Code Speaks Out

BEST, ABSOLUTE BEST PROGRAM ON TV IS THE ANCIENT ALIENS SERIES ON HISTORY CHANNEL

2010-05-07T07:58:00.000-07:00

THIS SERIES IS THE VERY BEST SHOW ON TV NOW OR EVER. I AM AGAIN A GIGANTIC HISTORY CHANNEL FAN AND SUPPORTER FOR THIS SHOW ALONE!

PREACHER PRAYS OBAMA GETS CANCER AND DIES

2009-09-03T10:48:00.001-07:00

Preacher Steve Anderson in Arizona "PRAYING" that Pres. Obama gets Cancer and Dies

This guy lisps like he has a mouth full of sperm. He claims to be a pastor and yet, is "Praying" for our President to get cancer and die. Jesus would slap you and say depart from me you worker of iniquity, I never knew you.
Here's this jerk's website http://www.faithfulwordbaptist.org
Look at the creepy look on his face holding the baby
http://www.faithfulwordbaptist.org/page2.html
Here's the CONTACT info on this Cretin

Faithful Word Baptist Church

Pastor Steven L. Anderson

2707 W Southern Ave, Suite #105

Tempe, AZ 85282

Phone: (480) 248-4082

E-mail: Info@faithfulwordbaptist.org

Labels: praying for obama's death, prays obama gets cancer, steve anderson

MICHAEL VICK THE ANIMAL TORTURER AND KILLER PLEADS GUILTY

2007-08-27T18:19:00.000-07:00

IF THERE IS SUCH A THING AS JUSTICE, MICHAEL VICK SHOULD RECEIVE THE SAME TREATMENT HE VISITED UPON THOSE POOR ANIMALS.

THERE LITERALLY ARE NO WORDS TO EXPRESS MY HATRED FOR THIS SCUM SUCKING ASSHOLE OF A HUMAN.

FUCK THIS MOTHERFUCKING BASTARD.

I TELL YOU THIS...WE, THE PUBLIC, WILL BE WATCHING TO SEE IF ANY COMMERCIAL ENTERPRISE OF ANY KIND WILL TRY TO HIRE THIS SADISTIC BASTARD AND WE WILL BOYCOTT YOUR ASS OUT OF BUSINESS...

WE ARE WATCHING YOU NFL AND ANYONE ELSE...

WE WILL RUIN YOU FINANCIALLY IF YOU HIRE THIS BASTARD...

THIS LYING BASTARD...

FUCK YOU MICHAEL MOTHERFUCKING VICK!

KARL ROVE GETS MOVING ON DOWN THE ROAD

2007-08-13T20:04:00.001-07:00

KARL ROVE GETS TO ROVING
Well, it's been over two years since I posted on this blog, so it must be something worthwhile to get me to posting. I found more than one thing that was of note in the news. VAN HALEN is goint to tour in September, back together with the flying David Lee Roth. Poor Merv Griffin passed on after losing his bout with prostate cancer, and last but not least, BUSH'S BRAIN RESIGNS !I think that the recent subpoenas of Bush's cohorts, and the attempt to subpoena Rove into testifying, must be actually hitting a sore spot in the Bush administration.Perhaps Karl things by saying BYE BYE, it may quiet things down. I don't think so.Bush's "TEXAS MAFIA" as they have been called, including his cronies such as Alberto "I can't recall" Gonzales, Harriet "Why Can't I Be A Supreme Court Judge" Miers, Karl "Sieg Heil" Rove, et al, are a horrorshow bunch of idiots who, even though they stole (in my belief) TWO ELECTIONS, first time from Al Gore, who won the popular vote, and secondly from Kerry (with that "Swift Boat" bullshit) almost seem driven to dance on the edge of the razor line that divides legal from illegal. For an example, look at the so-called "Signing Statements" Bush kept signing.Basically, these are statements that are saying he may not adhere to the law that gets passed.Now, IS THE PRESIDENT ABOVE THE LAW? Does the constitution provide that the President alone should decide what laws he follows? Not just NO, but HELL NO! No one in the USA is above the law, but essentially, that is what his signing statements are saying.I honestly believe Bush is a person who has a history of substance abuse, who is a coward, and yes, is a crook, and even MORE crooked than Nixon, because, I think Nixon was a little off his rocker, but Bush is not nuts, he is mean spirited, and megalomaniacal.He needs to be impeached, jailed, and maybe go SNIPE hunting with Cheney.

KARL ROVE GETS TO ROVING

2007-08-13T19:39:00.001-07:00

Well, it's been over two years since I posted on this blog, so it must be something worthwhile to get me to posting. I found more than one thing that was of note in the news. VAN HALEN is goint to tour in September, back together with the flying David Lee Roth. Poor Merv Griffin passed on after losing his bout with prostate cancer, and last but not least, BUSH'S BRAIN RESIGNS !

I think that the recent subpoenas of Bush's cohorts, and the attempt to subpoena Rove into testifying, must be actually hitting a sore spot in the Bush administration.

Perhaps Karl things by saying BYE BYE, it may quiet things down. I don't think so.

Bush's "TEXAS MAFIA" as they have been called, including his cronies such as Alberto "I can't recall" Gonzales, Harriet "Why Can't I Be A Supreme Court Judge" Miers, Karl "Sieg Heil" Rove, et al, are a horrorshow bunch of idiots who, even though they stole (in my belief) TWO ELECTIONS, first time from Al Gore, who won the popular vote, and secondly from Kerry (with that "Swift Boat" bullshit) almost seem driven to dance on the edge of the razor line that divides legal from illegal. For an example, look at the so-called "Signing Statements" Bush kept signing.
Basically, these are statements that are saying he may not adhere to the law that gets passed.

Now, IS THE PRESIDENT ABOVE THE LAW? Does the constitution provide that the President alone should decide what laws he follows? Not just NO, but HELL NO! No one in the USA is above the law, but essentially, that is what his signing statements are saying.

I honestly believe Bush is a person who has a history of substance abuse, who is a coward, and yes, is a crook, and even MORE crooked than Nixon, because, I think Nixon was a little off his rocker, but Bush is not nuts, he is mean spirited, and megalomaniacal.

He needs to be impeached, jailed, and maybe go SNIPE hunting with Cheney.

War injured toll soars, hits veterans health costs - Yahoo! News

2005-06-28T21:32:00.000-07:00

War injured toll soars, hits veterans health costs - Yahoo! NewsWASHINGTON (Reuters) - As the numbers of U.S. war injured in Iraq and Afghanistan soared, the Bush administration admitted to lawmakers on Tuesday it had underestimated funds to cover health care costs for veterans and Congress would have to plug a $2.6 billion hole.

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"The bottom line is there is a surge in demand in VA (health) services across the board," said Veterans Affairs Secretary James Nicholson.

The Veterans Administration assumed it would have to take care of 23,553 patients who are veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but that number had been revised upward to 103,000, Nicholson told a House of Representatives panel.

Nicholson told a House Appropriations subcommittee that his agency's estimate of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans in need of health care services was now four times greater than thought.

The updated figures underscored how the costs of the Iraq war, approaching $300 billion, were rippling through other parts of a federal budget already under tight spending limits.

Nicholson's testimony, coming after his assurance to Congress in April that veterans' health programs were being adequately funded, angered some lawmakers.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis complained during a hearing that the Veterans Administration was silent as his panel wrote a fiscal 2006 veterans spending bill. The measure, he said, could have responded to the funding shortage.

"It borders on stupidity," said Lewis, a California Republican, adding, "I think someone was hoping they could hide the ball for a while."

At the same time, resources are being stretched by aging veterans from past wars who are suffering from "more maladies" than new veterans, Nicholson said.

Lewis said Congress will have to "move very quickly" to approve additional funding, before the start of the next fiscal year on Oct. 1. But he did not say whether other programs would have to be cut to pay for the fix.

The Senate debated on Tuesday a proposal by a group of Democrats to add $1.4 billion to veterans' health care funding for next year.

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada chided Republicans for finally acknowledging a problem. He noted that early attempts by Democrats to add money for veterans health care were "voted down on a strictly partisan vote."

The House already has approved a fiscal 2006 veterans funding bill that is about $1.1 billion above the Bush administration's request. Lawmakers said that will take care of part of the health-care funding problem, which still must be reviewed by the Senate.

Nicholson said his agency is in intensive discussions with the Office of Management and Budget on a request that is likely to be around $1.5 billion in additional funds.

Meanwhile, a $1 billion health-care funding shortage is being taken care of this year, Nicholson said, by tapping a reserve fund and deferring some maintenance and equipment acquisition costs, moves criticized by Democrats.

While Nicholson said veterans' health care was not being compromised by the budget problem, some Democrats were skeptical, citing a veterans health clinic closing in California, cutbacks at an Arlington, Virginia, veterans' medical center and supply shortages in Chicago.

Veterans groups have complained that funding is not keeping pace with inflation and rising medical costs and that veterans in some parts of the country experience long waits for care.

Maybe this is how Rummie reacts to Bush's speeches

2005-06-28T19:00:00.000-07:00

They're just making it up as they go along

2005-06-28T18:31:00.000-07:00

Hit by friendly fire
With his polls down, Bush takes flak on Iraq from a host of critics--including some in his own party
By Kevin Whitelaw

Nebraska Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel is angry. He's upset about the more than 1,700 U.S. soldiers killed and nearly 13,000 wounded in Iraq. He's also aggravated by the continued string of sunny assessments from the Bush administration, such as Vice President Dick Cheney's recent remark that the insurgency is in its "last throes." "Things aren't getting better; they're getting worse. The White House is completely disconnected from reality," Hagel tells U.S. News. "It's like they're just making it up as they go along. The reality is that we're losing in Iraq."

That's strikingly blunt talk from a member of the president's party, even one cast as something of a pariah in the GOP because of his early skepticism about the war. "I got beat up pretty good by my own party and the White House that I was not a loyal Republican," he says. Today, he notes, things are changing: "More and more of my colleagues up here are concerned."

Indeed, there are signs that the politics of the Iraq war are being reshaped by the continuing tide of bad news. Take this month in Iraq, with 47 U.S. troops killed in the first 15 days. That's already five more than the toll for the entire month of June last year. With the rate of insurgent attacks near an all-time high and the war's cost set to top $230 billion, more politicians on both sides of the aisle are responding to opinion polls that show a growing number of Americans favoring a withdrawal from Iraq. Republican Sens. Lincoln Chafee and Lindsey Graham have voiced their concerns. And two Republicans, including the congressman who brought "freedom fries" to the Capitol, even joined a pair of Democratic colleagues in sponsoring a bill calling for a troop withdrawal plan to be drawn up by year's end. "I feel confident that the opposition is going to build," says Rep. Ron Paul, the other Republican sponsor and a longtime opponent of the war.

Sagging polls. The measure is not likely to go anywhere, but Hagel calls it "a major crack in the dike." Whether or not that's so, the White House has reason to worry that the assortment of critiques of Bush's wartime performance may be approaching a tipping point. Only 41 percent of Americans now support Bush's handling of the Iraq war, the lowest mark ever in the Associated Press-Ipsos poll. And the Iraq news has combined with a lethargic economy and doubts about the president's Social Security proposals to push Bush's overall approval ratings near all-time lows. For now, most Republicans remain publicly loyal to the White House. "Why would you give your enemies a timetable?" asks House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. "[Bush] doesn't fight the war on news articles or television or on polls."

Still, the Bush administration is planning to hit back, starting this week, with a renewed public-relations push by the president. Bush will host Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari and has scheduled a major speech for June 28, the anniversary of the handover of power to an Iraqi government from U.S. authorities. But Congress's patience could wear very thin going into an election year. "If things don't start to turn around in six months, then it may be too late," says Hagel. "I think it's that serious."

Bush's exit strategy--which depends on a successful Iraqi political process--got a boost last week when Sunni and Shiite politicians ended weeks of wrangling over how to increase Sunni representation on the constitution-writing committee. Now, however, committee members have less than two months before their mid-August deadline. And given how long it took to resolve who gets to draft the document, it's hard to imagine a quick accord on the politically explosive issues they face.

With our economy in the trash, and our men and women dying in Iraq...why is this ASSHOLE laughing?

2005-06-25T07:57:00.000-07:00

DUNCAN HUNTER IS AN IDIOT! HE MUST BE AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS 'CUZ HE IS DA QUEEN OF DENIAL !

2005-06-12T11:26:00.000-07:00

http://codewarriorz.blogspot.com/2005/06/duncan-hunter-must-be-egyptian.html

DUNCAN HUNTER MUST BE AN EGYPTIAN PRINECESS, BECAUSE "HE'S DA QUEEN OF DENIAL"
NewsMax.com: Inside Cover Story
"After Rep. Duncan Hunter's eye-opening description of how terrorist suspects are living high on the hog at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, prisoners from around the world will no doubt be clamoring for a 'gulag' cell of their own.

Appearing on Fox News Sunday, the House Armed Services Committee chairman began by detailing tonight's dinner menu at Gitmo - which all detainees, including one suspected of being involved in the 9/11 plot, will enjoy. "

DUNCAN HUNTER IS AN IDIOT! HE MUST BE AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS 'CUZ HE IS DA QUEEN OF DENIAL !

police state

2005-05-24T18:09:00.000-07:00

Capitol Hill Blue: Police State

Police State
By DAN K. THOMASSON
May 24, 2005, 07:12
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Some really scary things are happening around here these days.
Congress has become a place of great incivility and rancor, which threaten to undermine any hope of legislative remedy to a myriad of problems, from Social Security to soaring health-care costs to immigration to a steadily crumbling manufacturing base once the envy of the world.

But perhaps the most frightening prospect for Americans is an unfettered national police force with the sole discretion to determine who can be investigated as a potential terrorist. That's the impact of little-known proposals to greatly expand the powers of the FBI, permitting its agents to seize business records without a warrant and to track the mail of those in terrorist inquiries without regard to Postal Service concerns.

Because the government can label almost any group or individual a terrorist threat, the potential for abuse by not having to show probable cause is enormous, prompting civil libertarians to correctly speculate about who will guard against the guardians. Up until now the answer was the Constitution as interpreted by the judiciary. But it is clear that sidestepping any such restriction is the real and present danger of the post-9-11 era.

A wise man, the late Sen. John Williams of Delaware, once counseled that any proposed legislation should be regarded in the light of its worst potential consequence, particularly when it came to laws that enhance the investigative and prosecutorial powers of the government at the expense of civil rights. This is most likely to occur in times of national stress, when the Constitution is always vulnerable to assault _ i.e., the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. The scenario Williams warned about runs something like this.

You are innocently standing on a street corner waiting to cross when you are approached by a complete stranger who politely, but in a low voice, asks directions to a certain address or area. You, of course, are utterly unaware that the person is under surveillance in a terrorist investigation. You respond in a friendly manner. And although the exchange takes only a few seconds, it is enough to make those following the suspect curious about you. You are identified and a background check reveals that you or your spouse has a relative of Middle Eastern extraction or that you recently traveled to a Middle Eastern country or that you contributed to a charity bazaar sponsored by a church or group under suspicion of passing money through to a terrorist cause.

Suddenly, you are caught in a major inquiry, your personal business records are seized and your mail is tracked. It doesn't take long for your friends and neighbors to learn that you are being investigated, and the result of that is predictable. You and your family are shunned. Your business begins to dwindle and before the nightmare has ended, which can take months, your life is in shambles. The truth never catches up with the fiction and the bureau, which has difficulty in saying the word "sorry," leaves you high and dry, twisting slowly in the wind.

Think it can't happen that way? Well, it does all the time. Ask the lawyer in Oregon whom the FBI misidentified as having taken part in the terrorist bombing of the Spanish railway. Ask any number of persons since Sept. 11, 2001, arrested and detained for months without charges or counsel before they were released.

If that isn't enough to satisfy you about the inadvisability of these proposals, think back to the Cold War days when the most casual acquaintance with a group or person on J. Edgar Hoover's anti-communist watch list could land one in water hot enough to make life miserable for a long time _ maybe even put him or her on one of the infamous blacklists.

If you weren't around in those times, read about them. One thing you will learn quickly is that the sole determination of who or what had communist inclinations belonged to the FBI. Even then, however, Congress was smart enough not to rescind the checks and balances that protect our civil liberties. Federal law-enforcement officers outside the FBI have complained of late about the bureau's penchant for seizing jurisdiction over almost any crime by relating it to terrorism.

Both of these over-reactive proposals are as fearsome as the threat of another al Qaeda attack, for they accomplish the same thing: the intrusion on and disruption of the rights of Americans. Like portions of the Patriot Act, which are rightly being challenged by conservatives as well as liberals, they are medicine worse than the cancer.

Bush Condemns S. Korea Stem Cell Research Advances,

2005-05-21T22:58:00.000-07:00

Bush Condemns S. Korea Stem Cell Research Advances, Says He Would Veto Loosening of U.S. Limits

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=778442

WASHINGTON May 21, 2005 — President Bush has condemned stem cell research advances in South Korea and said he worried about living in a world in which human cloning was condoned. He said he would veto any legislation aimed at loosening limits on federal support in the United States.

"I'm very concerned about cloning," Bush told reporters in the Oval Office on Friday. "I worry about a world in which cloning becomes acceptable."

"I made it very clear to the Congress that the use of federal money, taxpayers' money to promote science which destroys life in order to save life is I'm against that. And therefore, if the bill does that, I will veto it."

Republicans in Congress are sharply divided over the stem cell issue, which could lead to the first veto of Bush's presidency. The president's comments were aimed at putting the brakes on a bill gaining momentum on Capitol Hill.

That bill would lift Bush's ban on using federal dollars to do research on embryonic stem cell lines developed after August 2001. The president's veto threat drew immediate reaction from sponsors of the bipartisan bill, Reps. Mike Castle, R-Del., and Diana DeGette, D-Colo.

Castle said the legislation would not allow the cloning of embryos or embryo destruction. Instead, it would let government-funded researchers work with stem cells culled from embryos left over from fertility treatments.

"The bottom line is when a couple has decided to discard their excess embryos, they are either going to be discarded as medical waste or they can be donated for research," Castle said.

DeGette protested too. "It's disappointing that the president would threaten to use his first veto on a bill that holds promise for cures to diseases that affect millions of Americans," DeGette said. "Support for expanding federal stem cell research in an ethical manner remains strong in Congress."

Stem cells are building blocks that give rise to every tissue in the body. Supporters of embryo stem cell research, including former first lady Nancy Reagan, say it could lead to cures for Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and other degenerative brain and nerve diseases.

Lemme Get this Straight- Scientists say the South Korean stem cell research will help folks and Bush condemns it?

2005-05-21T22:57:00.000-07:00

OK..JUST WANTED TO BE CLEAR ON THAT...SCIENCE IS "BAD...BAD"...ACCORDING TO THAT ASS CLOWN BUSHY....AND IF IT HELPS PEOPLE...HE MUST CONDEMN IT. OK...I JUST WANTED TO GET ALL THIS STRAIGHT FOR THE RECORD.

BILL MOYERS SPEAKS OUT

2005-05-21T07:22:00.000-07:00

Moyers Addresses PBS Coup

By Bill Moyers, AlterNet. Posted May 17, 2005.

In this highly anticipated speech the veteran public broadcaster takes on the PBS coup and its right-wing engineers who are 'squealing like a stuck pig.'

I can't imagine better company on this beautiful Sunday morning in St. Louis. You're church for me today, and there's no congregation in the country where I would be more likely to find more kindred souls than are gathered here.

There are so many different vocations and callings in this room -- so many different interests and aspirations of people who want to reform the media -- that only a presiding bishop like Bob McChesney with his great ecumenical heart could bring us together for a weekend like this.

What joins us all under Bob's embracing welcome is our commitment to public media. Pat Aufderheide got it right, I think, in the recent issue of In These Times when she wrote: "This is a moment when public media outlets can make a powerful case for themselves. Public radio, public TV, cable access, public DBS channels, media arts centers, youth media projects, nonprofit Internet news services ... low-power radio and webcasting are all part of a nearly invisible feature of today's media map: the public media sector. They exist not to make a profit, not to push an ideology, not to serve customers, but to create a public -- a group of people who can talk productively with those who don't share their views, and defend the interests of the people who have to live with the consequences of corporate and governmental power."

She gives examples of the possibilities. "Look at what happened," she said, "when thousands of people who watched Stanley Nelson's The Murder of Emmett Till on their public television channels joined a postcard campaign that re-opened the murder case after more than half a century. Look at NPR's courageous coverage of the Iraq war, an expensive endeavor that wins no points from this administration. Look at Chicago Access Network's Community Forum, where nonprofits throughout the region can showcase their issues and find volunteers."

The public media, she argues, for all our flaws, are a very important resource in a noisy and polluted information environment.

You can also take wings reading Jason Miller's May 4 article on Z Net about the mainstream media. While it is true that much of the mainstream media is corrupted by the influence of government and corporate interests, Miller writes, there are still men and women in the mainstream who practice a high degree of journalistic integrity and who do challenge us with their stories and analysis.

But the real hope "lies within the internet with its 2 billion or more Web sites providing a wealth of information drawn from almost unlimited resources that span the globe. ... If knowledge is power, one's capacity to increase that power increases exponentially through navigation of the Internet for news and information."

Surely this is one issue that unites us as we leave here today. The fight to preserve the web from corporate gatekeepers joins media, reformers, producers and educators -- and it's a fight that has only just begun.

I want to tell you about another fight we're in today. The story I've come to share with you goes to the core of our belief that the quality of democracy and the quality of journalism are deeply entwined. I can tell this story because I've been living it. It's been in the news this week, including reports of more attacks on a single journalist -- yours truly -- by the right-wing media and their allies at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

As some of you know, CPB was established almost 40 years ago to set broad policy for public broadcasting and to be a firewall between political influence and program content. What some on this board are now doing today -- led by its chairman, Kenneth Tomlinson -- is too important, too disturbing and yes, even too dangerous for a gathering like this not to address.

We're seeing unfold a contemporary example of the age-old ambition of power and ideology to squelch and punish journalists who tell the stories that make princes and priests uncomfortable.

Let me assure you that I take in stride attacks by the radical right-wingers who have not given up demonizing me although I retired over six months ago. They've been after me for years now, and I suspect they will be stomping on my grave to make sure I don't come back from the dead.

I should remind them, however, that one of our boys pulled it off some 2,000 years ago -- after the Pharisees, Sadducees and Caesar's surrogates thought they had shut him up for good. Of course I won't be expecting that kind of miracle, but I should put my detractors on notice: They might just compel me out of the rocking chair and back into the anchor chair.

Who are they? I mean the people obsessed with control, using the government to threaten and intimidate. I mean the people who are hollowing out middle-class security even as they enlist the sons and daughters of the working class in a war to make sure Ahmed Chalabi winds up controlling Iraq's oil. I mean the people who turn faith-based initiatives into a slush fund and who encourage the pious to look heavenward and pray so as not to see the long arm of privilege and power picking their pockets. I mean the people who squelch free speech in an effort to obliterate dissent and consolidate their orthodoxy into the official view of reality from which any deviation becomes unpatriotic heresy.

That's who I mean. And if that's editorializing, so be it. A free press is one where it's OK to state the conclusion you're led to by the evidence.

One reason I'm in hot water is because my colleagues and I at NOW didn't play by the conventional rules of Beltway journalism. Those rules divide the world into Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, and allow journalists to pretend they have done their job if, instead of reporting the truth behind the news, they merely give each side an opportunity to spin the news.

Jonathan Mermin writes about this in a recent essay in World Policy Journal. (You'll also want to read his book Debating War and Peace, Media Coverage of U.S. Intervention in the Post-Vietnam Era.)

Mermin quotes David Ignatius of The Washington Post on why the deep interests of the American public are so poorly served by Beltway journalism. The "rules of our game," says Ignatius, "make it hard for us to tee up an issue ... without a news peg." He offers a case in point: the debacle of America's occupation of Iraq. "If senator so and so hasn't criticized postwar planning for Iraq," says Ignatius, "then it's hard for a reporter to write a story about that."

Mermin also quotes public television's Jim Lehrer acknowledging that unless an official says something is so, it isn't news. Why were journalists not discussing the occupation of Iraq? Because, says Lehrer, "the word occupation ... was never mentioned in the run-up to the war." Washington talked about the invasion as "a war of liberation, not a war of occupation, so as a consequence, "those of us in journalism never even looked at the issue of occupation."

"In other words," says Jonathan Mermin, "if the government isn't talking about it, we don't report it." He concludes: "[Lehrer's] somewhat jarring declaration, one of many recent admissions by journalists that their reporting failed to prepare the public for the calamitous occupation that has followed the 'liberation' of Iraq, reveals just how far the actual practice of American journalism has deviated from the First Amendment ideal of a press that is independent of the government."

Take the example (also cited by Mermin) of Charles J. Hanley. Hanley is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the Associated Press, whose fall 2003 story on the torture of Iraqis in American prisons -- before a U.S. Army report and photographs documenting the abuse surfaced -- was ignored by major American newspapers. Hanley attributes this lack of interest to the fact that "it was not an officially sanctioned story that begins with a handout from an official source."

Furthermore, Iraqis recounting their own personal experience of Abu Ghraib simply did not have the credibility with Beltway journalists of American officials denying that such things happened. Judith Miller of The New York Times, among others, relied on the credibility of official but unnamed sources when she served essentially as the government stenographer for claims that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.

These "rules of the game" permit Washington officials to set the agenda for journalism, leaving the press all too often simply to recount what officials say instead of subjecting their words and deeds to critical scrutiny. Instead of acting as filters for readers and viewers, sifting the truth from the propaganda, reporters and anchors attentively transcribe both sides of the spin invariably failing to provide context, background or any sense of which claims hold up and which are misleading.

I decided long ago that this wasn't healthy for democracy. I came to see that "news is what people want to keep hidden and everything else is publicity." In my documentaries -- whether on the Watergate scandals 30 years ago or the Iran-Contra conspiracy 20 years ago or Bill Clinton's fundraising scandals 10 years ago or, five years ago, the chemical industry's long and despicable cover-up of its cynical and unspeakable withholding of critical data about its toxic products from its workers, I realized that investigative journalism could not be a collaboration between the journalist and the subject. Objectivity is not satisfied by two opposing people offering competing opinions, leaving the viewer to split the difference.

I came to believe that objective journalism means describing the object being reported on, including the little fibs and fantasies as well as the Big Lie of the people in power. In no way does this permit journalists to make accusations and allegations. It means, instead, making sure that your reporting and your conclusions can be nailed to the post with confirming evidence.

This is always hard to do, but it has never been harder than today. Without a trace of irony, the powers-that-be have appropriated the newspeak vernacular of George Orwell's 1984. They give us a program vowing "No Child Left Behind," while cutting funds for educating disadvantaged kids. They give us legislation cheerily calling for "Clear Skies" and "Healthy Forests" that give us neither. And that's just for starters.

In Orwell's 1984, the character Syme, one of the writers of that totalitarian society's dictionary, explains to the protagonist Winston, "Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? Has it ever occurred to you, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now? The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking -- not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness."

An unconscious people, an indoctrinated people, a people fed only on partisan information and opinion that confirm their own bias, a people made morbidly obese in mind and spirit by the junk food of propaganda, is less inclined to put up a fight, to ask questions and be skeptical. That kind of orthodoxy can kill a democracy -- or worse.

I learned about this the hard way. I grew up in the South, where the truth about slavery, race, and segregation had been driven from the pulpits, driven from the classrooms and driven from the newsrooms. It took a bloody Civil War to bring the truth home, and then it took another hundred years for the truth to make us free.

Then I served in the Johnson administration. Imbued with Cold War orthodoxy and confident that "might makes right," we circled the wagons, listened only to each other, and pursued policies the evidence couldn't carry. The results were devastating for Vietnamese and Americans.

I brought all of this to the task when PBS asked me after 9/11 to start a new weekly broadcast. They wanted us to make it different from anything else on the air -- commercial or public broadcasting. They asked us to tell stories no one else was reporting and to offer a venue to people who might not otherwise be heard.

That wasn't a hard sell. I had been deeply impressed by studies published in leading peer-reviewed scholarly journals by a team of researchers led by Vassar College sociologist William Hoynes. Extensive research on the content of public television over a decade found that political discussions on our public affairs programs generally included a limited set of voices that offer a narrow range of perspectives on current issues and events.

Instead of far-ranging discussions and debates, the kind that might engage viewers as citizens, not simply as audiences, this research found that public affairs programs on PBS stations were populated by the standard set of elite news sources. Whether government officials and Washington journalists (talking about political strategy) or corporate sources (talking about stock prices or the economy from the investor's viewpoint), public television, unfortunately, all too often was offering the same kind of discussions, and a similar brand of insider discourse, that is featured regularly on commercial television.

Who didn't appear was also revealing. Hoynes and his team found that in contrast to the conservative mantra that public television routinely featured the voices of anti-establishment critics, "alternative perspectives were rare on public television and were effectively drowned out by the stream of government and corporate views that represented the vast majority of sources on our broadcasts."

The so-called experts who got most of the face time came primarily from mainstream news organizations and Washington think tanks rather than diverse interests. Economic news, for example, was almost entirely refracted through the views of business people, investors and business journalists. Voices outside the corporate/Wall Street universe -- nonprofessional workers, labor representatives, consumer advocates and the general public were rarely heard. In sum, these two studies concluded, the economic coverage was so narrow that the views and the activities of most citizens became irrelevant.

All this went against the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 that created the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. I know. I was there. As a young policy assistant to President Johnson, I attended my first meeting to discuss the future of public broadcasting in 1964 in the office of the Commissioner of Education. I know firsthand that the Public Broadcasting Act was meant to provide an alternative to commercial television and to reflect the diversity of the American people.

This, too, was on my mind when we assembled the team for NOW. It was just after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. We agreed on two priorities. First, we wanted to do our part to keep the conversation of democracy going. That meant talking to a wide range of people across the spectrum -- left, right and center.

It meant poets, philosophers, politicians, scientists, sages and scribblers. It meant Isabel Allende, the novelist, and Amity Shlaes, the columnist for the Financial Times. It meant the former nun and best-selling author Karen Armstrong, and it meant the right-wing evangelical columnist Cal Thomas. It meant Arundhati Roy from India, Doris Lessing from London, David Suzuki from Canada, and Bernard Henry-Levi from Paris. It also meant two successive editors of the Wall Street Journal, Robert Bartley and Paul Gigot, the editor of The Economist, Bill Emmott, The Nation's Katrina vanden Heuvel and the L.A. Weekly's John Powers.

It means liberals like Frank Wu, Ossie Davis and Gregory Nava, and conservatives like Frank Gaffney, Grover Norquist, and Richard Viguerie. It meant Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Bishop Wilton Gregory of the Catholic Bishops conference in this country. It meant the conservative Christian activist and lobbyist, Ralph Reed, and the dissident Catholic Sister Joan Chittister. We threw the conversation of democracy open to all comers.

Most of those who came responded the same way that Ron Paul, the Republican and Libertarian congressman from Texas, did when he wrote me after his appearance, "I have received hundreds of positive e-mails from your viewers. I appreciate the format of your program, which allows time for a full discussion of ideas. ... I'm tired of political shows featuring two guests shouting over each other and offering the same arguments. ... NOW was truly refreshing."

Hold your applause because that's not the point of the story. We had a second priority. We intended to do strong, honest and accurate reporting, telling stories we knew people in high places wouldn't like.

I told our producers and correspondents that in our field reporting our job was to get as close as possible to the verifiable truth. This was all the more imperative in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks. America could be entering a long war against an elusive and stateless enemy with no definable measure of victory and no limit to its duration, cost or foreboding fear. The rise of a homeland security state meant government could justify extraordinary measures in exchange for protecting citizens against unnamed, even unproven, threats.

Furthermore, increased spending during a national emergency can produce a spectacle of corruption behind a smokescreen of secrecy. I reminded our team of the words of the news photographer in Tom Stoppard's play who said, "People do terrible things to each other, but it's worse when everyone is kept in the dark."

I also reminded them of how the correspondent and historian Richard Reeves answered a student who asked him to define real news. "Real news," Reeves responded, "is the news you and I need to keep our freedoms."

For these reasons and in that spirit, we went about reporting on Washington as no one else in broadcasting -- except occasionally 60 Minutes -- was doing. We reported on the expansion of the Justice Department's power of surveillance. We reported on the escalating Pentagon budget and expensive weapons that didn't work. We reported on how campaign contributions influenced legislation and policy to skew resources to the comfortable and well-connected while our troops were fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq with inadequate training and armor. We reported on how the Bush administration was shredding the Freedom of Information Act. We went around the country to report on how closed-door, backroom deals in Washington were costing ordinary workers and tax payers their livelihood and security. We reported on offshore tax havens that enable wealthy and powerful Americans to avoid their fair share of national security and the social contract.

And always -- because what people know depends on who owns the press -- we kept coming back to the media business itself, to how mega media corporations were pushing journalism further and further down the hierarchy of values, how giant radio cartels were silencing critics while shutting communities off from essential information, and how the mega media companies were lobbying the FCC for the right to grow ever more powerful.

The broadcast caught on. Our ratings grew every year. There was even a spell when we were the only public affairs broadcast on PBS whose audience was going up instead of down.

Our journalistic peers took notice. The Los Angeles Times said, "NOW's team of reporters has regularly put the rest of the media to shame, pursuing stories few others bother to touch."

The Philadelphia Inquirer said our segments on the sciences, the arts, politics and the economy were "provocative public television at its best."

The Austin American-Statesman called NOW, "the perfect antidote to today's high pitched decibel level, a smart, calm, timely news program."

Frazier Moore of the Associated Press said we were hard-edged when appropriate but never "Hardball." "Don't expect combat. Civility reigns."

And the Baton Rouge Advocate said, "NOW invites viewers to consider the deeper implication of the daily headlines," drawing on "a wide range of viewpoints which transcend the typical labels of the political left or right."

Let me repeat that: NOW draws on "a wide range of viewpoints which transcend the typical labels of the political left or right."

The Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 had been prophetic. Open public television to the American people -- offer diverse interests, ideas and voices ... be fearless in your belief in democracy -- and they will come.

Hold your applause -- that's not the point of the story.

The point of the story is something only a handful of our team, including my wife and partner Judith Davidson Moyers, and I knew at the time -- that the success of NOW's journalism was creating a backlash in Washington.

The more compelling our journalism, the angrier the radical right of the Republican Party became. That's because the one thing they loathe more than liberals is the truth. And the quickest way to be damned by them as liberal is to tell the truth.

This is the point of my story: Ideologues don't want you to go beyond the typical labels of left and right. They embrace a world view that can't be proven wrong because they will admit no evidence to the contrary. They want your reporting to validate their belief system and when it doesn't, God forbid.

Never mind that their own stars were getting a fair shake on NOW: Gigot, Viguerie, David Keene of the American Conservative Union, Stephen Moore, then with the Club for Growth, and others. No, our reporting was giving the radical right fits because it wasn't the party line. It wasn't that we were getting it wrong. Only three times in three years did we err factually, and in each case we corrected those errors as soon as we confirmed their inaccuracy. The problem was that we were telling stories that partisans in power didn't want told ... we were getting it right, not right-wing.

I've always thought the American eagle needed a left wing and a right wing. The right wing would see to it that economic interests had their legitimate concerns addressed. The left wing would see to it that ordinary people were included in the bargain. Both would keep the great bird on course. But with two right wings or two left wings, it's no longer an eagle and it's going to crash.

My occasional commentaries got to them as well. Although apparently he never watched the broadcast (I guess he couldn't take the diversity), Sen. Trent Lott came out squealing like a stuck pig when after the midterm elections in 2002 I described what was likely to happen now that all three branches of government were about to be controlled by one party dominated by the religious, corporate and political right.

Instead of congratulating the winners for their election victory as some network broadcasters had done -- or celebrating their victory as Fox, the Washington Times, The Weekly Standard, talk radio and other partisan Republican journalists had done -- I provided a little independent analysis of what the victory meant. And I did it the old-fashioned way: I looked at the record, took the winners at their word, and drew the logical conclusion that they would use power as they always said they would. And I set forth this conclusion in my usual modest Texas way.

Events since then have confirmed the accuracy of what I said, but, to repeat, being right is exactly what the right doesn't want journalists to be.

Strange things began to happen. Friends in Washington called to say that they had heard of muttered threats that the PBS reauthorization would be held off "unless Moyers is dealt with." The chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Kenneth Tomlinson, was said to be quite agitated. Apparently there was apoplexy in the right-wing aerie when I closed the broadcast one Friday night by putting an American flag in my lapel and said - well, here's exactly what I said:

"I wore my flag tonight. First time. Until now I haven't thought it necessary to display a little metallic icon of patriotism for everyone to see. It was enough to vote, pay my taxes, perform my civic duties, speak my mind, and do my best to raise our kids to be good Americans.

"Sometimes I would offer a small prayer of gratitude that I had been born in a country whose institutions sustained me, whose armed forces protected me, and whose ideals inspired me; I offered my heart's affections in return. It no more occurred to me to flaunt the flag on my chest than it did to pin my mother's picture on my lapel to prove her son's love. Mother knew where I stood; so does my country. I even tuck a valentine in my tax returns on April 15.

"So what's this doing here? Well, I put it on to take it back. The flag's been hijacked and turned into a logo -- the trademark of a monopoly on patriotism. On those Sunday morning talk shows, official chests appear adorned with the flag as if it is the good housekeeping seal of approval. During the State of the Union, did you notice Bush and Cheney wearing the flag? How come? No administration's patriotism is ever in doubt, only its policies. And the flag bestows no immunity from error. When I see flags sprouting on official lapels, I think of the time in China when I saw Mao's little red book on every official's desk, omnipresent and unread.

"But more galling than anything are all those moralistic ideologues in Washington sporting the flag in their lapels while writing books and running Web sites and publishing magazines attacking dissenters as un-American. They are people whose ardor for war grows disproportionately to their distance from the fighting. They're in the same league as those swarms of corporate lobbyists wearing flags and prowling Capitol Hill for tax breaks even as they call for more spending on war.

"So I put this on as a modest riposte to men with flags in their lapels who shoot missiles from the safety of Washington think tanks, or argue that sacrifice is good as long as they don't have to make it, or approve of bribing governments to join the coalition of the willing (after they first stash the cash). I put it on to remind myself that not every patriot thinks we should do to the people of Baghdad what Bin Laden did to us. The flag belongs to the country, not to the government. And it reminds me that it's not un-American to think that war -- except in self-defense -- is a failure of moral imagination, political nerve, and diplomacy. Come to think of it, standing up to your government can mean standing up for your country."

That did it. That -- and our continuing reporting on overpricing at Haliburton, chicanery on K Street, and the heavy, if divinely guided hand, of Tom DeLay.

When Sen. Lott protested that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting "has not seemed willing to deal with Bill Moyers," a new member of the board, a Republican fundraiser named Cheryl Halperin, who had been appointed by President Bush, agreed that CPB needed more power to do just that sort of thing. She left no doubt about the kind of penalty she would like to see imposed on malefactors like Moyers.

As rumors circulated about all this, I asked to meet with the CPB board to hear for myself what was being said. I thought it would be helpful for someone like me, who had been present at the creation and part of the system for almost 40 years, to talk about how CPB had been intended to be a heat shield to protect public broadcasters from exactly this kind of intimidation.

After all, I'd been there at the time of Richard Nixon's attempted coup. In those days, public television had been really feisty and independent, and often targeted for attacks. A Woody Allen special that poked fun at Henry Kissinger in the Nixon administration had actually been cancelled. The White House had been so outraged over a documentary called the "Banks and the Poor" that PBS was driven to adopt new guidelines. That didn't satisfy Nixon, and when public television hired two NBC reporters -- Robert McNeil and Sander Vanoucur to co-anchor some new broadcasts, it was, for Nixon, the last straw. According to White House memos at the time, he was determined to "get the left-wing commentators who are cutting us up off public television at once -- indeed, yesterday if possible."

Sound familiar?

Nixon vetoed the authorization for CPB with a message written in part by his sidekick Pat Buchanan, who in a private memo had castigated Vanocur, MacNeil, Washington Week in Review, Black Journal and Bill Moyers as "unbalanced against the administration."

It does sound familiar.

I always knew Nixon would be back. I just didn't know this time he would be the chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Buchanan and Nixon succeeded in cutting CPB funding for all public affairs programming except for Black Journal. They knocked out multiyear funding for the National Public Affairs Center for Television, otherwise known as NPACT. And they voted to take away from the PBS staff the ultimate responsibility for the production of programming.

But in those days -- and this is what I wanted to share with Kenneth Tomlinson and his colleagues on the CPB board -- there were still Republicans in America who did not march in ideological lockstep and who stood on principle against politicizing public television. The chairman of the public station in Dallas was an industrialist named Ralph Rogers, a Republican but no party hack, who saw the White House intimidation as an assault on freedom of the press and led a nationwide effort to stop it.

The chairman of CPB was former Republican Congressman Thomas Curtis, who was also a principled man. He resigned, claiming White House interference. Within a few months, the crisis was over. CPB maintained its independence, PBS grew in strength, and Richard Nixon would soon face impeachment and resign for violating the public trust, not just public broadcasting.

Paradoxically, the very National Public Affairs Center for Television that Nixon had tried to kill -- NPACT -- put PBS on the map by rebroadcasting in primetime each day's Watergate hearings, drawing huge ratings night after night and establishing PBS as an ally of democracy. We should still be doing that sort of thing.

That was 33 years ago. I thought the current CPB board would like to hear and talk about the importance of standing up to political interference. I was wrong. They wouldn't meet with me. I tried three times. And it was all downhill after that.

I was na've, I guess. I simply never imagined that any CPB chairman, Democrat or Republican, would cross the line from resisting White House pressure to carrying it out for the White House. But that's what Kenneth Tomlinson has done.

On Fox News this week he denied that he's carrying out a White House mandate or that he's ever had any conversations with any Bush administration official about PBS. But the New York Times reported that he enlisted Karl Rove to help kill a proposal that would have put on the CPB board people with experience in local radio and television. The Times also reported that "on the recommendation of administration officials" Tomlinson hired a White House flack (I know the genre) named Mary Catherine Andrews as a senior CPB staff member. While she was still reporting to Karl Rove at the White House, Andrews set up CPB's new ombudsman's office and had a hand in hiring the two people who will fill it, one of whom once worked for ... you guessed it ... Kenneth Tomlinson.

I would like to give Mr. Tomlinson the benefit of the doubt, but I can't. According to a book written about the Reader's Digest when he was its editor-in-chief, he surrounded himself with other right-wingers -- a pattern he's now following at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

There is Ms. Andrews from the White House. For acting president, he hired Ken Ferree from the FCC, who was Michael Powell's enforcer when Powell was deciding how to go about allowing the big media companies to get even bigger. According to a forthcoming book, one of Ferree's jobs was to engage in tactics designed to dismiss any serious objection to media monopolies. And, according to Eric Alterman, Ferree was even more contemptuous than Michael Powell of public participation in the process of determining media ownership. Alterman identifies Ferree as the FCC staffer who decided to issue a "protective order" designed to keep secret the market research on which the Republican majority on the commission based their vote to permit greater media consolidation.

It's not likely that with guys like this running the CPB some public television producer is going to say, "Hey, let's do something on how big media is affecting democracy."

Call it preventive capitulation.

As everyone knows, Mr. Tomlinson also put up a considerable sum of money, reportedly over $5 million, for a new weekly broadcast featuring Paul Gigot and the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal. Gigot is a smart journalist, a sharp editor, and a fine fellow. I had him on NOW several times and even proposed that he become a regular contributor. The conversation of democracy -- remember? All stripes.

But I confess to some puzzlement that the Wall Street Journal, which in the past editorialized to cut PBS off the public tap, is now being subsidized by American taxpayers although its parent company, Dow Jones, had revenues in just the first quarter of this year of $400 million. I thought public television was supposed to be an alternative to commercial media, not a funder of it.

But in this weird deal, you get a glimpse of the kind of programming Mr. Tomlinson apparently seems to prefer. Alone of the big major newspapers, the Wall Street Journal has no op-ed page where different opinions can compete with its right-wing editorials. The Journal's PBS broadcast is just as homogenous -- right-wingers talking to each other. Why not $5 million to put the editors of The Nation on PBS? Or Amy Goodman's Democracy Now! You balance right-wing talk with left-wing talk.

There's more. Only two weeks ago did we learn that Mr. Tomlinson had spent $10,000 last year to hire a contractor who would watch my show and report on political bias. That's right. Kenneth Y. Tomlinson spent $10,000 of your money to hire a guy to watch NOW to find out who my guests were and what my stories were. Ten thousand dollars.

Gee, Ken, for $2.50 a week, you could pick up a copy of TV Guide on the newsstand. A subscription is even cheaper, and I would have sent you a coupon that can save you up to 62 percent.

For that matter, Ken, all you had to do was watch the show yourself. You could have made it easier with a double Jim Beam, your favorite. Or you could have gone online where the listings are posted. Hell, you could have called me -- collect -- and I would have told you.

Ten thousand dollars. That would have bought five tables at Thursday night's "Conservative Salute for Tom DeLay." Better yet, that ten grand would pay for the books in an elementary school classroom or an upgrade of its computer lab.

But having sent that cash, what did he find? Only Mr. Tomlinson knows. He's apparently decided not to share the results with his staff, or his board or leak it to Robert Novak. The public paid for it -- but Ken Tomlinson acts as if he owns it.

In a May 10 op-ed piece, in Rev. Moon's conservative Washington Times, Tomlinson maintained he had not released the findings because public broadcasting is such a delicate institution that he did not want to "damage public broadcasting's image with controversy." Where I come from in Texas, we shovel that kind of stuff every day.

As we learned only this week, that's not the only news Mr. Tomlinson tried to keep to himself. As reported by Jeff Chester's Center for Digital Democracy (of which I am a supporter), there were two public opinion surveys commissioned by CPB but not released to the media -- not even to PBS and NPR. According to a source who talked to Salon.com, "The first results were too good and [Tomlinson] didn't believe them. After the Iraq War, the board commissioned another round of polling, and they thought they'd get worse results."

But they didn't. The data revealed that, in reality, public broadcasting has an 80 percent favorable rating and that "the majority of the U.S. adult population does not believe that the news and information programming on public broadcasting is biased." In fact, more than half believed PBS provided more in-depth and trustworthy news and information than the networks and 55 percent said PBS was "fair and balanced."

Tomlinson is the man, by the way, who was running Voice of America back in 1984 when a partisan named Charlie Wick was politicizing the United States Information Agency of which Voice of America was a part. It turned out there was a blacklist of people who had been removed from the list of prominent Americans sent abroad to lecture on behalf of America and the USIA. What's more, it was discovered that evidence as to how those people were chosen to be on the blacklist, more than 700 documents had been shredded. Among those on the blacklists of journalists, writers, scholars and politicians were dangerous left-wing subversives like Walter Cronkite, James Baldwin, Gary Hart, Ralph Nader, Ben Bradlee, Coretta Scott King and David Brinkley.

The person who took the fall for the blacklist was another right-winger. He resigned. Shortly thereafter, so did Kenneth Tomlinson, who had been one of the people in the agency with the authority to see the lists of potential speakers and allowed to strike people's names. Let me be clear about this: There is no record, apparently, of what Ken Tomlinson did. We don't know whether he supported or protested the blacklisting of so many American liberals. Or what he thinks of it now.

But I had hoped Bill O'Reilly would have asked him about it when he appeared on The O'Reilly Factor this week. He didn't. Instead, Tomlinson went on attacking me with O'Reilly egging him on, and he went on denying he was carrying out a partisan mandate despite published reports to the contrary. The only time you could be sure he was telling the truth was at the end of the broadcast when he said to O'Reilly, "We love your show."

We love your show.

I wrote Kenneth Tomlinson on Friday and asked him to sit down with me for one hour on PBS and talk about all this. I suggested that he choose the moderator and the guidelines.

There is one other thing in particular I would like to ask him about. In his op-ed essay this week in Washington Times, Ken Tomlinson tells of a phone call from an old friend complaining about my bias. Wrote Mr. Tomlinson: "The friend explained that the foundation he heads made a six-figure contribution to his local television station for digital conversion. But he declared there would be no more contributions until something was done about the network's bias."

Apparently that's Kenneth Tomlinson's method of governance. Money talks and buys the influence it wants.

I would like to ask him to listen to a different voice.

This letter came to me last year from a woman in New York, five pages of handwriting. She said, among other things, that "after the worst sneak attack in our history, there's not been a moment to reflect, a moment to let the horror resonate, a moment to feel the pain and regroup as humans. No, since I lost my husband on 9/11, not only our family's world, but the whole world seems to have gotten even worse than that tragic day."

She wanted me to know that on 9/11 her husband was not on duty. "He was home with me having coffee. My daughter and grandson, living only five blocks from the Towers, had to be evacuated with masks -- terror all around. ... My other daughter, near the Brooklyn Bridge ... my son in high school. But my Charlie took off like a lightning bolt to be with his men from the Special Operations Command. 'Bring my gear to the plaza,' he told his aide immediately after the first plane struck the North Tower. ... He took action based on the responsibility he felt for his job and his men and for those Towers that he loved."

In the FDNY, she said, chain-of- command rules extend to every captain of every fire house in the city. If anything happens in the firehouse -- at any time -- even if the captain isn't on duty or on vacation -- that captain is responsible for everything that goes on there 24/7."

So she asked: "Why is this administration responsible for nothing? All that they do is pass the blame. This is not leadership. ... Watch everyone pass the blame again in this recent torture case [Abu Ghraib] of Iraqi prisons ..."

And then she wrote: "We need more programs like yours to wake America up. ... Such programs must continue amidst the sea of false images and name-calling that divide America now. ... Such programs give us hope that search will continue to get this imperfect human condition on to a higher plane. So thank you and all of those who work with you. Without public broadcasting, all we would call news would be merely carefully controlled propaganda."

Enclosed with the letter was a check made out to "Channel 13 -- NOW" for $500. I keep a copy of that check above my desk to remind me of what journalism is about. Kenneth Tomlinson has his demanding donors. I'll take the widow's mite any day.

Someone has said recently that the great raucous mob that is democracy is rarely heard and that it's not just the fault of the current residents of the White House and the capital. There's too great a chasm between those of us in this business and those who depend on TV and radio as their window to the world. We treat them too much as an audience and not enough as citizens. They're invited to look through the window but too infrequently to come through the door and to participate, to make public broadcasting truly public."

To that end, five public interest groups including Common Cause and Consumers Union will be holding informational sessions around the country to "take public broadcasting back" -- to take it back from threats, from interference, from those who would tell us we can only think what they command us to think.

It's a worthy goal.

We're big kids; we can handle controversy and diversity, whether it's political or religious points of view or two loving lesbian moms and their kids, visited by a cartoon rabbit. We are not too fragile or insecure to see America and the world entire for all their magnificent and sometimes violent confusion. There used to be a thing or a commodity we put great store by," John Steinbeck wrote. "It was called the people."

MAKES YOU PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN....OR DOES IT?

2005-05-20T04:37:00.000-07:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/20/international/asia/20abuse.html?hp&ex=1116561600&en=8701738ac057aebe&ei=5094&partner=homepage
In U.S. Report, Brutal Details of 2 Afghan Inmates' Deaths
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By TIM GOLDEN
Published: May 20, 2005
Even as the young Afghan man was dying before them, his American jailers continued to torment him.

The prisoner, a slight, 22-year-old taxi driver known only as Dilawar, was hauled from his cell at the detention center in Bagram, Afghanistan, at around 2 a.m. to answer questions about a rocket attack on an American base. When he arrived in the interrogation room, an interpreter who was present said, his legs were bouncing uncontrollably in the plastic chair and his hands were numb. He had been chained by the wrists to the top of his cell for much of the previous four days.

Mr. Dilawar asked for a drink of water, and one of the two interrogators, Specialist Joshua R. Claus, 21, picked up a large plastic bottle. But first he punched a hole in the bottom, the interpreter said, so as the prisoner fumbled weakly with the cap, the water poured out over his orange prison scrubs. The soldier then grabbed the bottle back and began squirting the water forcefully into Mr. Dilawar's face.

"Come on, drink!" the interpreter said Specialist Claus had shouted, as the prisoner gagged on the spray. "Drink!"

At the interrogators' behest, a guard tried to force the young man to his knees. But his legs, which had been pummeled by guards for several days, could no longer bend. An interrogator told Mr. Dilawar that he could see a doctor after they finished with him. When he was finally sent back to his cell, though, the guards were instructed only to chain the prisoner back to the ceiling.

"Leave him up," one of the guards quoted Specialist Claus as saying.

Several hours passed before an emergency room doctor finally saw Mr. Dilawar. By then he was dead, his body beginning to stiffen. It would be many months before Army investigators learned a final horrific detail: Most of the interrogators had believed Mr. Dilawar was an innocent man who simply drove his taxi past the American base at the wrong time.

The story of Mr. Dilawar's brutal death at the Bagram Collection Point - and that of another detainee, Habibullah, who died there six days earlier in December 2002 - emerge from a nearly 2,000-page confidential file of the Army's criminal investigation into the case, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times.

Like a narrative counterpart to the digital images from Abu Ghraib, the Bagram file depicts young, poorly trained soldiers in repeated incidents of abuse. The harsh treatment, which has resulted in criminal charges against seven soldiers, went well beyond the two deaths.

In some instances, testimony shows, it was directed or carried out by interrogators to extract information. In others, it was punishment meted out by military police guards. Sometimes, the torment seems to have been driven by little more than boredom or cruelty, or both.

In sworn statements to Army investigators, soldiers describe one female interrogator with a taste for humiliation stepping on the neck of one prostrate detainee and kicking another in the genitals. They tell of a shackled prisoner being forced to roll back and forth on the floor of a cell, kissing the boots of his two interrogators as he went. Yet another prisoner is made to pick plastic bottle caps out of a drum mixed with excrement and water as part of a strategy to soften him up for questioning.

The Times obtained a copy of the file from a person involved in the investigation who was critical of the methods used at Bagram and the military's response to the deaths.

Although incidents of prisoner abuse at Bagram in 2002, including some details of the two men's deaths, have been previously reported, American officials have characterized them as isolated problems that were thoroughly investigated. And many of the officers and soldiers interviewed in the Dilawar investigation said the large majority of detainees at Bagram were compliant and reasonably well treated.

"What we have learned through the course of all these investigations is that there were people who clearly violated anyone's standard for humane treatment," said the Pentagon's chief spokesman, Larry Di Rita. "We're finding some cases that were not close calls."

(Page 2 of 8)

Yet the Bagram file includes ample testimony that harsh treatment by some interrogators was routine and that guards could strike shackled detainees with virtual impunity. Prisoners considered important or troublesome were also handcuffed and chained to the ceilings and doors of their cells, sometimes for long periods, an action Army prosecutors recently classified as criminal assault.

Some of the mistreatment was quite obvious, the file suggests. Senior officers frequently toured the detention center, and several of them acknowledged seeing prisoners chained up for punishment or to deprive them of sleep. Shortly before the two deaths, observers from the International Committee of the Red Cross specifically complained to the military authorities at Bagram about the shackling of prisoners in "fixed positions," documents show.

Even though military investigators learned soon after Mr. Dilawar's death that he had been abused by at least two interrogators, the Army's criminal inquiry moved slowly. Meanwhile, many of the Bagram interrogators, led by the same operations officer, Capt. Carolyn A. Wood, were redeployed to Iraq and in July 2003 took charge of interrogations at the Abu Ghraib prison. According to a high-level Army inquiry last year, Captain Wood applied techniques there that were "remarkably similar" to those used at Bagram.

Last October, the Army's Criminal Investigation Command concluded that there was probable cause to charge 27 officers and enlisted personnel with criminal offenses in the Dilawar case ranging from dereliction of duty to maiming and involuntary manslaughter. Fifteen of the same soldiers were also cited for probable criminal responsibility in the Habibullah case.

So far, only the seven soldiers have been charged, including four last week. No one has been convicted in either death. Two Army interrogators were also reprimanded, a military spokesman said. Most of those who could still face legal action have denied wrongdoing, either in statements to investigators or in comments to a reporter.

"The whole situation is unfair," Sgt. Selena M. Salcedo, a former Bagram interrogator who was charged with assaulting Mr. Dilawar, dereliction of duty and lying to investigators, said in a telephone interview. "It's all going to come out when everything is said and done."

With most of the legal action pending, the story of abuses at Bagram remains incomplete. But documents and interviews reveal a striking disparity between the findings of Army investigators and what military officials said in the aftermath of the deaths.

Military spokesmen maintained that both men had died of natural causes, even after military coroners had ruled the deaths homicides. Two months after those autopsies, the American commander in Afghanistan, then-Lt. Gen. Daniel K. McNeill, said he had no indication that abuse by soldiers had contributed to the two deaths. The methods used at Bagram, he said, were "in accordance with what is generally accepted as interrogation techniques."

The Interrogators

In the summer of 2002, the military detention center at Bagram, about 40 miles north of Kabul, stood as a hulking reminder of the Americans' improvised hold over Afghanistan.

Built by the Soviets as an aircraft machine shop for the operations base they established after their intervention in the country in 1979, the building had survived the ensuing wars as a battered relic - a long, squat, concrete block with rusted metal sheets where the windows had once been.

Retrofitted with five large wire pens and a half dozen plywood isolation cells, the building became the Bagram Collection Point, a clearinghouse for prisoners captured in Afghanistan and elsewhere. The B.C.P., as soldiers called it, typically held between 40 and 80 detainees while they were interrogated and screened for possible shipment to the Pentagon's longer-term detention center at Guant�namo Bay, Cuba.

The new interrogation unit that arrived in July 2002 had been improvised as well. Captain Wood, then a 32-year-old lieutenant, came with 13 soldiers from the 525th Military Intelligence Brigade at Fort Bragg, N.C.; six Arabic-speaking reservists were added from the Utah National Guard.

(Page 3 of 8)

Part of the new group, which was consolidated under Company A of the 519th Military Intelligence Battalion, was made up of counterintelligence specialists with no background in interrogation. Only two of the soldiers had ever questioned actual prisoners.

What specialized training the unit received came on the job, in sessions with two interrogators who had worked in the prison for a few months. "There was nothing that prepared us for running an interrogation operation" like the one at Bagram, the noncommissioned officer in charge of the interrogators, Staff Sgt. Steven W. Loring, later told investigators.

Nor were the rules of engagement very clear. The platoon had the standard interrogations guide, Army Field Manual 34-52, and an order from the secretary of defense, Donald H. Rumsfeld, to treat prisoners "humanely," and when possible, in accordance with the Geneva Conventions. But with President Bush's final determination in February 2002 that the Conventions did not apply to the conflict with Al Qaeda and that Taliban fighters would not be accorded the rights of prisoners of war, the interrogators believed they "could deviate slightly from the rules," said one of the Utah reservists, Sgt. James A. Leahy.

"There was the Geneva Conventions for enemy prisoners of war, but nothing for terrorists," Sergeant Leahy told Army investigators. And the detainees, senior intelligence officers said, were to be considered terrorists until proved otherwise.

The deviations included the use of "safety positions" or "stress positions" that would make the detainees uncomfortable but not necessarily hurt them - kneeling on the ground, for instance, or sitting in a "chair" position against the wall. The new platoon was also trained in sleep deprivation, which the previous unit had generally limited to 24 hours or less, insisting that the interrogator remain awake with the prisoner to avoid pushing the limits of humane treatment.

But as the 519th interrogators settled into their jobs, they set their own procedures for sleep deprivation. They decided on 32 to 36 hours as the optimal time to keep prisoners awake and eliminated the practice of staying up themselves, one former interrogator, Eric LaHammer, said in an interview.

The interrogators worked from a menu of basic tactics to gain a prisoner's cooperation, from the "friendly" approach, to good cop-bad cop routines, to the threat of long-term imprisonment. But some less-experienced interrogators came to rely on the method known in the military as "Fear Up Harsh," or what one soldier referred to as "the screaming technique."

Sergeant Loring, then 27, tried with limited success to wean those interrogators off that approach, which typically involved yelling and throwing chairs. Mr. Leahy said the sergeant "put the brakes on when certain approaches got out of hand." But he could also be dismissive of tactics he considered too soft, several soldiers told investigators, and gave some of the most aggressive interrogators wide latitude. (Efforts to locate Mr. Loring, who has left the military, were unsuccessful.)

"We sometimes developed a rapport with detainees, and Sergeant Loring would sit us down and remind us that these were evil people and talk about 9/11 and they weren't our friends and could not be trusted," Mr. Leahy said.

Specialist Damien M. Corsetti, a tall, bearded interrogator sometimes called "Monster" -he had the nickname tattooed in Italian across his stomach, other soldiers said - was often chosen to intimidate new detainees. Specialist Corsetti, they said, would glower and yell at the arrivals as they stood chained to an overhead pole or lay face down on the floor of a holding room. (A military police K-9 unit often brought growling dogs to walk among the new prisoners for similar effect, documents show.)

"The other interrogators would use his reputation," said one interrogator, Specialist Eric H. Barclais. "They would tell the detainee, 'If you don't cooperate, we'll have to get Monster, and he won't be as nice.' " Another soldier told investigators that Sergeant Loring lightheartedly referred to Specialist Corsetti, then 23, as "the King of Torture."

(Page 4 of 8)

A Saudi detainee who was interviewed by Army investigators last June at Guant�namo said Specialist Corsetti had pulled out his penis during an interrogation at Bagram, held it against the prisoner's face and threatened to rape him, excerpts from the man's statement show.

Last fall, the investigators cited probable cause to charge Specialist Corsetti with assault, maltreatment of a prisoner and indecent acts in the incident; he has not been charged. At Abu Ghraib, he was also one of three members of the 519th who were fined and demoted for forcing an Iraqi woman to strip during questioning, another interrogator said. A spokesman at Fort Bragg said Specialist Corsetti would not comment.

In late August of 2002, the Bagram interrogators were joined by a new military police unit that was assigned to guard the detainees. The soldiers, mostly reservists from the 377th Military Police Company based in Cincinnati and Bloomington, Ind., were similarly unprepared for their mission, members of the unit said.

The company received basic lessons in handling prisoners at Fort Dix, N.J., and some police and corrections officers in its ranks provided further training. That instruction included an overview of "pressure-point control tactics" and notably the "common peroneal strike" - a potentially disabling blow to the side of the leg, just above the knee.

The M.P.'s said they were never told that peroneal strikes were not part of Army doctrine. Nor did most of them hear one of the former police officers tell a fellow soldier during the training that he would never use such strikes because they would "tear up" a prisoner's legs.

But once in Afghanistan, members of the 377th found that the usual rules did not seem to apply. The peroneal strike quickly became a basic weapon of the M.P. arsenal. "That was kind of like an accepted thing; you could knee somebody in the leg," former Sgt. Thomas V. Curtis told the investigators.

A few weeks into the company's tour, Specialist Jeremy M. Callaway overheard another guard boasting about having beaten a detainee who had spit on him. Specialist Callaway also told investigators that other soldiers had congratulated the guard "for not taking any" from a detainee.

One captain nicknamed members of the Third Platoon "the Testosterone Gang." Several were devout bodybuilders. Upon arriving in Afghanistan, a group of the soldiers decorated their tent with a Confederate flag, one soldier said.

Some of the same M.P.'s took a particular interest in an emotionally disturbed Afghan detainee who was known to eat his feces and mutilate himself with concertina wire. The soldiers kneed the man repeatedly in the legs and, at one point, chained him with his arms straight up in the air, Specialist Callaway told investigators. They also nicknamed him "Timmy," after a disabled child in the animated television series "South Park." One of the guards who beat the prisoner also taught him to screech like the cartoon character, Specialist Callaway said.

Eventually, the man was sent home.

The Defiant Detainee

The detainee known as Person Under Control No. 412 was a portly, well-groomed Afghan named Habibullah. Some American officials identified him as "Mullah" Habibullah, a brother of a former Taliban commander from the southern Afghan province of Oruzgan.

He stood out from the scraggly guerrillas and villagers whom the Bagram interrogators typically saw. "He had a piercing gaze and was very confident," the provost marshal in charge of the M.P.'s, Maj. Bobby R. Atwell, recalled.

Documents from the investigation suggest that Mr. Habibullah was captured by an Afghan warlord on Nov. 28, 2002, and delivered to Bagram by C.I.A. operatives two days later. His well-being at that point is a matter of dispute. The doctor who examined him on arrival at Bagram reported him in good health. But the intelligence operations chief, Lt. Col. John W. Loffert Jr., later told Army investigators, "He was already in bad condition when he arrived."

What is clear is that Mr. Habibullah was identified at Bagram as an important prisoner and an unusually sharp-tongued and insubordinate one.

Page 5 of 8)

One of the 377th's Third Platoon sergeants, Alan J. Driver Jr., told investigators that Mr. Habibullah rose up after a rectal examination and kneed him in the groin. The guard said he grabbed the prisoner by the head and yelled in his face. Mr. Habibullah then "became combative," Sergeant Driver said, and had to be subdued by three guards and led away in an armlock.

He was then confined in one of the 9-foot by 7-foot isolation cells, which the M.P. commander, Capt. Christopher M. Beiring, later described as a standard procedure. "There was a policy that detainees were hooded, shackled and isolated for at least the first 24 hours, sometimes 72 hours of captivity," he told investigators.

While the guards kept some prisoners awake by yelling or poking at them or banging on their cell doors, Mr. Habibullah was shackled by the wrists to the wire ceiling over his cell, soldiers said.

On his second day, Dec. 1, the prisoner was "uncooperative" again, this time with Specialist Willie V. Brand. The guard, who has since been charged with assault and other crimes, told investigators he had delivered three peroneal strikes in response. The next day, Specialist Brand said, he had to knee the prisoner again. Other blows followed.

A lawyer for Specialist Brand, John P. Galligan, said there was no criminal intent by his client to hurt any detainee. "At the time, my client was acting consistently with the standard operating procedure that was in place at the Bagram facility."

The communication between Mr. Habibullah and his jailers appears to have been almost exclusively physical. Despite repeated requests, the M.P.'s were assigned no interpreters of their own. Instead, they borrowed from the interrogators when they could and relied on prisoners who spoke even a little English to translate for them.

When the detainees were beaten or kicked for "noncompliance," one of the interpreters, Ali M. Baryalai said, it was often "because they have no idea what the M.P. is saying."

By the morning of Dec. 2, witnesses told the investigators, Mr. Habibullah was coughing and complaining of chest pains. He limped into the interrogation room in shackles, his right leg stiff and his right foot swollen. The lead interrogator, Sergeant Leahy, let him sit on the floor because he could not bend his knees and sit in a chair.

The interpreter who was on hand, Ebrahim Baerde, said the interrogators had kept their distance that day "because he was spitting up a lot of phlegm."

"They were laughing and making fun of him, saying it was 'gross' or 'nasty,' " Mr. Baerde said.

Though battered, Mr. Habibullah was unbowed.

"Once they asked him if he wanted to spend the rest of his life in handcuffs," Mr. Baerde said. "His response was, 'Yes, don't they look good on me?' "

By Dec. 3, Mr. Habibullah's reputation for defiance seemed to make him an open target. One M.P. said he had given him five peroneal strikes for being "noncompliant and combative." Another gave him three or four more for being "combative and noncompliant." Some guards later asserted that he had been hurt trying to escape.

When Sgt. James P. Boland saw Mr. Habibullah on Dec. 3, he was in one of the isolation cells, tethered to the ceiling by two sets of handcuffs and a chain around his waist. His body was slumped forward, held up by the chains.

Sergeant Boland told the investigators he had entered the cell with two other guards, Specialists Anthony M. Morden and Brian E. Cammack. (All three have been charged with assault and other crimes.) One of them pulled off the prisoner's black hood. His head was slumped to one side, his tongue sticking out. Specialist Cammack said he had put some bread on Mr. Habibullah's tongue. Another soldier put an apple in the prisoner's hand; it fell to the floor.

When Specialist Cammack turned back toward the prisoner, he said in one statement, Mr. Habibullah's spit hit his chest. Later, Specialist Cammack acknowledged, "I'm not sure if he spit at me." But at the time, he exploded, yelling, "Don't ever spit on me again!" and kneeing the prisoner sharply in the thigh, "maybe a couple" of times. Mr. Habibullah's limp body swayed back and forth in the chains.

When Sergeant Boland returned to the cell some 20 minutes later, he said, Mr. Habibullah was not moving and had no pulse. Finally, the prisoner was unchained and laid out on the floor of his cell.

The guard who Specialist Cammack said had counseled him back in New Jersey about the dangers of peroneal strikes found him in the room where Mr. Habibullah lay, his body already cold.

"Specialist Cammack appeared very distraught," Specialist William Bohl told an investigator. The soldier "was running about the room hysterically."

An M.P. was sent to wake one of the medics.

"What are you getting me for?" the medic, Specialist Robert S. Melone, responded, telling him to call an ambulance instead.

When another medic finally arrived, he found Mr. Habibullah on the floor, his arms outstretched, his eyes and mouth open.

"It looked like he had been dead for a while, and it looked like nobody cared," the medic, Staff Sgt. Rodney D. Glass, recalled.

Not all of the guards were indifferent, their statements show. But if Mr. Habibullah's death shocked some of them, it did not lead to major changes in the detention center's operation.

(Page 6 of 8)

Military police guards were assigned to be present during interrogations to help prevent mistreatment. The provost marshal, Major Atwell, told investigators he had already instructed the commander of the M.P. company, Captain Beiring, to stop chaining prisoners to the ceiling. Others said they never received such an order.

Senior officers later told investigators that they had been unaware of any serious abuses at the B.C.P. But the first sergeant of the 377th, Betty J. Jones, told investigators that the use of standing restraints, sleep deprivation and peroneal strikes was readily apparent.

"Everyone that is anyone went through the facility at one time or another," she said.

Major Atwell said the death "did not cause an enormous amount of concern 'cause it appeared natural."

In fact, Mr. Habibullah's autopsy, completed on Dec. 8, showed bruises or abrasions on his chest, arms and head. There were deep contusions on his calves, knees and thighs. His left calf was marked by what appeared to have been the sole of a boot.

His death was attributed to a blood clot, probably caused by the severe injuries to his legs, which traveled to his heart and blocked the blood flow to his lungs.

The Shy Detainee

On Dec. 5, one day after Mr. Habibullah died, Mr. Dilawar arrived at Bagram.

Four days before, on the eve of the Muslim holiday of Id al-Fitr, Mr. Dilawar set out from his tiny village of Yakubi in a prized new possession, a used Toyota sedan that his family bought for him a few weeks earlier to drive as a taxi.

Mr. Dilawar was not an adventurous man. He rarely went far from the stone farmhouse he shared with his wife, young daughter and extended family. He never attended school, relatives said, and had only one friend, Bacha Khel, with whom he would sit in the wheat fields surrounding the village and talk.

"He was a shy man, a very simple man," his eldest brother, Shahpoor, said in an interview.

On the day he disappeared, Mr. Dilawar's mother had asked him to gather his three sisters from their nearby villages and bring them home for the holiday. But he needed gas money and decided instead to drive to the provincial capital, Khost, about 45 minutes away, to look for fares.

At a taxi stand there, he found three men headed back toward Yakubi. On the way, they passed a base used by American troops, Camp Salerno, which had been the target of a rocket attack that morning.

Militiamen loyal to the guerrilla commander guarding the base, Jan Baz Khan, stopped the Toyota at a checkpoint. They confiscated a broken walkie-talkie from one of Mr. Dilawar's passengers. In the trunk, they found an electric stabilizer used to regulate current from a generator. (Mr. Dilawar's family said the stabilizer was not theirs; at the time, they said, they had no electricity at all.)

The four men were detained and turned over to American soldiers at the base as suspects in the attack. Mr. Dilawar and his passengers spent their first night there handcuffed to a fence, so they would be unable to sleep. When a doctor examined them the next morning, he said later, he found Mr. Dilawar tired and suffering from headaches but otherwise fine.

Mr. Dilawar's three passengers were eventually flown to Guant�namo and held for more than a year before being sent home without charge. In interviews after their release, the men described their treatment at Bagram as far worse than at Guant�namo. While all of them said they had been beaten, they complained most bitterly of being stripped naked in front of female soldiers for showers and medical examinations, which they said included the first of several painful and humiliating rectal exams.

"They did lots and lots of bad things to me," said Abdur Rahim, a 26-year-old baker from Khost. "I was shouting and crying, and no one was listening. When I was shouting, the soldiers were slamming my head against the desk."

For Mr. Dilawar, his fellow prisoners said, the most difficult thing seemed to be the black cloth hood that was pulled over his head. "He could not breathe," said a man called Parkhudin, who had been one of Mr. Dilawar's passengers.

Mr. Dilawar was a frail man, standing only 5 feet 9 inches and weighing 122 pounds. But at Bagram, he was quickly labeled one of the "noncompliant" ones.

(Page 7 of 8)

When one of the First Platoon M.P.'s, Specialist Corey E. Jones, was sent to Mr. Dilawar's cell to give him some water, he said the prisoner spit in his face and started kicking him. Specialist Jones responded, he said, with a couple of knee strikes to the leg of the shackled man.

"He screamed out, 'Allah! Allah! Allah!' and my first reaction was that he was crying out to his god," Specialist Jones said to investigators. "Everybody heard him cry out and thought it was funny."

Other Third Platoon M.P.'s later came by the detention center and stopped at the isolation cells to see for themselves, Specialist Jones said.

It became a kind of running joke, and people kept showing up to give this detainee a common peroneal strike just to hear him scream out 'Allah,' " he said. "It went on over a 24-hour period, and I would think that it was over 100 strikes."

In a subsequent statement, Specialist Jones was vague about which M.P.'s had delivered the blows. His estimate was never confirmed, but other guards eventually admitted striking Mr. Dilawar repeatedly.

Many M.P.'s would eventually deny that they had any idea of Mr. Dilawar's injuries, explaining that they never saw his legs beneath his jumpsuit. But Specialist Jones recalled that the drawstring pants of Mr. Dilawar's orange prison suit fell down again and again while he was shackled.

"I saw the bruise because his pants kept falling down while he was in standing restraints," the soldier told investigators. "Over a certain time period, I noticed it was the size of a fist."

As Mr. Dilawar grew desperate, he began crying out more loudly to be released. But even the interpreters had trouble understanding his Pashto dialect; the annoyed guards heard only noise.

"He had constantly been screaming, 'Release me; I don't want to be here,' and things like that," said the one linguist who could decipher his distress, Abdul Ahad Wardak.

The Interrogation

On Dec. 8, Mr. Dilawar was taken for his fourth interrogation. It quickly turned hostile.

The 21-year-old lead interrogator, Specialist Glendale C. Walls II, later contended that Mr. Dilawar was evasive. "Some holes came up, and we wanted him to answer us truthfully," he said. The other interrogator, Sergeant Salcedo, complained that the prisoner was smiling, not answering questions, and refusing to stay kneeling on the ground or sitting against the wall.

The interpreter who was present, Ahmad Ahmadzai, recalled the encounter differently to investigators.

The interrogators, Mr. Ahmadzai said, accused Mr. Dilawar of launching the rockets that had hit the American base. He denied that. While kneeling on the ground, he was unable to hold his cuffed hands above his head as instructed, prompting Sergeant Salcedo to slap them back up whenever they began to drop.

"Selena berated him for being weak and questioned him about being a man, which was very insulting because of his heritage," Mr. Ahmadzai said.

When Mr. Dilawar was unable to sit in the chair position against the wall because of his battered legs, the two interrogators grabbed him by the shirt and repeatedly shoved him back against the wall.

"This went on for 10 or 15 minutes," the interpreter said. "He was so tired he couldn't get up."

"They stood him up, and at one point Selena stepped on his bare foot with her boot and grabbed him by his beard and pulled him towards her," he went on. "Once Selena kicked Dilawar in the groin, private areas, with her right foot. She was standing some distance from him, and she stepped back and kicked him.

"About the first 10 minutes, I think, they were actually questioning him, after that it was pushing, shoving, kicking and shouting at him," Mr. Ahmadzai said. "There was no interrogation going on."

The session ended, he said, with Sergeant Salcedo instructing the M.P.'s to keep Mr. Dilawar chained to the ceiling until the next shift came on.

The next morning, Mr. Dilawar began yelling again. At around noon, the M.P.'s called over another of the interpreters, Mr. Baerde, to try to quiet Mr. Dilawar down.

"I told him, 'Look, please, if you want to be able to sit down and be released from shackles, you just need to be quiet for one more hour."

"He told me that if he was in shackles another hour, he would die," Mr. Baerde said.

Half an hour later, Mr. Baerde returned to the cell. Mr. Dilawar's hands hung limply from the cuffs, and his head, covered by the black hood, slumped forward.

"He wanted me to get a doctor, and said that he needed 'a shot,' " Mr. Baerde recalled. "He said that he didn't feel good. He said that his legs were hurting."

Mr. Baerde translated Mr. Dilawar's plea to one of the guards. The soldier took the prisoner's hand and pressed down on his fingernails to check his circulation.

"He's O.K.," Mr. Baerde quoted the M.P. as saying. "He's just trying to get out of his restraints."

Page 8 of 8)

By the time Mr. Dilawar was brought in for his final interrogation in the first hours of the next day, Dec. 10, he appeared exhausted and was babbling that his wife had died. He also told the interrogators that he had been beaten by the guards.

"But we didn't pursue that," said Mr. Baryalai, the interpreter.

Specialist Walls was again the lead interrogator. But his more aggressive partner, Specialist Claus, quickly took over, Mr. Baryalai said.

"Josh had a rule that the detainee had to look at him, not me," the interpreter told investigators. "He gave him three chances, and then he grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him towards him, across the table, slamming his chest into the table front."

When Mr. Dilawar was unable to kneel, the interpreter said, the interrogators pulled him to his feet and pushed him against the wall. Told to assume a stress position, the prisoner leaned his head against the wall and began to fall asleep.

"It looked to me like Dilawar was trying to cooperate, but he couldn't physically perform the tasks," Mr. Baryalai said.

Finally, Specialist Walls grabbed the prisoner and "shook him harshly," the interpreter said, telling him that if he failed to cooperate, he would be shipped to a prison in the United States, where he would be "treated like a woman, by the other men" and face the wrath of criminals who "would be very angry with anyone involved in the 9/11 attacks." (Specialist Walls was charged last week with assault, maltreatment and failure to obey a lawful order; Specialist Claus was charged with assault, maltreatment and lying to investigators. Each man declined to comment.)

A third military intelligence specialist who spoke some Pashto, Staff Sgt. W. Christopher Yonushonis, had questioned Mr. Dilawar earlier and had arranged with Specialist Claus to take over when he was done. Instead, the sergeant arrived at the interrogation room to find a large puddle of water on the floor, a wet spot on Mr. Dilawar's shirt and Specialist Claus standing behind the detainee, twisting up the back of the hood that covered the prisoner's head.

"I had the impression that Josh was actually holding the detainee upright by pulling on the hood," he said. "I was furious at this point because I had seen Josh tighten the hood of another detainee the week before. This behavior seemed completely gratuitous and unrelated to intelligence collection."

"What the hell happened with that water?" Sergeant Yonushonis said he had demanded.

"We had to make sure he stayed hydrated," he said Specialist Claus had responded.

The next morning, Sergeant Yonushonis went to the noncommissioned officer in charge of the interrogators, Sergeant Loring, to report the incident. Mr. Dilawar, however, was already dead.

The Post-Mortem

The findings of Mr. Dilawar's autopsy were succinct. He had had some coronary artery disease, the medical examiner reported, but what caused his heart to fail was "blunt force injuries to the lower extremities." Similar injuries contributed to Mr. Habibullah's death.

One of the coroners later translated the assessment at a pre-trial hearing for Specialist Brand, saying the tissue in the young man's legs "had basically been pulpified."

"I've seen similar injuries in an individual run over by a bus," added Lt. Col. Elizabeth Rouse, the coroner, and a major at that time.

After the second death, several of the 519th Battalion's interrogators were temporarily removed from their posts. A medic was assigned to the detention center to work night shifts. On orders from the Bagram intelligence chief, interrogators were prohibited from any physical contact with the detainees. Chaining prisoners to any fixed object was also banned, and the use of stress positions was curtailed.

In February, an American military official disclosed that the Afghan guerrilla commander whose men had arrested Mr. Dilawar and his passengers had himself been detained. The commander, Jan Baz Khan, was suspected of attacking Camp Salerno himself and then turning over innocent "suspects" to the Americans in a ploy to win their trust, the military official said.

The three passengers in Mr. Dilawar's taxi were sent home from Guant�namo in March 2004, 15 months after their capture, with letters saying they posed "no threat" to American forces.

They were later visited by Mr. Dilawar's parents, who begged them to explain what had happened to their son. But the men said they could not bring themselves to recount the details.

"I told them he had a bed," said Mr. Parkhudin. "I said the Americans were very nice because he had a heart problem."

In late August of last year, shortly before the Army completed its inquiry into the deaths, Sergeant Yonushonis, who was stationed in Germany, went at his own initiative to see an agent of the Criminal Investigation Command. Until then, he had never been interviewed.

"I expected to be contacted at some point by investigators in this case," he said. "I was living a few doors down from the interrogation room, and I had been one of the last to see this detainee alive."

Sergeant Yonushonis described what he had witnessed of the detainee's last interrogation. "I remember being so mad that I had trouble speaking," he said.

He also added a detail that had been overlooked in the investigative file. By the time Mr. Dilawar was taken into his final interrogations, he said, "most of us were convinced that the detainee was innocent."

###

SEE THIS WEB PAGE...IT'S A MUST! EXCELLENT!

2005-05-19T18:55:00.000-07:00

Film Strip International

Janice Rogers Brown- Dangerous Right Wing Nut

2005-05-19T17:25:00.000-07:00

Janice Rogers Brown has some bizarre, and yes, I believe, dangerous views on the world. That's fine if she was just a greeter at Wal*Mart, but it is NOT fine if she were to become Appeals Court Judge. Her kind of bizarre thinking has NO legitimate place on the judiciary at ANY level.

Think she is just a nice black lady who deserves any judicial position Bushy wants to slide her into?

If you think that, examine her positions...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/19/AR2005051900956_2.html

In many ways, Brown's court rulings and speeches mirror the thinking of Bush and conservatives coast to coast.

An outspoken Christian conservative from the segregated South, she supports limits on abortion rights and corporate liability, routinely upholds the death penalty and opposes affirmative action.

"A lot of judges get to the point they think they were anointed and not appointed," Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., said Tuesday during floor debate. "I don't think anyone can contend she has performed other than admirably on the bench. She has written beautifully and thoughtfully."

Brown's views are also why Democrats have used a filibuster since 2003 to block her confirmation for a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The Senate's 55 Republicans have a clear majority to confirm but not the 60 votes need to break the filibuster.

"She has criticized the New Deal, which gave us Social Security, the minimum wage, and fair labor laws. She's questioned whether age discrimination laws benefit the public interest," said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. "No one with these views should be confirmed to a federal court and certainly not to the federal court most responsible for cases affecting government action."

and farther down...
"She defended her faith-based approach to the law again last month, telling a gathering of Roman Catholic legal professionals in Darien, Conn., that "these are perilous times for people of faith, not in the sense that we are going to lose our lives, but in the sense that it will cost you something if you are a person of faith who stands up for what you believe in and say those things out loud."

Janice Rogers Brown apparently is one of the right wing nut jobs who is part of the "Constitution in Exile".

http://www.acsblog.org/economic-regulation-employment-1217-jeffrey-rosen-on-athe-constitution-in-exilea.html

" Other potential Bush Supreme Court nominees Rosen discusses as potential adherents of the Constitution in Exile include Janice Rogers Brown (who called 1937, the year in which the Supreme Court stopped striking down New Deal legislation on constitutional grounds “the triumph of our socialist revolution.”), J. Michael Luttig and John Roberts."

More on teh "Constitution in Exile" insane ideas here

http://www.acsblog.org/judicial-nominations-700-the-return-of-constitution-in-exile.html

But, Janice Rogers Brown has her little fingers all gooey from ALL KINDS of nut job pies! She's a big one for the "FEDERALIST SOCIETY".

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/5/1/225323/5346
"The Big Lie: Right Wing Plays the Race Card on Judicial Nominations
by Armando
Sun May 1st, 2005 at 19:53:23 PDT

You knew it was coming because the Right Wing is shameless. And here it is - the shameless playing of the race card by the GOP, right from the bottom of the deck:

Why are Senate Democrats so afraid of conservative judicial nominees who are African Americans, Hispanics, Catholics, and women? Because these Clarence Thomas nominees threaten to split the Democratic base by aligning conservative Republicans with conservative voices in the minority community and appealing to suburban women. The Democrats need Bush to nominate conservatives to the Supreme Court whom they can caricature and vilify, and it is much harder for them to do that if Bush nominates the judicial equivalent of a Condi Rice rather than a John Ashcroft.
What shameless liars. Indeed, the opposite is true. The GOP chooses African-Americans and women to be the most extreme, out of the mainstream nominees imaginable. And yes Clarence Thomas is Exhibit A of that theory. Why do they do this? To try and cow legitmate opposition to the unbelievably extreme positions they want their nominees to hold, and they believe the only way to get these extreme views confirmed by the Senate is to cynically play the race card - to wit, nominate African-Americans and women who hold these extreme, out of the mainstream views.

The truth is no bar to the GOP's offensive use of the race card. Take this description:

Take Janice Rogers Brown, who won reelection to her state supreme court seat with a stunning 76 percent of the vote in one of the bluest of the blue states, California.
First of all, Rogers Brown was not reelected, rather she was facing the voters for the FIRST time in 1998 on a vote of retention after being named to the California Supreme Court in 1996. Brown would not be up for re-election for another 12 years, in 2008. More importantly, a 76% vote for a California Supreme Court Justice is NOT stunning, particularly one with only 2 years on the Court. For example, from California Appellate Counselor:

Four current members of the California Supreme Court were up for retention in the November 1998 election -- Chief Justice Ronald George, Justice Stanley Mosk, Justice Ming Chin and Justice Janice Rogers Brown. Most of the attention centered on Chief Justice George and Justice Chin, who had incurred the wrath of certain abortion foes by voting to strike down a statute that required unmarried teenagers to obtain the consent of a parent or judge for an abortion. Justices Mosk and Brown dissented from that decision[,] ... American Academy of Pediatrics v. Lungren, 16 Cal. 4th 307 (1997).
As it turned out, the elections were no contest. All four were retained by substantial margins. Here are the final results, as reported in the Los Angeles Times:

Chief Justice Ronald M. George
Confirm 4,131,213 (75 percent)
Reject 1,354,994 (25 percent)

Associate Justice Stanley Mosk
Confirm 3,695,777 (70 percent)
Reject 1,557,390 (30 percent)

Associate Justice Ming W. Chin
Confirm 3,723,584 (69 percent)
Reject 1,669,841 (25 percent)

Associate Justice Janice R. Brown
Confirm 3,884,203 (76 percent)
Reject 1,255,502 (24 percent)

As you can see, distorting the facts is no impediment for the Right Wing. In an election where the Religious Right targetted liberal Justices, Rogers Brown, an afterthought in this election, "stunned" with the same result as the targetted Chief Justice.

More importantly, the Right Wing simply lies about the basis of Democratic opposition to Rogers Brown:

Justice Brown's disdain for government runs so deep that she urges "conservative" judges to invalidate legislation that expands the role of government, saying that it "inevitably transform[s]... a democracy ... into a kleptocracy." Following her own "pro-activist" advice, Justice Brown - always in dissent - uses constitutional provisions or defies the legislature's intent to restrict or invalidate laws she doesn't like, such as California's anti-discrimination statute (which she condemns as protecting only "narrow" personal interests), hotel development fees intended to preserve San Francisco's affordable housing supply, rent control ordinances, statutory fees for manufacturers that put lead-based products into the stream of commerce, and a false advertising law applied to companies making false claims about their workplace practices to boost sales. Justice Brown's colleagues on the court have repeatedly remarked on her disrespect for such legislative policy judgments, criticizing her, in different cases, for "imposing ... [a] personal theory of political economy on the people of a democratic state"; asserting "such an activist role for the courts"; "quarrel[ing]... not with our holding in this case, but with this court's previous decision ... and, even more fundamentally, with the Legislature itself"; and "permit[ting] a court ... to reweigh the policy choices that underlay a legislative or quasi-legislative classification or to reevaluate the efficacy of the legislative measure."
Need more? Here's a review of the substance of the Roger Brown record, matters the Right Wing liars and cynical players of the race card will NOT discuss:

The report, "Loose Cannon," notes that when Brown was nominated to the state supreme court in 1996, she was found unqualified by the state bar evaluation committee, based not only on her relative inexperience but also because she was "prone to inserting conservative political views into her appellate opinions" and based on complaints that she was "insensitive to established precedent."
The report carefully examines Brown's record since she joined the court, especially her numerous dissenting opinions concerning civil and constitutional rights. Brown's many disturbing dissents, often not joined by a single other justice, make it clear that she would use the power of an appeals court seat to try to erect significant barriers for victims of discrimination to seek justice in the courts, and to push an agenda that would undermine privacy, equal protection under the law, environmental protection, and much more.

In speeches, Brown has embraced the extreme states' rights and anti-federal-government positions of the Federalist Society, the organization of lawyers and judges working to push the law far to the right. She has said that what she has called the "Revolution of 1937," when the Supreme Court began to consistently sustain New Deal legislation against legal attack, was a "disaster" that marked "the triumph of our socialist revolution."

More in extended.

Republicans :: :: Trackback ::

More of the Rogers Brown judicial record.

Civil Rights, Equal Opportunity, and Discrimination
According to the report, "Justice Brown's opinions on civil rights law are perhaps the most troubling area of a very troubling body of work. These opinions reveal significant skepticism about the existence and impact of discrimination and demonstrate repeated efforts to limit the avenues available to victims of discrimination to obtain justice. Brown's opinions in this area reveal a troubling disregard for precedent and stare decisis - even in the context of case law that has been settled by the U.S. Supreme Court."

The report examines Brown opinions in cases involving racial discrimination, discrimination against people with disabilities and older Americans, and affirmative action. California's Chief Justice criticized one of her opinions as arguing that "numerous decisions of the United States Supreme Court and this court" were "wrongly decided" and as representing a "serious distortion of history."

Free Speech and Association

Brown's free speech opinions illustrate her tendency to rule in favor of corporations and seek to provide broad protections for corporate speech, while sometimes giving short shrift to the First Amendment rights of average citizens.

In one dissent she listed as one of her ten most significant decisions, Brown sought to expand the contexts in which corporations could make false or misleading statements without any effective legal mechanism for holding them accountable. In another case discussed in the report, Brown argued that a corporation should be granted an injunction against a former employee sending emails critical of the company's employment practices to some of his former colleagues. ...

Privacy, Family Rights, and Reproductive Freedom

As a state supreme court justice, Brown has issued only one opinion dealing with abortion, but it raises serious concerns about her judicial philosophy concerning women's constitutional right to privacy and reproductive freedom. In her dissent, Brown argued that the federal Constitution somehow restricts the privacy protections that may be provided by the state constitution, a position far outside the mainstream of judicial thought. She argued that the court majority's decision ruling unconstitutional a restrictive parental consent law for minors seeking abortions would allow courts to "topple every cultural icon, to dismiss all societal values, and to become final arbiters of traditional morality." ...

Worker Rights, Consumer Protection and Private Property Rights

Several cases raise serious questions about Brown's willingness to enforce provisions intended to protect the average person against the power of the government or large corporations. Brown has signaled her approval of broad drug-testing provisions even in situations in which a majority of the California Supreme Court found the tests to be clearly unconstitutional, and even where it would have required explicitly rejecting U.S. Supreme Court precedent.

...In several speeches and one of her opinions, Brown has attacked the long-established principle that governmental action infringing on fundamental rights is subject to strict judicial scrutiny while general social and economic legislation is upheld if it has a rational basis. According to Brown, that fundamental principle is "highly suspect, incoherent, and constitutionally invalid."

The one thing you will not see discussed by the Right Wing racial hucksters is Rogers Brown's judicial record. Just watch. "

Here's an example of L'il Ole Janice Rogers Brown "speechifying" and using here "cogimitation bone"...
http://www.constitution.org/col/jrb/00420_jrb_fedsoc.htm
""A Whiter Shade of Pale": Sense and Nonsense —
The Pursuit of Perfection in Law and Politics

Speech of Janice Rogers Brown,
Associate Justice, California Supreme Court

The Federalist Society
University of Chicago Law School
April 20, 2000, Thursday
12:15 p.m.

Thank you. I want to thank Mr. Schlangen (fondly known as Charlie to my secretary) for extending the invitation and the Federalist Society both for giving me my first opportunity to visit the City of Chicago and for being, as Mr. Schlangen assured me in his letter of invitation, "a rare bastion (nay beacon) of conservative and libertarian thought." That latter notion made your invitation well-nigh irresistible. There are so few true conservatives left in America that we probably should be included on the endangered species list. That would serve two purposes: Demonstrating the great compassion of our government and relegating us to some remote wetlands habitat where — out of sight and out of mind — we will cease being a dissonance in collectivist concerto of the liberal body politic.

In truth, they need not banish us to the gulag. We are not much of a threat, lacking even a coherent language in which to state our premise. [I should pause here to explain the source of the title to this discussion. Unless you are a very old law student, you probably never heard of "A Whiter Shade of Pale."] "A Whiter Shade of Pale" is an old (circa 1967) Procol Harum song, full of nonsensical lyrics, but powerfully evocative nonetheless. Here's a sample:

"We skipped the light fandango
turned cartwheels cross the floor
I was feeling kinda seasick
but the crowd called out for more.

The room was humming harder
as the ceiling flew away.
When we called out for another drink
the waiter brought a tray."

There is something about this that forcibly reminds me of our current political circus. The last verse is even better.

"If music be the food of love
then laughter is its queen
and likewise if behind is in front
then dirt in truth is clean...."

Sound familiar? Of course Procol Harum had an excuse. These were the 60's after all, and the lyrics were probably drug induced. What's our excuse?

One response might be that we are living in a world where words have lost their meaning. This is certainly not a new phenomenon. It seems to be an inevitable artifact of cultural disintegration. Thucydides lamented the great changes in language and life that succeeded the Pelopennesian War; Clarendon and Burke expressed similar concerns about the political transformations of their own time. It is always a disorienting experience for a member of the old guard when the entire understanding of the old world is uprooted. As James Boyd White expresses it: "[I]n this world no one would see what he sees, respond as he responds, speak as he speaks,"1 and living in that world means surrender to the near certainty of central and fundamental changes within the self. "One cannot maintain forever one's language and judgment against the pressures of a world that works in different ways," for we are shaped by the world in which we live.2

This is a fascinating subject which we do not have time to explore more thoroughly. Suffice it to say that this phenomenon accounts for much of the near hysterical tone of current political discourse. Our problems, however, seem to go even deeper. It is not simply that the same words don't have the same meanings; in our lifetime, words are ceasing to have any meaning. The culture of the word is being extinguished by the culture of the camera. Politicians no longer have positions they have photo-ops. To be or not to be is no longer the question. The question is: how do you feel.

Writing 50 years ago, F.A. Hayek warned us that a centrally planned economy is "The Road to Serfdom."3 He was right, of course; but the intervening years have shown us that there are many other roads to serfdom. In fact, it now appears that human nature is so constituted that, as in the days of empire all roads led to Rome; in the heyday of liberal democracy, all roads lead to slavery. And we no longer find slavery abhorrent. We embrace it. We demand more. Big government is not just the opiate of the masses. It is the opiate. The drug of choice for multinational corporations and single moms; for regulated industries and rugged Midwestern farmers and militant senior citizens.

It is my thesis today that the sheer tenacity of the collectivist impulse — whether you call it socialism or communism or altruism — has changed not only the meaning of our words, but the meaning of the Constitution, and the character of our people.

Government is the only enterprise in the world which expands in size when its failures increase. Aaron Wildavsky gives a credible account of this dynamic. Wildavsky notes that the Madisonian world has gone "topsy turvy" as factions, defined as groups "activated by some common interest adverse to the rights of other citizens or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community,"4 have been transformed into sectors of public policy. "Indeed," says Wildavsky, "government now pays citizens to organize, lawyers to sue, and politicians to run for office. Soon enough, if current trends continue, government will become self-contained, generating (apparently spontaneously) the forces to which it responds."5 That explains how, but not why. And certainly not why we are so comfortable with that result.

America's Constitution provided an 18th Century answer to the question of what to do about the status of the individual and the mode of government. Though the founders set out to establish good government "from reflection and choice,"6 they also acknowledged the "limits of reason as applied to constitutional design,"7 and wisely did not seek to invent the world anew on the basis of abstract principle; instead, they chose to rely on habits, customs, and principles derived from human experience and authenticated by tradition.

"The Framers understood that the self-interest which in the private sphere contributes to welfare of society — both in the sense of material well-being and in the social unity engendered by commerce — makes man a knave in the public sphere, the sphere of politics and group action. It is self-interest that leads individuals to form factions to try to expropriate the wealth of others through government and that constantly threatens social harmony."8

Collectivism sought to answer a different question: how to achieve cosmic justice — sometimes referred to as social justice — a world of social and economic equality. Such an ambitious proposal sees no limit to man's capacity to reason. It presupposes a community can consciously design not only improved political, economic, and social systems but new and improved human beings as well.

The great innovation of this millennium was equality before the law. The greatest fiasco — the attempt to guarantee equal outcomes for all people. Tom Bethell notes that the security of property — a security our Constitution sought to ensure — had to be devalued in order for collectivism to come of age. The founders viewed private property as "the guardian of every other right."9 But, "by 1890 we find Alfred Marshall, the teacher of John Maynard Keynes making the astounding claim that the need for private property reaches no deeper than the qualities of human nature."10 A hundred years later came Milton Friedman's laconic reply: " 'I would say that goes pretty deep.'"11 In between, came the reign of socialism. "Starting with the formation of the Fabian Society and ending with the fall of the Berlin Wall, its ambitious project was the reformation of human nature. Intellectuals visualized a planned life without private property, mediated by the New Man."12 He never arrived. As John McGinnis persuasively argues: "There is simply a mismatch between collectivism on any large and enduring scale and our evolved nature. As Edward O. Wilson, the world's foremost expert on ants, remarked about Marxism, 'Wonderful theory. Wrong species.'"13

Ayn Rand similarly attributes the collectivist impulse to what she calls the "tribal view of man."14 She notes, "[t]he American philosophy of the Rights of Man was never fully grasped by European intellectuals. Europe's predominant idea of emancipation consisted of changing the concept of man as a slave to the absolute state embodied by the king, to the concept of man as the slave of the absolute state as embodied by 'the people' — i.e., switching from slavery to a tribal chieftain into slavery to the tribe."15

Democracy and capitalism seem to have triumphed. But, appearances can be deceiving. Instead of celebrating capitalism's virtues, we offer it grudging acceptance, contemptuous tolerance but only for its capacity to feed the insatiable maw of socialism. We do not conclude that socialism suffers from a fundamental and profound flaw. We conclude instead that its ends are worthy of any sacrifice — including our freedom. Revel notes that Marxism has been "shamed and ridiculed everywhere except American universities" but only after totalitarian systems "reached the limits of their wickedness."16

"Socialism concentrated all the wealth in the hands of an oligarchy in the name of social justice, reduced peoples to misery in the name of shar[ed] resources, to ignorance in the name of science. It created the modern world's most inegalitarian societies in the name of equality, the most vast network of concentration camps ever built [for] the defense of liberty."17

Revel warns: "The totalitarian mind can reappear in some new and unexpected and seemingly innocuous and indeed virtuous form. [¶]... [I]t ... will [probably] put itself forward under the cover of a generous doctrine, humanitarian, inspired by a concern for giving the disadvantaged their fair share, against corruption, and pollution, and 'exclusion.'"18

Of course, given the vision of the American Revolution just outlined, you might think none of that can happen here. I have news for you. It already has. The revolution is over. What started in the 1920's; became manifest in 1937; was consolidated in the 1960's; is now either building to a crescendo or getting ready to end with a whimper.

At this moment, it seems likely leviathan will continue to lumber along, picking up ballast and momentum, crushing everything in its path. Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates, and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible.

But what if anything does this have to do with law? Quite a lot, I think. In America, the national conversation will probably always include rhetoric about the rule of law. I have argued that collectivism was (and is) fundamentally incompatible with the vision that undergirded this country's founding. The New Deal, however, inoculated the federal Constitution with a kind of underground collectivist mentality. The Constitution itself was transmuted into a significantly different document. In his famous, all too famous, dissent in Lochner, Justice Holmes wrote that the "constitution is not intended to embody a particular economic theory, whether of paternalism and the organic relation of the citizen to the State or of laissez faire."19 Yes, one of the greatest (certainly one of the most quotable) jurists this nation has ever produced; but in this case, he was simply wrong. That Lochner dissent has troubled me — has annoyed me — for a long time and finally I understand why. It's because the framers did draft the Constitution with a surrounding sense of a particular polity in mind, one based on a definite conception of humanity. In fact as Professor Richard Epstein has said, Holmes's contention is "not true of our [ ] [Constitution], which was organized upon very explicit principles of political theory."20 It could be characterized as a plan for humanity "after the fall."

There is nothing new, of course, in the idea that the framers did not buy into the notion of human perfectibility. And the document they drafted and the nation adopted in 1789 is shot through with provisions that can only be understood against the supposition that humanity's capacity for evil and tyranny is quite as real and quite as great as its capacity for reason and altruism. Indeed, as noted earlier, in politics, the framers may have envisioned the former tendency as the stronger, especially in the wake of the country's experience under the Articles of Confederation. The fear of "factions," of an "encroaching tyranny"; the need for ambition to counter ambition"; all of these concerns identified in the Federalist Papers have stratagems designed to defend against them in the Constitution itself. We needed them, the framers were convinced, because "angels do not govern"; men do.

It was a quite opposite notion of humanity, of its fundamental nature and capacities, that animated the great concurrent event in the West in 1789 — the revolution in France. Out of that revolutionary holocaust — intellectually an improbable melding of Rousseau with Descartes — the powerful notion of abstract human rights was born. At the risk of being skewered by historians of ideas, I want to suggest that the belief in and the impulse toward human perfection, at least in the political life of a nation, is an idea whose arc can be traced from the Enlightenment, through the Terror, to Marx and Engels, to the Revolutions of 1917 and 1937. The latter date marks the triumph of our own socialist revolution. All of these events were manifestations of a particularly skewed view of human nature and the nature of human reason. To the extent the Enlightenment sought to substitute the paradigm of reason for faith, custom or tradition, it failed to provide rational explanation of the significance of human life. It thus led, in a sort of ultimate irony, to the repudiation of reason and to a full-fledged flight from truth — what Revel describes as "an almost pathological indifference to the truth."21

There were obviously urgent economic and social reasons driving not only the political culture but the constitutional culture in the mid-1930's — though it was actually the mistakes of governments (closed borders, high tariffs, and other protectionist measures) that transformed a "momentary breakdown into an international cataclysm."22 The climate of opinion favoring collectivist social and political solutions had a worldwide dimension.

Politically, the belief in human perfectibility is another way of asserting that differences between the few and the many can, over time, be erased. That creed is a critical philosophical proposition underlying the New Deal. What is extraordinary is the way that thesis infiltrated and effected American constitutionalism over the next three-quarters of a century. Its effect was not simply to repudiate, both philosophically and in legal doctrine, the framers' conception of humanity, but to cut away the very ground on which the Constitution rests. Because the only way to come to terms with an enduring Constitution is to believe that the human condition is itself enduring.

For complex reasons, attempts to impose a collectivist political solution in the United States failed. But, the political failure was of little practical concern, in a way that is oddly unappreciated, that same impulse succeeded within the judiciary, especially in the federal high court. The idea of abstract rights, government entitlements as the most significant form of property, is well suited to conditions of economic distress and the emergence of a propertyless class. But the economic convulsions of the late 1920's and early 1930's passed away; the doctrinal underpinnings of West Coast Hotel and the "switch in time" did not. Indeed, over the next half century it consumed much of the classical conception of the Constitution.

So secure were the intellectual underpinnings of the constitutional revolution, so self-evident the ambient cultural values of the policy elite who administered it, that the object of the high court's jurisprudence was largely devoted to the construction of a system for ranking the constitutional weight to be given contending social interests.

In the New Deal/Great Society era, a rule that was the polar opposite of the classical era of American law reigned. A judicial subjectivity whose very purpose was to do away with objective gauges of constitutionality, with universal principles, the better to give the judicial priesthood a free hand to remake the Constitution. After a handful of gross divisions reflecting the hierarchy of the elite's political values had been drawn (personal vs. economic rights, for example), the task was to construct a theoretical system, not of social or cultural norms, but of abstract constitutional weight a given interest merits — strict or rational basis scrutiny. The rest, the identification of underlying, extraconstitutional values, consisted of judicial tropes and a fortified rhetoric.

Protection of property was a major casualty of the Revolution of 1937. The paradigmatic case, written by that premiere constitutional operative, William O. Douglas, is Williamson v. Lee Optical.23 The court drew a line between personal rights and property rights or economic interests, and applied two different constitutional tests. Rights were reordered and property acquired a second class status.24 If the right asserted was economic, the court held the Legislature could do anything it pleased. Judicial review for alleged constitutional infirmities under the due process clause was virtually nonexistent. On the other hand, if the right was personal and "fundamental," review was intolerably strict. "From the Progressive era to the New Deal, [ ] property was by degrees ostracized from the company of rights.25 Something new, called economic rights, began to supplant the old property rights. This change, which occurred with remarkably little fanfare, was staggeringly significant. With the advent of "economic rights," the original meaning of rights was effectively destroyed. These new "rights" imposed obligations, not limits, on the state.

It thus became government's job not to protect property but, rather, to regulate and redistribute it. And, the epic proportions of the disaster which has befallen millions of people during the ensuing decades has not altered our fervent commitment to statism. The words of Judge Alex Kozinski, written in 1991, are not very encouraging." 'What we have learned from the experience of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union ... is that you need capitalism to make socialism work.' In other words, capitalism must produce what socialism is to distribute."26 Are the signs and portents any better at the beginning of a new century?

Has the constitutional Zeitgeist that has reigned in the United States since the beginning of the Progressive Era come to its conclusion? And if it has, what will replace it? I wish I knew the answer to these questions. It is true — in the words of another old song: "There's something happening here. What it is ain't exactly clear."27

The oracles point in all directions at once. Political polls suggest voters no longer desire tax cuts. But, taxpayers who pay the largest proportion of taxes are now a minority of all voters. On the other hand, until last term the Supreme Court held out the promising possibility of a revival of what might be called Lochnerism-lite in a trio of cases — Nollan, Dolan, and Lucas, Those cases offered a principled but pragmatic means-end standard of scrutiny under the takings clause.

But there are even deeper movements afoot. Tectonic plates are shifting and the resulting cataclysm may make 1937 look tame.

Lionel Tiger, in a provocative new book called The Decline of Males, posits a brilliant and disturbing new paradigm. He notes we used to think of a family as a man, a woman, and a child. Now, a remarkable new family pattern has emerged which he labels "bureaugamy." A new trinity: a woman, a child, and a bureaucrat."28 Professor Tiger contends that most, if not all, of the gender gap that elected Bill Clinton to a second term in 1996 is explained by this phenomenon. According to Tiger, women moved in overwhelming numbers to the Democratic party as the party most likely to implement policies and programs which will support these new reproductive strategies.

Professor Tiger is not critical of these strategies. He views this trend as the triumph of reproduction over production; the triumph of Darwinism over Marxism; and he advocates broad political changes to accommodate it.

Others do not see these changes as quite so benign or culturally neutral. Jacques Barzan finds the Central Western notion of emancipation has been devalued. It has now come to mean that "nothing stands in the way of every wish."29 The result is a decadent age — an era in which "there are no clear lines of advance"; "when people accept futility and the absurd as normal[,] the culture is decadent."30

Stanley Rosen defines "our present crisis as a fatigue induced by ... accumulated decisions of so many revolutions."31 He finds us, in the spirit of Pascal, knowing "too much to be ignorant and too little to be wise."32

I will close with a story I like a lot. It's a true story. It happened on June 10, 1990. A British Airways jet bound for Malaga, Spain, took off from Birmingham, England. It was expected to be a routine flight. As the jet climbed through the 23,000-foot level, there was a loud bang; the cockpit windshield directly in front of the captain blew out. The sudden decompression sucked Captain Lancaster out of his seatbelt and into the hole left by the windscreen. A steward who happened to be in the cockpit managed to snag the captain's feet as he hurtled past. Another steward rushed onto the flight deck, strapped himself into the captain's chair and, helped by other members of the crew, clung with all his strength to the captain. The slipstream was so fierce, they were unable to drag the pilot back into the plane. His clothing was ripped from his body. With Lancaster plastered against the nose of the jet, the co-pilot donned an oxygen mask and flew the plane to Southampton —approximately 15 minutes away — and landed safely. The captain had a fractured elbow, wrist and thumb; a mild case of frostbite, but was otherwise unharmed.

We find ourselves, like the captain, in a situation that is hopeless but not yet desperate. The arcs of history, culture, philosophy, and science all seem to be converging on this temporal instant. Familiar arrangements are coming apart; valuable things are torn from our hands, snatched away by the decompression of our fragile ark of culture. But, it is too soon to despair. The collapse of the old system may be the crucible of a new vision. We must get a grip on what we can and hold on. Hold on with all the energy and imagination and ferocity we possess. Hold on even while we accept the darkness. We know not what miracles may happen; what heroic possibilities exist. We may be only moments away from a new dawn.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1 James Boyd White, When Words Lose Their Meaning (Univ. of Chicago Press 1984) p. 4.

2 Ibid.

3 F. A, Hayek, The Road to Serfdom (Univ. of Chicago Press 1994).

4 Golembiewski & Wildavsky, The Cost of Federalism (1984) Bare Bones: Putting Flesh on the Skeleton of American Federalism 67, 73.

5 Ibid.

6 Hamilton, The Federalist Papers No. 1 (Rossiter ed. 1961) p. 33.

7 Michael W. Spicer, Public Administration and the Constitution: A Conflict in World Views (March 1, 1994) 24 American R. of Public Admin. 85 [1994 WL 2806423 at *10].

8 John O. McGinnis, The Original Constitution and Our Origins (1996) 19 Harv. J.L.& Pub. Policy 251, 253.

9 Tom Bethell, Property Rights, Prosperity and 1,000 Years of Lessons, The Wall Street J. (Dec. 27, 1999) p. A19.

10 Ibid.

11 Ibid.

12 Ibid.

13 John O. McGinnis, The Original Constitution and Our Origins, supra, 19 Harv. J. L.& Pub. Policy at p. 258.

14 Ayn Rand, Capitalism the Unknown Ideal (New American Lib. 1966) pp. 4-5.

15 Ibid

16 Jean Francois Revel, Democracy Against Itself (The Free Press 1993) pp. 250-251.

17 Id. at p. 251.

18 Id. at pp. 250-251.

19 (198 U.S. at p. 75.)

20 Clint Bolick, Unfinished Business (1990) p. 25, quoting Crisis in the Courts (1982) The Manhattan Report on Economic Policy, Vol. V, No. 2, p. 4.

21 Jean Francois Revel, The Flight From Truth (Random House N.Y. 1991) p. xvi.

22 Id. at p. xxxvii.

23 348 U.S. 483.

24 Tom Bethell, The Noblest Triumph (St. Martin's Griffin, N.Y. 1998) p. 175.

25 Id. at p. 176.

26 Alex Kozinski, The Dark Lesson of Utopia (1991) 58 U.Chi. L.R. 575, 576.

27 Buffalo Springfield, For What It's Worth (1966).

28 Lionel Tiger, The Decline of Males (Golden Books, N.Y. 1999) pp. 21, 27.

29 Edward Rothstein, N.Y. Times (April 15, 2000) p. A l7.

30 Ibid.

31 Stanley Rosen, Rethinking the Enlightenment (1997) 7 Common Knowledge, p. 104.

32 Ibid."
===============SNIP==============
She's a FUCKIN' NUT!

But, don't just take MY words...

Check out this page
http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=12751

"Janice Rogers Brown On American Government
Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible. [“A Whiter Shade of Pale,” Speech to Federalist Society (April 20. 2000)(“Federalist speech” at 8]

Where government advances – and it advances relentlessly – freedom is imperiled; community impoverished; religion marginalized and civilization itself jeopardized....When did government cease to be a necessary evil and become a goody bag to solve our private problems? [“Hyphenasia: the Mercy Killing of the American Dream,” Speech at Claremont-McKenna College (Sept. 16, 1999) at 3,4]

In the last 100 years – and particularly in the last 30 – ...[g]overnment has been transformed from a necessary evil to a nanny – benign, compassionate, and wise. Sometimes transformation is a good thing. Sometimes, though, it heralds not higher ground but rather, to put a different gloss on Pat Moynihan’s memorable phrase, defining democracy down. [“Fifty Ways to Lose Your Freedom,” Speech to Institute of Justice (Aug. 12, 2000)(“IFJ speech”) at 2]

[W]e no longer find slavery abhorrent. We embrace it. We demand more. Big government is not just the opiate of the masses. It is the opiate. The drug of choice for multinational corporations and single moms; for regulated industries and rugged Midwestern farmers and militant senior citizens. [IFJ speech at 3-4]

Government acts as a giant siphon, extracting wealth, creating privilege and power, and redistributing it. [Speech at McGeorge School of Law (Nov. 21, 1997) at 18][See also Landgate, Inc. v. California Coastal Commission, 953 P.2d 1188, 1212 (Cal. 1998)(Brown, J., dissenting)(referring to government as “relentless siphon.”)]
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Janice Rogers Brown on senior citizens and age discrimination
My grandparents’ generation thought being on the government dole was disgraceful, a blight on the family’s honor. Today’s senior citizens blithely cannibalize their grandchildren because they have a right to get as much “free” stuff as the political system will permit them to extract...Big government is...[t]he drug of choice for multinational corporations and single moms, for regulated industries and rugged Midwestern farmers, and militant senior citizens. [IFJ speech at 2,3]

I would deny [the senior citizen] plaintiff relief because she has failed to establish the public policy against age discrimination “inures to the benefit of the public” or is “fundamental and substantial”...Discrimination based on age...does not mark its victim with a “stigma of inferiority and second class citizenship”....; it is the unavoidable consequence of that universal leveler: time [Dissenting opinion in Stevenson v. Superior Court, 941 P.2d 1157,1177, 1187 (Cal. 1997)]

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Janice Rogers Brown on the New Deal, the Great Society, and the “transmutation” of the Constitution
I have argued that collectivism was (and is) fundamentally incompatible with the vision that undergirded this country’s founding. The New Deal, however, inoculated the federal Constitution with a kind of underground collectivist mentality. The Constitution itself was transmuted into a significantly different document...1937...marks the triumph of our own socialist revolution...Politically, the belief in human perfectibility is another way of asserting that differences between the few and the many can, over time, be erased. That creed is a critical philosophical proposition underlying the New Deal. What is extraordinary is the way that thesis infiltrated and effected American constitutionalism over the next three-quarters of a century. Its effect was not simply to repudiate, both philosophically and in legal doctrine, the framers’ conception of humanity, but to cut away the very ground on which the Constitution rests... In the New Deal/Great Society era, a rule that was the polar opposite of the classical era of American law reigned [Federalist speech at 8, 10, 11, 12]

In the last 100 years – and particularly the last 30 – the Constitution, once the fixed chart of our aspirations, has been demoted to the status of a bad chain novel. [IFJ speech at2]
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Janice Rogers Brown on the proper “protection” of property
In the New Deal/Great Society era, a rule that was the polar opposite of the classical era of American law reigned...Protection of property was a major casualty of the Revolution of 1937…Rights were reordered and property acquired a second class status...It thus became government’s job not to protect property but, rather, to regulate and redistribute it. And, the epic proportions of the disaster which has befallen millions of people during the ensuing decades has not altered our fervent commitment to statism. [Federalist speech at 12, 13]

At its founding and throughout its early history, this regime revered private property. The American philosophy of the Rights of Man relied heavily on the indissoluble connection between rationality, property, freedom and justice. The Founders viewed the right of property as “the guardian of every other right”….[IFJ speech at 5]

[P]rivate property, already an endangered species in California, is now entirely extinct in San Francisco…I would find the HCO [San Francisco Residential Hotel Unit Conversion and Demolition Ordinance] preempted by the Ellis Act and facially unconstitutional. …Theft is theft even when the government approves of the thievery. Turning a democracy into a kleptocracy does not enhance the stature of the thieves; it only diminishes the legitimacy of the government. …The right to express one’s individuality and essential human dignity through the free use of property is just as important as the right to do so through speech, the press, or the free exercise of religion. [Dissenting opinion in San Remo Hotel L.P. v. City and County of San Francisco, 41 P.3d 87, 120, 128-9 (Cal. 2002)(upholding San Francisco ordinance calling on hotel owners seeking permission to eliminate residential units and convert to tourist hotels help replace lost rental units for low income, elderly, and disabled persons)][See also IFJ speech at 4 (warning that without effective limits on government, “a democracy is inevitably transformed into a Kleptocracy.”)]
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Janice Rogers Brown on the courts, law and the judiciary
We are heirs to a mind-numbing bureaucracy; subject to a level of legalization that cannot avoid being arbitrary, capricious, and discriminatory. What other outcome is possible in a society in which no adult can wake up, go about their business, and return to their homes without breaking several laws? There are of course many reasons for our present difficulties, but some of our troubles can be laid at the feet of that most innocuous branch – the judiciary…From the 1960’s onward, we have witnessed the rise of the judge militant. [Speech to California Lincoln Club Libertarian Law Council (Dec. 11, 1997)(“Libertarian speech”) at 5-6, 9]

But, alas, the decisions of such [supreme] courts, including my own, seem ever more ad hoc and expedient, perilously adrift on the roiling seas of feckless photo-op compassion and political correctness. [IFJ speech at 15]

Thus, lawyers have secured the right of topless dancers to perform, but have banished prayer from public life. They have won the right for indigents to take over public spaces, even our children’s libraries, and for the mentally ill to live on streets and shout obscenities at passersby. Legal advocates have guaranteed the right of students to be ignorant by opposing competency tests, and ignored their brazen possession and use of weapons in school. [“Politics: A Vision for Change,” Docket (Dec. 1993) at 15]

Politicians in their eagerness to please and to provide something of value to their constituencies that does not have a price tag are handing out new rights like lollipops in the dentist’s office. [Speech to Sacramento County bar Ass’n (May 1, 1996) at 6-7]
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Janice Rogers Brown on strict judicial scrutiny for violations of fundamental constitutional rights and the incorporation doctrine
[Beginning in 1937, t]he court drew a line between personal rights and property rights or economic interests, and applied two different constitutional tests…[I]f the right was personal and “fundamental,” review was intolerably strict. [Federalist speech at 12]

The dichotomy between the United States Supreme Court’s laissez-faire treatment of social and economic rights and its hypervigilance with respect to an expanding array of judicially proclaimed fundamental rights is highly suspect, incoherent, and constitutionally invalid. [Concurring opinion in Kasler v. Lockyer, 2 P.3d 581, 601 (Cal. 2000), cert. denied, 69 U.S.L.W. 3549 (2001)]

[T]he courts overcame these alleged limitations on their powers with ridiculous ease. How? By constitutionalizing everything possible, finding constitutional rights which are nowhere mentioned in the Constitution. By taking a few words which are in the Constitution like “due process” and “equal protection” and imbuing them with elaborate and highly implausible etymologies; and by enunciating standards of constitutional review which are not standards at all but rather policy vetoes, i.e., strict scrutiny and the compelling state interest standard. [Libertarian speech at 7-8]

The United States Supreme Court, however, began in the 1940s to incorporate the Bill of Rights into the 14th Amendment…The historical evidence supporting what the Supreme Court did here is pretty sketchy…The argument on the other side is pretty overwhelming that it’s probably not incorporated. [“Beyond the Abyss: Restoring Religion on the Public Square,” Speech to Pepperdine Bible Lectureship in 1999]
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Janice Rogers Brown on democracy, capitalism, socialism, and “liberalism”:
Democracy and capitalism seem to have triumphed. But, appearances can be deceiving. Instead of celebrating capitalism’s virtues, we offer it grudging acceptance, contemptuous tolerance, but only for its capacity to feed the insatiable maw of socialism. We do not conclude that socialism suffers from a fundamental flaw. We conclude instead that its ends are worthy of any sacrifice – including our freedom….1937…marks the triumph of our own socialist revolution. [Federalist speech at 6-7, 10]

In truth, liberalism’s vaunted tolerance and openness is a lie. In America, at least, liberalism is tolerant only of those concerns to which it is indifferent. To those trivialized forms of religious observance which amount to no more than a consumer preference, the culture maintains a posture of tolerance. [Speech to St. Thomas More Society (Oct. 15, 1998) at 8]

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Janice Rogers Brown on the Supreme Court’s discredited decision in Lochner v. New York
In his famous, all too famous, dissent in Lochner, Justice Holmes wrote that the “constitution is not intended to embody a particular economic theory, whether of paternalism and the organic relation of the citizen to the State or of laissez faire.” Yes, one of the greatest (certainly one of the most quotable) jurists this nation has ever produced; but in this case, he was simply wrong. [Federalist speech at 8]
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Janice Rogers Brown on the right of privacy vs. the “right to keep and bear arms”
Curiously, in the current dialectic, the right to keep and bear arms – a right expressly guaranteed by the Bill of Rights – is deemed less fundamental than implicit protections the court purports to find in the penumbras of other express provisions. (citations omitted) But surely, the right to preserve one’s life is at least as fundamental as the right to preserve one’s privacy. [Concurring opinion in Kasler, 2 P.3d at 602]
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Janice Rogers Brown on government employers requiring employees to forfeit constitutional rights
In this case and others like it involving the interests of government solely as an employer and the surrender of a constitutional right as a condition of obtaining a mere benefit or “privilege” [i.e. employment], I would argue for a return to an earlier view, pungently expressed by Justice Holmes while a member of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts: “The petitioner may have a constitutional right to talk politics, but he has no constitutional right to be a policeman.” (citations omitted) I realize, of course, that for many years Holmes’s view has been out of fashion. …However, to the extent the doctrine of unconstitutional conditions purports to hold that government may not grant a benefit on the condition that the beneficiary surrender a constitutional right, even if the government may withhold the benefit altogether, it seems more a figment of academic imagination than reality. [Concurring and dissenting opinion in Loder v. City of Glendale, 927 P.2d 1200, 1257, 1258 (1997)(striking down city across-the-board testing program for promoted employees while approving requirement for new employees)].
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Janice Rogers Brown on natural law
We continue to chip away at the foundations of our success. We dismissed natural law and morality because its unverifiable judgments were deemed inferior to reason. But, then, we drove reason itself from the camp because the most significant of life’s questions defy empiricism. …Only natural law offers an alternative to might makes right and accounts for man’s “unrelenting quest to rise above the ‘letter of the law’ to the realm of the spirit.” [IFJ speech at 15, 17] "

Many black civil rights groups and worker's unions such as the AFL/CIO strongly oppose this asshole!
http://www.aflcio.org/issuespolitics/rogers_brown.cfm
"Oppose the Nomination of Janice Rogers Brown to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit

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Janice Rogers Brown is an associate justice on the California Supreme Court, a position she has held since 1996. On July 25, 2003, President Bush nominated Justice Brown to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Brown’s nomination should be defeated. She is an extreme conservative who is incapable of keeping her personal and political ideology out of her decision making. Brown’s views are extreme, and if adopted, would seriously undermine civil rights, women’s rights, worker and consumer protections and the environment.

Brown’s speeches and opinions show that she takes an extremely narrow view of the role of government in improving people’s lives and an extremely protective view of private property rights. In one speech, Brown described the Supreme Court’s decisions upholding New Deal legislation such as minimum wage laws as “the triumph of our own socialist revolution.” She compares “big government” to “slavery” and an “opiate.” She goes so far as to say that “[t]oday’s senior citizens blithely cannibalize their grandchildren because they have a right to get as much ‘free’ stuff as the political system will permit them to extract.”[1]

In another speech, she states her view of government as follows:

Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit.[2]

The American Bar Association has given Justice Brown its lowest possible passing grade—a “qualified/not qualified” rating. When Brown was nominated to the California Supreme Court, three-fourths of the California State Bar’s Commission on Judicial Nominees rated her “unqualified” for the position because of her lack of experience and her tendency to inject her own personal views into her judicial opinions.[3] In her seven years on the California Supreme Court, Brown has demonstrated that her critics were right.

Examples of how Janice Rogers Brown’s troubling and extreme views have made their way into her decisions on the California Supreme Court include:

Banning Affirmative Action. Brown authored an opinion that effectively ended meaningful affirmative action in California. Hi-Voltage Wire Works, Inc. v. City of Jan Jose, 12 P.3d 1068 (2000). Brown’s opinion was severely criticized, both on and off the court, for its harsh rhetoric and its suggestion that affirmative action resembled racist and segregationist laws that predated landmark civil rights laws.
Denying Effective Remedies to Victims of Unlawful Discrimination. Brown would have barred administrative agencies from awarding compensatory damages for emotional distress in race discrimination cases. Konig v. Fair Employment and Housing Comm’n, 50 P.3d 718 (2002). While couching her decision in separations of powers language, Brown disparaged administrative agencies and implicitly questioned their ability to fairly assess damages, saying that “administrative agencies [are] not immune to political influences, [and] they are subject to capture by a specialized constituency.” 50 P.3d at 732. Brown was the only justice to take this position. And in Aguilar v. Avis Rent-a-Car, 980 P.2d 846 (1999), Brown authored a dissenting opinion that would have struck down, on First Amendment grounds, an injunction that instructed a supervisor not to use racial epithets against Latino employees. The injunction was issued by a trial court judge after the employer was found liable by a jury for maintaining a discriminatory hostile work environment for Latino employees.
Barring Civil Rights Claims. Brown dissented in a civil rights case and said the plaintiff’s race and age bias claims should have been thrown out as preempted by federal banking law. Peatros v. Bank of America, 990 P.2d 539 (2000).
Allowing Mandatory Arbitration Agreements Even If Employees Must Pay for the Cost of Arbitration. Brown authored an opinion saying that she would allow employers to require employees to agree to compulsory arbitration of employment claims (such as discrimination claims or unpaid overtime claims) even if those agreements allowed arbitrators to impose some or all of the cost of the arbitration on the employee. Armendariz v. Foundation Health Psychcare Servs., 6 P.3d 669 (2000). The majority of the court ruled that a mandatory arbitration agreement containing such a provision would be invalid, because it would discourage employees from exercising their right to bring claims against their employers.
Protecting Private Property Rights at the Expense of Affordable Housing Measures. Brown dissented from a decision that upheld the City of San Francisco’s determination that the owner of a residence hotel needed to retain affordable housing or contribute to an affordable housing fund as a condition of converting its property to a tourist hotel. Brown wrote a sarcastic and blistering dissent, calling the city’s decision “theft,” “extortion” and an unconstitutional “taking” of the hotel owner’s private property. San Remo Hotel v. City and County of San Francisco, 41 P.3d 87 (2002). Brown’s opinion shows that she is skeptical of government action when it impacts private property rights—a view which, if adopted, would put at risk many consumer, environmental and worker protection measures.
Protecting Private Property Owners from Expressive Activity on their Property. Brown authored an opinion that took a narrow view of the California Constitution’s free speech protections, imposing a “state action” requirement as a condition of those protections, even though such a requirement does not appear in the language of the California Constitution. As a result, tenants in a huge residential apartment complex were barred from distributing a tenant newsletter to their neighbors. Golden Gateway Center v. Golden Gateway Tenants Ass’n, 29 P.3d 797 (2001). Employers are now using the decision to try to keep union organizers away from their workplaces.
Chilling E-mail Communication with Employees. Brown dissented from a ruling that a company could not sue an ex-employee under the tort of trespass after the ex-employee sent e-mails critical of the company to his former co-workers. The court majority said the company could not sue because there had been no actual damage or disruption to the company’s e-mail system. Brown would have allowed the lawsuit even in the absence of such damage. Intel Corp. v. Hamidi, 71 P.3d 296 (2003). Had Brown’s view been adopted, companies throughout California could have used trespass laws to shut down group e-mail contact from outside individuals or organizations.
Denying Schoolteachers Timely Information About Their Employment Status. In Kavanaugh v. West Sonoma County Union High School, 62 P.3d 54 (2003), Brown authored a dissent that would have allowed school districts to notify teachers of their status well after they began work, meaning that new hires could be subjected to “bait-and-switch” tactics by school employers. The court majority ruled that applicable statutes require school districts to notify teachers of their status (e.g., temporary, probationary, etc.) on their first day of work. Knowledge of this status is important because different categories of teachers have different levels of job security.
Undermining Health and Safety Protections. Prior to joining the California Supreme Court, Brown served on the California Court of Appeal. There, she authored an opinion that would have invalidated a state law that required paint companies to help pay for screening and treatment of children exposed to lead paint. Brown’s opinion was later overturned by the California Supreme Court. Sinclair Paint Co. v. Board of Equalization, 49 Cal. App. 4th 127 (1996), rev’d, 937 P.2d 1350 (1997).
The D.C. Circuit Needs Balance, Not Extremist Judges Like Janice Rogers Brown

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is widely regarded as the second most important court in America, second only to the U.S. Supreme Court. The court is a stepping-stone to the U.S. Supreme Court—the D.C. Circuit has produced more justices to the U.S. Supreme Court than any other circuit court.

The D.C. Circuit is the administrative law court. It is the court that most closely oversees the actions of federal agencies that are responsible for worker protections, environmental protections, consumer safeguards, civil rights protections and much more. And because the Supreme Court grants review of so few lower court decisions, the D.C. Circuit is often the final word on the legality of federal agency actions.

In 1999, Senate Republicans prevented Democratic appointees from gaining a majority on the D.C. Circuit when they blocked two highly-qualified nominees, including a nominee who is now the Dean of Harvard Law School, on grounds that the D.C. Circuit’s workload did not justify any additional judges. Since that time, the D.C. Circuit’s caseload has dropped by 28 percent.

When the Bush administration took office, there were four Republican appointees, four Democratic appointees and four vacancies on the D.C. Circuit. Rather than reaching out to senators from both parties to find mainstream nominees who would win easy approval, the White House has chosen extreme conservatives for these seats.

The White House is engaged in court-packing. The Bush administration wants to put an ultra-conservative imprint on the D.C. Circuit. If they succeed, the effects on civil rights, workers’ rights, women’s rights, consumer rights and the environment will be felt for decades to come.

Snubbing Local Talent to Nominate an Ideologue
The District of Columbia is home to an incredible wealth of legal talent. Rather than choosing from these ranks to fill a seat on the D.C. Circuit, President Bush has chosen a nominee from 3,000 miles away with no connection to the District of Columbia. Never before has a judge for the D.C. Circuit been imported from such a distance.

Nor does Janice Rogers Brown have any particular experience with the federal administrative law that makes up the bulk of the D.C. Circuit’s caseload. Her experience is exclusively in California agencies and California courts.

Brown’s lack of relevant connections or experience make clear that President Bush nominated Janice Rogers Brown not because she holds any unique qualifications for this seat, but because she is an extreme conservative who will tip the balance of the D.C. Circuit further to the right. Her nomination should be rejected, and senators should insist that the president nominate a more mainstream candidate for this important lifetime appointment."

PASTOR SAYS ONLY BUSH SUPPORTERS MAY ATTEND CHURCH

2005-05-08T05:09:00.000-07:00

http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=44152

A Baptist pastor in North Carolina has touched off an exodus in his church by declaring Democrats are not welcome as members.

The Rev. Chan Chandler of East Waynesville Baptist Church in Waynesville ex-communicated nine members who refuse to support President Bush, according to WLOS-TV in Asheville, N.C.

Another 40 have left in protest in a controversy that began before the election last November and came to a head Sunday.

Chandler insists he's acting according to the Word of God, acknowledging in a sermon Sunday he has upset church members by calling them out for their political loyalties.

But WLOS said Chandler, who could not be reached for comment, has insisted his actions are not politically motivated.

Church member Lewis Inman said to the Asheville station: "[Chandler] told us that if we didn't support George Bush we needed to resign our position and get out, or go to the altar and repent, and support George Bush."

Among the ex-communicated were leaders who had been in the church 30 or 40 years.

"The members that were there even stood up and applauded that we left," an outgoing church member said.

Former member Frank Lowe told WLOS: "He says if we supported John Kerry, we have supported abortion and homosexuality."

But Lowe and other departed members insist they don't agree to those stances.

Responding to the news, the Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy, president of The Interfaith Alliance, a left-leaning group, issued a statement.

"This sad spectacle is the predictable consequence of the Religious Right's insistence on measuring a person’s religion by social-political litmus tests," Gaddy said.

"Not only does the pastor's reported action violate both the spirit and substance of the United States Constitution's provisions of religious liberty, it also offends the conscience of people who understand religion in terms of the realm of the spirit, not votes in a presidential election."

Addressing the Baptist pastor's call for repentance on the part of those who didn't vote for Bush, Gaddy said, "The screaming need is for repentance among those who would tie religion to partisan politics."

A contributor to the leading liberal weblog Daily Kos wrote: "For those that thought that there has not been a full scale war lanched against liberals; for those who didn't take the radical right's promise to "eradicate liberals" seriously, I present to you, Exhibit A: East Waynesville Baptist Church has just kicked out all its Democratic members."

In a later post, the contributor commented: "This isn't a 'culture' war, people. This isn't some sort of political game. This action merely foreshadows what is to come: the radical religious right seeking to impose a theocracy upon this nation. Purge the liberals from society.

"Welcome to the Blue Scare. Welcome to Grade-A, government-sanctioned McCarthyism against liberals and against anyone who doesn't embrace their distorted worldview. Here is the face of the American jihad."
===================================================
MORE...

Minister ex-communicates
Democrat church members
Baptist pastor reportedly insisted
supporting president is God's will

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/06/AR2005050601317.html

Dempcrats Booted From N.C. Church Over Politics

WAYNESVILLE, N.C. -- A pastor of a small Baptist church led an effort to kick out church members because they didn't support President Bush, members said

The nine members were voted out at a Monday meeting of the East Waynesville Baptist Church in this mountain town about 120 miles west of Charlotte. WLOS-TV in Asheville reported that 40 other members resigned in protest.

"It's all over politics," said Selma Morris, the church's treasurer. "We've never had a pastor like that before."

Pastor Chan Chandler had told the congregation before last year's presidential election that anyone who planned to vote for Democratic Sen. John Kerry should either leave the church or repent, said Lorene Sutton, who said she and her husband were voted out of the church this week.

"He's the kind of pastor who says do it my way or get out," she said. "He's real negative all the time."

Morris said some church members left after Chandler made his ultimatum in October.

Chandler didn't return a message left by The Associated Press at his home Friday, and several calls to the church went unanswered. He told WLOS that the actions were not politically motivated.

North Carolina Democratic Party Chairman Jerry Meek sharply criticized the pastor Friday, saying Chandler jeopardized his church's tax-free status by openly supporting a candidate for president.

"If these reports are true, this minister is not only acting extremely inappropriately by injecting partisan politics into a house of worship, but he is also potentially breaking the law," Meek said.

==========================================
more on this ...

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0505080215may08,1,6246571.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true"WAYNESVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA -- Some members of a small Baptist church say their pastor led a charge last week to kick out nine members because they don't support President Bush.

They said Pastor Chan Chandler told the congregation before last year's election that they should support Bush and that anyone who planned to vote for Democrat John Kerry should get up and leave.

Selma Morris, a member and treasurer of East Waynesville Baptist Church, said some members of the church left in October when Chandler first made his ultimatum.

Chandler told WLOS-TV in Asheville that the actions were not politically motivated, and then hung up."

Runaway Bride....She Looks NUTS!

2005-05-02T17:57:00.000-07:00

Look at this woman's eyes. The one on YOUR left is like that in every picture I've seen. She LOOKS nuts...and this guy is STILL wanting to marry her?

To me, that's the definition of someone who cannot learn from their own mistakes.

bush comes out of the closet

2005-04-26T18:30:00.000-07:00

BUSHY COMES OUT OF THE CLOSET

First, the Jeff Gannon Affair...now...well...make your

own decision on this one!

dmusic.com - CodeWarrior's User Page

2005-04-26T18:29:00.000-07:00

dmusic.com - CodeWarrior's User Page

People For the American Way - September: Right-Wing Religious McCarthyism

2005-04-24T09:57:00.000-07:00

People For the American Way - September: Right-Wing Religious McCarthyismSeptember: Right-Wing Religious McCarthyism

Right Wing Watch Online
September 25, 2003

Right-Wing Religious McCarthyism

As part of their relentless campaign to promote the confirmation of the Bush Administration’s most ultra-conservative federal judicial nominees, some Senate Republicans and their right-wing allies have engaged in a variety of troubling and dishonest tactics. From seeking to tie the confirmation of nominees to the war on terror to threatening to drastically and unilaterally alter Senate rules, they have sought to reduce the Senate to a mere “rubber-stamp” for President Bush’s judicial nominees. Despite the fact that the Senate has already confirmed more than 150 of the president’s nominees, some Senate Republicans and their right-wing allies recently sunk to a new low when they launched a slanderous campaign to intimidate Senate Democrats and their political allies by accusing them of being anti-Catholic.

These allegations first surfaced rather quietly, but with the nomination and Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on William Pryor, accusations of anti-Catholicism were, for the first time, openly leveled in Senate chambers. From there, the fight spilled out into the media and the right-wing echo-chamber and quickly exploded into a smear campaign replete with insulting allegations that any Democrats who oppose their extremist agenda cannot consider themselves to be “real Catholics

AN EAGLE WITH ONLY A RIGHT WING CAN'T FLY

2005-02-19T07:01:00.000-08:00

An Eagle With Only A Right Wing Can't Fly
2005-02-19 09:01:06
http://enewsblog.com/codewarriorz/post/2005-02-19_09:01:06/
Texas has a problem with two particularly destructive insects which, although outwardly they LOOK like their productive, non-destructive cousins, are bellicose, and tend to kill off competitors, and in general, endanger the natural balance.

The first animal is the "FIRE ANT" (imported fire ants) Solenopsis invicta (http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~gilbert/research/fireants/faqans.html.
Fire ants look very similar to other ants, but their aggressiveness and intensity of the venom they inject with an attack, makes them almost pathologically bellicose. When they move into an area, they attack other, more peaceful ants and kill them off, soon becoming the dominant ant in an area,.

The other is the so-called "KILLER BEE" or Africanized Bee.(Apis mellifera scutellata). As with the fire ant, the killer bee, although it looks outwardly very much like the European bees that are more docile and produce honey commercially, the warlike, territorially aggressive killer bee, tends to move into an area, kill or drive off the other bees, and become the dominant form of bee.

Interestingly, the country from which both of these insects came from to the USA, was South America..

The title of this article is "AN EAGLE WITH ONLY A RIGHT WING CAN'T FLY". The Eagle of course, is the United States. The Congress is now dominated by just one party, and the executive brance is rule by that same party.

Republicans often may look like democrats, like a killer bee may look like a European bee or a fire ant may look like another ant, but, like these aggressive, predatorial insects, seem to want to wipe out the opposition, and show little real interest in co-existing, or working in a truly bipartisan manner.

As with the EAGLE, the United States needs BOTH wings, Right AND Left, not only to fly at all, but certtainly to fly toward a forward destination.

Anyone paddling a boat only on the RIGHT, is never going to reach their destination on the other side, but will instead, merely go in a circle.

This country MUST head toward a positive destination, and for that, we need BOTH wings!
~CodeWarriorz Thoughts

CodeWarriorz Thoughts - ENewsBlog

2005-02-06T07:50:00.000-08:00

CodeWarriorz Thoughts - ENewsBlog

The Bizarre State of the Union Event2005-02-06 10:49:56
Link

I watched the State of the Union address old Bushy made again this morning....actually, am watching it as I write this. As usual, it was a surreal event, though it couldn't surpass that surreal of the surreal, the mother of all surreal parades, that Inauguaral Big Brother event.

I am watching the Repubs hopping up clapping, sitting again, hopping up and clapping like glorified Jacks-in-the-Box.

Watching the Repubs clapping in approbation to the bizarre things he says, gives new meaning to the term, Folie à deux (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folie_%E0_deux ). In the case of Bushy, it should technically be called "Folie imposée " which is " where a dominant person (known as the 'primary', 'inducer' or 'principal') initially forms a delusional belief during a psychotic episode and imposes it on another person or persons (known as the 'secondary', 'acceptor' or 'associate') with the assumption that the secondary person might not have become deluded if left to their own devices. If the parties are admitted to hospital separately then the delusions in the person with the induced beliefs usually resolve without the need of medication. "

As usual, he rants and includes his little agenda buzz words like "a culture of life". Wanna know more on this "culture of life"?

The Culture of Life Foundation & Institute

http://www.christianity.com/cultureoflife

This is the kind of vile crap they spew there...

"Reintroduced Fetal Pain Bill Garners Unlikely Supporter

Kansas Senator Sam Brownback reintroduced a bill on Wednesday that requires abortionists to notify women who want abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy that their unborn baby can likely experience extreme pain. Following the bill's introduction came mystifying news that pro-abortion advocate Frances Kissling, president of "Catholics" for a Free Choice (CFFC), was offering conditional support for the proposed legislation.

The Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act requires the abortionist to verbally inform and to provide a brochure to the woman seeking an abortion about the medical evidence of pain experienced by an unborn child 20 weeks after fertilization. The proposed law also requires that the pregnant woman be given the option of providing anesthesia for the unborn baby."

The other buzzwords he likes is "faith based"...which is a euphemism for right wing religious zealots who want nothing less than a theocracy it seems, and that that theocracy would install THEIR version of fundamentalist Christianity as the state religion.

And, without further waiting, here is the transcript from CSPAN of this "Resident's Ramblings"...

"PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH'S ADDRESS BEFORE A JOINT SESSION OF THE CONGRESS ON THE STATE OF THE UNION

February 2, 2005

9:10 P.M. EST

THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Speaker, Vice President Cheney, members of Congress, fellow citizens:

As a new Congress gathers, all of us in the elected branches of government share a great privilege: We've been placed in office by the votes of the people we serve. And tonight that is a privilege we share with newly-elected leaders of Afghanistan, the Palestinian Territories, Ukraine, and a free and sovereign Iraq. (Applause.)

Two weeks ago, I stood on the steps of this Capitol and renewed the commitment of our nation to the guiding ideal of liberty for all. This evening I will set forth policies to advance that ideal at home and around the world.

Tonight, with a healthy, growing economy, with more Americans going back to work, with our nation an active force for good in the world -- the state of our union is confident and strong. (Applause.)

Our generation has been blessed -- by the expansion of opportunity, by advances in medicine, by the security purchased by our parents' sacrifice. Now, as we see a little gray in the mirror -- or a lot of gray -- (laughter) -- and we watch our children moving into adulthood, we ask the question: What will be the state of their union? Members of Congress, the choices we make together will answer that question. Over the next several months, on issue after issue, let us do what Americans have always done, and build a better world for our children and our grandchildren. (Applause.)

First, we must be good stewards of this economy, and renew the great institutions on which millions of our fellow citizens rely. America's economy is the fastest growing of any major industrialized nation. In the past four years, we provided tax relief to every person who pays income taxes, overcome a recession, opened up new markets abroad, prosecuted corporate criminals, raised homeownership to its highest level in history, and in the last year alone, the United States has added 2.3 million new jobs. (Applause.) When action was needed, the Congress delivered -- and the nation is grateful.

Now we must add to these achievements. By making our economy more flexible, more innovative, and more competitive, we will keep America the economic leader of the world. (Applause.)

America's prosperity requires restraining the spending appetite of the federal government. I welcome the bipartisan enthusiasm for spending discipline. I will send you a budget that holds the growth of discretionary spending below inflation, makes tax relief permanent, and stays on track to cut the deficit in half by 2009. (Applause.) My budget substantially reduces or eliminates more than 150 government programs that are not getting results, or duplicate current efforts, or do not fulfill essential priorities. The principle here is clear: Taxpayer dollars must be spent wisely, or not at all. (Applause.)

To make our economy stronger and more dynamic, we must prepare a rising generation to fill the jobs of the 21st century. Under the No Child Left Behind Act, standards are higher, test scores are on the rise, and we're closing the achievement gap for minority students. Now we must demand better results from our high schools, so every high school diploma is a ticket to success. We will help an additional 200,000 workers to get training for a better career, by reforming our job training system and strengthening America's community colleges. And we'll make it easier for Americans to afford a college education, by increasing the size of Pell Grants. (Applause.)

To make our economy stronger and more competitive, America must reward, not punish, the efforts and dreams of entrepreneurs. Small business is the path of advancement, especially for women and minorities, so we must free small businesses from needless regulation and protect honest job-creators from junk lawsuits. (Applause.) Justice is distorted, and our economy is held back by irresponsible class-actions and frivolous asbestos claims -- and I urge Congress to pass legal reforms this year. (Applause.)

To make our economy stronger and more productive, we must make health care more affordable, and give families greater access to good coverage -- (applause) -- and more control over their health decisions. (Applause.) I ask Congress to move forward on a comprehensive health care agenda with tax credits to help low-income workers buy insurance, a community health center in every poor country, improved information technology to prevent medical error and needless costs, association health plans for small businesses and their employees -- (applause) -- expanded health savings accounts -- (applause) -- and medical liability reform that will reduce health care costs and make sure patients have the doctors and care they need. (Applause.)

To keep our economy growing, we also need reliable supplies of affordable, environmentally responsible energy. (Applause.) Nearly four years ago, I submitted a comprehensive energy strategy that encourages conservation, alternative sources, a modernized electricity grid, and more production here at home -- including safe, clean nuclear energy. (Applause.) My Clear Skies legislation will cut power plant pollution and improve the health of our citizens. (Applause.) And my budget provides strong funding for leading-edge technology -- from hydrogen-fueled cars, to clean coal, to renewable sources such as ethanol. (Applause.) Four years of debate is enough: I urge Congress to pass legislation that makes America more secure and less dependent on foreign energy. (Applause.)

All these proposals are essential to expand this economy and add new jobs -- but they are just the beginning of our duty. To build the prosperity of future generations, we must update institutions that were created to meet the needs of an earlier time. Year after year, Americans are burdened by an archaic, incoherent federal tax code. I've appointed a bipartisan panel to examine the tax code from top to bottom. And when their recommendations are delivered, you and I will work together to give this nation a tax code that is pro-growth, easy to understand, and fair to all. (Applause.)

America's immigration system is also outdated -- unsuited to the needs of our economy and to the values of our country. We should not be content with laws that punish hardworking people who want only to provide for their families, and deny businesses willing workers, and invite chaos at our border. It is time for an immigration policy that permits temporary guest workers to fill jobs Americans will not take, that rejects amnesty, that tells us who is entering and leaving our country, and that closes the border to drug dealers and terrorists. (Applause.)

One of America's most important institutions -- a symbol of the trust between generations -- is also in need of wise and effective reform. Social Security was a great moral success of the 20th century, and we must honor its great purposes in this new century. (Applause.) The system, however, on its current path, is headed toward bankruptcy. And so we must join together to strengthen and save Social Security. (Applause.)

Today, more than 45 million Americans receive Social Security benefits, and millions more are nearing retirement -- and for them the system is sound and fiscally strong. I have a message for every American who is 55 or older: Do not let anyone mislead you; for you, the Social Security system will not change in any way. (Applause.) For younger workers, the Social Security system has serious problems that will grow worse with time. Social Security was created decades ago, for a very different era. In those days, people did not live as long. Benefits were much lower than they are today. And a half-century ago, about sixteen workers paid into the system for each person drawing benefits.

Our society has changed in ways the founders of Social Security could not have foreseen. In today's world, people are living longer and, therefore, drawing benefits longer. And those benefits are scheduled to rise dramatically over the next few decades. And instead of sixteen workers paying in for every beneficiary, right now it's only about three workers. And over the next few decades that number will fall to just two workers per beneficiary. With each passing year, fewer workers are paying ever-higher benefits to an ever-larger number of retirees.

So here is the result: Thirteen years from now, in 2018, Social Security will be paying out more than it takes in. And every year afterward will bring a new shortfall, bigger than the year before. For example, in the year 2027, the government will somehow have to come up with an extra $200 billion to keep the system afloat -- and by 2033, the annual shortfall would be more than $300 billion. By the year 2042, the entire system would be exhausted and bankrupt. If steps are not taken to avert that outcome, the only solutions would be dramatically higher taxes, massive new borrowing, or sudden and severe cuts in Social Security benefits or other government programs.

I recognize that 2018 and 2042 may seem a long way off. But those dates are not so distant, as any parent will tell you. If you have a five-year-old, you're already concerned about how you'll pay for college tuition 13 years down the road. If you've got children in their 20s, as some of us do, the idea of Social Security collapsing before they retire does not seem like a small matter. And it should not be a small matter to the United States Congress. (Applause.) You and I share a responsibility. We must pass reforms that solve the financial problems of Social Security once and for all.

Fixing Social Security permanently will require an open, candid review of the options. Some have suggested limiting benefits for wealthy retirees. Former Congressman Tim Penny has raised the possibility of indexing benefits to prices rather than wages. During the 1990s, my predecessor, President Clinton, spoke of increasing the retirement age. Former Senator John Breaux suggested discouraging early collection of Social Security benefits. The late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan recommended changing the way benefits are calculated. All these ideas are on the table.

I know that none of these reforms would be easy. But we have to move ahead with courage and honesty, because our children's retirement security is more important than partisan politics. (Applause.) I will work with members of Congress to find the most effective combination of reforms. I will listen to anyone who has a good idea to offer. (Applause.) We must, however, be guided by some basic principles. We must make Social Security permanently sound, not leave that task for another day. We must not jeopardize our economic strength by increasing payroll taxes. We must ensure that lower-income Americans get the help they need to have dignity and peace of mind in their retirement. We must guarantee there is no change for those now retired or nearing retirement. And we must take care that any changes in the system are gradual, so younger workers have years to prepare and plan for their future.

As we fix Social Security, we also have the responsibility to make the system a better deal for younger workers. And the best way to reach that goal is through voluntary personal retirement accounts. (Applause.) Here is how the idea works. Right now, a set portion of the money you earn is taken out of your paycheck to pay for the Social Security benefits of today's retirees. If you're a younger worker, I believe you should be able to set aside part of that money in your own retirement account, so you can build a nest egg for your own future.

Here's why the personal accounts are a better deal. Your money will grow, over time, at a greater rate than anything the current system can deliver -- and your account will provide money for retirement over and above the check you will receive from Social Security. In addition, you'll be able to pass along the money that accumulates in your personal account, if you wish, to your children and -- or grandchildren. And best of all, the money in the account is yours, and the government can never take it away. (Applause.)

The goal here is greater security in retirement, so we will set careful guidelines for personal accounts. We'll make sure the money can only go into a conservative mix of bonds and stock funds. We'll make sure that your earnings are not eaten up by hidden Wall Street fees. We'll make sure there are good options to protect your investments from sudden market swings on the eve of your retirement. We'll make sure a personal account cannot be emptied out all at once, but rather paid out over time, as an addition to traditional Social Security benefits. And we'll make sure this plan is fiscally responsible, by starting personal retirement accounts gradually, and raising the yearly limits on contributions over time, eventually permitting all workers to set aside four percentage points of their payroll taxes in their accounts.

Personal retirement accounts should be familiar to federal employees, because you already have something similar, called the Thrift Savings Plan, which lets workers deposit a portion of their paychecks into any of five different broadly-based investment funds. It's time to extend the same security, and choice, and ownership to young Americans. (Applause.)

Our second great responsibility to our children and grandchildren is to honor and to pass along the values that sustain a free society. So many of my generation, after a long journey, have come home to family and faith, and are determined to bring up responsible, moral children. Government is not the source of these values, but government should never undermine them.

Because marriage is a sacred institution and the foundation of society, it should not be re-defined by activist judges. For the good of families, children, and society, I support a constitutional amendment to protect the institution of marriage. (Applause.)

Because a society is measured by how it treats the weak and vulnerable, we must strive to build a culture of life. Medical research can help us reach that goal, by developing treatments and cures that save lives and help people overcome disabilities -- and I thank the Congress for doubling the funding of the National Institutes of Health. (Applause.) To build a culture of life, we must also ensure that scientific advances always serve human dignity, not take advantage of some lives for the benefit of others. We should all be able to agree -- (applause) -- we should all be able to agree on some clear standards. I will work with Congress to ensure that human embryos are not created for experimentation or grown for body parts, and that human life is never bought and sold as a commodity. (Applause.) America will continue to lead the world in medical research that is ambitious, aggressive, and always ethical.

Because courts must always deliver impartial justice, judges have a duty to faithfully interpret the law, not legislate from the bench. (Applause.) As President, I have a constitutional responsibility to nominate men and women who understand the role of courts in our democracy, and are well-qualified to serve on the bench -- and I have done so. (Applause.) The Constitution also gives the Senate a responsibility: Every judicial nominee deserves an up or down vote. (Applause.)

Because one of the deepest values of our country is compassion, we must never turn away from any citizen who feels isolated from the opportunities of America. Our government will continue to support faith-based and community groups that bring hope to harsh places. Now we need to focus on giving young people, especially young men in our cities, better options than apathy, or gangs, or jail. Tonight I propose a three-year initiative to help organizations keep young people out of gangs, and show young men an ideal of manhood that respects women and rejects violence. (Applause.) Taking on gang life will be one part of a broader outreach to at-risk youth, which involves parents and pastors, coaches and community leaders, in programs ranging from literacy to sports. And I am proud that the leader of this nationwide effort will be our First Lady, Laura Bush. (Applause.)

Because HIV/AIDS brings suffering and fear into so many lives, I ask you to reauthorize the Ryan White Act to encourage prevention, and provide care and treatment to the victims of that disease. (Applause.) And as we update this important law, we must focus our efforts on fellow citizens with the highest rates of new cases, African American men and women. (Applause.)

Because one of the main sources of our national unity is our belief in equal justice, we need to make sure Americans of all races and backgrounds have confidence in the system that provides justice. In America we must make doubly sure no person is held to account for a crime he or she did not commit -- so we are dramatically expanding the use of DNA evidence to prevent wrongful conviction. (Applause.) Soon I will send to Congress a proposal to fund special training for defense counsel in capital cases, because people on trial for their lives must have competent lawyers by their side. (Applause.)

Our third responsibility to future generations is to leave them an America that is safe from danger, and protected by peace. We will pass along to our children all the freedoms we enjoy -- and chief among them is freedom from fear.

In the three and a half years since September the 11th, 2001, we have taken unprecedented actions to protect Americans. We've created a new department of government to defend our homeland, focused the FBI on preventing terrorism, begun to reform our intelligence agencies, broken up terror cells across the country, expanded research on defenses against biological and chemical attack, improved border security, and trained more than a half-million first responders. Police and firefighters, air marshals, researchers, and so many others are working every day to make our homeland safer, and we thank them all. (Applause.)

Our nation, working with allies and friends, has also confronted the enemy abroad, with measures that are determined, successful, and continuing. The al Qaeda terror network that attacked our country still has leaders -- but many of its top commanders have been removed. There are still governments that sponsor and harbor terrorists -- but their number has declined. There are still regimes seeking weapons of mass destruction -- but no longer without attention and without consequence. Our country is still the target of terrorists who want to kill many, and intimidate us all -- and we will stay on the offensive against them, until the fight is won. (Applause.)

Pursuing our enemies is a vital commitment of the war on terror -- and I thank the Congress for providing our servicemen and women with the resources they have needed. During this time of war, we must continue to support our military and give them the tools for victory. (Applause.)

Other nations around the globe have stood with us. In Afghanistan, an international force is helping provide security. In Iraq, 28 countries have troops on the ground, the United Nations and the European Union provided technical assistance for the elections, and NATO is leading a mission to help train Iraqi officers. We're cooperating with 60 governments in the Proliferation Security Initiative, to detect and stop the transit of dangerous materials. We're working closely with the governments in Asia to convince North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions. Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and nine other countries have captured or detained al Qaeda terrorists. In the next four years, my administration will continue to build the coalitions that will defeat the dangers of our time. (Applause.)

In the long-term, the peace we seek will only be achieved by eliminating the conditions that feed radicalism and ideologies of murder. If whole regions of the world remain in despair and grow in hatred, they will be the recruiting grounds for terror, and that terror will stalk America and other free nations for decades. The only force powerful enough to stop the rise of tyranny and terror, and replace hatred with hope, is the force of human freedom. (Applause.) Our enemies know this, and that is why the terrorist Zarqawi recently declared war on what he called the "evil principle" of democracy. And we've declared our own intention: America will stand with the allies of freedom to support democratic movements in the Middle East and beyond, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world. (Applause.)

The United States has no right, no desire, and no intention to impose our form of government on anyone else. That is one of the main differences between us and our enemies. They seek to impose and expand an empire of oppression, in which a tiny group of brutal, self-appointed rulers control every aspect of every life. Our aim is to build and preserve a community of free and independent nations, with governments that answer to their citizens, and reflect their own cultures. And because democracies respect their own people and their neighbors, the advance of freedom will lead to peace. (Applause.)

That advance has great momentum in our time -- shown by women voting in Afghanistan, and Palestinians choosing a new direction, and the people of Ukraine asserting their democratic rights and electing a president. We are witnessing landmark events in the history of liberty. And in the coming years, we will add to that story. (Applause.)

The beginnings of reform and democracy in the Palestinian territories are now showing the power of freedom to break old patterns of violence and failure. Tomorrow morning, Secretary of State Rice departs on a trip that will take her to Israel and the West Bank for meetings with Prime Minister Sharon and President Abbas. She will discuss with them how we and our friends can help the Palestinian people end terror and build the institutions of a peaceful, independent, democratic state. To promote this democracy, I will ask Congress for $350 million to support Palestinian political, economic, and security reforms. The goal of two democratic states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace, is within reach -- and America will help them achieve that goal. (Applause.)

To promote peace and stability in the broader Middle East, the United States will work with our friends in the region to fight the common threat of terror, while we encourage a higher standard of freedom. Hopeful reform is already taking hold in an arc from Morocco to Jordan to Bahrain. The government of Saudi Arabia can demonstrate its leadership in the region by expanding the role of its people in determining their future. And the great and proud nation of Egypt, which showed the way toward peace in the Middle East, can now show the way toward democracy in the Middle East. (Applause.)

To promote peace in the broader Middle East, we must confront regimes that continue to harbor terrorists and pursue weapons of mass murder. Syria still allows its territory, and parts of Lebanon, to be used by terrorists who seek to destroy every chance of peace in the region. You have passed, and we are applying, the Syrian Accountability Act -- and we expect the Syrian government to end all support for terror and open the door to freedom. (Applause.) Today, Iran remains the world's primary state sponsor of terror -- pursuing nuclear weapons while depriving its people of the freedom they seek and deserve. We are working with European allies to make clear to the Iranian regime that it must give up its uranium enrichment program and any plutonium reprocessing, and end its support for terror. And to the Iranian people, I say tonight: As you stand for your own liberty, America stands with you. (Applause.)

Our generational commitment to the advance of freedom, especially in the Middle East, is now being tested and honored in Iraq. That country is a vital front in the war on terror, which is why the terrorists have chosen to make a stand there. Our men and women in uniform are fighting terrorists in Iraq, so we do not have to face them here at home. (Applause.) And the victory of freedom in Iraq will strengthen a new ally in the war on terror, inspire democratic reformers from Damascus to Tehran, bring more hope and progress to a troubled region, and thereby lift a terrible threat from the lives of our children and grandchildren.

We will succeed because the Iraqi people value their own liberty -- as they showed the world last Sunday. (Applause.) Across Iraq, often at great risk, millions of citizens went to the polls and elected 275 men and women to represent them in a new Transitional National Assembly. A young woman in Baghdad told of waking to the sound of mortar fire on election day, and wondering if it might be too dangerous to vote. She said, "Hearing those explosions, it occurred to me -- the insurgents are weak, they are afraid of democracy, they are losing. So I got my husband, and I got my parents, and we all came out and voted together."

Americans recognize that spirit of liberty, because we share it. In any nation, casting your vote is an act of civic responsibility; for millions of Iraqis, it was also an act of personal courage, and they have earned the respect of us all. (Applause.)

One of Iraq's leading democracy and human rights advocates is Safia Taleb al-Suhail. She says of her country, "We were occupied for 35 years by Saddam Hussein. That was the real occupation. Thank you to the American people who paid the cost, but most of all, to the soldiers." Eleven years ago, Safia's father was assassinated by Saddam's intelligence service. Three days ago in Baghdad, Safia was finally able to vote for the leaders of her country -- and we are honored that she is with us tonight. (Applause.)

The terrorists and insurgents are violently opposed to democracy, and will continue to attack it. Yet, the terrorists' most powerful myth is being destroyed. The whole world is seeing that the car bombers and assassins are not only fighting coalition forces, they are trying to destroy the hopes of Iraqis, expressed in free elections. And the whole world now knows that a small group of extremists will not overturn the will of the Iraqi people. (Applause.)

We will succeed in Iraq because Iraqis are determined to fight for their own freedom, and to write their own history. As Prime Minister Allawi said in his speech to Congress last September, "Ordinary Iraqis are anxious to shoulder all the security burdens of our country as quickly as possible." That is the natural desire of an independent nation, and it is also the stated mission of our coalition in Iraq. The new political situation in Iraq opens a new phase of our work in that country.

At the recommendation of our commanders on the ground, and in consultation with the Iraqi government, we will increasingly focus our efforts on helping prepare more capable Iraqi security forces -- forces with skilled officers and an effective command structure. As those forces become more self-reliant and take on greater security responsibilities, America and its coalition partners will increasingly be in a supporting role. In the end, Iraqis must be able to defend their own country -- and we will help that proud, new nation secure its liberty.

Recently an Iraqi interpreter said to a reporter, "Tell America not to abandon us." He and all Iraqis can be certain: While our military strategy is adapting to circumstances, our commitment remains firm and unchanging. We are standing for the freedom of our Iraqi friends, and freedom in Iraq will make America safer for generations to come. (Applause.) We will not set an artificial timetable for leaving Iraq, because that would embolden the terrorists and make them believe they can wait us out. We are in Iraq to achieve a result: A country that is democratic, representative of all its people, at peace with its neighbors, and able to defend itself. And when that result is achieved, our men and women serving in Iraq will return home with the honor they have earned. (Applause.)

Right now, Americans in uniform are serving at posts across the world, often taking great risks on my orders. We have given them training and equipment; and they have given us an example of idealism and character that makes every American proud. (Applause.) The volunteers of our military are unrelenting in battle, unwavering in loyalty, unmatched in honor and decency, and every day they're making our nation more secure. Some of our servicemen and women have survived terrible injuries, and this grateful country will do everything we can to help them recover. (Applause.) And we have said farewell to some very good men and women, who died for our freedom, and whose memory this nation will honor forever.

One name we honor is Marine Corps Sergeant Byron Norwood of Pflugerville, Texas, who was killed during the assault on Fallujah. His mom, Janet, sent me a letter and told me how much Byron loved being a Marine, and how proud he was to be on the front line against terror. She wrote, "When Byron was home the last time, I said that I wanted to protect him like I had since he was born. He just hugged me and said, 'You've done your job, Mom. Now it is my turn to protect you.'" Ladies and gentlemen, with grateful hearts, we honor freedom's defenders, and our military families, represented here this evening by Sergeant Norwood's mom and dad, Janet and Bill Norwood. (Applause.)

In these four years, Americans have seen the unfolding of large events. We have known times of sorrow, and hours of uncertainty, and days of victory. In all this history, even when we have disagreed, we have seen threads of purpose that unite us. The attack on freedom in our world has reaffirmed our confidence in freedom's power to change the world. We are all part of a great venture: To extend the promise of freedom in our country, to renew the values that sustain our liberty, and to spread the peace that freedom brings.

As Franklin Roosevelt once reminded Americans, "Each age is a dream that is dying, or one that is coming to birth." And we live in the country where the biggest dreams are born. The abolition of slavery was only a dream -- until it was fulfilled. The liberation of Europe from fascism was only a dream -- until it was achieved. The fall of imperial communism was only a dream -- until, one day, it was accomplished. Our generation has dreams of its own, and we also go forward with confidence. The road of Providence is uneven and unpredictable -- yet we know where it leads: It leads to freedom.

Thank you, and may God bless America. (Applause.)

END 10:03 P.M. EST "

From http://www.c-span.org/executive/transcript.asp?cat=current_event&code=bush_admin&year=2005

====SNIP=============

...HMMM...DO TELL !

Capitol Hill Blue: Americans Wary of Bush's Stock Plan

2005-02-06T07:29:00.000-08:00

Capitol Hill Blue: Americans Wary of Bush's Stock Plan

Americans Wary of Bush's Stock Plan
By Staff and Wire Reports
Feb 6, 2005, 06:00
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Fifty-six percent of Americans think the stock market is too risky for Social Security funds, according to a Newsweek poll released on Saturday.
The poll signaled a tough sell for President Bush as he promotes his plans to change Social Security and allow workers to shift part of their payroll taxes into private stock and bond accounts.

The 56 percent who were wary of putting retirement money into the stock market contrasted with 36 percent who said such investing was a "necessary risk to improve the rate of return of Social Security funds."

Bush made his bid to remake the 70-year-old Social Security program the centerpiece of his State of the Union address on Wednesday. Then he set off on a two-day trip to pitch his plan in North Dakota, Montana, Nebraska, Arkansas and Florida, all of which supported him in the November election.

Social Security provides benefits to 45 million Americans, and millions more are nearing retirement.

Bush bases his case for change on his contention that Social Security is headed for bankruptcy -- a characterization that Democrats say exaggerates the problem and amounts to a scare tactic.

The Newsweek poll did show that 65 percent of Americans agreed with Bush that Social Security faces a crisis. But they were split on what to do about it.

Thirty-six percent of those surveyed opposed Bush's proposals, 26 percent approved them, and 30 percent said they were not aware of them.

In addition to private accounts, Bush said he thinks there should be "permanent" changes made to the structure of Social Security to improve its financial viability and said he was open to ideas such as limiting the future growth of benefits.

The Newsweek poll was conducted on Feb. 3-4 for publication in the magazine's Feb. 14 issue. The poll included 1,009 adults.

==========SNIP===================
Rightfully so...I am listening to Bush's speech and the Social Security scheme...one word....RETARDED!

Canadian Clobbers Coulter: How to Talk to a Fool (If You Really Must) | This Is Rumor Control

2005-02-05T20:20:00.000-08:00

Canadian Clobbers Coulter: How to Talk to a Fool (If You Really Must) | This Is Rumor ControlAt last, Ann Coulter had to face a journalist who is more than a blow-dried, talking-head-news-thingy -- someone who actually knows about history -- and Coulter totally flamed out.

Last night, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's excellent investigative news program, "the Fifth Estate," broadcast a one-hour special on the hijacking of the American media by conservative bullies -- whose knowledge of foreign policy seems to run the gamut from A to B and tends toward scream-o-ramas in which dissenters are accused of being unpatriotic.

Of course, it included Coulter who gloated to correspondent Bob McKeown about how her side is "winning and they're loosing." But in the next segment during a rant about how Canada is disloyal for not sending troops to Iraq -- Coulter was finally exposed -- it just isn't clear from the exchange if she is genuinely confused or purposefully misrepresenting the truth. We'll report so you can decide.

Coulter: "Canada used to be one of our most loyal friends and vice-versa. I mean Canada sent troops to Vietnam - was Vietnam less containable and more of a threat than Saddam Hussein?"

McKeown interrupts: "Canada didn't send troops to Vietnam."

Coulter: "I don't think that's right."

McKeown: "Canada did not send troops to Vietnam."

Coulter (looking desperate): "Indochina?"

McKeown: "Uh no. Canada ...second World War of course. Korea. Yes. Vietnam No."

Coulter: "I think you're wrong."

McKeown: "No, took a pass on Vietnam."

Coulter: "I think you're wrong."

McKeown: "No, Australia was there, not Canada."

Coulter: "I think Canada sent troops."

McKeown: "No."

Coulter: "Well. I'll get back to you on that."

McKeown tags out in script:

"Coulter never got back to us -- but for the record, like Iraq, Canada sent no troops to Vietnam."

Yahoo! News - WHERE'S THAT RELIGIOUS FANATIC WE ELECTED?

2005-02-05T20:18:00.000-08:00

Yahoo! News - WHERE'S THAT RELIGIOUS FANATIC WE ELECTED?
"Op/Ed - Ann Coulter

WHERE'S THAT RELIGIOUS FANATIC WE ELECTED?

Fri Feb 4, 6:22 PM ET Op/Ed - Ann Coulter

By Ann Coulter

Maybe he is an idiot."
=============SNIP================
Yes Ann Coulter, BUSH IS AN IDIOT...and You're both an
Idiot and a Bitch...but then again, that's obvious!

Yahoo! News - CAMPAIGN AGAINST SOCIAL SECURITY IS FULL OF FALSEHOODS

2005-02-05T20:11:00.000-08:00

Yahoo! News - CAMPAIGN AGAINST SOCIAL SECURITY IS FULL OF FALSEHOODSCAMPAIGN AGAINST SOCIAL SECURITY IS FULL OF FALSEHOODS

Sat Feb 5, 7:59 PM ET

By Cynthia Tucker

The plan to topple Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) dates back to the mid-1990s, when a group of neoconservatives formed a virtual government-in-exile at a think tank called the Project for a New American Century. They devised strategies, sat back and bided their time, waiting for what they called a "Pearl Harbor-type event" to provide convenient cover to invade Iraq (news - web sites).

Cynthia Tucker

The plan to topple Social Security (news - web sites), however, is much older -- dating back to the 1930s, to the very formation of the program. Conservatives have always hated it and wanted to get rid of it. So, taking the long view, they devised strategies, sat back, bided their time, and waited for political circumstances to provide cover to demolish Social Security.

They have found their circumstances: the re-election of George Bush (news - web sites), which conservatives have claimed as a mandate to revamp the tax structure to benefit the rich, to destroy government regulation of water, air and consumer affairs, to move the Supreme Court to the right of Archie Bunker, and to dismantle the social safety net -- including Social Security.

As he did with the invasion of Iraq, Bush has mounted a campaign against Social Security using half-truths, misperceptions and falsehoods. In the State of the Union speech, he declared, "By the year 2042, the entire system would be exhausted and bankrupt."

That's simply not true. According to its actuaries -- who have done a lot better job over the decades in predicting the system's finances than Bush has done in predicting the deficit -- Social Security will be able to pay every dime promised to beneficiaries until 2042. (The Congressional Budget Office (news - web sites) gives it another decade.) After that, with no fixes, it will begin to run a deficit and will only be able to pay three-fourths of the benefits promised. Does that sound like "exhausted"? "Bankrupt"?

Even that crisis of diminished benefits (which won't kick in until the Bush twins are nearly old enough to collect Social Security themselves) could be headed off with a modest increase in the payroll tax, which is currently quite regressive, costing people who earn less a higher percentage of their incomes. As of 2005, workers pay the payroll tax on every dollar of their income up until $90,000. If the tax were increased to the first $100,000 or $110,000 of income, which would not touch average workers, Social Security could pay full benefits well into the distant future.

To gain perspective on Bush's plan to dismantle Social Security, consider the excellent historical forensics done by business writer Daniel Gross, who found a trove of hysterical predictions about Franklin Roosevelt's new program made by conservatives 70 years ago.

Writing recently in The New York Times, Gross quoted Silas Hardy Strawn, a former head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (news - web sites), as calling Social Security one of many "attempts to Sovietize America." Sen. Daniel Hastings, a Republican from Delaware, said the bill's passage would "end the progress of a great country and bring its people to the level of the average European."

But conservatives are undeterred by the fact that none of their predecessors' sky-is-falling predictions came true -- just as the White House is undeterred by its wrongheaded predictions about Iraq. The facts simply don't matter. They have an agenda, and they are willing to distort, conceal and misrepresent to pursue it.

Before the invasion of Iraq, Bush and his minions predicted that combat would be a cakewalk, that Saddam had not only WMD but also ties to al-Qaida, that nation-building would be paid out of Iraqi oil resources. Two years later, more than 1,400 U.S. troops are dead, there were no ties to al-Qaida, the nuclear program turns out to be in Iran, and U.S. taxpayers are paying nearly $4.5 billion a month for our presence in Iraq.

Do you dare believe them about Social Security?

American Civil Liberties Union : Torture FOIA

2005-02-05T11:11:00.000-08:00

American Civil Liberties Union : Torture FOIAhttp://www.aclu.org/International/International.cfm?ID=13962&c=36

Marine General Says 'It's Fun to Kill'

2005-02-05T09:28:00.000-08:00

Marine General Says 'It's Fun to Kill'

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_6133.shtml

Marine General Says 'It's Fun to Kill'
By JOHN J. LUMPKIN
Feb 4, 2005, 08:15

A decorated Marine Corps general said, "It's fun to shoot some people" and poked fun at the manhood of Afghans as he described the wars U.S. troops are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

His boss, the commandant of the Marine Corps, said Thursday that the comments reflected "the unfortunate and harsh realities of war" but that the general has been asked to watch his words in public.

Lt. Gen. James Mattis, a career infantry officer who is now in charge of developing better ways to train and equip Marines, made the comments Tuesday while speaking to a forum in San Diego.

According to an audio recording, he said, "Actually, it's a lot of fun to fight. You know, it's a hell of a hoot. ... It's fun to shoot some people. I'll be right up front with you, I like brawling."

He added, "You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them."

His comments were met with laughter and applause from the audience. Mattis was speaking during a panel discussion hosted by the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association, a spokeswoman for the general said.

Thursday, Gen. Mike Hagee, commandant of the Marine Corps, issued a statement saying, "Lt. Gen. Mattis often speaks with a great deal of candor. I have counseled him concerning his remarks and he agrees he should have chosen his words more carefully."

Hagee also said, "While I understand that some people may take issue with the comments made by him, I also know he intended to reflect the unfortunate and harsh realities of war."

Among Marines, Mattis is regarded as a fighting general and an expert in the art of warfare. Among his decorations are the Bronze Star with a combat distinguishing device and a combat action ribbon, awarded for close-quarters fighting.

He is currently the commanding general of the Marine Corps Combat Development Command in Quantico, Va., and deputy commandant for combat development.

Marine Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said it was up to Mattis to address his own comments, but he added, "All of us who are leaders have a responsibility in our words and our actions to provide the right example all the time for those who look to us for leadership."

Pace spoke to a Pentagon press conference. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said he had not read Mattis' words and deferred to Pace.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil liberties group, called on the Pentagon to discipline Mattis for the remarks.

"We do not need generals who treat the grim business of war as a sporting event," said the council's executive director, Nihad Awad. "These disturbing remarks are indicative of an apparent indifference to the value of human life."

Pace and Hagee praised the general's service.

"His actions and those of his troops clearly show that he understands the value of proper leadership and the value of human life," Pace said.

Hagee called him "one of this country's bravest and most experienced military leaders."

He said the commitment of Marines "helps to provide us the fortitude to take the lives of those who oppress others or threaten this nation's security. This is not something we relish, yet we accept it as a reality in our profession of arms."

Hagee said he was confident Mattis would continue to serve with distinction.

Mattis' comments were reported by the television station KNSD in San Diego, and the audio recording was posted on its Web site www.nbcsandiego.com .

As a lieutenant colonel, Mattis led an assault battalion into Kuwait during the first war with Iraq. During the war in Afghanistan, he commanded the 1st Marine Expeditionary Brigade and subsequently Task Force 58, which fought in southern Afghanistan as the Taliban fell.

During the second war in Iraq, he commanded the 1st Marine Division during the invasion and also when the unit returned to Iraq for counterinsurgency operations last year.

In a letter to his troops before they redeployed to Iraq last March, Mattis warned them of "hard, dangerous work."

"The enemy will try to manipulate you into hating all Iraqis," he wrote. "Do not allow the enemy that victory. With strong discipline, solid faith, unwavering alertness, and undiminished chivalry to the innocent, we will carry out this mission."

He is not the first senior military officer since the Sept. 11 attacks to stir controversy with his comments.

Lt. Gen. William Boykin, a senior military intelligence officer, was criticized for speeches he made at evangelical Christian churches. He said that America's enemy was Satan, that God had put President Bush in the White House and that one Muslim Somali warlord was an idol-worshipper.

Boykin later issued a written statement apologizing and saying he did not mean to insult Islam.

A Pentagon investigation concluded that Boykin violated regulations by failing to make clear he was not speaking in an official capacity in the speeches beginning in January 2002.

The Inaugural Parade

2005-01-21T04:10:00.000-08:00

The 2005 Coronation of King George the Cowardly.

Well, our national trip down the Rabbithole of Alice in Wonderland was made complete with the Coronation of King George the Cowardly. As I watched the "parade", it was bizarre to say the least. There were vehicles moving in a V formation like the flying phalanx of ancient Sparta...there were Matrix like guys in dark sunglasses and long, black overcoats flanking the "Presidential limo", and at one point, there was a truck that came rolling along that had armed thugs hanging on the side that a friend watching the procession remarked to me, looked like the Mob, much like something you would see from the Al Capone era, when armed thugs would be festooning a vehicle's exterior, with their feet implanted on the running boards of the truck or car.

It looked less like a Presidential inauguration parade (I've never seen one of them), and more like Hitler's triumphant march into Poland or Paris. Actually, if some of the Men in Black had been sporting the traditional silver SS pins or Death's Head pins, the picture would have been complete....all Bushy would need would be a tiny little moustache (but perhaps, he cannot muster enough testosterone to generate one).

In another portion of the program, Hitler...er, uh, BUSHY, was addressing / commanding people from a large white podium, which was reminiscent of something you saw Il Duce (Mussolini) or Hitler do, in old film reels. His Effete Foppishness was. for all the world, an effeminate version of Big Brother re-enacted for all the world to see.

To say that the Inauguration Parade looked like the New World Order in all its "glory" would be to understate the matter.

As the tanks and troops marched down the road, even the commentators on ABC said it looked like something you would see in a Banana republic, at the direction of some dictator. As they say..."TRUE DAT".

Along the parade route, it was teeming with people, held behind great fences which, for some reason, looked like the fences at Auschwitz . And, we saw the police running along the fences, often spraying pepper spray into the eyes of these law abiding citizens whose only crime was exercising their right of free speech.

While our own citizens are starving, and troops don't have what they need, Marie Antoinette...er...Mrs. Bush, was prancing around in a solid white Oscar de la Renta that costs TWENTY THOUSAND DOLLARS. Talk about letting them eat cake and fiddling while Rome burned...surely, their little pageant needs to reserve a rank in the history books as at least as outrageous as these. Estimates of forty to forty four MILLION dollars for this little debacle, are said to be low.

To me, it certainly adds up to a new definition of an obscene waste of money...but of course, the money is from "private" sources, which is the easy way of saying it oozes from the teats of the Pigopolists, each vying for the ability to muzzle in on the treasure trove which will be available to Bushy's toadies.

So, as Alex in Clockwork Orange might say in Nadsat, "Yes my little droogies, even the melodies of the Glorious Ludwig von....were soured by that scene. Bushy is a baddiwad chelloveck!".

During one scene, the "Presidential Limo" rolled through a tremendous cloud of smoke/fog, coming from a heating vent or something in the road. As it emerged eerily from the grey cloud, it looked like Dracula tooling around Transylvania, with his black coated, black sunglassed Familiars in attendance.

And so, the New Nightmare Begins.

~CodeWarriorz Thoughts

DOLLAR DROPS IN VALUE AGAIN FOR SEVENTH TIME IN FOUR YEARS

2004-11-24T22:54:00.000-08:00

The dollar has dropped in value against the Euro again, for the seventh time in four years.
http://www.thehollandsentinel.net/stories/111804/bus_111804041.shtml
"The U.S. dollar plunged to a new low against the euro Wednesday as markets shrugged off Washington's insistence that it is committed to a strong dollar. And with the causes of the drop -- worries over oil prices and the U.S. trade and budget deficits -- not going away, some economists see the euro soaring to $1.35 or beyond."

I believe this reinforces the message I have been repeating for over a year now...i.e., that this economy in the US, is in great trouble.

Lawmakers OK anti-piracy czar

2004-11-23T18:22:00.000-08:00

THANKS TO LACHATTE FOR THE LINK ON THIS STORY!
Lawmakers OK anti-piracy czar
Lawmakers OK anti-piracy czar

By Brooks Boliek
WASHINGTON -- Buried inside the massive $388 billion spending bill Congress approved during the weekend is a program that creates a federal copyright enforcement czar.

Under the program, the president can appoint a copyright law enforcement officer whose job is to coordinate law enforcement efforts aimed at stopping international copyright infringement and to oversee a federal umbrella agency responsible for administering intellectual property law.

Intellectual property law enforcement is divided among a range of agencies including the Library of Congress, the Justice and State departments and the U.S. Trade Representative.

It is hoped that designating a single overseer to coordinate copyright law enforcement will put some cohesion into the federal effort, said one Senate Appropriations Committee aide.

US News Article | Reuters.com

2004-11-22T19:55:00.000-08:00

US News Article | Reuters.com
============SNIP==================
I hate it when planes are late, don't you?

Cyril Wecht's Dissention

2004-11-22T19:53:00.000-08:00

Cyril Wecht's Dissention

MORE ON DR. CYRILL WECHT'S VIEW OF THE MAGIC BULLET THEORY

2004-11-22T19:51:00.000-08:00

40 years on, Arlen Specter and Cyril Wecht still don't agree how JFK diedWecht closed his eyes and folded his hands on his desk. A study in concentration, he began speaking in measured tones about the JFK assassination and the Warren Report. But, soon, his passion, his incredulity, took over. His timbre rose. He stood and used his body as a model to show the location of Kennedy's and Connally's wounds. He laughed heartily at what he considers the incompetence of the commission's findings, particularly Specter's single-bullet theory.

Wecht didn't need to look up anything. With dizzying dispatch, he rattled off the frames per second of the Zapruder film (18), the time it would have taken Oswald to fire, reload and fire again (2.5 seconds), the time between Kennedy and Connally reacting to their wounds (1.5 seconds), and the weight of the so-called "magic bullet" the commission said struck both men (158.6 grains). All showed the single-bullet theory to be what he has categorized as "scientifically absurd."

He repeated his oft-repeated challenge for any forensic pathologist to produce a bullet that had done what the nearly pristine magic bullet is purported to have done. He first threw down that gauntlet in the late 1970s when, unlike him, the eight other members of the pathology panel of the House Select Committee on Assassinations accepted the single-bullet theory.

"Get me one bullet in one case, just one from hundreds of thousands of cases ... that has done this. Nobody has ever produced one," he said.

There's little limit to his frustration at how the case was handled. As he has since February 1965, when he presented a paper before the American Academy of Forensic Scientists, Wecht blasted the decision that let Kennedy's autopsy be performed by two doctors who had never done a gunshot wound autopsy. "Forensic science was ... thwarted, stymied, perverted, ignored," he said.

40 years on, Arlen Specter and Cyril Wecht still don't agree how JFK died

2004-11-22T19:49:00.001-08:00

40 years on, Arlen Specter and Cyril Wecht still don't agree how JFK died

KDKA: Wecht Weighs In on JFK's Assassination

2004-11-22T19:49:00.000-08:00

KDKA: Wecht Weighs In on JFK's Assassination

KHOU.com | News for Houston, Texas | State News

2004-11-22T19:43:00.000-08:00

KHOU.com | News for Houston, Texas | State News
"PLANO, Texas — Police in Plano, Texas, are investigating today's death of a baby whose arms had been cut off. They say the child was less than 1 year old.

They say her 35-year-old mother was detained for questioning after calling 911 to summon officers to the apartment. Police say the woman told them she cut off her baby's arms.

Police spokesman Carl Duke says the baby was taken to a Plano hospital, where she died.

A Child Protective Services spokeswoman says the agency had investigated the mother for either abuse or neglect involving the infant girl, shortly after her birth in January.

The spokeswoman told The Dallas Morning News that the mother had "postpartum depression."
=========snip================

wtf?????? post partum depression??????

So, lemme get this straight...ya get "the baby blues" and the next thing you know...
you are hacking off a defenseless babies upper extremities>>>>>>?????

Hmmmmmmmmmm....Do Tell!

KHOU.com | News for Houston, Texas | State News

2004-11-22T19:40:00.000-08:00

KHOU.com | News for Houston, Texas | State News

State claims $243 million in State Farm, Farmers overcharges

01:42 PM CST on Friday, November 19, 2004

Associated Press

AUSTIN -- The Texas Department of Insurance, taking its fight against State Farm and Farmers Insurance to a new front, accused the companies Friday of illegally charging customers more than $243 million in excessive rates and said it will seek refunds and interest.

The department claimed the companies exaggerated property losses and padded expenses to justify excessive premiums.

The companies, which are expected to contest the complaints, have 20 days to accept the findings or request a hearing before Insurance Commissioner Jose Montemayor.

The move comes a week after State Farm and Farmers, two of the state's largest homeowner insurers, won the latest round in a court fight with the state over premiums paid by their 1.5 million policyholders in Texas. A judge had ruled that the companies did not have to issue refunds because the state had violated their due process rights.

State Farm spokeswoman Sophie Harbert said the company stands by its current homeowners insurance rates and likely will ask for a hearing, the Dallas Morning News reported Friday.

"We don't know the basis by which they came up with their rate reduction for State Farm. We believe our rates are fair and justified," Harbert said.

A Farmer spokeswoman said the report still was being reviewed. The company has vigorously defended its premiums levels, asserting that the rate rollback and refunds sought by the insurance department are unwarranted.

The insurance department has asked the attorney general's office to appeal the ruling while the agency takes action against the companies, insurance department spokeswoman Jim Hurley said.

The department asked Montemayor to order both companies "to cease and desist from charging excessive rates" for homeowners insurance.

"It is time for State Farm and Farmers to do the same thing that all other insurance companies in Texas have done, reduce their rates," Hurley said. "Both are charging their customers excessive rates and they need to do something about it."

The state is seeking refunds for customers dating back to June 11, 2003, when a new law took effect, giving state regulators authority over homeowners insurance rates.

At that time, the department had ordered State Farm to reduce its rates by 12 percent, which equaled about $155 million. Farmers was ordered to cut rates by 17.5 percent, which equaled $88 million.

The insurers pointed to the court rulings that upheld their arguments in the dispute, saying they are not required to trim premiums or issue refunds because their current rates are necessary to cover property losses and other expenses.

Hurley said the court ruling was over a procedural issue that "had nothing to do with the merits of the case."

===========SNIP=======================
WHY ARE THESE COMPANIES ALLOWED TO KEEP DOING BUSINESS IN TEXAS?

amarillo.com | Business: State Farm, Farmers cited for alleged overcharges 11/20/04

2004-11-22T19:38:00.000-08:00

amarillo.com | Business: State Farm, Farmers cited for alleged overcharges 11/20/04: "State Farm, Farmers cited for alleged overcharges

The Associated Press
State Farm, Farmers cited for alleged overcharges

AUSTIN - In a new offensive against State Farm and Farmers Insurance Group, state regulators have accused the companies of illegally overcharging customers and called for more than $300 million in refunds plus interest.
The Texas Department of Insurance cited the companies for exaggerating property losses and padding expenses to justify premiums that are excessive.

The department also is seeking interest of 10 percent on the overcharges, which could amount to penalties of more than $30 million for the two companies.

The companies, which are expected to contest the complaints, have 20 days to accept the findings or request a hearing before Insurance Commissioner Jose Montemayor, The Dallas Morning News reported Friday.

The move comes a week after State Farm and Farmers, two of the state's largest homeowner insurers, won the latest round in a court fight with the state over premiums paid by their 1.5 million policyholders in Texas. A judge had ruled the companies did not have to issue refunds because the state had violated their due process rights.

State Farm spokeswoman Sophie Harbert said the company stands by its homeowners-insurance rates and likely will ask for a hearing.

"We don't know the basis by which they came up with their rate reduction for State Farm. We believe our rates are fair and justified," Harbert said.

A Farmers spokeswoman said the report still was being reviewed.

The company has vigorously defended its premiums levels, asserting the rate rollback and refunds sought by the insurance department are unwarranted.

Insurance Department spokesman Jim Hurley said the attorney general's office has been asked to appeal the ruling while the agency takes action against the companies on a new front.

The department asked the insurance commissioner to order both companies "to cease and desist from charging excessive rates" for homeowners insurance.

"It is time for State Farm and Farmers to do the same thing that all other insurance companies in Texas have done, reduce their rates," Hurley said.

The department said State Farm's rates were 12 percent too high, and Farmers' rates were 17.5 percent too high.

The state is seeking refunds for customers dating back to June 11, 2003, when a new law giving state regulators authority over homeowners insurance rates went into effect.
==========================SNIP===========================
Why are State Farm and Farmers Insurance , apparently, allowed, if not encouraged, to continue victimizing citizens of Texas?

This is NOT the first time wrongdoing has been found on their parts...so why are they not BANNED from doing business in Texas?

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm?

2004-11-22T19:34:00.000-08:00

Farmers in remediation investigation
Michael Whiteley
Tarrant/Denton Editor
The state's third-largest property and casualty insurer is investigating a Waco company that provides adjustment services on mold claims and a string of North Texas remediation firms launched by former adjusters.

The inquiry by Farmers Insurance Group involves Wardlaw Claims Service of Waco, as well as mold remediators North Texas Prime Services Inc., KK&C Enterprises Inc., North Texas Angel Plumbing L.L.C, Darcy Boatman Builders and other entities formed by North Richland Hills general contractor Darcy Boatman, a former adjuster for Wardlaw.

In six lawsuits filed by Texas homeowners, Dallas attorney John H. Carney has alleged that North Texas Prime Services and its affiliates in the business of remediating mold damage in Texas homes performed shoddy or incomplete work. In many of those instances, referrals to Boatman came through Wardlaw.

Subsidiaries of Farmers Insurance Group are defendants in all the lawsuits.

Boatman has denied the allegations in court, and Wardlaw declined to comment this week.

Said Mary Flynn, a spokeswoman at Farmers headquarters in Los Angeles: "We know that allegations have been made. As of now we've seen no evidence of the allegations they're making. But we are taking them seriously, and we are investigating the matter."

Wardlaw acts as a private adjuster for some of Texas' best-known property and casualty companies, including Farmers and San Antonio-based Texas Select Lloyds Insurance Co., which is named in a remediation lawsuit filed by a North Richland Hills woman.

Texas Select could not be reached for comment.

Boatman said in an interview that he launched North Texas Prime Services with at least one other former Wardlaw adjuster, but declined to name the individual. He said the companies only left work unfinished when homeowners withheld insurance payments from contractors or reached their policy limits.

Boatman was licensed as an insurance adjuster by the Texas Department of Insurance in 1993 and continues to hold a state license active through June 22, according to TDI records.

But he said his role as an adjuster has never caused a conflict with his remediation operations.

"Two of the guys with Prime are ex-adjusters. I'm an ex-adjuster. But there's no collusion. There's no anything," Boatman said. "The insurance companies hate our guts."

The allegations first surfaced in court filings a year ago -- a time when Farmers and State Farm Insurance Co., which writes more premium dollars than any property and casualty company in Texas, were emerging from a mold crisis that left the companies threatening to withdraw from the Texas market.

TDI launched an investigation of Farmers' trade practices in 2002, but dropped the probe after Farmers agreed to cut rates and make refunds.

State Farm and Farmers and nine more of the state's insurers, however, have appealed rate cuts ordered this summer by the insurance department. Farmers' rates would be cut by 17.5% under the insurance department plan.

'No wrongdoing'
North Richland Hills homeowner LaDonna Aubrey said her problems began after pipes connected to a solar water heater sprung lakes and flooded her home. Texas Select paid for damage caused by a leak in the system's slab, but declined to pay for pipe damage.

Aubrey claimed Boatman and his associates did substandard work and broke into her house when she removed an outside key. She said her home has been declared a "total loss," and the work was never completed.

The lawsuit said Skipp Potts, a Wardlaw adjuster, asked the companies affiliated with Boatman to be assigned the work.

Boatman said he left the job because Aubrey never passed along the money she got from the company.

"LaDonna Aubrey was paid in full, and she didn't pay for the work," Boatman said.

Another suit filed last year in Dallas County court against Farmers subsidiary Fire Insurance Exchange alleges that the water and toxic-mold damage Dallas homeowner Melva Heath sustained in December 2001 on North Hampton Road was never fully repaired, despite payments of more than $87,000 to North Texas Prime and its affiliates.

The suit says Heath paid Prime more than $27,000 on removal work and Boatman another $21,000 to "build back" the home once the mold was removed, but that Boatman walked off the job with the work unfinished in November 2002.

Heath said in court filings Boatman then billed her for another $26,342 for work that was never performed and withheld her furniture, clothing and other items removed from the home to get payment.

Heath made an additional payment of $12,726 and discovered items damaged or missing, she said. Her attorneys argued that Wardlaw, Fire Insurance and the remediators acted in a conspiracy to get paid the maximum on Heath's policies because of her health conditions.

Boatman has denied the allegations and said Heath was underinsured and unable to pay for the work that was done.

"Mrs. Heath is an elderly lady. There's no wrongdoing on Farmers' part. She was underinsured and they paid her the maximum amount she had on the two claims," said Boatman.

A computer analysis of TDI data published by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in November showed Farmers led all home insurers in consumer complaints for nearly three years. The company blamed the problem on mold.

TDI Public Affairs Director Jim Hurley said those complaints have not included the allegations raised in the lawsuits.

"I'm unaware of any of those complaints being brought to the department," he said.

====================SNIP=====================
It is this blogger's opinion that fraud and corruption in the insurance industry of MANY companies of insurance in Texas has become almost the status quo, and NOT the exception. One MUST ASK, why is the Texas Department of Insurance allowing this kind of thing to become "business as usual" and why are they allowing companies to keep on victimizing customers and citizens?

Infoshop News - WashingtonPost.com Drops Ted Rall's Cartoons

2004-11-22T18:27:00.000-08:00

Infoshop News - WashingtonPost.com

I personally don't think it is funny, and those of you KNOW I enjoy most humor in which Bushy or his supporters are the brunt of it...but it puts retarded persons in a negative light to compare them to Bush supporters, i.e. it makes them seem like their IQ is even lower~! In other words, comparing Bush supporters to retarded people, is an insult to retarded people !

WorldNetDaily: Post drops 'stridently liberal' cartoonist

2004-11-22T18:20:00.000-08:00

WorldNetDaily: Post drops 'stridently liberal' cartoonist

THE INTOLERANT RIGHT APPARENTLY CAN'T TAKE A JOKE~

WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE MAJORITY OF AMERICANS?

2004-11-22T17:36:00.000-08:00

http://edition.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/11/22/opinion.poll/

The majority of Americans feel this creature is doing a good job?????
Now, I usually believe in the inherent good common sense of the American public and am GENERALLY of the opinion that the American public tends to be a reasonable bunch....however, this article just flat out proves me wrong....or at least, the extrapolated results of this poll would cause me to believe that it proves me wrong....

From the article :
"(CNN) -- Fifty-five percent of Americans like the way President Bush is handling his job, while the approval rating for his Iraq policies is slightly lower, according to the first full CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll following the November 2 presidential election.

Forty-two percent of those polled don't believe Bush is doing a good job. Sixty percent have a positive opinion of Bush, versus 39 percent with the opposite view."

WTF????????? Sixty percent have a "positive opinion of Bush"? Look, are you folks on CRACK or something harder?

How can 55 percent of the Americans actually say they like the way Bush is handling his job with a straight face? There is obviously something seriously wrong with 55 percent of the American public, if this poll is to be believed.

You folks obviously didn't wake up before the election, not DURING the election, and are obviously still hallucinating after the election.

The war is costing 5.8 BILLION A MONTH....Bush has asked for a budget of 388 BILLION. Now, if we round it off, that's around 6 BILLION a month, times 12 = 72 Billion a year that we will be spending on this war AT PRESENT LEVELS, which is almost 20 percent of the entire budget. It was noted that, as a result of this 388 BILLION BUDGET, lots of social programs would find their programs cut in funding levels.

Yeah, why the hell should we take care of our own people (as the mandate in the constitution is), when we can bomb the hell out of other people across the world.

Something is seriously wrong here folks...and it's a damn shame the majority is staying blind to that.

FAHRENHEIT 911 - A "MUST SEE"

2004-06-27T15:43:00.000-07:00

PLEASE GO SEE THIS FILM..IT'S AN EYEOPENER...IT'S GREAT...IT'S GETTING THUNDEROUS APPLAUSE WHEREVER IT PLAYS....

http://news.dmusic.com/article/12968

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/06/27/ 1088274624204.html?oneclick=true

"The film is certainly proving popular. Fahrenheit 9/11 broke box office records for a documentary when it opened in New York last week and, over the weekend, one in every two tickets sold in the US was for Moore's film.

Audiences seem to love it. At a cinema in Manhattan last Thursday, there was not a single empty seat. At times, it was hard to hear, because people were cheering and jeering.

At the end, the audience broke into thunderous applause. People also wept, particularly when gruesome images of children injured in the Iraq war were shown, and when mothers of dead US soldiers took over the screen."

2004-05-28T19:40:00.000-07:00

Sorry for not keeping up on this blog. I have been writing more at
codewarriorz.blogspt.com. I hope all have a safe and happy Memorial Day Weekend.

2004-05-15T08:51:00.000-07:00

The title says that "25 percent" of Americans in grip of Arthritis"...

I had to read the article, because anyone in the healt profession should know that arthritis just means "joint inflammation" and there are different types,i.e. rheumatoid arthritis, which affects the smaller
joints like the joints of the fingers and toes, and is an autoimmune type disease, and there is osteoarthritis, in which larger joints like the vertebral joints of the spine, just wear out. It turns out they were talking about rheumatoid type arthritis.

"The percentage of those diagnosed with a form of arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, gout, lupus or fibromyalgia ranged from a low of 17.8 percent in Hawaii to a high of 35.8 percent in Alabama in 2002, according to a 30-state CDC survey released Thursday."

The article goes on to state this is a large number.

Osteoarthritis is much more widespread than rheumatoid, because it is a function of improper wear and tear of the joints. Thus, if 25 percent of the population has rheumatoid, the overall percentage of the population with "arthritis" of ALL types , is much much higher (there are other forms of specific arthritis, such as psoriatric arthritis, which accompanies the skin condition known as psoriasis).

At least, this is the impression I would have. But, from a site called "chondrogene.com"...we find this:

"In 1998, a collaboration between the National Institutes of Health, the CDC, the Arthritis Foundation and the American College of Rheumatology determined that OA affected 21 million Americans or just under 10 percent of the entire U.S. population, and that OA accounted for at least 90 percent of all cases of arthritis (see Figure 2). "

This is counterintuitive, that twice as many people have the autoimmune form of arthritis than the wear and tear kind. And, this could not be right if we are to believe the 25 percent figure previously cited, because, the chondrogene.com site, notes that osteoarthritis is the most common form, and they , again, said osteoarthritis affects around 10 percent (in 1998), and they include a chart of different arthritic diseases, and on that chart, they list rheumatoid arthritis in 1998, affected around 2.4 million (with osteoarthrits affecting just over 20 million). The charts from 1998 reflected a collaborative effort by the
National Institutes of Health, the CDC, the Arthritis Foundation and the American College of Rheumatology . This latest study, done apparently in the last year or two, means, that in the period from 1998 until, let's say, 2003, a five year period, would mean that rheumatoid arthritis has gone from a little over 2 percent (2.4 million out of around 240 million people) to about 25 percent. That is ASTOUNDING...because, if this is true, and osteoarthritis, in 1998 was about 10 times as common...if the
percents held constant...(i.e. that rheumatoid increased tenfold) that would mean that osteoarthritis incidence would be around 200 percent of the population, (i.e. 20 percent x 10)....

And, from the CNN article on rheumatoid, we find:
" That is a huge number compared to most other diseases," said Dr. Chad Helmick, a CDC arthritis expert, who noted that the number of Americans with arthritis was expected to increase sharply as the baby boomer generation headed into retirement."

What all this means is that orthopedics and rheumatology, should become booming fields.

But, it begs the question, since rheumatoid has been held to be an autoimmune disease, why is such a dramatic increase in autoimmune joint diseases happening?

I don't have the answer(s), but the question needs to be explored.
~Code

My Bill

2004-05-14T11:11:00.000-07:00

My bill proposal...
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A BILL
S. _________
To define, enumerate, and clarify the rights of consumers with regard to the
reproduction, transmission, usage, storage, manipulation, and other issues concerning digital data, for the purposes of non-commercial, personal use.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

(Month) ___, 200_

_________________________________ introduced the following bill, which was read twice and referred to the Committee on _____________________

To protect and outline the rights of consumers of digital media , personal computing devices, and other digital devices, used for non-commercial, private uses, and to provide for the punishment for violations of any provisions of this Bill.

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE: TABLE OF CONTENTS

SHORT TITLE. -- This Act may be cited as

the "Digital Consumer's Rights and Protection Act."

SECTION 2. CONGRESSIONAL FINDINGS AND PURPOSE.

A) FINDINGS- Congress finds the following:

1. Consumers are using personal home computers as an important means of home entertainment, vehicles for communication, and for storage and manipulation of personal data. Concurrently, they have developed certain reasonable and legitimate expectations concerning the right to store, use, manipulate, and transfer digital data to other home users. They further have certain proper expectations that the constitutional protections afforded to them by the Bill of Rights , should apply to their computer, as it does, in like manner , to their domicile. For example, the protections against unreasonable search and seizure which the constitution applied to a person's residence, and which was later also applied to their personal vehicle or conveyance, should now also be applied to the personal computer.

The reasons for these assertions are manifest. Home computers may, and often do, contain personal and private information including such material as personal financial records, medical information, business information, and other personal and private data which may apply to the user themselves, but also, in the case of a shared computer, or a "family computer", the machine may in fact hold personal records for many persons, both of adolescents, and adults.

Also, much in the way a personal vehicle allows a person to physically travel outside the home, so does the personal computer, allowing far greater travel and with far greater speed than an automobile. In these cases, the personal computer may be seen as both a home device, and a personal conveyance.

========================================================================================
Digital Consumer's Rights and Protection Act

Page two

2. For the foregoing reasons and others, citizens have certain legal rights, and protections, which should extend to their personal digital storage devices. It is maintained that the constitutional protections against abuse by the government, provided to each citizen in the Constitution of the United States, and in other Acts such as the Privacy Act of 1974 , shall be also extended to protect consumers from unauthorized incursion into their digital storage devices, and that private persons, private companies, and any other legal entity, shall be barred from performing unauthorized and warrantless searches of the devices in which citizens store their digital data. Without limitation, all protections afforded to citizens by the government in their homes and vehicles, shall also be extended to their personal data storage and devices which create digital files such as personal computers, personal digital assistances, and other similar devices, currently in use, or which may be brought into use at a later date.

3. It is further found that citizens have a right to be protected from having their rights violated by any person, business, enterprise, regulatory agency, or other entity, whether said entity is in the public or private sector. We find that the founding fathers did not intend for private businesses to have powers and abilities to violate the rights of private citizens, in any manner which they found would be improper or unconscionable for the government to do. This bill will thus bar any private or public entity from violation or abridgement of any rights or protections under law. This provision has been deemed to be necessary, as a result of the actions of certain private parties and companies, which have used the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998, to act in such a manner, as to unreasonably conduct unreasonable searches and seizures within the informational storage devices of personal computers attached to internet connections.

4. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998 has enabled private individuals, companies, and others, to violate basic, constitutionally protected rights of private persons. The DMCA has enabled private persons and companies to violate the protections afforded citizens by circumventing the traditional methods by which law enforcement officials are legally bound to obtain subpoenas. This circumvention is expected to lead to innocent persons targeted without proper evidentiary procedures being followed. The DMCA has emboldened and enabled the violation of the right to be secure in ones own computer. It is asserted that the reasonable expectation of privacy which are constitutionally guaranteed, have been obliterated by the draconian actions which certain companies and persons have perpetrated upon the public. The alleged raison d'être for the DMCA was to encourage original creation and provide copyright protections to creators in the digital age. This act was an amendment of Title 17, and was an implementation of the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) copyright provisions. Due to the fact that the DMCA has resulted in the enabling of people in the private sector to violate constitutionally provided protections and rights, it is now asserted that this Act, through its practical application, has proven to be ill conceived, and is in fact, a threat to the protected rights which citizens of the United States were assured of, by the Constitution. Thus, as the DMCA comes in conflict with the Supreme law of the land, it is hereby found that the DMCA should be repealed.

5. In 1984, the Supreme Court of the United States, ruled in a 5-4 decision in the Universal City Studios v. Sony Corporation case, that home recording of copyrighted materials, would be legal under the fair use provision, since the action was a "non-commercial, nonprofit activity".
===================================================================================
Digital Consumer's Rights and Protection Act

Page three

Although the main issue in this case was that recording programs which were copyrighted (video cassette recorder) were being "time shifted" for viewing at a later time, the central theme of the decision was that it should be legal for home users to make copies of copyrighted material without obtaining prior, written, express permission of the copyright holder to do so.

In the 21st century, more and more, the format of storage and transmission of entertainment programming is moving from an analog format to a digital one.
Even television broadcasters are now transitioning to a high definition digital format.

This transition from primarily an analog to a digital format for data storage necessitates the laws to reflect this technological shift as well. For example, many film rental businesses are moving slowly from offering movies for rent in a VHS format, to a DVD format. People are now recording television programs not on videotape, but on a hard drive (the TiVo is one such device currently in use). There has been an evolution in the storage of music from vinyl discs to "8 track tapes" to audio "mini cassettes" to storage on CD (compact discs).

The law needs to reflect this change in technology, and to extend the fair use protection to consumers who wish to copy music from one media (e.g. CDs) to their hard drive, or other media, either analog or digital. To enable this reasonable measure, this is another reason that the wrongheaded DMCA should be repealed, and replaced by a more contemporary law, which serves to protect the American consumer. As it is, the practical application of the DMCA is such that it is making criminals out of millions of citizens. The manner in which certain companies and persons have abused the subpoena powers under the DMCA, it has empowered them to violate the basic and fundamental constitutional rights of American citizens which have been vouchsafed for two centuries, in a mad and unreasonable flight to pursue potential alleged copyright violations for pecuniary interests. The burden of proving that the nature and degree of harm which alleged copyright infringement may exact on complaining parties, must be weighed carefully against the degree of harm which such actions may cause, or have caused. Furthermore, it is the burden of the copyright holder to prove that the alleged infringement is in fact the sole or proximate cause of such harm. It is not sufficient that a copyright holder make unsubstantiated speculations, or "post hoc ergo propter hoc" assertions as to cause and effect.

6. Consumers shall hereinafter have certain specific rights with regard to digital data and files which they have legally acquired. It is further understood that these rights shall not exclude nor prohibit the free exercise of any other rights, which are not specifically enumerated nor described in this bill. Consumers shall have exclusive right to perform the following modifications and to exercise the following uses of digital data and media which they have legally acquired.

1) Time shift - record digital presentations and store them for use a later time.

2) Space or location shift - Consumers have the right to move digital files from location to location, or from one device to another, without losing any legal rights originally afforded to them as an owner or user of the original file in the original location.
====================================================================================

Digital Consumer's Rights and Protection Act

Page four

3) Format shift / format translation -Consumers shall have the right to convert digital files and digital media from one format to another. For example, if a customer purchases a music CD, they shall have the right to convert the music tracks from the CD into other formats for storage, transportation, or transmission. Such formats shall include wav files, MP3 files, midi files, au files, aiff files, and any and all other formats which exist currently, or which shall be created. Such format changes shall not diminish nor eliminate any rights which the customer had with regard to the original format.

4) Backup of original data legalized- Owners of digital data in any format, hereinafter have the right to make backup copies of original discs or other media, for the purpose of preserving the material, owing to the fragile nature of the CD media, or other media.

5) Multiplatform usage - The consumer shall have the right to move digital data from one operating platform to another, e.g. from a Windows PC to an APPLE "Mac" platform, or other operating system platform.

6) Consumers shall forthwith have the right(s) to use technological methods, devices, algorithms, software, and other means, to accomplish the above reasonable and proper actions, and to secure the effective usage of the media and files under their care, custody, and control. The right to implement various hardware and software solutions to accomplish these goals, shall not be abridged , modified, nor infringed upon by other laws, acts, statutes, or other legislative actions existing now.

B) PURPOSE -

1) Congress finds that it has a legitimate and mandated purpose to maintain a reasonable consistency in legislation, such that legislation is not passed which allows, through extension and practical application, the violation of the rights of the majority of citizens. A case in point was the Eighteenth Amendment, the National Prohibition Act, or the Vested Act. This act was found to be unenforceable because it was widely regarded as a wrongheaded act, was regularly disregarded and violated by the majority of people who had previously purchased and consumed alcohol, and effectively turned millions of Americans into criminals. When an Act, through its application, enables wholesale violation of constitutionally protected civil, and by extension and application makes millions of Americans criminals, it is asserted that this legislation should be amended to correct the harm, or, if it cannot properly be amended to avoid the harm, should be repealed.

It is found that the DMCA has become such a template for a mass violation of rights, and, through a meticulous application and enforcement of its provisions, would make criminals out of millions of Americans, who regularly make digital copies of all kinds of files. In point of fact, each website is copyrighted upon creation, and millions download copyrighted images, text, and code daily upon visiting these sites without prior express, authorization from the copyright owner/ website creator. This technical violation of the DMCA by an ordinary act of internet usage tends to point out that the Act criminalizes benign actions by ordinary citizens.

===========================================================================================
Digital Consumer's Rights and Protection Act

Page five

The Congress has to balance the harm which an Act generates, with the benefits it provides. For around two centuries, the Copyright Act which preceded the DMCA, did an acceptable job of protecting the rights of those who wrote, drew, performed, and otherwise created novel and unique works of art and industry. The widespread abuses which the DMCA has enabled, along with the aggressive manner in which certain parties have exploited these provisions, have pointed out with great clarity, the need to correct the harm. It is found that the DMCA is thus, fundamentally flawed by the manner in which it provides for sacrificing the rights of consumers and other citizens, in favor of simple pecuniary interests. It is found that because of the fundamental flaws, the passage of the Digital Consumers Rights and Protection Act is necessary in order to offer a restatement of the rights consumers have, with regard to their ability to copy, store, transfer, and translate digital files and digital data.

The purpose is thus to bring the rights of consumers in a digital age into compliance with constitutional provisions and protections, but to define and specify how they may properly and legally accomplish these rights, and the means by which these protections may be ensured.

SECTION 3 - DEFINITIONS

The following are definitions for terms used in this Bill. If words are not specifically defined, the ordinary or usual meaning in common parlance will guide the reader in understanding their meaning.

1) Person - Any natural and/or legal person or individual who is a citizen of the United States of America.

2) Consumer - any natural and/or legal person and/pr Individual who legally purchases, uses, maintains, and/or disposes of products and/or services

3) Digital Data -

1. Data represented by discrete values or conditions, as opposed to analog data

2. Discrete representations of quantized values of variables, e.g., the representation of numbers by digits, perhaps with special characters and the "space" character.

3. Time shift - the recording of any digital data in real time, that is viewed or otherwise used at a later period in time, i.e., there is a temporal delay between recording and usage.

4. Space shift - the physical transference of digital data from one location to another, or the copying of said data from one location to another. This covers movement from one point on a fixed media to another location, from one fixed media to a different one, from one media to a different media, or any combination thereof, and of transmission and transferal not herein described, but which can logically be inferred from this definition.

5. Format shift - the translation from one format or file type to another. This would include any change in a data file or file type which would render the file in any manner changed, and/or any change from one form in which data is stored or used, to another form in which data is stored or used. Encryption and compression are specifically allowed by this provision, and are thus legalized for personal users for non-commercial, nonprofit uses.
============================================================================================
Digital Consumer's Rights and Protection Act

Page six

6. Backups (and/or making of backups)- describes any process whereby a consumer engages software, and /or hardware applications, devices, technology, and/or algorithms to make a perfect copy or image of original material. The act of backing up one's digital data can be done in a manner that the backup is a mirror or exact duplicate of the original, and/or an encoded version that is capable, through a technological action, to reproduce the original on demand.

7. MP3 - Is the file extension for MPEG, audio layer 3. Layer 3 is one of three coding schemes (layer 1, layer 2 and layer 3) for the compression of audio signals. Layer 3 uses perceptual audio coding and psychoacoustic compression to remove all superfluous information. Thus the MP3 format is considered a lossy type of file compression algorithm, akin to the JPEG format which is used in graphic files compression.

8. CD - or compact disc is considered to be a high-fidelity digital audio recording medium. A standard CD is 12 centimeters (approximately 5 inches) in diameter, with an identifying label on one side. See also CD-ROM. This has become a popular distribution medium for both music and software due to portability and storage capacity.

9. Hard drive - a computer term for hardware that holds and spins circular discs , usually made from metal or even glass, that reads and writes data to the disc. A hard drive is usually a fixed drive, although modern technology has made hard drives in a removable form as well.

10. Personal computer - This tem has come to represent a computer (or computing device) which is primarily used by home users for non-commercial, private use. Companies also use personal computers, but most of these are connected with larger computers called "servers" which connect and facilitate communication between these individual personal computers. The term is usually in reference to the hardware, as opposed to the operating system. Home users employ various brands and types of operating systems from Windows, to System X (Mac), to less well known ones such as Linux, Unix, BeOS, and others.

11. DVD - This shall identify a digital storage medium which has a larger storage capacity than that of the compact disc, or CD. The term DVD originally referred to a Digital Video Disc, since the original content of these discs was that of prerecorded video. The term which is more properly used now is "Digital Versatile Disc" due to the increased availability of devices which are used on personal computers, which can write and rewrite to, the DVD media. These digital media are being used to store a multitude of data files, formats, and media files. The digital versatile disk (DVD) holds4.7 gigabytes of information on one of its two sides, although, this storage parameter may certainly change as technology becomes more advanced.

12. CD or DVD player - This shall be understood to mean, and identify, any , and/or all devices which are capable of reading one or both of these digital media, and of translating the media into a usable form.
=========================================================================================
Digital Consumer's Rights and Protection Act

Page seven

SECTION 4 - Punishment for violation of any provisions of this Bill

It is self evident that for legislation enacted by a governmental body to be enforced, that there be needs to be provisions , establishing punishments for any person , group of persons, business, or other entities who may act in such a manner as to violate the Act.

It is hereby held that the rights established under this bill are of such importance to the individual consumer, that the punishment(s) for any violation of any provision of this bill need to be of a magnitude to deter potential violators of this bill.

It is hereby stipulated that, any willful or intentional violation of this bill en toto, or any provisions thereof, shall be punishable by a fine of one hundred fifty thousand United States dollars ($150,000.00) and that concurrent and/or consecutive violations, will also carry a fine of one hundred fifty thousand dollars per incident or per violation, whichever is the largest in number. For example, if a company was to conduct five illegal searches of a consumer's hard drive within a period of five minutes, this would constitute five violations, each resulting in a fine of one hundred fifty thousand dollars each, resulting in a fine for that event of seven hundred fifty thousand dollars ($750,000). Furthermore, individuals who opt to violate the provisions of this act, upon a true conviction for violation of this Bill, would be subject to imprisonment, with a term not to exceed three (3) years in federal prison, per violation. This term of three years, could be assessed for one violation, and multiple violations, could expose any person convicted of multiple violations, to receiving either concurrent, or consecutive terms of imprisonment, of up to three years per violation, depending on the findings of the Court.

SECTION 5 - Changes in current laws.

Passage of this bill shall repeal the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998.

Passage of this bill shall extend the protections afforded citizens under the First Ten Amendments to the Constitution, to protect all citizens from any violation by any private person, group(s) of persons, private companies, or other entities operating within the confines of the continental United States or any geographic area under the control of the government of United States.

SECTION 6 - Time at which the bill shall be in effect

This bill shall be in effect, ninety one (91) days after passage.

END
===========================================================================================

2004-05-14T08:17:00.000-07:00

Ashcroft today was on CSPAN shilling for making the Patriot Act permanent.

To me, that's like cutting off your legs to cure tired feet.

It's a rotten idea to make a temporary bad decision permanent.

Write Congress at www.congress.org , and let your congress people

know you want the Patriot Act GONE FOR GOOD!

~Code

PS....WE "LIBERATE" A GIANT OIL PRODUCTING COUNTRY, AND NOW, GAS IS OVER TWO BUCKS
A GALLON...A DOUBLING! And, the experts say this gas increase is because of the
war in Iraq !

Vote for anyone except Bush!

2004-05-12T17:10:00.000-07:00

On the interesting side of things, UFOs have been spotted in Mexico
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=520714
"Mexican air force captures invisible 'UFOs' on film
By Tim Gaynor in Tijuana
13 May 2004

The Mexican air force has released video footage of unidentified flying objects picked up by an infrared camera as they whizzed around a surveillance plane, in scenes eerily reminiscent of a Hollywood alien invasion movie.

The fuzzy images that have entranced Mexican television viewers since Monday show up to 11 bright objects, some sharp points of light and others like large headlights, moving rapidly in loose formation across what appears to be a late-evening sky.

Filmed by air force pilots on a routine patrol for drug smugglers over the eastern coastal state of Campeche in early March, the objects were first picked up on the radar monitor, then captured using an infrared camera slung under the aircraft's fuselage.

Mexico's Defence Ministry released the images to a local journalist, Jaime Maussan, a long-time believer in flying saucers. He told a news conference on Tuesday that the objects were real and that they appeared to be "intelligent", because at one point they changed direction and surrounded the plane chasing them.

"They were invisible to the eye but they were definitely there, there is no doubt about it. They had mass, they had energy and they were moving about," he said, after showing a 15-minute video."

2004-05-12T17:01:00.000-07:00

I saw the video which shows Mr. Nicholas Berg being murdered today. It was one of the most gruesome things I have seen in a long time. Some people, who have seen it seem to be more ready to accept the abuse of the Iraqi prisoners.

But, I say no...abuse or torture is not made acceptable by someone else being murderous and horrible.

It seems that once you get into the mindset that you have to beat the other side in torture or barbarism...both sides have already lost.

I pray this horror will be resolved as soon as possible.

2004-05-11T13:24:00.000-07:00

What good came from Iraq?

We "liberate" one of the largest oil producing nations, and now, our gas prices will be reaching record levels of what we pay at the pumps.

We "liberate" the torture and rape prison at Abu Ghraib, and now, our soldiers stand accused of rape, torture, and murder at the Abu Ghraib prison.

Am I missing something, or is this a "Bizarro" world out of the Superman comics in which everything is its opposite on the "real" world.

The war was meant to bring peace and a democratic government to Iraq, and to end the abuse of prisoners in its prisons.

"It am Bizarro World"

2004-05-09T14:23:00.001-07:00

Amidst all the news about abuse of Iraqi prisoners, we should not forget that 99.99 percent of our soldiers are out there, living in awful conditions, far from home. They need things like toothbruses,toothpaste,
seasonings and condiments like catsup, pepper, salt, etc, as well as things like shaving cream, shavers, and because of all the dirt and grime, they go through all the tooth related items quickly.

Our troops want things like tuna fish....we can send tuna in the packets...not cans.

Anything you can do to help is appreciated.

Slim Jim jerky, fruit rollups, granola bars...are also something our troops need.

Prepackaged cookies, candies...etc.

Snack crackers (Cheese crackers,Triscuits, Wheat Thins..etc.

Also needed are things like :

A A batteries (for radios, cd players)

Postcards

Pens, Writing utensils, Paper....stationery

If you can, please help.
~Code

2004-05-09T14:23:00.000-07:00

2004-05-09T14:12:00.000-07:00

2004-05-04T05:21:00.000-07:00

Survey....There's a cool survey that you might like to take.
http://www.public-domain.org/?q=node/view/30

Check it out.
~Code