This Just in...again

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shadeaux63 Keeper of dreams Posts: 1084 (2/3/05 1:25 am) Reply	Re: This Just in...again This is an excerpt of an interview,done by Amy Goodman,of democracynow.org,with a retired Iraqi engineer,who is definitely NOT saluting the "democracy" that Bush has "delivered" to Iraq. AMY GOODMAN: And this is Democracy Now! democracynow.org as we move from Kurdistan back to Baghdad, to get response from retired Iraqi engineer Ghazwan Al-Mukhtar. Throughout key points of the invasion and occupation we have checked in with him on the first anniversary of the invasion, on the siege of Fallujah, the so-called transfer of sovereignty on June 28. Today we get his thoughts on the elections. We reached him just before the program. This is Ghazwan Al-Mukhtar at his home in Baghdad. GHAZWAN AL-MUKHTAR: I do not believe that the election is legitimate, the election is held under the occupation. The occupying power has modified the basic rules in Iraq as to who is an Iraqi and who is not. The election was shoved down our throat because all the major parties, including Allawi's party, requested that the election be postponed. That was in November. And before even the independent electoral commission could decide on the request, that President Bush said he does not want the election to be postponed and Ambassador Negroponte said, oddly enough, it came from Fallujah. He was in Fallujah, and declared that the elections will be held on the January 30. It is an Iraqi election, it is not a U.S. election, it is not Negroponte's election, it is the Iraqi people's election. So, if the Iraqi parties wanted to postpone the election, they should have been able to do so without the interference of the United States government. Anyway, having done the election now, it was forced down our throat, a lot of people have boycotted it. The Sunnis have boycotted the elections. Some of the Shias boycotted it. Muktadar Al Sadr faction boycotted the election. Al Khalaf faction boycotted the election. There is a resistance to the occupation in Iraq. This resistance stems from the fact that our life has been, for the last 22 months, deteriorating day and night and we have not seen any improvement in our condition for the last 22 months, nor that anything has been reconstructed. The telephone system is bad, the electricity is worse, the security condition is worse. A lot of people are saying, why do I vote? What does the government do for me? They did absolutely nothing. The shocking thing is that the conditions after 22 months of occupation is a lot worse in every single aspect of life than with Saddam Hussein, after 12 years of sanction. While I'm talking to you I just heard two bombs exploding not too far from here. I did not vote and I will not vote to any one of those people who came on the back of the American banks. I do not see any change because there is no will to reconstruct anything. There is no will to improve the life of the Iraqis. It is going to take another two years and a lot of will. Mind you, in 1991, with the huge destruction in Iraq, we, the Iraqi people, despite the sanctions and with no help from anybody, we were able to restore the electricity, we were able to restore the water, the sewage and in six months we were able to rebuild the country in less than a year. Now that time has gone. The U.S. had 22 months occupation and they have not fixed a single thing in Iraq. We are still getting 2,000 to 2,200 calories on the ration system. We were told that Saddam Hussein was stealing our money both in the palaces and keeping us poor and hungry. But now after 22 months, we are still getting 2200 calories or sometimes less. Halliburton -- we have added crisis right now of petrol, Iraq was an exporting country of diesel fuel and refined oil products. Since the occupation, we have been importing oil from Turkey. No one fixes the refineries. There is a huge queue of cars waiting to get oil or petrol. And the Congress, the U.S. Congress said in 2003, May 2003, seven out of 18 governmentals had more than 16 hours of electricity. Now we are getting two hours of electricity right in Baghdad. I am lucky today, I have electricity from 7:00 to 9:00 and that is going to be all. Until late in the evening, maybe, I don't know when, I'll get the electricity. So, all those factors will indicate that the people are discontent, the people are resentful of the presence of the American forces, that the people are dissatisfied with the occupation, because they have not seen any improvement in their life. Unemployment is very high; it's at about 60%. People are starving. This is the basis for the resistance. It's not the Mussabu Al Zarqawi and Abu, I don't know who, or the terrorists coming from the outside of Iraq. It is the indigenous Iraqi resistance. While we were told that Saddam Hussein was torturing us, we are finding after 22 months that the Americans are torturing us, the British are torturing us, the Danish are torturing us and now we discover that the Iraqi forces, the ING is torturing us. So, instead of one having one torturer, now we have four torturers. And you want us to be happy with the election. This reminds me of a story when Mary Antoinette, when she was told that the people did not have bread to eat. She said why don't they eat cake? We don't have anything and they tell us here it is democracy. Take democracy. What do I do with democracy? Does it allow me to walk across right the street without being feared of being kidnapped or being shot at or being mugged or being stolen? Would democracy feed my children? Would democracy allow me to quench my thirst? The U.S. has not done anything at all to improve the life of Iraqi people. And that is one of the reasons why you are seeing all those attacks. AMY GOODMAN: Ghazwan Al-Mukhtar, a retired Iraqi engineer speaking from his home in Baghdad.
shadeaux63 Keeper of dreams Posts: 1084 (2/5/05 1:51 pm) Reply	Re: This Just in...again And now for something that should be humour,but actually sounds like what Dubya was saying at his State of the Fascist Regime address(State of the Union).Enjoy! THE 2005 STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS: COMPLETE TRANSCRIPT OF PRESIDENT BUSH'S SPEECH TO CONGRESS AND THE NATION The United States Capitol Washington, D.C. THE PRESIDENT: Coach Bulldog, Uncle Cheney Sir, Republican toadies, adorable Democratic eunuchs, couch potatoes splattered in Lean Cuisine pasta sauce who will watch me for five minutes, then flip to an infomercial about a whisk/spatula combo: 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, namely, a bunch of Lexus-driving doughy dudes holding court naked in the power saunas of Wall Street and Houston, whose unflappable sense of personal Manifest Destiny helps them justify hijacking our democracy with gajillions of dollars in over-produced televisual free speech. (Applause.) And tonight that is a privilege we share with newly-elected leaders of – and listen carefully, because I'm like, mega-loathe to repeat the names of these budget lampreys – Afghanistan (soon to be "New Midland"), the Palestinian Territories (soon to be "Israel"), Ukraine (a country curiously full of funny-talking white people), and a free and democratic Iraqistan... or as I like to call it, "Deadwood." Tonight, with an economy improving for those in this elite chamber (and our golfing buddies), with tens of dozens of our finest minimum wage jobs still not outsourced to India, with our nation an unstoppable force for spreading bedrock values like empty consumerism, hypocritical moral posturing, and cottage cheese-assed morbid obesity – the state of our union is once again provincial and hubristic. In short, Bush America ROCKS! (Fraternityesque Partisan Hooting.) You know, us Baby Boomers have been blessed. Blessed by the expansion of opportunity bought at the expense of our children. Blessed by advances in medicine such as Viagra and Zoloft. Blessed by the security purchased by our parents' sacrifices in wars that actually mattered. And now, after all those years of us wallowing in patchouli, Led Zeppelin, cocaine, and MEMEMEME, we're finally showing our parents that we're just as badass, noble, and moral as they were. So thank you Pappy for your war stories, but now we got our own. So suck on that Mr. Turkey Neck and shut the fuck up already. It's us who's the Greatestest Generation now! (Applause.) Now, as we see a little gray in the mirror – or a lot of gray – (Riotous Laughter) – and we watch our children moving into adulthood (and sometimes adult cinema), we ask the question: What will be the state of their union? Will they kick up their heels on thrones of skulls and rule the scorched Earth with cyborg talon fists? Or will cursed liberalism prevail? To ensure it doesn't, we need to keep our economy flexible, innovative, and competitive, but not too flexible, innovative, or competitive. In the past four years, we provided tax relief to every person who pays income taxes. We also provided tax relief to corporations who somehow think they're above paying for a war that is so much fun to talk about over cigars and cognac. We've overcome a recession, mainly by pretending it isn't there. We've opened up new markets abroad, such as the bullet markets in the Middle East, and the American job markets in Asia. We've prosecuted corporate criminals and forced them to pay back a little bit of the money they stole in exchange for a friendly thwack on the heiny and a stern winking to. And in the last year alone, the United States has added 2.3 million new jobs, proving that small, dubious, press-release friendly accounting miracles can happen. Bumper Stickers I Support Patrio-Fascist Groupthink I Support Totally Meaningless Jingoistic Cliches I Support Quasi-Fascist Automotive Fads Dubya Quotes Twit Happens Draft Young Republicans Red State Colluge America's prosperity requires restraining the spending appetite of the federal government. Of course, I say this free of irony, as if the brainiacs of my Administration aren't Big Government conservatives who pay for their shopping sprees with money borrowed from China and Japan. So how can we possibly balance the Federal budget? Chew on this: more guns, less taxes, and disembowel any program that looks like it was dreamed up by some tambourine-loving public school teacher in a flower skirt. (Applause.) And we'll start with Social Security. (Hoots.) The founders of Social Security couldn't imagine the changes this country would endure over the decades – mainly that this country would forget a time when unregulated big business gang-banged the piggy banks of regular folk. In fact, those New Deal Democrats would shit Cracker Jack prizes if they knew that by the turn of the century, the robber barons would be back in the pilot seat, passing out parachutes and champagne sippy cups to all their buddies in first class. That is why today, travelling on the very same course that I personally placed it on, I am so deeply sad to announce that, through no fault of my own, by the year 2042, the entire Social Security system will be exhausted and bankrupt. (Pathetic Mews, Impotent Boos, Irked Little Sniffles from Fidgety Democrats.) But as I stand here today, I swear to all whiny, borderline senile, soon-to-be unproductive social burdens over the age of 55: don't listen to those snivelling Democrats. Your Social Security is safe, so long as you hurry up and die. Might I suggest you live a sedentary life watching TV, eating Monster Thickburgers, sucking down Pall Malls – and just let our spotty, HMO beancounter-run health care system take care of the rest? (Applause.) And to the younger generation: I worry about you. I worry you won't have enough money to retire on, having spent your future wages paying off the debt me and the rest of my boys are going to leave you. But remember this: even though you're, like, fucked, it'll all seem worth it when you shed your first magic tear watching Saving Private Lynch sometime around 2030. Because marriage is a sacred institution and the foundation of society, it should not be redefined by activist judges. Firstly, our society isn’t based on the rights of individuals. Secondly, marriage isn’t just a social contract where two individuals agree to share assets. It’s a holy, beautiful HETERO-ONLY union that can only be broken by paying $300 to a stripmall lawyer. (Applause.) Unlike the civil rights era, when anarchist judges ruled in favor of granting minority citizens their rights years before the legislators caught up, today’s judges should learn a valuable lesson: who said you were given the power to interpret the law? Wear your black smocks, and do as you're told, or I'll take your little toy hammer away and cram it up your shitbox, bitches! For the good of families, children, and society, I support a constitutional amendment to protect the institution of marriage. Because allowing homos to marry means they’ll have the ability to amass and pass on wealth, and then their wealthy little faglings will never, ever vote for the GOP. So let’s get this nipped in the bud, OK? Through 2005 and the remainder of my second term, I shall also redbouble my efforts to build a "culture of life" – especially as it applies to females. Yes, because America's girlies can and will rediscover that life never seems quite so vivid and real as it does when you're practicing family planning by jimmying a rusty coat hanger into your slutty little cooter. (Applause.) Indeed, to build a culture of life, we must also ensure that America's policies always serve human dignity, and are based on hard Christian science rather than pseudoscientific flapdoodle like "stem cells" and "pennicillin." (Applause.) My Administration will continue to show the world its unshakeable commitment to all life – except retard criminals, of course. (Applause.) Because courts must always interpret the US Constitution as if our nation is still spinning its wheels in 1787, we must pack the Federal bench with "strict constructionists" – judges who respect the fact that the founding fathers made slavery legal, and will never dabble in perverted judicial activism that gives special rights to all the inferior people our white puritanical forebearers hated. (Applause.) And because time is of the essense in rolling back 218 years of legislative progress, every one of my right-wing judicial nominees deserves a rubber-stamp approval! (Applause.) Because the word "compassion" has proven so effective when mouthed emptily without any intention to match deeds with words, our government will continue to hand out zillions in taxpayer dollars to all qualifying McJesus franchises. Trouble is, with their existing programs already subsidized out the ying-yang, America's Salvation Industry must move aggressively to create newer, differently named programs that will make it possible for them to simultaneously suckle at multiple Federal cash teats. (Applause.) So tonight, at their direction, I am proposing a three-year initiative "to keep young people out of gangs." It sounds wonderful, doesn't it? And while I can't go into the specifics here, Americans can rest assured that legions of Evangelical Entrepreneurs are chomping at the bit to teach our inner city youth that instead of snatching chains and purses off old ladies, there are better, more legal ways to rob old people – like convincing them they'll burn in hell unless they sign over their retirement accounts so pastor can buy himself a nice gold-trimmed Lincoln Navigator. (Applause.) Now because the complaints of black people are so darned annoying, I want to throw 'em a couple bones here – even if it only shuts them up for a few precious days. Bone #1: AIDS, which kills so many horny darkies both here and back in their home nation of Africa. Two years ago, I pledged $15 Billion to fight AIDS there. It never happened, but folks still remember how "compassionate" that was. Today, I ask Congress to reauthorize the Ryan White Act, which, since it will cost pretty much nothing, might actually happen. Because as we continue to give empty lip service to AIDS, we simulate the appearance of being concerned over negro collateral damage caused by Jesus' intelligently designed homo eradication plague. (Applause.) Bone #2: More DNA testing for black folks on death row. Sure, I understand that might mean a few less executions, and yes, that will indeed make me nostalgic for the good old days of putting down tons of nigras back in Texas. But as President, I must strive to be more selfless. And since this proposal does nothing to change the draconian sentencing guidelines which keep our prisons bursting at the seams with tender young dimebag-hawking pickaninnies, I can continue to rest easy knowing that my dynasty's political benefactors in the corrections industry will not want for buckets of sweet greenbacks. (Applause.) OK, I can't bear it any more... 9/11TM!!! Whooooo-eee, that felt good! Can you believe I've been yapping here for almost twenty minutes and still hadn't said "9/11TM"? Not even once? Christ almighty – that's officially a record. So all you snarky hipster cretins out there playing your State of the Union drinking game you read about on some dumb blog can go ahead and shotgun your first PBR. That's right, because I said "9/11TM." Whoops, there I went again! Man, I can almost hear the beer cans cracking. Which reminds me... Nine-eleven nine-eleven nine-eleven nine-eleven nine-eleven nine-eleven nine-eleven nine-eleven nine-eleven nine-eleven! Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck, yeah! It's a coast-to-coast party now! (Applause.) Anyway, in the three and a half years since 9/11TM, we've done tons of stuff to make sure all American remain poop-their-pants fixated on 9/11TM. We created Earth's biggest bureaucracy, drove Osama bin Hussein into the hills, and waged a re-election campaign that painted a patriotic United States Senator as a terrorist-fellating traitor. (Applause.) The United States has no right, no desire, and no intention to impose our form of government on anyone else. (Laughs.) OK, I even cracked myself up with that one. But here's the thing, in order for America to run roughshod over the rest of the world to seize its natural assets so we can live so oppulently, we just can't have any hostile nutjob leaders out there who can't be brought down through a nice Diebold-powered election-flavored event. So if violently taking them out also also means FREEDOM® for a bunch of unsaved foreigners, well that's a handy side effect that can be used really effectively by the folks in my PR department. So all that said, here's how it's gonna be: Syria: new Boogeyman #1. You'll be hearing lots of tough talk about Syria in the weeks and months ahead. Mainly because of the three remaining "Axis of Evil" countries, Syria is the only one that ain't got nukes yet. So going forward, we will puff out our chests and tell CNN and FOX to tell Syria that they had better shape up or get ready to have their asses kicked – never mind that our military is spread paper-tiger-thin and missing its recruitment quotas month after month. Iran: Boogeyman we can't do anything about, but we'll keep talking tough to save face. Fortunately, most Americans think Iran is the same country we already invaded that is currently enjoying such an uneventful occupation. All that said, to the Iranistazi people, I say tonight: "As you stand for your own liberty, America stands with you." (Applause.) Whoa. I think I just had one of those French "dayva jews." Isn't that pretty much the same exact thing that my pappy said to those gullible Kurds back in the early 90's? Right before they rose up thinking he'd help them, but instead all got exterminated by Saddam Hussein? I thought so. So to any Iraniacs listening out there, just remember that we Bushes define "stand with you" as "standing within ten feet of a television with you dying on it." (Applause.) The United States is committed to realizing democratic reform throughout the Middle East. The government of Saudi Arabia can demonstrate its leadership in the region by expanding the role of its people in determining their future. I know, I know, those sound like tough words for any Bush to direct at the House of Saud, but don't worry. Prince Bandar cleared them beforehand. (Applause.) Americans love LIBERTYTM – even if they don't exactly know what it is – because it appears on most of our money. And that's why Joe Sixpack and Henrietta Hotpocket like the idea of more LIBERTYTM for Iraq, because more LIBERTYTM probably means more money – if not for them, then for somebody more deserving through whom they can live vacariously by watching them on the new 60" plasma TV they just financed for their double-wide. (Applause.) If there is one great constant in any President's State of the Union Address, whether he be Republican or Democrat, at war or at peace, impeached for spraying pecker snot on a fat Jewess or not, it is that it always concludes with big steaming serving of emotional porn. And tonight my fellow citizens, I bring you a smoking-hot double feature. (Applause.) First, we are honored to have an Iraqazoid lady here whose name I shouldn't even try to pronounce. The specifics or her story are touching, and because she personally has benefitted so greatly from America's invasion of Iraq, where she hasn't lived for thirty years, you'll forget all about the fact that the justifications for my war were bogus, and that we've killed tens of thousands of innocent civilians while creating Earth's most fertile terrorist breeding ground. I dont' know where my people found this broad, but hell-bound Muslim or not, fuck if she ain't a political gift from God! (Applause.) Next up, we have the grieving parents of a soldier who would still be alive if I hadn't duped the American people. By inviting these poor shattered souls here, and sharing their heartwrenching anecdote which reinforces the fallacy that invading Iraq had anything to do with "protecting" America's mommies (rather than executing my personal vendetta against Saddam Hussein), we manage to ostensibly honor them, while simultaneously subjecting them to the worst kind of cynical exploitation. (Applause.) (Iraqi Woman and Grieving Mother Embrace.) (Sustained Applause.) (Widespread Sobbing, Drenching of Linen American Flag Hankies.) Man, that's powerful stuff. Two people... so overcome by emotions... so uninformed by facts... so expertly choreographed... (Hoots and Hollers.) 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, the right-wing always has and always will continue to prevail. Because we have successfully managed to convince millions of glassy-eyed human moo-cows to surrender their personal sovereignty in exchange for a feckless homeland security bureaucracy that's supposedly protecting them from Arabiac ninjas hibernating in their closets. And so long as we sit tall in the saddle, they will continue to believe we have a monopoly not only on FREEDOM®, but also on democracy, patriotism, and morality itself. Next up: courage, fire and ice, and the love of cute little puppies! As that miserable Socialist cripple Franklin Roosevelt once reminded Americans, "Each age is a dream that is dying, or one that is coming to birth." Sure, it may be fruity poetry, but there's something to it, because we live in a country that is vastly superior to all those other loser countries. The Home Shopping Network was only a dream – until it was fulfilled. The liberation of Florida blacks from their voting rights was only a dream – until it was achieved. The electoral trouncing of a decorated war hero Senator by an AWOL alcoholic President was only a dream – until, one day, it was accomplished. And moving ahead, we will realize even more fantastic new dreams. The road of Providence is uneven and unpredictable – yet we know where it leads: away from smartypants liberal Massachusetts, due South into the Bible Belt, where a golden-hued future of Christian Taliban theocracy awaits us all. Thank you, and may Jesus Bless His favorite country America. (Applause. Rhythmic Chanting of "USA, USA, USA!")
shadeaux63 Keeper of dreams Posts: 1086 (2/6/05 12:49 pm) Reply	Re: This Just in...again This is an opinion piece,but it reflects some truths that us Americans haven't heard much about.It also shows how we,and our "government" are looked at by our neighbors to the north. Sun, February 6, 2005 Paranoia grips the U.S. capital By Eric Margolis -- Contributing Foreign Editor The film Seven Days In May is one of my all-time favourites. The gripping 1964 drama, starring Burt Lancaster, depicts an attempted coup by far rightists in Washington using a top-secret Pentagon anti-terrorist unit called something like "Contelinpro." Life imitates art. This week, former military intelligence analyst William Arkin revealed a hitherto unknown directive, with the Orwellian name "JCS Conplan 0300-97," authorizing the Pentagon to employ special, ultra-secret "anti-terrorist" military units on American soil for what the author claims are "extra-legal missions." In other words, using U.S. soldiers to kill or arrest Americans, acts that have been illegal since the U.S. Civil War. This frightening news comes as Washington is gripped by reborn, Cold-War-style paranoia, ominous threats of war against Iran from the real president, Dick Cheney, and a titanic bureaucratic battle just won by Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Instead of being fired for the grotesque military-political fiasco in Iraq and the shameful torture scandals, Rumsfeld has just managed to create a new, Pentagon spy/special ops organization, blandly named "Strategic Support Branch," that will replace or duplicate many of the CIA's tasks. The CIA has been sent to the doghouse. Too many CIA veterans criticized or contradicted Bush's and Cheney's phony claims over Iraq and terrorism. So Bush has imposed a new, yes-man director on the agency, slashed its budgets, purged its senior officers, and downgraded CIA to third-class status. Rumsfeld's new, massively funded SSB will become the Pentagon's CIA, complete with commando units, spies, mercenary forces, intelligence gathering and analysis, and a direct line to the White House. The Pentagon has just effectively taken over the spy business. Used terrorism hysteria Mind you, the Pentagon and its Defence Intelligence Agency have been deeply involved in intelligence around the globe for 50 years. U.S. Army intelligence and its covert sub-branches have long conducted "black ops," including missions in the U.S. as well as assassinations and sabotage abroad. The Pentagon consumes three-quarters of the total U.S. intelligence budget. Rumsfeld has skillfully used terrorism hysteria to wrest control of intelligence and make the Pentagon supreme in Washington's bureaucratic power struggles. The Pentagon's new spy arm will be largely excluded from Congressional oversight or media examination. Its special operations teams will roam the globe, all under cover of "deep black" missions of which no records will be kept, and no questions asked. Equally worrying, the Pentagon's new special-ops units are headed up by notorious religious fanatic, Lt. Gen. William Boykin, who calls the U.S. Army "the house of God" and Islamic insurgents "agents of Satan." He warned Muslims, "my God is bigger than your god, which is an idol." Boykin's command will now dispatch post-modern Christian crusaders to cleanse the world of Satanic Muslims and other miscreants. The Pentagon's new special forces will be able to run operations of which the CIA knows nothing. The 9/11 Commission called for improved intra-agency co-operation and data sharing -- instead, the U.S. will get far less co-operation, as the Pentagon goes its own, secret way. Now, George W. Bush, who clearly believes he holds the mandate of heaven after being re-elected by the less mentally active half of American voters, has decided to "unleash" special forces and all sorts of irregular units, including mercenaries, uniformed bounty hunters, and mutants sporting t-shirts proclaiming "kill 'em all, let God sort 'em out." These militarized thugs and video arcade Rambos are sure to run amok, dragging America's once good name ever deeper into the mud. We have evidently learned nothing from the wars in Indochina and Central America. Have we reached Seven Days in May? Not yet, but the second Bush administration has been taking dangerous steps that continue to curtail personal rights, further emasculate the supine, cowardly U.S. Congress, and empower ideological or religious extremists and shadowy agencies with unrestrained powers that endanger Americans at home, and all abroad suspected of troubling the Pax Americana.
shadeaux63 Keeper of dreams Posts: 1087 (2/6/05 1:01 pm) Reply	Re: This Just in...again Here we go,folks,pretty soon you wont be able to board a bus without approval of some "faith-based" group.This guy is now officially a cabinet member of Dubyas. $370,000 to the Civil Society Project $3.3 million to the National Fatherhood Initiative Don Eberly's Conservative Civil Society An advocate of shrinking government, Don Eberly, the head of the Civil Society Project promotes faith-based organizations, private philanthropic initiatives, traditional families, volunteerism and the building of a 'values' society. Whose 'values' is the question. by Bill Berkowitz for MediaTransparency.org POSTED FEBRUARY 5, 2005-- You won't find him on many of television's talking head programs, you wouldn't be able to pick him out of a line-up, and his essays aren't sexed-up or buzz-worthy, but for more than 15 years, Don Eberly has been one of the leading advocates of a strain of conservative advocacy known as "civil society." Although vague and often ambiguous, "civil society" advocates intend to shrink government by handing over responsibility for maintaining and administering what's left of the social safety net to faith-based organizations, corporate and community groups, families and philanthropic initiatives. As neoconservative cultural critic Gertrude Himmelfarb has written, "When we speak of the restoration of civil society it is a moral restoration we should seek." And moral renewal, along with building the conservative century, is what Eberly is seeking. He gives great weight to an observation made by Michael Novak (bio at AEI), the veteran conservative scholar who is currently the George Frederick Jewett Scholar in Religion, Philosophy, and Public Policy at the American Enterprise Institute (website). Novak maintains that "The American political party that best gives life and breath and amplitude to civil society will not only thrive in the twenty-first century. It will win public gratitude and it will govern." During a conference held in 2000, and sponsored by The Heritage Foundation in commemoration of the five-year anniversary of the class of 1995, Eberly told a group of Congressmen and Congresswomen that the defeat of totalitarianism and the rollback of the welfare state were the two greatest achievements of Republicans and conservatives over the past two decades. An essay derived from that speech, and later published in Essays on Civil Society – An American Conversation on Civic Virtue (Volume 2000, No. 1) – a publication of Eberly's Harrisburg, PA-based Civil Society Project, (website) laid out Eberly's thesis for social transformation – shrinking government and building a values society based on tradition American values. After the defeat of totalitarianism, "the second major question before the country and the Congress for the past several decades was how could we tame a seemingly untamable welfare state" Eberly writes. "The entire weight of sophisticated opinion – buttressed by every school of prestigious school of public policy in this nation – was that increasing segments of American society would steadily come under the managerial supervision of a credentialed, enlightened, bureaucratic elite. "The fact that we are now instead talking mostly about the miracle-working power of local faith-based charities, which in their ragtag existence represent the antithesis of the public administration state, is nothing short of breathtaking. Their very existence, not to mention their effectiveness, is an affront to the pedigreed and professional social service bureaucracy." For Eberly, "it was not merely welfare spending that was conquered, but the idea behind it...the welfare state." Where would conservatives go from there? Before George W. Bush took office in January 2001, and laid out his faith-based initiative, Eberly was arguing the virtues of "compassionate conservatism" – the elusive concept credited to Marvin Olasky (cv), editor-and-chief of the evangelical weekly, World magazine (website). Politically, compassionate conservatism "triangulates the ideological claims of big-government liberalism on the one hand and a pure laissez-faire conservatism on the other. It steals the mantle of compassion, long monopolized by liberals, while adding a practically useful modifier, to the noun conservatism." But compassionate conservatism is not the end-all be-all in and of itself writes Eberly: It "does not speak to the need to recover virtue throughout the majority society, apart from which we are left with partial remedies directed selectively to the poor," which is unfair. "The moral pathologies afflicting American society are no respecters of class, ethnicity, or geographic boundaries. The problems of divorce, co-habitation, fatherlessness, out-of-wedlock pregnancy, abortion and as host of other moral ills are not confined to the poor." Eberly sees a "values crisis" in America and claims that it can only be addressed by Americans organizing "for social change outside the political process"; renewing the non-governmental sector of civil society, particularly the development of voluntary associations. If the "great challenge" of the 1980s and 1990s was to "reign in government," the "great challenge" of the twenty-first century is to "rebuild non-governmental institutions – to not merely replace government with the economic market, but to replace more and more of the public sector with a viable social sector.... [and] build up the good society." In an essay entitled "What Chills Me About the Future", Eberly argues passionately for a society where achieving the common good is a fundamental priority. He criticizes what he calls, "the Republic of the Autonomous Self, where the individual is the only real sovereign, where 'mediating' structures have been leveled, and where rules proliferate and yet lack legitimacy." "Where does the citizen come by the capacity to be helpful, respectful, and trustful toward others? Mostly through involvement in functioning social institutions, especially the family." And while he doesn't state it in this essay, Eberly is clearly referring to the so-called traditional family. Eberly argues "Most democratic reforms...are directed toward fixing the procedural state without addressing the underlying cultural and social crisis." While recognizing that the unequal distribution of society's wealth, the declining participation by voters, and "the uneven distribution of power are...serious problems," Eberly claims that "democracy is fragile in a way that no campaign finance reform and no amount of increased voter participation can cure. The more serious problems of American democracy have to do with the erosion of democratic character and habit," also known as values. "Rights-based individualism," which flows from "the pernicious idea that 'the personal is political,' [was] brought to the American debate first by the feminist movement and since by any number of 'identity politics' factions," has aided the erosion. But are the feminist movement, the gay rights movement, and even the civil rights movement examples of oppressed people pressing for social justice and equality, or are they examples of "the pernicious idea that 'the personal is political'"? Eberly doesn't really deal with this question. In his view, "many of the most corrupting viruses [in society] are now being borne along not by sinister politicians but by an entertainment and information media culture, and that this omnipresent culture is displacing the core social institutions that once shaped and molded the democratic citizen." Back in the good old days, the culture could rely on "parents, priests, and pedagogues" to direct "the socialization of the young." These days that is left to "television, film, music, cyberspace, and the celebrity culture of sports and entertainment." For Eberly, "the function of culture in a free society is to establish and maintain boundaries around beliefs and behaviors considered necessary for maintaining a democratic society.... Much of what passes for culture today is, in fact, anti-culture. Its chief aim is to emancipate, not restrain - to give free reign to human appetite, not moderate it." Eberly rails against the "Break the rules!" "Have no fear!" "Be yourself!" mantras that now predominate in the culture. Thus, Eberly returns to two of his major themes, shrinking the government and the role that faith-based organizations, community groups and private philanthropy can play in restoring a "civil society." In the end, "people are either ruled by character and civility or they are ruled by cops and lawyers," Eberly concludes. "When social institutions and authority collapse and the capacity to govern human affairs through voluntary, consensual means erodes, all roads lead to the state.... A society in which atomized and poorly socialized individuals continually organize to use the state against each other is a society in which the individual and the state are advancing but civil society, a place of consensual and voluntary action, is in rapid retreat." Eberly, who served as deputy director for the Office of Public Liaison during the Reagan Administration, co-founded (along with Wade Horn), and served as first president of, the National Fatherhood Initiative (website) in 1994. The organization's stated mission is to "improve the well-being of children by increasing the proportion of children growing up with involved, responsible, and committed fathers." Originally named the National Organization of Fathers, NFI received nearly $3.3 million from right wing foundations, primarily from the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the F. M. Kirby Foundation and the Scaife Family Foundations, according to Media Transparency.org. Trish Wilson, writing in the publication Feminista!, claimed that Bradley and Scaife "showered the group with funding for a wide variety of functions, including a 'National Fatherhood Tour and Ad Council Campaign' in 1995 and 1996. In 1998, the conservative Earhart Foundation provided $10,000 for support for the preparation of a book, 'The Faith Factor in Fatherhood,' edited by Eberly." In 2001, Eberly left NFI to serve as deputy director at the White House Office of Faith Based and Community Initiatives (OFBCI). In its early days, the organization struggled with its mandate and message and Eberly became embroiled in a not-so-civil controversy involving the Salvation Army, one of the nation's largest charities. Six months after the initiative was unveiled, the Washington Post revealed that top-level administration officials had been conducting secret meetings with the Salvation Army to enlist its political and financial support for the then-flagging project. An internal Salvation Army document indicated that in exchange for the organization's support of the president's initiative – which included plans for an Army-sponsored $100,000 public relations campaign – the charity would receive assurances that any legislation passed by Congress would contain a provision allowing religious charities to sidestep state and local anti-discrimination measures barring discriminatory hiring practices on the basis of sexual orientation. The Washington Post's Dana Milbank reported that the meetings included Karl Rove, the president's chief political strategist, and Don Eberly, who was then serving as Deputy Director of the new agency. In the aftermath of the U.S.'s taking of Baghdad, Eberly was sent to Iraq and served briefly under General Jay Garner and later under L. Paul Bremer, as Acting Minister for Youth and Sport. In a U.S. Chamber of Commerce "Newsmaker" interview, Eberly talked about "rapidly transferring government functions to the Iraqi people," and "build[ing] a dynamic sports program for boys and girls, which the country has lacked, starting with getting a huge infusion of soccer balls into the country." Iraq's soccer team, which became the "surprise-team" of the soccer competition during last summer's Olympic Games in Athens, garnered headlines when team members expressed their dissatisfaction with President Bush and the U.S, occupation. According to Sports Illustrated's Grant Wahl, Iraqi midfielder Salih Sadir, "had a message for U.S. president George W. Bush, who is using the Iraqi Olympic team in his latest re-election campaign advertisements." "Iraq as a team does not want Mr. Bush to use us for the presidential campaign," Sadir told SI.com through a translator. "He can find another way to advertise himself." Ahmed Manajid, who played as a midfielder, also responded to Bush's ads: "How will he meet his god having slaughtered so many men and women?" Manajid told Wahl. "He has committed so many crimes." Later, when asked to comment on Wahl's piece on the ESPN2 broadcast of Cold Pizza, Eberly suggested that the quotes had been "engineered." And he reiterated a quote from a Reuters interview of Mark Clark, a British consultant for the Iraqi Olympic Committee and himself a former CPA official. According to Wahl, "Clark's statement, which was passed along by Eberly, was this: 'It seems the story was engineered.'" Clark also claimed that it was "possible something was lost in translation" in the SI.com story. Wahl subsequently reported that he played the tape of "the original interviews (and the accompanying translations) for Chawki Rayess, an Arabic/English interpreter working for Olympic organizers in Athens...[who] confirm[ed] that nothing was lost in translation." Although not normally associated with such Religious Right demagogues as the Rev. Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson or Dr. James Dobson, the head of the multi-million dollar mega-ministry, Focus on the Family, Don Eberly nevertheless plays an essential role defining America's twenty-first century culture wars.
shadeaux63 Keeper of dreams Posts: 1088 (2/6/05 1:16 pm) Reply	Re: This Just in...again This was found on a blog-site,but the information was so frighteneing, I looked into it,and it's legit.Once this bill passes,and is signed into law, We The People will be screwed. GOP proposes bill that would suspend ALL laws by valabor Fri Feb 4th, 2005 at 22:54:48 PST This is probably the wrong time of day to post something like this. But it needs to get out there. Please recommend this diary to keep it on the front page. On January 26, 2005, Rep. Sensenbrenner introduced the REAL ID Act of 2005 (H.R. 41 . In the name of homeland security, it includes a number of items changing immigration laws, use of drivers' licenses, etc. But -- most overlooked -- is Section 102 of this bill. It would empower the Secretary of Homeland Security to suspend any and all laws in order to ensure the "expeditious" construction of a set of barriers and roads south of San Diego, to keep illegal immigrants out. It also would prohibit ANY judicial review of the Secretary of Homeland Security's decision to suspend any law. ON EDIT: While the law the bill references mentions barriers and roads "near San Diego," it does not appear to be (technically speaking) limited to that area -- but to any barriers or roads "in the vicinity of the United States border." (See comments below). The text of Section 102 is below: Diaries :: valabor's diary :: SEC. 102. WAIVER OF LAWS NECESSARY FOR IMPROVEMENT OF BARRIERS AT BORDERS. Section 102(c) of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (8 U.S.C. 1103 note) is amended to read as follows: `(c) Waiver- `(1) IN GENERAL- Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the Secretary of Homeland Security shall have the authority to waive, and shall waive, all laws such Secretary, in such Secretary's sole discretion, determines necessary to ensure expeditious construction of the barriers and roads under this section. `(2) NO JUDICIAL REVIEW- Notwithstanding any other provision of law (statutory or nonstatutory), no court shall have jurisdiction-- `(A) to hear any cause or claim arising from any action undertaken, or any decision made, by the Secretary of Homeland Security pursuant to paragraph (1); or `(B) to order compensatory, declaratory, injunctive, equitable, or any other relief for damage alleged to arise from any such action or decision.'. What does this mean? What laws might the Secretary of Homeland Security suspend? The first obvious sets of laws that would come under attack would be environmental and labor laws. On the environmental side, think "Endangered Species Act." On the labor side, think "Davis-Bacon" prevailing wage laws and the right to organize and collectively bargain. Also think "whistleblower laws." Homeland Security wouldn't want any pesky do-gooders blowing the whistle on corruption in contract awards. But wait, would all of these suspensions only apply to the physical, on-location construction of the roads and barriers? Nope! There's no such limitation in the law. You can follow this right to suspend the laws anywhere someone might be claiming legal rights and slowing down the process. The manufacturers of equipment and materials would certainly fall under this provision, for example. The government workers dealing with any aspect of this construction, in Washington or California or wherever would also fall under this provision. A city council objecting to something about the project could fall under this provision. It's an incredible usurpation of the rule of law. A cabinet secretary is given the right to suspend any and all laws. And guess what? The courts are prohibited from reviewing his decision! Perfect! So the Secretary can abuse his "authority" all he wants. No review. No nothing. Welcome to the Second Term. Let me repeat the language: "the Secretary of Homeland Security shall have the authority to waive, and shall waive, all laws such Secretary, in such Secretary's sole discretion" Again: "the Secretary of Homeland Security shall have the authority to waive, and shall waive, all laws such Secretary, in such Secretary's sole discretion" Got it? The bill may be going to the House floor next week.
shadeaux63 Keeper of dreams Posts: 1089 (2/7/05 1:50 am) Reply	Re: This Just in...again Hang on to your hats,if you're poor,it'll be about the only thing Bush CAN'T take from you. Bush Proposes Cuts to Scores of Programs Sun Feb 6,10:02 PM ET White House - AP By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer WASHINGTON - President Bush's $2.5 trillion budget is shaping up as his most austere, trying to restrain spending across a wide swath of government from popular farm subsidies to poor people's health programs. Vice President Dick Cheney on Sunday defended the plan against Democratic criticism that Bush had to seek steep cuts in scores of federal programs because he is unwilling to roll back first-term tax cuts that opponents contend primarily benefited the wealthy. The budget's submission to Congress on Monday will set off months of intense debate. Lawmakers from both parties can be expected to vigorously fight to protect their favorite programs. "This is the tightest budget that has been submitted since we got here," Cheney told "Fox News Sunday." "It is a fair, reasonable, responsible, serious piece of effort. It's not something we have done with a meat ax, nor are we suddenly turning our backs on the most needy people in our society." The president, who campaigned for re-election on a pledge to cut the deficit in half by 2009, is targeting 150 government programs for either outright elimination or sharp cutbacks. Bush will propose spending $2.5 trillion in the budget year that begins Oct. 1. For the current year, he is estimating the budget deficit will reach a record $427 billion. That compares with last year's $412 billion deficit and is the third straight year the Bush administration will have set, in dollar terms, a deficit high. The five-year projections in the budget will show the deficit declining to about $230 billion in 2009, when a new president takes office. Those projections do not take into account some big-ticket items: the military costs incurred in Iraq (news - web sites) and Afghanistan (news - web sites), the price of making Bush's first term tax cuts permanent, or the transition costs for his No. 1 domestic priority, overhauling Social Security . Sen. Kent Conrad , the top Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee, said Bush's budget "talks about the next five years of reducing deficits, but what that hides is what happens after that five-year window. The cost of everything he advocates explodes." Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., praised the administration's willingness to tackle the deficit. "I'm glad the president is coming over with a very austere budget. I hope we in Congress will have the courage to support it," he told ABC's "This Week." Joshua Bolten, Bush's budget director, told The Associated Press that when the budget is released, the administration will provide some estimates of the cost in increased government borrowing for the president's proposal to allow younger workers to set up private savings accounts. But he said the administration cannot provide total cost figures for the Social Security overhaul because all the elements of the plan have yet to be decided upon. Cheney would not confirm estimates the overhaul could cost $4.5 trillion in additional government borrowing over 20 years. Bush's budget will restrain the growth in discretionary programs to less than 2.3 percent. But because defense and homeland security are set for increases above that amount, the rest of government programs will see outright cuts or tiny gains far below the rate of inflation. One of the biggest battles is certain to occur in the area of payments and other assistance to farmers, which the administration wants to trim by $587 million in 2006 and by $5.7 billion over the next decade. Those payments go to farmers growing a wide range of crops from cotton, rice and corn to soybeans and wheat. The United States and other rich countries have come under criticism for these agriculture subsidies from poor countries. In the current round of global trade talks, these nations are pressing for the subsidies' elimination. Other programs set for cuts, the AP has learned, include the Army Corps of Engineers, whose dam and other waterway projects are extremely popular in Congress; the Energy Department; and a number of health programs under the Health and Human Services Department. About one-third of the programs being targeted for elimination are in the Education Department, including federal grant programs for local schools in such areas as vocational education, supporting drug-free schools and Even Start, a $225 million literacy program. The administration also will seek to restrain growth in mandatory spending, primarily by trimming costs in Medicaid, the joint program with states that pays the cost of poor people's health care. Spending on the military, the biggest part of discretionary spending, is on target to rise by 4.8 percent in 2006 to $419.3 billion, according to documents obtained by the AP. This figure does not include the $80 billion the administration has said it soon will seek to pay for the costs of continued military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Even the increase for the military will be below what the Pentagon had hoped to receive with several major weapons programs, including Bush's missile defense system and the B-2 stealth bomber, scheduled for cuts from current levels. Many budget experts believe Bush's plan will not come close to achieving his goal of cutting the deficit in half because Congress will refuse to go along with the cuts, and Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress do not support tax increases. "There is really no way out of the bind we are in now without some kind of increase in taxes," said Robert Reischauer, the president of the Urban Institute and a former head of the Congressional Budget Office.
shadeaux63 Keeper of dreams Posts: 1090 (2/8/05 7:30 pm) Reply	Re: This Just in...again OK, this is not a news article, but an opinion piece.However, the numbers are correct,and they just dont add up.We're getting screwed without benefit of decent lubrication,folks. Full Mental Jacket? Up until yesterday I simply assumed that George W. Bush was an unprincipled, glib lying opportunist. But the release of his 2006 budget, coupled with his straight faced, strident declarations that it will cut the federal deficit in half by the end his second term, forces me to consider an even more frightening possibility – that the President of the United States is delusional, mad as a hatter, a raving lunatic. Of course it could just be that, after getting away with the mother of all lies on WMD, he figures Americans will swallow anything. But with the WMD gambit we ordinary folk had no way to check if his statements bore any relationship to reality or not. The budget is an entirely different matter. Anyone who passed 6th grade math can check this one out for themselves. And, anyone who takes the time to compare what Bush claims his budget will do with the actual numbers, you can only be left with one impression; this man is either delusional, crazy, and/or dangerously crazy. Look, it’s not rocket science. All anyone has to do is to add up all the money HE SAYS he will save by making cuts in 150 domestic programs, then add back in the increases he wants to make in defense spending and you come with a total NET savings net of just about $18 billion. And that’s only IF he gets all the cuts he wants…. Which is about as likely as Congress voting itself a pay cut. Okay, here’s a pop quiz question. How much is the project budget deficit? Answer: $427 billion. Now subtract $18 billion from that and you get $409 billion. Even those who graduated from Texas schools can figure out that that level of cuts cannot halve the federal deficit over the next four years. Not even close. But wait, there’s more. Not more savings, more spending – or to be precise – more debt. Taking a page out of Enron’s accounting manual, the administration has created a number of “off-the-books” expenditures. Each of these multi-billion dollar programs is near and dear to their neo-con hearts, but each is also a mega-budget buster. So, how to convince voters and the financial markets that they are serious about cutting deficits while still keeping these programs alive? Ken Lay had the answer – hide them, push the costs off into the future and, if nosey auditors start asking questions lie to them. If that doesn't work, bribe them. Bush’s Off the Books Spending Nowhere in Bush’s budget does he even mention the ongoing cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now this is a particularly blatant bit of chutzpah since he currently has before Congress a request for another $81 billion for the wars. And, everyone knows that we can expect additional such requests expected at least twice a year for at least the next four years. - So add at least another $350 billion to the national debt between now and 2009. Bush’s wants to re-jigger the US tax code during this term. As part of that process congress will almost certainly restructure the much-hated Alternative Minimum Tax because it is beginning to eat deeply into the pockets of middle class voters. Fixing the AMT will suck at least another $700 billion out of federal coffers over the next ten years. So that’s another $70 billion a year, times four years. - Add another $280 billion between now and 2009. Bush insists that his tax cuts be made permanent. If the Republican-controlled congress goes along, it would cost the Treasury a tidy little $1.2 trillion over the next ten years, or about $125 billion a year. -Add another $500 billion between now and 2009. Sorry, we ain’t done. Bush also wants to spend suck at least $1.5 trillion out of Social Security over the next decade to create private accounts. That money would have to be replaced to pay for current and Baby Boom retirees. Since we don’t have that money, it would have to be borrowed. With interest that should add an average of $85 billion a year. (Note: White House have taken a page from Enron’s bookkeepers here by kicking the bulk of the cost of private accounts into the year after Bush leaves office. But, since this is his idea I am prorating the costs over the life of the program so he is responsible his share of the costs during his final term in office.) - So add another $500 billion to Bush’s four-year account. Okay, let’s add all this up and see if we come up with a number that reflect just how crazy this guy really is – or how crazy he thinks we are: Spending NOT included in the Budget over next four years. War costs: $350 billion AMT fix: $280 billion Tax Cuts Permanent: $500 billion SS Private Accounts $500 billion --------------------------------------------------- Total $1.63 trillion Minus Bush’s Net Cuts $400 billion Gain/"Loss" - $1.23 trillion Yes folks, the man who claims his budget will cut the federal deficit in to a $233 billion by 2009 is only a trillion dollars and change off. Is he mad? Or is he just lying to us again? There is NO third possibility here. If he is mad, he is clearly not mad in a good way, like say, the Rainman. At least Rainman could correctly account for how many paper clips had been spilled without even counting them. Bush can’t even learn from past counting mistakes. It was just a year ago, that he pledged (complete with cocky smirk) that he would cut the deficit in half by the 2009 fiscal year, that he promised the budget deficit would decline to $364 billion in 2005 and $268 billion in 2006. Forget about it. Not even close. Even his keepers at the White House now admit that this year’s deficit will rise to $427 billion. Memo to Democrats: Do you boys and girls own calculators? If so get them out and begin harassing Republicans with them. Demand that they show you how to do the math so the answers come out the way Bush’s calculations. When they won't - because they can't -- remind them that most voters back home can understand simple math and that, if any member of either party votes for this budget you will mail every voter in their district a cheap pocket calculator along with Bush budget numbers they can check for themselves. Then insist that congress add back into budget every one of the off-the-books items Bush left out – the war, fixing the Alternative Minimum Tax, the cost of private accounts and making the Bush tax cuts permanent. If they refuse, kick a fuss, throw a loud, royal, kicking and screaming shit fit about it. Get on TV and shout "fraud." Compare the administration’s bookkeeping to that of Enron, WorldCom and Global Crossing – because the similarities are striking. And, remind voters that even as Bush proposes this budget, WorldCom's Bernie Ebbers is on trail for doing just what Bush does in his budget - lie, cheat and play hide the pickle from auditors. Finally, start using the “L” word when it applies. Calling them what they are, liars, when the facts clearly show that that is precisely what they are. Then again it might just be quicker to just ring 911 and ask that a couple of beefy guys in white jackets to pick up a raving lunatic at 1600 Penn. Ave. They’ll know him when they see him. He will be the guy on the lawn holding a plate of fish and bread claiming he can turn them into enough grub to feed the world. By Stephen Pizzo Raconteur at Large
shadeaux63 Keeper of dreams Posts: 1091 (2/9/05 12:18 am) Reply	Re: This Just in...again Better watch out, the right wing freaks may start saying that field trips to the zoo are nothing but an attempt to make our children gay. Zoo tempts gay penguins to go straight A German zoo has imported four female penguins from Sweden in an effort to tempt its gay penguins to go straight. Penguins at Bremerhaven Zoo in Bremen /Europics The four Swedish females were dispatched to the Bremerhaven Zoo in Bremen after it was found that three of the zoo's five penguin pairs were homosexual. Keepers at the zoo ordered DNA tests to be carried out on the penguins after they had been mating for years without producing any chicks. It was only then they realised that six of the birds were living in homosexual partnerships. Director Heike Kueck said that the zoo hoped to see some baby penguins in the coming months. She said that the birds had been mating for years and one couple even adopted a stone that they protected like an egg. Kueck said that the project has the support of the European Endangered Species Programme because the penguins, which are native to South America, are an endangered species. A biologist will be on hand to monitor the experiment. But introducing the Bremerhaven penguins to their new Swedish friends may not be as successful as hoped after earlier experiments revealed great difficulties in separating homosexual couples. In case they show no interest, the zoo has also flown in two new male penguins "so that the ladies don't miss out altogether", Kueck added.
shadeaux63 Keeper of dreams Posts: 1098 (2/12/05 1:57 am) Reply	Re: This Just in...again THE NATION U.S. Scientists Say They Are Told to Alter Findings # More than 200 Fish and Wildlife researchers cite cases where conclusions were reversed to weaken protections and favor business, a survey finds. By Julie Cart, Times Staff Writer More than 200 scientists employed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service say they have been directed to alter official findings to lessen protections for plants and animals, a survey released Wednesday says. The survey of the agency's scientific staff of 1,400 had a 30% response rate and was conducted jointly by the Union of Concerned Scientists and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. A division of the Department of the Interior, the Fish and Wildlife Service is charged with determining which animals and plants should be placed on the endangered species list and designating areas where such species need to be protected. More than half of the biologists and other researchers who responded to the survey said they knew of cases in which commercial interests, including timber, grazing, development and energy companies, had applied political pressure to reverse scientific conclusions deemed harmful to their business. Bush administration officials, including Craig Manson, an assistant secretary of the Interior who oversees the Fish and Wildlife Service, have been critical of the 1973 Endangered Species Act, contending that its implementation has imposed hardships on developers and others while failing to restore healthy populations of wildlife. Along with Republican leaders in Congress, the administration is pushing to revamp the act. The president's proposed budget calls for a $3-million reduction in funding of Fish and Wildlife's endangered species programs. "The pressure to alter scientific reports for political reasons has become pervasive at Fish and Wildlife offices around the country," said Lexi Shultz of the Union of Concerned Scientists. Mitch Snow, a spokesman for the Fish and Wildlife Service, said the agency had no comment on the survey, except to say "some of the basic premises just aren't so." The two groups that circulated the survey also made available memos from Fish and Wildlife officials that instructed employees not to respond to the survey, even if they did so on their own time. Snow said that agency employees could not use work time to respond to outside surveys. Fish and Wildlife scientists in 90 national offices were asked 42 questions and given space to respond in essay form in the mail-in survey sent in November. One scientist working in the Pacific region, which includes California, wrote: "I have been through the reversal of two listing decisions due to political pressure. Science was ignored — and worse, manipulated, to build a bogus rationale for reversal of these listing decisions." More than 20% of survey responders reported they had been "directed to inappropriately exclude or alter technical information." However, 69% said they had never been given such a directive. And, although more than half of the respondents said they had been ordered to alter findings to lessen protection of species, nearly 40% said they had never been required to do so. Sally Stefferud, a biologist who retired in 2002 after 20 years with the agency, said Wednesday she was not surprised by the survey results, saying she had been ordered to change a finding on a biological opinion. "Political pressures influence the outcome of almost all the cases," she said. "As a scientist, I would probably say you really can't trust the science coming out of the agency." A biologist in Alaska wrote in response to the survey: "It is one thing for the department to dismiss our recommendations, it is quite another to be forced (under veiled threat of removal) to say something that is counter to our best professional judgment." Don Lindburg, head of the office of giant panda conservation at the Zoological Society of San Diego, said it was unrealistic to expect federal scientists to be exempt from politics or pressure. "I've not stood in the shoes of any of those scientists," he said. "But it is not difficult for me to believe that there are pressures from those who are not happy with conservation objectives, and here I am referring to development interest and others. "But when it comes to altering data, that is a serious matter. I am really sorry to hear that scientists working for the service feel they have to do that. Changing facts to fit the politics — that is a very unhealthy thing. If I were a scientist in that position I would just refuse to do it." The Union of Concerned Scientists and the public employee group provided copies of the survey and excerpts from essay-style responses. One biologist based in California, who responded to the survey, said in an interview with The Times that the Fish and Wildlife Service was not interested in adding any species to the endangered species list. "For biologists who do endangered species analysis, my experience is that the majority of them are ordered to reverse their conclusions [if they favor listing]. There are other biologists who will do it if you won't," said the biologist, who spoke on condition of anonymity
shadeaux63 Keeper of dreams Posts: 1099 (2/12/05 2:04 am) Reply	Re: This Just in...again This is another opinion peice,that I just couldnt resist,because of it's frank nature. Domestic gibberish Bush's incoherence on home affairs reminds us that pre-9/11 he was the most unpopular president Sidney Blumenthal Thursday February 10, 2005 The Guardian Fear made George Bush's presidency, gave him his "mission", and allowed him to remain in office. Before September 11, he had drifted to the lowest approval rating ever for a president after just eight months on the job. Throughout the 2004 campaign, Republicans hammered "September 11", "terrorism" and "Saddam Hussein" like an anvil chorus. Bush got his victory; it was the smallest win of any second-term president since Woodrow Wilson in 1916, but he acts as if it is the moment of deliverance Republicans have been waiting for since Herbert Hoover lost the White House. Fear fostered Bush's "political capital", so he sees no reason why it should fail him now. His attempt to transfer fear from the war on terrorism to the war on the New Deal may not be confusing to him, but the truth is that only fear generated in foreign policy has protected him politically from his unpopular positions on domestic issues. Since September 11, without variation, Bush's poll numbers have paralleled the quantity of news stories about terrorism. The more terrorism dominates the media, the higher his ratings; and whenever terrorism declines, he begins to sink. The war on terrorism is his meta-narrative. But what happens when the ground shifts? In the Middle East, the Israelis and Palestinians have declared a ceasefire. The progress of negotiations will depend in large part on an increased US role as the chief broker. Can Bush continue to act as the innocent bystander? In Iraq, since the election there, even military operations against the Sunni insurgency have moved into the context of internal politics. Does Kurdish ambition have any bounds? Will the Kurds be permitted to control oil-rich Kirkuk or the presidency, either of which threaten the Nato relationship with Turkey? Is the US military the enforcer of Islamic law imposed by the Shias, including polygamy and mandatory chadoors? More broadly, is the US the internal security force for Iran's interest in Shia ascendancy? (The Iranian ambassador to the UK, Seyed Mohammad-Hossein Adeli, said in a speech last week: "Thanks to American adventurism, we have got rid of both the Taliban and Saddam.") And, having now encouraged European engagement with Iran on nuclear development, will the US join in order to bring it to a successful conclusion? The secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, in Paris, declared: "It is time to turn away from the disagreements of the past." But whose past did she mean? Her next statement gave the answer: "The key to our future success lies in getting beyond a partner based on common threats, and building an even stronger partnership based on common opportunities, even those beyond the transatlantic community." Rice's pronouncement is nothing less than a break with Bush's threat-based approach. Without ambiguity or nuance, she said US foreign policy must now be rooted, not in the war on terrorism, but in "opportunities". While Rice was on her grand tour, Bush rushed from his state of the union address to rallies in the west and south to stump for social security privatisation. Despite research by the social security actuary and the congressional budget office to the contrary, he insists the system is collapsing. As he jetted across the US, Republican congressmen and senators either announced their opposition or reserved judgment. At his rallies, the crowds cheered his words against terrorism as though it were a nostalgic re-enactment of his campaign, and then fell into befuddled silence. His convoluted explanations on social security were so confusing that Bush confessed: "Does that make any sense to you? It's kind of muddled. Look, there's a series of things that cause the... like, for example, benefits are calculated based upon the increase of wages, as opposed to the increase of prices. Some have suggested that we calculate ... the benefits will rise based upon inflation, as opposed to wage increases. There is a reform that would help solve the red if that were put into effect. In other words, how fast benefits grow, how fast the promised benefits grow, if those ... if that growth is affected, it will help on the red. OK, better? I'll keep working on it." A week after the address, the White House has admitted it has no timetable for proposing a plan. The urgent centrepiece of Bush's second term is indefinitely on hold. Bush's gibberish on social security is not the symptom of a man without qualities. Bush can be articulate, a master of his talking points and highly focused. His inability so far to sell his latest case of fear, however, may presage growing political incoherence. The momentum of events, abroad and at home, has carried him to an unknown place, where complication may ambush him at every turn. The consequences of George Bush are the greatest threat to George Bush. · Sidney Blumenthal is former senior adviser to President Clinton and author of The Clinton Wars
shadeaux63 Keeper of dreams Posts: 1100 (2/12/05 2:23 am) Reply	Re: This Just in...again Please go to this link,and read the entry about this guys experience at his church's "mens night out" gathering.I found it to be one of the most despicable military recruiting ploys I've ever seen. shlonkombakazay.blogspot....-time.html And even though they are poor quality, you have to scroll down and take a look at this guys photos.
shadeaux63 Keeper of dreams Posts: 1102 (2/13/05 4:23 am) Reply	Re: This Just in...again Here's a lesson in doublespeak for ya. The Republican Dictionary By Katrina vanden Heuvel, The Nation. Posted February 12, 2005. While Republicans are busy remaking the nation, they're also remaking the English language. In Bush's State of the Union address, he mentioned personal accounts seven times but private accounts zero times, which is interesting because only a few months ago he was using both terms interchangeably. But fear not, this was no mistake. The Republicans tested the phrase private accounts and found public support was much lower than when the same, exact, identical concept was called personal accounts. (Personally, I like caring accounts, but they didn't ask me.) So the White House and its paid spin doctors, many of whom play journalists on TV, have taken to the airwaves to push the phrase personal accounts and chastise anyone in the media who employs the banished words to characterize ther Administration's Social Security agenda. Proof, if more was needed, that language is power and debates are won or lost based on definitions. But here is the really funny thing about the personal/private accounts debate. Not only are they not personal accounts, they're not private accounts either. They are in fact US government loans. (Bear with me now, because this will only hurt for a moment.) You see, your payroll taxes will still be used to cover the benefits of current retirees, but under Bush's scheme the government will place a certain "diverted" amount into an account in your name. It sounds like a personal retirement account, but it's not. It's a loan. Because if your account does really well (above 3 percent), when you retire the government will deduct the money it lent you (plus 3 percent interest) from your monthly Social Security check leaving you with almost the same amount you would have received under the current system. If your account does really poorly (below 3 percent), you are out of luck. According to Congressional Budget Office, the expected average return will be 3.3 percent, so the net gain will be zero. But wait, it gets better. These personal accounts aren't exactly US government loans either, because our government under the fiscal stewardship of George W. Bush no longer is running a surplus and therefore does not have the $4 trillion or so needed to cover the transition costs, and Bush refuses to raise taxes on his base (BUSH'S BASE, n. the wealthy). So our government will have to borrow that cash. And if the last three years are any guide, our largest single loan officer will likely be the Central Bank of China. And who runs China's Central Bank, China, and the Chinese people with an iron fist? Why, it's our old friends, the democracy-loving, freedom-marching Chinese Communist Party. So Bush's personal retirement accounts=private retirement accounts=US government loans=US government borrowing=Chinese government lending=Chinese Communist Party loans. Or as we like to say in Republican Dictionary land: PERSONAL RETIREMENT ACCOUNTS, n. Chinese Communist Party loans. We've had a grassroots groundswell of submissions from our readers after soliciting ideas for the Republican Dictionary project, which first debuted in this space last November. Bush's "ownership society" was a big hit, "God" made a return, and Justin Rezzonico delivered the best definition of "Fox News" yet. I've included a sampling of the latest batch below. Please keep them coming in. (Click here to submit your ideas.) We are going to be collecting our favorites and publishing them as a book in the next few months. ACCOUNTABILITY, n. Buck? What buck? (Martin Richard, Belgrade, MT) BIPARTISANSHIP, adj. When Democrats compromise. (Justin Rezzonico, Keene, NH) CHECKS & BALANCES, pl. n. An antiquated concept of the Founding Fathers that impedes autocratic efficiency; see also REFORM. (Robert B. Fuld, Unionville, CT) FOX NEWS, n. Faux news. (Justin Rezzonico, Keena, NH) GOD, n. Senior presidential advisor. (Martin Richard, Belgrade, MT) NONPARTISAN JUDICIAL NOMINEE, n. An active member of the Federalist Society. (Mark Hatch-Miller, Brooklyn, NY) OWNERSHIP SOCIETY, n. 1) A society where you're on your own. (John Read, Ownings Mills, MD); 2) A society where one-half of society owns the other half. (Anne Galvan Klousia, Corvallis, OR); 3) The euphemism used by robber barons and their political lackeys to promote or justify the extreme concentration of wealth into the hands of a powerful few. Synonyms: PLUTOCRACY, CORPORATE FEUDALISM. (Ken Stump, Seattle, WA) SOCIAL SECURITY, n. Broker security. (Bruce Clendenin, Dallas, TX) SPREADING PEACE, v. Preemptive war. (Bruce Hawkins, Silver Springs, MD) STAY THE COURSE, v. To relentlessly pursue a disastrous policy regardless of how far conditions deteriorate. Antonym: "To cut and run." (Aja Starke, New York, NY) TORTURER, n. 1) White House Counsel. 2) Attorney General. (Martin Richard, Belgrade, MT) Katrina vanden Heuvel is editor of The Nation.
shadeaux63 Keeper of dreams Posts: 1104 (2/13/05 4:33 am) Reply	Re: This Just in...again I put this in Cause of the Month,but I wanted to make sure as many people saw it as possible. Budget Programs Facing Cuts, Elimination By The Associated Press Friday, February 11, 2005 (02-11) 16:30 PST (AP) -- Here are the 154 programs that President Bush wants to eliminate or cut in his 2006 budget proposal. Bush would terminate 99 programs and make major spending reductions in 55. Separately, the administration listed eight major reforms Bush proposed that also would produce spending cuts. Of the terminations, Bush has recommended 59 of them before. Twenty-seven of the 55 programs targeted for spending reductions have been previously submitted to Congress. TERMINATED: _Agriculture Department AMS Biotechnology Program Forest Service Economic Action Program High Cost Energy Grants NRCS Watershed and Flood Prevention Operations Research and Extension Grant Earmarks and Low Priority Programs _Commerce Department Advanced Technology Program Emergency Steel Guarantee Loan Program Public Telecommunications Facilities, Planning and Construction Program _Education Department Comprehensive School Reform Educational Technology State Grants Even Start (High School Program Terminations Vocational Education State Grants Vocational Education National Activities Tech Prep State Grants Upward Bound Talent Search GEAR UP Smaller Learning Communities Perkins Loans: Capital Contributions and Loan Cancellations Regional Education Laboratories Safe and Drug Free Schools State Grants (Small Elementary and Secondary Education Programs Javits Gifted and Talented Education National Writing Project School Leadership Dropout Prevention Program Close Up Fellowships Ready to Teach Parental Information and Resource Centers Alcohol Abuse Reduction Foundations for Learning Mental Health Integration in Schools Community Technology Centers Exchanges with Historic Whaling and Trading Partners Foreign Language Assistance Excellence in Economic Education Arts in Education Women's Educational Equity Elementary and Secondary School Counseling Civic Education Star Schools (Smaller Higher Education Programs Higher Education Demos for Students w/Disabilities Underground Railroad Program Interest Subsidy Grants (Small Job Training and Adult Education Programs Occupational and Employment Information Tech-prep Demonstration Literacy Programs for Prisoners State Grants for Incarcerated Youth (Small Postsecondary Student Financial Assistance Programs LEAP Byrd Scholarships B.J. Stupak Olympic Scholarships Thurgood Marshall Legal Opportunity (Small Vocational Rehabilitation Programs Vocational Rehabilitation Recreational Programs Vocational Rehab (VR) Migrant and Seasonal Workers Projects with Industry Supported Employment Teacher Quality Enhancement Program _Energy Department Hydropower Program Nuclear Energy Plant Optimization Nuclear Energy Research Initiative Oil and Gas Programs _Health and Human Services Department ACF Community Service Programs ACF Early Learning Opportunities Fund CDC Congressional Earmarks CDC Preventive Health and Health Services Block Grant CDC Youth Media Campaign Direct Service Worker Delivery Grants HRSA Emergency Medical Services for Children HRSA Health Facilities Construction Congressional Earmarks HRSA Healthy Community Access Program HRSA State Planning Grant Program HRSA Trauma Care HRSA Traumatic Brain Injury HRSA Universal Newborn Hearing Screening Real Choice Systems Change Grants _Housing and Urban Development Department HOPE VI _Interior Department BLM Jobs-in-the-Woods Program LWCF State Recreation Grants (NPS) National Park Service Statutory Aid Rural Fire Assistance (BLM, NPS, FWS, BIA) _Justice Department Byrne Discretionary Grants Byrne Justice Assistance Grants COPS Hiring Grants COPS Interoperable Communications Technology Grants COPS Law Enforcement Technology Grants Juvenile Accountability Block Grants National Drug Intelligence Center Other State/Local Law Enforcement Assistance Program Terminations State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP) _Labor Department Migrant and Seasonal Farm Worker Training Program Reintegration of Youthful Offenders _Transportation Department National Defense Tank Vessel Construction Program Railroad Rehabilitation Infrastructure Financing Loan Program _Enviromental Protection Agency Unrequested Projects Water Quality Cooperative Agreements _National Aeronautics and Space Administration Hubble Space Telescope Robotic Servicing Mission _Other Agencies National Veterans Business Development Corporation Postal Service: Revenue Forgone Appropriation SBA: Microloan Program SBA: Small Business Investment Company (SBIC) Participating Securities Program MAJOR REDUCTIONS: _Agriculture Department Federal (In-House) Research Forest Service Capital Improve and Maintenance Forest Service Wildland Fire Management (incl. supp. and emergency funding) Biomass Research and Development Broadband CCC - Bioenergy CCC - Market Access Program Farm Bill Programs (EQIP Farm Bill Programs (CSP) Farm Bill Programs (WHIP) Farm Bill Program (Farm and Ranchland Protection) Farm Bill Programs (Ag. Management Assistance) IFAS Renewable Energy Rural Firefighter Grants Rural Strategic Investment Program Rural Business Investment Program Value-added Grants Watershed Rehabilitation NRCS Conservation Operations NRCS Resource Conservation and Development Program Water and Wastewater Grants and Loans _Commerce Department Manufacturing Extension Partnership _Education Department Adult Education State Grants State Grants for Innovation _Energy Department Environmental Management _Health and Human Services Department HRSA Children's Hospitals GME Payment Program HRSA Health Professions HRSA Rural Health SAMHSA Programs of Regional and National Significance State, Local & Hospital Bioterrorism Preparedness Grants _Housing and Urban Development Department Housing for Persons with Disabilities Native American Housing Block Grant Public Housing Capital Fund -Interior Department Bureau of Indian Affairs School Construction National Heritage Area Grants Payments in Lieu of Taxes USGS, Mineral Resources Program _Justice Department Federal Bureau of Prisons Construction Program High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas Program Juvenile Justice Law Enforcement Assistance Programs _Labor Department International Labor Affairs Bureau Office of Disability Employment Policy Workforce Investment Act Pilots and Demonstrations _State Department Assistance for the Independent States of the Former Soviet Union _Transportation Department FAA - Facilities and Equipment FAA - Airport Improvement Program (Oblim) FRA - Next Generation High Speed Rail _Treasury Department Internal Revenue Service - Taxpayer Service _Environmental Protection Agency Alaska Native Villages Clean Water State Revolving Fund -National Aeronautics and Space Administration Aeronautics: Vehicle Systems Program Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter _Other Agencies Archives: National Historical Publications & Records Commission U.S. Institute of Peace, Construction of New Building MAJOR REFORMS Agriculture: Rural Telephone Bank Commerce: Economic and Community Development Programs Homeland Security: State and Local Homeland Security Grants Homeland Security: Transportation Security Administration, Recover Aviation Security Screening Costs Through Fees Labor: Job Training Reform, Consolidate Grants Program Transportation: Amtrak Army Corps of Engineers (Civil Works): Performance Guidelines for Funding Construction Projects U.S. Agency for International Development and Department of Agriculture: International Food Aid
shadeaux63 Keeper of dreams Posts: 1105 (2/13/05 4:43 am) Reply	Re: This Just in...again This is just scary. Neo-Nazis Aim to Upgrade PR # The National Alliance seeks a higher profile and more members with multimedia campaign. By Stephanie Simon, Times Staff Writer ST. LOUIS — White supremacist groups around the country are moving aggressively to recruit new members by promoting their violent, racist ideologies on billboards, in radio commercials and in leaflets tossed on suburban driveways. Watching with mounting alarm, civil rights monitors say these tactics stake out a much bolder, more public role for many hate groups, which are trying to shed their image as shadowy extremists and claim more mainstream support. Watchdog groups fear increased violence from these organizations as they grow. But perhaps an even greater fear is that the new public relations strategy will let neo-Nazis recast themselves as just another voice on the political spectrum — even when that voice may be advocating genocide. "The concern is that this will bring them new members and money, and that they will get some real traction in mainstream politics," said Mark Potok, who tracks hate groups for the Southern Poverty Law Center. "We are completely in favor of the 1st Amendment. [But] they poison the public discourse with ideas like Jews are behind it all and need killing." The National Alliance, which calls for ridding the land of minorities, has led the drive to raise the profile of white supremacists. The local chapter spent $1,500 on MetroLink ads here in St. Louis last month, plastering nearly every commuter train car in the city with a blue-and-white placard declaring "The Future belongs to us!" and listing the group's website and phone number. The same chapter bought airtime on local talk radio last fall, urging whites to unite and fight for the survival of "white America." "We want to use mainstream advertising to say to the public: We're not a shadowy group. This is what we believe in, and we're proud of it," said chapter leader Aaron Collins. "We're trying to give people courage. We want to show them, if you stand up for what you believe in, you're not going to be crucified." With that goal in mind, other chapters of the National Alliance have posted billboards in Utah, Nevada and Florida. The group has also coordinated massive leaflet drops, distributing 100,000 racist fliers in a single night in states as regionally diverse as New Jersey, Alabama and Nebraska. The National Alliance even bought a membership list and mailing labels from the Florida Bar Assn. last year so it could send an eight-page recruitment letter, complete with anti-Semitic cartoons, to 2,500 criminal defense lawyers. "If we had the money to advertise during the Super Bowl, we'd try that too," said Shaun Walker, the organization's chief operating officer. Civil rights monitors consider the National Alliance one of the most virulent neo-Nazi organizations in the country. It was founded in the 1970s by the late William Pierce, who called for herding Jews and "race mixers" into cattle cars and abandoning them in old coal mines. Although the group's website says it "does not advocate any illegal activity," National Alliance members have been convicted of scattered acts of violence over the last two decades, including armed robberies, bombings and murders. The FBI's senior counterterrorism expert told Congress in 2002 that the National Alliance represented a "terrorist threat." "They clearly have a track record of encouraging members to take their vision of race war to the streets," said Devin Burghart, who monitors hate groups for the Center for New Community in Chicago. Though Potok estimates that the National Alliance has fewer than 700 members, it's one of the best-financed supremacist groups because it owns a music label, Resistance Records, which dominated the white-power music scene from the mid-'90s until recently. The white supremacist movement encompasses scores of other small, often feuding, organizations as well, with total membership estimated at 100,000. They, too, are reaching out. Last fall, residents of Columbia, Mo., awoke to find the Aryan Alternative — a new tabloid promising "uncensored news for whites" — next to the Sunday paper on their driveways. In Louisville, Ky., last December, a branch of the Ku Klux Klan sneaked fliers inside copies of the Courier-Journal rolled up for home delivery. And in a bold bid to recruit kids as young as 13 to the movement, the Panzerfaust record label last fall gave away thousands of CDs packed with hard-driving white-power music, distributing them in schools and malls in numerous states, including California. Sample lyrics: "Do you feel the pride as the skinheads march by? Do you see as I do that our enemies must die?" The Panzerfaust company dissolved this month when one of the label's founders accused his business partner of being half-Mexican — an ethnic heritage considered treasonous in the white-power world. Already, however, other groups have stepped up teen recruitment, selling swastika pendants online and promoting a "pro-white radio station" that streams supremacist ballads, heavy metal and rock songs online. Public outreach is not new for white-supremacist groups. The Knights of the Ku Klux Klan have been picking up litter for Missouri's Adopt-a-Highway program for years. But hate-group monitors say the latest recruitment campaigns are much broader than any they've seen before. Neo-Nazi organizations are not only putting up billboards, they're also instructing members to hide their tattoos and dress for rallies in conservative suits to avoid being dismissed as extremists. Thomas Robb, the national director of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, urges his members to serve on community boards and in political parties so they can push their white-power agenda from positions of social respect. "I encourage them to do that, absolutely," Robb said. "Though it has to be done gently." The National Alliance, meanwhile, is increasingly tailoring its leaflets to current events. Local members seize on any racial tensions in their community as an excuse to blanket the area with articles explaining the white-power worldview. As Walker put it: "The current powers-that-be constantly demonize us. But if we can get our message out to enough people, we'll gain legitimacy with the public." Civil-rights advocates call this new emphasis on legitimacy insidious, because it may lure people into neo-Nazi circles before they fully understand what they're being sold. Some of the National Alliance's ads and websites make it look "like the focus is on mainstream conservative issues," said Karen Aroesty, the Midwest director of the Anti-Defamation League. The Las Vegas billboard, for instance, urged: "Stop Immigration." The one in Salt Lake City declared: "Securing the Future for European Americans." Although no one offers hard numbers, white supremacists contend — and their sharpest critics agree — that the recruitment strategy is working. Many of the promotions are short-lived; the MetroLink ads were up a week before transit officials removed them in response to a complaint. Such controversy, however, generates media coverage that can be even more valuable than the ads themselves. Media reports about the Salt Lake City billboard drove 4,500 visitors to the National Alliance's local website in a single week — compared with average traffic of 100 hits a month, Walker said. When the flap about the MetroLink ads made news here, the National Alliance got so many calls that the phone company insisted the group upgrade its voice mail system, Collins said. He wouldn't give precise numbers, but said 80% of the callers listened to the two-minute white-power message on the group's answering machine, then hung up. He recalled just two angry callers — and many who asked for more information. "I had to appoint three people just to call people back," he said. "What evidence we've seen indicates that real-world advertisement and promotion has far more impact on recruitment than online work does," Burghart said. "They reach a different demographic," he added. Many middle-age recruits, he said, feel more comfortable joining a group they've seen on TV or heard advertised on the radio, rather than one that makes its presence known mostly through racist rants in Internet chat rooms. Hate groups recognize the power of that outreach. So they intend to keep at it. "You know the old saying: It pays to advertise," Walker said. "Only we're not selling a product; we're announcing an idea." The thought chills Marilyn Mayo, an associate director of the Anti-Defamation League. "Only a very small percentage of the population supports them," she said. "But they always will attract a certain number — and how many is too much?"
shadeaux63 Keeper of dreams Posts: 1106 (2/13/05 4:53 am) Reply	Re: This Just in...again As if it wasnt bad enough that they've used illegal aliens,locked employees in stores,illegally cut hours off of employees time cards,and refused to pay thier employees a living wage,now Wally World is endangering thier underage workers.When are people going to see through them,and demand that Walmart shape up,or ship out? And are they getting preferential treatment for being a major Repugnican party supporter? Wal-Mart Agrees to Pay Fine in Child Labor Cases By STEVEN GREENHOUSE Published: February 12, 2005 Wal-Mart Stores, the nation's largest retailer, has agreed to pay $135,540 to settle federal charges that it violated child labor laws in Connecticut, Arkansas and New Hampshire. Labor Department officials said most of the 24 violations covered by the settlement involved workers under age 18 operating dangerous machinery, including cardboard balers and chain saws. In the agreement, Wal-Mart denied any wrongdoing. Department officials said that one of the violations was in New Hampshire, three were in Arkansas and 20 were in Connecticut, where the investigation began in 2001. One violation involved a youth who injured his thumb while using a chain saw to cut Christmas trees. The Labor Department and Wal-Mart signed the agreement on Jan. 6, but made no public announcement. The department disclosed the settlement yesterday after a reporter questioned officials about concerns raised by several department employees that the agreement gave Wal-Mart special favors. The agreement states, "Compliance with the child labor laws and regulations will be an important factor in evaluating the performance of managers." A provision also promises to give Wal-Mart 15 days' notice before the Labor Department investigates any other "wage and hour" accusations, like failure to pay minimum wage or overtime. That provision drew criticism yesterday from Representative George Miller of California, the senior Democrat on the House Education and Workforce Committee. It also prompted complaints from some Labor Department investigators who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. "With child labor cases involving the use of hazardous machinery, why give 15 days' notice before we can do an investigation?" asked a district office supervisor who has worked in the wage and hour division for nearly 20 years. "What's the rationale?" Victoria Lipnic, assistant labor secretary for employment standards, called the settlement typical, saying that giving Wal-Mart notice before conducting investigations would encourage the company to correct the problems sooner. The department employees also said the agreement was unusual because the department had never announced it. Department officials said they were preparing a news release and were waiting for Wal-Mart to pay the $135,540 before making the settlement public. In the settlement, Wal-Mart agreed not to employ any worker under age 14 and agreed to prohibit any employee under 18 from operating cardboard balers. It also agreed to post a notice on each cardboard baler saying that minors may not use or touch the balers. Wal-Mart also agreed to train new store managers about compliance with child labor laws and to provide more training to current managers on the subject. "We worked with the Department of Labor to strengthen our training and compliance programs," said Gus Whitcomb, a spokesman for Wal-Mart, which is based in Bentonville, Ark. "Again, our focus is to be 100 percent compliant with all applicable laws." Wal-Mart has faced previous child labor charges. In March 2000, Maine fined the company $205,650 for violations of child labor laws in every one of the 20 stores in the state. In January 2004, a weeklong internal audit of 128 stores found 1,371 instances in which minors apparently worked too late at night, worked during school hours or worked too many hours in a day. Company officials said the audit was faulty and had incorrectly found that some youths had worked on school days when, in fact, those days were holidays. Under the new agreement, the Labor Department did not waive its right to conduct future investigations. Still, several department officials suggested that the provision for 15 days' notice might give Wal-Mart an opportunity to hide violations. John R. Fraser, the government's top wage official under the first President Bush and President Bill Clinton, said the advance-notice provision was unusually expansive. "Giving the company 15 days' notice of any investigation is very unusual," Mr. Fraser said. "The language appears to go beyond child labor allegations and cover all wage and hour allegations. It appears to put Wal-Mart in a privileged position that to my knowledge no other employer has." Ms. Lipnic countered,. "We usually call employers before we go to investigate," and said there was "nothing uncommon or unprecedented about that." Several federal employees voiced concern about a Jan. 10 e-mail message sent by the director of the Little Rock, Ark., office for the Labor Department's wage and hour division after the settlement was reached, that said, "Wage & Hour will not open an investigation of Wal-Mart without first notifying Wal-Mart's main office and allowing them an opportunity to look at the alleged violations and, if valid, correct the problem." But Cynthia Watson, the division's Southwest regional director, said advance notice would speed compliance. "We are seeking to centralize the points of contact in order to get the people involved to resolve the issue," Ms. Watson said.
shadeaux63 Keeper of dreams Posts: 1107 (2/13/05 5:35 am) Reply	Re: This Just in...again You know how the Republican Party just LOVES to scream"FAMILY VALUES" in the faces of anyone who doesn't agree with them,especially if you're a Democrat? Well, then you HAVE to check out this site.It really shows just how much "family values" means to some of the most well-known Republicans. quinnell.us/politics/family.html
shadeaux63 Keeper of dreams Posts: 1108 (2/13/05 2:19 pm) Reply	Re: This Just in...again They used to say it was a "left wing attempt at scare tactics",but now,even some Republicans are beginning to realize that our country is slowly becoming more and more fascist.This opinion piece was found in the Memphis Flyer. The Real F-Word When even the conservative true believers fear it, the rest of us have to. CHERI DELBROCCO \| 2/11/2005 Immediately after the first Bush inauguration, I stopped at a red light, and a young man who couldn't have been more than 18 pulled up beside me, rolled down the window, and indicated that he'd noticed my "Hail to the Thief" bumper sticker, affixed there in honor of the contested 2000 presidential election. Informing me that I was an "America-hating Communist," he instructed me where I should go, and it wasn't to the Good Place. As he squealed off, I noticed on his pick-up several flag decals, a Christian fish symbol, and a Bush/Cheney sticker. Shocked and slightly afraid, I cleared my car of all political expression when I got home. But, in keeping with certain American traditions -- like the constitutionally provided one of free expression -- I opted again last fall to politically adorn my auto, thinking that a simple red, white, and blue Kerry/Edwards campaign logo would be less inflammatory. Nope. One morning, while pumping gas, another customer approached my car. "Un-American Christian-hating bitches like you should be shot!" he yelled. When he drove off, I noticed a black "W The President" decal, an "I Support Our Troops" magnetic ribbon, a Christian academy sticker, and a large American flag on the back of his SUV. Once again, I was stunned by the hostility and aggression of a total stranger. I have told friends about these incidents, and they have shared similar experiences. What's going on? Why are some of the supporters of this president so riled by simple expressions of an opposing viewpoint? How did certain Americans become so enraptured with a sense of political supremacy that acts of profanity and belligerence toward their neighbors are deemed acceptable? Could it be that those who crow the loudest and the proudest about spreading freedom to other parts of the world just might be in favor of intimidating those who practice freedom here in the good ole U.S. of A.? Is this mindset connected to what appears to be a new insatiable lust for war? Had the word "fascism" been used in the same sentence with the word "American" by the likes of Michael Moore, Alec Baldwin, or Gore Vidal, it would not surprise anyone. But no less a conservative Republican icon than Paul Craig Roberts, a former Reagan aide, apostle for supply-side economics, and Wall Street Journal editor, noted what he called the "brownshirting" of America in a recent issue of The American Conservative. And, in that same magazine's latest issue, Scott McConnell's piece, "Hunger for Dictatorship," discusses in some detail what he sees as the possibility of incipient fascism in America. Notes McConnell: "[O]ne of the biggest right-wing talk-radio hosts regularly calls for the mass destruction of Arab cities." He quotes approvingly an observation from Mises Institute president Lew Rockwell, a fellow conservative, lamenting "the dramatic shift of the red-state bourgeoisie from leave-us-alone libertarianism, manifested in the Congressional elections of 1994, to almost totalitarian statist nationalism." McConnell continues, "[T]he very fact that the f-word can be seriously raised in an American context is evidence enough that we have moved into a new period." Tremendous ironies abound. The most obvious is that those who are writing so candidly about this deeply disturbing development have supported the politicians who gave rise to it -- a growing brand of religious/military/political zeal that these former fellow travelers are now willing to call openly by its proper name.
shadeaux63 Keeper of dreams Posts: 1109 (2/13/05 2:34 pm) Reply	Re: This Just in...again Tis is a page from a young Iraqi womans blog page.It's very telling,so I felt it deserved notice. Baghdad Burning ... I'll meet you 'round the bend my friend, where hearts can heal and souls can mend... Saturday, February 12, 2005 And Life Goes On... The elections have come and gone. The day of elections was a day of eerie silence punctuated by a few strong explosions and the hum of helicopters above. We remained at home and watched the situation on tv. E. left for about an hour to see what was happening at the local polling area, which was a secondary school nearby. He said there were maybe 50 people at the school and a lot of them looked like they were involved with the local electoral committee. The polling station near our house was actually being guarded by SCIRI people (Badir’s Brigade). It was like an voting marathon for all of the news channels- everywhere you turned there was news of the elections. CNN, Euronews, BBC, Jazeera, Arabia, LBC… everyone was talking elections. The Arab news channels were focusing largely on voting abroad while CNN kept showing footage from the southern provinces and the northern ones. I literally had chills going up and down my spine as I watched Abdul Aziz Al Hakeem of Iranian-inclined SCIRI dropping his ballot into a box. Behind him, giving moral support and her vote, was what I can only guess to be his wife. She was shrouded literally from head to foot and only her eyes peeped out of the endless sea of black. She stuffed her ballot in the box with black-gloved hands and submissively followed a very confident Hakeem. E. turned to me with a smile and a wink, “That might be you in a couple of years…” I promptly threw a sofa cushion at him. Most of our acquaintances (Sunni and Shia) didn’t vote. My cousin, who is Shia, didn’t vote because he felt he didn’t really have ‘representation’ on the lists, as he called it. I laughed when he said that, “But you have your pick of at least 40 different Shia parties!” I teased, winking at his wife. I understood what he meant though. He’s a secular, educated, non-occupation Iraqi before he’s Sunni or Shia- he’s more concerned with having someone who wants to end the occupation than someone Shia. We’re hearing about various strange happenings at different voting areas. They say that several areas in northern Iraq (some Assyrian and other Christian areas) weren’t allowed to vote. They also say that 300 different ballot boxes from all over the country were disqualified (mainly from Mosul) because a large number of the vote ballots had “Saddam” written on them. In other areas there’s talk of Badir’s Brigade people having bought the ballots to vote, and while the people of Falloojeh weren’t allowed to vote, people say that the identities of Falloojans were temporarily ‘borrowed’ for voting purposes. The stories are endless. In spite of that, we’re all watching for the results carefully. When the ‘elected’ government takes control, will they set a timetable for American withdrawal? That would be a shocker considering none of the current parties would be able to remain in power without being forcefully backed by America with tanks and troops. We hear American politicians repeatedly saying that America will not withdraw until Iraq can secure itself. When will that happen? Our current National Guard or “Haress il Watani” are fondly called “Haress il Wathani” or “Infidel Guard” by people in the streets. On top of it all, to be one of them is considered such a disgrace by the general population that they have to wear masks so that none of them can be identified by neighbors and friends. The results won’t really matter when so many people boycotted the elections. No matter what the number say, the reality of the situation is that there are millions of Iraqis who will refuse to submit to an occupation government. After almost two years of occupation, and miserable living conditions, we want our country back. I do have my moments of weakness though, when I wonder who will be allowed to have power. Politicians are talking about a balance that might arise from a Shia, Kurdish alliance and it makes a lot of sense in theory. In theory, the Kurdish leaders are Sunni and secular and the Shia leaders are, well, they’re not exactly secular. If they get along, things should work out evenly. That looks good on blogs and on paper. Reality is quite different. Reality is that the Kurdish leaders are more concerned about their own autonomy and as long as the Kurdish north remains secular, the rest of Iraq can go up in flames. An example is the situation in Baghdad today. The parties that have power in colleges today are actually the Iranian inclined Shia parties like Da’awa and SCIRI. Student representatives in colleges and universities these days mainly come from the abovementioned parties. They harass Christian and Muslim girls about what they should and shouldn’t wear. They invite students to attend “latmiyas” (mainly Shia religious festivities where the participants cry and beat themselves in sorrow over the killing of the Prophet’s family) and bully the cafeteria or canteen guy into not playing music during Ramadhan and instead showing the aforementioned latmiyas and Shia religious lectures by Ayatollah So-and-So and Sayid Something-or-Another. Last week my cousin needed to visit the current Ministry of Higher Education. After the ministry building was burned and looted, the employees had to be transferred to a much, much smaller building in another part of the city. My cousin’s wife wanted to have her college degree legalized by the ministry and my cousin wasn’t sure about how to go about doing it. So I volunteered to go along with him because I had some questions of my own. We headed for the building containing the ministry employees (but hardly ever containing the minister). It was small and cramped. Every 8 employees were stuck in the same room. The air was tense and heavy. We were greeted in the reception area by a bearded man who scanned us disapprovingly. “Da’awachi,” my cousin whispered under his breath, indicating the man was from the Da’awa Party. What could he do for us? Who did we want? We wanted to have some documents legalized by the ministry, I said loudly, trying to cover up my nervousness. He looked at me momentarily and then turned to the cousin pointedly. My cousin repeated why we were there and asked for directions. We were told to go to one of the rooms on the same floor and begin there. “Please dress appropriately next time you come here.” The man said to me. I looked down at what I was wearing- black pants, a beige high-necked sweater and a knee-length black coat. Huh? I blushed furiously. He meant my head should be covered and I should be wearing a skirt. I don’t like being told what to wear and what not to wear by strange men. “I don’t work here- I don’t have to follow a dress code.” I answered coldly. The cousin didn’t like where the conversation was going, he angrily interceded, “We’re only here for an hour and it really isn’t your business.” “It is my business.” Came the answer, “She should have some respect for the people who work here.” And the conversation ended. I looked around for the people I should be respecting. There were three or four women who were apparently ministry employees. Two of them were wearing long skirts, loose sweaters and headscarves and the third had gone all out and was wearing a complete “jubba” or robe-like garb topped with a black head scarf. My cousin and I turned to enter the room the receptionist had indicated and my eyes were stinging. No one could talk that way before the war and if they did, you didn’t have to listen. You could answer back. Now, you only answer back and make it an issue if you have some sort of death wish or just really, really like trouble. Young females have the option of either just giving in to the pressure and dressing and acting ‘safely’- which means making everything longer and looser and preferably covering some of their head or constantly being defiant to what is becoming endemic in Iraq today. The problem with defiance is that it doesn’t just involve you personally, it involves anyone with you at that moment- usually a male relative. It means that there might be an exchange of ugly words or a fight and probably, after that, a detention in Abu Ghraib. If it’s like this in Baghdad, I shudder to think what the other cities and provinces must be like. The Allawis and Pachichis of Iraq don’t sense it- their families are safely tucked away in Dubai and Amman, and the Hakeems and Jaffaris of Iraq promote it. At the end of the day, it’s not about having a Sunni or Shia or Kurd or Arab in power. It’s about having someone who has Iraq’s best interests at heart- not America’s, not Iran’s, not Israel’s… It’s about needing someone who wants peace, prosperity, independence and above and beyond all, unity.
shadeaux63 Keeper of dreams Posts: 1111 (2/16/05 8:40 am) Reply	Re: This Just in...again Welcome to the United States of Bushworld.Iraqis abused at Abu Ghraib have more rights in American courtrooms than American abused former POWs have.Granted, they DO deserve some compensation,but what about OUR guys,who suffered torture in the original Gulf War? White House Turns Tables on Former American POWs Tue Feb 15, 7:55 AM ET Add to My Yahoo! Top Stories - Los Angeles Times By David G. Savage Times Staff Writer WASHINGTON — The latest chapter in the legal history of torture is being written by American pilots who were beaten and abused by Iraqis during the 1991 Persian Gulf War (news - web sites). And it has taken a strange twist. The Bush administration is fighting the former prisoners of war in court, trying to prevent them from collecting nearly $1 billion from Iraq (news - web sites) that a federal judge awarded them as compensation for their torture at the hands of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s regime. The rationale: Today's Iraqis are good guys, and they need the money. The case abounds with ironies. It pits the U.S. government squarely against its own war heroes and the Geneva Convention. Many of the pilots were tortured in the same Iraqi prison, Abu Ghraib, where American soldiers abused Iraqis 15 months ago. Those Iraqi victims, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has said, deserve compensation from the United States. But the American victims of Iraqi torturers are not entitled to similar payments from Iraq, the U.S. government says. "It seems so strange to have our own country fighting us on this," said retired Air Force Col. David W. Eberly, the senior officer among the former POWs. The case, now being appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court (news - web sites), tests whether "state sponsors of terrorism" can be sued in the U.S. courts for torture, murder or hostage-taking. The court is expected to decide in the next two months whether to hear the appeal. Congress opened the door to such claims in 1996, when it lifted the shield of sovereign immunity — which basically prohibits lawsuits against foreign governments — for any nation that supports terrorism. At that time, Iraq was one of seven nations identified by the State Department as sponsoring terrorist activity. The 17 Gulf War POWs looked to have a very strong case when they first filed suit in 2002. They had been undeniably tortured by a tyrannical regime, one that had $1.7 billion of its assets frozen by the U.S. government. The picture changed, however, when the United States invaded Iraq and toppled Hussein from power nearly two years ago. On July 21, 2003, two weeks after the Gulf War POWs won their court case in U.S. District Court, the Bush administration intervened to argue that their claims should be dismissed. "No amount of money can truly compensate these brave men and women for the suffering that they went through at the hands of this very brutal regime and at the hands of Saddam Hussein," White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan told reporters when asked about the case in November 2003. Government lawyers have insisted, literally, on "no amount of money" going to the Gulf War POWs. "These resources are required for the urgent national security needs of rebuilding Iraq," McClellan said. The case also tests a key provision of the Geneva Convention, the international law that governs the treatment of prisoners of war. The United States and other signers pledged never to "absolve" a state of "any liability" for the torture of POWs. Former military lawyers and a bipartisan group of lawmakers have been among those who have urged the Supreme Court to take up the case and to strengthen the law against torturers and tyrannical regimes. "Our government is on the wrong side of this issue," said Jeffrey F. Addicott, a former Army lawyer and director of the Center for Terrorism Law at St. Mary's University in San Antonio. "A lot of Americans would scratch their heads and ask why is our government taking the side of Iraq against our POWs." The POWs' journey through the court system began with the events of Jan. 17, 1991 — the first day of the Gulf War. In response to Hussein's invasion of Kuwait five months earlier, the United States, as head of a United Nations (news - web sites) coalition, launched an air attack on Iraq, determined to drive Iraqi forces from the oil-rich Gulf state. On the first day of the fighting, a jet piloted by Marine Corps Lt. Col. Clifford Acree was downed over Iraq by a surface-to-air missile. He suffered a neck injury ejecting from the plane and was soon taken prisoner by the Iraqis. Blindfolded and handcuffed, he was beaten until he lost consciousness. His nose was broken, his skull was fractured, and he was threatened with having his fingers cut off. He lost 30 pounds during his 47 days of captivity. Eberly was shot down two days later and lost 45 pounds during his ordeal. He and several other U.S. service members were near starvation when they were freed. Other POWs had their eardrums ruptured and were urinated on during their captivity at Abu Ghraib. All the while, their families thought they were dead because the Iraqis did not notify the U.S. government of their capture. In April 2002, the Washington law firm of Steptoe & Johnson filed suit on behalf of the 17 former POWs and 37 of their family members. The suit, Acree vs. Republic of Iraq, sought monetary damages for the "acts of torture committed against them and for pain, suffering and severe mental distress of their families." Usually, foreign states have a sovereign immunity that shields them from being sued. But in the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1996, Congress authorized U.S. courts to award "money damages … against a foreign state for personal injury or death that was caused by an act of torture, extrajudicial killing, aircraft sabotage [or] hostage taking." This provision was "designed to hold terrorist nations accountable for the torture of Americans and to deter rogue nations from engaging in such actions in the future," Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and George Allen (R-Va.) said last year in a letter to Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft (news - web sites) that urged him to support the POWs' claim. The case came before U.S. District Judge Richard W. Roberts. There was no trial; Hussein's regime ignored the suit, and the U.S. State Department chose to take no part in the case. On July 7, 2003, the judge handed down a long opinion that described the abuse suffered by the Gulf War POWs, and he awarded them $653 million in compensatory damages. He also assessed $306 million in punitive damages against Iraq. Lawyers for the POWs asked him to put a hold on some of Iraq's frozen assets. No sooner had the POWs celebrated their victory than they came up against a new roadblock: Bush administration lawyers argued that the case should be thrown out of court on the grounds that Bush had voided any such claims against Iraq, which was now under U.S. occupation. The administration lawyers based their argument on language in an emergency bill, passed shortly after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, approving the expenditure of $80 billion for military operations and reconstruction efforts. One clause in the legislation authorized the president to suspend the sanctions against Iraq that had been imposed as punishment for the invasion of Kuwait more than a decade earlier. The president's lawyers said this clause also allowed Bush to remove Iraq from the State Department's list of state sponsors of terrorism and to set aside pending monetary judgments against Iraq. When the POWs' case went before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit,, the three-judge panel ruled unanimously for the Bush administration and threw out the lawsuit. "The United States possesses weighty foreign policy interests that are clearly threatened by the entry of judgment for [the POWs] in this case," the appeals court said. The administration also succeeding in killing a congressional resolution supporting the POWs' suit. "U.S. courts no longer have jurisdiction to hear cases such as those filed by the Gulf War POWs," then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage said in a letter to lawmakers. "Moreover, the president has ordered the vesting of blocked Iraqi assets for use by the Iraqi people and for reconstruction." Already frustrated by the turn of events, the former POWs were startled when Rumsfeld said he favored awarding compensation to the Iraqi prisoners who were abused by the U.S. military at Abu Ghraib. "I am seeking a way to provide appropriate compensation to those detainees who suffered grievous and brutal abuse and cruelty at the hands of a few members of the U.S. military. It is the right thing to do," Rumsfeld told a Senate committee last year. By contrast, the government's lawyers have refused to even discuss a settlement in the POWs' case, say lawyers for the Gulf War veterans. "They were willing to settle this for pennies on the dollar," said Addicott, the former Army lawyer. The last hope for the POWs rests with the Supreme Court. Their lawyers petitioned the high court last month to hear the case. Significantly, it has been renamed Acree vs. Iraq and the United States. The POWs say the justices should decide the "important and recurring question [of] whether U.S. citizens who are victims of state-sponsored terrorism [may] seek redress against terrorist states in federal court." This week, Justice Department (news - web sites) lawyers are expected to file a brief urging the court to turn away the appeal.
shadeaux63 Keeper of dreams Posts: 1112 (2/16/05 8:46 am) Reply	Re: This Just in...again Another welcome to Bushworld article.It won't be all that long before America joins the ranks of third world nations around the globe. Shelters, soup kitchens turning people away, study finds Genaro C. Armas, Associated Press February 15, 2005 HUNGER0216 WASHINGTON -- Many homeless shelters and soup kitchens faced with more requests for emergency services are turning people away because they lack the beds, food and money to meet the demand, says a survey from an advocacy group for low-income Americans. The report being released today by the National Student Campaign Against Hunger & Homelessness found a 28 percent rise last year in emergency food assistance requests, and a 27 percent increase in requests for emergency shelter. The organization surveyed 900 agencies in 32 states and gathered information from urban and rural areas. About one-quarter of the emergency food providers said they had to turn away requests for food because of a lack of resources. And three-quarters of emergency shelter providers reported turning people away for the same reason. Kathleen Barr, the report's author, said the Bush administration's 2006 budget proposal hurts many programs aimed at low-income Americans and could set back emergency assistance providers further. ``It's hurting their ability to help folks,'' said Barr, who added that private donations of time and money weren't enough to keep pace. Unemployment and wages too low to afford enough food are among the main reasons that people seek help from shelters and soup kitchens, Barr said. Many people are also hampered by high housing costs that force them to spend more than 30 percent of their income on the rent or mortgage payment, said Susan Ban, executive director for ShelterCare, a Eugene, Ore., organization that provides emergency shelter for families with children who are homeless. The Housing and Urban Development Department on Monday pointed to a growing thicket of regulatory barriers at the state and local level as a main obstacle for building more affordable housing. Among the concerns listed by HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson were slow permitting procedures and complex environmental regulations that can significantly increase the length and cost of home building review and approval processes. The administration has also proposed a a $200 million increase, to $1.4 billion, for a program which helps move chronically homeless persons into permanent housing with supportive services. Barr criticized President Bush for proposing to slash money for community development programs aimed at improving low- and moderate-income areas by about $2 billion, leaving $3.7 billion. The findings showed a larger increase in demand for food and shelter than results from a separate study by the U.S. Conference of Mayors in December. That study, based on a survey of 27 large cities, found that requests for food rose 14 percent, while appeals for shelter increased 6 percent.

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