presidency," from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington, D.C., think tank established during the Cold War, alleges that the Department of Homeland Security has failed to secure the Internet and that new measures are needed – despite inevitable concerns about online privacy – to keep America safe.

"We still have an industrial-age government that was organized a century ago," said Jim Lewis, one of CSIS's directors, as reported by the San Francisco Chronicle. "The DHS has a 1970s-style solution to a 21st century problem."

"The United States must treat cybersecurity as one of the most important national security challenges it faces," the CSIS panel asserts in its report. "This is a strategic issue on par with weapons of mass destruction and global jihad."

To back its claim, the panel cites a litany of cybersecurity breaches that it claims all hit sensitive areas in 2007 alone:

"The unclassified e-mail of the secretary of defense was hacked, and DOD officials told us that the department's computers are probed hundreds of thousands of times each day," the panel reports. "A senior official at the Department of State told us the department had lost 'terabytes' of information. Homeland Security suffered break-ins in several of its divisions, including the Transportation Security Agency. The Department of Commerce was forced to take the Bureau of Industry and Security off-line for several months, and NASA has had to impose e-mail restrictions before shuttle launches and allegedly has seen designs for new launchers compromised.

"Recently the White House itself had to deal with unidentifiable intrusions in its networks," the report continues. "Senior representatives from the intelligence community told us that they had conclusive evidence, covertly obtained from foreign sources, that U.S. companies have lost billions in intellectual property."

To counter these reported attacks, the panel recommends steps that, by the CSIS' own admission, may raise privacy concerns for American citizens.

While acknowledging the benefit of online anonymity, the report nonetheless contends that there must be better systems in place to authenticate Internet users' digital identities.

"Creating the ability to know reliably what person or device is sending a particular data stream in cyberspace," the panel states, "must be part of an effective cybersecurity strategy."

The report continues, "We appreciate that many may be concerned about where this [review of Internet usage laws] may lead."

The panel acknowledges that police may worry new laws might make enforcement difficult, companies may worry that new laws may hinder online business and, "Civil libertarians may worry that, in a world consumed with terrorism, the protection for civil liberties may take a back seat to national security and public safety."

"These concerns are all legitimate," the panel admits. "But in a world where the Internet citizen is about to embrace cloud computing (or, put another way, in a world where a citizen's most sensitive data may routinely be globally accessible and in the possession of third parties), we have a unique opportunity to proactively decide what the right rules should be."

The report sets forth a seven-stage plan of recommendations for implementing its cybersecurity strategy, beginning with the next president.

"This strategy should be based on a public statement by the president that the cyber infrastructure of the United States is a vital asset for national security and the economy," the report recommends, "and that the United States will protect it, using all instruments of national power, in order to protect national security and public safety."

From that first step, the report recommends creating a new National Office for Cyberspace under the Executive Office of the President, partnering with the private sector, limiting the federal government's information purchases to only secure technology, creating a digital ID for both government and private citizens online and reviewing current laws to create a market-sensitive, federally regulated Internet.

The report acknowledges several times that digital identity authentication and federal regulations may be controversial, but, the panel asserts, they are necessary.

"We believe that cyberspace cannot be secured without regulation," the report insists. "Market forces alone will never provide the level of security necessary to achieve national security objectives."

Regarding digital identification, the panel proposes that high-risk situations (such as accessing critical infrastructure controls) require a strong authentication system, while low-risk situations (such as accessing public government data or purchasing a pair of shoes) need not utilize increased identification measures.

Further, the report asserts, "Our discussions made it clear that government programs must provide security while also protecting privacy and civil liberties."

"Greater security must reinforce citizens' rights, not come at their expense," the CSIS report concludes.

The CSIS is a bipartisan, nonprofit organization that conducts research and analysis and advises decisionmakers in government, international institutions and the private sector. Based on K Street in Washington, D.C., CSIS has approximately 220 employees and an annual operating budget of $29 million, which comes mostly from corporate, foundation and government sources.

The panel that produced the cyberspace report was chaired by Rep. James Langevin, D-R.I., Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, Scott Charney, corporate vice president for trustworthy computing at Microsoft Corporation and retired Lt. General Harry Raduege, USAF.

At least five members of Obama's transition team contributed to the report, and the remainder are looking forward to reviewing the recommendations, a spokeswoman told the Chronicle.

The Department of Homeland Security, however, was less enthusiastic.

"We're the first ones to admit that there's more work to be done," department spokeswoman Laura Keener told the Chronicle, "but to stop midstream and reorganize the deck chairs is not an effective use of resources."

Report: Bailed-out firms bankrolled conventions
AIG, Ford, Citigroup, Freddie Mac gave millions to Democrats, GOP before asking for gov't aid

What were major corporations such as AIG, Ford, Citigroup and Freddie Mac doing in the weeks before they asked Washington for taxpayer-funded financial bailouts?

They were donating millions of dollars to underwrite the Democratic and Republican Party conventions.

According to a new report released today by the Center for Responsive Politics in conjunction with the Campaign Finance Institute, the companies were some of the largest sponsors of the political conventions that resulted in the nomination of Barack Obama and John McCain for president.

In the two years spent fundraising for the conventions, CFI claims the two parties only provided the names "they elected to disclose. The institute announced today that the first official host committee reports have been released, and it now has a complete list of donors.

"The two convention host committees raised $118 million, virtually all of it in private funds: $61 million for the Democratic conclave in Denver and $57 million for the Republican one in Minneapolis-St. Paul," it reveals. "The latter figures are almost four times the separate $16 million each party received from the federal government to support its convention."

Key industry actors in the current financial crisis gave $14 million to conventions, CFI reports. The following are some of its findings:

* Freddie Mac gave $500,000, half to each committee.

* Ford Motor Company donated $200,000 for the conventions, half to each host committee (Also, Kirk Kerkorian, Ford’s largest shareholder with ties to GM and Chrysler, gave $3.5 million).

* General Motors provided 735 new cars to the Democratic and Republican Party convention committees for elected officials' use.

* American International Group, or AIG, gave $1.5 million split evenly between the two committees

* Hedge funds and their managers gave $3.9 million – $2.7 million to Republicans and $1.2 million to Democrats.

* Investment companies including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan Chase, UBS and Lehman Brothers, gave $1.5 million.

* Other financial institutions that have received or are eligible for bailouts, such as Citigroup, U.S. Bancorps, Wells Fargo, Cobank and Bank of America, donated $2.9 million – much of it was given to the Republican committee.

Finance, insurance and real estate companies gave $24.6 million toward the conventions, according to Center for Responsive Politics, or CRP.

"If the executives who have come to Washington, hat in hand, looked familiar to members of Congress, maybe it's because they met over the summer at the conventions," CRP Executive Director Sheila Krumholz said in a statement. "The conventions provided representatives of major corporations and industries with many opportunities to interact with Washington's decision-makers. Those conversations may have paid off just weeks later, when the government started handing out money to those companies and industries that are struggling."

The study also found that the drug industry gave $9.8 million to the parties, Internet companies donated $4.1 million to Republicans and $3.1 million to Democrats, while unions representing government employees contributed all of their $2.7 million to the Democrats' convention in Denver.

Krumholz said, "By taking advantage of the false distinction between a political party and the committee hosting the party's convention, unions were able to support the Democratic Party in a way that hasn't been allowed since the days of soft money, when labor was among the biggest givers."

Rezko is singing like a bird

A footnote to the 76-page criminal complaint and affidavit charging Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) with soliciting bribes confirms what has long been rumored -- that a former longtime friend and fundraiser for President-elect Barack Obama is talking to federal prosecutors in hopes of a reduced sentence.

Antoin "Tony" Rezko's offer to provide authorities with evidence of others' wrongdoing is "not complete," and prosecutors are working to corroborate the claims he has made so far, the footnote said.

Rezko, a 53-year-old developer, was convicted in June of 16 criminal counts, including fraud, money laundering and abetting bribery. He is in custody awaiting sentencing.

Prosecutors depicted Rezko at trial as a fixer for Blagojevich and the man to see to secure a high-level appointment with the governor's administration. Rezko had been a longtime fundraiser for Blagojevich and other Illinois politicians, including Obama.

Obama was not implicated in the months-long trial, and he has said that Rezko sought no favors from him. At a news conference on Tuesday, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, went out of his way to dampen speculation about Obama.

"I should make clear, the complaint makes no allegations about the president-elect whatsoever," Fitzgerald said. "We make no allegations that he's aware of anything, and that's as simply as I can put it. . . .

"There's no reference in the complaint to any conversations involving the president-elect or indicating that the president-elect was aware of it. And that's all I can say."

Legal experts said it was unusual for a prosecutor to make such a blanket statement while an investigation was continuing.

"That carries a great deal of weight," said Jan Witold Baran, a Washington lawyer who represents politicians on ethical complaints and campaign finance matters. "It is really unusual for a U.S. attorney to say someone is not implicated.
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"Could evidence pop up in the future to the contrary? Sure, it's possible. Is it likely? I think that, based on what he said yesterday, the answer is no," Baran added.

The ongoing investigation is sure to present political complications for the Obama Justice Department, because advisers close to the president-elect are referenced in the criminal complaint and will be interviewed by federal prosecutors, legal analysts said. A lawyer for the Obama transition team did not return calls or e-mails yesterday.

Fitzgerald was appointed U.S. attorney by President Bush, but he is a political independent. Obama could retain Fitzgerald, lending an element of continuity to the Blagojevich case and insulating himself somewhat from accusations that he is seeking to remove a dogged prosecutor from a case targeting Illinois Democrats.

Rezko's reappearance in the headlines in recent years has been of continuing use to Obama's political opponents -- including Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.), both of whose presidential campaigns pointed out that Obama shared a long history with the Chicago developer.

Over Obama's political career, Rezko raised contributions for him and introduced him to powerful aldermen. Rezko even offered real estate advice when Obama bought an expensive house on Chicago's South Side.

The two met in the early 1990s. Obama has said he was finishing his studies at Harvard Law School when Rezko and his business associates first contacted him about a job possibility in development. Obama declined a job offer from Rezko, instead accepting a position at a small Chicago law firm that would later represent Rezko's company and whose senior partner would in time go into business with Rezko.

A few years later, Obama entered politics. Records list three checks arriving on his first day of fundraising for the Illinois Senate. Two of them, totaling $2,000, came from companies associated with Rezko. Over time, the businessman and Obama began meeting regularly for lunch and dinner, occasionally with their wives.

After he joined the U.S. Senate in 2005, Obama took Rezko on a tour of a six-bedroom house in an upscale Chicago neighborhood. Rezko recommended that Obama buy the home and, on the day Obama closed the deal, Rezko's wife closed on an adjoining lot. The Rezkos resold a portion of their lot to Obama to expand his yard.

Lawyers in the Blagojevich case said information provided by Rezko and others who testified at Rezko's trial could form the backbone of several additional charges against the governor. Blagojevich's wife, Patricia, had worked on real estate deals with Rezko.

Nearly half of the criminal complaint unsealed Tuesday deals with allegations that members of the Blagojevich administration offered access to jobs and state contracts in exchange for campaign cash. Neither Blagojevich nor his chief of staff, John Harris, was immediately charged with involvement in those alleged schemes. Several of the fundraisers testified at Rezko's criminal trial this year.

Fitzgerald said authorities did not "rely upon" information from Rezko in the complaint. Joseph Duffy, a defense attorney for Rezko, did not return calls yesterday.

Constitution rewrite
only 2 states away
Critic: 'This is a horrible time
to try such a crazy scheme'

A public policy organization has issued an urgent alert stating affirmative votes are needed from only two more states before a Constitutional Convention could be assembled in which "today's corrupt politicians and judges" could formally change the U.S. Constitution's "'problematic' provisions to reflect the philosophical and social mores of our contemporary society."

"Don't for one second doubt that delegates to a Con Con wouldn't revise the First Amendment into a government-controlled privilege, replace the 2nd Amendment with a 'collective' right to self-defense, and abolish the 4th, 5th, and 10th Amendments, and the rest of the Bill of Rights," said the warning from the American Policy Institute.

"Additions could include the non-existent separation of church and state, the 'right' to abortion and euthanasia, and much, much more," the group said.

The warning comes at a time when Barack Obama, who is to be voted the next president by the Electoral College Monday, has expressed his belief the U.S. Constitution needs to be interpreted through the lens of current events.

Tom DeWeese, who runs the center and its education and grassroots work, told WND the possibilities stunned him when he discovered lawmakers in Ohio are considering a call for a Constitutional Convention. He explained that 32 other states already have taken that vote, and only one more would be needed to require Congress to name convention delegates who then would have more power than Congress itself.

"The U.S. Constitution places no restriction on the purposes for which the states can call for a convention," the alert said. "If Ohio votes to call a Con Con, for whatever purpose, the United States will be only one state away from total destruction. And it's a safe bet that those who hate this nation, and all She stands for, are waiting to pounce upon this opportunity to re-write our Constitution."

DeWeese told WND that a handful of quickly responding citizens appeared at the Ohio Legislature yesterday for the meeting at which the convention resolution was supposed to be handled.

State officials suddenly decided to delay action, he said, giving those concerned by the possibilities of such a convention a little time to breathe.

According to a Fox News report, Obama has stated repeatedly his desire for empathetic judges who "understand" the plight of minorities.

In a 2007 speech to Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion provider, he said, "We need somebody who's got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it's like to be a young teenage mom. The empathy to understand what it's like to be poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled, or old. And that's the criteria by which I'm going to be selecting my judges."

Obama also committed himself to respecting the Constitution but said the founding document must be interpreted in the context of current affairs and events.

Melody Barnes, a senior domestic policy adviser to the Obama campaign, said in the Fox News report, "His view is that our society isn't static and the law isn't static as well. That the Constitution is a living and breathing document and that the law and the justices who interpret it have to understand that."

Obama has criticized Justice Clarence Thomas, regarded as a conservative member of the court, as not a strong jurist or legal thinker. And Obama voted against both Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, two appointees of President Bush who vote with Thomas on many issues.

Further, WND also reported Obama believes the Constitution is flawed, because it fails to address wealth redistribution, and he says the Supreme Court should have intervened years ago to accomplish that.

Obama said in a 2001 radio interview the Constitution is flawed in that it does not mandate or allow for redistribution of wealth.

Obama told Chicago's public station WBEZ-FM that "redistributive change" is needed, pointing to what he regarded as a failure of the U.S. Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren in its rulings on civil rights issues in the 1960s.

The Warren court, he said, failed to "break free from the essential constraints" in the U.S. Constitution and launch a major redistribution of wealth. But Obama, then an Illinois state lawmaker, said the legislative branch of government, rather than the courts, probably was the ideal avenue for accomplishing that goal.

In the 2001 interview, Obama said:

If you look at the victories and failures of the civil rights movement and its litigation strategy in the court, I think where it succeeded was to invest formal rights in previously dispossessed people, so that now I would have the right to vote. I would now be able to sit at the lunch counter and order and as long as I could pay for it I’d be OK

But, the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society. To that extent, as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn't that radical. It didn't break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution, at least as it's been interpreted, and the Warren Court interpreted in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. Says what the states can't do to you. Says what the federal government can't do to you, but doesn't say what the federal government or state government must do on your behalf.

And that hasn't shifted and one of the, I think, tragedies of the civil rights movement was because the civil rights movement became so court-focused I think there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change. In some ways we still suffer from that.

cont'd

DeWeese said the Constitutional Convention effort was begun in the 1980s by those who wanted to rein in government with an amendment requiring a balanced budget for the federal agencies.

"Certainly all loyal Americans want government constrained by a balanced budget," the alert said. "But calling a Con Con risks a revolutionary change in our form of government. The ultimate outcome will likely be a new constitution, one that would possibly eliminate the Article 1 restriction to the coinage of real money or even eliminate gun or property rights."

He noted that when the last Constitutional Convention met in 1787, the original goal was to amend the Articles of Confederation. Instead, delegates simply threw them out and wrote a new Constitution.

"We were blessed in 1787; the Con Con delegates were the leaders of a freedom movement that had just cleansed this land of tyranny," the warning said. "Today's corrupt politicians and judges would like nothing better than the ability to legally ignore the Constitution - to modify its "problematic" provisions to reflect the philosophical and socials mores of our contemporary society."

DeWeese then listed some of the states whose legislatures already have issued a call: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Wyoming.

"You may have heard that some of those 32 states have voted to rescind their calls. This is true," the warning continued. "However, under Article V of the Constitution, Congress must call a Constitutional Convention whenever two-thirds (or 34) of the states apply. The Constitution makes no provision for rescission."

The warning also suggested that the belief that a Constitution Convention could be directed in its purpose is misplaced.

"In truth no restrictive language from any state can legally limit the scope or outcome of a Convention! Once a Convention is called, Congress determines how the delegates to the Convention are chosen. Once chosen, those Convention delegates possess more power than the U.S. Congress itself," the warning said.

"We have not had a Constitutional Convention since 1787. That Convention was called to make small changes in the Articles of Confederation. As a point of fact, several states first passed resolutions requiring their delegates discuss amendments to the Articles ONLY, forbidding even discussion of foundational changes. However, following the delegates' first agreement that their meetings be in secret, their second act was to agree to debate those state restrictions and to declare the Articles of Confederation NULL AND VOID! They also changed the ratification process, reducing the required states' approval from 100 percent to 75 percent. There is no reason to believe a contemporary Con Con wouldn't further 'modify' Article V restrictions to suit its purpose," the center warning said.

The website Principled Policy opined it is true that any new document would have to be submitted to a ratification process.

"However fighting a new Constitution would be a long, hard, ugly and expensive battle which is guaranteed to leave the nation split along ideological lines. It is not difficult to envision civil unrest, riots or even civil war as a result of any re-writing of the current Constitution," the site said.

American Policy cited a statement from former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Warren Burger that said, "There is no effective way to limit or muzzle the actions of a Constitutional Convention. The convention could make its own rules and set its own agenda."

"This is a horrible time to try such a crazy scheme," the policy center said. "The majority of U.S. voters just elected a dedicated leftist as president. … Our uniquely and purely American concept of individual rights, endowed by our Creator, would be quickly set aside as an anachronistic relic of a bygone era; replaced by new 'collective' rights, awarded and enforced by government for the 'common good.'

"And state No. 34 is likely sitting silently in the wings, ready to act with lightning speed, sealing the fate of our once great nation before we can prevent it," the center said.

A Constitutional Convention would be, DeWeese told WND, "our worst nightmare in an age when you've got people who believe the Constitution is an antiquated document, we need to have everything from controls on guns … all of these U.N. treaties … and controls on how we raise our children."

"When you take the document that is in their way, put it on the table and say how would you like to change it," he said.

American Policy Center suggested several courses of action for people who are concerned, including the suggestion that Ohio lawmakers be contacted.

WND also has reported an associate at a Chicago law firm whose partner served on a finance committee for Obama has advocated simply abandoning the U.S. Constitution's requirement that a president be a "natural-born" citizen.

The paper was written in 2006 by Sarah Herlihy, just two years after Obama had won a landslide election in Illinois to the U.S. Senate. Herlihy is listed as an associate at the Chicago firm of Kirkland & Ellis. A partner in the same firm, Bruce I. Ettelson, cites his membership on the finance committees for both Obama and Sen. Richard Durbin on the corporate website.

The article by Herlihy is available online under law review articles from Kent University.

The issue of Obama's own eligibility is the subject of nearly two dozen court cases in recent weeks, including at least two that have gone to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Herlihy's published paper reveals that the requirement likely was considered in a negative light by organizations linked to Obama in the months before he announced in 2007 his candidacy for the presidency.

"The natural born citizen requirement in Article II of the United States Constitution has been called the 'stupidest provision' in the Constitution, 'undecidedly un-American,' 'blatantly discriminatory,' and the 'Constitution's worst provision,'" Herlihy begins in her introduction to the paper titled, "Amending the Natural Born Citizen Requirement: Globalization as the Impetus and the Obstacle."

U.S. troops' new mission:
America's 'special events'
Proposal would allow civilians to activate
Army to prevent 'environmental damage'

New rules published in the Federal Register would allow certain civilians to call American soldiers into action inside the U.S. to prevent environmental damage or respond to "special events" and "other domestic activities."

The alarming warning is contained in proposed rules published last week for the Department of Defense's "Defense Support of Civil Authorities" plan.

Under the U.S. Constitution, soldiers inside the country essentially are tasked with the responsibility of quelling "insurrections" and repelling invasions as well as making sure each state has access to the republican form of government.

But the new rules go far beyond that, essentially establishing a plan to activate the U.S. military inside the country to deal with social issues under provisions that appear to be devoid of any connection to the Constitution, according to an expert.

"I think the thing that's of concern with respect to this set of rules is it appears to have no constitutional foundation, no reference whatsoever of any constitutional structure. It's totally missing," said Herb Titus, a onetime candidate for vice president for the Constitution Party and a longtime constitutional professor.

Titus, whose biography includes teaching at five different American Bar Association-approved law schools and service as founding dean of the College of Law and Government at Regent University, reviewed the federal proposal at WND's request.

The multi-page plan is to establish policies and assign responsibilities "regarding military support for civilian law enforcement."

The plan states, "This proposed rule will allow civil authorities access to the correct procedures when they are seeking assistance from the Department by establishing updated policy guidance and assigning the correct responsibilities within the Department for the Defense for support of civil authorities in response to requests for assistance for domestic emergencies, designated law enforcement support, special events, and other domestic activities.

Titus, who has testified before Congress on constitutional issues and is authorized to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court and a long list of federal court districts, said, "All of this is based on the assumption that government was created for the purpose of preventing things from happening in our lives."

A plain reading of the law, he said, would allow drastically different actions than what Americans probably expect.

"Instead of prosecuting somebody charged with murder, we should profile people who are likely to commit murder, round them up and prevent them from endangering lives," he said, citing the plan's apparent permission for the government to restrain liberties when there is concern about potential damages or injury.

A contact at the Department of Defense did not return a WND call requesting comment on the proposal.

But the plan itself says the person calling for soldiers' actions could be either a military official or civilian leader. And it renews questions about Barack Obama's stated plans for a National Civilian Security Force that is at least as powerful and well-funded as the U.S. military.

Even Obama's new chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, says there will be a mandatory "force" for Americans.

"If you're worried about, are you going to have to do 50 jumping jacks, the answer is yes," Emanuel told a reporter who was podcasting for the New York Daily News.

WND also reported when the official website for Obama, Change.gov, announced he would "require" all middle school through college students to participate in community service programs.

That proposal, however, was changed suddenly after a flurry of blogs protested children being drafted into Obama's proposal. The new wording reads, "President-Elect Obama will expand national service programs like AmeriCorps and Peace Corps and will create a new Classroom Corps to help teachers in under served schools, as well as a new Health Corps, Clean Energy Corps, and Veterans Corps.

WND previously reported on a video of a marching squad of Obama youth.

Obama, meanwhile, also has yet to clarify what he meant during his July "Call to Service" speech in Colorado Springs in which he insisted the U.S. "cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we've set" and needs a "civilian national security force."

Joseph Farah, founder and editor of WND, used his daily column first to raise the issue and then to elevate it with a call to all reporters to start asking questions about it.

"If we're going to create some kind of national police force as big, powerful and well-funded as our combined U.S. military forces, isn't this rather a big deal?" Farah wrote. "I thought Democrats generally believed the U.S. spent too much on the military. How is it possible their candidate is seeking to create some kind of massive but secret national police force that will be even bigger than the Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force put together?

"Is Obama serious about creating some kind of domestic security force bigger and more expensive than that? If not, why did he say it? What did he mean?" Farah wrote.

The Obama campaign has declined to respond to WND questions on the issue.

The newly proposed Department of Defense rules leave a virtually wide open door for what could be cited as a reason for military intervention.

It defines "Imminently Serious Conditions" as "Emergency conditions in which, in the judgment of a military commander or responsible DoD civilian official, immediate and possibly serious danger threatens the public and prompt action is needed to save lives, to safeguard public health or safety, or to prevent or mitigate great property or environmental damage."

Repeatedly the rules cite "special events."

"Special event support to non-governmental organizations is a DSCA activity," it states under policy issues.

That, Titus contemplated, could even be a Democratic National Convention in Denver.

He said it's important to keep the foundations of the nation in mind and that many of the principles of justice and government for America were derived from the pulpits of the 1700s.

"If you go back and look at Romans 13, the civil government was authorized to punish evil doing, not to prevent it from happening," Titus said.

The new proposal specifically states it applies to a "potential or actual domestic crisis" and even confirms that conditions not always will allow "prior authority" before "action is necessary for effective response."

"All this is really designed to do is legitimize by rule essentially a broader discretionary power," Titus said.

It also reverses the role of the boss, he said, because of the repeated references to a situation "manager."

"It's the image that's being created. A manager. You're supposed to do what the manager tells you. Contrast that with civil authorities who are our servants. They're supposed to do what we want them to do," he said.

Many state constitutions were specific in that area, he noted. Virginia's, for example, declared that all powers derive from the people, and in Pennsylvania the constitution specifically reserved the right to regulate police to the people.

Although many would argue such military occupation of the U.S. would be reserved only for such "emergencies," the Washington Post reported just a few days ago on plans by the U.S. military to have 20,000 uniformed troops stationed inside the U.S. by 2011.

The plan has been lauded by some in the Bush administration and Congress as a reasonable response to the threat of terrorism, despite concerns over how it would undermine the Posse Comitatus Act, a federal law that restricts the military's role in domestic law enforcement.

At word of the plan, the ACLU warned of expansions in "presidential and military authority," while the Cato Institute called it a case of "creeping militarization," according to the Post.

Gene Healy, Cato vice president, told the newspaper, "There's a notion that whenever there's an important problem, that the thing to do is to call in the boys in green … and that's at odds with our long-standing tradition of being wary of the use of standing armies to keep the peace."

The DoD says it will accept comments on the proposal until Feb. 2 at the federal government's link.

Federal Reserve sued for funding Shariah products
'There is an internal cultural jihad under way against our great nation'

A lawsuit has been filed against the Federal Reserve Board and U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. over Wall Street bailout money going to American International Group, which is funding Shariah-compliant insurance and products.

WND reported a week ago that AIG has benefited from two major bailout agreements with the U.S. government giving $152.5 billion in taxpayer dollars to the company. Then it confirmed it is stepping up its dealings with Islamic finance offering homeowners insurance that complies with Islam's religious Shariah laws.

According to an announcement at the time, Risk Specialists Companies, Inc., or RSC, a subsidiary of AIG Commercial Insurance, was introducing its Shariah-compliant Takaful Homeowners Policy to the U.S.

The Shariah-compliant policy is underwritten through RSC member company A.I. Risk Specialists Insurance, Inc., in conjunction with Lexington Insurance Co. and in association with AIG Takaful Enaya.

"Takaful" is based on Quranic principles of "Ta'awon" – or mutual assistance. The term originates from the Arabic word "Kafalah," meaning "joint guarantee." Similar to mutual insurance, where policyholders own a stake in the organization, members of a Takaful group pool their resources to help the neediest member, and losses are divided among them.

The lawsuit seeks a court order to stop AIG from using any taxpayer funds distributed as part of the Wall Street bailout, because of its Islamic-based businesses and activities.

"This lawsuit not only raises significant constitutional issues, it also shines a light on serious national security issues that our own government has created by direct financial support and ownership of a business that supports anti-American, radical Islamic activities," said Richard Thompson, president and chief counsel for the Thomas More Law Center, which is handling the case.

"Make no mistake, there is an internal cultural jihad under way against our great nation, and I fear that many of our political leaders are unwittingly complicit in it," he said today.

The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Michigan on behalf of Kevin J. Murray, a former Marine infantryman who served two tours of duty in Iraq.

It challenges the "Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008" as being unconstitutional, because of the $40 billion in taxpayer funds used to support the U.S. government's new majority ownership interest in AIG.

The company's "Islamic religious activities" are "anti-Christian, anti-Jewish, and anti-American," the lawsuit says, and violate the U.S. Constitution's Establishment Clause.

According to the lawsuit, through the use of taxpayer funds, the U.S. government acquired a majority (79.9 percent) ownership interest in AIG, and as part of the bailout, Congress provided money to fund and financially support AIG and its financial activities. AIG, which is now a government-owned company, engages in Shariah-compliant financing, which subjects certain financial activities, including investments, to the dictates of Islamic law and the Islamic religion. This specifically includes any profits or interest obtained through such financial activities.

The lawsuit said an important element of Shariah-compliant financing is a form of obligatory charitable contribution called zakat, which is a religious tax for assisting those that "struggle [jihad] for Allah." The amount of this tax is up to 20 percent, depending upon the source of the wealth. The zakat religious tax is used to support Islamic "charities," some of which have ties to terrorist organizations that are hostile to the United States and all other "infidels," which includes Christians and Jews.

"The Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, recently convicted for providing material support to Islamic terrorist organizations, is an example of an Islamic "charity" that qualifies for receipt of the zakat," the lawsuit said.

"Thus, as a direct consequence of the taxpayer funds appropriated and expended to purchase and financially support AIG, the U.S. government is now the owner of a corporation engaged in the business of collecting religious taxes to fund interests adverse to the United States, Christians, Jews, and all other 'infidels' under Islamic law," the lawsuit said.

"This lawsuit is as much about protecting constitutional principles as it is about protecting our national security and preventing another 9/11 – whether it be overt through flying planes into buildings or covert through appropriating taxpayer money to fund an Islamic cultural jihad," Thompson said.

AIG's Shariah program was set up with the help of a three-person Shariah Advisory Board, with members from Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Pakistan. According to AIG, the role of its Shariah authority "is to review [its] operations, supervise its development of Islamic products, and determine Shariah compliance of these products and [its] investments," the lawsuit said.

But of particular interest Pakistani Board member, Muhammed Imran Ashraf Usmani, the case said.

"Usmani is the son and devoted disciple of Sheik Mufti Taqi Usmani, the leading authority on Shariah financing who, in 1999, authored a book dedicating an entire chapter on why a Western Muslim must engage in violent jihad against his own country – even if Muslims are given equality and freedom to practice their religion and to proselytize," the lawsuit said.

Murray was one of those who "answered the call" when Islamic terrorists, "guided by principles of Shariah-mandated jihad against 'infidels,' attacked and killed thousands of innocent American civilians,'" the case said.

"Yet today, Murray's federal tax dollars are being used to advance the very cause of global jihad he and his fellow servicemen were placed in harm's way to overcome," the lawsuit said.

"Shariah explicitly demands the murder of infidels like Kevin Murray and the destruction of the United States, which Murray took an oath to defend. Shariah is the same law that is used to justify beheadings, stonings, and amputation for petty crimes in places like Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Sudan, which Americans deplore," the complaint said.

WND also reported earlier that the U.S. Treasury was teaching a course called "Islamic Finance 101."

"It is clear," said Thompson, "oil money is purchasing the sovereignty of the United States and whatever loyalty to America these greedy financial institutions, corporations, and universities have left. It's up to the American people to take back their country from those who so easily betray its interests."

Jeffrey Imm of Family Security Matters and the Anti-Jihad League of America has written extensively on the subject, warning that AIG would expand its Shariah products in the U.S. He has even created a petition demanding the Federal Reserve, Securities Exchange Commission and Department of the Treasury require AIG to divest itself of its Shariah businesses.

"The Sharia legal codification is intended to enforce discriminatory and segregationist practices against women and non-Muslims and to suppress the liberties of those living in Islamic theocracies," Imm writes."... Sharia is incompatible with democratic values and the inalienable right that 'all men are created equal.'"

A part of AIG's government bailout includes its Takaful Sharia-based insurance business, its divisions promoting Sharia finance and Sharia mutual trusts.

"You own it," Imm declares. "That's where your tax dollars are going today."

Imm warns investing in Shariah-compliant businesses is dangerous for the U.S. When the government first considered providing a bailout to AIG it should have first required the company to divest itself of Shariah-based businesses, he wrote.

What does Congress do in a recession?

A crumbling economy, more than 2 million constituents who have lost their jobs this year, and congressional demands of CEOs to work for free did not convince lawmakers to freeze their own pay.

Instead, they will get a $4,700 pay increase, amounting to an additional $2.5 million that taxpayers will spend on congressional salaries, and watchdog groups are not happy about it.

“As lawmakers make a big show of forcing auto executives to accept just $1 a year in salary, they are quietly raiding the vault for their own personal gain,” said Daniel O’Connell, chairman of The Senior Citizens League (TSCL), a non-partisan group. “This money would be much better spent helping the millions of seniors who are living below the poverty line and struggling to keep their heat on this winter.”

However, at 2.8 percent, the automatic raise that lawmakers receive is only half as large as the 2009 cost of living adjustment of Social Security recipients.

Still, Steve Ellis, vice president of the budget watchdog Taxpayers for Common Sense, said Congress should have taken the rare step of freezing its pay, as lawmakers did in 2000.

“Look at the way the economy is and how most people aren’t counting on a holiday bonus or a pay raise — they’re just happy to have gainful employment,” said Ellis. “But you have the lawmakers who are set up and ready to get their next installment of a pay raise and go happily along their way.”

Member raises are often characterized as examples of wasteful spending, especially when many constituents and businesses in members’ districts are in financial despair.

Rep. Harry Mitchell, a first-term Democrat from Arizona, sponsored legislation earlier this year that would have prevented the automatic pay adjustments from kicking in for members next year. But the bill, which attracted 34 cosponsors, failed to make it out of committee.

“They don’t even go through the front door. They have it set up so that it’s wired so that you actually have to undo the pay raise rather than vote for a pay raise,” Ellis said.

Freezing congressional salaries is hardly a new idea on Capitol Hill.

Lawmakers have floated similar proposals in every year dating back to 1995, and long before that. Though the concept of forgoing a raise has attracted some support from more senior members, it is most popular with freshman lawmakers, who are often most vulnerable.

In 2006, after the Republican-led Senate rejected an increase to the minimum wage, Democrats, who had just come to power in the House with a slew of freshmen, vowed to block their own pay raise until the wage increase was passed. The minimum wage was eventually increased and lawmakers received their automatic pay hike.

In the beginning days of 1789, Congress was paid only $6 a day, which would be about $75 daily by modern standards. But by 1965 members were receiving $30,000 a year, which is the modern equivalent of about $195,000.

Currently the average lawmaker makes $169,300 a year, with leadership making slightly more. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) makes $217,400, while the minority and majority leaders in the House and Senate make $188,100.

Ellis said that while freezing the pay increase would be a step in the right direction, it would be better to have it set up so that members would have to take action, and vote, for a pay raise and deal with the consequences, rather than get one automatically.

“It is probably never going to be politically popular to raise Congress’s salary,” he said. “I don’t think you’re going to find taxpayers saying, ‘Yeah I think I should pay my congressman more’.”

California Supreme Court allows good Samaritans to be sued for nonmedical care
The ruling stems from a case in which a woman pulled a crash victim from a car 'like a rag doll,' allegedly aggravating a vertebrae injury.

Being a good Samaritan in California just got a little riskier.

The California Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a young woman who pulled a co-worker from a crashed vehicle isn't immune from civil liability because the care she rendered wasn't medical.

The divided high court appeared to signal that rescue efforts are the responsibility of trained professionals. It was also thought to be the first ruling by the court that someone who intervened in an accident in good faith could be sued.

Lisa Torti of Northridge allegedly worsened the injuries suffered by Alexandra Van Horn by yanking her "like a rag doll" from the wrecked car on Topanga Canyon Boulevard.

Torti now faces possible liability for injuries suffered by Van Horn, a fellow department store cosmetician who was rendered a paraplegic in the accident that ended a night of Halloween revelry in 2004.

But in a sharp dissent, three of the seven justices said that by making a distinction between medical care and emergency response, the court was placing "an arbitrary and unreasonable limitation" on protections for those trying to help.

In 1980, the Legislature enacted the Health and Safety Code, which provides that "no person who in good faith, and not for compensation, renders emergency care at the scene of an emergency shall be liable for any civil damages resulting from any act or omission."

Although that passage does not use the word "medical" in describing the protected emergency care, it was included in the section of the code that deals with emergency medical services. By placing it there, lawmakers intended to shield "only those persons who in good faith render emergency medical care at the scene of a medical emergency," Justice Carlos R. Moreno wrote for the majority.

The high court cited no previous cases involving good Samaritan actions deemed unprotected by the state code, suggesting the challenge of Torti's rescue effort was the first to narrow the scope of the law.

The three dissenting justices argued, however, that the aim of the legislation was clearly "to encourage persons not to pass by those in need of emergency help, but to show compassion and render the necessary aid."

Justice Marvin R. Baxter said the ruling was "illogical" because it recognizes legal immunity for nonprofessionals administering medical care while denying it for potentially life-saving actions like saving a person from drowning or carrying an injured hiker to safety.

"One who dives into swirling waters to retrieve a drowning swimmer can be sued for incidental injury he or she causes while bringing the victim to shore, but is immune for harm he or she produces while thereafter trying to revive the victim," Baxter wrote for the dissenters. "Here, the result is that defendant Torti has no immunity for her bravery in pulling her injured friend from a crashed vehicle, even if she reasonably believed it might be about to explode."

Both opinions have merit, "but I think the majority has better arguments," said Michael Shapiro, professor of constitutional and bioethics law at USC.

Shapiro said the majority was correct in interpreting that the Legislature meant to shield doctors and other healthcare professionals from being sued for injuries they cause despite acting with "reasonable care," as the law requires.

Noting that he would be reluctant himself to step in to aid a crash victim with potential spinal injuries, Shapiro said the court's message was that emergency care "should be left to medical professionals."

Torti's liability has yet to be determined in court, and if the Legislature is unhappy with any judgment arising from the immunity denial, it can revise the code, he concluded.

Torti, Van Horn and three other co-workers from a San Fernando Valley department store had gone out to a bar on Halloween for a night of drinking and dancing, departing in two cars at 1:30 a.m., the justices noted as background.

Van Horn was a front-seat passenger in a vehicle driven by Anthony Glen Watson, whom she also sued, and Torti rode in the second car. After Watson's car crashed into a light pole at about 45 mph, the rear car pulled off the road and driver Dion Ofoegbu and Torti rushed to help Watson's two passengers escape the wreckage.

Torti testified in a deposition that she saw smoke and liquid coming from Watson's vehicle and feared the car was about to catch fire. None of the others reported seeing signs of an imminent explosion, and Van Horn said in her deposition that Torti grabbed her arm and yanked her out "like a rag doll."

Van Horn's suit alleges negligence by Torti in aggravating a vertebrae injury suffered in the crash, causing permanent damage to the spinal cord.

Neither Torti nor her attorney, Ronald D. Kent, could be reached immediately. Kent's Los Angeles law office said he was in meetings on the East Coast and may not have seen the decision.

Van Horn's attorney, Robert B. Hutchinson, disputed the notion that the ruling could have a chilling effect on laymen coming to the rescue of the injured. Good Samaritan laws have been on the books for centuries and state that "if a person volunteers to act, he or she must act with reasonable care," Hutchinson said.

"Ms. Torti ran up in a state of panic, literally grabbed Ms. Van Horn by the shoulder and yanked her out, then dropped her next to the car," he said, deeming Torti's assessment of an imminent explosion "irrational" and her action in leaving Van Horn close to the car inconsistent with that judgment.

Hutchinson said it was too early to say what sum Van Horn might seek in damages; her original suit was summarily dismissed in Los Angeles County Superior Court before he could arrange expert assessments of the costs of her life care and loss of potential income. It was her ambition to become a Hollywood makeup artist -- a dream no longer achievable, the lawyer said.

Torti's trial at the Chatsworth courthouse is expected next year.

Pay Raises for Lawmakers Anger Watchdog Groups
Each lawmaker is due for a $4,700 cost-of-living wage hike starting in January, which will amount to a total cost of $2.5 million for taxpayers

FOXNews.com

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Pay Raises for Lawmakers Anger Watchdog Groups
powered by BaynoteAs Americans across the country grapple with one of the worst financial crises since the Great Depression, members of Congress quietly are getting a pay raise.

Each lawmaker's annual salary is due for a $4,700 cost-of-living increase starting in January, which will amount to a cost to taxpayers of $2.5 million in 2009, infuriating watchdog groups.

"Members of Congress don't deserve one additional dime of taxpayer money in 2009," said Tom Schatz, president of the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste.

"While thousands of Americans are facing layoffs and downsizing, Congress should be mortified to accept a raise," he said in a written statement.

Members of Congress make an average of $169,300 a year, with Congressional leaders making slightly more. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Cailf., makes $217,400, while the majority and minority leaders in the House and Senate each make $188,100.

The raise will increase the average salary to about $174,000, up 2.8 percent.

Pelosi's and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's offices did not respond to FOXNews.com's requests for comment.

Pay raises for public officials, whether at the federal, state or local level, usually spark outrage among taxpayer advocates. But the deepening financial crisis has led even a few lawmakers to object.

Earlier this year, Rep. Harry Mitchell, a first-term Democrat from Arizona, introduced legislation that would have stopped the automatic pay adjustments from kicking in for members next year. But the bill, which drew 34 cosponsors, died in committee.

Two other members of Congress, Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind, and Rep. Gresham Barrett, R-SC, also tried to block the wages but didn't get very far. Burton plans to return his pay increase to the Treasury Department.

"As we face the most challenging economic crisis in our history, and with many Americans and Hoosiers enduring personal financial hardships, I am opposed to any pay increase for members of Congress in 2009," he said in a written statement. He said he'll try again next year.

Lawmakers have received automatic raises since 1989. As part of an ethics bill, Congress gave up its ability to accept pay for speeches and made annual cost-of-living pay increases automatic unless lawmakers voted otherwise.

Lawmakers have rejected pay raises six times since then, most recently last year, when Democrats, newly elected to the majority, had vowed to block an increase in their paychecks until Congress raised the minimum wage.

For the past eight years, Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, has been trying to end the automatic salary hike for House members, arguing that spending priorities in a time of war and economic crisis do not include pay raises for lawmakers.

Matheson wants to put the automatic pay raises to a vote.

"At a time when people are losing their jobs, their homes and their retirement, I think the least we could do is openly debate whether we should take the pay increase this year or do some belt-tightening," he said in a written statement.

As he has done for the past eight years, Matheson plans to donate his pay raise to charity, his spokeswoman said.

The Senior Citizens League asserted the pay raise would rank each lawmaker in the top six percent of American households.

"As lawmakers make a big show of forcing auto executives to accept just $1 a year in salary, they are quietly raiding the vault for their own personal gain," the group's chairman, Daniel O'Connell, said in a written statement. "This money would be much better spent helping the millions of seniors who are living below the poverty line and struggling to keep their heat on this winter."

The group estimates that a senior receiving average benefits will get a $63 monthly increase to just $1,153 per month next year, increasing their annual total to $13,836.

The pay raises come as the economic recession deepens. The economy lost 533,000 jobs in November, bringing the unemployment rate to 6.7 percent.

Quote from: Pastor Roger on December 22, 2008, 02:08:33 PM

Brighton, Michigan Bans Speech That Annoys

Suburban Detroit has discovered a missing clause in the First Amendment. We have a right to free speech — so long as no one is annoyed by it.

The Brighton City Council on Thursday approved an ordinance allowing police in the Livingston County community to ticket and fine anyone who is annoying in public “by word of mouth, sign or motions.”

The Livingston County Daily Press & Argus of Howell reports the measure is modeled on a similar ordinance in the Detroit suburb of Royal Oak.

This one requires no thought at all. It's brainless, ridiculous, illegal, and Unconstitutional. Those acting under color of law to enforce it would be subject to criminal and civil remedies. This place must not have access to an attorney, or their attorney graduated from the Three Stooges School of Law. I take that back - Three Stooges graduates would know better. As a contrast, there has been Constitutional challenges to ordinances that prohibit fighting words - words designed to start a physical confrontation in public. The Constitutional challenge has been lost in some cases, especially those that didn't escalate to the point of near confrontation. As another example, "drunk" in public has been challenged many times, and it's no longer on the books in many jurisdictions. One has to itemize what the drunk does in public that is probably also against the law.

Many of the new laws being tried in various places are bone-headed to the point of STUPIDITY. They would have to already have a CLUE this law is illegal and Unconstitutional, so that would make the criminal and civil remedies worse. By the way, the taxpayers would foot the bill, but the officials acting under color of law would do the TIME. This one would be hard to convince a jury that they didn't have sufficient common sense to know this law is ILLEGAL AND UNCONSTITUTIONAL.

(http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i160/tlr10/stooges/stooges003.jpg)

Hillary moves to widen role of State Department
Obama administration wants diplomacy as 'critical tool in America's arsenal'

Even before taking office, Hillary Rodham Clinton is seeking to build a more powerful State Department, with a bigger budget, high-profile special envoys to trouble spots and an expanded role in dealing with global economic issues at a time of crisis.

Mrs. Clinton is recruiting Jacob J. Lew, the budget director under President Bill Clinton, as one of two deputies, according to people close to the Obama transition team. Mr. Lew’s focus, they said, will be on increasing the share of financing that goes to the diplomatic corps. He and James B. Steinberg, a deputy national security adviser in the Clinton administration, are to be Mrs. Clinton’s chief lieutenants.

Nominations of deputy secretaries, like Mrs. Clinton’s, would be subject to confirmation by the Senate.
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The incoming administration is also likely to name several envoys, officials said, reviving a practice of the Clinton administration, when Richard C. Holbrooke, Dennis Ross and other diplomats played a central role in mediating disputes in the Balkans and the Middle East.

As Mrs. Clinton puts together her senior team, officials said, she is also trying to carve out a bigger role for the State Department in economic affairs, where the Treasury has dominated during the Bush years. She has sought advice from Laura D’Andrea Tyson, an economist who headed Mr. Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers.

The steps seem intended to strengthen the role of diplomacy after a long stretch, particularly under Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, in which the Pentagon, the vice president’s office and even the intelligence agencies held considerable sway over American foreign policy.

Given Mrs. Clinton’s prominence, expanding the department’s portfolio could bring on conflict with other powerful cabinet members.

Mrs. Clinton and President-elect Barack Obama have not settled on specific envoys or missions, although Mr. Ross’s name has been mentioned as a possible Middle East envoy, as have those of Mr. Holbrooke and Martin Indyk, a former United States ambassador to Israel.

'Reinvention of the wheel'
The Bush administration has made relatively little use of special envoys. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has personally handled most peacemaking initiatives, which has meant a punishing schedule of Middle East missions, often with meager results.

“There’s no question that there is a reinvention of the wheel here,” said Aaron David Miller, a public policy analyst at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. “But it’s geared not so much as a reaction to Bush as to a fairly astute analysis of what’s going to work in foreign policy.”

With so many problems, including Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan, Mr. Miller said it made sense for the White House to farm out some of the diplomatic heavy lifting.

In addition to the Middle East, one Democratic foreign policy adviser said, Mr. Holbrooke might be considered for an appointment as special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, and possibly Iran. The adviser said the decision had not been made.

A transition official dismissed as “speculation” reports in Indian newspapers that Mr. Obama was considering appointing Mr. Clinton as a special envoy to deal with Kashmir issues.

But another transition official confirmed that Mr. Obama’s foreign policy advisers were discussing the possibility of appointing a special envoy to India. Mr. Steinberg, who is the dean of the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, would probably coordinate the work of any special envoys, the official said.

The recruitment of Mr. Lew — for a position that was not filled in the Bush administration — suggests that Mrs. Clinton is determined to win a larger share of financial resources for the department. A well-connected figure who was once an aide to Speaker Thomas P. O’Neill, Mr. Lew now works for Citigroup in a unit that oversees hedge funds.

“If we’re going to re-establish diplomacy as the critical tool in America’s arsenal,” a senior transition official said, “you need someone who can work both the budget and management side. He has very strong relations on the Hill; he knows the inner workings of how to manage a big enterprise.”

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the discussions were private, said Mrs. Clinton was being supported in her push for more resources by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Mr. Obama’s incoming national security adviser, Gen. James L. Jones Jr.

For years, some Pentagon officials have complained that jobs like the economic reconstruction in Afghanistan and Iraq have been added to the military’s burden when they could have been handled by a robust Foreign Service.

“The Pentagon would like to turn functionality over to civilian resources, but the resources are not there,” the official said. “We’re looking to have a State Department that has what it needs.”

Mrs. Clinton’s push for a more vigorous economic team, one of her advisers said, stems from her conviction that the State Department needs to play a part in the recovery from the global financial crisis. Economic issues also underpin some of the most important diplomatic relationships, notably with China.

In recent years, the Treasury Department, led by Henry M. Paulson Jr., has dominated policy toward China. Mr. Paulson leads a “strategic economic dialogue” with China that involves several agencies. It is not yet clear who will pick up that role in the Obama administration, although Vice President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. is frequently mentioned as a possibility.

Bush springs drug dealers,
leaves border agents to rot
Ramos-Compean supporter asks:
'Why is the president dug in so deep?'

President George W. Bush today added a convicted methamphetamine dealer, a cocaine distributor and two marijuana suppliers to the list of drug operators he's pardoned while in office, bringing his total of drug suppliers who have been pardoned or had their sentences commuted to 36.

He's also pardoned more than a dozen thieves, seven embezzlers, an arsonist, several mail thieves, a man who violated the Neutrality Act and eight Thanksgiving turkeys, but there's been no clemency for U.S. Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, who were convicted of shooting at a fleeing drug smuggler.

Andy Ramirez, of Friends of the Border Patrol, long has been involved in the Ramos-Compean case, and said the questions just start piling up.

"First and foremost is the question that has to be asked, 'Why is the president dug in so deep' on Ramos and Compean?" Ramirez said. "Look at how many members of Congress have sent him letters, and have held hearings.

"You really have got to start to wonder … does this doper (in the Ramos-Compean case) lead to somebody really big?" he said.

Joe Loya, the father-in-law for Ramos, said he, his daughter and grandchildren were "devastated" by word that Ramos and Compean had been denied clemency on the latest list of presidential actions.

"We were praying for a miracle. We just don't understand where the connection is when drug smugglers are getting pardons and commuted sentences, yet two agents who are not criminals, who were just doing their jobs, are in isolation," he told WND by telephone as he traveled to visit his son-in-law in jail on Christmas Eve.

"George Bush could redeem himself," he continued. "Ninety-five percent of our support is coming from Republicans. He certainly has nothing to lose.

(Story continues below)

"He could make millions of people feel good about it, or he could make one person (prosecutor) Johnny Sutton," Loya said. "We hope he will do the right thing."

Bush today released a list of 19 more pardons or commutations. Included were a commutation of the life prison term for Reed Raymond Prior of Iowa, convicted of dealing methamphetamine. Pardons were handed out to William Alvis III of Ohio for cocaine distribution and Steve Doyle Cavender of Florida and Marie Elena Eppens of Washington for distributing marijuana.

Prior had admitted having methamphetamine with plans to distribute it, following three prior felony drug convictions. Bush has approved 10 commutations and about 200 pardons in his two terms, about half of those granted by Bill Clinton.

Ramos and Compean, meanwhile, are serving 11- and 12-year prison sentences, respectively, for shooting an illegal alien drug dealer while he smuggled nearly 750 pounds of marijuana across the border. They were convicted of assault, discharge of a weapon in the commission of a crime of violence and deprivation of civil rights.

U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton's office gave the smuggler, Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila, full immunity from prosecution for agreeing to serve as the government's star witness and testify against the border agents. A ruling, from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of appeals, affirmed all convictions except for tampering with an official proceeding, which it vacated and remanded for resentencing.

While Aldrete-Davila was waiting to testify against the agents, he also was involved in another drug smuggling case, but that information was withheld from jurors in the Ramos-Compean trial.

Eventually, the smuggler was sentenced for the second case, but his sentence was considerably shorter than that of the agents who tried to halt his activities in the earlier episode.

Ramos' attorney, David Botsworth, said a petition for writ of certiorari was filed with the U.S. Supreme Court and docketed on Dec. 11. The government has the right to file a response should it choose to do so by early January.

"It's obviously an astronomical uphill battle to get review in the Supreme Court," Botsworth said. "I think the issues are worthy of their consideration."

SWAT raid on food co-op called 'entrapment'
Lawyer says family badgered by agent to 'sell' eggs
By Bob Unruh
© 2008 WorldNetDaily

A state agent from the Ohio Department of Agriculture pressured a family whose members run a food cooperative for friends and neighbors to "sell" him a dozen eggs, sparking accusations of entrapment from a lawyer defending the family.

The case brought by state and local authorities against a co-op run by John and Jacqueline Stowers in LaGrange, Ohio, came to a head on Dec. 1 when police officers used SWAT-style tactics to burst into the home, hold family members including children at gunpoint and confiscate the family's personal food supply.

Two organizations, the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund and the Buckeye Institute's legal arm, the Center for Constitutional Law, are working to defend the family.

In an audio podcast posted online, Maurice Thompson of the Buckeye Institute said the family has run the Manna Storehouse, focusing mainly on organic supplies, for several years near Cleveland.

The confrontation began developing several years ago when local health officials demanded the family hold a retail food license in order to run their co-op. Thompson said the family wrote a letter questioning that requirement and asking for evidence that would suggest they were operating a food store and how their private co-op was similar to a WalMart.

The Stowers family members simply "take orders from (co-op) members … then divide up the food," Thompson explained.

"The health inspector didn't like the tone of the letter," Thompson said, and the result was that law enforcement officials planned, staged and carried out the Dec. 1 SWAT-style raid on the family's home.

Thompson said he discussed the developments of the case with the health inspector personally.

"He didn't think the tone of that letter was appropriate," Thompson said. " I've seen the letter. There's not anything there that's belligerent."

"Government officials have egos as well. The problem is when government officials have egos, they use the power of government against us," he said.

Thompson explained the genesis of the raid was a series of visits to the family by an undercover agent for the state agriculture agency.

"He showed up (at the Stowers' residence) unannounced one day," Thompson explained, and "pretended" to be interested in purchasing food.

The family explained the co-op was private and they couldn't provide service to the stranger.

The agent then returned another day, stayed for two hours, and explained how he thought his sick mother would be helped by eggs from range-fed chickens to which the Stowers had access.

The family responded that they didn't sell food and couldn't help. When he refused to leave, the family gave him a dozen eggs to hasten his departure, Thompson explained.

Despite protests from the family, the agent left some money on a counter and departed.

On the basis of that transaction, the Stowers were accused of engaging in the retail sale of food, Thompson said.

"You hear people scream entrapment," he said. "But in this instance…"

He said the state agency came from "nowhere" and then worked to get the family involved "in something that might require a license."

Even that remained in dispute, because of a long list of exceptions in the state law, some of which may apply in this case, he said.

The organizations have filed a complaint on behalf of the family naming the Ohio Department of Agriculture, the Lorain County General Health District and the state's attorney general as defendants. A spokeswoman at the Department of Agriculture told WND today she was unable to comment, and officials with the local health agency did not answer WND calls to three different office numbers.

A prosecutor assigned to the case previously declined to respond to WND's request for a comment.

Pete Kennedy of the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund said the case was government "overreaching" and was designed more to intimidate and "frighten people into believing that they cannot provide food for themselves."

"This is an example where, once again, the government is trying to deny people their inalienable, fundamental right to produce and consume the foods of their choice," said Gary Cox, general counsel for the FTCLDF. "The purpose of our complaint is to correct that wrong."

In a video posted both on YouTube and on the Buckeye Institute's website, the couple explained how they just wanted to provide a resource for both farmers and consumers.

"We had a sheriff's department group of about 11-12, I don't know, 13 men come into our home. It was violent, it was belligerent, they didn't identify themselves," Jacqueline Stowers said.

She and 10 children were forcibly herded into a room and held there for at least six hours, she said.

"In the meantime we had people with guns inside and outside," she said.

Thompson said officers confiscated the family's personal computers, cell phones and food supplies, even though the Manna Storehouse food supplies were in another building.

Officials with the Weston A. Price Foundation, a nutrition education non-profit, said several of its members had been participating in the co-op, but now their food supplies are disrupted.

The raid on Manna was not the first such case of authorities invading a home over issues involving the operations of food co-ops and direct producer-to-consumer arrangements. WND reported several months ago when authorities in Pennsylvania demanded $4,000 in fines from a farmer who provided raw milk to friends and neighbors.

That case also was highlighted by a SWAT team-like raid on Mark Nolt's farm, when government agents confiscated tens of thousands of dollars worth of his products as well as pieces of machinery he used for his milk handling and sales.

Online bloggers raged over the situation involving the Stowers.

"Agents began rifling through all of the family's possessions, a task that lasted hours and resulted in a complete upheaval of every private area in the home. Many items were taken that were not listed on the search warrant. The family was not permitted a phone call, and they were not told what crime they were being charged with. They were not read their rights. Over ten thousand dollars worth of food was taken, including the family's personal stock of food for the coming year," said one.

The complaint notes Manna Storehouse deals with wheat, flour, sugar, grass-fed beef, lamb, turkey and eggs from free range chickens, mostly coming from local farmers. The raid was based on an affidavit from Ohio Department of Agriculture agent William Lesho that "makes numerous conclusory and unsubstantiated claims," the complaint said.

Dems Pave the Way for Massive Looting by Lawyers

A pork-laden, unaffordable “stimulus” package isn’t the only technique Dems will employ to finish off the American economy so that socialism can be imposed. They are also working closely with their financiers in the lawsuit industry to loot the capitalist system into insolvency:

Quote

Democrats are planning to kick off the legislative portion of the 111th Congress as early as today with two big donations to one of their most loyal retainers: the plaintiffs bar. Higher labor costs will result from a pair of bills designed to create new lawsuit possibilities in cases of alleged wage discrimination.

One is the insane Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which would remove the statute of limitations from pay discrimination claims.

Quote

For the tort bar, this is pure gold. It would create a new legal business in digging up ancient workplace grievances. This would also be made easier by the bill’s new definition of discrimination. Companies could be sued not merely for outright discrimination but for unintentional acts that result in pay disparities.

Since these supposed wrongs could be compounded over decades, the potential awards would be huge. Most companies would feel compelled to settle such claims rather than endure the expense and difficulty of defending allegations about long-ago behavior. The recipe here is file a suit, get a payday. And the losers would be current and future employees, whose raises would be smaller as companies allocate more earnings to settle claims that might pop up years after litigating employees had departed.

That’s fine with Democrats, who define “economic justice” as stealing wealth from those who create or earn it, to buy votes from those who don’t. There’s more:

Quote

The Democratic majority is also resurrecting the concept of “comparable worth” with the Paycheck Fairness Act. This idea holds that only discrimination can explain why female-dominated professions (teachers, secretaries) tend to command lower wages than male-dominated professions (plumbers, truck drivers). Yet most of these pay disparities are explained by relative experience, schooling or job characteristics. Teachers do tend to earn less than truck drivers, despite more education. Then again, truck drivers work long, hard, often unpredictable hours. The market — not some secret patriarchy — places different values on different jobs. And in the case of teachers, the main salary setter is the government.

The paycheck fairness legislation would nonetheless require labor officials to use comparable worth in creating “voluntary” wage guidelines for industries. Voluntary or not, these guidelines would become the basis for more litigation against companies that didn’t follow them. Meanwhile, the bill strips companies of certain defenses against claims of sex-based pay discrimination. It also makes it easier to bring class actions, and it allows plaintiffs to claim unlimited punitive damages even in cases of unintentional discrimination.

Naturally Obama supports both bills, and Dems may now have the numbers they need to ram them past Republicans. Raising workforce costs during a recession will have obvious effects on unemployment — an added benefit for those who want as many of us as possible dependent on the State for sustenance.

Doing business in a country run by left-wing thugs is virtually impossible, which is why people who subsist in such countries are lucky to own two pairs of shoes. But at least when Dems have finished deliberately destroying the economy, we can all be equal together, like the dirt-poor government slaves in Cuba.

Our forefathers went to war with the mighty British Empire over far less than what the cancer known as the Democrat Party plans to do to America.

JUST REMEMBER!

There must be CHAOS AND INSANITY for the days that are sure to come. The Tribulation Period will be ushered in - sooner or later. We don't know when, but we know that GOD has promised it WILL HAPPEN! Personally, I think that the time is soon. Christians who want GOD to be in control over their lives every day are going to be in the WAY and extremely unpopular. In fact, the world is going to hate Christians, just as JESUS CHRIST was hated. Regardless, JESUS CHRIST is still going to be the most precious and powerful name in the universe. You can be sure that the devil and the powers of darkness don't want to even hear that Holy Name of JESUS CHRIST! The devil and the powers of darkness are going to great lengths to prohibit that Holy Name being spoken. WHY? HE is the only way to be rescued from the Great Wrath to come. ONLY JESUS CHRIST can rescue a lost sinner from the curse of sin and death.

Love In Christ,
Tom

2 Corinthians 4:1-18 NASB Therefore, since we have this ministry, as we received mercy, we do not lose heart, 2 but we have renounced the things hidden because of shame, not walking in craftiness or adulterating the word of God, but by the manifestation of truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. 3 And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, 4 in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 5 For we do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bond-servants for Jesus' sake. 6 For God, who said, "Light shall shine out of darkness," is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. 7 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves; 8 we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; 10 always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. 11 For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. 12 So death works in us, but life in you. 13 But having the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, "I BELIEVED, THEREFORE I SPOKE," we also believe, therefore we also speak, 14 knowing that He who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and will present us with you. 15 For all things are for your sakes, so that the grace which is spreading to more and more people may cause the giving of thanks to abound to the glory of God. 16 Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. 17 For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, 18 while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.

Big Brother's new target:
Tracking of all firearms
'Nothing less than a declaration
of war on American gun owners'

U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., is hoping to pass a firearm-licensing bill that will significantly rewrite gun-ownership laws in America.

Among the more controversial provisions of the bill are requirements that all handgun owners submit to the federal government a photo, thumb print and mental heath records. Further, the bill would order the attorney general to establish a database of every handgun sale, transfer and owner's address in America.

The bill claims its purpose is "to protect the public against the unreasonable risk of injury and death associated with the unrecorded sale or transfer of firearms to criminals and youth."

Columnist David Codrea of Guns Magazine, however, calls it a "ridiculous affront to liberty."

"This is nothing less than a declaration of war on American gun owners," Codrea writes on Gun Rights Examiner.

Rush's proposed bill, H.R. 45, is alternatively known as "Blair Holt's Firearm Licensing and Record of Sale Act of 2009," named after an Illinois teenager killed by a gunshot.

According the bill's text, "On the afternoon of May 10, 2007, Blair Holt, a junior at Julian High School in Chicago, was killed on a public bus riding home from school when he used his body to shield a girl who was in the line of fire after a young man boarded the bus and started shooting."

The bill then argues that interstate firearm trafficking and children dying from gun violence create legitimate cause for the federal government to monitor gun ownership and transfers in new ways.

If passed, the bill would make it illegal to own or possess a "qualifying firearm" – defined as any handgun or any semiautomatic firearm that takes an ammunition clip – without a "Blair Holt" license.

To obtain a "Blair Holt" license, an application must be made that includes a photo, address, all previous aliases, thumb print, completion of a written firearm safety test, release of mental health records to the attorney general and a fee not to exceed $25.

Further, the bill makes it illegal to transfer ownership of a qualifying firearm to anyone who is not a licensed gun dealer or collector. Exceptions to this rule include transfer to family members by gift or bequest and loans, not to exceed 30 days, of a firearm for lawful purposes "between persons who are personally known to each other."

The bill also requires qualifying firearm owners to report all transfers to the attorney general's database. It would also be illegal for a licensed gun owner to fail to record a gun loss or theft within 72 hours or fail to report a change of address within 60 days.

And if a minor obtains a weapon and injures someone with it, the owner of the gun – if deemed to have failed to meet certain safety requirements – faces a multiple-year jail sentence.

H.R. 45 is a resurfacing of 2007's H.R. 2666, which contained much of the same language and was co-sponsored by 15 other representatives and Barack Obama's current chief of staff, Rahm Emmanuel. H.R. 2666 was assigned to the House Judiciary committee, where no action was taken.

H.R. 45 currently has no co-sponsors and is likewise assigned to the House Judiciary committee.

Quote from: Pastor Roger on January 14, 2009, 05:00:13 PM

Measures like the above ACCOMPLISH NOTHING except irritation of law-abiding people with BIG-BROTHER TACTICS. Anyone with common sense should know that criminals, terrorists, and any other element with unlawful intent PAYS NO ATTENTION at all to ridiculous laws like this.

This law would change NOTHING and accomplish NOTHING. Guns would still be easily available to anyone who wanted to violate the law. The ONLY possible value I see in a law like this would be to give the government a way to come after LAW-ABIDING CITIZENS in a quick and organized manner. In other words, it could be used in a MASS DISARMING program, but it would serve NO FUNCTION in dealing with CRIMINALS.

Quote from: Pastor Roger on January 14, 2009, 09:46:56 PM

Precisely and it is just exactly what Bobby Rush wants set up. This is not the least bit unexpected by Rush who has a strong history in supporting a socialist government agenda.

Brother,

Good, decent, law-abiding citizens who are informed and armed are a grave danger to socialism and communism. For those who haven't guessed, FREEDOM is on the opposite end of the spectrum from socialism and communism. FREEDOM is always worth whatever it takes to PRESERVE it. As Christians, I fear that many have taken for granted what FREEDOM means and what FREEDOM is. FREEDOM definitely impacts what Christians can do FOR THE LORD and IN THE NAME OF THE LORD. A reasonable analogy would be comparing a Christian in this part of the world with a Christian in Communist China. Many Christians can make this analogy with accurate details, but many Christians can't.

I think it's far past time for Christians to learn a Biblical view of the world from the pages of GOD'S WORD. We must put things in a Biblical perspective - not a world perspective. There isn't much in this world that's right, decent, or moral - and we should know that things are going to get much worse. This is not a gloom and doom perspective - JUST THE FACTS! It's always a good time to think about the old Sunday School Song ,"This little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine." JESUS CHRIST is the LIGHT OF THE WORLD, and we belong to HIM. THE LIGHT lives within us, and sharing THIS LIFE-GIVING LIGHT with others is a reasonable service. In fact, it's a service that should give us JOY, regardless of the danger involved. This is something that missionaries around the world experience and why there will always be missionaries. Brothers and Sisters, the mission fields are now in our own backyards.

Love In Christ,
Tom

John 14:25-27 These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you. 26 But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. 27 Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

Egyptian troops
training in Texas
Secretive U.S. technology to assist
in finding Hamas weapons tunnels

Egyptian troops are undergoing training in Texas on the use of American military technology to uncover Hamas weapons smuggling tunnels, WND has learned.

A top Egyptian intelligence official told WND the Egyptian troops arrived in Texas in recent days, where they have been undergoing private courses on the use of proprietary, secretive U.S. technology that makes use of sonar and certain frequencies to locate underground tunnels along the Egypt-Gaza border.

Also, the intelligence official said a team from the U.S. Army's Corps of Engineers recently arrived in the Egyptian Sinai desert, bringing the advanced machinery with them.

The Army has been aiding Egyptian troops in locating the tunnels.

One of Israel's main goals for its offensive was to halt Hamas' ability to smuggle weapons across the Egypt-Gaza border.

Israel is negotiating an international monitoring mechanism it hopes will stop Hamas from smuggling weapons from neighboring Egypt into Gaza. But previous international monitors stationed along the Egypt-Gaza border fled their duty and repeatedly failed to stem Hamas' weapons smuggling.

The monitors were stationed at the border following Israel's 2005 evacuation of the Gaza Strip.

The Israel Defense Forces reportedly destroyed 60 to 70 percent of an estimated 600 smuggling tunnels between Gaza and neighboring Egypt.

Hamas sources speaking to WND claim the actual number of tunnels is closer to 1,300. The sources claimed Hamas was working to change the method of its weapons smuggling to rely more on sea shipments and less on smuggling tunnels.

Earlier this week, the Associated Press reported from the Egypt-Gaza border that just hours after Israeli troops withdrew from the border area, the smuggling tunnels were back in business, used by locals to bring in supplies.

The AP also reported hundreds of workers in southern Gaza labored to repair dozens of tunnels dug under tents or fake greenhouses.

Planned Parenthood: Force doctors to do abortions
Law firms gear up to defend right of conscience

Experts for the Alliance Defense Fund and Christian Legal Society are gearing up to defend three laws that allow medical professionals to follow their conscience and not participate in abortions.

"Medical professionals should not be forced to perform abortions against their conscience," said Casey Mattox, who is litigation counsel with the CLS's Center for Law & Religious Freedom.

"Planned Parenthood, the ACLU and their pro-abortion allies are seeking to punish pro-life medical professionals for their beliefs," Mattox said. "Far from arguing for 'choice,' these lawsuits seek to compel health care workers to perform abortions or face dire consequences."

The law firms have filed motions to intervene in three separate lawsuits that seek to invalidate a federal law protecting medical professionals from discrimination because they refuse to participate in abortions.

Three pro-life medical associations are seeking to defend the law against challenges by some state officials, Planned Parenthood, and the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union.

The actions come just as the 2009 March for Life was taking place in Washington, when several hundred thousand people gathered to seek protections for the unborn, including the overturning of the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court opinion in Roe vs. Wade that struck down abortion limits in states.

"For over three decades, federal law has prohibited recipients of federal grants from forcing medical professionals to participate in abortions," said ADF Legal Counsel Matt Bowman. "The arguments in the lawsuits themselves demonstrate lack of compliance with these laws and the necessity of the regulation they are challenging."

Attorney Andrew Knott is assisting as local counsel in the latest dispute in Connecticut.

The Christian Medical Association, Catholic Medical Association, and American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, represented by CLS and ADF attorneys, are asking to be allowed to defend the law, 45 CFR Part 88, enacted in December 2008 by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Noting a pattern of grant recipients unaware of or flouting existing laws protecting medical professionals' rights of conscience, HHS enacted the new law to require grantees to certify compliance with them in order to receive funds. The three long-standing statutes are the Church Amendment, the Coats-Snowe Amendment, and the Weldon Amendment.

The three pro-life medical groups point out that denying rights of conscience could harm access to healthcare for all by forcing medical professionals who refuse to perform abortions to either relocate from jurisdictions that force them to do so or leave the profession altogether.

Today President Barack Obama, who as a state lawmaker in Illinois objected to requiring doctors to provide medical care for infants who survive abortions, affirmed his support for virtually unlimited abortion on demand.

And he was issued a challenge by March for Life officials, who had invited him to address their annual march and rally.

The organization challenged Obama to "watch the evil deed of a surgical abortion to know what it looks like to pull off the head, arms and legs of a preborn human."

The organization noted, "There is a commercial killing site within a few blocks of the White House."

Pelosi: Birth control
will boost economy
Argues fewer people stimulates economy
by cutting cost to state, federal government

In an interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., defended huge sums of money for "family planning services" tucked into President Obama's proposed economic stimulus package, claiming contraception will reduce government costs.

"Hundreds of millions of dollars to expand family planning services," Stephanopoulos asked Pelosi, "how is that stimulus?"

"Well, the family planning services reduce cost," Pelosi answered. "They reduce cost. The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now and part of what we do for children's health, education and some of those elements are to help the states meet their financial needs. One of those – one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government."

Stephanopoulos immediately gave Pelosi, herself the mother of five children and grandmother to seven, the opportunity to retract a suggestion that it would help the economy if the government spent millions to help people stop having babies.

"So no apologies for that?" Stephanopoulos asked.

"No apologies," Pelosi answered. "No. we have to deal with the consequences of the downturn in our economy."

As WND reported, President Obama is attempting to pass through Congress an $825 billion economic stimulus package, composed of both spending increases and tax cuts.

The effort comes less than six months after Congress approved a $700 billion bailout package, leaving many critics wondering if Americans will accept more government spending.

"I think a lot of Republicans will vote no," Boehner said on NBC's "Meet the Press," "because they see this as a lot of wasteful Washington spending, padding the bureaucracy and doing nothing to help create jobs and preserve jobs."

Rep. Mice Pence, R-Ind., said, "The American people know we cannot borrow and spend and bail our way back to a growing economy."

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., has already announced he will vote against the plan.

Pelosi expressed caution and the need for accountability under the watch of wary voters.

"Whatever we have to do will have to be clearly explained to Congress and to the American people as to what the purpose of the money is, why it is urgent, and then accountability for it as it is distributed," she said. "So hopefully this next second installment will help turn our financial crisis around, but it's not – if they come back – there's going to have to be a justification, because people will be very, very disappointed in how his money was dealt with at first."

Economic stimulus? Feds
want your medical records
Electronic database to include lawsuit,
mental health, abortion, sexual details

A little-discussed provision in President Obama's economic stimulus plan would demand that every American submit to a government program for electronic medical records without a choice to opt out, and it has privacy advocates more than a little alarmed.

Patients might be alarmed, too, privacy advocates said, if they realized information such as documentation on abortions, mental health problems, impotence, being labeled as a non-compliant patient, lawsuits against doctors and sexual problems could be shared electronically with, perhaps, millions of people.

Sue A. Blevins, president of the Institute for Health Freedom, said unless people have the right to decide "if and when" their health information is shared, there is no real privacy.

"President Obama has pledged to advance freedom," she said. "Therefore the freedom to choose not to participate in a national electronic health-records system must be upheld."

Blevins' organization, one of the few raising the alarm at this point, said the stimulus plan would impose an electronic health records system on every person in the U.S. without any provision for seeking patient consent or allowing them not to participate.

"Without those protections, Americans' electronic health records could be shared – without their consent – with over 600,000 covered entities through the forthcoming nationally linked electronic health-records network," Blevins said.

The organization said Americans who care about health privacy should contact members of Congress and the president to let them know about the need for opt-out and consent provisions.

According to the institute, the measure currently includes plans for:

* An electronic health record "for each person in the United States by 2014."

* A national coordinator to develop a "nationwide health information technology infrastructure that allows for the electronic use and exchange of information."

The institute said the medical privacy rule established under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 already allows personal health information to be passed along without patient consent for treatment, payment and "oversight." The recipients of such information could be any of the people in the 600,000 organizations in the industry.

"Nobody wants to stop the proper use of good technology," Blevins said, "and for some people privacy is not an issue."

But she said the bottom line is that patients "would end up losing control of his or her personal health information."

"There's a lot at stake with electronically transferring health data and paying claims within the $2.2 trillion healthcare industry," warned the organization, which works on issues of health freedom in the U.S.

Another group, Consumer Watchdog, even suggested today Google is trying to lobby for the "sale of electronic medical records."

The group said, "Reportedly Google is pushing for the provisions so it may sell patient medical information to its advertising clients on the new 'Google Health' database."

Consumer Watchdog said, "Americans will benefit from an integrated system capable of making our medical records available wherever we may need them, but only if the system is properly used.

"The medical technology portion of the economic stimulus bill does not sufficiently protect patient privacy, and recent amendments have made this situation worse. Medical privacy must be strengthened before the measure's final passage," the group said.

WND previously has reported on attempts in Minnesota by state lawmakers to authorize the collection and warehousing of newborns' DNA without parental consent.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty has been successful in stopping the action there so far.

The Citizens' Council on Health Care has worked to publicize the issue in Minnesota. The group raised opposition when the state Department of Health continued to warehouse DNA without parental consent in violation of the genetic privacy and DNA property rights of parents and children.

Twila Brase, president of CCHC, said at the time the problem is that "researchers already are looking for genes related to violence, crime and different behaviors."

In an extensive interview with WND at the time, she said, "In England they decided they should have doctors looking for problem children, and have those children reported, and their DNA taken in case they would become criminals."

In fact, published reports in Britain note that senior police forensics experts believe genetic samples should be studied, because it may be possible to identify potential criminals as young as age 5.

Brase said efforts to study traits and gene factors and classify people would be just the beginning. What could happen through subsequent programs to address such conditions, she wondered.

"Not all research is great," she said.

Classifying of people could lead to "discrimination and prejudice. … People can look at data about you and make assessments ultimately of who you are."

The Heartland Regional Genetics and Newborn Screening is one of the organizations that advocates more screening and research.

The group proclaims in its vision statement a desire to see newborns screened for 200 conditions. It also forecasts "every student … with an individual program for education based on confidential interpretation of their family medical history, their brain imaging, their genetic predictors of best learning methods. …"

Further, every individual should share information about "personal and family health histories" as well as "gene tests for recessive conditions and drug metabolism" with the "other parent of their future children."

Still further, it seeks "ecogenetic research that could improve health, lessen disability, and lower costs for sickness."

"They want to test every child for 200 conditions, take the child's history and a brain image, and genetics, and come up with a plan for that child," Brase said at the time. "They want to learn their weaknesses and defects.

"Nobody including and especially the government should be allowed to create such extensive profiles," she said.

The next step, said Brase, is obvious: The government, with information about potential health weaknesses, could say to couples, "We don't want your expensive children."

"I think people have forgotten about eugenics. The fact of the matter is that the eugenicists have not gone away. Newborn genetic testing is the entry into the 21st Century version of eugenics," she said.

For those that haven't seen some of the things that comprise this ~~stimulus~~ spending bill here is a note from AFA with a link to a pdf that discloses even more:

The U.S. House of Representatives just passed The American Recovery & Reinvestment Act of 2009 (H.R. 1). This bill, which eventually will cost one trillion dollars, will increase the amount of taxes owed by every person in America by $3,333.

But you don't need to worry because you will never have to pay it. Neither will your children. It will be your grandchildren and their children who will pay this tax. It is utterly immoral to force our great-grandchilden to pay off our debt.

Add this amount to the $35,000 which every individual already owes, and that increases each individual's debt to $38,000.

H.R. 1 is the largest pork barrel spending bill in the history of our country. President Obama has said this bill will create four million new jobs. President Obama is under the impression that we can spend our way out of debt! That's like thinking an alcoholic can drink his way to sobriety!

Examples:

* $20 million "for the removal of small- to medium-sized fish passage barriers." (Pg. 45 of Senate Appropriations Committee report: "20,000,000 for the removal of small- to medium-sized fish passage barriers)

* $400 million for STD prevention (Pg. 60 of Senate Appropriations Committee report: "CDC estimates that a proximately 19 million new STD infections occur annually in the United States ...The Committee has included $400,000,000 for testing and prevention of these conditions.")

* $25 million to rehabilitate off-roading (ATV) trails (Pg. 45 of Senate Appropriations Committee report: "$25,000,000 is for recreation maintenance, especially for rehabilitation of off-road vehicle routes, and $20,000,000 is for trail maintenance and restoration")

* $34 million to remodel the Department of Commerce HQ (Pg. 15 of Senate Appropriations Committee report: $34,000,000 for the Department of Commerce renovation and modernization")

* $70 million to "Support Supercomputing Activities" for climate research (Pgs. 14-15 of Senate Appropriations Committee Report: $70,000,000 is directed to specifically support supercomputing activities, especially as they relate to climate research)

* $150 million for honey bee insurance (Pg. 102 of Senate Appropriations Committee report: "The Secretary shall use up to $ 50,000,000 per year, and $150,000,000 in the case of 2009, from the Trust Fund to provide emergency relief to eligible producers of livestock, honey bees, and farm-raised fish to aid in the reduction of losses due to disease, adverse weather, or other conditions, such as blizzards and wildfires, as determined by the Secretary")

See some other "job creating" programs this one trillion dollars will support:

http://www.afa.net/pdfs/porkandpayoffs.pdf

This was public knowledge years ago. Our government is just now waking up to the truth.

__________

Congress warned: 'Beware of CAIR'
Takes cue after FBI cuts off Muslim group for terror ties

Warning: Do not meet with representatives of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a "Dear Colleague" letter sent yesterday to every U.S. House member says.

The three-page letter, a copy of which was obtained by WND, warns legislators to "think twice" about meeting with CAIR officials due to mounting evidence the group is tied to terrorists.

FBI officials have been canceling planned outreach events with CAIR chapters across the country, following a recent directive by FBI headquarters to sever ties with the group.

"The FBI has cut ties with them," the congressional letter says. "There are indications that this group has connections to Hamas," the Palestinian terrorist group.

The letter, signed by five Republicans, including the head of the House Anti-Terrorism/Jihad Caucus, is attached to an article by IPT News, a counter-terrorism news service. It notes that FBI field offices have sent letters to CAIR chapters explaining they can no longer pursue an outreach relationship, because of concerns about the CAIR national office in Washington.

The letter, written under the bold-faced title, "BEWARE OF CAIR," was signed by Reps. Sue Myrick, R-N.C., co-chair of the Anti-Terrorism Caucus; Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich.; Trent Franks, R-Ariz.; Paul Broun, R-Ga.; and John Shadegg, R-Ariz.

CAIR, which claims to be a "moderate" voice for Muslim-Americans, declined comment.

The disengagement policy is a major change for the FBI, which has met regularly with CAIR officials since 9/11, mostly to hear complaints about terrorism investigations in the Muslim community. Bureau officials have even attended CAIR fundraisers.

FBI sources, however, say the new policy has not been uniformly followed since it was put into effect late last summer. They say there is still political resistance to the rule, which has generated complaints from some in the Muslim community.

The policy coincides with the successful prosecution of leaders of a large U.S. Muslim charity who were convicted this fall of funneling more than $12 million to Hamas suicide bombers and their families. CAIR and its co-founder Omar Ahmed were named as unindicted co-conspirators in the case against the Holy Land Foundation.

CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad, moreover, was caught on tape participating in a meeting with Hamas leaders to mask the payments as charity. He once told a Muslim crowd: "I am in support of the Hamas movement."

During court testimony, FBI agents described CAIR as a front group for violent extremists, casting doubt on CAIR's repeated denials that it supports terrorism.

Meanwhile, former clients of CAIR are suing it for criminal fraud.

In a recently filed class-action lawsuit, several Muslims say CAIR, which describes itself as an advocate for Muslims, fraudulently took thousands of dollars from them in exchange for help in attaining U.S. citizenship.

According to the federal lawsuit filed in Washington, CAIR directed an unlicensed lawyer to handle their immigration cases. The phony lawyer proceeded to steal their money while bungling their cases, the suit charges.

When the victims threatened to talk to the press, the suit also alleges, CAIR's board threatened to sue them and coerced them into signing release agreements.

CAIR said in a statement that while the lawyer was unlicensed, it fired him and did not try to cover up the scandal. It also maintained that it offered to pay restitution to the defrauded Muslim immigrants.

Bill creates detention camps in U.S. for 'emergencies'
Sweeping, undefined purpose raises worries about military police state

Rep. Alcee L. Hastings, D-Fla., has introduced to the House of Representatives a new bill, H.R. 645, calling for the secretary of homeland security to establish no fewer than six national emergency centers for corralling civilians on military installations.

The proposed bill, which has received little mainstream media attention, appears designed to create the type of detention center that those concerned about use of the military in domestic affairs fear could be used as concentration camps for political dissidents, such as occurred in Nazi Germany.

The bill also appears to expand the president's emergency power, much as the executive order signed by President Bush on May 9, 2007, that, as WND reported, gave the president the authority to declare an emergency and take over the direction of all federal, state, local, territorial and tribal governments without even consulting Congress.

As WND also reported, DHS has awarded a $385 million contract to Houston-based KBR, Halliburton's former engineering and construction subsidiary, to build temporary detention centers on an "as-needed" basis in national emergency situations.

According to the text of the proposed bill, the purpose of the National Emergency Centers is "to provide temporary housing, medical, and humanitarian assistance to individuals and families dislocated due to an emergency or major disaster."

Three additional purposes are specified in the text of the proposed legislation:

* To provide centralized locations for the purposes of training and ensuring the coordination of federal, state and local first responders;

* To provide centralized locations to improve the coordination of preparedness, response and recovery efforts of government, private, not-for-profit entities and faith-based organizations;

* To meet other appropriate needs, as defined by the secretary of homeland security.

The broad specifications of the bill's language, however, contribute to concern that the "national emergency" purpose could be utilized by the secretary of homeland security to include any kind of situation the government wants to contain or otherwise control.

Rep. Hastings created controversy during the 2008 presidential campaign with his provocative comments concerning Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

"If Sarah Palin isn't enough of a reason for you to get over whatever your problem is with Barack Obama, then you damn well had better pay attention," Hastings said, as reported by ABC News. "Anybody toting guns and stripping moose don't care too much about what they do with Jews and blacks. So, you just think this through."

H.R. 645, which seeks to allocate $360 million for developing the emergency centers, has been referred to the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure and to the Committee on Armed Services.

States consider mileage tax

Imagine being taxed for every mile you drive.

The idea could be a few years away for drivers in Oregon, where a task force is looking at having global positioning devices installed in every new vehicle across the state for that purpose. Meanwhile, other states are beginning to debate the benefits of such a plan — at a time when many drivers are using less gas.

Revenue from gasoline taxes — the traditional way to pay for transportation projects — is drying up nationwide. The shortfall has left many states looking for other options, from increasing taxes to alternatives such as Oregon's proposal.

"We've got to get people to realize that we're still using roads as much or more than we ever have, but with these wonderful high-mileage vehicles, they're not producing the revenue," said Shelley Snow, spokeswoman for the Oregon Department of Transportation.

A mileage tax isn't yet under consideration in Missouri or Illinois, but it is an idea that's probably inevitable in the next two or three decades, said Pete Rahn, head of the Missouri Department of Transportation.

"We will end up paying for what we drive, where we drive and when we drive," he said.

Rahn envisons a tax where "if you want to drive a Hummer, or whatever that vehicle might be 30 years from today, at 7:30 in the morning on I-70, you're going to pay a higher rate. If you're going to drive a Civic on side streets at 10:30 in the morning, you're going to pay a lower rate."

The obstacle isn't technology, Rahn added.

"The hugest impediments to implementing this type of system are the privacy issues," he said. "Americans don't like the idea that someone, or the reality would be some machine, would know when you drove or where you drove."

In Oregon, Gov. Theodore Kulongoski's proposed budget calls for a task force to work out details of the plan. Eventually, GPS devices could be recording every mile driven, and possibly which routes motorists use. Motorists would pay a mileage tax at the pump in place of a gasoline tax. The state tested the concept in 2006 and 2007 with 285 volunteers and a handful of gas stations in Portland, Ore.

The idea of mileage fees is gaining traction. States such as Texas, Pennsylvania, Minnesota and Ohio are discussing similar projects.

"What's motivating us is this concern about the long-term viability of the motor fuel tax," said Ken Buckeye, program manager for the Minnesota Department of Transportation. "Particularly now, the tax you pay for using the road is based on consumption of the wrong commodity. We think it should be based on consumption of the road."

The concept also is gaining federal support. Last year, the National Surface Transportation Police and Revenue Study Commission established by Congress reported that a mileage tax should be "strongly considered as a long-term replacement for the current fuel tax."

A study under way at the University of Iowa is looking at the technological and institutional issues, as well as potential public response, involved with mileage fees.

In states such as Illinois, California, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Iowa, legislators are considering raising the gasoline tax for the time being to fill budget gaps and potholes, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

In Missouri, revenue from the 17-cent tax on gasoline and diesel fuel is expected to be $498 million, down from $520 million collected in 2008.

Opponent to the plan in Oregon made privacy a top concern. Many are concerned that a mileage taxing system could lead to government officials' tracking their whereabouts.

"I see this as a privacy invasion," one man commented on the Argus Observer website, a newspaper in Ontario, Ore. "Whose business is it how often and how much I drive my car?"

Jim Whitty, manager of the Oregon Department of Transportation's Office of Innovative Partnerships and Alternative Funding, said the state had no interest in tracking people.

"The people who have spoken up are intense about it," he said. "They're very concerned about issues like privacy and whether green vehicles would be at a disadvantage."

In the Portland test, vehicles and gas stations were equipped with technology similar to that in cell phones and electronic toll collection systems. When drivers pulled up to a gas pump, the vehicle equipment would broadcast the mileage traveled since the previous fill-up. The station charged the motorists 1.2 cents per mile rather than the state's 24-cent gasoline tax.

The equipment did not pinpoint vehicle locations, but it was able to determine when a driver had left the state. It also kept track of what time of day the car was driven so a premium could be charged for rush-hour driving.

Lee Younglove, who volunteered for the pilot test, said he wasn't concerned about privacy but had friends who were. He has come to believe a mileage tax is more equitable way of paying for roads and bridges.

"There are cars now that are plug-in electrics. They don't pay anything," he said.

For the time being, Oregon legislators are considering raising the state gasoline tax by 2 cents. The time frame for implementing a mileage tax, Whitty said, is at least six or seven years away.

If the state continues to move toward a mileage tax, equipment would have to go through another round of tests. Policy decisions would have to be made, such as whether to charge a higher fee for heavier, gas-guzzling vehicles.

And if electric cars grow in number, the state would have to find another place besides gas stations to charge mileage fees.

"Once we know their habits, we'll create a system for them," Whitty said.

United Nations' threat: No more parental rights
Expert: Pact would ban spankings, homeschooling if children object

A United Nations human rights treaty that could prohibit children from being spanked or homeschooled, ban youngsters from facing the death penalty and forbid parents from deciding their families' religion is on America's doorstep, a legal expert warns.

Michael Farris of Purcellville, Va., is president of ParentalRights.org, chairman of the Home School Legal Defense Association and chancellor of Patrick Henry College. He told WND that under the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, or CRC, every decision a parent makes can be reviewed by the government to determine whether it is in the child's best interest.

"It's definitely on our doorstep," he said. "The left wants to make the Obama-Clinton era permanent. Treaties are a way to make it as permanent as stuff gets. It is very difficult to extract yourself from a treaty once you begin it. If they can put all of their left-wing socialist policies into treaty form, we're stuck with it even if they lose the next election."

The 1990s-era document was ratified quickly by 193 nations worldwide, but not the United States or Somalia. In Somalia, there was then no recognized government to do the formal recognition, and in the United States there's been opposition to its power. Countries that ratify the treaty are bound to it by international law.

Although signed by Madeleine Albright, U.S. ambassador to the U.N., on Feb. 16, 1995, the U.S. Senate never ratified the treaty, largely because of conservatives' efforts to point out it would create that list of rights which primarily would be enforced against parents.

The international treaty creates specific civil, economic, social, cultural and even economic rights for every child and states that "the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration." It is monitored by the CRC, which conceivably has enforcement powers.

According to the Parental Rights website, the substance of the CRC dictates the following:

* Parents would no longer be able to administer reasonable spankings to their children.

* A murderer aged 17 years, 11 months and 29 days at the time of his crime could no longer be sentenced to life in prison.

* Children would have the ability to choose their own religion while parents would only have the authority to give their children advice about religion.

* The best interest of the child principle would give the government the ability to override every decision made by every parent if a government worker disagreed with the parent's decision.

* A child's "right to be heard" would allow him (or her) to seek governmental review of every parental decision with which the child disagreed.

* According to existing interpretation, it would be illegal for a nation to spend more on national defense than it does on children's welfare.

* Children would acquire a legally enforceable right to leisure.

* Teaching children about Christianity in schools has been held to be out of compliance with the CRC.

* Allowing parents to opt their children out of sex education has been held to be out of compliance with the CRC.

* Children would have the right to reproductive health information and services, including abortions, without parental knowledge or consent.

"Where the child has a right fulfilled by the government, the responsibilities shift from parents to the government," Farris said. "The implications of all this shifting of responsibilities is that parents no longer have the traditional roles of either being responsible for their children or having the right to direct their children."

The government would decide what is in the best interest of a children in every case, and the CRC would be considered superior to state laws, Farris said. Parents could be treated like criminals for making every-day decisions about their children's lives.

"If you think your child shouldn't go to the prom because their grades were low, the U.N. Convention gives that power to the government to review your decision and decide if it thinks that's what's best for your child," he said. "If you think that your children are too young to have a Facebook account, which interferes with the right of communication, the U.N. gets to determine whether or not your decision is in the best interest of the child."

He continued, "If you think your child should go to church three times a week, but the child wants to go to church once a week, the government gets to decide what it thinks is in the best interest of the children on the frequency of church attendance."

He said American social workers would be the ones responsible for implementation of the policies.

Farris said it could be easier for President Obama to push for ratification of the treaty than it was for the Clinton administration because "the political world has changed."

At a Walden University presidential debate last October, Obama indicated he may take action.

"It's embarrassing to find ourselves in the company of Somalia, a lawless land," Obama said. "I will review this and other treaties to ensure the United States resumes its global leadership in human rights."

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been a strong supporter of the CRC, and she now has direct control over the treaty's submission to the Senate for ratification. The process requires a two-thirds vote.

Farris said Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., claimed in a private meeting just before Christmas that the treaty would be ratified within two years.

In November, a group of three dozen senior foreign policy figures urged Obama to strengthen U.S. relations with the U.N. Among other things, they asked the president to push for Senate approval of treaties that have been signed by the U.S. but not ratified.

Partnership for a Secure America Director Matthew Rojansky helped draft the statement. He said the treaty commands strong support and is likely to be acted on quickly, according to an Inter Press Service report.

While he said ratification is certain to come up, Farris said advocates of the treaty will face fierce opposition.

"I think it is going to be the battle of their lifetime," he said. "There's not enough political capital in Washington, D.C., to pass this treaty. We will defeat it."

Anti-faith language remains in stimulus package

The U.S. Senate has taken action that could mean a legal battle royal over the stimulus bill.

The Senate rejected an amendment offered by Senator Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina) that would have stripped language from the stimulus bill that would force colleges and universities to throw religious clubs off campus if the schools receive federal funds.

Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law & Justice had this reaction.

"Well, not only is it disappointing, it's almost a throwback to litigation that we conducted in the 1980s that we won unanimously at the Supreme Court," he says. "And I feel like this particular legislation pokes the finger in the eye of people who take religious faith seriously.

"It's discriminatory in its application, unconstitutional as it's written, [and] unfortunately it's going to take four or five years for it to be litigated all the way through," Sekulow adds.

With passage of the bill with the restrictions in place, how might colleges and universities be affected? "We're going to look at filing an application for a stay of this provision, trying to get it declared unconstitutional through a restraining order," he shares.

Sekulow plans to file suit the day after President Obama signs the bill.

___________

People of faith may be target of 'stimulus' package

Charlie Butts and Jody Brown - OneNewsNow

The administration's economic stimulus bill needs a fix to avoid a courtroom confrontation.

Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the American Center for Law & Justice, tells OneNewsNow there is a provision of the act that actually allows for funds to be given by the federal government in the form of grants for renovation of existing colleges and universities.

"But when you read a little bit further into this legislation, there's a specific prohibition on two things," the attorney explains. "One, if the university itself is a religiously based or faith-based institution, it does not qualify. And if the facility that is being renovated allows religious worship to take place, it also does not qualify."

Specifically, the provision reads that stimulus funds may not be used for "modernization, renovation, or repair of facilities -- (i) used for sectarian instruction, religious worship, or a school or department of divinity; or (ii) in which a substantial portion of the functions of the facilities are subsumed in a religious mission."

Under that provision, according to Sekulow, many schools would bar on-campus worship or even Bible study because it will put federal funding in jeopardy. That, he says, should raise a warning flag in a federal courthouse.

"It is unconstitutional -- and while I'm prepared to challenge it in court, and we're already working on a possibility, it really needs to be handled in the legislation," the ACLJ leader suggests. "That needs to be job one...remove this provision and get it out of the legislation."

Sekulow states that a "troubling pattern" is developing regarding the use of taxpayer money -- and that this provision is the latest example. He contrasts it with the new administration's swift move to make federal funds available for abortion-providers overseas.

"There is a priority problem in Washington," he says in a press release. "This is not what 'economic stimulus' is about. We know that the American people don't want their tax dollars used for discriminatory measures. That's why this provision must be removed now."

The attorney says if the discriminatory provision is not removed from the stimulus package and is approved and signed into law, the ACLJ will challenge it in federal court.

Stimulation of discrimination?
Mat Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel, agrees that the "anti-faith" language of the provision will censor and force people of faith from the public square.

"In order to receive stimulus money our public schools will have to expel after-school Bible clubs and weekend religious meetings," says the Christian attorney. "People who want to speak about their faith will be unwelcome in public places."

He adds that President Obama's idea of faith-based initiatives apparently is to "remove faith from all initiatives."

Lawmakers in 20 states move to reclaim sovereignty
Obama's $1 trillion deficit-spending 'stimulus plan' seen as last straw

As the Obama administration attempts to push through Congress a nearly $1 trillion deficit spending plan that is weighted heavily toward advancing typically Democratic-supported social welfare programs, a rebellion against the growing dominance of federal control is beginning to spread at the state level.

So far, eight states have introduced resolutions declaring state sovereignty under the Ninth and Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, including Arizona, Hawaii, Montana, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, Oklahoma and Washington.

Analysts expect that in addition, another 20 states may see similar measures introduced this year, including Alaska, Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Nevada, Maine and Pennsylvania.

"What we are trying to do is to get the U.S. Congress out of the state's business," Oklahoma Republican state Sen. Randy Brogdon told WND.

"Congress is completely out of line spending trillions of dollars over the last 10 years putting the nation into a debt crisis like we've never seen before," Brogdon said, arguing that the Obama stimulus plan is the last straw taxing state patience in the brewing sovereignty dispute.

"This particular 111th Congress is the biggest bunch of over-reachers and underachievers we've ever had in Congress," he said.

"A sixth-grader should realize you can't borrow money to pay off your debt, and that is the Obama administration's answer for a stimulus package," he added.

The Ninth Amendment reads, "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

The Tenth Amendment specifically provides, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

Brogdon, the lead sponsor of the Oklahoma state senate version of the sovereignty bill, has been a strong opponent of extending the plan to build a four-football-fields-wide Trans-Texas Corridor parallel to Interstate-35 to Oklahoma, as WND reported.

Rollback federal authority

The various sovereignty measures moving through state legislatures are designed to reassert state authority through a rollback of federal authority under the powers enumerated in the Constitution, with the states assuming the governance of the non-enumerated powers, as required by the Tenth Amendment.

The state sovereignty measures, aimed largely at the perceived fiscal irresponsibility of Congress in the administrations of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, have gained momentum with the $1 trillion deficit-spending economic stimulus package the Obama administration is currently pushing through Congress.

Particularly disturbing to many state legislators are the increasing number of "unfunded mandates" that have proliferated in social welfare programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid, in which bills passed by Congress dictate policy to the states without providing funding.

In addition, the various state resolutions include discussion of a wide range of policy areas, including the regulation of firearms sales (Montana) and the demand to issue drivers licenses with technology to embed personal information under the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative and the Real ID Act (Michigan).

Hawaii's measure calls for a new state constitutional convention to return self-governance, a complaint that traces back to the days it was a U.S. territory, prior to achieving statehood in 1959.

"We are trying to send a message to the federal government that the states are trying to reclaim their sovereignty," Republican Rep. Matt Shea, the lead sponsor of Washington's sovereignty resolution told WND.

"State sovereignty has been eroded in so many areas, it's hard to know where to start," he said. "There are a ton of federal mandates imposed on states, for instance, on education spending and welfare spending."

Shea said the Obama administration's economic stimulus package moving through Congress is a "perfect example."

"In the state of Washington, we have increased state spending 33 percent in the last three years and hired 6,000 new state employees, often using federal mandates as an excuse to grow state government," he said. "We need to return government back down to the people, to keep government as close to the local people as possible."

Shea is a private attorney who serves with the Alliance Defense Fund, a nationwide network of about 1,000 attorneys who work pro-bono. As a counter to the ACLU, the alliance seeks to protect and defend religious liberty, the sanctity of life and traditional family values.

Republican state Rep. Judy Burges, the primary sponsor of the sovereignty resolution in the Arizona House, told WND the federal government "has been trouncing on our constitutional rights."

"The real turning point for me was the Real ID act, which involved both a violation of the Fourth Amendments rights against the illegal searches and seizures and the Tenth Amendment," she said.

Burges told WND she is concerned that the overreaching of federal powers could lead to new legislation aimed at confiscating weapons from citizens or encoding ammunition.

"The Real ID Act was so broadly written that we are afraid that it involves the potential for "mission-creep," that could easily involve confiscation of firearms and violations of the Second Amendment," she said.

Burges said she has been surprised at the number of e-mails she has received in support of the sovereignty measure.

"We are a sovereign state in Arizona, not a branch of the federal government, and we need to be treated as such, she insisted.

Okay, y'all are seeing it first here.

Tick Tick.............

I found myself attending the Tuesday night Show Low City Council meeting to see if the board was willing to tell Congressman Kirkpatrick, "Thanks, but no thanks," as it concerned asking for stimulus money from President Obama to pay for the ice rink.

Instead, they looked me squarely in the eye and said, "Thanks, but no thanks," to my suggestion they not make the request.

Some of the council was almost giddy as they raised their hand in support of writing a letter to the president. Rennie had a maniacal grin as big as a Cheshire cat holding an inside straight in a poker game. Even Gene (who opposed the ice rink originally) couldn't wait to oppose me.

If nothing else, my opposition probably had more to do with getting everybody together on the same page than Mayor Fernau could ever have hoped for. Bob's against using the stimulus money........... we're for it.

I could point out the council was wrong, but I'm not going to. No, I've decided to forgive by offering to write the letter to the president for them.

With my tongue planted firmly in cheek, I begin............

Mr. President Barry Obama

I know you are very busy and have a lot on your plate right now. What with the economy tanking and two wars to fight, my request might seem small. So I will be brief.

Tuesday night I witnessed people in our community coming together like I've never seen before. There was talk of hope and change.

The economic catastrophe facing our nation you've been speaking about we have been living in outside of Show Low for months now. We are hurting.

The entire community would be forever in your debt if you could see yourself clear to release $49 million of the stimulus money so we might build a new ice skating rink.

Some might find it ironic that we're asking you for money for an ice rink, even though no one sells ice skates on the mountain. We're not even sure if anyone owns ice skates. Some people might be put off by those facts. Not me, nor the City Council.

Even though the mayor, Rennie, Daryl, Jack, Gery and Gene had nothing good to say about your stimulus bill, they felt they would be shirking their duties if they didn't ask for a handout. Gene even suggested we make a request for a half-billion in funding to kick start (stimulate) the local economy. I couldn't agree more.

We all feel bad about what this will mean to future generations as they work to pay off the costs associated with us using the stimulus money. But then we figure, that's their problem, not ours. Sir, if you can't send us the half-billion Gene suggested, we would definitely understand. Times are tough. However, I should point out, we're very thrifty with our money and would make the most out of the $49 million.

If it would impact your decision, we would name the rink after you...........

Sincerely,
Bob

P.S. It should be noted the council stated that if you okay the money, it does not obligate them in any way, shape or form to build the ice rink. If it's not in the cards, they would simply tell you "Thanks, but no thanks."

GOP leader threatens lawsuit over census
White House accused of trying to circumvent process for political gain

Americans don't even start filling out their census forms for another year, but the political wrangling over the decennial population count is already well under way. Just ask Sen. Judd Gregg.

Even before the New Hampshire Republican on Thursday withdrew his nomination to head the Commerce Department, which oversees the U.S. Census Bureau, Republicans were fuming about Obama administration efforts to bypass Mr. Gregg on matters related to the 2010 census.

"How would you feel if this was [President Bush's senior political adviser] Karl Rove and the Bush White House that was handling this census? It's the same thing," an indignant Rep. Gregg Harper, Mississippi Republican, said just hours before Mr. Gregg withdrew.

The White House, meanwhile, said the director of the Census Bureau always has kept the president abreast of the agency's work and asserted that the same chain of command in existence for decades would remain in place.

"This administration has not proposed removing the census from the Department of Commerce, and the same congressional committees that had oversight during the previous administration will retain that authority," White House spokesman Ben LaBolt said Thursday.

Mr. Gregg divorced himself from the Obama nomination late Thursday, citing "irresolvable conflicts," chief among them the census. He said President Obama and he are "functioning from a different set of views" and that he could not proceed.

The census, set out in the Constitution, has enormous political impact. Its determination of overall state populations determines how many House seats each state gets, thus the makeup of the Electoral College that elects the president.

In addition, Democrats or Republicans - whichever party is in power in the various state legislatures - use the data to redraw congressional districts at both the federal and state levels to their advantage, often through the deliberate rearrangement of boundaries known as gerrymandering.

Also, the census is used to allocate federal funds, which also means a political party could steer money to districts it controls by shaping the data. An estimated $300 billion in federal funds for roads, schools, hospitals and other programs are distributed annually on the basis of the data.

The hubbub started Feb. 3, when the president nominated Mr. Gregg to head the Commerce Department.

The Republican once voted to abolish the agency, which raised concerns among Democrats, the Congressional Black Caucus and a group representing Hispanic elected officials that he would not use their preferred methods, which the groups claim are needed to avoid undercounting ethnic minorities as in past censuses.

The White House, seeking to ease that concern, released a statement late last week reassuring Democrats and others that the new Census Bureau director, still unnamed, would "work closely with White House senior management."

Republicans, wary of having a partisan official, such as White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, oversee the census, have been crying foul ever since.

Mr. Emanuel was, they noted, a former Clinton administration official famous for his partisanship; he more recently ran the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in the 2006 election, credited for Republicans losing control of the House and Senate.

"The chief of staff is the hack at the gate of the White House," Rep. Darrell Issa, California Republican and ranking member of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said Thursday. "Rahm Emanuel is in fact a political animal who decides who gets time with the president for political reasons."

The Obama administration is downplaying how closely the White House would oversee the Census Bureau. The White House on Wednesday said Mr. Obama is committed to a "complete and accurate count through a process that is free from politicization." But Thursday, Mr. LaBolt added: "As they have in the past, White House senior management will work closely with the census director given the number of decisions that will need to reach the president's desk."

Rep. Lamar Smith, ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, said not so.

"We checked with the Congressional Research Service, and there is no precedent for this, despite what the administration might say," he asserted.

Minority groups, quietly encouraged by Democrats, led a charge in 2000 to challenge the census, urging that statistical sampling and computer models - not the head-count "actual enumeration" mandated by the Constitution - should be employed. That despite a 1999 Supreme Court ruling that sampling could not be used to apportion congressional seats.

"Adjusting is statistical abstraction or extrapolation that gives a select few the ability to go in after the count is done in the census and adjust the numbers and adjust the numbers in ways they see and deem fit," said Rep. Patrick T. McHenry, North Carolina Republican and ranking member on the census subcommittee.

The Republicans went so far as to threaten to file a lawsuit if the White House steps too far into how the 2010 census is conducted and counted. If the president does not relent, "we would seek the court, because ultimately I don't think there's any question among the federal court, about whether or not this is a personal power of the presidency, or in fact whether or not executive privilege would be waived if he starts doing functions like this," Mr. Issa said.

House Minority Leader Rep. John Boehner of Ohio also announced that he is creating a census task force composed of Republican lawmakers from the Judiciary, House Administration and Government and Oversight committees to oversee the process.

Even with the Gregg withdrawal, Republicans are still fuming.

"We were promised this spirit of bipartisanship, and apparently it doesn't exist in many areas and it's just a pipe dream," Mr. Harper said. "If I were standing here today and there was a Republican president, and a Republican president tried to make this move, I would be opposing that."

Obama tells Spanish radio:
Immigration reform coming
Administration plans to begin drawing up
legislation 'over the next several months'

President Obama affirmed in an interview with a Spanish-language radio show that his administration is preparing to push for a new round of "comprehensive immigration reform."

The White House confirmed to WND Obama was a guest on the Univision show "Piolin por la Manana," or "Piolin in the Morning," hosted by Eddie "Piolin" Sotelo. A transcript of the interview, however, was not posted on the White House website.

"And then we've got to have comprehensive immigration reform," Obama told the radio audience, according to a transcript. "It's going to take some time to move that forward, but I'm very committed to making it happen."

Obama further said his administration plans to "convene leadership" on the issue "so that we can start getting that legislation drawn up over the next several months."

"Comprehensive immigration reform" became catchwords in the 109th and 110th Congresses for the legislation co-sponsored by Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy and Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain to create a "path to citizenship" and a "guest worker program" for the more than 12 million illegal immigrants the federal government admits are living in the U.S.

Characterized as a "shamnesty" bill by opponents that viewed the measure as amnesty for illegal immigrants, the U.S. Senate finally defeated repeated Bush administration efforts that trace back to 2005. A June 7, 2007, vote on cloture failed in the Senate by a vote of 34-61.

During the 2007 debate in the Senate over the Kennedy-McCain bill, Sotelo used his radio show to begin a letter-writing campaign urging the bill's passage.

In a cross-country caravan journey making stops in Albuquerque, Dallas and Chicago, Piolin collected a claimed 1 million letters which he delivered June 14, 2007, to members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus as well as Sens. Kennedy; Mel Martinez, R-Fla.; Robert Menendez, D-N.J.; Ken Salazar, D-Colo.; and Arlen Specter, R-Pa.

Piolin, who entered the U.S. illegally two decades ago in a car trunk, became a nationalized U.S. citizen last May.

In 2005, Piolin used his radio show to play a major role promoting May Day rallies across the U.S. in which thousands of illegal immigrants were photographed marching under the banner of the Mexican flag.

Motorsports industry blasted by new fed rule
Tens of thousands of jobs at stake, activists worry

Members of the motorsports industry are wondering why the government has adopted a rule virtually eliminating a key constituency – and possibly thousands of jobs – while at the same time developing a nearly trillion-dollar stimulus that supporters say is intended to create and protect employment.

At issue is a new federal regulation of lead that took effect just this month. The policy has virtually shut down the part of the motorsports industry that serves children under 12 who want to ride all-terrain vehicles and motorbikes, because some components of the machines – such as tire valve stems – contain lead.

"You've got a lot of kids involved in this," Don Amador, western representative for the the Blue Ribbon Commission, told WND today. "But ATVs, dirt bikes have batteries in them, components that use lead inside the valve stems on tires, lead in the electronic wiring, lead on battery terminals."

The lead ban prohibits the sale of such items, including repair parts, virtually shutting down the section of the motorsports industry that teaches a younger generation its intricacies and builds lifelong fans.

TheConsumer Product Safety Commission "has created a monster," Amador told WND.

Estimates of the impact vary, he said, but "some are saying it could be a $100 million hit in the offroad industry."

Besides retailers, manufacturers soon will feel the hit, as will other industries such as textiles, which no longer will have a demand for specialized clothing for junior participants, he said.

Right now parents who would like to introduce their children to the sport are "out of luck," Amador said.

"You can't go anywhere to buy these," he said.

So families' back-country trips are being cancelled, competitive events for youth are being dropped and sanctioning bodies are wondering how to build their schedules.

Amador's organization sent a letter yesterday to the CPSC's acting chariman, Nancy Nord, expressing its objection to the rule, which it says "functionally bans the sale of off-highway vehicles (OHV) designed for use by children ages 12 and under."

The letter cites special petitions filed by the Motorcycle Industry Council and the Specialty Vehicle Institute of America and asks for immediate action.

"BRC supports the Consumer Product Safety Commission's (CPSC) effort to minimize the exposure risk of lead in various products used by children," the letter said. "However, BRC does not support the unintended consequences of othe recent ban … which has resulted in small OHVs being pulled off showroom floors and youth OHV events being cancelled."

The organization also provides a Web link for consumers to express their opinions to the federal agency.

BRC warned that without a some sort of provision for the industry, there could be "major disruptions to enthusiasts, to the member companies' businesses, and to the companies' dealer network of thousands of small, independent businesses, which employ tens of thousands of Americans."

Missouri state Rep. Tom Self said he's already written to the federal agency. Through his website he has facilitated 53,000 demands for a change.

He said the safety measure actually could have the additional unintended consequence of creating more dangers for children.

"This issue is far reaching not only financially but also concerning safety. With the suspension of proper sized ATV's and motorcycles ... young riders will be tempted to use improperly sized and built machines which could (but Lord willing won't) lead to severe injuries," he said.

The lawmaker said a "waiver" is pending before the CPSC but needs further action.

"We need every available rider, mother, father, grandmother, grandfather, aunt, uncle and any relative, friend neighbor, business or personal contact or any person who is a legal us citizen to get involved," he said.

The industry explained that under the agency's interpretation, "engines, brakes, wheels, tires, and suspension parts on these vehicles must be tested and meet the lead standard due to remote concerns over lead exposure to children six years or older.

"While the law provides some exclusions for inaccessible components and also authorizes the CPSC to grant exemptions under certain conditions, to date the CPSC has not done so for products in the off-highway vehicle industry. This situation has resulted in HUGE inventories of products – which present no health risk to children – to be rendered retroactively illegal, and prohibits the future sale of these products because all available exemptions have yet to be clarified," the statement said.

Americans for Responsible Recreational Access also is involved in the campaign.

A spokesman for the commission told WND the problem is that members of Congress specifically created a ban on situations that would allow "any" absorption of lead, but the commission was trying to create an exemption needed for the industry.

He said representatives of the industry would be permitted to present their arguments as early as March for allowances that would restore availability of the machines to consumers.

WND previously reported when the lead testing rule threatened to put thousands of thrift and consignment stores out of business.

In that case, the CPSC relented, issuing a statement that, "Sellers of used children’s products, such as thrift stores and consignment stores, are not required to certify that those products meet the new lead limits, phthalates standard or new toy standards."

Thrift and consignment business owners were outraged after Congress passed the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008, or HR 4040, a retroactive rule mandating that all items sold for use by children under 12 must be tested by an independent party for lead and phthalates, which are chemicals used to make plastics more pliable.

Some more hurry up before the people can do anything about it legislation and of course it is by yet another member of a communist organization.

Sen. Boxer tries to hurry children's 'rights' treaty
Opponents warn U.N. measure would put government in place of parents

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., is urging a hurry-up timetable for adoption of a United Nations treaty she says provides for "basic human rights" for children but opponents argue would destroy parental rights to raise their children as they choose.

"Children deserve basic human rights ... and the convention protects children's rights by setting some standards here so that the most vulnerable people of society will be protected," Boxer said, according to Fox News.

Boxer wants quick action on the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, a proposal on which for 20 years Congress has refused to act because of concerns and questions.

The instrument was signed by President Clinton in 1995, but opposition and critics' concerns that it would override centuries of practice, policy and law regarding children have left it unadopted.

The document would create "the right of the child to freedom of thought, conscience and religion," which critics say would usurp the role of parents in directing their children's religious training.

But Boxer said during a hearing in the Senate recently she feels a "humiliation" that the U.S. has not adopted the plan.

WND reported just a week ago one of the nation's top experts on children's rights, Michael Farris, president of ParentalRights.org and chancellor of Patrick Henry College, said the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child would mean every decision a parent makes can be reviewed by the government to determine whether it is in the child's best interest.

"The left wants to make the Obama-Clinton era permanent. Treaties are a way to make it as permanent as stuff gets. It is very difficult to extract yourself from a treaty once you begin it. If they can put all of their left-wing socialist policies into treaty form, we're stuck with it even if they lose the next election," he warned.

The 1990s-era document was ratified quickly by 193 nations worldwide but not the U.S. or Somalia. In Somalia, there was then no recognized government to formally recognize the measure, and in the U.S. there's been opposition to its power. Countries that ratify the treaty are bound to it by international law.

The international treaty creates specific civil, social, cultural and even economic rights for every child and states that "the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration." While the treaty states parents or legal guardians "have primary responsibility for the upbringing and development of the child," Farris said government will ultimately determine whether parents' decisions are in their children's best interest.

According to the Parental Rights website, the CRC dictates the following:

* Parents would no longer be able to administer reasonable spankings to their children.

* A murderer aged 17 years, 11 months and 29 days at the time of his crime could no longer be sentenced to life in prison.

* Children would have the ability to choose their own religion while parents would only have the authority to give their children advice about religion.

* The best interest of the child principle would give the government the ability to override every decision made by every parent if a government worker disagreed with the parent's decision.

* A child's "right to be heard" would allow him (or her) to seek governmental review of every parental decision with which the child disagreed.

* According to existing interpretation, it would be illegal for a nation to spend more on national defense than it does on children's welfare.

* Children would acquire a legally enforceable right to leisure.

* Teaching children about Christianity in schools has been held to be out of compliance with the CRC.

* Allowing parents to opt their children out of sex education has been held to be out of compliance with the CRC.

* Children would have the right to reproductive health information and services, including abortions, without parental knowledge or consent.

The government would decide what is in the best interest of a children in every case, and the CRC would be considered superior to state laws, Farris said. Parents could be treated like criminals for making every-day decisions about their children's lives.

"If you think your child shouldn't go to the prom because their grades were low, the U.N. Convention gives that power to the government to review your decision and decide if it thinks that's what's best for your child," he said. "If you think that your children are too young to have a Facebook account, which interferes with the right of communication, the U.N. gets to determine whether or not your decision is in the best interest of the child."

At a Walden University presidential debate last October, Obama indicated he may take action.

"It's embarrassing to find ourselves in the company of Somalia, a lawless land," Obama said. "I will review this and other treaties to ensure the United States resumes its global leadership in human rights."

Fox News reported the standing U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child, an 18-member panel in Geneva, would review the rights of children in all disputes.

Obama seeks 'assault weapons' ban
AG: 'I think that will have a positive impact in Mexico, at a minimum'

The Obama administration has announced a sweeping plan to help curb Mexican violence across the border – ban "assault weapons" in the United States. NO LOGIC FOUND HERE!

"As President Obama indicated during the campaign, there are just a few gun-related changes that we would like to make, and among them would be to reinstitute the ban on the sale of assault weapons," Attorney General Eric Holder said in a news conference at the Justice Department yesterday.

While he said the ban would be a good move for the U.S., he also claims it will reduce the number of guns reaching Mexico's brutal drug cartels. ONLY IN HIS DREAMS! THIS WILL ONLY HAVE GUNS IN THE HANDS OF THE CARTELS AND LAW ABIDING CITIZENS WITH NO WAY TO PROTECT THEMSELVES! AGAIN ... NO LOGIC FOUND HERE!

"I think that will have a positive impact in Mexico, at a minimum," Holder said.

Mexican officials say the desire for sophisticated guns is encouraging drug cartels to clash over access routes into the U.S.

"International drug trafficking organizations pose a sustained, serious threat to the safety and security of our communities," Holder said. "As the world grows smaller and international criminals step up their efforts to operate inside our borders, the Department of Justice will confront them head on to keep our communities safe."

Holder didn't reveal when the Obama administration will seek to reimplement the ban. In 1994, former President Clinton outlawed 19 types of semi-automatic weapons and ammunition clips when he signed the Assault Weapons Ban into law.

(Story continues below)

Wayne LaPierre, president of the National Rifle Association, told ABC News, "I think there are a lot of Democrats on Capitol Hill cringing at Eric Holder's comments right now."

The NRA estimates that semi-automatic weapons account for approximately 15 percent of 250 million firearms owned in the U.S.

During his confirmation hearing, Holder told the Senate Judiciary Committee the Obama administration may consider other methods of controlling guns, according to the report.

"I think closing the gun show loophole, the banning of cop-killer bullets and I also think that making the assault weapons ban permanent, would be something that would be permitted under Heller," Holder said, referring to the Supreme Court case Washington, D.C. v. Heller.

Holder, a former Clinton administration official, endorsed the District of Columbia's complete ban on functional guns in residents' homes before it was overturned by the Supreme Court. The court decided in the D.C. vs. Heller case that the Second Amendment provides an individual right to own firearms, not just the right for states to form armed militias.

"A semi-automatic is a quintessential self-defense firearm owned by American citizens in this country," LaPierre said. "I think it is clearly covered under Heller and it's clearly, I think, protected by the Constitution."

Quote from: blackeyedpeas on February 26, 2009, 07:48:37 PM

Boxer - NO! - FORGET IT!

Our corrupt government and/or the corrupt governments of the UN are NOT going to RUN OUR HOMES OR BE IN CHARGE OF RAISING OUR FAMILIES! -- BUTT OUT AND STAY OUT! DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT TRYING THIS BECAUSE THE PEOPLE WON'T TOLERATE THIS OR ANYTHING ELSE LIKE IT!

"No man thinks more highly than I do of the patriotism, as well as abilities, of the very worthy gentlemen who have just addressed the House. But different men often see the same subject in different lights; and, therefore, I hope it will not be thought disrespectful to those gentlemen if, entertaining as I do opinions of a character very opposite to theirs, I shall speak forth my sentiments freely and without reserve. This is no time for ceremony. The questing before the House is one of awful moment to this country. For my own part, I consider it as nothing less than a question of freedom or slavery; and in proportion to the magnitude of the subject ought to be the freedom of the debate. It is only in this way that we can hope to arrive at truth, and fulfill the great responsibility which we hold to God and our country. Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offense, I should consider myself as guilty of treason towards my country, and of an act of disloyalty toward the Majesty of Heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings.

Mr. President, it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and, having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it.

I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past. And judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been in the conduct of the British ministry for the last ten years to justify those hopes with which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves and the House. Is it that insidious smile with which our petition has been lately received? Trust it not, sir; it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our petition comports with those warlike preparations which cover our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled that force must be called in to win back our love? Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of war and subjugation; the last arguments to which kings resort. I ask gentlemen, sir, what means this martial array, if its purpose be not to force us to submission? Can gentlemen assign any other possible motive for it? Has Great Britain any enemy, in this quarter of the world, to call for all this accumulation of navies and armies? No, sir, she has none. They are meant for us: they can be meant for no other. They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains which the British ministry have been so long forging. And what have we to oppose to them? Shall we try argument? Sir, we have been trying that for the last ten years. Have we anything new to offer upon the subject? Nothing. We have held the subject up in every light of which it is capable; but it has been all in vain. Shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication? What terms shall we find which have not been already exhausted? Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves. Sir, we have done everything that could be done to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne! In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free-- if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending--if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained--we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms and to the God of hosts is all that is left us!

They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. The millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable--and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come.

It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace-- but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"

It was a fitting speech when Patrick Henry gave it and it is a fitting speech today. There are still men today who are indeed convicted of the same ideals, the same dedication to that which is morally right as there was at the time of this speech. If they attempt to take away those God given freedoms they will have a good deal to contend with.

Obama intel pick works for Chinese government
Company's deals were seen as attempt to expand communist nation's influence

President Obama's nominee for a top intelligence post sits on the board of a major oil company owned by the Chinese government that is widely seen as conducting business deals meant to expand China's influence worldwide, WND has learned.

Charles "Chas" Freeman, the U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia during the first Gulf War, is slated to head the U.S. National Intelligence Council. The NIC is a crucial component of the U.S. intelligence apparatus, serving as the center for midterm and long-term strategic thinking within the American intelligence community. It provides intelligence briefs for Obama and key U.S. agencies and produces reports that help determine American policy on crucial issues, such as Iran's nuclear program.

Freeman is on the board of the China National Offshore Oil Corporation, or CNOOC, which in 2005 tried to purchase the ninth largest oil firm in the U.S. while he was a member. The merger was halted following bipartisan congressional opposition amid fears the deal would harm American national security interests.

The Chinese oil firm also has been accused of multiple human rights violations.

Freeman has served on the board of CNOOC since 2004. He also founded a pro-China organization, the U.S.-China Policy Foundation, which seeks to promote U.S.-China relations.

Freeman did not return WND requests for comment left with a media representative for his Middle East Policy Council.

CNOOC, the third largest Chinese oil company, focuses on the exploitation, exploration and development of crude oil and natural gas offshore of China. Seventy-five percent of the company's shares are owned by the government of the People's Republic of China.

In 2005, CNOOC made a staggering, all-cash $18.5 billion offer to buy the American oil company Unocal, topping an earlier bid by ChevronTexaco. Immediately, lawmakers and many policy experts, including a broad array of Democrats and Republicans in Congress, mounted a major opposition campaign to the bid, urging the Bush administration to have the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. determine how the deal would affect national security.

"This takeover is part of a Chinese strategy to move very aggressively into acquiring natural resource assets all over the world to fuel China's continued growth, because China is relatively resource-poor," Alan Tonelson, a research fellow with the U.S. Business and Industry Council, told reporters in 2005. "It's also part of a Chinese campaign to move, again, very aggressively into the American economy."

There was concern the deal would give China a major foothold in the U.S. economy and would also boost Chinese influence and political clout worldwide, particularly in Asia, where Unocal maintained major holdings in Thailand, Burma, Indonesia, Vietnam and Bangladesh,

"The acquisition would significantly help China achieve its goal of dominating the entire (Asian) region," John J. Tkacik Jr. wrote in a 2005 article in Capitalism Magazine.

Rep. Donald Manzullo, R-Ill., similarly warned the acquisition would give China an economic "leg up" in Asia.

Scores of media reports in major news outlets quoted congressmen worrying the CNOOC deal would give the Chinese an energy bargaining chip during U.S. negotiations seeking a tougher line against North Korea's nuclear program.

Human rights violations

Arakan Oil Watch, a human rights organization, issued a report accusing CNOOC last October of human rights abuses and land theft in an oil prospecting venture in Burma. The accusations came less than a month after the U.S.-based EarthRights International expressed concern about China's increasing grip on Burma's natural resources, including through CNOOC's ventures.

The accusations against CNOOC, with Freeman on its board, ranged from land seizure to wanton pollution of rice fields and water systems with oil waste.

"Observers note that the actions by CNOOC are similar to the methods still used throughout rural China when entrepreneurs in cahoots with Communist Party officials want to pursue a development against local peoples' wishes. They simply steamroller opposition," read a report in Irrawaddy, the independent news magazine based in Thailand.

Freeman has a long history of involvement with China. He was the principal American interpreter during President Nixon's historic visit to Beijing in 1972 and was a member of the advance team that opened the U.S. Liaison Office in Beijing in 1973. From 1979 to 1981, Freeman directed Chinese Affairs at the State Department. From that point until 1984, he served as chargé and deputy chief of mission at the American embassy in Beijing.

Freeman is the co-founder of the U.S.-China Policy Foundation, which, according to its website, promotes a greater understanding between American and Chinese policymakers, researchers and government officials. Among the missions of the foundation is to organize the development of China studies in U.S. institutions of higher education.

Freeman has been widely quoted in the media supporting Chinese policies and even penned a piece praising communist Chinese leader Mao Zedong.

The Weekly Standard recently obtained an e-mail Freeman posted to a list serve rapping the Chinese government for not immediately breaking up the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.

He wrote: "I find the dominant view in China about this very plausible, i.e., that the truly unforgivable mistake of the Chinese authorities was the failure to intervene on a timely basis to nip the demonstrations in the bud, rather than – as would have been both wise and efficacious – to intervene with force when all other measures had failed to restore domestic tranquility to Beijing and other major urban centers in China."

Saudi Arabia, bin Laden family ties

As WND reported, Freeman served as president of the Middle East Policy Council, a Washington-based Saudi backed nonprofit that received tens of thousands of dollars a year from the bin Laden family and hundreds of thousands more from other Saudi donors.

As chairman of Projects International Inc., a company that develops worldwide business deals, Freeman declared in an Associated Press interview just after the 9/11 attacks he was still "discussing proposals with the Bin Laden Group – and that won't change."

The Bin Laden Group is a multinational construction conglomerate and holding company for the assets owned by the bin Laden family. It was founded in 1950 by Sheik Mohammed bin Laden, father of the terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden.

Freeman told the AP that companies that have "had very long and profitable relationships are now running for public relations cover."

He said bin Laden remains "a very honored name" in the Saudi kingdom.

In a separate interview Sept. 28, 2001, Freeman told the Wall Street Journal he spoke at the time to two of Osama bin Laden's brothers following the mega terrorist attacks. He said they told him the FBI had been "remarkably sensitive, tactful and protective" of the family during the current crisis.

Freeman maintained to the Journal that the bin Laden family company was closely aligned with American interests and that the group was part of the "establishment that Osama's trying to overthrow."

Osama bin Laden worked briefly in his family business and is reported to have inherited as much as $50 million from his father in cash and stock. The Saudi Bin Laden Group has invested in the Carlyle Group, a global private equity investment firm to which former President George H. W. Bush served as adviser. Former President George W. Bush sat on the board.

Intelligence pick
wants national ID
Urges creation of federal system
'so we can better know who is who'

Following the 9/11 attacks, President Obama's nominee for a top intelligence post advocated that to effectively combat terrorism, the U.S. government should implement a national identity system, "so we better know who is who."

In testimony before the 9/11 commission, Charles "Chas" Freeman, the U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia during the first Gulf War, also recommended conducting the war on terrorism primary as a law enforcement effort.

Freeman is slated to head the U.S. National Intelligence Council, or NIC, a crucial component of the U.S. intelligence apparatus. The NIC serves as the center for midterm and long-term strategic thinking within the American intelligence community. It provides intelligence briefs for Obama and key U.S. agencies and produces reports that help determine American policy on crucial issues, such as Iran's nuclear program.

The declassified portions of Freeman's statements before the 9/11 commission were partially rehashed this week by Jerusalem-based researcher Ashley Rindsberg, a blogger for the Huffington Post website.

Freeman gave the commission three recommendations for better fighting Islamic terrorism:

* "First, the U.S. government should improve the visa system. More names to the forms should be added in order to distinguish among the many 'Abdullah bin Mohammads.' Technical means should also be used to cut the wait."

* "Second, the United States should implement a national identity system, so we better know who is who."

* Third, the war on terrorism should be seen primarily as a law enforcement and intelligence war, not as a military one."

Freeman has recently come under fire for his documented ties to foreign governments, including receiving funds from the Saudi government and his service on the advisory board of a Chinese-government-owned oil company widely seen as conducting business deals meant to expand the communist nation's influence worldwide. One of the Chinese company's recent attempts to purchase a large U.S. oil firm drew bipartisan congressional opposition amid fears the deal would harm American national security interests. Violating U.S. sanctions?

Since 2004, Freeman has been on the international advisory board of the China National Offshore Oil Corporation, or CNOOC.

Ma Bing, an analyst for CNOOC's investor relations department confirmed to WND that Freeman is still on the board. He said Freeman's role is to "provide the (company) management with strategic advice on world events and macro issues that may impact our development."

In 2006, CNOOC, with Freeman on its advisory board, signed a memorandum of understanding with the state-owned National Iranian Oil Company to develop Iran's North Pars gas field in a contract with Tehran reportedly worth $16 billion. The deal was stalled for two years after the U.S. State and Treasury Departments vowed to scrutinize the transaction to see if it violates either international or U.S. sanctions against Iran.

In December, the Iranian oil company announced it finalized the development plan with CNOOC. The two companies are currently negotiating the price of the contract.

Mohammad Ali Emadi, director of the Iranian firm's research and development team, said the terms of the agreement may be finalized "in less than one month," paving the way for the multibillion-dollar deal to be made public.

Emadi said the agreement with CNOOC would last for at least 25 years.

A spokesman for the State Department told WND the U.S. government will look into the deal after it is concluded to determine if it violates American sanctions. The Treasury Department in the past acted swiftly against international firms said to violate the sanctions.

"Such deals suggest to the Iranian government it is business as usual despite Iran's continued pursuit of nuclear capabilities and its failure to cooperate with the IAEA," State Department spokeswoman Laura Tischler added in comments to WND.

Freeman did not return WND requests for comment left with a media representative at the Middle East Policy Council, where he serves as director.

Last week, a bipartisan group of American congressmen called for a review of alleged financial ties between Freeman and the Saudi government. His Middle East Policy Council, a Washington-based, Saudi-backed nonprofit, received tens of thousands of dollars a year from Osama bin Laden family and hundreds of thousands more from other Saudi donors.

Expanding Chinese influence

The Iran deal may not be the only controversy tying Freeman to the Chinese government.

WND reported that in 2005, CNOOC made a staggering, all-cash $18.5 billion offer to buy the American oil company Unocal, topping an earlier bid by ChevronTexaco. Immediately, lawmakers and many policy experts, including a broad array of Democrats and Republicans in Congress, mounted a major opposition campaign to the bid, urging the Bush administration to have the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. determine how the deal would affect national security.

"This takeover is part of a Chinese strategy to move very aggressively into acquiring natural resource assets all over the world to fuel China's continued growth, because China is relatively resource-poor," Alan Tonelson, a research fellow with the U.S. Business and Industry Council, told reporters in 2005. "It's also part of a Chinese campaign to move, again, very aggressively into the American economy."

There was concern the deal would give China a major foothold in the U.S. economy and would also boost Chinese influence and political clout worldwide, particularly in Asia, where Unocal maintained major holdings in Thailand, Burma, Indonesia, Vietnam and Bangladesh.

cont'd

"The acquisition would significantly help China achieve its goal of dominating the entire (Asian) region," John J. Tkacik Jr. wrote in a 2005 article in Capitalism Magazine.

Rep. Donald Manzullo, R-Ill., similarly warned the acquisition would give China an economic "leg up" in Asia.

Scores of media reports in major news outlets quoted congressmen worrying the CNOOC deal would give the Chinese an energy bargaining chip during U.S. negotiations seeking a tougher line against North Korea's nuclear program.

CNOOC, the third largest Chinese oil company, focuses on the exploitation, exploration and development of crude oil and natural gas offshore of China. Seventy-five percent of the company's shares are owned by the government of the People's Republic of China.

Human rights violations

Arakan Oil Watch, a human rights organization, issued a report accusing CNOOC last October of human rights abuses and land theft in an oil prospecting venture in Burma. The accusations came less than a month after the U.S.-based EarthRights International expressed concern about China's increasing grip on Burma's natural resources, including through CNOOC's ventures.

The accusations against CNOOC, with Freeman on its board, ranged from land seizure to wanton pollution of rice fields and water systems with oil waste.

"Observers note that the actions by CNOOC are similar to the methods still used throughout rural China when entrepreneurs in cahoots with Communist Party officials want to pursue a development against local peoples' wishes. They simply steamroller opposition," read a report in Irrawaddy, an independent news magazine based in Thailand.

Freeman has a long history of involvement with China. He was the principal American interpreter during President Nixon's historic visit to Beijing in 1972 and was a member of the advance team that opened the U.S. Liaison Office in Beijing in 1973. From 1979 to 1981, Freeman directed Chinese Affairs at the State Department. From that point until 1984, he served as chargé and deputy chief of mission at the American embassy in Beijing.

Freeman is the co-founder of the U.S.-China Policy Foundation, which, according to its website, promotes a greater understanding between American and Chinese policymakers, researchers and government officials. Among the missions of the foundation is to organize the development of China studies in U.S. institutions of higher education.

Freeman has been widely quoted in the media supporting Chinese policies and even penned a piece praising communist Chinese leader Mao Zedong.

The Weekly Standard recently obtained an e-mail Freeman posted to a list serve rapping the Chinese government for not immediately breaking up the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.

He wrote: "I find the dominant view in China about this very plausible, i.e., that the truly unforgivable mistake of the Chinese authorities was the failure to intervene on a timely basis to nip the demonstrations in the bud, rather than – as would have been both wise and efficacious – to intervene with force when all other measures had failed to restore domestic tranquility to Beijing and other major urban centers in China."

Saudi Arabia, bin Laden family ties

As WND reported, Freeman served as president of the Middle East Policy Council, a Washington-based Saudi backed nonprofit that received tens of thousands of dollars a year from the bin Laden family and hundreds of thousands more from other Saudi donors.

As chairman of Projects International Inc., a company that develops worldwide business deals, Freeman declared in an Associated Press interview just after the 9/11 attacks he was still "discussing proposals with the Binladen Group – and that won't change."

The Binladen Group is a multinational construction conglomerate and holding company for the assets owned by the bin Laden family. It was founded in 1950 by Sheik Mohammed bin Laden, father of the terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden.

Freeman told the AP that companies that have "had very long and profitable relationships are now running for public relations cover."

He said bin Laden remains "a very honored name" in the Saudi kingdom.

In a separate interview Sept. 28, 2001, Freeman told the Wall Street Journal he spoke at the time to two of Osama bin Laden's brothers following the mega terrorist attacks. He said they told him the FBI had been "remarkably sensitive, tactful and protective" of the family during the current crisis.

Freeman maintained to the Journal that the bin Laden family company was closely aligned with American interests and that the group was part of the "establishment that Osama's trying to overthrow."

Osama bin Laden worked briefly in his family business and is reported to have inherited as much as $50 million from his father in cash and stock. The Saudi Binladen Group has invested in the Carlyle Group, a global private equity investment firm to which former President George H. W. Bush served as adviser. Former President George W. Bush sat on the board.

'Anti-Israel' views

Blogs and Israeli news media websites have been highlighting recent comments Freeman made that are perceived as heavily critical of Israel.

He told the Washington Institute of Foreign Affairs in 2007 that Israeli policy is generating anti-American sentiment while the Jewish state "no longer even pretends to seek peace with the Palestinians; it strives instead to pacify them."

"American identification with Israeli policy has also become total. Those in the region and beyond it who detest Israeli behavior, which is to say almost everyone, now naturally extend their loathing to Americans," he claimed.

Freeman lauded Hamas as "is the only democratically-elected government in the Arab world and claimed the terrorist group "is showing that if we offer it nothing but unreasoning hostility and condemnation, it will only stiffen its position and seek allies among our enemies. In both cases, we forfeit our influence for no gain."

An investigative article by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in 2005 exposed how Freeman's Middle East Policy Council was peddling to American schools a wildly inaccurate, anti-Israel, Saudi-funded textbook.

His council joined with California-based Arab World and Islamic Resources in selling to U.S. schools the "Arab World Studies Notebook." The JTA found the book described Jerusalem as unequivocally "Arab," characterized Jewish residence in the holy city as "settlement"; labeled the "question of Jewish lobbying" against "the whole question of defining American interests and concerns"; and suggested the Quran "synthesizes and perfects earlier revelations."

"Freeman is a strident critic of Israel and a textbook case of the old-line Arabism that afflicted American diplomacy at the time the state of Israel was born," Steve Rosen, a former top official of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, wrote on his "Obama Mideast Monitor" blog hosted by the Middle East Forum.

Judge orders homeschoolers into public district classrooms
Decides children need more 'focus' despite testing above grade levels
Posted: March 11, 2009
11:25 pm Eastern

By Bob Unruh
© 2009 WorldNetDaily

A North Carolina judge has ordered three children to attend public schools this fall because the homeschooling their mother has provided over the last four years needs to be "challenged."

The children, however, have tested above their grade levels – by as much as two years.

The decision is raising eyebrows among homeschooling families, and one friend of the mother has launched a website to publicize the issue.

The ruling was made by Judge Ned Mangum of Wake County, who was handling a divorce proceeding for Thomas and Venessa Mills.

A statement released by a publicist working for the mother, whose children now are 10, 11 and 12, said Mangum stripped her of her right to decide what is best for her children's education.

The judge, when contacted by WND, explained his goal in ordering the children to register and attend a public school was to make sure they have a "more well-rounded education."

"I thought Ms. Mills had done a good job [in homeschooling]," he said. "It was great for them to have that access, and [I had] no problems with homeschooling. I said public schooling would be a good complement."

The judge said the husband has not been supportive of his wife's homeschooling, and "it accomplished its purposes. It now was appropriate to have them back in public school."

Mangum said he made the determination on his guiding principle, "What's in the best interest of the minor children," and conceded it was putting his judgment in place of the mother's.

And he said that while he expressed his opinion from the bench in the court hearing, the final written order had not yet been signed.

However, the practice of a judge replacing a parent's judgment with his own regarding homeschooling was argued recently when a court panel in California ruled that a family would no longer be allowed to homeschool their own children.

WND reported extensively when the ruling was released in February 2008, alarming homeschool advocates nationwide because of its potential ramifications.

Ultimately, the 2nd Appellate District Court in Los Angeles reversed its own order, affirming the rights of California parents to homeschool their children if they choose.

The court, which earlier had opined that only credentialed teachers could properly educate children, was faced with a flood of friend-of-the-court briefs representing individuals and groups, including Congress members.

The conclusion ultimately was that parents, not the state, would decide where children are educated.

The California opinion said state law permits homeschooling "as a species of private school education" but that statutory permission for parents to teach their own children could be "overridden in order to protect the safety of a child who has been declared dependent."

In the North Carolina case, Adam Cothes, a spokesman for the mother, said the children routinely had been testing at up to two years above their grade level, were involved in swim team and other activities and events outside their home and had taken leadership roles in history club events.

On her website, family friend Robyn Williams said Mangum stated his decision was not ideologically or religiously motivated but that ordering the children into public schools would "challenge the ideas you've taught them."

Williams, a homeschool mother of four herself, said, "I have never seen such injustice and such a direct attack against homeschool."

"This judge clearly took personal issue with Venessa's stance on education and faith, even though her children are doing great. If her right to homeschool can be taken away so easily, what will this mean for homeschoolers state wide, or even nationally?" Williams asked.

Williams said she's trying to rally homeschoolers across the nation to defend their rights as Americans and parents to educate their own children.

Williams told WND the public school order was the worst possible outcome for Ms. Mills, who had made it clear she felt it was important to her children that she continue homeschooling.

According to Williams' website, the judge also ordered a mental health evaluation for the mother – but not the father – as part of the divorce proceedings, in what Williams described as an attack on the "mother's conservative Christian beliefs."

According to a proposed but as-yet unsigned order submitted by the father's lawyer to Mangum, "The children have thrived in homeschool for the past four years, but need the broader focus and socialization available to them in public school. The Court finds that it is in the children's best interest to continue their homeschooling through the end of the current school year, but to begin attending public school at the beginning of the 2009-2010 instructional year."

The order proposed by the father's lawyer also conceded the reason for the divorce was the father's "adultery," but it specifically said the father would not pay for homeschooling expenses for his children.

The order also stated, "Defendant believes that plaintiff is a nurturing mother who loves the children. Defendant believes that plaintiff has done a good job with the homeschooling of the children, although he does not believe that continued homeschooling is in the best interest of the children."

The website said the judge also said public school would "prepare these kids for the real world and college" and allow them "socialization."

Williams said the mother originally moved into a homeschool schedule because the children were not doing as well as she hoped at the local public schools.

In last year's dispute in California, the ruling that eventually was released was praised by pro-family organizations.

"We're pleased the appeals court recognized the rights of parents to provide education for their children," said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice. "This decision reaffirms the constitutional right that's afforded to parents in directing the education of their children. It's an important victory for families who cherish the freedom to ensure that their children receive a high quality education that is inherent in homeschooling."

"Parents have a constitutional right to make educational choices for their children," said Alliance Defense Fund Senior Counsel Gary McCaleb. "Thousands of California families have educated their children successfully through homeschooling. We're pleased with the court's decision, which protects the rights of families and protects an avenue of education that has proven to benefit children time and time again.

The North Carolina ruling also resembles a number of rulings handed down against homeschool parents in Germany, where such instruction has been banned since the years of Adolf Hitler's rule.

As WND reported, Wolfgang Drautz, consul general for the Federal Republic of Germany, has commented previously on the issue, contending the government "has a legitimate interest in countering the rise of parallel societies that are based on religion."

"The minister of education does not share your attitudes toward so-called homeschooling," said a government letter in response. "... You complain about the forced school escort of primary school children by the responsible local police officers. ... In order to avoid this in future, the education authority is in conversation with the affected family in order to look for possibilities to bring the religious convictions of the family into line with the unalterable school attendance requirement."

WND also reported recently when a German appeals court tossed out three-month jail terms issued to a mother and father who homeschool their children. But the court also ordered new trials that could leave the parents with similar penalties, according to the Home School Legal Defense Association.

The case involves Juergen and Rosemarie Dudek of Archfeldt, Germany, who last summer received formal notices of their three-month sentences.

The 90-day sentences came about when Hesse State Prosecutor Herwig Muller appealed a lower court's determination of fines for the family. The ruling had imposed fines of about 900 euros, or $1,200, for not sending their children to school

Muller, however, told the parents they shouldn't worry about any fines, since he would "send them to jail," the HSLDA reported.

HSLDA spokesman Michael Donnelly warned the homeschooling battle is far from over in Germany.

"There continue to be signs that the German government is cracking down on homeschooling families," he reported. "A recent letter from one family in southern Germany contained threats from local school authorities that unless the family enrolled their children in school, they would seek fines in excess of 50,000 euros (nearly $70,000), jail time and the removal of custody of the children."

HSLDA officials estimate there are some 400 homeschool families in Germany, virtually all of them either forced into hiding or facing court actions.

Who'da thunk? Dems made off with Madoff loot!
Wall Street swindler gave hundreds of thousands to candidates

As Wall Street fund manager Bernard Madoff pleads guilty to 11 counts of criminal fraud in the largest investment Ponzi scheme in U.S. history, prominent Democratic politicians apparently have no intention of returning to Madoff's victims the more than $260,000 he contributed almost entirely to Democratic Party campaigns since the Clinton administration.

While the mainstream media have given considerable coverage to the Madoff scandal, few reporters mention Madoff was a Democrat with a history of thousands of dollars in contributions to Democratic Party candidates.

According to Federal Election Commission records, among Madoff's dozens of contributions to Democrats were the following:

* Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.: $2,000 in 2002, $6,000 in 2004 and another $2,000 in 1998;

* Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y.: $1,000 in 2000

* House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt, D-Mo, presidential campaign: $2,000 in 2003;

* Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y.: $1,000 in 2001; $1,000 in 1998;

* Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J.: $10,200 in 2007; $1,000 in 2004;

* Gov. Jon Corzine, D-N.J.: $1,000 in 1999.

Madoff appears to have gotten around rules limiting campaign contributions. For instance, he contributed not only to Schumer's campaign but also to a group called "The Friends of Schumer."

Madoff also contributed to Lautenberg's campaign and to the senator's NJ Victory Committee.

Madoff appears to have contributed more than $100,000 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee while Schumer was chairman, including a $25,000 contribution in 2005.

OpenSecrets.org at the Center for Responsive Politics reports that Madoff and other individuals at his company, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, gave $372,100 in campaign contributions beginning in 1991, with 89 percent going to Democrats.

The offices of Schumer and Rangel did not return WND phone calls asking for comment.

Lautenberg's office referred the call to his attorney in Newark, Mike Griffinger, who also did not return WND's phone call.

Corzine's office indicated he had donated Madoff's campaign contributions to charity.

The State Department did not return a WND phone call asking about how Secretary of State Clinton planned to handle contributions Madoff made to her political campaigns.

Lose your property for growing food?
Big Brother legislation could mean prosecution, fines up to $1 million

Some small farms and organic food growers could be placed under direct supervision of the federal government under new legislation making its way through Congress.

Food Safety Modernization Act

House Resolution 875, or the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009, was introduced by Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., in February. DeLauro's husband, Stanley Greenburg, works for Monsanto – the world's leading producer of herbicides and genetically engineered seed.

DeLauro's act has 39 co-sponsors and was referred to the House Agriculture Committee on Feb. 4. It calls for the creation of a Food Safety Administration to allow the government to regulate food production at all levels – and even mandates property seizure, fines of up to $1 million per offense and criminal prosecution for producers, manufacturers and distributors who fail to comply with regulations.

Michael Olson, host of the Food Chain radio show and author of "Metro Farm," told WND the government should focus on regulating food production in countries such as China and Mexico rather than burdening small and organic farmers in the U.S. with overreaching regulations.

"We need somebody to watch over us when we're eating food that comes from thousands and thousands of miles away. We need some help there," he said. "But when food comes from our neighbors or from farmers who we know, we don't need all of those rules. If your neighbor sells you something that is bad and you get sick, you are going to get your hands on that farmer, and that will be the end of it. It regulates itself. "

The legislation would establish the Food Safety Administration within the Department of Health and Human Services "to protect the public health by preventing food-borne illness, ensuring the safety of food, improving research on contaminants leading to food-borne illness, and improving security of food from intentional contamination, and for other purposes."

Federal regulators will be tasked with ensuring that food producers, processors and distributors – both large and small – prevent and minimize food safety hazards such as food-borne illnesses and contaminants such as bacteria, chemicals, natural toxins or manufactured toxicants, viruses, parasites, prions, physical hazards or other human pathogens.

Under the legislation's broad wording, slaughterhouses, seafood processing plants, establishments that process, store, hold or transport all categories of food products prior to delivery for retail sale, farms, ranches, orchards, vineyards, aquaculture facilities and confined animal-feeding operations would be subject to strict government regulation.

Government inspectors would be required to visit and examine food production facilities, including small farms, to ensure compliance. They would review food safety records and conduct surveillance of animals, plants, products or the environment.

"What the government will do is bring in industry experts to tell them how to manage all this stuff," Olson said. "It's industry that's telling government how to set these things up. What it always boils down to is who can afford to have the most influence over the government. It would be those companies that have sufficient economies of scale to be able to afford the influence – which is, of course, industrial agriculture."

Farms and food producers would be forced to submit copies of all records to federal inspectors upon request to determine whether food is contaminated, to ensure they are in compliance with food safety laws and to maintain government tracking records. Refusal to register, permit inspector access or testing of food or equipment would be prohibited.

"What is going to happen is that local agriculture will end up suffering through some onerous protocols designed for international agriculture that they simply don't need," Olson said. "Thus, it will be a way for industrial agriculture to manage local agriculture."

Under the act, every food producer must have a written food safety plan describing likely hazards and preventative controls they have implemented and must abide by "minimum standards related to fertilizer use, nutrients, hygiene, packaging, temperature controls, animal encroachment, and water."

"That opens a whole can of worms," Olson said. "I think that's where people are starting to freak out about losing organic agriculture. Who is going to decide what the minimum standards are for fertilization or anything else? The government is going to bring in big industry and say we are setting up these protocols, so what do you think we should do? Who is it going to bring in to ask? The government will bring in people who have economies of scale who have that kind of influence."

DeLauro's act calls for the Food Safety Administration to create a "national traceability system" to retrieve history, use and location of each food product through all stages of production, processing and distribution.

Olson believes the regulations could create unjustifiable financial hardships for small farmers and run them out of business.

"That is often the purpose of rules and regulations: to get rid of your competition," he said. "Only people who are very, very large can afford to comply. They can hire one person to do paperwork. There's a specialization of labor there, and when you are very small, you can't afford to do all of these things."

Olson said despite good intentions behind the legislation, this act could devastate small U.S. farms.

"Every time we pass a rule or a law or a regulation to make the world a better place, it seems like what we do is subsidize production offshore," he said. "We tell farmers they can no longer drive diesel tractors because they make bad smoke. Well, essentially what we're doing is giving China a subsidy to grow our crops for us, or Mexico or anyone else."

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Section 304 of the Food Safety Modernization Act establishes a group of "experts and stakeholders from Federal, State, and local food safety and health agencies, the food industry, consumer organizations, and academia" to make recommendations for improving food-borne illness surveillance.

According to the act, "Any person that commits an act that violates the food safety law … may be assessed a civil penalty by the Administrator of not more than $1,000,000 for each such act."

Each violation and each separate day the producer is in defiance of the law would be considered a separate offense and an additional penalty. The act suggests federal administrators consider the gravity of the violation, the degree of responsibility and the size and type of business when determining penalties.

Criminal sanctions may be imposed if contaminated food causes serious illness or death, and offenders may face fines and imprisonment of up to 10 years.

"It's just frightening what can happen with good intentions," Olson said. "It's probably the most radical notions on the face of this Earth, but local agriculture doesn't need government because it takes care of itself."

Food Safety and Tracking Improvement Act

Another "food safety" bill that has organic and small farmers worried is Senate Bill 425, or the Food Safety and Tracking Improvement Act, sponsored by Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio.

Brown's bill is backed by lobbyists for Monsanto, Archer Daniels Midland and Tyson. It was introduced in September and has been referred to the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee. Some say the legislation could also put small farmers out of business.

Like HR 875, the measure establishes a nationwide "traceability system" monitored by the Food and Drug Administration for all stages of manufacturing, processing, packaging and distribution of food. It would cost $40 million over three years.

"We must ensure that the federal government has the ability and authority to protect the public, given the global nature of the food supply," Brown said when he introduced the bill. He suggested the FDA and USDA have power to declare mandatory recalls.

The government would track food shipped in interstate commerce through a recordkeeping and audit system, a secure, online database or registered identification. Each farmer or producer would be required to maintain records regarding the purchase, sale and identification of their products.

cont'd

A 13-member advisory committee of food safety and tracking technology experts, representatives of the food industry, consumer advocates and government officials would assist in implementing the traceability system.

The bill calls for the committee to establish a national database or registry operated by the Food and Drug Administration. It also proposes a electronic records database to identify sales of food and its ingredients "establishing that the food and its ingredients were grown, prepared, handled, manufactured, processed, distributed, shipped, warehoused, imported, and conveyed under conditions that ensure the safety of the food."

It states, "The records should include an electronic statement with the date of, and the names and addresses of all parties to, each prior sale, purchase, or trade, and any other information as appropriate."

If government inspectors find that a food item is not in compliance, they may force producers to cease distribution, recall the item or confiscate it.

"If the postal service can track a package from my office in Washington to my office in Cincinnati, we should be able to do the same for food products," Sen. Brown said in a Sept. 4, 2008, statement. "Families that are struggling with the high cost of groceries should not also have to worry about the safety of their food. This legislation gives the government the resources it needs to protect the public."

Recalls of contaminated food are usually voluntary; however, in his weekly radio address on March 15, President Obama announced he's forming a Food Safety Working Group to propose new laws and stop corruption of the nation's food.

The group will review, update and enforce food safety laws, which Obama said "have not been updated since they were written in the time of Teddy Roosevelt."

The president said outbreaks from contaminated foods, such as a recent salmonella outbreak among consumers of peanut products, have occurred more frequently in recent years due to outdated regulations, fewer inspectors, scaled back inspections and a lack of information sharing between government agencies.

"In the end, food safety is something I take seriously, not just as your president but as a parent," Obama said. "No parent should have to worry that their child is going to get sick from their lunch just as no family should have to worry that the medicines they buy will cause them harm."

The blogosphere is buzzing with comments on the legislation, including the following:

* Obama and his cronies or his puppetmasters are trying to take total control – nationalize everything, disarm the populace, control food, etc. We are seeing the formation of a total police state.

* Well ... that's not very " green " of Obama. What's his real agenda?

* This is getting way out of hand! Isn't it enough the FDA already allows poisons in our foods?

* If you're starving, no number of guns will enable you to stay free. That's the whole idea behind this legislation. He who controls the food really makes the rules.

* The government is terrified of the tax loss. Imagine all the tax dollars lost if people actually grew their own vegetables! Imagine if people actually coordinated their efforts with family, friends and neighbors. People could be in no time eating for the price of their own effort. ... Oh the horror of it all! The last thing the government wants is for us to be self-sufficient.

* They want to make you dependent upon government. I say no way! already the government is giving away taxes from my great great grandchildren and now they want to take away my food, my semi-auto rifles, my right to alternative holistic medicine? We need a revolution, sheeple! Wake up! They want fascism ... can you not see that?

* The screening processes will make it very expensive for smaller farmers, where bigger agriculture corporations can foot the bill.

* If anything it just increases accountability, which is arguably a good thing. It pretty much says they'll only confiscate your property if there are questions of contamination and you don't comply with their inspections. I think the severity of this has been blown out of proportion by a lot of conjecture.

* Don't waste your time calling the criminals in D.C. and begging them to act like humans. This will end with a bloody revolt.

* The more I examine this (on the surface) seemingly innocuous bill the more I hate it. It is a coward's ploy to push out of business small farms and farmers markets without actually making them illegal because many will choose not to operate due to the compliance issue.

29 congressman vs. Federal Reserve – Who will win?

Push to audit Federal Reserve gains steam
28 lawmakers join call to examine nation's money controllers

A bill calling for the comptroller general of the United States to audit the private Federal Reserve is gaining momentum in Washington, D.C., as more and more representatives add their names to its bipartisan support.

As WND reported, U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, introduced last month H.R. 1207, the Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2009, a bill requiring that an audit of both the Fed's Board of Governors and the Federal Reserve Banks be completed and reported to Congress before the end of 2010.

Paul was joined at the time of introduction by 11 other Republican and Democratic co-sponsors.

Since its introduction, 17 additional U.S. representatives have added their names as co-sponsors, bringing the total to 29 legislators seeking the audit.

Rep. Paul has been a harsh critic of the Federal Reserve, even seeking to abolish the private money-control system, arguing that Congress should "reassert its constitutional authority over monetary policy."

The Constitution, Paul said, gives Congress, not the private Federal Reserve, "the authority to coin money and regulate the value of the currency."

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Paul explained his advocacy for the H.R. 1207 audit in the U.S. House:

"Throughout its nearly 100-year history, the Federal Reserve has presided over the near-complete destruction of the United States dollar," the Texas Republican said. "Since 1913 the dollar has lost over 95 percent of its purchasing power, aided and abetted by the Federal Reserve's loose monetary policy.

"How long will we as a Congress stand idly by while hard-working Americans see their savings eaten away by inflation? Only big-spending politicians and politically favored bankers benefit from inflation," he said.

Paul called oversight of the Fed "long overdue."

You've never needed to understand money like you need to understand it now! "Web of Debt: The Shocking Truth About Our Money System and How We Can Break Free" unravels the deception of the Federal Reserve and presents a crystal clear picture of the financial abyss towards which we are heading.

"Since its inception, the Federal Reserve has always operated in the shadows, without sufficient scrutiny or oversight of its operations," he continued.

"The Federal Reserve can enter into agreements with foreign central banks and foreign governments, and the GAO is prohibited from auditing or even seeing these agreements. Why should a government – established agency, whose police force has federal law enforcement powers, and whose notes have legal tender status in this country, be allowed to enter into agreements with foreign powers and foreign banking institutions with no oversight?"

Paul said H.R. 1207, which has been referred to the House Committee of Financial Services, would "achieve much-needed transparency of the Federal Reserve."

In his weekly online column, Paul also said the Founding Fathers intended "only gold and silver to be used as currency," but that long since has been abandoned in favor of a monetary system essentially orchestrated in secret.

"People are demanding answers and explanations for our economic malaise, and we should settle for nothing less than the whole truth on monetary policy," he said.

WND reported last month on Paul's continuing effort to abolish the institution.

Paul said every problem in the economy, "from the Great Depression, to the stagflation of the '70s, to the current economic crisis caused by the housing bubble," can be traced to Federal Reserve policy.

Paul's abolition plan calls for the director of the Office of Management and Budget to "liquidate" Fed assets "in an orderly manner so as to achieve as expeditious a liquidation as may be practical while maximizing the return to the Treasury."

Columnist and commentator Chuck Baldwin believes it's about time.

"'We've seen money go out the back door of this government unlike any time in the history of our country,' Senator Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat, said on the Senate floor. 'Nobody knows what went out of the Federal Reserve Board, to whom and for what purpose. How much from the FDIC? How much from TARP? When? Why?'" Baldwin wrote.

"Senator Dorgan is exactly right. No one oversees the Fed. The Fed is held accountable to absolutely nobody," Baldwin continued. "But Senator Dorgan (as with everyone else in Congress) has no one to blame but himself. Ever since the Marxist, E. Mandell House, convinced President Woodrow Wilson to create the Federal Reserve in 1913, the Congress of the United States has had virtually nothing to do with the way our fiscal policies are managed. The Fed (which is not even a government agency, but rather a private corporation consisting of mostly foreign bankers) dictates America's financial policies."

Baldwin cites the U.S. Constitution itself. In Article I, Section 8, Paragraph 5, it states Congress has the authority to "coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures."

Columnist Jacob Hornberger last year noted that while Paul's abolition plan is considered "wacky" by some, at least two Nobel Prize-winning economists had the same idea.

Economists Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek called for the abolition of the Fed during their careers, Hornberger notes.

"While Friedman spent much of his life advocating externally imposed constraints on the Fed's power to expand the money supply, his first wish was to have the Fed abolished, as he pointed out in a 1995 Reason magazine interview. In his book, 'Denationalization of Money: An Analysis of the Theory and Practice of Concurrent Currencies,' Hayek advocated a free-market monetary system of competing currencies," said Hornberger.

"Most Americans probably still believe that the Great Depression was caused by 'the failure of the free-enterprise system.' It is a false belief. The truth is that the worst economic disaster in American history was caused by the Federal Reserve. Give current Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke credit for publicly acknowledging that fact in a speech delivered in 2002 commemorating Friedman's 90th birthday," Hornberger said.

Feds undercut civilian supply of ammunition
Policy leaves manufacturers without brass to make bullets

A recent government policy change has taken a bite out of the nation's already stressed ammunition supply, leaving arms dealers scrambling to find bullets for private gun owners.

Georgia Arms is a company that for the last 15 years has been purchasing fired brass shell casings from the Department of Defense and private government surplus liquidators. The military collects the discarded casings from fired rounds, then sells them through liquidators to companies like Georgia Arms that remanufacture the casings into ammunition for the law enforcement and civilian gun owner communities.

But earlier this month, Georgia Arms received a canceled order, informed by its supplier that the government now requires fired brass casings be mutilated, in other words, destroyed to a scrap metal state.

The policy change, handed down from the Department of Defense through the Defense Logistics Agency, cuts a supply leg out from underneath ammunition manufacturers.

The policy has compelled Georgia Arms, for example, to cancel all sales of .223 and .308 ammunition, bullets used, respectively, in semi-automatic and deer hunting rifles, until further notice. Sharch Manufacturing, Inc. has announced the same cancellation of its .223 and .308 brass reloading components.

"They just reclassified brass to allow destruction of it, based on what?" Georgia Arms owner Larry Haynie asked WND. "We've been 'going green' for the last dozen years, and brass is one of the most recyclable materials out there. A cartridge case can be used over and over again. And now we're going to destroy it based on what? We don't want the civilian public to have it? It's a government injustice."

As WND reported, firearm sales have spiked since the election of a perceived anti-gun president, and Americans stockpiling bullets have produced a stressed ammunition market.

The Orlando Sentinel reports months of steady, heavy buying have left gun dealers in Florida facing shortages of ammunition.

"The survivalist in all of us comes out," John Ritz, manager of a Florida shooting range, told the Sentinel. "It's more about protecting what you have."

"People are just stockpiling," said a spokeswoman for Georgia Arms, which has seen bullet sales jump 100 percent since the election. "A gun is just like a car. If you can't get gas, you can't use it."

WND contacted the Defense Logistics Agency, the Department of Defense's largest combat support agency, several times seeking comment or explanation for the policy change but received none.

The National Rifle Association confirmed to WND that the DLA had been instructed to require the scrapping of the brass casings but declined further comment at this time.

Other gun advocates, however, have sounded off on the issue, eyeing the change in government policy with suspicion and filling the blogosphere with speculation that the effects of the policy change may be deliberate.

"It is an end-run around Congress. They don't need to try to ban guns – they don't need to fight a massive battle to attempt gun registration, or limit 'assault' weapon sales," writes firearm instructor and author Gordon Hutchinson on his The Shootist blog. "Nope. All they have to do is limit the amount of ammunition available to the civilian market, and when bullets dry up, guns will be useless."

A writer named Owen at the Boots & Sabers blog suspects the policy change is an effort by an anti-gun administration to raise the cost of ammunition.

"This policy didn't come out of the blue," writes Owen. "The Commander in Chief is clearly sending a message to gun owners that they should be paying more for ammunition. If he can't do it through regulatory action, he'll do it by forcing ammunition manufacturers to spend more on production."

Hutchinson reports Georgia Arms was manufacturing over 1 million rounds of .223 ammunition every month, but without the ability to purchase expended military ammunition, the company may be forced to lay off up to half its workforce.

Case challenges taxpayer-funded AIG 'zakat'
Attorneys argue dismissal would leave U.S. funding Islamic terrorists

A non-profit legal group that sued the Federal Reserve Board and the U.S. Treasury over the distribution of billions of dollars in taxpayer funds to the Shariah-supporting American International Group is warning the case must not be dismissed.

The case was brought against the Fed and the Treasury by the Thomas More Law Center, and spokesman Richard Thompson says he's challenging the U.S. government's own "financial support to anti-American, Islamic activities."

"Make no mistake, there is a cultural jihad underway against our great nation, and I fear that our government is unwittingly complicit in it," Thompson said

His comments came in opposition to a move on the part of the Obama administration to have the case dismissed.

"Although widespread public anger has rightfully focused on bonuses AIG paid to top executives using taxpayers' money, that anger would be at an even higher pitch if the public knew that our tax dollars were being used by AIG to promote Islam and Shariah law, which provides support for terrorist activities aimed at killing Americans and destroying America," said Thompson, the president of the law center.

In a motion to dismiss, the U.S. Department of Justice alleged the government does not control AIG and that it provided tens of billions of dollars "to address what is possibly the worst financial crisis this country has encountered since the Great Depression," according to the law center.

The Thomas More center, however, said whatever emergency measures may be needed, there is no reason to use tax dollars to promote the religion of Islam in violation of the U.S. Constitution.

The lawsuit in federal court in Michigan is a constitutional challenge to that portion of the "Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008" that appropriated $40 billion in taxpayer money to fund and financially support the federal government's majority ownership interest in AIG, which engages in Shariah-based Islamic religious activities that the law center calls "anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Jewish."

"The use of these taxpayer funds to approve, promote, endorse, support, and fund these Shariah-based Islamic religious activities violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution," the case alleges.

The case was brought on behalf of Kevin Murray, a former Marine who served honorably in Iraq to defend the United States from Islamic terrorists. Murray objects to being forced as a taxpayer to contribute to the propagation of Islamic beliefs and practices predicated upon Shariah law, which is hostile to his Christian religion.

He is being represented by Thomas More attorney Robert Muise and by David Yerushalmi, an associated attorney who is an expert in Shariah law and Shariah-compliant financing, as well as general counsel to the Center for Security Policy.

The case alleges that through the use of taxpayer funds, the federal government acquired a majority ownership interest in AIG and, as part of the bailout, Congress appropriated and expended an additional $40 billion of taxpayer money to fund and financially support AIG and its financial activities.

AIG, which is now a government-owned company, engages in Shariah-compliant financing which subjects certain financial activities, including investments, to the dictates of Islamic law and the Islamic religion.

According to the complaint, AIG itself describes "Shariah" as "Islamic law based on the Quran and the teachings of the Prophet [Mohammed]."

The case accuses the company of employing a "Shariah Supervisory Committee" that includes Sheikh Nizam Yaquby from Bahrain, Mohammed Ali Elgari from Saudi Arabia, and Muhammed Imran Ashraf Usmani from Pakistan.

The law center described Usmani as the "son, student, and dedicated disciple of Mufti Taqi Usmani, who is the leading Shariah authority for Shariah-compliant finance in the world and the author of a book translated into English in 1999 that includes an entire chapter dedicated to explaining why a Western Muslim must engage in violent jihad against his own country or government."

The complaint further cites the obligatory "zakat," which under Shariah is a religious tax that must be directed to those in jihad.

"The 'zakat' religious tax is used to financially support Islamic 'charities,' some of which have ties to terrorist organizations that are hostile to the U.S. and other 'infidels,' which includes Christians and Jews," the center said.

Thomas More cited the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development as an example. That organization was convicted of providing millions of dollars to Islamic terrorists, the center said.

"As a direct consequence of the taxpayer funds appropriated and expended to purchase and financially support AIG, the federal government is now the owner of a corporation engaged in the business of collecting religious taxes to fund interests adverse to the United States, Christians, Jews, and all other 'infidels' under Islamic law," the center said.

"This lawsuit is as much about protecting constitutional principles as it is about protecting our national security and preventing another 9/11, whether overtly through direct attacks or covertly through a taxpayer funded stealth jihad," Thompson said.

Congresswoman: Hands off dollar!
Wants ban on U.S. use of any foreign currency

A member of Congress is warning the Obama administration to keep its hands off the U.S. dollar's status as the world's international currency.

U.S. Rep. Michelle Bachmann, R-Minn., has introduced a resolution that would bar the U.S. from recognizing any other currency than the dollar as its reserve currency.

Her action comes in response to suggestions from China, Russia and the United Nations that another currency be explored. Even U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has admitted he would be open to the idea, although he quickly backtracked when the stock market plunged on his announcement.

"During a Financial Services Committee hearing, I asked Secretary Geithner if he would denounce efforts to move towards a global currency and he answered unequivocally that he would," Bachmann said. "And President Obama gave the nation the same assurances. But just a day later, Secretary Geithner has left the option on the table. I want to know which it is. The American people deserve to know."

Although Title 31, Sec. 5103 USC prohibits foreign currency from being recognized in the U.S., the president has the power to engage foreign governments in treaties, and the president is principally responsible for the interpretations and implementation of those treaties according to the Constitution, according to the congresswoman.

As a result, legislation prohibiting the president and Treasury Department from issuing or agreeing that the U.S. will adopt an international currency would need to come in the form of a Constitutional Amendment differentiating a treaty used to implement an international currency in the U.S. from other types of treaty agreements, she said.

"If we give up the dollar as our standard, and co-mingle the value of the dollar with the value of coinage in Zimbabwe, that dilutes our money supply. We lose control over our economy. And economic liberty is inextricably entwined with political liberty. Once you lose your economic freedom, you lose your political freedom," Bachmann told the Glenn Beck program on the Fox News Channel today.

Her proposal, H.J.R. 41, isn't complicated:

It is titled: "Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to prohibit the president from entering into a treaty or other international agreement that would provide for the United States to adopt as legal tender in the United States a currency issued by an entity other than the United States "

Already with several dozen sponsors, it states:

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein), That the following article is proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years after the date of its submission for ratification:"

It would add to the Constitution:

The president may not enter into a treaty or other international agreement that would provide for the United States to adopt as legal tender in the United States a currency issued by an entity other than the United States.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the latest voice to endorse an "alternative" to the dollar was the head of a U.N. expert panel discussing solutions to the financial crisis.

Officials from both Russia and China have spoken out on the idea of a new global currency standard, and a U.N. panel published a report that said a new global reserve system would add to the world's "economic stability and equity."

According to a report in the Financial Times, the subject could be on the table at the coming G20 summit of leading and emerging nations in London.

Specifically, the U.N. said a new system could "counteract the risk of a rapid fall in the value of the major reserve currency, gutting hard-earned reserve funds."

Who will raise kids:
Mom, Dad or state?
67 legislators in D.C. press Congress
to add parents' rights to Constitution

Though efforts to pass a constitutional amendment protecting parental rights have failed in the past, two U.S. legislators are preparing to reintroduce the idea this week; and this time, they say, the effort is backed by more than 60 congressional members.

Rep. Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., who introduced a parental rights amendment by himself last year, told the Agence France-Presse that he will be joined by Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., on Tuesday as they renew the fight.

According to a statement released to AFP by Hoekstra's office, the amendment "would clearly outline in the U.S. Constitution that parents, not government or any other organization, have a fundamental right to raise their children as they see fit."

"At a time when government at every level seems to encroach upon the ability of parents to choose the best for their children," Hoekstra writes on his website, "it is important to preserve parental rights into the Constitution."

Discover the mindset behind the establishment of today's system of mass education, and where has it led us as a society with "The Little Book of Big Reasons to Homeschool."

Last summer Hoekstra introduced H.J.R. 97, proposing a constitutional amendment stating that the liberty of parents to direct the upbringing and education of their children is a fundamental right that cannot be infringed upon by federal, state, or international treaty law without demonstrating government interest "of the highest order." Hoekstra asserts that legitimate cases of abuse and neglect fall under the "demonstrated government interest" clause.

Without any co-sponsors, however, H.J.R 97 died in committee.

According to ParentalRights.org, an organization dedicated to seeing the amendment passed, this year's effort, in addition to senatorial support from DeMint, has recruited 65 U.S. representatives who have committed to joining Hoekstra in co-sponsoring a parental rights amendment.

As WND reported, the president of the world's premier homeschool advocacy organization made a case for the amendment in a Washington Times commentary published last year:

"Few dispute the vital role of parents in raising the next generation, but, regrettably, few recognize that the fundamental role of parents is under direct attack," wrote J. Michael Smith, president of the Homeschool Legal Defense Association.

Smith pointed to the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, an internation treaty approved by the Clinton administration but stalled by opposition in the Senate, as one example of governmental attempts to infringe on parental rights.

"It's possible that in the near future, the United States may significantly weaken the rights of parents to raise their children," Smith wrote. "Crucial decisions that parents are accustomed to making, such as what our children read, who they associate with, what kind of discipline is used, whether we take them to church, or whether we homeschool, all become decisions for the state if the United States ratifies the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child."

He continued, "By allowing the government to define and determine what is in the 'best interests of the child,' outside the context of abuse and neglect cases, the UNCRC in effect diminishes the parental role, replacing it with government supervision."

As WND reported, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., last month urged a hurry-up timetable for adoption of the UNCRC.

"Children deserve basic human rights ... and the convention protects children's rights by setting some standards here so that the most vulnerable people of society will be protected," Boxer said, according to Fox News.

Critics like Smith, however, argue the document, which creates "the right of the child to freedom of thought, conscience and religion" usurps the role of parents in directing their children's uprbrining.

Opponents of the amendment, such as those that opposed a Colorado state version proposed in the 1990's, argue that the measure would protect child abusers, make public schools a battleground for parents' ideological issues and prevent teenage students from receiving sex education and family planning services through their schools.

Rob Boston, assistant director of communications for Americans United for Separation of Church and State argued against the amendment in a blog post last month, making many of the same arguments lodged against the Colorado initiative.

Boston also argued that the amendment is a back door approach to mixing public education dollars and religion, claiming through the amendment "states would be forced to give parents tuition vouchers for private and religious schooling since the right to direct a child's education would be enshrined in the Constitution."

Sen. DeMint, who will join Hoekstra in offering the amendment, has been involved in similar legislation in the past. DeMint was a co-sponsor of the Parents' Rights Empowerment and Protection Act of 2007, which required schools to obtain written parental permission before teaching children about sex or sexuality.

DeMint's bill, like Hoekstra's in 2008, never made it out of committee.

To succeed, the amendment Hoekstra and DeMint plan to introduce Tuesday will need to pass in both the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate by two-thirds majorities each, then win ratification by three-fourths of the states.

Justices 'mainstream' homosexual 'marriage'
'I don't think Iowans imagined this could be foisted on the state'

In the Midwest, a region of the country widely considered to be a bedrock of traditional American values, many people are in shock following an Iowa Supreme Court decision this morning overturning the state's ban on same-sex marriage.

"I was surprised," said Brian Friedl, a resident of Humboldt, Iowa, a small community two hours north of the state's capital. "I hadn't followed it that closely, so I didn't know it was up for a vote."

The justices in Iowa's Supreme Court did indeed vote – unanimously in the case of six homosexual couples suing the registrar of Polk County for the opportunity to marry. The court released its opinion today, upholding a 2007 district court ruling that the state's ban on same-sex marriage violates the Iowa Constitution because it fails to uphold "equal protection of the law."

"The court reaffirmed that a statute inconsistent with the Iowa Constitution must be declared void, even though it may be supported by strong and deep-seated traditional beliefs and popular opinion," said a summary of the ruling issued by the court.

Friedl told WND that he expected homosexual marriage might get legalized in California and then spread across the country in time, but he didn't expect his home state to lead the charge.

"I was a little shocked that it came from Iowa," he said.

"I'm interested what happens to the reaction when people who went to work today get home, click on the TV and see what happened," said Bryan English, director of communications for the Iowa Family Policy Center. "I don't think most Iowans would have ever imagined that this sort of thing could be foisted on the state."

If fully implemented, the court's decision would make Iowa the third state in the country, following Massachusetts and Connecticut, to permit same-sex marriage. According to Iowa law, the ruling becomes effective April 24.

The decision, however, has far-reaching implications, since the absence of residency rules for marriage in Iowa would permit same-sex couples from across the country to travel to the Midwest to be married.

"In 21 days, the first time that it becomes a reality that homosexual couples are flying into the state, that our state is sanctioning this, I cannot imagine that the average Iowan is going to have much time for that sort of thing," said English, whose organization opposes same-sex marriage. "I think the political class has underestimated the reaction and the response that I hope will come from Iowans who will not stand for the redefinition of marriage."

Advocates of same-sex marriage, however, see yet another significance in the Iowa court's decision.

Richard Socarides, a former adviser to President Bill Clinton and assistant to Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, told the Associated Press, "It's a big win because, coming from Iowa, it represents the mainstreaming of gay marriage."

"Unlike states on the coasts, there's nothing more American than Iowa," Socarides told the Des Moines Register. "As they say during the presidential caucuses, 'As Iowa goes, so goes the nation.'"

Des Moines radio talk host Steve Deace, an outspoken opponent of same-sex marriage, told WND that the court's ruling will indeed affect the entire country.

"Today the state that feeds the world gave America its latest export – sodomy marriage," Deace said. "Because our state has no residency requirement, no ballot initiative capability for the people, and an utterly gutless political class on both sides, we just made Middle America the sanctuary for those all over America sadly caught in the vile clutches of homosexuality to come here and be validated and then take those marriage certificates back to where they came from and attempt to disrupt their state's rule of law as well."

Four years ago, Iowans made an attempt to pass a constitutional marriage amendment that would have prevented the court's decision, but though it passed through the state House of Representatives, it failed to gather enough votes in the Senate.

Now, several Iowans are pressing for the amendment again.

"The initial reaction was, of course, disappointment, sadness, very much like a period of mourning," English told WND. "Though it didn't take us long to turn our back on the Supreme Court, face the State Capitol and walk across the street to begin the process of strengthening our lobbying efforts for an Iowa Marriage Amendment.

"The people of Iowa overwhelmingly support the only definition of marriage, which is one man and one woman, and the Supreme Court decided to overturn the law that was written and passed by those people's representatives," English said. "Now it's time for the legislature to reassert itself as the legislative body, pass the marriage amendment, and bring it to the people of Iowa for a vote."

English conceded, however, that the process will likely be long. Iowa law requires that a constitutional amendment be passed by both houses of the legislature, passed by popular vote, and then passed again by the state House and Senate.

"We could get it on the ballot in 2011, but that would require a special election," English said. "More likely, it would go on ballot November 2012, but that's presuming people rise up in sufficient numbers to force a belligerent leadership in the House and Senate to do something.

"It's going to take an unprecedented response from the people to take back their government," he said.

Should Obama Control The Internet?

You’ve heard of Mother Jones, right? It is a far left magazinethat was started by folks well on the left, and, of course, looks at things from the far left viewpoint. But, I have to give them this: they are not stuck on ObamaLuv. They treat him exactly like they would have had Bush been president

__________________

Should Obama Control the Internet?
A new bill would give the President emergency authority to halt web traffic and access private data.

By Steve Aquino in Mother Jones magazine

Should President Obama have the power to shut down domestic Internet traffic during a state of emergency?

Senators John Rockefeller (D-W. Va.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) think so. On Wednesday they introduced a bill to establish the Office of the National Cybersecurity Advisor—an arm of the executive branch that would have vast power to monitor and control Internet traffic to protect against threats to critical cyber infrastructure. That broad power is rattling some civil libertarians.

The Cybersecurity Act of 2009 (PDF) gives the president the ability to "declare a cybersecurity emergency" and shut down or limit Internet traffic in any "critical" information network "in the interest of national security." The bill does not define a critical information network or a cybersecurity emergency. That definition would be left to the president.

The bill does not only add to the power of the president. It also grants the Secretary of Commerce "access to all relevant data concerning [critical] networks without regard to any provision of law, regulation, rule, or policy restricting such access." This means he or she can monitor or access any data on private or public networks without regard to privacy laws.

Rockefeller made cybersecurity one of his key issues as a member of the Senate intelligence committee, which he chaired until last year. He now heads the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, which will take up this bill.

"We must protect our critical infrastructure at all costs—from our water to our electricity, to banking, traffic lights and electronic health records—the list goes on," Rockefeller said in a statement. Snowe echoed her colleague, saying, "if we fail to take swift action, we, regrettably, risk a cyber-Katrina."

But the wide powers outlined in the Rockefeller-Snowe legislation has at least one Internet advocacy group worried. "The cybersecurity threat is real," says Leslie Harris, head of the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), "but such a drastic federal intervention in private communications technology and networks could harm both security and privacy."

The bill could undermine the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), says CDT senior counsel Greg Nojeim. That law, enacted in the mid '80s, requires law enforcement seek a warrant before tapping in to data transmissions between computers.

"It's an incredibly broad authority," Nojeim says, pointing out that existing privacy laws "could fall to this authority."

Jennifer Granick, civil liberties director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, says that granting such power to the Commerce secretary could actually cause networks to be less safe. When one person can access all information on a network, "it makes it more vulnerable to intruders," Granick says. "You've basically established a path for the bad guys to skip down."

The bill's scope, she says, is "contrary to what the Constitution promises us." That's because of the impact it could have on Internet users' privacy rights: If the Commerce Department uncovers evidence of illegal activity when accessing "critical" networks, that information could be used against a potential defendant, even if the department never had the intent to find incriminating evidence. And this might violate the Constitutional protection against searches without cause.

"Once information is accessed, it can be used for whatever purpose, no matter the original reason for accessing something," Granick says. "Who's interested in this [bill]? Law enforcement and people in the security industry who want to ensure more government dollars go to them."

Nojeim, though, thinks it's possible the bill's powers could be trimmed as it moves through Congress. "We will be working with them to clarify just what is needed and how to accomplish that," he says. "We're hopeful that some of the very broad powers that the bill would confer won't be included."

As the article above and the one in this post shows, even the left is getting concerned with Obama's policies. It looks like many of them are regretting their own decisions of voting for him.

______________________

Obama=Hitler (?)

The lack of results so far from the various “stimulus” plans seems to have got the American Left worried already. How else can one explain the appearance in the NYT of an article which declares that Obama’s actions are similar to Hitler’s and that Hitler was successful in his economic policies? I would never have predicted an article like that in the NYT in a million years!

Taranto writes at some length about the broader aspects of the comparison so I will confine myself to the economic argument in the article. Although I am a former High School Economics teacher, I am not fully engaged with economic statistics these days so I will speak in general terms and hope that a more detailed critique will emerge from elsewhere.

The Hitler comparison is in fact only one of the dubious comparisons used in the article. The writer declares successes where few others would. That the Hoover/FDR policies did not cure unemployment is, I think, undeniable but to our NYT writer they were a success — as were the policies behind the Japanese doldrums of the 1990s. So one must suspect from the outset some flimsiness in the Hitler comparison too.

Much has been written about the German economic recovery of the 1930s but the first point that needs to be made is surely that Germany’s position at that time was very different from that of the USA today. The twin impacts of a currency totally destroyed by inflation under the Weimar regime and a continuing demand for “reparations” were huge negative factors for the German economy at that time. And the large reductions in those problems were more the work of the brilliant Hjalmar Schacht at the Reichsbank than anyone else. Just relieving Germany of those problems was a very good “stimulus” to an economic recovery.

And it was also the manoeuvring of Schacht that enabled Hitler to finance his public works programmes. The programmes concerned did of course run up huge debts and it was only Schacht that kept Germany out of some form of bankruptcy. But Schacht could only do so much and by 1939 Germany was effectively “broke” and it is often contended that Hitler’s march to war in that year was as much an economic necessity as an ideological imperative. Germany’s generals certainly did not think that they were ready for war at that time. They felt that their buildup would not be complete until a couple of years further down the track. And the outbreak of war in 1939 in fact saw Germany facing French forces that were in most ways numerically superior to it.

So Hitler went to war to loot the gold in the Bank of France and elsewhere as much as for any other reason. Thanks to the brilliance of General von Manstein he initially succeeded in his objectives. One shudders to think what might have happened if he had put Manstein in charge of the Russian campaign.

Obama does not have to go to war to deal with the debt problem he is creating. Because America is the provider of the world’s reserve currency, he can simply print all the greenbacks he likes to pay his government’s bills. And he has already started doing that on a large scale. That is of course called “inflation” and there are plenty of commentaries from all sorts of sources on the evils of that. That it rewards debtors and penalizers savers has always been obvious but in the present case it has also started the process of snatching away from the world its reserve currency. And the consequences of discouraging saving (and hence capital formation) worldwide must indeed be grim.

The gold bugs are of course as happy as pigs in mud at the moment and gold exporting countries, such as Australia, are doing a roaring trade. But the net effect of that is to increase the Reserve Bank of Australia’s holding of American paper — and it is precisely that which now seems unwise. So from that alone one can see that the gold standard has its own problems — which is why it was abandoned many years ago.

Posted by John Ray on StopTheACLU

What's this? A bill to limit
size, scope of government
Legislator to colleagues: 'Laws
not authorized by Constitution'

As a reminder of the federal government's limited powers, 20 representatives want to ensure that every single piece of legislation passing through Congress includes a statement citing specific constitutional authority for enacting it.

Sponsored by Rep. John Shadegg, R-Ariz., H.R. 450, or the Enumerated Powers Act, states, "Each Act of Congress shall contain a concise and definite statement of the constitutional authority relied upon for the enactment of each portion of that Act. The failure to comply with this section shall give rise to a point of order in either House of Congress. …"

When he introduced the proposal Jan. 9, Shadegg gave a House floor speech reminding his colleagues of limited authority granted in the 10th Amendment of the United States Constitution.

It states, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

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"What that means is that the Founding Fathers intended our national government to be a limited government, a government of limited powers that cannot expand its legislative authority into areas reserved to the states or to the people," Shadegg said. "As the final amendment in the 10 Bill of Rights, it is clear that the Constitution establishes a Federal Government of specifically enumerated and limited powers."

For that reason, Shadegg said he has introduced the Enumerated Powers Act each year that he's been in Congress.

"This measure would enforce a constant and ongoing re-examination of the role of our national government," he said. "… It is simply intended to require a scrutiny that we should look at what we enact and that, by doing so, we can slow the growth and reach of the Federal Government, and leave to the states or the people, those functions that were reserved to them by the Constitution."

Shadegg said the act would perform three important functions:

1. It would encourage members of Congress to consider whether their proposed legislation belongs in the federal level in the allocation of powers or whether it belongs with the states or the people.

2. It would force lawmakers to include statements explaining by what authority they are acting.

3. It would give the U.S. Supreme Court the ability to scrutinize constitutional justification for every piece of legislation. If the justification does not hold up, the courts and the people could hold Congress accountable and eliminate acts that reach beyond the scope of the Constitution.

He said the Founding Fathers granted specific, limited powers to the national government to protect the people's freedom.

"As a result, the Constitution gives the Federal Government only 18 specific enumerated powers, just 18 powers," Shadegg noted.

Beginning with President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, he said, Congress has ignored the 10th Amendment and greatly expanded federal government.

"Let me be clear," he said. "Virtually all the measures which go beyond the scope of the powers granted to the Federal Government by the 10th amendment are well-intentioned. But unfortunately, many of them are not authorized by the Constitution. The Federal Government has ignored the Constitution and expanded its authority into every aspect of human conduct, and quite sadly, it is not doing many of those things very well."

While many believe government "can do anything," that is not what the Founding Fathers intended for the nation, Shadegg contends.

WND columnist Henry Lamb has been urging voters to contact representatives and ask directly if they will co-sponsor and vote for the Enumerated Powers Act, or explain why not – in writing.

The legislation has 19 co-sponsors – all Republicans.

Lamb suggested the act become the theme song of the tea parties taking place around the nation.

"Nothing short of massive public pressure will force congressmen to take a position on this important bill." Lamb wrote. "Nothing short of a return to the Constitution can save this great nation."

Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., chairs the House Rules Committee, and Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., chairs the House Judiciary Committee – where the act was referred Jan. 9 and remains today.

"Both of these committee chairs should be bombarded with phone calls and e-mails asking that H.R. 450 be brought to the House floor for a recorded vote," Lamb wrote.

Shadegg said the federal government has acted too long without constitutional restraint and has blatantly ignored principles of federalism.

He urged his colleagues to join him in "supporting a review and a criticism and an evaluation of the proper role of the Federal Government in order to empower the American people and to distribute power as the Constitution contemplated it."

Parental rights: The new wedge issue

If there were a recipe for creating a new conservative culture-wars issue, it might look something like this: Start with the United Nations, fold in the prospect of an expanded role for government in children’s lives, add some unfortunate court decisions, then toss in Barbara Boxer and Hillary Clinton.

And indeed, when House Republicans recently found themselves with all these ingredients at hand, Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.) started pre-heating the oven.

Hoekstra last week introduced a bill in the House to amend the U.S. Constitution to permanently “enshrine” in American society an inviolable set of parents’ rights. The bill had 70 co-sponsors, all Republicans, including Minority Whip Eric Cantor and Minority Leader John A. Boehner.

The bill, said Hoekstra, is intended to stem the “slow erosion” of parents’ rights and to circumvent the effects of a United Nations treaty he believes “clearly undermines parental rights in the United States.”

The treaty to which he refers is the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, a 20-year-old document signed by President Bill Clinton in 1995 but never ratified. The treaty sets international standards for government obligations to children in areas that range from protection from abuse and exploitation to ensuring a child’s right to free expression.

While a treaty that seeks to protect children may sound innocuous, its opponents, such as Michael Farris, the Christian conservative founder of the Home School Legal Defense Association, see in it a dystopian future in which “Parents would no longer be able to administer reasonable spankings to their children”; “A child’s ‘right to be heard’ would allow him (or her) to seek governmental review of every parental decision with which the child disagreed”; and “Children would have the ability to choose their own religion while parents would only have the authority to give their children advice about religion,” as he puts it on his website parentalrights.org.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child emerged from relative obscurity most recently when, during the presidential campaign, then-Sen. Barack Obama replied to a question about the treaty by saying he found it “embarrassing” that the United States stood with Somalia – the only other U.N. member that has not ratified the treaty — and promised to review it as president, and then again in the confirmation hearing for Ambassador Susan Rice, when Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) pressed the then-nominee on the treaty’s status.

“[H]ow can we be proud of our country when we haven't ratified?” Boxer asked. “In this case, the only other country, as I understand it, that hasn't ratified is Somalia. OK — excuse me. This is America. We're standing with Somalia. What is happening? What has happened?”

Rice replied that it was a “shame” that the United States is “keeping company” with Somalia, adding that “there can be no doubt that the president-elect and Secretary Clinton and I share a commitment to the objectives of this treaty and will take it up as an early question.”

That was enough to raise the hackles of parents’ rights advocates and sympathetic legislators, but it was far from a promise that the treaty would be sent to the Senate, or that it would ultimately be ratified; Rice also told Boxer that it was a “complicated treaty,” and that the State Department would need to take a close look at how to “manage the challenges of domestic implementation.”

She wasn’t kidding.

By its nature, the treaty combines two “third-rail” issues for conservatives — the implications of international treaties for U.S. sovereignty, and the role of the United Nations in U.S. affairs. “Opposing the U.N has been a rallying cry of the right for decades,” notes Julian Zelizer, professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University.

And then there’s the issue of parental rights, which has long been simmering on the right — in the mid-’90s, the idea that the government was infringing upon parents’ domain became a focus of the Christian Coalition and gained currency with those like Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who introduced federal legislation to protect parents’ rights — but which might, given enough heat, come to a mainstream boil.

Indeed, with the treaty back in play, Hoekstra and Co. have begun laying the groundwork for just that possibility.

There is, of course, the legislation, but there is also a link on Hoekstra’s congressional home page that now takes interested parties to parentsrights.us, a site that provides pithy talking points about the amendment and the treaty in its FAQs section, a “contact Congress” option, and an opportunity to “show support” for the amendment, which had garnered 166 backers at last count.

Opponents of the treaty, such as Farris, who helped craft Hoekstra’s amendment, frequently cite cases in which government has run roughshod over parents’ rights in the past as evidence that no good will come of ratification.

“It is really about government empowerment; it has nothing to do ultimately with the rights of children,” he says. “It just fits in so well with everything else that is going on in Washington right now. They’re trying to run everything.”

Advocates counter that 193 countries have managed to take the plunge without catastrophic result; that the treaty is supported by groups ranging from the Girl Scouts to the Christian Children’s Fund; and that opponents both overestimate and misunderstand the treaty’s purpose and likely impact.

“The Committee on the Rights of the Child has been unfairly characterized as a kind of Big Brother apparatus, where countries could be shamed and penalized, but that was not the intent of it,” says Meg Gardinier, chairwoman of the Campaign for U.S. Ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Of the treaty’s likely domestic impact, she says, “I think it could make a modest, thoughtful inroad in this country,” says Gardinier. “I don’t think it's going to move mountains.”

The truth is that, as Rice noted, the treaty is complex, and, as with the law in general, the implications of a given provision can’t be fully understood until it is road tested in reality.

Practically speaking, that means that whatever the treaty’s merits or risks, it is difficult to say a given outcome is impossible, but relatively easy to envision extreme “doomsday” scenarios — or to offer up real cases in which bad decisions have been made as evidence that the worst will result. The rebuttal arguments are frequently nuanced and less viscerally satisfying, which makes defenders’ position even more difficult.

Notes Baruch College political science professor Douglas Muzzio: “Nuance isn’t the culture warrior’s forte. And in fact, the lack of nuance is their major weapon.”

“It’s a no-win kind of debate for the advocates,” agrees Zelizer, who believes treaty supporters could find themselves caught off guard.

Conservatives, he notes, are “looking for issues. And if this looks like this is an issue they can hook onto, they’ll turn this into a bigger issue than human-rights advocates ever expected it would be.”

When asked what he thought the parental rights amendment’s chances for passage were, Hoekstra said, “If there’s no major court cases or anything that highlight this [issue], it’ll be very slow progress thorough Congress, and nothing will happen this year.”

However, he noted, “If the Senate tries to bring up the U.N. Treaty of the Child,” he says, “it will bring this front and center.”

And if that happens, he adds, “we’ll be ready.”

Geithner, Paulson named in $200 billion lawsuit
AIG-related case claims they violated shareholders constitutional rights

A $200 billion lawsuit filed on behalf of shareholders of American International Group has been amended to include Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and former Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox as defendants.

The case, filed earlier by a public interest law firm, Freedom Watch USA, is on behalf of shareholders of AIG who have watched the value of the company plummet by some $214 billion.

The class action lawsuit filed in federal court in Los Angeles is a "wide reaching" claim that will do what Congress cannot, said Freedom Watch USA founder Larry Klayman.

"The American people, not the compromised ruling elite in Washington, D.C., have begun a second American Revolution to take the country back from the con men on Wall Street, and on Pennsylvania Avenue – who under successive administrations played a central role in the meltdown of the U.S. financial system and economy," Klayman said.

The amended complaint now alleges that the additional defendants violated the constitutional rights of the shareholders by denying them the right to their property, the shares themselves.

"The inspiration for this amendment was information disclosed by University of Missouri professor William K. Black on the Bill Moyers' PBS television show last Friday, where he implicated these government officials in a massive cover up of the banking scandal, mostly for the benefit of Goldman Sachs, the former employer of both Paulson and Geithner, in which they held a significant financial interest," Klayman reported.

"As for Cox, his reckless and intentionally impotent oversight at the SEC is the basis for the claim against him," he said.

Klayman noted that under precedent established by the U.S. Supreme Court, U.S. vs. Bivens, the defendants can be named as individuals, as well as officials.

Klayman also decried the apparent attempt by AIG CEO Edward Liddy to avoid being served with the original lawsuit.

On at least three occasions already, he has "run," telling AIG security not to allow process servers into his office suite, Klayman said.

"This is an absolute disgrace," said Klayman. "It shows the complete lack of respect AIG and its directors have for the Rule of Law. Liddy can run but he cannot hide. It's only a matter of time before he and his co-horts, along with Geithner, Paulson and Cox, will be held accountable by the American people, not compromised politicians in Washington, D.C., like Barney Frank Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, who yesterday refused to answer a legitimate question from a Harvard student who inquired why he and his committee failed to oversee the banking scandal."

The complaint alleges the defendants "jointly and severally, have seriously undermined and damaged AIG's financial health and valuable past reputation by systematically causing and/or permitting the company to engage in a litany of highly risky, detrimental and reckless business dealings …. that have caused the company to verge on bankruptcy and which have required in excess of $190 billion dollars to date of government provided monies to prevent total company failure."

The action seeks judgments against defendants "for the amount of damages sustained by the shareholders as a result of the defendants' breaches of fiduciary duties, gross mismanagement and waste of corporate assets, causing a descrease in shareholders equity in an amount in excess of $200 billion dollars."

"Freedom Watch will not rest until justice is done and it won't come from the Obama administration, bent on deceiving the U.S. taxpayer that it intends to clean up this corruption, all the while lining the pockets of its friends at AIG with government bailout money, who gave handsomely to have the president elected," said Klayman.

The lawsuit alleges the defendants, also including Richard Holbrooke and Martin Feldstein of the Obama administration, have caused the company's value in 1990 to drop from "approximately $217 billion dollars" to today's estimated $3.5 billion, "a net decline of $214.5 billion based on the market capitalization rate formula."

AIG used "financially unsound" credit default swap derivative contracts and collateralized debt obligations to expose the company to "enormous risk," the suit says.

"After AIG posted a record breaking $62 billion dollar loss for the 4th quarter of 2008, the defendants, each and every one of them, incredibly paid out $165 million dollars in bonuses to its executives in March of 2009 and $55 million dollars in December of 2008 for this poor performance, and also paid out dividends when this was not reasonable or warranted under the circumstances," Klayman's case alleges.

Klayman said 400 workers each received between $1,000 and $6.5 million, and seven executives in the unit responsible for many of the losses each got more than $3 million.

"The bonuses were allegedly for retention, in part, and also performance based, but it has become clear that this was not the reason for the bonuses; rather looting of shareholder and government assets was the motivation," the case alleges.

It continues, "During this time of unprecedented wealth destruction for AIG shareholders, each of the defendants were compensated generously by way of handsome salaries and exorbitant bonuses and dividends, among other benefits and perks, despite their misconduct."

WND recently reported a poll indicated three in four Americans want members of Congress to return money they got from AIG for their political campaigns.

The poll from The O'Leary Report by Brad O'Leary and Zogby International showed 73 percent of Americans think politicians, including President Obama and Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., should not have profited from AIG and should return the money.

Obama and Dodd were the top recipients of campaign largesse from AIG over the past two years, with Obama getting $104,332 and Dodd taking in $103,900. Others received money, too, but in smaller amounts. All together, AIG donated $644,218 to federal politicians.

According to the Washington Post, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke recently confirmed that he had wanted to sue AIG to stop the company from paying out about $165 million in bonuses, but Fed lawyers advised against the litigation.

AIG CEO Edward Liddy told Congress last week that the Fed signed off on the bonuses before they became public. The company also has said some of the employees have promised to return the bonuses voluntarily.

Homeland Security on guard for 'right-wing extremists'
Returning U.S. military veterans singled out as particular threats

A newly unclassified Department of Homeland Security report warns against the possibility of violence by unnamed "right-wing extremists" concerned about illegal immigration, increasing federal power, restrictions on firearms, abortion and the loss of U.S. sovereignty and singles out returning war veterans as particular threats.

The report, titled "Right-wing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment," dated April 7, states that "threats from white supremacist and violent anti-government groups during 2009 have been largely rhetorical and have not indicated plans to carry out violent acts."

However, the report goes on to suggest worsening economic woes, potential new legislative restrictions on firearms and "the return of military veterans facing significant challenges reintegrating into their communities could lead to the potential emergence of terrorist groups or lone wolf extremists capable of carrying out violent attacks."

The report from DHS' Office of Intelligence and Analysis defines right-wing extremism in the U.S. as "divided into those groups, movements and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups) and those that are mainly anti-government, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration."

"[T]he consequences of a prolonged economic downturn – including real estate foreclosures, unemployment and an inability to obtain credit – could create a fertile recruiting environment for right-wing extremists and even result in confrontations between such groups and government authorities similar to those in the past," the report says.

It adds that "growth in these groups subsided in reaction to increased government scrutiny as a result of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and disrupted plots, improvements in the economy and the continued U.S. standing as the pre-eminent world power."

"Proposed imposition of firearms restrictions and weapons bans likely would attract new members into the ranks of right-wing extremist groups as well as potentially spur some of them to begin planning and training for violence against the government," the report continues. "The high volume of purchases and stockpiling of weapons and ammunition by right-wing extremists in anticipation of restrictions and bans in some parts of the country continue to be a primary concern to law enforcement."

Most notable is the report's focus on the impact of returning war veterans.

"Returning veterans possess combat skills and experience that are attractive to right-wing extremists," it says. "DHS/I&A is concerned that right-wing extremists will attempt to recruit and radicalize veterans in order to boost their violent capacities."

The report cites the April 4 shooting deaths of three police officers in Pittsburgh as an example of what may be coming, claiming the alleged gunman holds a racist ideology and believes in anti-government conspiracy theories about gun confiscations, citizen detention camps and "a Jewish-controlled 'one-world government.'"

It also suggests the election of an African-American president and the prospect of his policy changes "are proving to be a driving force for right-wing extremist recruitment and radicalization."

The report also mentions "'end times' prophecies could motivate extremist individuals and groups to stockpile food, ammunition and weapons. These teachings also have been linked with the radicalization of domestic extremist individuals and groups in the past, such as the violent Christian Identity organizations and extremist members of the militia movement."

"DHS/I&A assesses that right-wing extremist groups' frustration over a perceived lack of government action on illegal immigration has the potential to incite individuals or small groups toward violence," the report continues.

The report states the DHS will be working with state and local partners over the next several months to determine the levels of right-wing extremist activity in the U.S.

Last month, the chief of the Missouri highway patrol blasted a report issued by the Missouri Information Analysis Center that linked conservative groups to domestic terrorism, assuring that such reports no longer will be issued. The report had been compiled with the assistance of DHS.

The report warned law enforcement agencies to watch for suspicious individuals who may have bumper stickers for third-party political candidates such as Ron Paul, Bob Barr and Chuck Baldwin.

It further warned law enforcement to watch out for individuals with "radical" ideologies based on Christian views, such as opposing illegal immigration, abortion and federal taxes.

Chief James Keathley of the Missouri State Patrol issued a statement that the release of the report, which outraged conservatives nationwide, prompted him to "take a hard look" at the procedures through which the report was released by the MIAC.

"My review of the procedures used by the MIAC in the three years since its inception indicates that the mechanism in place for oversight of reports needs improvement," he wrote. "Until two weeks ago, the process for release of reports from the MIAC to law enforcement officers around the state required no review by leaders of the Missouri State Highway Patrol or the Department of Public Safety."

"For that reason, I have ordered the MIAC to permanently cease distribution of the militia report," he said. "Further, I am creating a new process for oversight of reports drafted by the MIAC that will require leaders of the Missouri State Highway Patrol and the Department of Public Safety to review the content of these reports before they are shared with law enforcement. My office will also undertake a review of the origin of the report by MIAC."

American Legion to DHS: We're not terrorists
'It is important for all of us to remember that Americans are not the enemy'

In response to a newly unclassified Department of Homeland Security report that warns of dangers associated with "right-wing extremists" – and singles out returning war veterans as particular threats – the American Legion has fired off a letter to DHS in protest.

"I think it is important for all of us to remember that Americans are not the enemy. The terrorists are," writes David K. Rehbein, national commander of the American Legion, to DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano.

The Legion's letter comes in response to a report titled "Right-wing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment," dated April 7, which warns against the possibility of violence by unnamed "right-wing extremists" concerned about illegal immigration, increasing federal power, restrictions on firearms, abortion and the loss of U.S. sovereignty.

The document, first reported by talk-radio host and WND columnist Roger Hedgecock, suggests worsening economic woes, potential new legislative restrictions on firearms and "the return of military veterans facing significant challenges reintegrating into their communities could lead to the potential emergence of terrorist groups or lone wolf extremists capable of carrying out violent attacks."

John Raughter, communications director for the American Legion, told WND that conjuring images of returning veterans as "lone wolf extremists" is unfair.

"We don't like these stereotypes," said Raughter. "Veterans are people who served their country, most of the time heroically. To denigrate their service, cite disgruntled military veterans, brings back images of the stereotypes Vietnam veterans faced when returning.

"It's sad that the report comes from DHS," Raugher added. "It could be from some fringe group."

As WND reported, the release from DHS' Office of Intelligence and Analysis contends – "without any statistical evidence," according to Rehbein's letter – that returning veterans "could lead" terrorist cells planning domestic violence.

"Returning veterans possess combat skills and experience that are attractive to right-wing extremists," the report states. "DHS/I&A is concerned that right-wing extremists will attempt to recruit and radicalize veterans in order to boost their violent capacities."

It adds that "growth in these groups subsided in reaction to increased government scrutiny as a result of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and disrupted plots, improvements in the economy and the continued U.S. standing as the pre-eminent world power."

The American Legion, however, strongly objects to the report linking veterans to the Oklahoma City tragedy simply because bomber Timothy McVeigh had served in the military.

"The American Legion is well aware and horrified at the pain inflicted during the Oklahoma City bombing," writes Rehbein in his letter, "but Timothy McVeigh was only one of more than 42 million veterans who have worn this nation's uniform during wartime. To continue to use McVeigh as an example of the stereotypical 'disgruntled military veteran' is as unfair as using Osama bin Laden as the sole example of Islam."

Offending more than veterans

Besides the American Legion, other organizations have also taken offense at the report, for its broad-sweeping categorization of who might be considered an "extremist."

The report defines right-wing extremism in the U.S. as "divided into those groups, movements and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups) and those that are mainly anti-government, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration."

The report further adds that "'end times' prophecies could motivate extremist individuals and groups to stockpile food, ammunition and weapons. These teachings also have been linked with the radicalization of domestic extremist individuals and groups in the past, such as the violent Christian Identity organizations and extremist members of the militia movement."

Dr. Janice Shaw Crouse, director of Concerned Women for America's Beverly LaHaye Institute, released a statement condemning the report for lumping Christians, abortion opponents, limited government advocates and proponents of other politically "conservative" causes together into a supposedly "terrorist" faction.

"It would be impossible to overstate the way this report links conservative views with terrorist potential," writes Crouse. "It even threatens the utilization of law enforcement actions to curb such activities 'in today's climate.' It is scary to read that the United States government is launching major efforts to 'limit' domestic social conservatives – whom they call 'rightwing extremists' – at the same time that it is downplaying the threat of Islamic terrorists who have plainly stated their intent to harm our nation."

One WND reader, whose name has been withheld, looked at his own beliefs about limited government and abortion – potentially "right-wing extremist" beliefs, according to the DHS – and voiced his opinion of the report in an email:

"According to Homeland Security, I am a right-wing radical," writes the WND reader. "My extremist activities include: working on my 24th year of marriage, raising my four kids, believing that our inalienable rights are granted by God not the government, holding all life sacred, belief in American exceptionalism and, yes, attending Tea Parties to protest 'generational theft' of our childrens future."

He added, "Let me know where I need to turn myself in, because I don't want the government wasting money looking for me."

An official with DHS, however, told Fox News that the critical reaction to the report has been overblown and that in January a similar report was drafted regarding left-wing extremists.

"This is the job of DHS," the official said, "to assess what is happening in this country, with regard to homegrown terrorism, and determine whether it's an actual threat or not, and that's what these assessments do. This is nothing unusual. These assessments are done all the time. This is about awareness."

DHS spokeswoman Sara Kuban added, "DHS has no specific information that domestic right-wing terrorists are currently planning acts of violence, but right-wing extremists may be gaining new recruitments by playing on their fears about several emerging issues."

The report states the DHS will be working with state and local partners over the next several months to determine the levels of right-wing extremist activity in the U.S.

Hello Pastor Roger and All,

This attempted demonizing of Veterans and other decent people is making me sick and angry. I subscribe to some very innocent Christian feeds of news who are also being demonized. At this point, I don't think that the POWER BROKERS can get by with it because they've already gone WAY TOO FAR. It's almost to the point of calling Christians terrorist, OR people who read Bibles are terrorists. The public isn't dumb enough to buy all this stuff. In fact, the vast majority of the public would be terrorists and only a small percentage of the ULTRA-LEFT WHACKOS would be OK!

The news feeds I subscribe to are in the categories of Christian, Conservative, American, Patriotic, and Founders-type feeds. There is NOTHING wild about any of them - just decent, family oriented news.

Today, I've found lists of all sorts of people that are supposed to be dangerous, and this is the biggest mess of garbage I've seen in a long time.

People who read WND are dangerous and should be watched for terrorist activity.

People who listen to Fox News are dangerous and should be watched.

It goes on and on and on to the point that people who read the Bible or go to church are dangerous. Well folks, that's the vast majority of the public. People who are against ABORTION and SOCIALISM are dangerous. The people who will be doing NON-VIOLENT TEA PARTIES are dangerous and possible terrorists. Well here's a NEWS FLASH: these people doing the non-violent tea parties are the backbone of the country paying taxes and trying hard just to survive. They are decent, law-abiding people who are peacefully trying to send a MESSAGE to our DREAM TO BE DICTATOR AND HIS GANG. We aren't doing a single thing that is illegal, immoral, unpatriotic, or any other negative association NUTS might want to attach. These are DECENT, LAW-ABIDING PEOPLE exercising their FREE SPEECH RIGHTS to inform over-bearing and tyrannical government THAT THE GOVERNMENT IS VIOLATING THE LAW AND THE CONSTITUTION - AND VIOLATING THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE!

If you listen to or pay much attention to all of this dim-witted COMMUNIST GARBAGE, you are probably dangerous and need to be watched. That's what this really boils down to.

Brothers and Sisters, this is SICK. I don't want my VETERAN FRIENDS to be labeled with lies. This part really makes me sick and angry. All of it is COMMUNIST TACTICS to silence the vast majority of the public, but it seems that it has already backfired. Besides being SICK and TWISTED, their tactics are OBVIOUS LIES. They went WAY TOO FAR and actually labeled about 85% of the population as dangerous and possible terrorists. The MOST DANGEROUS TERRORISTS ARE PROBABLY IN OFFICE, AND THE GENERAL PUBLIC IS BEGINNING TO FIGURE THIS OUT.

Brothers and Sisters, it would be STUPID to encourage gay pride parades with nudity and obscene acts and DISALLOW decent, non-violent demonstrations by REGULAR, PATRIOTIC AMERICANS. It would really be stupid for them to act under color of law to ABUSE, THREATEN, COERCE, OR IN ANY WAY DENY FREE SPEECH OF DECENT AMERICANS. THAT WOULD MAKE IT TIME FOR CERTAIN PORTIONS OF SO-CALLED GOVERNMENT TO BE CHARGED WITH CRIMINAL OFFENSES, REMOVED FROM OFFICE, AND PUT IN PRISON. This would not be a threat of any kind - just a promise to use the RULE OF LAW AND THE CONSTITUTION to prevent illegal acts and tyranny from portions of the government. This would be a promise - not a threat - and every member of the general public would have standing UNDER THE LAW AND CONSTITUTION to demand that our laws and Constitution be enforced! The "wannabe" DICTATORS are subject to the LAW, THE CONSTITUTION, AND THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE!

Protest at UNC stops ex-congressman's speech

Campus police used pepper spray on student protesters angry over immigration issues who disrupted a Tuesday night speech by former Republican presidential candidate Tom Tancredo at the University of North Carolina.

Hundreds of protesters denouncing Tancredo's tough stances against illegal immigration gathered at Bingham Hall, shouting profanities at the former Colorado congressman, who tried to speak about his opposition to in-state tuition for unauthorized immigrants.

Tancredo left after a protester broke a window and police shut down the event. He had been invited by a student group that opposes mass immigration and multiculturalism.

Officers ejected two women who delayed the speech by holding a 12-foot banner across the classroom where Tancredo was to speak. It read, "No dialogue with hate." Tancredo tried to pull the banner away, saying, "You don't want to hear what I have to say because you don't agree with me."

Police spokesman Randy Young said pepper spray was "broadcast" to clear the area as the women were escorted outside. An officer also fired a stun gun, but it wasn't aimed at anyone, Young said.

Young said the use of force was being investigated by the department.

Tancredo said after officers escorted him out of the room that he had never been silenced by protesters.

"This is the free speech crowd, right?" Tancredo joked at one point as protesters screamed at him.

Before the speech ended, some in the audience of 150 urged the students to let Tancredo speak.

"We are the children of immigrants, and this concerns us," said junior Lizette Lopez, 22, vice president of the Carolina Hispanic Association. "So we would at least like to hear what he has to say if you want to hear what we have to say."

Tancredo was flying out of North Carolina on Wednesday and couldn't be reached for comment.

Chancellor Holden Thorp issued a statement that he was sorry Tancredo wasn't able to speak.

"We pride ourselves on being a place where all points of view can be expressed and heard, so I'm disappointed that didn't happen," Thorp said. "I think our Public Safety officers appropriately handled a difficult situation.”

Yep, we see who are the extremists and the ones most likely to resort to violence ... again and again and again...... http://forums.christiansunite.com/index.php?topic=22339.0

Savage sues Napolitano for targeting vets

Radio talk show icon Michael Savage has teamed up with the Thomas More Law Center of Ann Arbor, Mich., to file a lawsuit against Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.

"It is a civil rights action brought under the First and Fifth Amendments to the United States Constitution, challenging the policy, practice, and custom of the United States Government that targets for disfavored treatment those individuals and groups that are considered to be 'rightwing extremists,'" the complaint announced today said.

The federal agency recently targeted those individuals in its report called "Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment."

According to the federal government, members of the suspect group of people include those who:

* Oppose restrictions on firearms

* Oppose lax immigration

* Oppose the policies of President Obama regarding immigration, citizenship and the expansion of social programs

* Oppose continuation of free trade agreements

* Oppose same-sex marriage

* Have paranoia of foreign regimes

* Fear Communist regimes

* Oppose one world government

* Bemoan the decline of U.S. stature in the world

* Are upset with the loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs to China and India

The case seeks a declaration that the DHS policy violates the First and Fifth Amendments, a court order permanently enjoining the policy and its application to the plaintiffs' speech and other activities, and the award of reasonable attorneys' fees and costs.

WND had reported earlier on the report and the reaction it has drawn, including just a day ago when the Law Center said it had submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the DHS, demanding to know why it calls Americans who oppose abortion, support the 2nd Amendment and dislike lax immigration "extremists."

"This is not an intelligence report but a diatribe against those who oppose the policies of the Obama administration," Richard Thompson, president and chief counsel for the organization, said of the request.

"It is a declaration of war against the American people and our constitution. It is a prelude to extreme gun control legislation and hate speech laws targeting Christian churches and others who oppose abortion and same sex marriage," he continued. "The federal government should be focusing its attention on the 35 radical Muslim compounds in the U.S. training its followers on how to kidnap and kill Americans."

Amy Kudwa, a spokeswoman for the DHS, said the agency as a matter of policy doesn't comment on pending litigation.

The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan on behalf of Savage, Gregg Cunningham of the pro-life Center for Bio-Ethical Reform and Iraqi War Marine veteran Kevin Murray.

The federal agency's action "encourages law enforcement officers throughout the nation to target and report citizens to federal officials as suspicious rightwing extremists and potential terrorists because of their political beliefs."

"The report even admits that the department has no specific information on any plans of violence by so-called 'rightwing extremists.' Rather, what they do have is the expression of political opinions by certain individuals and organizations that oppose the Obama administration’s policies, and this expression is protected speech under the First Amendment," Thompson said.

"Janet Napolitano is lying to the American people when she says the report is not based on ideology or political beliefs. In fact, her report would have the admiration of any current or past dictator in the way it targets political opponents," he said.

The action alleges the policy "is a tool of intimidation for federal, state, and local government officials. It provides a basis for government officials to abuse their positions of power to stifle political opinion and opposition."

"Pursuant to the 'Rightwing Extremism Policy,' federal officias will work with state, local, tribal, and private sector entities to conduct surveillance and to gather information in order to deter the activities of those individuals and groups considered to be 'rightwing extremists,'" the case said.

The agency's intention is to enforce the policy through "state and local fusion centers, which are local intelligence centers created by DHS to combat 'terrorism' and related activities that are deemed to be 'criminal,'" the case said.

Napolitano, on a Fox News appearance today, backtracked a little, saying, "To the extent veterans read it as an accusation … an apology is owed."

Quote

Pastor Roger Said:

Napolitano, on a Fox News appearance today, backtracked a little, saying, "To the extent veterans read it as an accusation … an apology is owed."

Think about this situation some more and realize how radical and FOOLISH it is. If there are REAL RADICALS involved, it's Napolitano and the Obama GANG - certainly NOT VETERANS and other types of people demonized by her report. Things like this are sickening AND ARE DEFINITELY A PREVIEW of WORSE TO COME! It amounts to the wolf complaining about the dangerous lambs.

If you are a VETERAN reading this, please allow me to apologize for IGNORANT statements like this. I would hope that you know average people don't have thoughts like this crossing their minds. INSTEAD, average people have THANKS and APPRECIATION on their minds when they think about VETERANS. It's sickening to know that portions of our so-called government actually believe things like this. Average people want to hear about any evidence to support NONSENSE AND INSANE BABBLING LIKE THIS. MOST OBVIOUSLY, SANE LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES didn't buy it! WHY? -- They knew it was bogus and insane BABBLING from the start. Law Enforcement agencies have lengthy statistics to prove that active duty and retired MILITARY PEOPLE are our very best citizens who are rarely ever part of any problems, rather part of the solutions.

Let's not forget about all of those DANGEROUS Christians, people who are against ABORTIONS, people who get their news from WND and other Christian sources, people who believe in the RULE OF LAW and the CONSTITUTION, and especially people who know they have CIVIL AND CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS who REFUSE TO GIVE THEM UP! It would be extremely RADICAL AND FOOLISH for anyone to even think about taking these rights and freedoms away. BLUNTLY, THE WORST RADICALS AT THIS TIME APPEAR TO BE IN GOVERNMENT, AND THEY POSE THE GREATEST DANGER TO THE PEACE AND SAFETY OF THE PEOPLE! The real solution would be to remove these radicals from government, prosecute them for the crimes they have committed against the people, and REPLACE THEM WITH COMMON SENSE FOLKS WHO LOVE OUR COUNTRY AND WANT TO SERVE THE PEOPLE UNDER THE RULE OF LAW AND THE CONSTITUTION! By the way, the RULE OF LAW AND THE CONSTITUTION currently stands as a BARRIER for their RADICAL AGENDAS!

Internet sales tax
to become real?
Bill being introduced in Congress
this week to require collections

With states needing as much revenue as possible during this recession, it looks like Congress is now ready to move in the direction of creating a sort of “Internet sales tax,” forcing e-tailers such as Amazon.com, eBay and the like to collect sales tax on purchases even if the buyer is from a state where the e-tailer has no brick-and-mortar presence.

Previously, in a 1992 Supreme Court decision, Quill vs. North Dakota, the Supreme Court ruled that out-of-state retailers cannot be required to collect sales tax on purchases sent to states where they did not have a physical presence.

Quote

The Supreme Court’s reasoning was at least partially based on the fact that, at the time the case was decided in 1992, there were over 6,000 separate sales and use tax jurisdictions in the United States (states, localities, special tax districts, etc.) and to impose a collection obligation on a remote seller would impose a crushing burden that would severely restrict interstate commerce.

In other words, the tax structure across the U.S. is so complex that companies can’t possibly manage all of them. Meanwhile, I earlier said the “end is nigh” when New York State first proposed the so-called “Amazon Tax,” which it later passed, and which forces the Internet retailer to collect sales tax despite no brick-and-mortar state presence.

New York does this does this by saying that any retailer that has an affiliate in the state (meaning, a site like this one that advertises for them), therefore has a de facto brick-and-mortar presence.

According to the New York Post, however, a bill is going to be introduced in Congress this week to require tax collection, without even such shenanigans. Just a law that would say “collect it,” so to speak.

It’s not really that a buyer from California, say, that buys from Amazon.com doesn’t owe any sales tax. There’s a place in the California Income Tax form for “use tax,” unpaid sales tax that taxpayers are supposed “fess up” to. Naturally, you can imagine what percentage of taxpayers do, whether because they simply don’t know the law or because they simply don’t want to pay it.

But it is in fact extremely difficult, given the myriad of tax laws across the country, for a retailer to be able to collect taxes accurately.

Rather, retailers don’t want to spend their time keeping track of a complex array of differing state, municipal and city tax rules.

Jonathan Johnson III, president of online retailer Overstock.com, said:

Quote

“If we ship something out to Long Island right now, we don’t know what sales tax to charge or collect. And there may be two or three different levels. There may be a state level, a county level and a city level.”

One possible solution would be to have a simplified sales tax across the country for Internet sales; this would give the states some revenue. An alternative would be to simplify sales tax across the country, period. Or they might just write the law and have the retailers bite the bullet, and have to collect taxes based on the thousands of different sales tax rates across the country.

Amazon.com and Overstock.com filed suit against the state of New York over its tax law, but the suits were thrown out. The retailers are appealing, but given this bill, it may be a moot point.

_________________

Not increasing taxes on the poor and middle class?

Are you licensed to reload that ammo?
Alarm raised over treaty provision to ban activity

President Obama, who supported the handgun ban in Washington, D.C., before it was tossed by the Supreme Court, since his election has watched various proposals to ban "assault" weapons, require handgun owners to submit to mental health evaluations and sparked a rush on ammunition purchases that caused some retailers to name him their salesman of the year. Now he apparently is going after citzens who reload their ammunition.

It was during an official visit earlier this month to Mexico that he affirmed his support for a proposed international treaty that addresses "firearms trafficking."

According to a blogger who follows the issue, the treaty was adopted by President Clinton years ago but never ratified by the U.S. Senate, a goal Obama now has adopted.

The writer, B.A. Lawson, says, "If you reload your own ammo you may find yourself engaged in 'Illicit Manufacturing' of ammunition under an arms control treaty that President Obama started pushing last week in Mexico."

"Virtually everyone who supports the 2nd Amendment or has an interest in firearms has heard the numerous recent reports of ammunition shortages. The shortages have extended to reloading supplies that many folks rely on to keep their shooting costs down or to assemble exotic or hard to find ammunition. Many shooters have considered reloading their own ammo as insurance against limited supplies should legislation be enacted that would make ammo more scarce or dramatically more expensive," the blogger continued.

"Those thoughts may be in vain if the current administration is successful in getting the 'INTER-AMERICAN CONVENTION AGAINST THE ILLICIT MANUFACTURING OF AND TRAFFICKING IN FIREARMS, AMMUNITION, EXPLOSIVES, AND OTHER RELATED MATERIALS' treaty passed."

The treaty defines "illicit manufacturing" as "the manufacture or assembly of firearms, ammunition, explosives, and other related materials."

It then gives authority for that activity only with "a license from a competent governmental authority of the State Party where the manufacture or assembly takes place."

"The section … clearly identifies ammo reloaders that are not licensed by the government as 'Illicit Manufacturers' of ammunition. Now that we have reloaders properly labeled, lets move down to Article IV to see what we should do with them," the commentary said.

He then quotes Article IV, which states, "State Parties that have not yet done so shall adopt the necessary legislative or other measures to establish as criminal offenses under their domestic law the illicit manufacturing of and trafficking in firearms, ammunition, explosives, and other related materials."

"This is pretty straightforward. If you reload ammunition without a license after the treaty is signed you will be a criminal," Lawson wrote.

The National Rifle Association said the treaty "does include language suggesting that it is not intended to restrict 'lawful ownership and use' of firearms. Despite those words, the NRA knows that anti-gun advocates will still try to use this treaty to attack gun ownership in the U.S."

The treaty is available online.

http://www.oas.org/juridico/English/treaties/a-63.html

At the SnowflakesinHell blog, the writer said there's no mistaking the language.

Even accessories "which can be attached to a firearm" are targeted.

"It would presumably also ban home manufacture of these items without a government license. Do you own trigger jobs? Reload your own ammunition? Not any more, not without a government license!"

The Examiner.com said such international gun restrictions are unacceptable.

John Velleco, director of federal affairs for Gun Owners of America, notes the benefits for Obama of having such rules in treaties, not legislation.

"If ratified and the U.S. is found not to be in compliance with any provisions of the treaty – such as a provision that would outlaw reloading ammunition without a government license – President Obama would be empowered to implement regulations without congressional approval," he wrote.

"If the kind of 'change' that Obama wants is for the United States to take its marching orders from third world countries regarding our gun rights, we're in big trouble!"

McVeigh reference prompts response
David Schippers contends OKC bomber part of Islamic, not 'right-wing,' plot

WorldNetDaily

Responding to the Obama administration's attempt to justify a controversial "right-wing extremism" report by citing Timothy McVeigh, a counter-terrorism group has posted a video statement by a prominent Democrat investigator who contends the Oklahoma City bomb plot was hatched not by right-wingers but by Islamic jihadists.

David Schippers, the chief counsel for the 1998 impeachment trial of President Clinton, probed the bombing with investigative reporter Jayna Davis, author of "The Third Terrorist: The Middle Eastern Connection to the Oklahoma City Bombing", by WND Books. Davis asserts McVeigh and Terry Nichols were not the lone conspirators but part of a greater scheme involving Islamic terrorists and at least one provable link to Iraq. The explosion April 19, 1995, at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building killed 168 people, including 19 children, and injured another 684.

In the video, released by America's Truth Forum, Schippers says there's "no question the Oklahoma City bombing was a part of a state-sponsored attack on the heartland of the United States."

"I have been asked about the Oklahoma bombing and whether there was any kind of federal cover-up. The simple and direct answer is yes," he said. "Unquestionably, a federal cover-up beginning in 1995 and continuing to today."

As WND reported last week, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security cited McVeigh as a reason that "right wing" interests must be monitored closely by his agency.

Agency spokesman Sean Smith told talk-radio host and WND columnist Roger Hedgecock, "There was a very tragic example of a threat that was realized and materialized in this country, almost 14 years ago to the day, in Oklahoma City. I'm talking about Tim McVeigh."

Hedgecock was the first to expose the Department of Homeland Security report on "right-wing extremism" that pointed to a potential threat from returning war veterans, abortion opponents, gun-rights advocates and supporters of third-party candidates, among others.

Smith emphasized the Oklahoma bombing was carried out "by someone who unfortunately was a returning vet."

America's Truth Forum President Jeffrey Epstein was among the critics of the DHS report.

"Taking a lesson from history, one can clearly gauge the health of a nation by the way it treats its servicemen," he said.

Epstein called Homeland Secretary Janet Napolitano's targeting of "our nation's heroes" a "revolting and groundless assertion based solely upon the government's flawed OKC bombing investigation."

"In doing so, Napolitano recklessly ignored the fact that despite Bill Clinton's best efforts, ties couldn't be established between Timothy McVeigh and right-wing extremist groups," Epstein said. "Perhaps, the 'real' enemies of our state are at the helm."

Epstein said the Schippers video was produced several years ago, but it has been publicly released for the first time. Schippers, a Chicago-based attorney, recently affirmed that he stands by the statements, Epstein said.

Schippers says in the taped interview the FBI inexplicably closed its probe into the infamous "John Doe No. 2" suspect despite numerous witnesses he interviewed who identified a "foreign-looking man" with McVeigh immediately before the bombing.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., who produced a report two years ago on the alleged foreign-link to the bombing, told WND he experienced a "high level of frustration" during his own investigation "with how many people, from local newspapers to the FBI, to just even other members of Congress, who are just anxious not to even give another look at this monstrous crime that really appears to be unresolved."

Rohrabacher attributes some of opposition to people in a bureaucracy trying to cover up incompetence and bad decisions. But his report offers insight into the mindset of the Clinton administration, suggesting the former president did not want to confront the possibility Islamic terrorists – and ultimately a Middle Eastern state – were involved.

It's now clear, Rohrabacher told WND at the time, that the Clinton administration had "an aversion to any type of efforts by our government that would in some way require the use of force against foreign enemies, and especially in the Middle East."

Schippers points out McVeigh partner Nichols made several trips to the Philippines prior to the bombing, and there is evidence he met with Islamic jihadists tied to al-Qaida.

Former Clinton counter-terrorism official Richard Clarke notes in his book "Against All Enemies" that Nichols was in the Philippines in the same city at the same time as Ramzi Yousef, who was convicted of participation in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

"We do know that Nichols' bombs did not work before his Philippine stay and were deadly when he returned," Clarke writes.

Schippers also points out Yossef Bodansky, the director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, issued a warning two months prior to the Oklahoma City bombing that Iran-sponsored Islamist terrorists had recruited 'two lily whites' – people like McVeigh and Nichols – to carry out the bombing of an American federal building.

Schippers contends the FBI failed to establish a tie between McVeigh and right-wing militias. Some independent investigators dispute that, including Jesse Trentadue, a Salt Lake City attorney who believes McVeigh was aided by a white supremacist group that had been infiltrated by the FBI.

Trentadue obtained FBI documents in his Freedom of Information Act suit against the agency, which he says bolster his belief the FBI had prior knowledge of the bombing.

Davis, who began her investigation while covering the bombing as a local TV reporter, dismisses the theory centered on a German national who was in the U.S. illegally in 1995, Andreas Carl Strassmeier, and domestic neo-Nazis at a white supremacist compound in Oklahoma called Elohim City.

"FBI agents have testified the neo-Nazi, Elohim City connection is nothing more than a dry hole," Davis argues. "There's not one motel log, one phone log, one fingerprint or eyewitness account that can tie any of these Nazi conspirators or Strassmeier to overt commission of a crime."

Court: 2nd Amendment trumps local gun limits
Described as 'protection against government degenerating into tyranny'

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in California has ruled that the 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms is "deeply rooted in this nation's history and tradition" and long has been regarded as the "true palladium of liberty," so it therefore must be applied against state and local government weapon restrictions as well as federal gun limits.

The ruling came in a decade-old dispute over a private operation's request to hold a gun show at a county fairground, even though the county prohibited gun possession at its facilities.

The new ruling from the usually liberal 9th Circuit said Alameda County in California was allowed to ban guns at its facilities, but in general the 2nd Amendment provision for Americans to keep and bear arms applies not to just federal gun limits but local rules as well.

"This could be big, folks," wrote Kurt Hofmann at the St. Louis Gun Rights Examiner.

"In Nordyke v. King … we may very well be seeing the beginning of the end of that very unsatisfactory set of circumstances, wherein state and local governments need not so much as pay lip service to the 2nd Amendment," he continued. "In the 9th Circuit, in fact, that end has indeed arrived.

"This development is very significant, because the 9th is the largest, and thus one of the most important, federal circuit courts. It is also considered the most 'liberal,' and thus perhaps the most resistant to protecting the right to keep and bear arms," he continued.

Hofmann cited a concurring opinion by Judge Ronald M. Gould, who wrote that nothing less than the security of the nation – a defense against both external and internal threats – rests on the provision.

"The right to bear arms is a bulwark against external invasion. We should not be overconfident that oceans on our east and west coasts alone can preserve security," Gould wrote. "We recently saw in the case of the terrorist attack on Mumbai that terrorists may enter a country covertly by ocean routes, landing in small craft and then assembling to wreak havoc. That we have a lawfully armed populace adds a measure of security for all of us and makes it less likely that a band of terrorists could make headway in an attack on any community before more professional forces arrived. Second, the right to bear arms is a protection against the possibility that even our own government could degenerate into tyranny, and though this may seem unlikely, this possibility should be guarded against with individual diligence."

The court opinion this week said, "We therefore conclude that the right to keep and bear arms is 'deeply rooted in this nation's history and tradition.'

"Colonial revolutionaries, the Founders, and a host of commentators and lawmakers living during the first one hundred years of the Republic all insisted on the fundamental nature of the right. It has long been regarded as the 'true palladium of liberty.' Colonists relied on it to assert and to win their independence, and the victorious Union sought to prevent a recalcitrant South from abridging it less than a century later," the court continued.

"The crucial role this deeply rooted right has played in our birth and history compels us to recognize that it is indeed fundamental, that it is necessary to the Anglo-American conception of ordered liberty that we have inherited. We are therefore persuaded that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates the Second Amendment and applies it against the states and local governments," the opinion said.

The court previously had ruled exactly the opposite way, but it said the U.S. Supreme Court's Heller decision, which confirmed that the 2nd Amendment right is personal as well as collective, prompted the reversal.

At Poligazette, a commentator noted it is a major victory for the pro-gun position.

And another Gun Rights Examiner writer, David Codrea, said, "This is big – especially coming from the 9th Circuit, notorious for its hostility to gun rights. Look for an appeal. And then look to see if the Supreme Court agrees to hear it."

Technically the county cannot appeal, since its policy to restrict guns on county property was upheld. But the plaintiffs, Russell and Sallie Nordyke, could appeal on behalf of their gun show operation.

The 2nd Amendment states: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

"This necessary 'right of the people' existed before the Second Amendment as 'one of the fundamental rights of Englishmen,'" the ruling said. "Heller identified several reasons why the militia was considered 'necessary to the security of a free state.' First, 'it is useful in repelling invasions and suppressing insurrections. Second, it renders large standing armies unnecessary . . . . Third, when the able-bodied men of a nation are trained in arms and organized, they are better able to resist tyranny."

The decision appears to run counter to the general direction sought by the administration of President Obama three months into his tenure.

He's already advocated for a treaty that would require a federal license for hunters to reload their ammunition, has expressed a desire to ban "assault" weapons, has seen a plan to require handgun owners to submit to mental health evaluations and sparked a rush on ammunition purchases with his history of anti-gun positions.

Judiciary Committee greenlights 'hate crimes'
Members refuse to protect Christian pastors from charges

Members of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee today rejected an opportunity to protect Christian pastors who preach the biblical condemnation of homosexuality and approved on a 15-12 vote a "hate crimes" bill that supporters admit could be used to bring charges against religious leaders.

The bill, H.R. 1913, now will be considered by the full House of Representatives.

The committee rejected a number of amendments offered by several members seeking to protect religious liberty, to protect the unborn, to protect against violence by illegal aliens, and to clarify the bill's meanings of "gender identity" and "sexual orientation."

One of the rejected proposals was offered by Rep. Louis Gohmert, R-Texas, who sought to ensure ministers could not be prosecuted for abetting a "hate crime" simply because they preach from the Bible or another religious book.

When a nearly identical plan was developed in the last Congress, Rep. Artur Davis, D-Ala., admitted during a hearing on the bill it could be used to prosecute pastors merely for preaching under the premise that they could be "inducing" violence in someone.

The bill ultimately failed then because President Bush determined it was unnecessary – the crimes banned in the legislation already are addressed by other laws – and it probably was unconstitutional.

"The federal hate crimes bill is bad news for everyone," said Brad Dacus of Pacific Justice Institute, who testified in Congress against the bill two years ago.

"Instead of treating all crime victims equally, it creates a caste system where select groups, such as gays and lesbians, are given greater priority in the criminal justice system. This is not progress; it is political correctness. In other nations and states, the adoption of hate crimes legislation has been the first step toward widespread suppression of speech and ideas critical of homosexuality," he said.

Matt Barber of Liberty Counsel has spoken out against H.R. 1913, the "Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009," a number of times.

"As has proved to be true in both Europe and Canada, this Orwellian piece of legislation is the direct precursor to freedom killing and speech chilling 'hate speech' laws. It represents a thinly veiled effort to ultimately silence – under penalty of law – morally, medically and biblically based opposition to the homosexual lifestyle," he said.

Barber said the 14th Amendment already provides that victims of violent crimes are afforded equal protection under the law "regardless of sexual preference or proclivity."

"If passed, H.R. 1913 will change all that. It overtly and, most likely, unconstitutionally, discriminates against millions of Americans by granting federally preferred status, time and resources to individuals who define their identity based upon aberrant sexual behaviors (i.e.,'gay' and lesbian 'sexual orientation' or cross-dressing 'gender identity')," he said.

He also said there is "zero evidence" suggesting homosexuals do not get equal protection now.

"In fact, you need only look to the most famous 'hate crime' of all – Matthew Shepard – for proof. Although the evidence determined that Shepard's murder was not a 'hate crime' by definition (a misconception still widely propagated by the homosexual lobby, the media and liberal lawmakers), the two thugs who committed the crime nonetheless received life in prison – and rightfully so. (Shepard's murder turned out to be the end result of a robbery for drug money gone from bad to horrible)," he said.

Barber said likewise the murderer of Mary Stachowicz, a devout Catholic grandmother brutally killed by a homosexual for sharing the Bible with him, also was given a life sentence.

"The system worked in both cases and both victims received equal justice under the law apart from any discriminatory 'hate crimes' legislation," he said.

Barber cited FBI statistics showing there were about 1.4 million violent crimes in the U.S. in 2007, but only 1,512 were presumed to be "hate crimes." And two-thirds of those involved claims of "hateful" words, touching and shoving.

Under the specifications of the law, a Christian needn't touch a homosexual to face charges, he noted.

"If the homosexual merely claims he was subjectively placed in 'apprehension of bodily injury' by the Christian's words then, again, the Christian can be thrown in prison for a felony 'hate crime,'" he said.

The committee also rejected an amendment offered by Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, that would have withheld its special protections from pedophiles.

WND reported just a day ago that the plan was introduced by Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., who said, "The bill only applies to bias-motivated violent crimes and does not impinge public speech or writing in any way."

Section 10 of the act states, "Nothing in this Act, or the amendments made by this Act, shall be construed to prohibit any expressive conduct protected from legal prohibition by, or any activities protected by the free speech or free exercise clauses of, the First Amendment to the Constitution."

However, critics cite United States Code Title 18, Section 2, as evidence of how the legislation could be used against people who merely speak out against homosexuality. It states: Whoever commits an offense against the United States or aids, abets, counsels, commands, induces or procures its commission, is punishable as a principal.

Jeff King, president of International Christian Concern, warned Christians to speak up before the legislation passes. He said they are acting like the proverbial frog in a slowly heating kettle that boils to death.

"They need to wake up and take action to oppose this threat to religious liberty."

State threatens locals:
Marry 'gays' – or else
Attorney general: 'We must live by
and follow what the courts decide'

Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller is warning the county recorders' offices in his state that workers must process "marriage" licenses for same-sex duos or face possible charges in a court of law.

"If necessary, we will explore legal actions to enforce and implement the court's ruling, working with the Iowa Dept. of Public Health and county attorneys," he warned on his website.

But an announcement today from a statewide pro-family organization and a public interest law firm with a reach that goes around the world means the issue of same-sex weddings eventually could end up back in court.

The statements from Miller relate to the state Supreme Court's decision that Iowa must provide same-sex couples access to the state's marriage processes.

Miller praised the decision as "clear and well-reasoned" and explained it is expected to take effect April 27, since court offices are closed tomorrow.

In a series of messages on his website, he first "advised" recorders and registrars to provide "full access" to marriage.

Then he instructed: "A county registrar should furnish the forms in the same manner as in opposite gender applications."

"The Supreme Court's decision … does change state law: the decision expressly strikes from Iowa Code chapter 595 the language which limits civil marriage to a man and a woman," he ordered.

Then came the warning that "legal actions" could be pursued.

"We must live by and follow what the courts decide," he said.

However, a letter sent to county recorders by the Alliance Defense Fund says Miller is forgetting completely about "one of the most foundational rights and liberties we enjoy as Iowans" … "the right of conscience."

That right, the letter says, is codified in Iowa Code 146.1.

"This right is based upon the simple truth that it is wrong to force anyone to violate his or her conscience," said the letter, also from the Iowa Family Policy Council.

It cites the motto on the seal of the state, which reads, "Our liberties we prize and our rights we will maintain."

"This noble motto … is emblematic of the moral sentiments of Iowans from the banks of the Missouri to the waters of the Mighty Mississippi. … As citizens of the State of Iowa and thus, the United States, we enjoy the protections of this right guaranteed in the U.S. and Iowa Constitutions. This right of conscience protects individuals against coercion by the state authority, and serves as the first line of defense against the cancer of tyranny."

The letter suggests counties adopt policies that ensure no one will be required to "issue or process a marriage license, or to perform, assist, or participate in such procedures, against that individual's religious beliefs or moral convictions."

The suggested policy continues: "A person shall not discriminate against any individual in any way, including but not limited to employment, promotion, advancement, transfer, licensing, education, training, or the granting of employment privileges or conditions, because of the individual's participation in or refusal to participate in the issuance of a marriage license."

If Miller does not like that, the ADF "will defend this policy language and will provide free legal review and defense if this policy is challenged on the basis of its content."

"This policy would protect objecting employees from being forced to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples if doing so would violate the employee's conscience," the ADF said.

Doug Napier, ADF senior legal counsel, said government employees who believe in marriage as the union of one man and one woman should not be penalized for abiding by their beliefs.

"This policy allows an employee who does not wish to violate his or her own conscience by issuing a marriage license to a same-sex couple to abstain and allow the transaction to be performed by someone who is willing to do it," he said. "Forcing them to participate in offensive acts contrary to their deeply held beliefs in order to remain employed is unconstitutional.

"Contrary to the threatening statement issued by Attorney General Tom Miller on April 21, the citizens of Iowa enjoy the protections of the right of conscience guaranteed in the U.S. and Iowa constitutions – the very constitutions that county recorders swore to uphold when taking office," Napier said. "Mr. Miller conveniently omitted any discussion of their rights of conscience or the recorders' duty to protect the rights of their employees.

"This right of conscience protects individuals against heavy-handed coercion by the state, including the attorney general," he said.

Napier said the Iowa marriage law was settled and supported by Iowans, but then the court justices "stepped outside of [their] proper role of interpreting the law and has instead overruled the will of the people and created new law."

Miller, on his web page, affirmed that the justices were creating new law.

Napier said the solution would be for the state legislature to allow state residents to vote on the issue. The Iowa Family Policy Council already has begun work on that effort at a website promoting a marriage amendment.

A spokesman for the state organization said it had been contacted by a number of recorders or their employees expressing concern that the state's orders on a moral issue would violate their religious beliefs.

The same issue arose when a state court in California last year ruled there that county offices must issue same-sex "marriage" licenses. Several county officials were in the position of developing a challenge to the orders when voters took the issue in hand and in November overruled the court.

The voters in California embedded in their state constitution the definition of marriage limited to one man and one woman.

In California then, as in Iowa now, state officials rewrote state forms and procedures even though the legislatures are the only agencies authorized to write state law.

Obama Administration to Release Detainee Abuse Photos; Former CIA Official Says Former Colleagues 'Don't Believe They Have Cover Anymore'

In a letter from the Justice Department to a federal judge yesterday, the Obama administration announced that the Pentagon would turn over to the American Civil Liberties Union 44 photographs showing detainee abuse of prisoners in Afghanistan and Iraq during the Bush administration.

The photographs are part of a 2003 Freedom of Information Act request by the ACLU for all information relating to the treatment of detainees -- the same battle that led, last week, to President Obama's decision to release memos from the Bush Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel providing legal justifications for harsh interrogation methods that human rights groups call torture.

Courts had ruled against the Bush administration's attempts to keep the photographs from public view. ACLU attorney Amrit Singh tells ABC News that "the fact that the Obama administration opted not to seek further review is a sign that it is committed to more transparency."

Singh added that the photographs "only underscore the need for a criminal investigation and prosecution if warranted" of U.S. officials responsible for the harsh treatment of detainees.

But some experts say the move could have a chilling effect on the CIA even beyond President Obama's decision last week to release the so-called "torture memos."

Calling the ACLU push to release the photographs "prurient" and "reprehensible," Dr. Mark M. Lowenthal, former Assistant Director of Central Intelligence for Analysis and Production, tells ABC News that the Obama administration should have taken the case all the way to the Supreme Court.

"They should have fought it all the way; if they lost, they lost," Lowenthal said. "There's nothing to be gained from it. There's no substantive reason why those photos have to be released."

Lowenthal said the president's moves in the last week have left many in the CIA dispirited, based on "the undercurrent I've been getting from colleagues still in the building, or colleagues who have left not that long ago."

"We ask these people to do extremely dangerous things, things they've been ordered to do by legal authorities, with the understanding that they will get top cover if something goes wrong," Lowenthal says. "They don't believe they have that cover anymore." Releasing the photographs "will make it much worse," he said.

Even though President Obama has announced that the Justice Department will not prosecute CIA officers who were operating within the four corners of what they'd been told was the law, Lowenthal says members of the CIA are worried. "They feel exposed already, and this is going to increase drumbeat for an investigation or a commission" to explore detainee treatment during the Bush years, he said. "It's going to make it much harder to resist, and they fear they're then going to be thrown over."

The Bush administration argued that releasing these photographs would violate US obligations towards detainees and would prompt outrage and perhaps attacks against the U.S. On June 9 and June 21, 2006 judges directed the Bush administration to release 21 photographs depicting the treatment of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan, and last September, the Second Circuit Court affirmed that decision.

The Bush administration had argued that an exemption from FOIA was needed here because of the exemption for law enforcement records that could reasonably be expected to endanger “any individual." The release of the disputed photographs, the Bush administration argued, will endanger United States troops, other Coalition forces, and civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But the court found that the exemption was not intended "as an all-purpose damper on global controversy."

The Bush administration had also argued that releasing the photographs would violated the Geneva Conventions, which protect prisoners of war and detained civilians “against insults and public curiosity." The court ruled that the Geneva Conventions "do not prohibit dissemination of images of detainees being abused when the images are redacted so as to protect the identities of the detainees, at least in situations where, as here, the purpose of the dissemination is not itself to humiliate the detainees."

Moreover, the court found that releasing "the photographs is likely to further the purposes of the Geneva Conventions by deterring future abuse of prisoners."

"There is a significant public interest in the disclosure of these photographs," the court ruled. "The defendants concede that these photographs yield evidence of governmental wrongdoing, but nonetheless argue that they add little additional value to the written summaries of the depicted events, which have already been made public. This contention disregards FOIA’s central purpose of furthering governmental accountability, and the special importance the law accords to information revealing official misconduct."

A November 6, 2008, petition for a re-hearing was denied last month.

The Obama administration could have opted to go all the way to the Supreme Court to try to keep these photographs from public view, but yesterday Acting U.S. Attorney Lev L. Dassin wrote to District Judge Alvin Hellerstein and said the Pentagon was preparing to release 21 photos at issue in the appeal, in addition to 23 others "previously identified as responsive."

The materials will be released to the ACLU no later than May 28, after which the ACLU says it will make them public. This release will come just days before President Obama travels to the volatile Middle East.

Dassin wrote that the Pentagon also was "processing for release a substantial number of other images contained in Army CID reports that have been closed during the pendency of this case."

Singh said in a statement that the photographs "will constitute visual proof that, unlike the Bush administration's claim, the abuse was not confined to Abu Ghraib and was not aberrational. Their disclosure is critical for helping the public understand the scope and scale of prisoner abuse as well as for holding senior officials accountable for authorizing or permitting such abuse."

Lowenthal said his former colleagues at the CIA were "put off" by President Obama's trip to the CIA earlier this week. "I don't think the president's speech went down very well, particularly the part when he said they made mistakes. They don't think they made mistakes. They think they acted to execute policy. And those in the intelligence service don't make policy."

Those in intelligence are "gong to become increasingly wary about doing dangerous things," Lowenthal said. "They feel at the end of the day they won't be covered. It's not irreparable right now, but it's problematic."

Waxman bribes Mr. Gene Green? - private deal “allowances” if Dems will vote for cap and trade bill

It seems our future is being bargained away for a few pieces of silver as this passage from the article indicates.

While Shimkus acknowledged that closed-door negotiating was “just a way of doing business” in Congress, he said offering emission allowances for votes may take the process beyond ethical boundaries.

From the Washington Examiner:

To get votes, Waxman offers cap-and-trade breaks
By: Susan Ferrechio
Chief Congressional Correspondent

In exchange for votes to pass a controversial global warming package, Democratic leaders are offering some lawmakers generous emission “allowances” to protect their districts from the economic pain of pollution restrictions.

Rep. Gene Green, D-Texas, represents a district with several oil refineries, a huge source of greenhouse gas emissions. He also serves on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which must approve the global warming plan backed by President Barack Obama.

Green says Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., who heads the panel, is trying to entice him into voting for the bill by giving some refineries favorable treatment in the administration’s “cap and trade” system, which is expected to generate hundreds of billions of dollars over the coming years. Under the plan, companies would pay for the right to emit carbon dioxide, but Green and other lawmakers are angling to get a free pass for refineries in their districts.

“We’ve been talking,” Green said, referring to a meeting he had with Waxman on Tuesday night. “To put together a bill that passes, they have to get our votes, and I’m not going to vote for a bill without refinery allowances.”

Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, the top Republican on the energy panel, said Waxman and others are also dangling allowances for steel and coal-fired power plants to give political cover to Democrats whose districts rely on these companies.

Democrats so far have been unable to get enough support from their own members to pass the bill out of a small global warming subcommittee because most Republicans and many Democrats say the plan will raise energy rates, destroy jobs and increase prices on manufactured goods.

Republicans said Waxman and subcommittee chairman Ed Markey, D-Mass., are calling Democrats into their offices and offering allowances, also called credits, in exchange for votes.

Waxman told The Examiner he was not trading votes for allowances.

“That is what the Republicans are saying, but that is not accurate,” he said. The bill left out specifics on allowances “in order to be able to have discussions on how best to ease the transition for various geographical regions and ratepayers.”

“I will politely disagree,” said energy committee member John Shimkus, R-Ill., who insisted Waxman “is calling members into his office to try to get their vote, and that will be based on the credits they are offering.”

While Shimkus acknowledged that closed-door negotiating was “just a way of doing business” in Congress, he said offering emission allowances for votes may take the process beyond ethical boundaries.

“We are talking real dollars here, real shareholder wealth,” Shimkus said, “and we are not being given the time to analyze these credits.”

Environmentalists and free-market advocates say the credits will favor struggling, out-of-date operations.

“We are going to have electricity that is dirtier because the allowances are going to be misallocated,” said Robert Michaels, an economics professor at California State University and senior fellow for the Institute for Energy Research.

House agrees to muzzle pastors with 'hate crimes' plan
'This is first time protected status given to whatever sexual orientation one has'

Members of the U.S. House today approved a plan to create a federal "hate crimes" plan that will provide special protections to homosexuals and others with alternative sexual choices, but leave Christian ministers and pastors open to prosecution should their teachings be linked to any subsequent offense, by anyone, against a "gay."

The vote was 249-175, and came despite intense Republican opposition to the creation of the privileged class.

Bishop Harry Jackson Jr. of the High Impact Leadership Coalition also condemned the action, offering a warning about the future of the United States.

Jackson said the action simply puts "sexual orientation" in a specially protected class under federal law.

"Based on history, it really isn't something that needs to be protected," he said. "There's a problem that this is going to mark the first time that a protected class status is given to … whatever sexual orientation one has."

He said the history in other nations is a fairly certain prosecution of Christians. In Sweden, for example, a minister who preached out of Leviticus was sentenced to 30 days in jail – for preaching out of Leviticus.

Similar state laws have resulted in similar results. In Philadelphia several years ago a 73-year-old grandmother was jailed for trying to share Christian tracts with people at a homosexual festival, he said.

U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., said H.R. 1913 will create "thought crimes," and U.S. Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., said it will end equality in the United States.

U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, charged the plan will divide America into groups of more favored versus less. He again cited USC Title 18, Section 2a, the foundation of H.R. 1913, which says anyone who through speech "induces" commission of a violent hate crime "will be tried as a principal" alongside the active offender.

But there is no epidemic of hate in the U.S. he noted.

U.S. Rep. Randy Forbes, R-Va., introduced a striking argument: If Miss California, Carrie Prejean, who supports traditional marriage had slapped the homosexual judge who derided her on the stage under H.R. 1913 she could be indicted as a "violent hate criminal," facing a possible 10 years in prison. But, Forbes said, if the homosexual judge had slapped her, she would have had no special protection under H.R. 1913.

Andrea Lafferty, executive director of the Traditional Values Coalition, said, "The Anti-Christian Caucus of the U.S. House of Representatives has acted today to lay the legal foundation and framework to investigate, prosecute and persecute pastors, youth pastors, Bible teachers, and anyone else whose Bible speech and thought is based upon and reflects the truths found in the Bible.

"A pastor’s sermon could be considered 'hate speech' under this legislation if heard by an individual who then acts aggressively against persons based on 'sexual orientation.' The pastor could be prosecuted for “conspiracy to commit a hate crime," she said.

"This Democrat-controlled Congress has now elevated pedophiles and other bizarre sexual orientations, as well as drag queens, transgenders, lesbians and gay men to the level of protection of that already given to African Americans, Hispanics and other minorities in the law," she said.

House Republican leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said the Democrats simply have placed a higher value on some lives compared to others, a decision he said is unconstitutional.

Not happy with just making Christian teachings on homosexuality illegal, noted officials at Liberty Counsel, supporters have approved the law that also provides grant money for so-called "sensitivity-training" to provide pro-homosexual propaganda.

When a plan virtually identical to the current Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 was developed in the last Congress, Rep. Artur Davis, D-Ala., admitted during a hearing on the bill it could be used to prosecute pastors merely for preaching against homosexuality under the premise that they could be "inducing" violence in someone.

The bill ultimately failed then because President Bush determined it was unnecessary – the crimes banned in the legislation already are addressed by other laws – and it probably was unconstitutional.

"The federal hate crimes bill is bad news for everyone," said Brad Dacus of Pacific Justice Institute, who testified in Congress against the bill two years ago.

"Instead of treating all crime victims equally, it creates a caste system where select groups, such as gays and lesbians, are given greater priority in the criminal justice system. This is not progress; it is political correctness. In other nations and states, the adoption of hate crimes legislation has been the first step toward widespread suppression of speech and ideas critical of homosexuality," he said.

Matt Barber of Liberty Counsel has spoken out against H.R. 1913 a number of times.

"As has proved to be true in both Europe and Canada, this Orwellian piece of legislation is the direct precursor to freedom killing and speech chilling 'hate speech' laws. It represents a thinly veiled effort to ultimately silence – under penalty of law – morally, medically and biblically based opposition to the homosexual lifestyle," he said.

Barber said the 14th Amendment already provides that victims of violent crimes are afforded equal protection under the law "regardless of sexual preference or proclivity."

Barber cited FBI statistics showing there were about 1.4 million violent crimes in the U.S. in 2007, but only 1,512 were presumed to be "hate crimes." And two-thirds of those involved claims of "hateful" words, touching and shoving.

Under the specifications of the law, a Christian needn't touch a homosexual to face charges, he noted.

"If the homosexual merely claims he was subjectively placed in 'apprehension of bodily injury' by the Christian's words then, again, the Christian can be thrown in prison for a felony 'hate crime,'" he said.

WND reported previously that the plan was introduced by Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., who said, "The bill only applies to bias-motivated violent crimes and does not impinge public speech or writing in any way."

Section 10 of the act states, "Nothing in this Act, or the amendments made by this Act, shall be construed to prohibit any expressive conduct protected from legal prohibition by, or any activities protected by the free speech or free exercise clauses of, the First Amendment to the Constitution."

However, critics cite United States Code Title 18, Section 2, as evidence of how the legislation could be used against people who merely speak out against homosexuality. It states: Whoever commits an offense against the United States or aids, abets, counsels, commands, induces or procures its commission, is punishable as a principal.

Jeff King, president of International Christian Concern, warned Christians to speak up before the legislation passes. He said they are acting like the proverbial frog in a slowly heating kettle that boils to death.

"They need to wake up and take action to oppose this threat to religious liberty."

Censors for talk radio expected within 90 days
Leader of public awareness campaign warns of 'Arctic blast' against free speech

The leader of a newly formed public awareness campaign to alert U.S. citizens about an effort to stifle free speech says he expects local "boards" will be assembled within 90 days to begin censoring talk radio, a move that will come as an "Arctic blast" against the expression of opinion in the United States.

WND reported just days ago on a meeting at which more than two dozen principals of the nation's top talk radio shows held a private strategy meeting to discuss government plans to squelch critical political speech on radio.

Organized by Brad O'Leary, author of the new book, "Shut Up, America! The End of Free Speech," and Joseph Farah, editor and chief executive officer of WND, the group chose one attendee to be spokesman and chairman of the coalition – syndicated host Roger Hedgecock of San Diego.

The American Radio Free Speech Foundation was adopted as the name, and leaders now have announced a public awareness campaign and educational initiative, called Don't Touch My Dial.

The announcement said the U.S. now is facing "an insidious attack on its First Amendment Rights that is being cloaked in legislation and regulation evidenced by the recently circulated draft FCC regulations … to impose 'localism' and 'media ownership diversity' on talk radio."

"In addition, under the guise of 'cyberspace security,' Sens. Rockefeller, Snowe and Nelson have introduced S773 which would, critics say, give the federal government control over the Internet including, under emergency conditions, the right of the president to shut down the whole Internet or sites on it, including the interruption of e-mail," the announcement said.

"When the public is informed about what is happening behind the scenes to threaten their First Amendment rights, they will be outraged. As shown in a recent poll that was commissioned by the coalition and is part of the 'Zogby/O'Leary Report's First 100 Days Poll' when 3,937 voters from the last election were asked: 'Four members of the U.S. Senate recently introduced a bill that would allow the president of the United States to turn off the Internet nationally in the event of an emergency, however the Bill does not DEFINE what constitutes an emergency. Do you support or oppose this bill?'" the announcement said.

Nearly 82 percent opposed the idea. Only 5 percent agreed with it.

Hedgecock told WND that most people simply don't understand what the government appears to be demanding.

"I think the FCC is on the cusp of enacting regulations that would fundamentally alter the traditional American assumption that we have the right to share and debate political opinions," he said.

"I believe the strategy is to make the current state of compliant journalism that prevails in the mainstream media the norm as well on the Internet and in talk radio," he said.

And it's coming soon.

"I think in the next 90 days we will see the imposition of the local advisory boards. They will immediately become complaint departments staffed by the Left on all local and nationally syndicate talk programs," Hedgecock warned.

The underlying threat, of course, would be to the license the business needs to operate as a radio station.

"The threats of those complaints to the viability of the underlying station licenses will be immediate and will force corporations that own these stations into a very defensive posture," he said.

"Talk about a chilling effect on free speech, this will be an Arctic blast of restraint on opinion based on the threat to take the license away," Hedgecock said.

But talk radio will be just the first target, he said.

"The assault on the First Amendment that is being planned by the government and the extremist Left is not limited to their desire to silence conservative talk radio," he said. "Newspapers and television are not immune to the anti-First Amendment efforts that are at work here. In addition, the Internet is also a target for receiving the restrictive aspects of the so-called 'Fairness Doctrine.'"

Just weeks ago, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., submitted an amendment to the D.C. Voting Bill which would require the FCC to "encourage and promote diversity in ... media ownership" and reaffirm FCC authority to mandate the presentation "of opposing points of view on issues of public importance."

Also of concern to the hosts and producers gathered in the nation's capital was a decision last week by Clear Channel, the nation's largest owner of radio stations, to mandate the creation of local advisory boards by June at all of its properties. The move was seen as pre-emptive as the industry anticipates an FCC stacked with Barack Obama appointees will soon require stations to answer to panels of community activists.

In February, the FCC floated several proposals to require stations to better serve local communities, including establishing community advisory boards to consult stations on programming.

"We are materially increasing our commitment to community programming, increasing our accountability and broadening our public-service contributions in every local market we serve," said John Hogan, president and chief executive officer of Clear Channel. "We believe when radio focuses on servicing local communities, it is radio at its finest."

Other key members of the group so far include Lars Larson, Rusty Humphries, Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, Steve Gill, Martha Zoller, Joyce Kaufman and Kirby Wilbur.

The public awareness campaign website includes a petition campaign to protest the developing limits. It also describes the so-called "Fairness Doctrine," explains what it does to free speech and quotes a number of experts on the subject.

"Rather than having the government regulate what people can say, we should let the market decide what people want to hear. That's precisely why the Fairness Doctrine was abandoned, and that's why it ought not to be revived," said U.S. Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., in a commentary critical of the plan.

"This fight is a First Amendment fight and one that every American must be involved with, which is why we have created 'Don't Touch My Dial' as a vehicle for mass participation," Hedgecock said.

Hedgecock also is chairman for Unfair Air, an effort to to protect First Amendment Rights as they pertain to radio and radio audiences.

WND founder and editor Joseph Farah launched a petition campaign months ago to block federal government attacks on freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

"This issue – and the urgent need for a broad-based, aggressive coalition to fight back – is much bigger than talk radio, and much more dangerous than an effort to simply silence a few voices that the current administration dislikes," says Hedgecock. "This fight is a First Amendment fight and one that every American must be involved with, which is why we have created 'Don’t Touch My Dial' as a vehicle for mass participation."

Kennedy brings 'hate crimes' into Senate
Matches House-approved plan to crack down on biblical teachings

A bill that would provide federal money to train law enforcement officers to identify and criminally prosecute speech and thought offensive to homosexuals has been introduced into the U.S. Senate, matching a House-approved bill that critics fear will be used to crack down on biblical teachings.

The proposal, from Democratic Sens. Edward Kennedy and Patrick Leahy, aligns with H.R. 1913, which was approved in the U.S. House yesterday.

It denies protections to classes of citizens such as pastors, Christians, missionaries, veterans and the elderly that would be granted to homosexuals and those with gender issues.

It it named the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act after a Wyoming homosexual who was killed in a horrific robbery and beating in 1998.

It also provides money "to improve the education and training of local officials to identify, investigate, prosecute and prevent hate crimes."

Kennedy described "hate crimes" as "especially poisonous."

"They are acts of domestic terrorism that target whole communities, not just individuals," he claimed. "This bill will bring greater protection to our citizens and much-needed resources for state and local law enforcement to fight these vicious crimes."

President Obama, supported strongly during his campaign by homosexual advocates, appears ready to respond to their desires.

"I urge members on both sides of the aisle to act on this important civil rights issue by passing this legislation to protect all of our citizens from violent acts of intolerance," he said.

Christians across the nation, however, have spoken with an almost unanimous voice in opposing the special designation of homosexuals and others for federal protection denied other groups of citizens.

They condemned House members who refused to provide the same protections for seniors, pregnant women and members of the military. Also rejected was an amendment that would have specified that pedophiles cannot claim any protection under the bill.

The House vote was 249-175.

Similar state laws have resulted in persecution for Christians. In Philadelphia several years ago, a 73-year-old grandmother was jailed for trying to share Christian tracts with people at a homosexual festival.

Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., said H.R. 1913 will create "thought crimes," and U.S. Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., said it will end equality in the U.S.

Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, charged the plan will divide America into groups of more favored versus less. He again cited USC Title 18, Section 2a, the foundation of H.R. 1913, which says anyone who through speech "induces" commission of a violent hate crime "will be tried as a principal" alongside the active offender.

But there is no epidemic of hate in the U.S., he noted.

Rep. Randy Forbes, R-Va., introduced a striking argument: If Miss California, Carrie Prejean, who supports traditional marriage, had slapped the homosexual judge who derided her on the stage under H.R. 1913 she could be indicted as a "violent hate criminal," facing a possible 10 years in prison. But, Forbes said, if the homosexual judge had slapped her, she would have had no special protection under H.R. 1913.

Andrea Lafferty, executive director of the Traditional Values Coalition, said, "A pastor's sermon could be considered 'hate speech' under this legislation if heard by an individual who then acts aggressively against persons based on 'sexual orientation.' The pastor could be prosecuted for 'conspiracy to commit a hate crime'" she said.

"This Democrat-controlled Congress has now elevated pedophiles and other bizarre sexual orientations, as well as drag queens, transgenders, lesbians and gay men to the level of protection of that already given to African Americans, Hispanics and other minorities in the law," she said.

House Republican leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said the Democrats have placed a higher value on some lives compared to others, a decision he said is unconstitutional.

The bill previously failed when President Bush determined it was unnecessary – the crimes banned in the legislation already are addressed by other laws – and it probably was unconstitutional.

"The federal hate crimes bill is bad news for everyone," said Brad Dacus of Pacific Justice Institute, who testified in Congress against the bill two years ago.

Matt Barber of Liberty Counsel has spoken out against H.R. 1913 a number of times.

"As has proved to be true in both Europe and Canada, this Orwellian piece of legislation is the direct precursor to freedom killing and speech chilling 'hate speech' laws. It represents a thinly veiled effort to ultimately silence – under penalty of law – morally, medically and biblically based opposition to the homosexual lifestyle," he said.

Teen homeschooler jailed under Patriot Act
FBI holds 10th-grader for months with little contact from family

A 16-year-old homeschooled boy from North Carolina was taken away from his home in handcuffs two months ago and has been held by the FBI in Indiana ever since, a victim, his mother claims, of the Patriot Act spun out of control.

According to Annette Lundeby of Oxford, N.C., armed FBI agents and local police stormed her home around 10 p.m. on March 5, looking for her son, Ashton. The officers presented a federal search warrant and seized the tenth-grader's computer, cell phone and bank statements.

Ashton was then taken to a juvenile facility in South Bend, Ind., charged with making a bomb threat in Indiana from his home computer.

His mother, however, told Raleigh's WRAL-TV that she argued with the authorities, claiming someone must have hacked into her son's IP address and used it to make crank calls. The agents' search, she claims, also failed to uncover any trace of bomb-making materials.

"Undoubtedly, they were given false information," Lundeby told the station, "or they would not have had 12 agents in my house with a widow and two children and three cats."

Allowed little access to see her son over the last two months, facing a court date that keeps being pushed back and given no information by FBI agents sitting behind a gag order on the case, Lundeby now says the USA Patriot Act has unjustly imprisoned an innocent boy and stripped her son of due process.

(Story continues below)

"We have no rights under the Patriot Act to even defend them, because the Patriot Act basically supersedes the Constitution," she told WRAL-TV. "It wasn't intended to drag your barely 16-year-old, 120-pound son out in the middle of the night on a charge that we can't even defend."

Passed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, the USA Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism – or P.A.T.R.I.O.T. – Act armed law enforcement with new tools to detect and prevent terrorism. Among other measures, it better enables interagency cooperation and allows law enforcement a wider array of technological and surveillance tools to more quickly and stealthily investigate terrorist threats.

Dan Boyse, a former U.S attorney not connected to the case, explained to WRAL-TV how Ashton Lundeby could have been swept up by the Patriot Act.

"They're saying that 'we feel this individual is a terrorist or an enemy combatant against the United States, and we're going to suspend all of those due process rights because this person is an enemy of the United States,'" Boyce told the station.

Boyce theorized that if an FBI agent came to the conclusion that Lundeby was a serious terrorist threat, the usual rules of law enforcement don't apply.

"There's nothing a matter of public record," Boyce said. "All those normal rights are just suspended in the air."

Ashton's mother told the television station, "Never in my worst nightmare did I ever think that it would be my own government that I would have to protect my children from. This is the United States, and I feel like I live in a third world country now."

According to the WRAL-TV report, because a federal judge has issued a gag order in the case, the U.S. attorney in Indiana cannot comment on Lundeby, nor can the FBI.

Next on Senate agenda? 'Pedophile Protection Act'
'Hate crimes' law definitions would protect 547 sex 'philias'

The leader of a pro-family organization says families across the nation need to contact their U.S. senators now to try to derail a legislative plan that already has passed the U.S. House and is being awaited by President Obama – after a Democrat confirmed that it would protect "all 547 forms of sexual deviancy or 'paraphilias' listed by the American Psychiatric Association."

WND columnist Janet Porter, who also heads the Faith2Action.org Christian ministry, today cited S. 909, dubbed the "Pedophile Protection Act" as an extreme danger to America.

As H.R. 1913, the House version of the so-called "hate crimes" bill was adopted on a 249-175 vote, but not before several amendments were proposed by Republicans trying to mitigate the impact of the draconian law.

Democratic Sens. Edward Kennedy and Patrick Leahy immediately introduced a matching plan in the U.S. Senate, and activists say a vote in committee could come as early as tomorrow.

The proposal, formally called the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act after a Wyoming homosexual who was killed in a horrific robbery and beating in 1998, creates a special class for homosexuals and others with alternative sexual lifestyles and provides them protections against so-called "hate."

It specifically denies such protections to other targeted classes of citizens such as pastors, Christians, missionaries, veterans and the elderly.

Wrote Porter, "I've written extensively about how this bill would criminalize Christianity and turn those who disagree with the homosexual agenda into felons, but criminalizing Christianity is just the beginning of what this bill would do. It would also elevate pedophiles as a special protected class – since the term 'sexual orientation' which has been added to the 'hate crimes' legislation includes them in the American Psychiatric Association's definition of various 'sexual orientations."

Read the column warning against the dangers of Sen. Edward Kennedy's "hate crimes" plan.

Porter cited the amendment offering from Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, in committee that was very simple:

The term sexual orientation as used in this act or any amendments to this act does not include pedophilia.

But majority Democrats refused to accept that.

Congressman Louis Gohmert, R-Texas, then explained what that means, Porter wrote.

There are only 242 crimes where there is actually some – truly – an assault, and we just rejected an amendment to including pedophilia from being a part of this protected class. Do you realize what that means?

If a mother hears that their child has been raped and she slaps the assailant with her purse, she is now gone after as a hate criminal because this is a protected class. There are other protected classes in here. I mean simple exhibitionism. I have female friends who have told me over the years that some guy flashed them, and their immediate reaction was to hit them with their purse. Well now, he's committed a misdemeanor, she has committed a federal hate crime because the exhibitionism is protected under sexual orientation.

I know my friend said that we have a definition in the law, but there is nothing in this bill that references the definitions in the Hate Crimes Statistical Act…it's not there. We asked that it be added so we could get a specific definition. It is not there.

And having reviewed cases as an appellate judge, I know that when the legislature has the chance to include a definition and refuses, then what we look at is the plain meaning of those words. The plain meaning of sexual orientation is anything to which someone is orientated. That could include exhibitionism, it could include necrophilia (sexual arousal/activity with a corpse) … it could include Urophilia (sexual arousal associated with urine), voyeurism. You see someone spying on you changing clothes and you hit them, they've committed a misdemeanor, you've committed a federal felony under this bill. It is so wrong.

King, Porter wrote, also told the full U.S. House that the APA has a list of 547 different "paraphilias" that would be protected by members of Congress under the "hate crimes" plan.

Find out how homosexuality as a "civil right" was sold to America, in the best-selling "Marketing of Evil."

U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Fla., a "hate crimes" supporter, agreed, saying:

This bill addresses our resolve to end violence based on prejudice and to guarantee that all Americans regardless of race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability or all of these 'Philias' and fetishes and 'ism's' that were put forward need not live in fear because of who they are. I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of this rule…"

Porter said families, parents, Americans, anyone interested in the future of the nation, needs to contact their members in the Senate and demand hearings, then demand a filibuster.

"Pushing away an unwelcome advance of a homosexual, transgendered, cross-dresser or exhibitionist could make you a felon under this law. Speaking out against the homosexual agenda could also make you a felon if you are said to influence someone who pushes away that unwelcome advance. And pedophiles and other sexual deviants would enjoy an elevated level of protection while children, seniors, veterans, and churches would not," Porter said.

The "hate crimes" proposal not only sets up criminal charges against those whose actions or words offend homosexuals but also provides money "to improve the education and training of local officials to identify, investigate, prosecute and <I>prevent</i> hate crimes."

President Obama, supported strongly during his campaign by homosexual advocates, appears ready to respond to their desires.

"I urge members on both sides of the aisle to act on this important civil rights issue by passing this legislation to protect all of our citizens from violent acts of intolerance," he said.

Gary Cass of the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission said the Senate proposal could be voted on in committee as early as tomorrow.

"You must call the Senate today and demand that they hold hearings on this bill," he wrote. "It is one of the most radical pieces of legislation to ever make its way to the Senate. If passed, it will lay the groundwork for restricting religious liberty and freedom of speech as it has in Canada and Europe."

Similar state laws have resulted in persecution for Christians. In Philadelphia several years ago, a 73-year-old grandmother was jailed for trying to share Christian tracts with people at a homosexual festival.

Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., said H.R. 1913 will create "thought crimes," and U.S. Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., said it will end equality in the U.S.

Gohmert warned the law will be used against pastors – or anyone else – who speaks against homosexuality or other alternative sexual lifestyle choices. He said it provides that anyone who through speech "induces" commission of a violent hate crime "will be tried as a principal" alongside the active offender.

Critics say that would allow for prosecutions against pastors who preach a biblical ban on homosexuality if someone who hears such a message later is accused of any crime.

Andrea Lafferty, executive director of the Traditional Values Coalition, said, "A pastor's sermon could be considered 'hate speech' under this legislation if heard by an individual who then acts aggressively against persons based on 'sexual orientation.' The pastor could be prosecuted for 'conspiracy to commit a hate crime'" she said.

The bill previously failed when President Bush determined it was unnecessary – the crimes banned in the legislation already are addressed by other laws – and it probably is unconstitutional.

"The federal hate crimes bill is bad news for everyone," said Brad Dacus of Pacific Justice Institute, who testified in Congress against the bill two years ago.

Matt Barber of Liberty Counsel has spoken out against H.R. 1913 a number of times.

"As has proved to be true in both Europe and Canada, this Orwellian piece of legislation is the direct precursor to freedom killing and speech chilling 'hate speech' laws. It represents a thinly veiled effort to ultimately silence – under penalty of law – morally, medically and biblically based opposition to the homosexual lifestyle," he said.

'Broken gun' conviction upheld by court
Rules government does not need to provide evidence to defendant

What a federal agent did during a testing procedure to result in "automatic" fire from an AR-15 has no bearing on the case of a man convicted of transferring a "machinegun" after he loaned to a prospective buyer the gun he considered a semi-automatic rifle, according to a ruling from a panel of appellate judges.

The ruling has come in the case of David Olofson, a Wisconsin man sent to prison for 30 months after a semi-automatic rifle he loaned to a prospective buyer unleashed several bursts of multiple rounds and then jammed.

His defense team had explained the case is about nothing more than a malfunctioning gun, and there was evidence to support that. But according to judges Daniel Manion, Michael Kanne and Virginia Kendall of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals the weapon is a machinegun, and government information about the tests that determined that are not pertinent.

Constitutional lawyer Herb Titus, who argued at the appellate level on behalf of Olofson, said the government's case was simple: "Olofson's malfunctioning semi-automatic rifle functioned as a machine gun because it fired more than one shot at the single pull of a trigger."

However, Titus contended the government's position is contrary to fact, established law and precedent.

The government even, in Olofson's case, applied a definition "contrary to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives own definition in a guide to law enforcement," Titus had argued.

Under this government definition, regardless of the reason, a gun is a machine gun if more than one bullet is fired with a single pull of the trigger. That could apply to grandpa's double-barreled as well as the local police sidearm, if it malfunctions similarly, he said.

The normally accepted definition of a machine gun is a weapon that will fire repeatedly until the trigger is released or the ammunition exhausts. But in Olofson's case, the trigger was pulled, the first tests showed no "automatic" action.

Then the government reported a change in the type of ammunition used and the rifle loosed off several shots and jammed.

"By this time, the weapon had been in the hands of the ATF for four months. What caused the functional change in the weapon to fire as it had not done before is unknown, although the ATF agent did acknowledge that the change in the outcome from the October test resulted from a change to 'softer primer' ammunition," the appellate documents said.

But the court ruling said neither documentation of the procedures used by the ATF to test the AR-15 nor correspondence between the ATF and the maker about the ability of the AR-15 to fire automatically were needed to reach a guilty verdict.

"Regarding the first non-disclosed item – the ATF's internal procedures for test-firing AR-15 rifles – Olofson says he wanted that information because '[f]ailure to follow those procedures by changing the type of ammunition in the second test could demonstrate that the tests had been manipulated to arrive at a reversal of the results of the first test,'" the court said.

"We do not see how that information could have exculpated Olofson; section 5845(b) does not require compliance with ATF test-fire procedures in order for a weapon to qualify as a machinegun, nor must the weapon fire any particular grade of ammunition or in the prohibited fashion during the first test-fire.

"The government’s expert admitted that the gun fired automatically more than one round with a single function of the trigger without manual reloading in the second test with civilian grade rounds, but jammed in the first test with military grade rounds. Even if the second test was inconsistent with ATF procedures, that fact would not undermine confidence in the outcome of the trial," the court said.

"With respect to his request for the ATF's correspondence with the manufacturer of his AR-15 concerning the use of M-16 parts in early AR-15 rifles, the defendant contends that evidence was exculpatory because it was relevant to his knowledge of whether or not his AR-15 was a machinegun. The district court denied Olofson's request on the first day of trial. At the sentencing hearing, the court revisited the issue; the court inspected a document in camera, stated that it was not exculpatory, and placed it under seal. We subsequently ordered that document to be unsealed," the appellate judges wrote.

"That evidence is a 1983 letter from the ATF to the manufacturer of the AR-15 in which the ATF advised the company that the installation of certain M-16 parts in AR-15 receivers may permit the weapon to fire automatically even though an automatic sear is not present," the court ruled. "It has no bearing on Olofson’s knowledge of whether his AR-15 was a machinegun."

Olofson also argued documents relating to the ATF's registry procedures were needed "because they could have been used to refute the government expert's testimony that the M-16 parts in Olofson's AR-15 made it a machinegun."

"We do not see how the ATF's opinions or positions regarding the presence of M-16 parts in AR-15 rifles are the least bit germane," the judges wrote.

One Internet observer wrote that in light of the Olofson decision, the Miranda warning, well-known for its directed advisory to suspects about their rights, would begin like this:

You have the right to remain silent and refuse to answer questions. Not that it will do you any good. Do you understand?

Anything you do say, or we say you say if we have more witnesses than you, will be used against you in a court of law, if we think we can get away with it. Do you understand?

You have the right to consult an attorney before speaking to the police and to have an attorney present during questioning now or in the future. You will not have a chance to challenge our lack of standards or scientific method in our lab results and your expert witness will not be allowed to witness anything if we can help it. Do you understand?...

A participant at the forum page on David Codrea's gun page said, "Did anyone seriously think that this would go any other way? The judges had this thing 'fixed' before it went to court the first time."

"Chugachugachuga CHOO CHO! Another railroad job," said another.

The defense has explained that the rifle involved, the AR-15, is made with some of the same parts as the automatic M-16, and the problem was caused by "a malfunction, known as 'followdown' created by the failure of the disconnector to retain the hammer in a cocked position after the discharge of each round."

WND reported earlier when the Gun Owners of America launched a campaign to help support Olofson's family.

Olofson, of Berlin, Wis., surrendered to federal authorities last July to begin his 30-month prison term.

"A gun that malfunctions is not a machine gun," Larry Pratt of Gun Owners of America said that the time. "What the [federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives] has done in the Olofson case has set a precedent that could make any of the millions of Americans that own semi-automatic firearms suddenly the owner [of] an unregistered machine gun at the moment the gun malfunctions."

ATF officials have declined to speak with WND on the record.

"It didn't matter the rifle in question had not been intentionally modified for select fire, or that it did not have an M16 bolt carrier … that it did not show any signs of machining or drilling, or that that model had even been recalled a few years back," said a commentary in Guns Magazine on the case.

"It didn't matter the government had repeatedly failed to replicate automatic fire until they replaced the ammunition with a softer primer type. It didn't even matter that the prosecution admitted it was not important to prove the gun would do it again if the test were conducted today," the magazine said. "What mattered was the government's position that none of the above was relevant because '[T]here's no indication it makes any difference under the statute. If you pull the trigger once and it fires more than one round, no matter what the cause it's a machine gun.'

"No matter what the cause."

Lawmakers claim Oklahoma's sovereignty
Resolution would tell Congress to 'get back into their proper constitutional role'

House bypasses governor’s veto to claim Oklahoma’s sovereignty

Although Gov. Brad Henry vetoed similar legislation 10 days earlier, House members Monday again approved a resolution claiming Oklahoma’s sovereignty.

Gov. Brad Henry speaks to members of the Oklahoma Press Association at their convention held at the Doubletree Hotel Downtown in Tulsa. SHERRY BROWN/Tulsa World Friday, Feb. 6, 2009

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Unlike House Joint Resolution 1003, House Concurrent Resolution 1028 does not need the governor’s approval.

The House passed the measure 73-22. It now goes to the Senate.

"We’re going to get it done one way or the other,” said the resolutions’ author, Rep. Charles Key, R-Oklahoma City.

"I think our governor is out of step.”

House Democrats objected, saying the issue already had been taken up and had been vetoed, but House Speaker Pro Tempore Kris Steele, R-Shawnee, ruled the veto is not final action.

Key said he expects HCR 1028 will pass in the Senate. HJR 1003 earlier passed the House 83-18 and won approval in the Senate 29-18.

Henry vetoed HJR 1003 because he said it suggested, among other things, that Oklahoma should return federal tax dollars.

Key said HCR 1028, which, if passed, would be sent to Democratic President Barack Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress, would not jeopardize federal funds but would tell Congress to "get back into their proper constitutional role.” The resolution states the federal government should "cease and desist” mandates that are beyond the scope of its powers.

Key said many federal laws violate the 10th Amendment, which says powers not delegated to the U.S. government "are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.” The Constitution lists about 20 duties required of the U.S. government, he said.

Congress should not be providing bailouts to financial institutions and automakers, he said.

"We give all this money to all these different entities, including automakers, and now they’re talking about, ‘Well maybe it’s better to let them go bankrupt,’” Key said. "Well, maybe we should have let them go bankrupt before we gave them the money.”

Quote from: Pastor Roger on May 05, 2009, 11:19:37 AM

Teen homeschooler jailed under Patriot Act
FBI holds 10th-grader for months with little contact from family

The MSM in it's hurry to show another problem with the Patriot Act and refusal to miss an attempt to slam the Bush Administration leads to another “woops, our bad!” Great fact finding reporters ::) :

Feds: Teen's not being held under Patriot Act
Ashton Lundeby

The U.S. Department of Justice said Thursday a local mother's claim that her son is being held under the USA Patriot Act is incorrect.

Responding after nationwide media attention following the story, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Indiana said in a news release that the charge is based on federal law prohibiting bomb and death threats.

"This charge is unrelated to the Patriot Act," U.S. Attorney David Capp said.

Capp and the FBI initially declined to talk about the case, citing a gag order and law that prohibits disclosure of information in federal cases involving juveniles.

But in Thursday's release, he said, the arrest stems from a false bomb threat directed at Purdue University and similar threats to other schools.

"The FBI, the Purdue University Police Department and the Tippecanoe County Prosecutor's Office conducted an extensive investigation into this matter, resulting in that arrest," Capp said.

Not mentioning Ashton Lundeby by name, Capp also said the "juvenile" has been represented by counsel at each of his three court appearances and that his mother "has been apprised of each" and that he is being held in a facility that permits family visits.

Lundeby said Thursday she has not been made aware of any other court appearance other than his initial one in Raleigh, despite her "constant inquiries."

More interesting information on this story that may include a future arrest of the mother:

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/05/teenage-bomb-threat-suspect-was-an-internet-prank-phone-call-star/

Next step? No guns allowed for right-wing 'extremists'
Bill empowers attorney general to forbid firearms for those 'suspected dangerous'

A new gun law being considered in Congress, if aligned with Department of Homeland Security memos labeling everyday Americans as potential "threats," could potentially deny firearms to pro-lifers, gun-rights advocates, tax protesters, animal rights activists, and a host of others – any already on the expansive DHS watch list for potential "extremism."

Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., has sponsored H.R. 2159, the Denying Firearms and Explosives to Dangerous Terrorists Act of 2009, which permits the attorney general to deny transfer of a firearm to any "known or suspected dangerous terrorist." The bill requires only that the potential firearm transferee is "appropriately suspected" of preparing for a terrorist act and that the attorney general "has a reasonable belief" that the gun might be used in connection with terrorism.

Gun rights advocates, however, object to the bill's language, arguing that it enables the federal government to suspend a person's Second Amendment rights without any trial or legal proof and only upon suspicion of being "dangerous."

"[Rep. King] would deny citizens their civil liberties based on no due process," objected Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America. "A 'known terrorist?' Look, if the guy has committed an act of terrorism, we shouldn't have to worry about him being able to buy a gun; he should be in jail!"

Pratt further warned WND of the potential overlap of H.R. 2159 and a recent DHS memo that warned against potential violence from "right-wing extremists," such as those concerned about illegal immigration, increasing federal power, restrictions on firearms, abortion and the loss of U.S. sovereignty.

"By those standards, I'm one of [DHS Secretary] Janet Napolitano's terrorists," Pratt said. "This bill would enable the attorney general to put all of the people who voted against Obama on no-gun lists, because according to the DHS, they're all potential terrorists. Actually, we could rename this bill the Janet Napolitano Frenzied Fantasy Implementation Act of 2009."

Pratt's biggest concern, however, is the sidestepping of the Constitution and due process that the nebulous language of this bill could permit.

"Unbeknownst to us, some bureaucrat in the bowels of democracy can put your name on a list, and your Second Amendment rights are toast," Pratt told WND. "This is such an anti-American bill, this is something King George III would have done."

As WND reported, right-wing "extremists" aren't the only Americans on the DHS watch list.

"Legalize the Constitution" bumper sticker

Two weeks before the U.S. Department of Homeland Security penned its now notorious warning against "right-wing extremists" in the United States, it generated a memo defining dozens of additional groups as potential "threats."

That memo, the "Domestic Extremism Lexicon" expanded the list from typical "right-wing" causes to include left-wing extremism, animal rights activists, black separatists, anarchists, Cuban independence advocates, environmental extremists, the anti-war movement and more. It even insisted some of these groups were prone to violence.

For example, the lexicon defined the "tax resistance movement" – also referred to in the report as the tax protest movement or the tax freedom movement – as "groups or individuals who vehemently believe taxes violate their constitutional rights. Among their beliefs are that wages are not income, that paying income taxes is voluntary, and that the 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which allowed Congress to levy taxes on income, was not properly ratified."

It further states that tax protesters "have been known to advocate or engage in criminal activity and plot acts of violence and terrorism in an attempt to advance their extremist goals."

The DHS memos were meant for distribution to law enforcement officials around the country, prompting some to worry the definitions might be used to classify Americans who simply disagree with government policies as being dangerous.

As WND reported, the relative of a Louisiana driver claims her brother-in-law has already been unfairly targeted by police simply for having a supposedly subversive, "Don't Tread on Me" bumper sticker on his car.

According to the relative, it happened this way: Her brother-in-law was driving home from work through Ball, La., which has a local reputation for enhancing its budget by ticketing speeders. He was pulled over by police officers who told him "he had a subversive survivalist bumper sticker on his car."

"They proceeded to keep him there on the side of the road while they ran whatever they do to see if you have a record, keeping him standing by the side of the road for 30 minutes," she told WND.

Finding no record and no reason to keep him, they warned him and eventually let him go, she said.

WND has withheld the driver's name and the relative's name at their request.

H.R. 2159 has six co-sponsors, from both parties, and has been referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary.

WND contacted Rep. King's office for comment on the bill, but received no response.

'Hate crimes' fate
now up to people
Congressman: 'If you don't raise enough
stink, there's not a chance of stopping it'

A Texas member of Congress is warning Americans that unless they act – and act now – the nation soon will have a "hate crimes" law that actually was written so that it protects pedophiles and others with alternative sexual orientations such as voyeurism and exhibitionism.

"If you guys don't raise enough stink there's not chance of stopping it," U.S. Rep. Louis Gohmert said today on a radio program with WND columnist Janet Porter. She's the chief of the Faith2Action Christian ministry and has coordinated a campaign to allow citizens to send overnight letters to members of the U.S. Senate expressing opposition to the plan.

Already well over 2,000 people have utilized the procedures and more than 200,000 letters have been dispatched to members of the Senate.

"It's entirely in the hands of your listeners and people across the country," Gohmert told Porter. "If you guys put up a strong enough fight, that will give backbone enough to the 41 or 42 in the Senate to say we don't want to have our names on that."

WND has reported multiple times on the developing legislation – a plan that failed under President George W. Bush when he determined it was unnecessary and most likely unconstitutional.

An analysis by Shawn D. Akers, policy analyst with Liberty Counsel, said the proposal, formally known as H.R. 1913, the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act bill in the House and S. 909 in the Senate, would create new federal penalties against those whose "victims" were chosen based on an "actual or perceived… sexual orientation, gender identity."

He warned Porter during the interview that even her introduction of him, and references to the different sexual orientations, could be restricted if the plan becomes law.

"You can't talk like that once this becomes law," he said.

He said the foundational problem with the bill is that it is based on lies: it assumes there's an epidemic of crimes in the United States – especially actions that cross state lines – that is targeting those alternative sexual lifestyles.

"When you base a law on lies, you're going to have a bad law," he said. "This 'Pedophilia Protection Act,' a 'hate crimes' bill, is based on the representation that there's a epidemic of crimes based on bias and prejudice. It turns out there are fewer crimes now than there were 10 years ago."

He said he fought in committee and in the House, where it was approved 249-175, to correct some of the failings, including his repeated requests for definitions in the bill for terms such as "sexual orientation."

Majority Democrats refused, he said. He said that leaves the definition up to a standard definition in the medical field, which includes hundreds of "philias" and "isms" and would be protected.

Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Fla., a "hate crimes" supporter, confirmed that worry, saying:

This bill addresses our resolve to end violence based on prejudice and to guarantee that all Americans regardless of race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability or all of these 'philias' and fetishes and 'ism's' that were put forward need not live in fear because of who they are. I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of this rule…"

President Obama, supported strongly during his campaign by homosexual advocates, appears ready to respond to their desires.

"I urge members on both sides of the aisle to act on this important civil rights issue by passing this legislation to protect all of our citizens from violent acts of intolerance," he said.

But Gohmert pointed out that if an exhibitionist flashes a woman, and she responds by slapping him with her purse, he has probably committed a misdemeanor while she has committed a federal felony hate crime.

"That's how ludicrous this situation is," Gohmert said.

According to published reports, the Senate Judiciary committee may be holding a hearing on the bill on Tuesday.

According to a staunch critic on "hate crimes" provisions, Rev. Ted Pike, "This is a 'hearing' to which no witnesses will probably be called. No troublesome Republican debate or amendments may be allowed."

Akers' analysis said the bill would result in the federalization of "virtually every sexual crime in the United States." And he said it appears to be part of an agenda that would relegate pro-family and traditional marriage advocates into the ranks of "terrorists." Critics also hvae expressed alarm because in committee hearings Democrats admitted that a Christian pastor could be prosecuted under the law if he spoke biblically against homosexuality, someone heard the comments and then committed a crime.

"Under [the plan] the speech of a criminal defendant and the mere membership of the defendant in a given group may be used as evidence of his or her biased motive," Akers said.

He said there's already an effort afoot in the U.S. to list those pro-family organizations "alongside several neo-Nazi groups … to create guilt by the artificial manufactured appearance of association."

The letter to senators being promoted by Porter, in part, says:

"I am writing to urge you to do all in your power to oppose passage of S.909, also known as 'The Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act.'

"Passage of this bill by the U.S. Senate would be reckless and irresponsible not only because of the 'chilling effect' it would have on First Amendment-guaranteed rights to free speech, but also because it would provide, for the first time ever, special legal protections for pedophiles and other sexual offenders.

"If there was ever a time for the Senate to stand and fight with a filibuster, that time is now. We are calling for members of the Senate, Republicans and Democrats alike, to stop S. 909.

"While the bill's supporters have very effectively framed the bill as one that will protect victims from criminal acts, the bill actually has very little to do with protection," Akers wrote.

"The bill does not merely provide stiffer penalties for certain crimes but, rather, represents a substantive and fundamental shift away from the American ideas of free speech and God-given immutable equality and toward the European ideas of state approved speech, state endorsed morality, state-given egality," he said.

Foremost, the bill simply ignores the 14th Amendment requirements that all citizens be protected equally, providing special protections for homosexuals and others with alternative sexual lifestyle choices, he said.

Matt Barber, also of Liberty Counsel, wrote in a commentary, "Not only is this legislation constitutionally dubious on First Amendment grounds, and a prima facie violation of Fourteenth Amendment required 'equal protection of the laws;' it also flies in the face of the Tenth Amendment, which explicitly limits the federal government's authority in such matters to those powers delegated by the U.S. Constitution."

Find out how homosexuality as a "civil right" was sold to America, in the best-selling "Marketing of Evil."

"To illustrate the point, one need look only to the most famous supposed 'hate crimes' victim of all, Matthew Shepard, who, as it later turned out, was killed during a robbery for drug money gone awry.," he wrote. "This fact notwithstanding, the left continues to disgracefully politicize Shepard's memory by claiming he was murdered simply for being 'gay.' … The bizarre irony is palpable. The two thugs who killed Shepard are currently serving life sentences for their crimes – and rightfully so – in the complete absence of any discriminatory and unnecessary 'hate crimes' legislation," he said.

During arguments in the House while the plan was being adopted, lawmakers pointed out the representatives were voting for protection for "all 547 forms of sexual deviancy or 'paraphilias' listed by the American Psychiatric Association."

Porter cited the amendment offering from Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, in committee that was very simple:

The term sexual orientation as used in this act or any amendments to this act does not include pedophilia.

But majority Democrats refused to accept it.

"Having reviewed cases as an appellate judge, I know that when the legislature has the chance to include a definition and refuses, then what we look at is the plain meaning of those words," explained Gohmert. "The plain meaning of sexual orientation is anything to which someone is orientated. That could include exhibitionism, it could include necrophilia (sexual arousal/activity with a corpse) … it could include Urophilia (sexual arousal associated with urine), voyeurism. You see someone spying on you changing clothes and you hit them, they've committed a misdemeanor, you've committed a federal felony under this bill. It is so wrong."

Pastors win challenge to political involvement
IRS rules voter education on moral issues, registration permissible

In a decision that holds ramifications for churches around the country, the Internal Revenue Service found that a non-profit organization that gathered pastors to a series of public policy conferences did not violate the political entanglement laws governing its tax-exempt status.

Prompted by a complaint filed by the Texas Freedom Network, which calls itself "a mainstream voice to counter the religious right," the IRS investigated the Houston-based Niemoller Foundation for organizing during the 2006 election season six pastors briefings, which included speeches from prominent politicians and training for pastors on urging and registering their congregations to vote.

Despite charges that the foundation had therefore engaged in political partisan activity in violation of its tax exempt status, the IRS investigation found "no evidence of political intervention."

"This liberal attempt to intimidate pastors has backfired," said Kelly Shackelford, chief counsel of Liberty Legal Institute, which represented event organizers. "There is now a clear IRS statement outlining these pastors' events and approving them as valid under the law."

Hiram Sasser, director of litigation for the Institute, further explained to WND the ramifications the ruling holds for churches.

"The Niemoller Foundation is a 501(c)(3) organization, just like a church," Sasser explained. "So by the Niemoller activities being granted as lawful, then any church that engages in the same kind of voter education combined with voter registration drives on the moral issues of the day is perfectly fine with the IRS regulations, according to the IRS itself."

Sasser reiterated, "The whole point was to educate everyone about the important social issues and get them to go vote and register others to vote, and the IRS said this was perfectly okay."

The Niemoller Foundation organized six of the pastors conferences across the state of Texas from May through September 2006. The events were described as briefings to educate pastors on major moral issues that often intersect with politics, such as abortion and same sex marriage.

And while neither the foundation nor the gatherings endorsed any individual candidates or political party, keynote speakers at the conferences included prominent Republican politicians, including Texas Governor Rick Perry, who spoke at all six conferences.

In its letter to the IRS, the Texas Freedom Network complained, "No other candidate for governor in the 2006 elections – including then sitting state Comptroller Carole Strayhorn (a Republican who sought election as an independent in the gubernatorial election) or an Democrat or other independent candidate – was invited to attend any of the briefings."

Pointing to the selection of speakers and the effort to train pastors in voter registration, the Texas Freedom Network accused the Neimoller Foundation of "partisan electioneering activities."

The complaint alleged the Foundation "appears to have served as a partisan voter-mobilization tool for the Perry reelection campaign, with affiliated pastors encouraged to use their churches as partisan, political extensions of that campaign."

After reviewing speeches and other materials from the pastors gatherings, however, the IRS did not concur.

"The speaker did not state anything that would have been considered political or request any action of the attendees to vote for or against any legislature," the IRS ruling, released last week, states. "In the speeches provided, no political intervention type activity was noted. Several other speeches by politicians were provided and reviewed: The speeches did not appear to be made in their capacity as a candidate, since no solicitation was made for a vote. Also no appeal was made to sway anyone on the issues. The speeches did not appear to be political intervention. An appeal was made to request attendees to vote and to request their members to register and vote, but in each instance observed they were told to vote their values."

While the IRS does forbid tax exempt organizations under the 501(c)(3) code from overt political entanglements – such as endorsing candidates or requiring members to vote in a certain way – the Liberty Legal Institute's Kelly Shackelford encouraged churches not to be intimidated into political silence.

"Be careful what you hear from these liberal organizations," Shackelford said in a statement. "They sound very confident and file many complaints, yet none are found valid even by the IRS."

Laurence White, director of the Niemoller Foundation and a Lutheran pastor himself, encouraged churches and pastors to get involved.

"We educate churches on moral issues facing our society and encourage them to participate in the democratic process," said White in a statement. "The IRS has unequivocally affirmed the right of pastors nationwide to come together as spokesmen for the Word of God, to interact with political leaders, historians and scholars in discussing the moral issues under debate within our culture and to assert their biblical responsibility to address such issues from their pulpits."

Whaddya mean, 'America
is not a Christian nation'?
Congressmen challenge Obama assertion
by drafting 'spiritual heritage' legislation

While Barack Obama has repeatedly claimed that the U.S. is "no longer a Christian nation," several members of Congress have taken a stand to boldly disagree.

A bipartisan group of 25 members of the House of Representatives earlier this month submitted H.Res. 397, which calls on Congress to affirm "the rich spiritual and religious history of our nation's founding and subsequent history" and to designate the first week of May as America's Spiritual Heritage Week for "the appreciation of and education on America's history of religious faith."

Rep. Randy Forbes, R-Va., specifically challenged the president's claims that America is not a Christian nation in a news conference announcing the bill immediately following last week's National Day of Prayer observance.

"The overwhelming evidence suggests that this nation was born and birthed with Judeo-Christian principles," Forbes told reporters, "and I would challenge anybody to tell me that point in time when we ceased to be so, because it doesn't exist."

Read for yourself the timeless evidence of Christianity's impact on America in the freshly republished "Christianity and the American Commonwealth."

The bill itself cites over 70 historical references and quotes from past presidents, Founding Fathers and Supreme Court decisions as proof that Judeo-Christian principles have been the foundation of our nation.

H.Res. 397, which has now accumulated 41 cosponsors, not only calls on Congress to affirm the nation's spiritual heritage, but also resolves that the U.S. House of Representatives "rejects, in the strongest possible terms, any effort to remove, obscure or purposely omit such history from our nation's public buildings and educational resources."

The full text of H.Res. 397 begins by asserting that "religious faith was not only important in official American life during the periods of discovery, exploration, colonization and growth but has also been acknowledged and incorporated into all three branches of the federal government from their very beginning."

The bill's long list of "whereas" affirmations begins with the statement, "Whereas the Supreme Court of the United States affirmed this self-evident fact in a unanimous ruling declaring 'This is a religious people. … From the discovery of this continent to the present hour, there is a single voice making this affirmation.'"

Among the many historical proofs included in the bill were the following:

* Whereas in 1777, Congress, facing a national shortage of '"Bibles for our schools, and families, and for the public worship of God in our churches," announced that they "desired to have a Bible printed under their care and by their encouragement" and therefore ordered 20,000 copies of the Bible to be imported;

* Whereas in 1782, Congress pursued a plan to print a Bible that would be "a neat edition of the Holy Scriptures for the use of schools' and therefore approved the production of the first English language Bible printed in America that contained the congressional endorsement that 'the United States in Congress assembled … recommend this edition of the Bible to the inhabitants of the United States";

* Whereas the 1783 Treaty of Paris that officially ended the Revolution and established America as an independent [nation] begins with the appellation "In the name of the most holy and undivided Trinity";

* Whereas in 1795, during construction of the Capitol, a practice was instituted whereby "public worship is now regularly administered at the Capitol, every Sunday morning, at 11 o'clock";

* Whereas in 1789, Congress, in the midst of framing the Bill of Rights and the First Amendment, passed the first federal law touching education, declaring, "Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged";

* Whereas by 1867, the church at the Capitol was the largest church in Washington, D.C., with up to 2,000 people a week attending Sunday service in the Hall of the House;

* Whereas in 1853, the United States Senate declared that the Founding Fathers "had no fear or jealousy of religion itself, nor did they wish to see us an irreligious people. … They did not intend to spread over all the public authorities and the whole public action of the nation the dead and revolting spectacle of atheistical apathy";

* Whereas in 1854, the United States House of Representatives declared "It [religion] must be considered as the foundation on which the whole structure rests. … Christianity, in its general principles, is the great conservative element on which we must rely for the purity and permanence of free institutions";

* Whereas President John Adams, one of only 2 signers of the Bill of Rights and First Amendment, declared "As the safety and prosperity of nations ultimately and essentially depend on the protection and the blessing of Almighty God, and the national acknowledgment of this truth is not only an indispensable duty which the people owe to Him";

* Whereas President Andrew Jackson declared that the Bible "is the rock on which our Republic rests";

* Whereas President Franklin D. Roosevelt not only led the Nation in a six-minute prayer during D-Day on June 6, 1944, but he also declared, "If we will not prepare to give all that we have and all that we are to preserve Christian civilization in our land, we shall go to destruction";

* Whereas President Dwight D. Eisenhower declared, "Without God there could be no American form of government, nor an American way of life. Recognition of the Supreme Being is the first, the most basic, expression of Americanism. Thus, the Founding Fathers of America saw it, and thus with God's help, it will continue to be," in a declaration later repeated with approval by President Gerald Ford;

* Whereas the United States Supreme Court has declared throughout the course of our Nation's history that the United States is "a Christian country," "a Christian nation," "a Christian people," "a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being," and that "we cannot read into the Bill of Rights a philosophy of hostility to religion"

Following the lengthy "whereas" section, the bill then calls on the House to resolve to affirm the spiritual history of the nation, reject efforts to cleanse that religious history and establish America's Spiritual History Week to appreciate and educate the citizenry on the country's foundations in faith.

Forbes was joined in announcing the bill's introduction by several members of Congress who spoke in favor of the bill, religious leaders like Dr. James and Shirley Dobson, professional football player Shaun Alexander, and leaders of several national education, policy and advocacy groups.

Asked last year to clarify his remarks on America's spiritual heritage, Obama repeated them to the Christian Broadcast Network: "I think that the right might worry a bit more about the dangers of sectarianism. Whatever we once were, we're no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers," Obama wrote in an e-mail to CBN News senior national correspondent David Brody.

"We should acknowledge this and realize that when we're formulating policies from the statehouse to the Senate floor to the White House, we've got to work to translate our reasoning into values that are accessible to every one of our citizens, not just members of our own faith community," wrote Obama.

Rep. Mike McIntyre, D-N.C., who serves as co-chair of the Congressional Prayer Caucus with Rep. Forbes, spoke at the press conference announcing H.Res. 397 and asserted to the contrary that it's "high time" the nation recognize and affirm the "integral part of our nation's history" that Christianity has played.

McIntyre said Americans don't know, for example, that even Ben Franklin, who "wasn't known as the most spiritual of the Founding Fathers," nonetheless looked to God as the only hope for our country:

"Ben Franklin," McIntyre said, "stood up and called the assembly of delegates to prayer, because, he said, 'Scripture teaches us that if a sparrow can't fall to the ground without his notice, is it likely that an empire will rise without his aid?' And if we don't first go to prayer, he said, 'We'll be no more successful then the builders of Babel.'"

Quote from: Pastor Roger on May 17, 2009, 01:25:48 PM

Praise GOD and Amen!

Obama renews vow to close Gitmo
Pushing transfer of some terror suspects to U.S. 'supermax' prisons

In a scathing attack on the Bush administration, President Obama stood steadfast Thursday in his pledge to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and transfer some terror suspects to federal "supermax" prisons in the United States.

Accusing the Bush administration of creating "a misguided experiment" that created more threats to America, Obama told an audience at the National Archives in Washington, D.C., that the Guantanamo facility will be shuttered by his deadline of January 2010. He also tried to assure that no prisoners who pose a danger to the U.S. will be set free.

"Let me begin by disposing of one argument as plainly as I can: we are not going to release anyone if it would endanger our national security, nor will we release detainees within the United States who endanger the American people," Obama said.

"Where demanded by justice and national security, we will seek to transfer some detainees to the same type of facilities in which we hold all manner of dangerous and violent criminals within our borders -- highly secure prisons that ensure the public safety. As we make these decisions, bear in mind the following fact: nobody has ever escaped from one of our federal 'supermax' prisons, which hold hundreds of convicted terrorists," he continued.

On Wednesday, the Senate rebuked Obama's request for funding to close the Guantanamo prison, withholding on a 90-6 vote $80 million that would go to shutting down the facility until the president presents a plan for what to do with the remaining detainees. That followed a similar move last week in the House, underscoring widespread apprehension among Obama's Democratic allies in Congress over the issue.

Both Democrats and Republicans have faced an uproar in their districts over the possibility that terror suspects would be housed in local prisons, making it more difficult for administration officials to convince European and Muslim allies to take some of the detainees.

The administration got no help Wednesday when FBI Director Robert Mueller told Congress that bringing Guantanamo detainees to the United States could pose a number of risks, even if they were kept in maximum-security prisons. Attorney General Eric Holder quickly responded that Obama would never do anything to endanger Americans.

In announcing the latest approach to Gitmo, Obama offered few concrete details. But he cited Pentagon numbers that show one in seven of the 534 detainees already released from the prison have returned to the battlefield. He used that as evidence that the Bush administration's approach to prosecuting the detainees didn't work.

"We are acutely aware that under the last administration, detainees were released only to return to the battlefield. That is why we are doing away with the poorly planned, haphazard approach that let those detainees go in the past," Obama said.

He said his decision to close Guantanamo did not create the legal challenges that currently exist; those preceded him. But, he said, "if we refuse to deal with these issues today, then I guarantee you that they will be an albatross around our efforts to combat terrorism in the future."

The president announced five categories of prisoner that the administration will use to evaluate the 240 detainees who are still at Guantanamo:

-- Those who have violated American criminal laws and will be tried in federal courts;

-- Those who violated the laws of war and are best tried through military commissions;

-- Those who have been ordered released by the courts;

-- Those who can be transferred safely to another country;

-- Those who cannot be prosecuted, but pose a clear danger to the American people.

Obama defined the final category as detainees who have trained at Al Qaeda camps, commanded Taliban troops in battle, expressed allegiance to Usama bin Laden or "made it clear that they want to kill Americans."

"I want to be honest: this is the toughest issue we will face," Obama said of the final category. "We are going to exhaust every avenue that we have to prosecute those at Guantanamo who pose a danger to our country. But even when this process is complete, there may be a number of people who cannot be prosecuted for past crimes, but who nonetheless pose a threat to the security of the United States."

Early Thursday, Holder announced that the first Al Qaeda suspect held at Guantanamo Bay will be sent to New York to stand trial for the deadly 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa. The suspect, Ahmed Ghailani, will stand trial in a civilian criminal court.

"This guy was picked up on the battlefield in Afghanistan," said Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee. But since Ghailani was linked to the embassy bombings, he is being prosecuted on U.S. soil.

"That same kind of evidence, those same kinds of standards weren't in place and aren't in place for many of the other guys," Hoekstra said.

The president used strong language to condemn the Bush administration, claiming a "flood of legal challenges arose" because of how the Guantanamo facility was used. He said those challenges consume the time of "government officials whose time should be spent on better protecting our country."

"The Supreme Court that invalidated the system of prosecution at Guantanamo in 2006 was overwhelmingly appointed by Republican presidents," Obama said. "In other words, the problem of what to do with Guantanamo detainees was not caused by my decision to close the facility; the problem exists because of the decision to open Guantanamo in the first place."

The president said he would refuse "to allow this problem to fester," or for politicization of the issue to prevent solutions. He accused his opponents of "fear-mongering" by suggesting that bringing prisoners to the U.S. will threaten Americans.

"Listening to the recent debate, I've heard words that are calculated to scare people rather than educate them; words that have more to do with politics than protecting our country," he said.

The president rejected the idea of an independent commission that would investigate the whole range of national security issues under the Bush administration.

"I know that these debates lead directly to a call for a fuller accounting, perhaps through an independent commission," he said. But "our existing democratic institutions are strong enough to deliver accountability," he said.

However, Obama's coming up with a plan without congressional input is also a non-starter to some.

"I hope the president doesn't announce a plan for Guantanamo today. You know why? Because if he does, he will have developed a plan, and he will never have consulted with Congress, either Republicans or Democrats, as to what that plan should be," Hoekstra said.

"It's a tough issue ... we ought to be working together to get a resolution to this," he added.

Immediately after Obama spoke, former Vice President Dick Cheney, a strong supporter of the Guantanamo facility, spoke at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

Cheney had been invited to speak months before, but the timing of the two speeches set up a contrast in the two administrations' approaches. Cheney praised Obama's decision to withhold photos of alleged abuse of detainees by U.S. military abroad.

But he added, "When he faults or mischaracterizes the national security decisions we made in the Bush years, he deserves an answer."

CO2 - THE BREATH OF LIFE

By Phil Brennan

In his celebrated novel "1984" George Orwell wrote about Emmanuel Goldstein - a despicable - and fictional - enemy of the people created by the state to justify the perpetual war against an imaginary enemy being waged as a device to justify it's draconian dictatorship.

There's a new Emmanuel Goldstein in the process of being created by Congressional Democrats to frighten Americans into accepting a measure that would impose crippling economic costs on the American people - it's called CO2 and unlike Goldstein it's real and omnipresent.

We are told that this invisible gas is a dangerous pollutant and greenhouse gas largely responsible for alleged global warming. Moreover, it is wreaking its havoc on the planet because evil humanity is producing dangerous amounts of CO2 and lofting it into the atmosphere and creating a threat to the future of the planet.

We are warned that unless it is controlled by governmental fiat we're all doomed to be parboiled sometime in the future.

Now pending in the House of Representatives is a bill - the 648-page American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 co-authored by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Cal)and Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass), and better known as the Cap and Trade bill. If enacted it would impose crippling restrictions and substantial costs on the American people.

It is estimated to increase the typical family's energy costs by a minimum of $3,100 a year and over a span of 20 years result in $7 trillion in reduced economic output and vast unemployment according to the Orange County Register.

Even the Environmental Protection Agency has warned that U.S. regulation of so-called greenhouse gases such as Carbon Dioxide "is likely top have serious economic consequences."

All of this economic disruption in an effort to reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and thus halt global warming.

So just what is this atmospheric pollutant we call carbon dioxide? Is it a deadly greenhouse gas much of which we'd be well rid of?

Hardly.

Without it we'd all be dead. Plant life would vanish, and with it all of humanity.

Simply put, plants inhale CO2, convert it into sugars that enable them to grow and thrive, and exhale oxygen - the stuff that keeps us alive. According to Dr. Tim Ball, a renowned environmental consultant and retired professor of climatology at the University of Winnipeg, plants require CO2 to exist as we require oxygen to exist. As the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere increases the plants grow more vigorously. Current levels of atmospheric CO2 is 385 ppm but research shows that plants grow most vigorously at 1000 to 1200 ppm which is why commercial greenhouse pump that much into their atmospheres.

Some pollutant!

Dr. Ball warns that if we reduce CO2 levels down to about 250 ppm from the current level of 385 ppm the plants start to die and 150 ppm they are all dead - and so are we.

Says Dr. Ball, "One could cynically argue that this is the goal of extreme environmentalists and the streak of anti-humanism that pervades their thinking."

Aside from the fact that instead of being a pollutant, CO2 is vital to our very existence, what is happening now is disproving the false allegation that rising levels of CO2 increase global temperatures. Those levels have been shooting up over the past decade yet temperature levels have been falling for the past ten years. Some climatologists are now warning that the world may well be heading into an elongated period of cooling or even the advent of a new little ice age, or even a big one.

Those are the facts, but facts don't seem to matter to the global warming alarmists now pushing the ruinous Cap and Trade legislation. They remain bound and determined to grind down the economy in pursuit of a will of the wisp agenda that demonizes a substance vital to our very existence and imposes crippling economic damage to the average American family's budget.

Be warned: the House of Representatives is about to pass the ruinous cap and trade bill and impose a new tax on us. Don't say I didn't tell you.

_______________

My mother was one of many that used to joke that the government would one day find a way to tax the air we breath. It does look like that is what is happening.

ON CAPITOL HILL
Barney Frank pushes to legalize marijuana
'Criminalizing choices … is not appropriate in a free society'

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: June 18, 2009
2:52 pm Eastern

© 2009 WorldNetDaily

Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., wants to legalize marijuana and has introduced legislation that would accomplish his goals.

"Criminalizing choices that adults make because we think they are unwise ones, when the choices involved have no negative effect on the rights of others, is not appropriate in a free society," he said in his new announcement about his plans for two bills.

One proposal would remove federal penalties for using marijuana and the second would let people in states where "medical marijuana" is allowed use it freely.

The cosponsors on the bills include Reps. Ron Paul, R-Texas and Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y.

"To those who say that the government should not be encouraging the smoking of marijuana, my response is that I completely agree," Frank's statement said. "But it is a great mistake to divide all human activity into two categories: those that are criminally prohibited, and those that are encouraged."

He called it "poor law enforcement" the maintain laws that establish as a crime "something which in fact society does not seriously wish to prosecute."

Such legal cases, he said, are "a waste of scarce resources better used for serious crimes."

Especially important is the use of marijuana for medical purposes, he explained.

"When doctors recommend the use of marijuana for their patients and states are willing to permit it, I think it's wrong for the federal government to subject either the doctors or the patients to criminal prosecution. More broadly speaking, the norm in America is for the states to decide whether particular behaviors should be made criminal. To make the smoking of marijuana, whether for medical purposes or not, one of those extremely rare instances of federal crime – literally, to make a 'federal case' out of it – is wholly disproportionate to the activity involved," he said.

According to the Marijuana Policy Project, the proposal "represents a major step toward sanity in federal marijuana policy."

Spokesman Aaron Houston said, "Our decades-long war on marijuana has given us the worst of all possible worlds – a drug that's widely used and universally available but produced and sold entirely by unregulated criminals who obey no rules and pay no taxes."

According to a recent report in Jerome Corsi's Red Alert, President Obama appeared to have no coherent foreign policy toward Mexico, "unless the administration plans to legalize drugs to end bloodshed across the border and accept millions of Mexican refugees."

When Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently traveled to Mexico, she blamed the United States for the drug war, claiming the nation's demand for drugs and its supply of weapons are essential elements supporting drug lords.

"Those policy pronouncements sounded dangerously as if the Obama administration is setting the stage for legalizing drugs, starting with marijuana, and attacking the Second Amendment," Corsi wrote.

And a recent report in Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin said Mexico's drug cartels may be finding success in their campaigns of drug dealing and violence in the United States because of the disorganization of U.S. law enforcement agencies whose agents are supposed to be protecting the border against smuggling and unauthorized entry.

That comes from the U.S. Government Accountability Office, or GAO, which confirms that "operational inefficiencies," long-standing disputes among enforcement agencies and the resulting lack of coordination are among some of the deficiencies contributing to the situation.

NSA has ability to collect, read domestic e-mails of Americans on widespread basis

nytimes.com/

The National Security Agency is facing renewed scrutiny over the extent of its domestic surveillance program, with critics in Congress saying its recent intercepts of the private telephone calls and e-mail messages of Americans are broader than previously acknowledged, current and former officials said.

The agency’s monitoring of domestic e-mail messages, in particular, has posed longstanding legal and logistical difficulties, the officials said.

Since April, when it was disclosed that the intercepts of some private communications of Americans went beyond legal limits in late 2008 and early 2009, several Congressional committees have been investigating. Those inquiries have led to concerns in Congress about the agency’s ability to collect and read domestic e-mail messages of Americans on a widespread basis, officials said. Supporting that conclusion is the account of a former N.S.A. analyst who, in a series of interviews, described being trained in 2005 for a program in which the agency routinely examined large volumes of Americans’ e-mail messages without court warrants. Two intelligence officials confirmed that the program was still in operation.

Both the former analyst’s account and the rising concern among some members of Congress about the N.S.A.’s recent operation are raising fresh questions about the spy agency.

Representative Rush Holt, Democrat of New Jersey and chairman of the House Select Intelligence Oversight Panel, has been investigating the incidents and said he had become increasingly troubled by the agency’s handling of domestic communications.

In an interview, Mr. Holt disputed assertions by Justice Department and national security officials that the overcollection was inadvertent.

“Some actions are so flagrant that they can’t be accidental,” Mr. Holt said.

Other Congressional officials raised similar concerns but would not agree to be quoted for the record.

Mr. Holt added that few lawmakers could challenge the agency’s statements because so few understood the technical complexities of its surveillance operations. “The people making the policy,” he said, “don’t understand the technicalities.”

The inquiries and analyst’s account underscore how e-mail messages, more so than telephone calls, have proved to be a particularly vexing problem for the agency because of technological difficulties in distinguishing between e-mail messages by foreigners and by Americans. A new law enacted by Congress last year gave the N.S.A. greater legal leeway to collect the private communications of Americans so long as it was done only as the incidental byproduct of investigating individuals “reasonably believed” to be overseas.

But after closed-door hearings by three Congressional panels, some lawmakers are asking what the tolerable limits are for such incidental collection and whether the privacy of Americans is being adequately protected.

“For the Hill, the issue is a sense of scale, about how much domestic e-mail collection is acceptable,” a former intelligence official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because N.S.A. operations are classified. “It’s a question of how many mistakes they can allow.”

While the extent of Congressional concerns about the N.S.A. has not been shared publicly, such concerns are among national security issues that the Obama administration has inherited from the Bush administration, including the use of brutal interrogation tactics, the fate of the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and whether to block the release of photographs and documents that show abuse of detainees.

In each case, the administration has had to navigate the politics of continuing an aggressive intelligence operation while placating supporters who want an end to what they see as flagrant abuses of the Bush era.

The N.S.A. declined to comment for this article. Wendy Morigi, a spokeswoman for Dennis C. Blair, the national intelligence director, said that because of the complex nature of surveillance and the need to adhere to the rules of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the secret panel that oversees surveillance operation, and “other relevant laws and procedures, technical or inadvertent errors can occur.”

“When such errors are identified,” Ms. Morigi said, “they are reported to the appropriate officials, and corrective measures are taken.”

In April, the Obama administration said it had taken comprehensive steps to bring the security agency into compliance with the law after a periodic review turned up problems with "overcollection" of domestic communications. The Justice Department also said it had installed new safeguards.

Under the surveillance program, before the N.S.A. can target and monitor the e-mail messages or telephone calls of Americans suspected of having links to international terrorism, it must get permission from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Supporters of the agency say that in using computers to sweep up millions of electronic messages, it is unavoidable that some innocent discussions of Americans will be examined. Intelligence operators are supposed to filter those out, but critics say the agency is not rigorous enough in doing so.

The N.S.A. is believed to have gone beyond legal boundaries designed to protect Americans in about 8 to 10 separate court orders issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, according to three intelligence officials who spoke anonymously because disclosing such information is illegal. Because each court order could single out hundreds or even thousands of phone numbers or e-mail addresses, the number of individual communications that were improperly collected could number in the millions, officials said. (It is not clear what portion of total court orders or communications that would represent.)

"Say you get an order to monitor a block of 1,000 e-mail addresses at a big corporation, and instead of just monitoring those, the N.S.A. also monitors another block of 1,000 e-mail addresses at that corporation," one senior intelligence official said. "That is the kind of problem they had."

Overcollection on that scale could lead to a significant number of privacy invasions of American citizens, officials acknowledge, setting off the concerns among lawmakers and on the secret FISA court.

"The court was not happy" when it learned of the overcollection, said an administration official involved in the matter.

Defenders of the agency say it faces daunting obstacles in trying to avoid the improper gathering or reading of Americans' e-mail as part of counterterrorism efforts aimed at foreigners.

Several former intelligence officials said that e-mail traffic from all over the world often flows through Internet service providers based in the United States. And when the N.S.A. monitors a foreign e-mail address, it has no idea when the person using that address will send messages to someone inside the United States, the officials said.

The difficulty of distinguishing between e-mail messages involving foreigners from those involving Americans was "one of the main things that drove" the Bush administration to push for a more flexible law in 2008, said Kenneth L. Wainstein, the homeland security adviser under President George W. Bush. That measure, which also resolved the long controversy over N.S.A.'s program of wiretapping without warrants by offering immunity to telecommunications companies, tacitly acknowledged that some amount of Americans' e-mail would inevitably be captured by the N.S.A.

But even before that, the agency appears to have tolerated significant collection and examination of domestic e-mail messages without warrants, according to the former analyst, who spoke only on condition of anonymity.

He said he and other analysts were trained to use a secret database, code-named Pinwale, in 2005 that archived foreign and domestic e-mail messages. He said Pinwale allowed N.S.A. analysts to read large volumes of e-mail messages to and from Americans as long as they fell within certain limits - no more than 30 percent of any database search, he recalled being told - and Americans were not explicitly singled out in the searches.

The former analyst added that his instructors had warned against committing any abuses, telling his class that another analyst had been investigated because he had improperly accessed the personal e-mail of former President Bill Clinton.

Other intelligence officials confirmed the existence of the Pinwale e-mail database, but declined to provide further details.

The recent concerns about N.S.A.'s domestic e-mail collection follow years of unresolved legal and operational concerns within the government over the issue. Current and former officials now say that the tracing of vast amounts of American e-mail traffic was at the heart of a crisis in 2004 at the hospital bedside of John Ashcroft, then the attorney general, as top Justice Department aides staged a near revolt over what they viewed as possibly illegal aspects of the N.S.A.'s surveillance operations.

James Comey, then the deputy attorney general, and his aides were concerned about the collection of "meta-data" of American e-mail messages, which show broad patterns of e-mail traffic by identifying who is e-mailing whom, current and former officials say. Lawyers at the Justice Department believed that the tracing of e-mail messages appeared to violate federal law.

"The controversy was mostly about that issue," said a former administration official involved in the dispute.

IRS tells pro-lifers to give up 1st Amendment
Requires affirmation they will not 'protest'

The Internal Revenue Service has told members of the Coalition for Life of Iowa they would have to give up their 1st Amendment rights in order to be recognized as a non-profit organization, according to a complaint being pursued by members of the Thomas More Society.

The organization incorporated in 2004 as a not-for-profit under Iowa law and has been operating strictly within the guidelines for groups set up for religious, educational and charitable purposes, a letter sent to the IRS last week said.

"As detailed in its … narrative, the Coalition for Life carries out its tax-exempt work by sponsoring educational forums and coordinating with other like-minded groups to educate the public and otherwise promote sanctity of life principles," the letter continues.

"The Coalition is aware that from time to time, individuals who may or may not be involved with the Coalition gather for prayer outside of a Planned Parenthood facility. These gatherings are consistently small (ten or fewer people), peaceful, not in any way disrupting, and consist solely of silent and spoken prayers," the lawyer wrote.

However, an IRS agent then contacted the Coalition, through its president Susan Martinek, demanding to know whether the group "engaged in any 'picketing' or 'protest' activities at Planned Parenthood. … You then asked Ms. Martinek to have all Coalition Board members sign a statement that the Coalition will not 'picket' or 'protest' outside of Planned Parenthood or similar organizations and will not 'organize' others to do so," the law firm's letter said.

Concerned over the sudden restrictions on free speech, freedom of association and freedom of religion rights, the Coalition contact legal counsel, and attorney Sally Wagenmaker said she contacted the IRS about the issue.

"You expressed the legally erroneous view that the Coalition is not allowed per se to engage in 'advocacy' as a section 501(c)(3) organization," the attorney said.

"The IRS' requests come perilously close to violating the First Amendment constitutional rights of the Coalition's supporters, and they are not otherwise germane to the Coalition for Life's pending ... application. As you acknowledged verbally to me over the telephone, the Coalition's application is now ripe for approval. The IRS's delay and questioning … constitutes unnecessary and prejudicial interference with the Coalition's legal right to a tax-exempt determination."

"This is the way government oppression creeps into a society," said Judie Brown, president of American Life League. "It starts when the government targets, and attempts to intimidate and silence the grassroots dissenters who will not dance to the tune of the Obama administration’s radically pro-abortion policies."

"This is not only political intimidation by the Internal Revenue Service but it is a blatant violation of First Amendment rights," Brown said. "Neither the Coalition for Life of Iowa nor any other educational and advocacy organization should be subjected to such discriminatory scrutiny. This is a clear case of government repression."

Quote from: Pastor Roger on July 09, 2009, 08:57:37 AM

(http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x125/luvmarley_bucket/laugh082.jpg) I want to tear my hair out at what is going on around here!

Rising debt may be next crisis

apnews

The Founding Fathers left one legacy not celebrated on Independence Day but which affects us all. It's the national debt.

The country first got into debt to help pay for the Revolutionary War. Growing ever since, the debt stands today at a staggering $11.4 trillion - equivalent to about $37,000 for each and every American. And it's expanding by over $1 trillion a year.

The mountain of debt easily could become the next full-fledged economic crisis without firm action from Washington, economists of all stripes warn.

"Unless we demonstrate a strong commitment to fiscal sustainability in the longer term, we will have neither financial stability nor healthy economic growth," Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke recently told Congress.

Higher taxes, or reduced federal benefits and services - or a combination of both - may be the inevitable consequences.

The debt is complicating efforts by President Barack Obama and Congress to cope with the worst recession in decades as stimulus and bailout spending combine with lower tax revenues to widen the gap.

Interest payments on the debt alone cost $452 billion last year - the largest federal spending category after Medicare-Medicaid, Social Security and defense. It's quickly crowding out all other government spending. And the Treasury is finding it harder to find new lenders.

The United States went into the red the first time in 1790 when it assumed $75 million in the war debts of the Continental Congress.

Alexander Hamilton, the first treasury secretary, said, "A national debt, if not excessive, will be to us a national blessing."

Some blessing.

Since then, the nation has only been free of debt once, in 1834-1835.

The national debt has expanded during times of war and usually contracted in times of peace, while staying on a generally upward trajectory. Over the past several decades, it has climbed sharply - except for a respite from 1998 to 2000, when there were annual budget surpluses, reflecting in large part what turned out to be an overheated economy.

The debt soared with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and economic stimulus spending under President George W. Bush and now Obama.

The odometer-style "debt clock" near Times Square - put in place in 1989 when the debt was a mere $2.7 trillion - ran out of numbers and had to be shut down when the debt surged past $10 trillion in 2008.

The clock has since been refurbished so higher numbers fit. There are several debt clocks on Web sites maintained by public interest groups that let you watch hundreds, thousands, millions zip by in a matter of seconds.

The debt gap is "something that keeps me awake at night," Obama says.

He pledged to cut the budget "deficit" roughly in half by the end of his first term. But "deficit" just means the difference between government receipts and spending in a single budget year.

This year's deficit is now estimated at about $1.85 trillion.

Deficits don't reflect holdover indebtedness from previous years. Some spending items - such as emergency appropriations bills and receipts in the Social Security program - aren't included, either, although they are part of the national debt.

The national debt is a broader, and more telling, way to look at the government's balance sheets than glancing at deficits.

According to the Treasury Department, which updates the number "to the penny" every few days, the national debt was $11,518,472,742,288 on Wednesday.

The overall debt is now slightly over 80 percent of the annual output of the entire U.S. economy, as measured by the gross domestic product.

By historical standards, it's not proportionately as high as during World War II, when it briefly rose to 120 percent of GDP. But it's still a huge liability.

Also, the United States is not the only nation struggling under a huge national debt. Among major countries, Japan, Italy, India, France, Germany and Canada have comparable debts as percentages of their GDPs.

Where does the government borrow all this money from?

The debt is largely financed by the sale of Treasury bonds and bills. Even today, amid global economic turmoil, those still are seen as one of the world's safest investments.

That's one of the rare upsides of U.S. government borrowing.

Treasury securities are suitable for individual investors and popular with other countries, especially China, Japan and the Persian Gulf oil exporters, the three top foreign holders of U.S. debt.

But as the U.S. spends trillions to stabilize the recession-wracked economy, helping to force down the value of the dollar, the securities become less attractive as investments. Some major foreign lenders are already paring back on their purchases of U.S. bonds and other securities.

And if major holders of U.S. debt were to flee, it would send shock waves through the global economy - and sharply force up U.S. interest rates.

As time goes by, demographics suggest things will get worse before they get better, even after the recession ends, as more baby boomers retire and begin collecting Social Security and Medicare benefits.

While the president remains personally popular, polls show there is rising public concern over his handling of the economy and the government's mushrooming debt - and what it might mean for future generations.

If things can't be turned around, including establishing a more efficient health care system, "We are on an utterly unsustainable fiscal course," said the White House budget director, Peter Orszag.

Some budget-restraint activists claim even the debt understates the nation's true liabilities.

The Peter G. Peterson Foundation, established by a former commerce secretary and investment banker, argues that the $11.4 trillion debt figures does not take into account roughly $45 trillion in unlisted liabilities and unfunded retirement and health care commitments.

That would put the nation's full obligations at $56 trillion, or roughly $184,000 per American, according to this calculation.

Madoff leaves Atlanta lockup, headed to NC prison
Jul 14, 2009 (11:35a CDT)
By DEVLIN BARRETT (Associated Press Writer)

WASHINGTON - Disgraced financier Bernard Madoff left a federal prison in Atlanta on Tuesday to start serving an 150-year sentence behind bars in North Carolina.

Federal Bureau of Prisons spokeswoman Linda Thomas said the elderly Madoff left the penitentiary in Atlanta only a day after being transferred there Monday from a federal jail in New York City.

Thomas would not say where Madoff is headed, but a law enforcement official told The Associated Press Madoff is destined for a federal prison in Butner, N.C., to begin serving his sentence. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the person wasn't authorized to discuss prisoner transfers.

Madoff has a projected release date of November 14, 2139, assuming he gets early release credit for good behavior while in prison. He is listed in Bureau of Prisons records as prisoner number 61727-054.

The 71-year-old Madoff pleaded guilty in March to charges that his investment advisory business was a multibillion-dollar scheme that wiped out thousands of investors and ruined charities.

Authorities said Madoff had carried out the fraud for at least two decades before confessing to his sons in December that his investment business was a fraud and that he had lost as much as $50 billion.

The Butner Federal Correctional Complex, located about 45 miles northwest of Raleigh, includes two medium-security facilities, a low-security facility and a hospital, according to the Bureau of Prisons Web site. Within the federal prison system, it is perhaps best known for its hospital facility to treat elderly or ill prisoners.

Among the well-known criminals being held at Butner are:

_ John Rigas, founder of Adelphia Communications, and his son, Tim, the company's chief financial officer. They were convicted on multiple charges of securities fraud, conspiracy to commit bank fraud and bank fraud.

_ Jonathan Pollard, the American convicted of spying for Israel more than two decades ago.

_ Omar Abdel-Rahman, also known as the blind sheik, who was sentenced to life in prison in 1995 for his role in a plot to kill Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and blow up New York City landmarks, including the United Nations. He was sentenced to life in prison in 1995 and moved to Butner in 2007.

This is a good example of American Justice and I wanted to bring it up because as I read this I thought, should Barak O. be found eventually to be the imposter that we believe he is, be afforded anything less. I don't see how he could be impeached since it would be proven that that he doesn't belong there anyway. He couldn't be tried for treason since he is not an american citizen. He should be imprisoned for the rest of his life for nothing short of Terrorizim, for that is what he is.

Congressman warns of 'Big Brother dossier'
Bill would ensure citizens aren't forced to take extended Census survey

The Obama administration's extended Census survey intended for 3 million people is a plan to create a "government dossier on American citizens," charges a Texas congressman who has introduced a bill to make the lengthy questionnaire voluntary.

"The federal government has a constitutional duty to count the number of people in the United States every 10 years," Republican Ted Poe told WND, "but the federal government has no business keeping a comprehensive personal profile on every American citizen."

Poe fears the government can use the American Community Survey questionnaire to compile detailed information about individuals and "use that information for its own purposes."

"This is Big-Brother at its worst," he said.

Poe's bill, H.R. 3131, is co-sponsored by Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., who has announced she will not complete the census this year.

Bachman told the Washington Times she will only disclose the number of people in her household when responding to the 2010 census She fears ACORN, the community organizing group currently under indictment in several states for alleged voter registration fraud, will be part of the Census Bureau's door-to-door information collection efforts under the direction of the White House.

"A lot of Americans – myself included – have real concerns about the ultimate protection of our sensitive personal information," Bachmann told WND in an e-mail. "I am proud to partner with my colleague, Rep. Poe, on this important initiative that respects the American people's privacy."

WND contacted the White House press office for comment on this story but received no response.

The American Community Survey asks 11-pages of additional questions designed to supplement the 2010 Census all Americans will be asked to complete.

* The first section of the ACS asks for the full name of each person living in the household, the total number of people in the household, how the people are related to each other, the date of birth of each person in the household, the sex and race of each person in the household and whether any of the people in the household are of Hispanic, Latino or Spanish origin.

* The second section surveys housing, asking whether the household lives in a mobile home, a one-family detached home, a one-family home attached to one or more houses, an apartment or a boat, RV or van.

* Then the ACS asks what year the building was built, when "Person No. 1" from the housing section moved into the home; how many acres the home is on; what agricultural products were sold from the property in the last 12 months; whether the property was used as a business; how many separate rooms are in the house; whether the house has hot and cold running water; whether the house has a flush toilet, a shower or bathtub, a sink with a faucet, a stove or range, a refrigerator, and a telephone; how many cars, vans and trucks are kept at the property; and what fuel is most used at the property – gas, electricity, fuel oil or kerosene, coal or coke, wood, solar energy, or "other."

* Further, the housing section asks what was last month's bill for energy, the cost of water and sewage for the housing unit in the last year, whether anyone in the household received food stamps in the last year, the monthly rental or mortgage cost of the unit, an estimate of the resale value of the housing unit, the unit's annual property taxes, and the annual cost of fire, hazard and flood insurance on the property.

* Person No. 1 in the household, the ACS wants to know if that person is a citizen, if the person was born in the U.S. or when the person came to the U.S.; whether the person had attended college in the last three years and what is the highest level of education completed; the person's ancestry or ethnic origin; whether the person speaks a language other than English at home, and if yes, what language; whether the person lived in the housing unit or an apartment a year ago; whether the person is covered by health insurance, and if so, by what type of health insurance.

* Next, Person No. 1 must answer if he/she is deaf or has difficulty hearing; if the person is blind or has serious difficulty seeing even when wearing glasses; if the person has difficulty concentrating, remembering or making decisions because of a physical, mental or emotional condition; whether the person has serious difficulty walking or climbing stairs; whether the person has difficulty bathing or dressing; whether the person has difficulty doing errands alone such as visiting a doctor's office or shopping because of a physical, mental, or emotional condition; what is the person's marital status; whether the person has given birth to any children in the past 12 months; whether the person has any grandchildren under the age of 18 in the house or apartment; whether the person has ever served on active duty in the U.S. armed forces; whether the person has a Veterans Administration service-connected disability rating, and if yes, what percentage is the VA disability rating.

* The ACS also asks whether Person No. 1 worked last week for pay; at what address, town, city and country did the person work last week; how did the person get to work and if by car, bus, railroad, taxi, motorcycle, bicycle or on foot; whether the person, if unemployed, has been actively looking for work in the past four weeks; whether the person, if unemployed, was available to start work if offered a job or recalled to work in the past week; and how many weeks the person worked in the past year and how many hours per week.

* Finally, Person No. 1 must disclose whether their most recent work was for a private for-profit company, a private not-for-profit, a local government, a state government, or the federal government, or whether the person was self employed in their own incorporated or not-incorporated business, or whether the person worked without pay in a family business or on the family farm; the name of the employer; the type of business; whether the business was manufacturing, wholesale trade, retail trade, or other; the exact job description of the person and their most important duties; their income over the past 12 months and the amount of that income that came from wages, salary, commission, bonuses or tips; whether the person received any Social Security or Railroad Retirement benefits, or any other type of public assistance in the past 12 months; and the person's entire income over the past 12 months, both from employment or public welfare sources.

The American Community Survey is available in English or Spanish on the Census Bureau's website.

Pentagon eyes accelerated "bunker buster" bomb

reuters

The Pentagon is seeking to speed deployment of an ultra-large "bunker-buster" bomb on the most advanced U.S. bomber as soon as July 2010, the Air Force said on Sunday, amid concerns over perceived nuclear threats from North Korea and Iran.

The non-nuclear, 30,000-pound Massive Ordnance Penetrator, or MOP, which is still being tested, is designed to destroy deeply buried bunkers beyond the reach of existing bombs.

If Congress agrees to shift enough funds to the program, Northrop Grumman Corp's radar-evading B-2 bomber "would be capable of carrying the bomb by July 2010," said Andy Bourland, an Air Force spokesman.

"The Air Force and Department of Defense are looking at the possibility of accelerating the program," he said. "There have been discussions with the four congressional committees with oversight responsibilities. No final decision has been made."

The precision-guided weapon, built by Boeing Co, could become the biggest conventional bomb the United States has ever used.

Carrying more than 5,300 pounds of explosives. it would deliver more than 10 times the explosive power of its predecessor, the 2,000-pound BLU-109, according to the Pentagon's Defense Threat Reduction Agency, which has funded and managed the seed program.

Chicago-based Boeing, the Pentagon's No. 2 supplier by sales, could be put on contract within 72 hours to build the first MOP production models if Congress signs off, Bourland said.

The threat reduction agency is working with the Air Force to transition the program from "technology demonstration" to acquisition, said Betsy Freeman, an agency spokeswoman.

Both the U.S. Pacific Command, which takes the lead in U.S. military planning for North Korea, and the Central Command, which prepares for contingencies with Iran, appeared to be backing the acceleration request, said Kenneth Katzman, an expert on Iran at the Congressional Research Service, the research arm of Congress.

"It's very possible that the Pentagon wants to send a signal to various countries, particularly Iran and North Korea, that the United States is developing a viable military option against their nuclear programs," Katzman said.

But he cautioned against concluding there was any specific mission in mind at this time.

BIGGEST BOMB

The MOP would be about one-third heavier than the 21,000-pound (9.5 million kg) GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb -- dubbed the "mother of all bombs" -- that was dropped twice in tests at a Florida range in 2003.

The 20-foot-long (6-metre) MOP is built to be dropped from either the B-52 or the B-2 "stealth" bomber. It is designed to penetrate up to 200 feet (61 meters) underground before exploding, according to the U.S. Air Force.

The suspected nuclear facilities of Iran and North Korea are believed to be largely buried underground to escape detection and boost their chances of surviving attack.

During a visit to Jerusalem last week, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates sought to reassure Israel that a drive by President Barack Obama to talk Iran into giving up its nuclear work was not "open-ended."

Iran says its uranium enrichment -- a process with bomb-making potential -- is for energy only and has rejected U.S.-led demands to curb the program.

For its part, North Korea responded to new United Nations sanctions, imposed after it detonated a second nuclear device, by vowing in June to press the production of nuclear weapons and act against international efforts to isolate it.

Congressman wants government GPS in cars

wnd

An Oregon congressman says he wants to test having a government GPS unit in every car so a tax could be imposed on the miles driven.

The proposal, H.R. 3311, which calls for a test project costing $150 million-plus, was introduced by Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore.

"Oregon has successfully tested a Vehicle Miles Traveled fee, and it is time to expand and test the VMT program across the country," he said in a statement on his website. "A VMT system can better assess fees based on use of our roads and bridges, as well as during times of peak congestion, than a fee based on fuel consumption.

"It is time to get creative and find smart ways to rebuild and renew America's deteriorating infrastructure," he said.

His plan calls for the Department of the Treasury to study the plan with projects in every state.

Blumenauer said the Oregon test "charged drivers for the number of miles they traveled rather the fuel they consumed. The test was convenient for drivers, protected personal privacy, and proved to be easily administrable."

In a WND column, however, Henry Lamb raised several concerns unaddressed by the congressman.

For example, what other applications would there be for a GPS unit attached to each car in the nation?

What about "shutting down the vehicle when its allotted emissions cap had been reached."

"Why not?" Lamb wrote, "The current cap-and-trade bill would limit industrial emissions and force each business to pay an extra tax for the privilege of emitting additional carbon dioxide. Why not arbitrarily assign a weekly or monthly cap on auto emissions and shut down the vehicle when that limit is reached? The new Global Positioning Satellite device would have that capability.

"Every American ought to be outraged that such a system is even contemplated," he continued. "This system is the tool that makes slaves of every person who depends upon a vehicle. Every person should consider just how his life would be changed if he were required to get approval from the federal government to start his car."

Lamb said shutting down a vehicle would be among the less intrusive possibilities.

"The proposed GPS road tax system could easily be programmed to listen to and record conversations inside any vehicle. It could stop a vehicle, lock the occupants inside and notify the 'jack boots' that the occupants were en route to a tea party," Lamb wrote. "We would hope that the federal government would never sink to the level of paranoia that gripped Nazi Germany. But then, we also hoped that the federal government would never sink to the level of labeling legal, peaceful assemblies, such as the recent tea parties, as gatherings of potential terrorists."

According to a report at Landlinemag.com, the bill does not call for a removal of the "fuel tax" if a mileage tax is established.

"The current system of levying federal taxes on trucks is as discriminatory as it can be to small business, and harmful, but there are lots of unanswered questions with a VMT," Todd Spencer, vice president of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, told the magazine.

"And those questions need to be resolved before we start launching down that path," he said.

The bill, introduced July 23, has been assigned to the House Subcommittee on Technology and Innovation.

It states the subjects that need to be evaluated include "ease of compliance," "public acceptances," and "geographic and income equity."

The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported besides Oregon's test project, several other states also have considered checking out the idea.

Under the Oregon plan, a dashboard display, a GPS receiver and antenna, mileage counter and a radio were built into several hundred cars. When a driver pulled up to a pump at a specially equipped gas station, a radio sent information about the car's travels to the pump.

Why Israel Is Nervous

online.wsj.

Tension is escalating between the U.S and Israel. The problem: The administration views the Israeli-Palestinian issue as the root of all problems, while Israel is focused on Iran’s nuclear threat, says Elliott Abrams..

The tension in U.S.-Israel relations was manifest this past week as an extraordinary troupe of Obama administration officials visited Jerusalem. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, National Security Advisor James Jones, special Middle East envoy George Mitchell and new White House adviser Dennis Ross all showed up in Israel’s capital in an effort to…well, to do something. It was not quite clear what.

Since President Obama came to office on Jan. 20 and then Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on March 31, the main motif in relations between the two governments has been friction. While nearly 80% of American Jews voted for Mr. Obama, that friction has been visible enough to propel him to meet with American Jewish leaders recently to reassure them about his policies. But last month, despite those reassurances, both the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the Anti-Defamation League issued statements critical of the president’s handling of Israel. Given the warm relations during the Bush years and candidate Obama’s repeated statements of commitment to the very best relations with Israel, why have we fallen into this rut?

U.S.-Israel relations are often depicted as an extended honeymoon, but that’s a false image. Harry Truman, who was a Bible-believing Christian Zionist, defied the secretary of state he so admired, George C. Marshall, and won a place in Israel’s history by recognizing the new state 11 minutes after it declared its independence in 1948. Relations weren’t particularly warm under Eisenhower—who, after all, demanded that Israel, along with Britain and France, leave Suez in 1956. The real alliance began in 1967, after Israel’s smashing victory in the Six Day War, and it was American arms and Nixon’s warnings to the Soviet Union to stay out that allowed Israel to survive and prevail in the 1973 war. Israelis are no fans of President Carter and, as his more recent writings have revealed, his own view of Israel is very hostile. During the George H.W. Bush and Clinton years, there were! moments of close cooperation, but also of great friction—as when Bush suspended loan guarantees to Israel, or when the Clinton administration butted heads with Mr. Netanyahu time after time during peace negotiations. Even during the George W. Bush years, when Israel’s struggle against the terrorist “intifada” and the U.S. “global war on terror” led to unprecedented closeness and cooperation, there was occasional friction over American pressure for what Israelis viewed as endless concessions to the Palestinians to enable the signing of a peace agreement before the president’s term ended. This “special relationship” has been marked by intense and frequent contact and often by extremely close (and often secret) collaboration, but not by the absence of discord.

Yet no other administration, even among those experiencing considerable dissonance with Israel, started off with as many difficulties as Obama’s. There are two explanations for this problem, and the simpler one is personal politics. Mr. Netanyahu no doubt remembers very well the last Democratic administration’s glee at his downfall in 1999, something Dennis Ross admits clearly in his book “The Missing Peace.” The prime minister must wonder if the current bilateral friction is an effort to persuade Israelis that he is not the right man for the job, or at least to persuade them that his policies must be rejected. When Israeli liberals plead for Obama to “talk to Israel,” they are hoping that Obama will help them revive the Israeli Left, recently vanquished in national elections. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that Mr. Obama and his team wish former Foreign Minister Tzipi L! ivni had won the top job and view Mr. Netanyahu and his Likud Party with some suspicion. The result, of course, is to make personal relations among policy makers more difficult, and to make trust and confidence between the two governments harder as well.

But the Obama administration has managed to win the mistrust of most Israelis, not just conservative politicians. Despite his great popularity in many parts of the world, in Israel Obama is now seen as no ally. A June poll found that just 6% of Israelis called him “pro-Israel,” when 88% had seen President George W. Bush that way. So the troubles between the U.S. and Israel are not fundamentally found in the personal relations among policy makers.

The deeper problem—and the more complex explanation of bilateral tensions—is that the Obama administration, while claiming to separate itself from the “ideologues” of the Bush administration in favor of a more balanced and realistic Middle East policy, is in fact following a highly ideological policy path. Its ability to cope with, indeed even to see clearly, the realities of life in Israel and the West Bank and the challenge of Iran to the region is compromised by the prism through which it analyzes events.

The administration view begins with a critique of Bush foreign policy—as much too reliant on military pressure and isolated in the world. The antidote is a policy of outreach and engagement, especially with places like Syria, Venezuela, North Korea and Iran. Engagement with the Muslim world is a special goal, which leads not only to the president’s speech in Cairo on June 4 but also to a distancing from Israel so as to appear more “even-handed” to Arab states. Seen from Jerusalem, all this looks like a flashing red light: trouble ahead.

Iran is the major security issue facing Israel, which sees itself confronting an extremist regime seeking nuclear weapons and stating openly that Israel should be wiped off the map. Israel believes the military option has to be on the table and credible if diplomacy and sanctions are to have any chance, and many Israelis believe a military strike on Iran may in the end be unavoidable. The Obama administration, on the other hand, talks of outstretched hands; on July 15, even after Iran’s election, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said “we understand the importance of offering to engage Iran….direct talks provide the best vehicle….We remain ready to engage with Iran.”

To the Israelis this seems unrealistic, even naïve, while to U.S. officials an Israeli attack on Iran is a nightmare that would upset Obama’s outreach to the Muslim world. The remarkable events in Iran have slowed down U.S. engagement, but not the Iranian nuclear program. If the current dissent in Iran leads to regime change, or if new United Nations sanctions force Iran to abandon its nuclear weapons program, this source of U.S.-Israel tension will disappear. But it is more likely that Iran will forge ahead toward building a weapon, and U.S.-Israel tension will grow as Israel watches the clock tick and sees its options narrowed to two: live with an Iranian bomb, or strike Iran soon to delay its program long enough for real political change to come to that country.

Israel believes the only thing worse than bombing Iran is Iran’s having the Bomb, but the evidence suggests this is not the Obama view.

If Iran is the most dangerous source of U.S.-Israel tension, the one most often discussed is settlements: The Obama administration has sought a total “freeze” on “Israeli settlement growth.” The Israelis years ago agreed there would be no new settlements and no physical expansion of settlements, just building “up and in” inside already existing communities. Additional construction in settlements does not harm Palestinians, who in fact get most of the construction jobs. The West Bank economy is growing fast and the Israelis are removing security roadblocks so Palestinians can get around the West Bank better.

cont.

Why Israel Is Nervous

cont....

A recent International Monetary Fund report stated that “macroeconomic conditions in the West Bank have improved” largely because “Israeli restrictions on internal trade and the passage of people have been relaxed significantly.” What’s more, says the IMF, “continuation of the relaxation of restrictions could result in real GDP growth of 7% for 2009 as a whole.” That’s a gross domestic product growth rate Americans would leap at, so what’s this dispute about?

It is, once again, about the subordination of reality to pre-existing theories. In this case, the theory is that every problem in the Middle East is related to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. The administration takes the view that “merely” improving life for Palestinians and doing the hard work needed to prepare them for eventual independence isn’t enough. Nor is it daunted by the minor detail that half of the eventual Palestine is controlled by the terrorist group Hamas.

Instead, in keeping with its “yes we can” approach and its boundless ambitions, it has decided to go not only for a final peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, but also for comprehensive peace in the region. Mr. Mitchell explained that this “includes Israel and Palestine, Israel and Syria, Israel and Lebanon and normal relations with all countries in the region. That is President Obama’s personal objective vision and that is what he is asking to achieve. In order to achieve that we have asked all involved to take steps.” The administration (pocketing the economic progress Israel is fostering in the West Bank) decided that Israel’s “step” would be to impose a complete settlement freeze, which would be proffered to the Arabs to elicit “steps” from them.
.
But Israelis notice that already the Saudis have refused to take any “steps” toward Israel, and other Arab states are apparently offering weak tea: a quiet meeting here, overflight rights there, but nothing approaching normal relations. They also notice that Mr. Mitchell was in Syria last week, smiling warmly at its repressive ruler Bashar Assad and explaining that the administration would start waiving the sanctions on Syria to allow export of “products related to information technology and telecommunication equipment and parts and components related to the safety of civil aviation” and will “process all eligible applications for export licenses as quickly as possible.” While sanctions on certain Syrian individuals were renewed last week, the message to the regime is that better days lie ahead. Of this approach the Syrian dissident Ammar Abdulhamid told the Wall Street Journ! al, “The regime feels very confident politically now. Damascus feels like it’s getting a lot without giving up anything.” Indeed, no “steps” from Syria appear to be on the horizon, except Mr. Assad’s willingness to come to the negotiating table where he will demand the Golan Heights back but refuse to make the break with Iran and Hezbollah that must be the basis for any serious peace negotiation.

None of this appears to have diminished the administration’s zeal, for bilateral relations with everyone take a back seat once the goal of comprehensive peace is put on the table. The only important thing about a nation’s policies becomes whether it appears to play ball with the big peace effort. The Syrian dictatorship is viciously repressive, houses terrorist groups and happily assists jihadis through Damascus International Airport on their way to Iraq to fight U.S. and Coalition forces, but any concerns we might have are counterbalanced by the desire to get Mr. Assad to buy in to new negotiations with Israel. (Is the new “information technology” we’ll be offering Mr. Assad likely to help dissidents there, or to help him suppress them?)

Future stability in Egypt is uncertain because President Hosni Mubarak is nearing 80, reportedly not in good health, and continues to crush all moderate opposition forces, but this is all ignored as we enlist Mr. Mubarak’s cooperation in the comprehensive peace scheme. As we saw in the latter part of the Clinton and Bush administrations, once you commit to a major effort at an international peace conference or a comprehensive Middle East peace, those goals overwhelm all others.
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Israelis have learned the hard way that reality cannot be ignored and that ideology offers no protection from danger. Four wars and a constant battle against terrorism sobered them up, and made them far less susceptible than most audiences to the Obama speeches that charmed Americans, Europeans, and many Muslim nations. A policy based in realism would help the Palestinians prepare for an eventual state while we turn our energies toward the real challenge confronting the entire region: what is to be done about Iran as it faces its first internal crisis since the regime came to power in 1979.

Mrs. Clinton recently decried “rigid ideologies and old formulas,” but the tension with Israel shows the administration is—up to now—following the old script that attributes every problem in the region to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, while all who live there can see that developments in Iran are in fact the linchpin of the region’s future. The Obama administration’s “old formulas” have produced the current tensions with Israel. They will diminish only if the administration adopts a more realistic view of what progress is possible, and what dangers lurk, in the Middle East.

State preps to relocate quarantined H1N1 victims
'Your home and other less restrictive alternatives are not acceptable'

A blank document from the Iowa Department of Public Health has been discovered online, designed to be filled in with the name of an H1N1 virus victim who is required to relocate from his or her home to a quarantine facility.

The form, which began appearing today in e-mails and on the Internet, has concerned a confused public already swimming in conflicting reports about the severity of the swine flu and intrusive government measures that many fear may be taken if the disease becomes a pandemic.

The Iowa document, which WND confirmed with state officials is authentic, has done little to calm the public's fears.

"The Iowa Department of Public Health has determined that you have had contact with a person with Novel Influenza A H1N1," the form reads. "The Department has determined that it is necessary to quarantine your movement to a specific facility to prevent further spread of this disease.

"The Department has determined that quarantine in your home and other less restrictive alternatives are not acceptable," the document continues, before listing mandatory provisions of compliance with relocation to a quarantine facility.

The blank-form document, which has no name or case number listed, is titled a "Facility Quarantine Order," and though Iowa Department of Public Health Medical Director Patricia Quinlisk confirmed the state has the form, she told WND it's highly unlikely it will ever be used.

"We've had these kinds of template orders for years, but we hardly ever use them," Quinslick said. "I can count on two hands the number of times – in 20 years – that we've had to relocate a person because of quarantine."

Quinslick wasn't certain who released the blank document, or who signed her name to the bottom of it, but she wasn't concerned that it's been made public.

"We're not trying to hide anything," she said. "This is the kind of form we use."

Quinslick told WND her department has prepared similar documents for several contagious diseases to "have them ready just in case."

But at the same time, she said, state law requires that when IPDH does need to quarantine someone, it be done in the least restrictive way possible, which typically means in the person's home.

"Usually when we relocate, it's only because they have no place to be, like a homeless tuberculosis patient," Quinslick said, "One time, I recall, we relocated a homeless man to his relative's house."

The Facility Quarantine Order for the H1N1 virus that has been circulated online illustrates Quinslick's point.

Following the order that a person be removed from his or her home, the form contains a blank for explaining the reason, including one of the following: "the person violated a previously issued home quarantine order, the person does not have an appropriate home setting conducive to home quarantine, etc."

Quinslick told WND it was doubly unlikely the state would use the form, since the swine flu has proven less dangerous than earlier estimates.

"I don't anticipate using [the form] for H1N1, since it's been shown to be a very mild disease," Quinslick said. "We found this spring it's not as serious as feared."

As for fears that Iowa is preparing detention centers for rounding up the people who refuse swine flu shots, Quinslick was quick to dismiss the idea.

"Iowa has no relocation facility currently," she said. "If we can't quarantine a person in their home, we usually use a hotel room. There's not a facility, no gymnasium or anything like that set up.

"And I've never been in on any discussion of forcing people to be vaccinated," she added. "If there's a highly contagious outbreak and a person refuses vaccination, that's fine, they don't need to be vaccinated, but they may need to stay home until we're certain the danger has passed."

Iowa's Facility Quarantine Order = http://www.wnd.com/images/090831quarantine.jpg

Federal Government Will Borrow 40 Percent of the Money It Spends Next Year

cnsnews

According to the Obama administration’s mid-session budget update, the federal government will have to borrow nearly 40 percent of its total expenditures in 2010.

The report, “Mid-Session Review, Budget of the U.S. Government, Fiscal Year 2010,” shows that 39.9 percent of all federal income will be borrowed, making borrowing the single largest share of revenue in 2010. The next largest component of federal revenue is the personal income tax, which accounts for only 27.3 percent of federal funds.

This is only slightly lower than in 2009, when the federal government borrowed 43.3 percent of the money it has spent so far.

The 2010 figures are estimates, based on current policy proposals which have not all been enacted yet. However, all new spending proposals, including spending from initiatives such as health care reform and a proposed cap-and-trade program, would be added to the 2010 deficit.

The revised budget estimates mean that the government will be borrowing the second largest share of federal spending since World War II, when the federal government borrowed 62 percent of the budget in 1943, at the war’s apex. Borrowing, however, dropped off quickly after the war, falling to 28 percent in 1946 – with the government running at a surplus by 1947.

That does not seem to be the case this time, because Obama administration projections show the borrowed share of the budget staying at Cold War levels until 2019, when government will borrow 17.3 percent of its budget.

Overall, the Obama administration forecasts spending to be higher than tax revenues, with spending projected to total $43 trillion from 2010 to 2019, borrowing 20 percent of it – or $9.05 trillion.

This level of borrowing is unprecedented even during recessions. During the long recession of the 1970’s, federal borrowing never rose above 20 percent of total expenditures despite nearly a decade of sluggish economic growth, high inflation and an international oil crisis.

Debt as a share of the budget reached 15 percent during the 1987 recession. Borrowing was generally high during much of the early Reagan administration, reaching a peak of 25 percent in 1983.

However, Obama’s borrowing is 10 times greater than Reagan’s, which was fueled largely by defense spending as America battled the Soviet Union for dominance in the Cold War.

Obama’s 2010 spending is almost entirely domestic, by contrast, with mandatory spending programs, such as the bank bailout and stimulus spending programs nearly equaling defense expenditures despite two ongoing wars.

In fact, defense spending, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, account for 19 percent of federal spending while mandatory programs such as the bailout and the stimulus spending programs account for 18.9 percent.

Entitlement programs, by contrast, including Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid account for 38.2 percent of total government spending.

Non-defense discretionary spending, which includes the rest of the federal government, accounts for 18.5 percent and interest payments on the current federal debt, valued at $11.7 trillion, accounted for 5.2 percent of spending.

Brian Riedel, budget analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said that the historic levels of borrowing proposed by Obama are not likely to abate, due to what he said were anti-growth policies pursued by the president.

“Two-thirds of the budget was eliminated after World War II ended,” Riedel told CNSNews.com. “But that’s not going to happen now. The White House thinks growth is going to rebound pretty quickly … which I find unrealistic, given some of the anti-growth policies that are a part of the president’s budget.

“Tax increases, cap-and-trade, health care, all of these are going to harm the economy, and they’re going to reduce the growth rate long-term,” he added.

“The lower economic growth is – the lower tax revenues come in, and that means higher borrowing is needed to compensate,” said Riedel.

Obama school-'safety' chief: How to jam homosexuality
'If Radical Right can succeed in portraying us as preying on children, we will lose'

Posted: September 13, 2009

© 2009 WorldNetDaily

President Obama's choice to monitor school safety once boasted that he introduced homosexual advocacy into the school system in Massachusetts by manipulating the message presented to lawmakers.

The revelations about Kevin Jennings, who was named assistant deputy secretary for the office of Safe & Drug Free Schools in the U.S. Department of Education, come just as several of Obama's "czars" have come under scrutiny for their actions, opinions and affiliations.

Environmental adviser Van Jones resigned last weekend after revelations of his links to communism and his advocacy for the movement that contends the U.S. government conspired to allow or cause 9/11. Harvard professor Cass Sunstein, confirmed this week by the Senate as the administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the Office of Budget and Management, was exposed for his belief that animals should be given legal rights like humans.

Technically, Jennings is not one of Obama's "czars," who are special advisers to the president accountable to no one but the president. Jennings was named to a post in the Department of Education. However, his hiring did not require legislative oversight, such as the Senate vetting process required for other appointees.

Jennings is the founder and former executive director of the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network, which "works to make schools safe for all students, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity," according to the government announcement of his appointment.

In his position, he's responsible for oversight of programs that involve "safety" for public schools across the nation.

In 1995, he gave a speech in which he described how he has used the concept of "safety" in schools to promote homosexual advocacy in public schools in Massachusetts. He gave a speech called "Winning the Culture War" at the Human Rights Campaign Fund Leadership Conference on March 5 of that year.

Excerpts have been posted on the website of MassResistance, where chief Brian Camenker has worked to oppose the demands of homosexual activists.

In the speech, Jennings described how he was concerned about being described as promoting homosexuality, so he chose to campaign on the idea of "safety" instead.

"If the radical right can succeed in portraying us as preying on children, we will lose. Their language – 'promoting homosexuality' is one example – is laced with subtle and not-so-subtle innuendo that we are 'after their kids,'" he told the conference.

"We must learn from the abortion struggle, where the clever claiming of the term 'pro-life' allowed those who opposed abortion on demand to frame the issue to their advantage, to make sure that we do not allow ourselves to be painted into a corner before the debate even begins."

He continued, "In Massachusetts the effective reframing of this issue was the key to the success of the Governor's Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth. We immediately seized upon the opponent's calling card – safety – and explained how homophobia represents a threat to students' safety by creating a climate where violence, name-calling, health problems, and suicide are common. Titling our report 'Making Schools Safe for Gay and Lesbian Youth,' we automatically threw our opponents onto the defensive and stole their best line of attack. This framing short-circuited their arguments and left them back-pedaling from day one."

Camenker called Jennings' work the "landmark" speech on how to portray the promotion of homosexuality as a "safety" issue in order to gain favor in the eye of the public.

Said Jennings, "Finding the effective frame for your community is the key to victory. It must be linked to universal values that everyone in the community has in common. In Massachusetts, no one could speak up against our frame and say, 'Why, yes, I do think students should kill themselves': this allowed us to set the terms for debate."

MassResistance also has reported that it was Jennings' group that in 2000 held a seminar for public school teens on the benefits of "fisting." The group handed out a document called "The Little Black Book" to young teens, a pornographic homosexual how-to that includes a directory of homosexual bars.

Jennings also has, according to a report from Americans for Truth, condemned the "religious right" with an obscene suggestion.

The report said Jennings, talking to a church audience in New York in 2000, said, "Twenty percent of people are hard-core fair-minded [pro-homosexual] people. Twenty percent are hard-core [anti-homosexual] bigots. We need to ignore the hard-core bigots, get more of the hard-core fair-minded people to speak up, and we’ll pull that 60 percent [of people in the middle] over to our side. That's really what I think our strategy has to be. We have to quit being afraid of the religious right. We also have to quit — I'm trying to find a way to say this. I’m trying not to say, '[F—] 'em!' which is what I want to say, because I don't care what they think!"

Jennings strategy was so successful that his state's governor's "Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth" has brought homosexuality programs into schools throughout the state.

According to the MassResistance website, now parents are "astounded" that homosexual assemblies, plays, clubs, counseling sessions, books and other celebrations of a sexual lifestyle are for "safety."

"In fact, none of these so-called suicide prevention programs have any legitimate medical or psychological basis. No one with actual credentials to deal with suicide, or even mainstream suicide-prevention groups such as the Samaritans, are ever involved. Yet, they're dealing with vulnerable children. Upon examination, you see that all of these programs are simply put together by homosexual activists to normalize homosexuality in the minds of as many kids as possible – and if possible without any parental knowledge or consent," the analysis says.

WND reported earlier when it became known that Jennings was appointed.

At the time, Linda Harvey of Mission America, which educates people on anti-Christian trends in the nation, said it is nothing less than a "tragedy" for an open homosexual who has "had an enormously detrimental impact on the climate in our schools" to be in such a position.

Jennings also wrote the foreword for a book called "Queering Elementary Education: Advancing the Dialogue about Sexualities and Schooling."

Obama to weed out Bush political appointees who careered in; Establishes new political test for career jobs

John Berry, President Obama's director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), has issued a new directive that is clearly designed to weed out any Bush administration political appointees who "careered-into" the civil service.

The directive also effectively establishes a partisan political factor in hiring for career civil service positions in the federal bureaucracy. Berry's agency oversees the federal government's 1.9 million career civil servants.

The OPM was created during the Carter administration to replace the old Civil Service Commission, which was once headed by Teddy Roosevelt in his pre-White House days. The career service was intended to end the spoils system in which federal jobs were used by presidents to reward supporters.

In double-speak language that would make a Soviet apparatchik blush, Berry justifies his directive as merely an attempt to prevent political interference of the career civil service:

"Beginning January 1, 2010, agencies must seek prior approval from OPM before they can appoint a current or recent political appointee to a competitive or non-political excepted service position at any level under the provisions of title 5, United States Code.

"OPM will review these proposed appointments to ensure they comply with merit system principles and applicable civil service laws. I have delegated decisionmaking authority over these matters to career Senior Executives at OPM to avoid any hint of political influence."

In fact, federal agencies have long been required to secure OPM approval before filling a career position with an individual who came into the federal government as either an executive branch political appointee or a congressional staff member. And career Senior Executive Service (SES) employees at OPM have always been involved in the agency's review of such proposed hires.

So Berry is literally saying nothing new while presenting it as if it is new. What is actually new, however, is Berry's subtle introduction of a partisan political standard in the process under the guise of a time limit:

"In no case may an agency make an appointment of the type described below without written authorization from OPM:

"A. The appointment of a current political Schedule A or Schedule C Executive Branch employee or a former political Schedule A or Schedule C Executive Branch employee who held the position within the last five years to a competitive or non-political excepted service position under title 5 of the U.S. Code.

"B.The appointment of a current Non-career SES Executive Branch employee or a former Non-career SES Executive Branch employee who held the position within the last five years to a competitive or non-political excepted service position under title 5 of the U.S. Code."

In other words, if you worked for President Bush in the executive branch at any time during his second term in the White House, you may not be approved. The same applies if you worked for a Republican Member of Congress at any point during the past five years.

Amazingly, even Berry had to acknowledge in his directive that political appointees cannot be barred from career positions because of their political views. The whole point of the career service, after all, is to insure that federal workers are hired on the basis of merit, not their political views.

But by introducing a time factor that may disqualify an individual, Berry effectively creates a semi-covert political factor in the hiring process.

If you are wondering who is John Berry, you can read his official here. Note that he spent a decade handling civil service issues for House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer.

FULL DISCLOSURE: Prior to beginning my career as a journalist, I was a Reagan political appointee in the Senior Executive Service (SES). My job was assistant director for public affairs at OPM, which I held from November 1982 to June 1985. I was thus the fourth generation of my family to serve in the federal government, a fact of which I am quite proud.

I also learned a great deal about the federal bureaucracy and how it works. There are many, many civil servants who are dedicated, hard-working people who serve this nation well. There are also people in the ranks who are time-servers, incompetents, and chronic complainers.

The fundamental problem is the same today, as it was two decades ago when I served at OPM, four decades ago when my father served in the federal bureaucracy and for decades before that: It is all but impossible to fire a career federal employee, thanks to well-meaning but overly strict protections against political inteference in the day-to-day operation of the government.

RedState.com's Erick Erickson also sees an Obama effort to purge the federal government's workforce of all Bush political appointees and former Republican staffers from Congress. Erick notes that "no one is allowed to stand in the way of Barack Obama’s agenda, including his own bureaucracy. This is what happens in third world kleptocracies and totalitarian regimes."

Yes I approve of this bill, even thought there are others that disagree. From what I heard on the news, Texas is thinking of a bill similar to this one.

Arizona Governor Brewer signs immigration bill 1070
- Posted 04/23/2010, 4:00 p.m.

Gov. Jan Brewer has taken a stand on illegal immigration, signing a much-protested bill designed to crack down on the problem. The legislation is being criticized by President Barack Obama who says the bill violates people's civil rights.

Governor Brewer's Statement:

"Thank you for being here today, to join me as we take another step forward in protecting the state of Arizona.

The bill I'm about to sign into law - Senate Bill 1070 - represents another tool for our state to use as we work to solve a crisis we did not create and the federal government has refused to fix ..... The crisis caused by illegal immigration and Arizona's porous border.

This bill, the Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act, strengthens the laws of our state.

It protects all of us, every Arizona citizen and everyone here in our state lawfully.

And, it does so while ensuring that the constitutional rights of ALL in Arizona remain solid -- stable and steadfast.

I will now sign Senate Bill 1070.

For weeks, this legislation has been the subject of vigorous debate and intense criticism. My decision to sign it was by no means made lightly.

I have listened patiently to both sides. I have considered the significance of this new law long into the night. I have prayed for strength and prayed for our state.

I've decided to sign Senate Bill 1070 into law because, though many people disagree, I firmly believe it represents what's best for Arizona. Border-related violence and crime due to illegal immigration are critically important issues to the people of our state, to my Administration and to me, as your Governor and as a citizen.

There is no higher priority than protecting the citizens of Arizona. We cannot sacrifice our safety to the murderous greed of drug cartels. We cannot stand idly by as drop houses, kidnappings and violence compromise our quality of life.

We cannot delay while the destruction happening south of our international border creeps its way north.

We in Arizona have been more than patient waiting for Washington to act.

But decades of federal inaction and misguided policy have created a dangerous and unacceptable situation.

Yesterday, I announced the steps I was taking to enhance security along our border.

Today - with my unwavering signature on this legislation - Arizona strengthens its security WITHIN our borders.

Let me be clear, though: My signature today represents my steadfast support for enforcing the law - both against illegal immigration and against racial profiling.

This legislation mirrors federal laws regarding immigration enforcement.

Despite erroneous and misleading statements suggesting otherwise, the new state misdemeanor crime of willful failure to complete or carry an alien registration document is adopted, verbatim, from the same offense found in federal statute.

I will not tolerate racial discrimination or racial profiling in Arizona.

Because I feel so strongly on this subject, I worked for weeks with legislators to amend SB 1070, to strengthen its civil rights protections.

That effort led to new language in the bill, language prohibiting law enforcement officers from "solely considering race, color, or national origin in implementing the requirements of this section..."

The bill already required that it "shall be implemented in a manner consistent with federal laws regulating immigration, protecting the civil rights of all persons and respecting the privileges and immunities of United States citizens."

While the general protection was already included, I believe the issue is so important, we needed to make it CRYSTAL clear.

And I believe that we need to more than simply inscribe it in statute.

Words in a law book are of no use if our police officers are not properly trained on the provisions of SB 1070, including its civil rights provisions.

Today I am issuing an executive order directing the Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training Board - AZPOST -- to develop training to appropriately implement SB 1070.

Importantly, this training will include what does - and does not - constitute "reasonable suspicion" that a person is not legally present in the United States.

Currently, AZPOST serves approximately 170 law enforcement agencies encompassing over 16,000 sworn peace officers, 9,000 correctional service officers, and 16 training academies.

The AZPOST Board of Directors includes the Arizona Attorney General, the Directors of the Arizona Department of Public Safety, the Arizona Department of Corrections, several county sheriffs, and local police departments.

I am also asking the Board to make recommendations on possible improvements to SB 1070 before the end of the year.

For 28 years in public service, I have worked without fail to solve problems diligently and practically. I have done so always with an eye toward civility, and always with the greatest respect for the rule of law.

This new law is no different: As committed as I am to protecting our state from crime associated with illegal immigration I am EQUALLY committed to holding law enforcement accountable should this statute ever be misused to violate an individual's rights.

Respect for the rule of law means respect for every law. I have led that way every day in every office I have ever held. That will not change.

I have also spent my career in service to Arizona working to bring people together, no matter the color of their skin and no matter the depth of our disagreements.

This bill - and this issue - will be no exception.

While protecting our citizens is paramount, it cannot come at the expense of the diversity that has made Arizona so great. Nor can safety mean a compromise of freedom for some, while we, the many, turn a blind eye.

We must acknowledge the truth - people across America are watching Arizona, seeing how we implement this law, ready to jump on even the slightest misstep.

Some of those people from outside our state have an interest in seeing us fail.

They will wait for a single slip-up, one mistake, and then they will work day and night to create headlines and get the face time they so desperately covet.

We cannot give them that chance.

We must use this new tool wisely, and fight for our safety with the honor Arizona deserves.

We must react calmly.

We must enforce the law evenly, and without regard to skin color, accent, or social status.

We must prove the alarmists and the cynics wrong.

I know in my heart that this great state, my home for more than 40 years, is up to the task.

I believe every one of us wants to be safe, and none of us wants to compromise on the subject of civil rights.

I believe we must love and honor those who fight beside us - just as we must love and honor those who look and believe nothing like we do.

I believe Arizona, like America, is governed by laws.

Good laws ... well-intentioned laws ... laws that confer respect and that demand respect in return.

In his third State of the Union address, President Theodore Roosevelt said, "No man is above the law and no man is below it; nor do we ask any man's permission when we require him to obey it. Obedience to the law is demanded as a right; not asked as a favor."

So, let us move forward -- ever mindful of our rights ... ever faithful to the law ... and ever conscious of our bond as Arizonans, and the blessing we share together.
Thank you."

PDF; View the Executive Order (http://javascript:NewWindow('http://langelus.fatcow.com/immigration-executive-order.pdf','immigration','640','480','fullscreen','front');)

Arizona Governor Brewer signs immigration bill (http://www.wmicentral.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=20425333&BRD=2264&PAG=461&dept_id=505965&rfi=6)

Quote from: Pastor Roger on April 30, 2010, 12:17:04 AM

Georgia, Texas, Oklahoma, Iowa, and Colorado are taking action on a similar bill with some other states considering doing so also. It really has obama steamed. ;D It's a big road block for his objective of more power for himself.

Obama has said his administration may take legal action on Arizona over the new law. Obama has also called the Arizona law misguided.

Well Arizona has always been a "Maverick" state, and we will not be pushed around anymore by illegal immigration. The Jerk (Obamanation) is in Washington DC, and knows nothing about the problem in any of the southern border states.

It's time to put Equal Justice versus Social Justice out to the pasture. Equal justice of the law demands that law-breakers not be rewarded for their illegal activity, that instead they be treated like everyone else.

As for, social justice it dictates that because somehow or another, they're special, whether it's there medical condition, position in life, race, or maybe it's just because they happen to be President Obama's aunt that she gets to stay in the U.S. illegally, even after her request for political asylum was rejected in 2004.

Equal justice says she's got to go home.

Social justice says no, no, no.

Equal justice says that when a Democrat makes a ridiculous racist remark................... You know the story brother, the same old song and dance number...........

Quote from: Rod Blagojevich

“I’m blacker than Barack Obama. I shined shoes. I grew up in a five-room apartment. My father had a little Laundromat in a black community not far from where he lived. I saw it all growing up.”

Quote from: blackeyedpeas on April 30, 2010, 12:25:19 AM

I applaud Arizona for adopting this tough legislation. Oklahoma also has some strict laws that have helped, but I think that all states need to toughen up. Giveaways to illegal aliens and others for votes must stop.

What gets me is all these people thinking illegal immigration is okay. I wonder at times if, they know the meaning of illegal. You brother being an ex-cop, know about the law. Although the Arizona law has rekindled an intense national debate about what the United States should do about illegal immigration. This country (America) protects the borders of other nations better than it protects our own border

I think it is time for all American border states pass laws to protect their border. The federal government is going to sit on it's duff, and do nothing but spend money it doesn't have to spend.

But that's another rant in itself, and I've gone on long enough.

Resting in the Arms, of the Lord.
Bob
Ezekiel 7:23-24 Make a chain: for the land is full of bloody crimes, and the city is full of violence. 24 Wherefore I will bring the worst of the heathen, and they shall possess their houses: I will also make the pomp of the strong to cease; and their holy places shall be defiled.

White House Summit Fails to Yield Budget Deal as Shutdown Approaches
foxnews.com

Congressional aides worked through the night Wednesday after a high-stakes meeting between President Obama and congressional leaders failed to reach a deal on the federal budget.

Obama called the discussion “frank” and “constructive,” but did not articulate how the two sides would forge an agreement to keep the government running past the Friday deadline.

"If we are serious about getting something done, we should be able to complete a deal, get it passed and avert a shutdown," Obama told reporters in the White House briefing room.

A few minutes later outside the White House, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker John Boehner stood side by side to update reporters on the talks.

"We're not there yet," Reid said, but both sides were committed to hammering out a deal and keeping the government running.

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Stop the Budget Insanity! Let's Use the Rules of Business and Stop Governing By Continuing Resolution"No one wants a shutdown," Boehner said, adding there were "honest differences" and their staffs will work to get the budget issue resolved.

"We've narrowed the issues significantly," Reid said.

The government already is operating on a short-term spending measure because Republicans and Democrats haven't been able to agree on how deeply to cut and what to ax, and as a precaution, House Republicans are preparing to bring yet another stopgap budget bill to the floor Thursday to buy more time for negotiations on a long term bill.

The proposal would be the third short-term budget bill in two months. The prospect of voting on another stopgap has frustrated lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, some of whom have vowed to oppose one. But while dozens of GOP members defected the last time around, House Republican Whip Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., told Fox News he has enough GOP support to pass this bill without any Democrats.

"We don't need one Democratic vote," he said.

House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said earlier Wednesday that he would be willing to help Republicans whip up support for a short-term spending plan. However, he also said he opposes the specific package that House Speaker John Boehner has been pushing -- a one-week bill that would cut $12 billion, while also funding the military for the rest of the year. And Boehner said Wednesday that's exactly the plan he wants to put on the floor.

"I think this is the responsible thing to do," Boehner said. "I would hope the Senate can pass it and the president would sign it into law."

It's unclear whether the bill can indeed win enough support to avert a shutdown, or do anything to advance the broader negotiations over a half-year budget. Expectations have been changing by the minute in Washington as lawmakers try to craft a budget bill while, at the same time, jockeying for political advantage in the media, assigning blame in advance to the other side in case of a shutdown.

Meanwhile, the day-to-day functions of government -- from running national parks to sending out tax refunds -- were hanging in the balance. The administration and Congress have been preparing for the possibility of a partial shutdown, warning that a number of basic services would go on hiatus and that a shutdown could hurt the economy.

Lawmakers appeared to be caught in a political perfect storm, with several simultaneous budget deals complicating negotiations over the rest of this year's budget. Conservative lawmakers want to cut as much as possible now, to set the tone for talks over next year's budget and spending for the rest of the decade. GOP Rep. Paul Ryan just introduced a plan to cut deficits by $4.4 trillion over 10 years. President Obama and Democrats, by contrast, want to use a "scalpel," rather than an ax, to address the deficit.

An upcoming vote on whether to raise the debt ceiling doesn't make things any easier.

With all this on the line, 2011 budget negotiations have been continually tested by the political rhetoric flying on both sides of the aisle. A White House aide said Wednesday there are "signs of progress" in the budget talks. But on the sidelines, lawmakers continued to hurl accusations at each other.

House Democrats convened a press conference at which they repeated the claim that the Tea Party is to blame for bringing Congress to the brink of a shutdown. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Democrats have been trying to meet Republicans halfway, but the GOP has "refused to take yes for an answer."

Republicans earlier passed a bill out of the House to cut $61 billion from last year's levels, and some lawmakers have continued to press for that level of spending cuts. Democrats have refused.

Obama suggested Tuesday that he had no interest in signing another short-term measure just to keep the debate going.

"We've already done that twice," Obama said. "That is not a way to run a government."

However, he indicated he could support a very short-term budget bill if the framework for a budget for the rest of the year is in place.

March Madness: U.S. Gov't Spent More Than Eight Times Its Monthly Revenue
cnsnews.com

The U.S. Treasury has released a final statement for the month of March that demonstrates that financial madness has gripped the federal government.

During the month, according to the Treasury, the federal government grossed $194 billion in tax revenue and paid out $65.898 billion in tax refunds (including $62.011 to individuals and $3.887 to businesses) thus netting $128.179 billion in tax revenue for March.

At the same time, the Treasury paid out a total of $1.1187 trillion. When the $65.898 billion in tax refunds is deducted from that, the Treasury paid a net of $1.0528 trillion in federal expenses for March.

That $1.0528 trillion in spending for March equaled 8.2 times the $128.179 in net federal tax revenue for the month.

The lion’s share of this federal spending went to redeem Treasury securities that had matured during the month—most of which were short-term Treasury bills that have terms of one year or less.

In fact, during March the Treasury redeemed $705.3 billion in Treasury securities of which $623.9 billion were short-term bills with a term of one year or less.

After the disbursements made to pay off the $705.3 billion in loans that came due in March, three of the other top four federal spending items for the month were entitlements programs. The other top item was payments to defense contractors.

The Treasury paid $49.8 billion in Social Security benefits in March, $47.4 billion in Medicare benefits, and $22.575 billion in Medicaid benefits. It also paid $37.9 billion to defense contractors.

To help pay off its $1.0528 trillion in monthly bills on only $128.179 in monthly tax revenue, the Treasury turned primarily to new borrowing. During the month, according to the Treasury statement, the government sold $786.5 billion in new securities. It also drew down its cash balance from $190.6 billion at the beginning of the month to $118.1 billion at the end of the month. It also reaped $18 billion from the sale of assets in the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

The federal government’s cash-flow situation was summed up pungently in Senate Budget Committee testimony by Erskine Bowles, who served as chief of staff to President Bill Clinton and is now the co-chair of President Barack Obama’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility.

“I'm really concerned,” Bowles told the committee last month. “I think we face the most predictable economic crisis in history. A lot of us sitting in this room didn't see this last crisis as it came upon us. But this one is really easy to see. The fiscal path we are on today is simply not sustainable.

“This debt and these deficits that we are incurring on an annual basis are like a cancer and they are truly going to destroy this country from within unless we have the common sense to do something about it,” said Bowles.

“I used to say that I got into this thing for my grandchildren,” Bowles said. “I have eight grandchildren under five years old. I'll have one more in a week. And my life is wonderful and it is wild. But this problem is going to happen long before my grandchildren grow up.

“This problem is going to happen, like the former chairman of the Fed said, or the Moody's said, this is a problem we're going to have to face up,” he said. “It may be two years, you know, maybe a little less, maybe a little more. But if our bankers over there in Asia begin to believe that we're not going to be solid on our debt, that we're not going to be able to meet our obligations, just stop and think for a minute what happens if they just stop buying our debt.

“What happens to interest rates?” asked Bowles. “And what happens to the U.S. economy? The markets will absolutely devastate us if we don't step up to this problem. The problem is real, the solutions are painful, and we have to act.”

America Is Traveling Down The Roman Road
raptureready.com

There have been many good roads to travel in America over the past 235 years. They include the roads to independence and democracy, the roads to discovery, progress and success, and trips down country roads, paved roads, railroads, the straight and narrow road, the road to financial freedom, the road to victory, the road to recovery, the yellow-brick road, and best of all, the road that leads toward home, either to our earthly or heavenly home. However, there is one road we do ‘not’ want to travel down as a nation, and that is the Roman road. That road is rocky and will cause us to have a terrible crash. It is a road historically proven to be full of bumps, cracks, potholes, twists and turns. The entire Roman civilization, along with its actual roadways, gradually crumbled into disrepair and decline, which eventually led to the downfall of the great Roman Empire.

The United States of America has the advantage and opportunity to learn from history. We may still have time to detour off the Roman road before it’s too late—before we too come to a dead-end like the Roman Empire—but we currently seem inclined to continue down the Roman road, which if we do, will eventually lead to dire events for our nation. The Roman Empire was in existence much longer than America has been a nation to this point, but today’s world moves much faster than in Roman times, so we don’t have any time to waste in yielding to common sense and making a U-turn off the Roman road. This may not yet be the end of our road as a blessed nation by God—but we can see the end from here if we don’t slam on the brakes!

The downfall of the Roman Empire resulted from a gradual downturn of their political, economic, and military systems, not to mention the decline of social institutions, including their originally established higher social morals. Barbarian (people alien to the Roman culture) invasions and settlement within their empire were the final doom.

Let’s take a look at some of the specific problems that developed within the Roman Empire over the passage of time and see if they ring a bell in the United States of America today. See if you can plug our current ‘buzz words and talking points’ into the corresponding Roman problems listed below. For example, words and phrases such as increased taxes, increasing social class economic inequality, unemployment, political partisanship and finger-pointing, President Obama, Social Security, Medicare, Health Reform, urbanization, illegal immigration, intolerance, Islamists, Muslims, Jews, Christians, Israel, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Libya, Syria, the U.S. military budget, war justification, inflation, a devalued U.S. dollar, the CRP agricultural program, governmental bureaucracy, diseases, super-bug bacteria, over-spending by government, budget shortfalls at all levels of government, obsession with sex and sports, Mexico, border fence, crumbling infrastructure, unions, pensions, economy, and enormous debt, debt, debt!! Feel free to insert your own words and thoughts as you read through the following ‘partial’ list of Roman Empire problems which brought about its eventual ruin.

- Increased economic inequality among its citizens. The Romans implemented a system of tax collection that drove many small-scale farmers and business owners out of business, which resulted in more out of work people being dependent on the government, which placed even more tax burden upon those who could not escape taxation. Sometimes the poor were dependent upon the elite who were exempt from taxation.
- Incompetent political leadership.
- Incompetent military leadership.
- The implementation of substantial political and economic reforms.
- Cultural and political dilution (barbarization) leading to differing opinions, paths and standards among a diverse population, creating societal problems.
- Intrusion of alien religious ideas.
- The Romans fought with most of the Middle East countries and many other countries, resulting in a strained military and a drain on financial resources.
- High inflation caused by years of Roman coinage devaluation.
- Land was withdrawn from cultivation on a very large scale.
- Roman society became more complex as it tried to solve problems, creating new layers of bureaucracy, infrastructure and social classes.
- Urbanization and overpopulation of cities resulted in increased disease epidemics, water and food shortages.
- An almost non-existent budgetary system, resulting in wasted monetary resources.
- Moral decay. Sexual immorality and perversion became out-of-control, including rampant homosexuality, prostitution, pornography, orgies, slaves used for sex, increased lust for blood and violence in sporting events, and other debauchery.
- Diminished fortifications to protect cities from barbarians. Invasions by the Visigoths, Vandals, Germanic tribes, etc…led to a clash of civilization when the invaders ‘settled’ within Roman land.
- Reduced tax revenue when barbarians wanted to take part in the benefits of the Roman way of doing things, without paying back into the system, resulting in a crumbling infrastructure.
- The empire ‘spent more money than it took in’ due to the enormous budget it took to maintain the military and infrastructure such as the roads and water supply. This forced the Romans to frequently raise taxes, which in turn caused major economic stress.
- Additional economic stress was placed on the empire when a greater amount of money had to be spent on social services to keep a restless public happy. This included the promise of pension payments made to retired bureaucrats.

Does this sound all too familiar? Comparisons to our own current predicaments in the United States of America can be drawn from all of the above. The only question now is…if we will choose to continue along the Roman road…or be brave and take the ‘high’ road of doing what is right for our nation’s future and our children’s children. God, and the future, awaits our answer!

Quote from: Soldier4Christ on April 12, 2011, 10:43:40 AM

Some really good articles.

When I gave the title to this thread it was in sarcasm and as we can see from the two articles you just posted that sarcasm was well placed. The only work that is getting done is the kind that destroys. I think that they would do really well in a demolition derby.

Well here is something positive for a change!....

No harm? No case...
onenewsnow.com

A federal appeals court has ruled that the National Day of Prayer is legitimate, ordering that a lawsuit claiming the event is unconstitutional be dismissed.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation had filed the suit and U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb had ruled the federal government's observation of prayer unconstitutional, in spite of numerous U.S. Supreme Court rulings protecting religious invocations. That ruling was taken to the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago where, as Liberty Institute attorney Jeff Mateer explains, the panel ruled Thursday that the atheist organization does not have legal standing to bring a challenge to the President's proclamation declaring a National Day of Prayer.

"What the 7th Circuit [also] held was that in order for a plaintiff to bring a lawsuit challenging a law, they have to have sustained a real legal injury," says Mateer. "They must have been harmed in some way." And the Foundation, he adds, was found to not be suffering.

Mateer also says the decision goes beyond the National Day of Prayer and the presidential proclamation. "What this decision means is that communities throughout our country that have National Day of Prayer ceremonies -- that those are perfectly constitutional, that they can proceed," says the attorney.

Liberty Institue says it "applauds the Seventh Circuit's dismissal of this desperate attempt to erase our country's rich history of calling for prayer," labeling it another indication of attempts to "censor religious expression in the public arena."

This year's solemn event is May 5.

GOP accuses Obama of pushing up gas prices
'We need to look at the actions of this administration'

Posted: April 19, 2011
8:11 pm Eastern
© 2011 WorldNetDaily

Republicans say the Obama administration's policies are contributing to skyrocketing gasoline prices – now at more than $4 per gallon throughout much of the country – and they have introduced legislation to reopen the nation's coasts to drilling.

This year will be the first year since 1958 that the federal government will not have sold a lease for offshore drilling, and Republicans say this is fueling skyrocketing prices at the pump.

Congress opened the nation's coasts to drilling when gas hit $4 per gallon in 2008, but the Obama administration effectively reinstated the ban last year by placing the Alaskan, Atlantic and Pacific coasts off-limits to drilling, as well as Florida's west coast.

"We need to look at the actions of this administration, which are leading to more of a domestic shortage of energy production in this country – whether you are looking at the outer continental shelf or whether you are looking at offshore lease sales," said House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings, R-Wash.

The chairman told WND that comments made by Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar make it seem the administration has a political agenda behind its unwillingness to expand domestic oil drilling.

More than 12,000 jobs in the oil drilling sector have been lost as a direct result of the drilling moratorium the Obama administration imposed last May in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

Despite the administration's announcement last October that it was lifting its drilling moratorium, little progress has been made in reopening the Gulf to drilling. Only 10 permits have been granted, while 40 projects remain stalled due to the administration's inaction. And since July 2010 only 49 shallow-water permits have been issued at an average of 4.9 permits per month, which lags far behind the historical average of 7.1 permits per month.

The administration needs to act in a timely manner to address the drilling permits that were in play when it imposed the moratorium to increase oil and gas supplies and reduce prices, Hastings said.

"We're going to try to change that through our committee and with Doc Hastings over at natural resources," House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton told WND. "We know it is a supply problem, and we cannot continue to say no to domestic production because only one thing happens – the prices are going to go up."

The oil industry today produces 100,000 barrels less per day than the Department of Energy predicted, and the department expects production in the Gulf of Mexico to drop by 240,000 barrels per day this year and by 200,000 per day in 2012.

"We've got to say stop it; stop these regulations and putting the U.S. off-limits," Upton said. "We're going to do our best to pursue legislation to change that. If you are going to impose restrictions on the domestic oil and gas industries, guess what, they're going to go ahead and drill someplace else."

That seems to have already started. So far, 12 oil rigs have departed the Gulf since the moratorium was imposed for destinations such as Nigeria, Egypt and Brazil, potentially costing thousands of jobs, according to the House Natural Resources Committee.

Upton's committee currently is considering legislation being proposed by Colorado Rep. Cory Gardner that would eliminate permitting delays that have been imposed by the Environmental Protection Agency on drilling projects off the Alaskan coast.

The House Natural Resources Committee passed three bills last week that would force the administration to reopen the nation's coasts to oil drilling. The first bill would require the Secretary of the Interior to conduct oil and natural gas lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and off the Virginia coast for offshore parcels that have either been canceled or delayed by the administration.

The legislation would require lease sales to be held no later than June 1, 2012. Hastings' second bill would require that each five-year offshore leasing plan crafted by the Department of the Interior include lease sales in areas with the largest known oil and natural gas reserves.

A third bill would require the Secretary of the Interior to act on a permit within 30 days of receiving an application and prevent the Obama administration from imposing a drilling moratorium through inaction. It would also beef up oil rig safety standards to ensure an accident of the kind that happened last year is never repeated.

Hastings anticipates the full House will bring his legislation to the floor for a vote before Memorial Day, but its fate in the Senate is uncertain.

"People in the Senate and in the administration definitely are not going to be looking kindly on my legislation," Hastings said. "But with gas prices a little over $4 per gallon now in some parts of the country, with some saying it could go over $5 a gallon, then I think there is going to be political pressure put on the Senate to act on something."

The chairman said Senate Democrats should pass legislation of their own and work out a compromise proposal with him if they have a different view from his, so the nation can become less dependent on foreign sources and create jobs.

Salazar struck at Hastings' legislation last week by accusing the chairman of "amnesia" about the Deepwater Horizon accident and the subsequent oil spill.

"I don't have amnesia, and neither does the president," Politico reported Salazar as having said last week. "And much of the legislation that I have seen being bandied around, especially with the House Republicans, is almost as if the Deepwater Horizon Macondo well incident never happened."

Michael Conathan, director of ocean policy with the Center for American Progress, echoed Salazar's comments by calling the Republican approach "simplistic" because it allegedly ignores how globalization has impacted the oil market.

"We have 2 percent of the world's oil reserves, yet we use 25 percent of the world's oil reserves," Conathan said. "That's a huge gap that we're not going to make up even if we drilled every drop out of everywhere that we have access to.

"I think particularly today [near] the one-year anniversary of the BP oil spill, the worst environmental disaster in American history, this is definitely the wrong time to be reopening any area for oil exploration."

Bush Attorney General Slams Obama Terror Policies
newsmax.com

The killing of Osama bin Laden was a great victory for the U.S. intelligence community, but it may well be the last one because of the Obama administration’s refusal to use tough tactics such as waterboarding on terror suspects, former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey warns.

The information that led U.S. agents to bin Laden could not have been obtained without stringent interrogation methods, Mukasey writes in The Wall Street Journal.

“Consider how the intelligence that led to bin Laden came to hand. It began with a disclosure from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed [KSM], who broke like a dam under the pressure of harsh interrogation techniques that included waterboarding. He loosed a torrent of information — including eventually the nickname of a trusted courier of bin Laden,” writes Mukasey, who was the nation’s top law enforcement officer under President George W. Bush from 2007 to 2009.

The Obama administration prevents intelligence officers from doing their work to the best of their ability, he said.

“Policies put in place by the very administration that presided over this splendid success promise fewer such successes in the future. Those policies make it unlikely that we'll be able to get information from those whose identities are disclosed by the material seized from bin Laden. The administration also hounds our intelligence gatherers in ways that can only demoralize them,” he said in the opinion piece published Friday.

Practices such as waterboarding, in which a suspect’s head is held underwater until he believes he is drowning, are used only in extreme cases in which agents know the prisoners have vital information, Mukasey said.

“The harsh techniques themselves were used selectively against only a small number of hard-core prisoners who successfully resisted other forms of interrogation, and then only with the explicit authorization of the director of the CIA. Of the thousands of unlawful combatants captured by the U.S., fewer than 100 were detained and questioned in the CIA program. Of those, fewer than one-third were subjected to any of these techniques,” he said.

Mukasey quoted former CIA Director Michael Hayden as saying that, “as late as 2006, even with the growing success of other intelligence tools, fully half of the government's knowledge about the structure and activities of [al-Qaida] came from those interrogations.”

Far from resorting to illegal methods to obtain information, Muksaey said, the Bush administration “put these techniques in place only after rigorous analysis by the Justice Department, which concluded that they were lawful.”

The Bush administration's decision to call these methods “enhanced interrogation techniques,” which he described as “absurdly antiseptic,” gave rise to unfounded suspicions that the phrase must be a euphemism for something truly beyond the pale.

The former attorney general said that, in April 2009, the Obama administration released previously classified Justice Department documents on the interrogation techniques — “thereby disclosing them to our enemies and assuring that they could never be used again.”

The current administration, in deciding to turn interrogation duties over to the FBI instead of the CIA, had not ensured that its new policies were properly in place, Mukasey said.

Thus, he said, when Omar Faruq Abdulmutallab was caught trying to blow up a plane over Detroit on Christmas Day 2009 with explosives hidden in his underwear, no one was quite sure how to handle him. The Nigerian national was read his Miranda rights, like an ordinary criminal suspect, but “no one had yet gotten around to implementing the new program.”

Although the administration had not yet determined how to handle terror suspects, it had found time to pursue investigations against CIA employees who already had been cleared of any wrongdoing, Mukasey said.

“Yet the Justice Department, revealing its priorities, had gotten around to reopening investigations into the conduct of a half-dozen CIA employees alleged to have used undue force against suspected terrorist,” Mukasey wrote in the WSJ.

Those investigations had been closed formally two years earlier, with no charges filed. Years later, he said, the investigations drag on with no charges in sight, with “prosecutors chasing allegations down rabbit holes, with the CIA along with the rest of the intelligence community left demoralized.”

GOP Warns Obama Not to Issue Executive Order for Government Contractors
foxnews.com

Republicans are warning President Obama not to issue an executive order that would require government contractors to disclose their political donations.

Obama drafted the proposal last month, which is reminiscent of a provision in a Democratic bill called the Disclose Act that died in the Congress last year.

That bill would have required corporations and unions to identify themselves in political ads they pay for – a response to a 5-4 Supreme Court ruling that upheld the First Amendment rights of these groups to spend money on campaign ads.

The proposed order would require government contractors to disclose all donations to federal candidates, political parties, committees or interest groups spending money on campaigns once the total exceeds $5,000 in a given year.

The White House has said the proposed order would provide transparency to taxpayers about political spending by government contractors.

But in a letter to the president, California Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the No. 3 Republican in the House, said Obama's proposed order "seems like a blatant attempt to intimidate, and potentially silence, certain speakers who are engaged in their constitutionally protected right to free speech."

Twenty other Republicans signed the letter, which expresses their concern that the effect of the proposed order would be "stifled political speech, as potential and current federal contractors decide to limit their political speech in order to protect their livelihoods.

"While we may often disagree on policy matters, we can surely agree that an open and free political process works best for all," the letter reads.

The Professional Services Council, a trade association that represents more than 330 companies that work with federal agencies, also opposes the order.

"This proposal should never see the light of day," PSC President and CEO Stan Soloway said in a statement. "It is based on dubious legality and a complete lack of awareness of the realities of the federal procurement process."

Soloway added, "This is an ill-conceived proposal that would place government contractors and their senior executives in a unique class. No other individuals or entities, including unions, federal grantees, federal employees, or other business entities, would be subject to such requirements, no matter how reliant they are on government policy or other decisions. It is counterintuitive and will likely be counterproductive."

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell called the proposed order "an outrageous and anti-Democratic abuse of executive branch authority."

"Let me be clear: No White House should be able to review your political party affiliation before deciding if you're worthy of a government contract," he said in a statement. "And no one should have to worry about whether their political support will determine their ability to get or keep a federal contract or keep their job."

Federal Reserve bank flies the rainbow flag
WND 6/4/2011

A state delegate in Virginia has sent a letter to the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, demanding that it remove a "rainbow" flag from the flagpole that also holds Old Glory.

"Dear President [Jeffrey M.] Lacker," wrote state Delegate Bob Marshall, "Flying the homosexual flag just under the American flag outside Richmond's Federal Reserve Bank building is a serious deficiency of judgment by your organization."

Marshall said the Federal Reserve policies are supposed to "contribute to the strength and vitality of the U.S. economy," but "a flagpole in front of a federal building is not a commercial or political message board."

"What does flying the homosexual flag, or any other similar display, have to do with your central banking mission under the Federal Reserve Act passed by Congress?"

"The Richmond Fed's endorsement of costly, anti-social, immoral behavior is rejected by 6,000 years of Western religious and moral teaching. You want the American people to trust your judgment in economic matters when your spokesperson celebrates an attack on public morals? Why?" Marshall continued.

Marshall told WND that his letter to the bank must have "set off a firecracker," because there had been hundreds of responses via email and the like already.

"This guy has no business taking an institution Congress created for financial dealings and turning it into a political billboard," he said.

Bank spokesman Jim Strader told WND that Marshall's letter had been delievered and "we are reviewing his letter and we will respond."

He refused to say what the response would be or when it would come.

But he said the "pride flag is flying at our bank as a symbol of our commitment to diversity and inclusion."

He said bank managers got a request from "an employee group" and the request to fly the flag was approved.

Strader said it coincides with Barack Obama's "proclamation" that June is the "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month."

"This month … marks the 30th anniversary of the emergence of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, which has had a profound impact on the LGBT community," Obama said. "Though we have made strides in combating this devastating disease, more work remains to be done, and I am committed to expanding access to HIV/AIDS prevention and care."

Strader refused to respond to questions about whether the statement of a social agenda was a precedent for the bank, or whether other employee or interest groups could take advantage of the forum and proclaim their campaigns, also.

"I can't comment on that," he said.

He said the bank, too, has gotten comments on the "pride flag" flying in front of the institution assigned to manage the nation's fiscal policy.

Officials with the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors refused to reply to WND requests for comment.

But Marshall said, "This is a celebration of a behavior that is still a class six felony in Virginia."

This dispute is not the only headache the Federal Reserve could be facing. WND recently reported on a series of grass-roots lawsuits that are being developed against the Fed.

And U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas long has advocated an audit of the intensely secret organization, as well as a shutdown of its operations.

The lawsuit plans come from the PatriotStorm organization at its SuetheFed.com website. The plan envisions teams of attorneys analyzing data, demanding information, verifying damages and arguing court cases.

"Our litigation plan will be loosely patterned after the tobacco litigation model executed during the 1980s and 1990s; only far more organized, coordinated and focused in order to provide shared access of all discovery materials and briefs developed to all of our network law firms and prosecutors nationwide," the website explains.

"The litigation activities will be divided among three broad areas: a) research; b) analysis and dissemination of discovery materials and briefs, and c) litigation coordination. The company will recruit several hundred to several thousand highly respected small to mid-sized litigating law firms to pursue the class action litigation for their representative plaintiffs (live persons, companies, municipalities, etc.) residing in their respective geographic areas."

Congressman Paul long has argued that the Federal Reserve simply is illegal. Some of his concerns have revolved around Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, which assigns to Congress the right to coin money.

There is no mention in the Constitution of a central bank, and it wasn't until the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 that the Fed was created.

Paul previously has said, "Throughout its nearly 100-year history, the Federal Reserve has presided over the near-complete destruction of the United States dollar. Since 1913 the dollar has lost over 95 percent of its purchasing power, aided and abetted by the Federal Reserve's loose monetary policy."

And he's proposed repeatedly – and again in this Congress – the idea of auditing the Fed to determine exactly what it has been doing and then begin making corrections. With a book titled "End the Fed," he's made no secret of his ultimate goal.

That the Fed is at least partly to blame for the financial problems that have developed in the U.S. seems not to be in dispute.

It was longtime Federal Reserve chairman Ben. S. Bernanke who admitted as much.

Bernanke said it was the Fed that caused the Great Depression, the worldwide economic downturn that persisted from 1929 until about 1939. It was the longest and worst depression ever experienced by the industrialized Western world. While originating in the U.S., it ended up causing drastic declines in output, severe unemployment and acute deflation in virtually every country on earth. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, "the Great Depression ranks second only to the Civil War as the gravest crisis in American history."

cont.....

Federal Reserve bank flies the rainbow flag cont....

At a Nov. 8, 2002, conference to honor economist Milton Friedman's 90th birthday, Bernanke, then a Federal Reserve governor, gave a speech at Friedman's old home base, the University of Chicago.

After citing how Friedman and a co-author documented the Fed's continual contraction of the money supply during the Depression and its aftermath – and the subsequent abandonment of the gold standard by many nations in order to stop the devastating monetary contraction – Bernanke added:

Before the creation of the Federal Reserve, Friedman and [Anna] Schwartz noted, bank panics were typically handled by banks themselves – for example, through urban consortiums of private banks called clearinghouses. If a run on one or more banks in a city began, the clearinghouse might declare a suspension of payments, meaning that, temporarily, deposits would not be convertible into cash. Larger, stronger banks would then take the lead, first, in determining that the banks under attack were in fact fundamentally solvent, and second, in lending cash to those banks that needed to meet withdrawals. Though not an entirely satisfactory solution – the suspension of payments for several weeks was a significant hardship for the public – the system of suspension of payments usually prevented local banking panics from spreading or persisting. Large, solvent banks had an incentive to participate in curing panics because they knew that an unchecked panic might ultimately threaten their own deposits.

It was in large part to improve the management of banking panics that the Federal Reserve was created in 1913. However, as Friedman and Schwartz discuss in some detail, in the early 1930s the Federal Reserve did not serve that function. The problem within the Fed was largely doctrinal: Fed officials appeared to subscribe to Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon's infamous "liquidationist" thesis, that weeding out "weak" banks was a harsh but necessary prerequisite to the recovery of the banking system. Moreover, most of the failing banks were small banks (as opposed to what we would now call money-center banks) and not members of the Federal Reserve System.

Thus the Fed saw no particular need to try to stem the panics. At the same time, the large banks – which would have intervened before the founding of the Fed – felt that protecting their smaller brethren was no longer their responsibility. Indeed, since the large banks felt confident that the Fed would protect them if necessary, the weeding out of small competitors was a positive good, from their point of view.

In short, according to Friedman and Schwartz, because of institutional changes and misguided doctrines, the banking panics of the Great Contraction were much more severe and widespread than would have normally occurred during a downturn. …

Let me end my talk by abusing slightly my status as an official representative of the Federal Reserve. I would like to say to Milton and Anna: Regarding the Great Depression. You're right, we did it. We're very sorry. But thanks to you, we won't do it again.

G. Edward Griffin, in "The Creature from Jekyll Island," explains the cause of wars, boom-bust cycles, inflation, depression, prosperity and more – and calls the Fed the most blatant scam of all history.

History records that in 1913 President Woodrow Wilson approved the Federal Reserve Act but later reflected that his actions "unwittingly ruined my country."

Wilson said that since the U.S. system of credit is concentrated in the hands of a few, "we have become … one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world."

Paul recently announced, as chairman of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy and Technology, a plan to audit the Fed.

(http://www.theblaze.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/flag2-270x151.jpg)

In case you missed it...

Strader said it coincides with Barack Obama's "proclamation" that June is the "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month."

That's not going to sit well with all his Muslim brothers and sisters!

Alabama Governor Weighs Approval of Arizona-Style Crackdown on Illegal Immigrants
foxnews.com

The governor of Alabama is taking the weekend to decide whether he will sign an Arizona-style bill into law to crack down on illegal immigrants.

If Gov. Robert Bentley gives his stamp of approval to the controversial legislation, the American Civil Liberties Union has vowed to challenge it in court.

"It's an outrageous throwback to the pre-civil rights era and we call on Governor Bentley to veto this deeply misguided bill," Cecillia Wang, director of the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project, said Friday. "The Alabama Legislature has invited rank discrimination into people's everyday lives,"

The bill, passed by the Alabama Legislature on Thursday night, makes it a crime for a person to be in the state without a valid federal registration or other proof of legal presence.

Like the Arizona law, the bill allows police in a traffic stop to detain anyone without legal papers if the officers have "reasonable suspicion" that they may be present illegally and research by the officers can't turn up any records. "Reasonable suspicion" could include acting nervously or having a tag that doesn't match vehicle registration records, sponsors of the bill said.

It would also be a crime for an illegal immigrant to apply for work. The bill requires all Alabama businesses to use the federal E-Verify system to check the legal status of new employees, although businesses with 25 or fewer employees could get the state Department of Homeland Security to do it for them. A business caught twice for knowingly hiring an illegal immigrant would lose its business license.

The bill also makes it a crime to transport or harbor illegal immigrants and it prevents cities from passing laws to protect illegal immigrants in their cities.

The bill sailed through the Legislature on votes of 67-29 in the House and 25-7 in the Senate.

Support came from Republicans and some white Democrats, while black Democrats led the opposition.

"This is an Arizona bill with an Alabama twist," said the sponsor, House Republican leader Micky Hammon.

Republican Sen. Scott Beason, who helped write the legislation, said it's designed to take jobs away from illegal immigrants and give them to legal residents. "This is a jobs bill," he said.

Democratic Sen. Linda Coleman predicted it would lead to discrimination. But Beason said, "You can't just stop someone because of how they look."

Bentley's communications director, Rebekak Mason, said he will spend the weekend reviewing the long, complicated bill before deciding what action to take, but "having a strong illegal immigration bill has been a top priority for the governor."

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Entertainment => Politics and Political Issues => Topic started by: Soldier4Christ on January 26, 2008, 10:34:58 AM