Politics and other Catastrophes

THE MIS-LEADERS

2005-11-22T16:32:00.000-08:00

WHO ARE THEY KIDDING?

Dick Cheney calls it "dishonest," "reprehensible" and "not legitimate" to claim that the administration misled the public about prewar intelligence. In his speech at the American Enterprise Institute on Nov. 21, the vice president added for good measure that "any suggestion that prewar information was distorted, hyped or fabricated by the leader of the nation is utterly false."

Most Democrats in Congress think that prewar intelligence was indeed distorted and hyped—though not "fabricated," which, like the accusation that they have accused Bush of "lying," is a straw man of Cheney's. Democrats believe that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, Rice, and others misrepresented what our government knew about Saddam Hussein's WMD capacity and his links to terrorists in order to make a stronger case for invading Iraq.

So who's right? Did Bush officials mislead us, or didn't they?

Because the Republicans who control Congress have prevented any investigation into the administration's use of prewar intelligence (as opposed to the gathering and formulation of that intelligence), there's a lot we still don't know. Officials haven't yet had to answer questions about what they knew or did not know when they advanced various spurious claims. And even the kind of investigation that Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid is demanding could prove frustratingly inconclusive, because proof of deception requires knowing someone else's state of mind. In the president's case, it may be possible to show that he should have known enough to avoid some inaccurate assertions, including the notorious "16 words" in his 2003 State of the Union address about Saddam seeking to buy significant quantities of uranium from Africa. But as with Ronald Reagan during the Iran-Contra scandal, Bush's combination of self-delusion, disengagement, and sheer mush-headedness nearly precludes the possibility of willful deception.

What here's what we do know already, without a congressional inquiry: Members of the Bush Administration were dishonest with the public and with Congress about prewar intelligence. We've known this for some time—see, for example, the comprehensive and damning story Barton Gellman and Walter Pincus wrote in the Washington Post in August 2003 ("Depiction of Threat Outgrew Supporting Evidence"). Over the past two years, several incidents of executive-branch dishonesty in the run-up to the war have turned into subscandals of their own: the aluminum tubes that Iraq used for missiles and not gas centrifuges, the yellowcake uranium that Saddam didn't try to buy from Niger, the mobile biological warfare laboratories that turned out to be hydrogen generators for balloons, the al-Qaida chemical warfare training that was based on a false confession, the meeting with Mohamed Atta that didn't happen in Prague.

If you examine these and other pillars of the administration's case for invading Iraq, a clear pattern emerges. Bush officials first put clear pressure on the intelligence community to support their assumptions that Saddam was developing WMD and cooperating with al-Qaida. Nonetheless, significant contrary evidence emerged. Bush hawks then overlooked, suppressed, or willfully ignored whatever cut against their views. In public, they depicted unsettled questions as dead certainties. Then, when they were caught out and proven wrong, they resisted the obvious and refused to correct the record. Finally, when their positions became utterly untenable, they claimed that they were misinformed or not told. Call this behavior what you will, but you can't describe it as either "honest" or "truthful."

Many of the White House's most serious misrepresentations involve the case that Saddam was trying to build nuclear weapons, which he had in fact stopped trying to do in 1991. "We now know that Saddam has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons," Cheney said in August 2002, in one of his conclusive comments on the subject. This position was echoed by Bush and Rice, who both conjured the specter of a mushroom cloud, as well as by Rumsfeld and Colin Powell, who went into more detail about aluminum tubes and uranium. If you were on the inside and read even the now notorious National Intelligence Estimate of 2002, you at least knew that such statements were at the very least overdrawn. Analysts at the departments of Energy and State weren't buying the aluminum tubes and yellowcake theory that formed the basis of the nuclear case.

Or consider another component of that case that has gotten less attention, the description of fresh "activity" at Saddam's known nuclear sites. A draft paper produced by Andrew Card's White House working group on Iraq, and cited in the 2003 Post article, was characteristically distorted. The document inaccurately attributed to U.N. arms inspectors the claim that satellite photographs showed signs of reconstruction and acceleration of Iraq's nuclear program. It went on to quote something chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix told Time: "You can see hundreds of new roofs in these photos." But the White House paper left out the second half of Blix's quote: "[B]ut you don't know what's under them." In February 2003, American inspectors visited those sites as part of U.N. teams and saw that nuclear bombs weren't being made at them. But Bush officials acted as if such counterevidence didn't exist.

In retrospect, Cheney casts himself and his colleagues as uncritical consumers of what the CIA and DIA spoon-fed them. Bad intel, he gives us to understand, is like lousy weather—a shame, but nothing policymakers can do anything about. In fact, the Bush hawks were anything but victims of the intelligence community. They challenged any evidence that cut against their assumptions about Saddam, going so far as to set up their own unit within the Pentagon to reanalyze raw data and draw harsher conclusions. And remember that the trigger for the Valerie Plame scandal was the vice president's mistrust of the CIA.

Another giveaway is the administration's lack of outrage over the bad intelligence they now claim to have been victimized by. Only Colin Powell, before his U.N. speech, seems to have pushed back with any skepticism about charges he was being asked to retail. And only Powell has expressed any outrage after it became evident that his U.N. speech had been a case of garbage in, garbage out.

Powell's old colleagues now defend themselves by saying they didn't know their claims about Iraq weren't true. But the truth is most of them didn't care whether their assertions were true or not, and they still don't.

God Help Him... Or Us?

2005-11-22T16:23:00.000-08:00

By Emily Bazelon

Judge Samuel Alito's rulings on religious liberty have been trotted out as evidence that he is a freethinker. The opinions show off the nominee's "libertarian streak," according to this Cato Institute post. They demonstrate that Alito is no Scalito, argued University of Wisconsin law professor and blogger Ann Althouse in a New York Times op-ed (sorry, you have to pay to read it; here are her follow-up comments for free). Religious groups have approvingly emphasized that Alito "is very respectful of religious liberty," as Kevin Hasson, chairman of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, told the Religious News Service.

Sam Alito, Champion of the Religiously Downtrodden—it has a certain ring. Alas, it also largely falls apart upon closer examination. Constitutional law on religion splits into two categories. The first is religious-liberty cases, which center on what rights the faithful have to practice their religion when doing so violates a law or regulation that applies to everyone. The second is church-state cases, in which courts decide when the government can associate itself with a religious group and when it can't.

Alito's religious-liberty opinions are mechanistic applications of precedent. They reveal little about the stance he'd take toward religious liberty as a justice of the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, his church-state opinions are consistently, predictably, conservative. When his rulings on religion are taken as a whole, their most noteworthy aspect isn't Alito's independence. Rather, it's his fealty to the view—fervently espoused on the current court by Antonin Scalia—that the government must give religious groups the same access to public benefits that it gives secular ones. As in, if the Boy Scouts or the town fire department can meet in a public-school classroom, then so can the local Bible-study group.

Here are the much-touted religious-liberty rulings. In a 2004 case, Alito ruled in favor of Dennis Blackhawk, a Lenape Indian by birth who began to see bears in a recurring dream, bought two, and used them in religious ceremonies. ("Some consider him to be a holy man," Alito writes, ever deadpan.) Blackhawk went to court after the Pennsylvania Game Commission told him he had to pay $200 a year for an exotic wildlife license and then took the bears away when he pleaded hardship and refused. Alito ordered the commission to back off, saying that because the state's wildlife code allowed for exemptions to the licensing requirement at the discretion of state officials, the government had to show it had a compelling reason for denying Blackhawk an exemption—a test it had failed to meet. In a 1999 case, Alito stopped the Newark police department from disciplining two Muslim police officers who refused to shave their beards. Again, the problem was that the department made exemptions to its no-beard policy for secular reasons (like medical ones) and didn't give a good enough reason for refusing similarly to exempt the Muslim officers on religious grounds.

Score one for bear-dreaming Indians and beard-wearing Muslims. But don't assume Alito is so for religious liberty that he will next embrace a sect that imports hallucinogenic tea in defiance of federal law and an international treaty, the Religiously Dowtrodden group in this year's Supreme Court lineup. Or that he's so for religious liberty that he'll favor creating an across-the-board exemption from some state laws for religious groups, the prize they're really after.

What's at issue in the religious-liberty cases is a question left open by the Constitution's Free Exercise Clause: When a state passes a law that applies to everyone but has particular implications for religious groups, when should those groups be exempt from following the law—never, sometimes, whenever they say so? As this instructive post by Eugene Volokh explains, in the 1963 case Sherbert v. Verner, the Supreme Court decided that religious groups are presumed to have the right to an exemption. But there were always lots of exceptions to the exception—the faithful weren't allowed to go around murdering and pillaging on religious grounds, of course. They also had to observe more mundane laws like the nation's tax code. In the 1990 case Employment Division v. Smith, the court refused to protect the right of the Native American Church to use small amounts of peyote and in the process moved away from the more religion-friendly rule in Sherbert. The court gave the state the benefit of the doubt: Laws were constitutional as long as they didn't discriminate against religious objectors.

Post Smith, the partisan politics have gotten scrambled. Religious freedom used to be the cause of the quintessential liberal Justice William Brennan; law-and-order types like Chief Justice William Rehnquist wanted the state to be allowed to enforce its laws against fringe groups unhindered. Since Smith, however, the churchy right tends to think more religious liberty is a good idea, too.

Alito may turn out to be their man, but you can't tell that from Dennis Blackhawk's case or the one involving the Muslim police officers. Alito simply followed the Supreme Court, which has said (even in Smith) that the state doesn't get a free pass when it offers an exemption to a law to people who ask for special treatment based on a secular rationale but denies the same exemption to other people who ask for special treatment for a religious reason. Pennsylvania exempted circuses and zoos, among others, from paying licensing fees for their wild animals. Newark let police officers keep their beards if they asked to because of a medical condition. So, why couldn't Dennis Blackhawk keep his bear and the Muslim cops keep their beards? Pennsylvania and Newark lost because they didn't have a good enough answer. Alito didn't stick his neck out to promote religious liberty by finding in favor of Blackhawk and the Muslims, argues Cardozo law professor Marci A. Hamilton, author of the recent book God vs. the Gavel. In light of Supreme Court precedent, he didn't have to.

In church-state cases, Alito's opinions are conservative but not daringly so. In two cases, Alito let stand hybrid crèche-menorah-Frosty the Snowman displays (the kind whose real offense is that they're kitsch). The church-state case that stands out is Child Evangelism Fellowship of New Jersey v. Stafford Township School District, decided in 2004, because it tracks precedents that Scalia in particular would dearly like to take further. In that case, the evangelical Good News Club asked the Stafford school district if it could use the classrooms of McKinley Elementary School for weekly after-school meetings. The district agreed. But the superintendent balked at letting the Good News-ers pass out flyers and staff a table at an annual back-to-school night for fear of creating the appearance of endorsing the group's religious message.

In its own words, the Christian fellowship that runs the Good News Clubs is "composed of born-again believers whose purpose is to evangelize boys and girls with the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and to establish (disciple) them in the Word of God and in a local church for Christian living." How likely are parents, much less grade-school students, to understand that the presence of Good News at back-to-school night has nothing to do with the school's approval of Good News' teachings? Likely enough, Alito said, just as Scalia has argued in the Supreme Court cases that gave Alito his foundation. Religious liberty is nice. But if you're on the side of the faithful, giving the church the keys to the elementary school is better.

Arctic drilling dropped from House bill

2005-11-10T12:03:00.000-08:00

It could still return when, if Senate and House negotiate budget

WASHINGTON - House leaders late Wednesday abandoned an attempt to push through a hotly contested plan to open an Alaskan wildlife refuge to oil drilling, fearing it would jeopardize approval of a sweeping budget bill Thursday.

They also dropped from the budget document plans to allow states to authorize oil and gas drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts — regions currently under a drilling moratorium.

The actions were a stunning setback for those who have tried for years to open a coastal strip of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, or ANWR, to oil development, and a victory for environmentalists, who have lobbied hard against the drilling provisions. President Bush has made drilling in the Alaska refuge his top energy priorities.

Still, the Senate has included ANWR drilling in its budget bill and GOP leaders will push hard for any final House-Senate budget bill to include it.

If the House bill passes in a vote set for Thursday, the two chambers would appoint negotiators to work out differences between the bills. Senate Republicans could insist the ANWR drilling proposal be reinserted into the House bill, forcing a new vote by the full House.

The House Rules Committee formalized the change late Wednesday by issuing the terms of the debate when the House takes up the budget package on Thursday.

The decision to drop the ANWR drilling language came after GOP moderates said they would oppose the budget if it was kept in the bill. The offshore drilling provision was also viewed as too contentious and a threat to the bill, especially in the Senate.

Another setback for Bush

Protection of the Alaska refuge from oil companies has been championed by environmentalists for years. The House repeatedly has approved drilling in the refuge as part of broad energy legislation, only to see their effort blocked each time by the threat of a filibuster in the Senate.

The budget bill is immune from filibuster, but drilling proponents suddenly found it hard to get the measure accepted by a majority of the House. That’s because Democrats oppose the overall budget bill, giving House GOP opponents of drilling in the Arctic enough leverage to have the matter killed.

The move in the House was yet another setback for Bush, whose Social Security overhaul also has stalled in Congress. At the same time, his presidency has been troubled by mounting U.S. casualties in Iraq, the withdrawal of Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers and the investigation over the leak of a CIA operative’s identity.

Twenty-five Republicans, led by Rep. Charles Bass of New Hampshire, signed a letter asking GOP leaders to strike the Alaskan drilling provision from the broader $54 billion budget cut bill.

“Rather then reversing decades of protection for this publicly held land, focusing greater attention on renewable energy sources, alternate fuels, and more efficient systems and appliances would yield more net energy savings than could come from ANWR and would have a higher benefit on the nation’s long-term economic leadership and security,” they said.

The moderates knew they had leverage, given the narrow margin of GOP control of the House. It only takes 14 Republican defections to scuttle a bill, assuming every Democrat opposes it.

Still, removing the Arctic oil drilling provision could incite a backlash from lawmakers who strongly favor it, which is a big majority of Republicans. House and Senate GOP leaders are likely to push hard to get the ANWR proposal back into the bill in negotiations on a final document.

Marnie Funk, a spokeswoman for Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., said that Domenici considers the ANWR provision, which the Senate approved, “one of the most critical components” in the budget package. “He is committed to coming back to the Senate from the conference with ANWR intact,” she said.

GOP priority

GOP leaders, led by House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., also agreed to drop a plan to allow states to waive a 24-year ban on drilling along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and open a contested tract off the Florida Gulf coast to oil drilling. Several Florida Republicans opposed the plan.

The overall bill is a Republican priority. The Senate passed a milder version of the bill last week that would curb the automatic growth of federal spending by $35 billion through the end of the decade. The House plan cuts more deeply across a broader range of social programs.

In a concession to lawmakers upset with a spate of cuts to social programs, GOP leaders bowed to pressure from Cuban-American lawmakers from the Miami area to loosen new restrictions on food stamps benefits for legal immigrants.

Immigrants who are disabled, over the age of 60 or applying for citizenship would be exempt from proposed rules extending the eligibility period for food stamps from five to seven years.

Democrat wins signal trouble for Bush

2005-11-09T13:56:00.000-08:00

Democrats on Wednesday celebrated hard-fought wins in governors' races in Virginia and New Jersey that underlined the political troubles of President George W. Bush and Republicans heading into next year's congressional elections.

Democrats retained governor's offices in conservative Virginia and Democratic-leaning New Jersey on Tuesday after sometimes nasty campaigns. They also dealt California's Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger an across-the-board defeat on four ballot initiatives he had championed.

The loss in Virginia was a personal setback for Bush, who put his declining political capital on the line with an election-eve visit on behalf of Republican former attorney general Jerry Kilgore -- only to see him soundly defeated by Democratic Lt. Gov. Tim Kaine.

With Bush's popularity at the lowest level of his presidency, the results helped giddy Democrats claim momentum one year before elections to decide control of both chambers of the U.S. Congress and 36 governorships.

"Yesterday the election was a shot across the bow to George Bush," said New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, head of the Democratic Senate campaign committee, who called the results "a clear repudiation of Bush" and the Republican agenda.

Republicans cautioned against reading too much into the results, saying the elections produced no signs of widespread anti-incumbent sentiment. Redistricting initiatives that could have hurt incumbents in Ohio and California went down to defeat and no governors' offices changed parties.

ELECTORAL SNAPSHOT?

"There is not a big anti-incumbent movement building out there," said Carl Forti, spokesman for the House Republican campaign committee. "This is a snapshot in time that doesn't mean a lot."

Historically, the governors' races in Virginia and New Jersey have been particularly bad indicators of future party performance, said Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman.

Republicans won the Virginia and New Jersey governors' races in 1997 only to lose seats in both chambers of Congress the next year. In 2001, Democrats won the two governors' races and lost seats in Congress in 2002.

"The elections were decided on local and state issues and the candidates and their agendas," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan. "I do not think you can conclude it represents any larger trend whatsoever."

But Democrats were heartened on several fronts. In addition to the hit in prestige suffered by one-time rising Republican star Schwarzenegger a year before he seeks re-election in California, social conservatives lost several key votes.

In Dover, Pennsylvania, where a court battle rages over the teaching of an "intelligent design" alternative to evolution, voters ousted eight of the nine incumbents on the local school board who supported that curriculum.

Voters in Maine approved the state's law protecting homosexuals from discrimination, although Texas backed a ban on gay marriage.

In St. Paul, Minnesota, incumbent Democratic Mayor Randy Kelly was ousted by voters a year after endorsing Bush, with polls showing the endorsement was a big factor in the loss.

REPUBLICAN BASE

Kaine, the Virginia Democrat, won the rapidly growing outer suburban areas of Washington, D.C., where Republicans earned solid majorities in 2004. Kilgore's poor showing could give pause to Republicans considering calling on the president for help in the 2006 elections.

"I think it would have been closer if the president hadn't gone in there," Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean told reporters.

"It really is a disaster for Bush," said Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia, who called the results "the logical consequence of Bush's growing unpopularity."

"Virginia is Southern and conservative and that's the Republican base," Sabato said. "If they start losing their base, it's easy to imagine both houses of Congress going Democratic."

The Virginia result also was a boost to the presidential prospects of Democratic Gov. Mark Warner, who was barred by law from seeking a second term but actively campaigned for his deputy Kaine, who promised voters he would continue Warner's policies.

"May I just say I'm looking forward to standing with you at your next victory party," Kaine told Warner at the Tuesday night victory celebration.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE or THE "I'M TOO STUPID TO UNDERSTAND SO MY KID SHOULDN'T EVEN HAVE TO TRY" THEORY

2005-11-08T14:59:00.000-08:00

Kan. School Board OKs Evolution Language

By JOHN HANNA, Associated Press Writer

Risking the kind of nationwide ridicule it faced six years ago, the Kansas Board of Education approved new public-school science standards Tuesday that cast doubt on the theory of evolution.

The 6-4 vote was a victory for "intelligent design" advocates who helped draft the standards. Intelligent design holds that the universe is so complex that it must have been created by a higher power.

Critics of the new language charged that it was an attempt to inject God and creationism into public schools in violation of the separation of church and state.

All six of those who voted for the new standards were Republicans. Two Republicans and two Democrats voted no.

"This is a sad day. We're becoming a laughingstock of not only the nation, but of the world, and I hate that," said board member Janet Waugh, a Kansas City Democrat.

Supporters of the new standards said they will promote academic freedom. "It gets rid of a lot of dogma that's being taught in the classroom today," said board member John Bacon, an Olathe Republican.

The new standards say high school students must understand major evolutionary concepts. But they also declare that the basic Darwinian theory that all life had a common origin and that natural chemical processes created the building blocks of life have been challenged in recent years by fossil evidence and molecular biology.

In addition, the board rewrote the definition of science, so that it is no longer limited to the search for natural explanations of phenomena.

The new standards will be used to develop student tests measuring how well schools teach science. Decisions about what is taught in classrooms will remain with 300 local school boards, but some educators fear pressure will increase in some communities to teach less about evolution or more about creationism or intelligent design.

The vote marked the third time in six years that the Kansas board has rewritten standards with evolution as the central issue.

In 1999, the board eliminated most references to evolution. Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould said that was akin to teaching "American history without Lincoln." Bill Nye, the "Science Guy" of children's television, called it "harebrained" and "nutty." And a Washington Post columnist imagined God saying to the Kansas board members: "Man, I gave you a brain. Use it, OK?"

Two years later, after voters replaced three members, the board reverted to evolution-friendly standards. Elections in 2002 and 2004 changed the board's composition again, making it more conservative.

The latest vote likely to bring fresh national criticism to Kansas and cause many scientists to see the state as backward.

Many scientists and other critics contend creationists repackaged old ideas in new, scientific-sounding language to get around a U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1987 against teaching the biblical story of creation in public schools.

The Kansas board's action is part of a national debate. In Pennsylvania, a judge is expected to rule soon in a lawsuit against the Dover school board's policy of requiring high school students to learn about intelligent design in biology class. In August, President Bush endorsed teaching intelligent design alongside evolution

___

On the Net:

Kansas science standards: http://www.ksde.org/outcomes/sciencestd.html

U.S. Used Chemical Weapons In Iraq

2005-11-08T14:02:00.000-08:00

White phosphorous used on the civilian populace: This is how the US "took" Fallujah. New napalm formula also used.

In soldier slang they call it Willy Pete. The technical name is white phosphorus. In theory its purpose is to illumine enemy positions in the dark. In practice, it was used as a chemical weapon in the rebel stronghold of Fallujah. And it was used not only against enemy combatants and guerrillas, but again innocent civilians. The Americans are responsible for a massacre using unconventional weapons, the identical charge for which Saddam Hussein stands accused. An investigation by RAI News 24, the all-news Italian satellite television channel, has pulled the veil from one of the most carefully concealed mysteries from the front in the entire US military campaign in Iraq.

A US veteran of the Iraq war told RAI New correspondent Sigfrido Ranucci this: I received the order use caution because we had used white phosphorus on Fallujah. In military slag it is called 'Willy Pete'. Phosphorus burns the human body on contact--it even melts it right down to the bone.

RAI News 24's investigative story, Fallujah, The Concealed Massacre, will be broadcast tomorrow on RAI-3 and will contain not only eye-witness accounts by US military personnel but those from Fallujah residents. A rain of fire descended on the city. People who were exposed to those multicolored substance began to burn. We found people with bizarre wounds-their bodies burned but their clothes intact, relates Mohamad Tareq al-Deraji, a biologist and Fallujah resident.

I gathered accounts of the use of phosphorus and napalm from a few Fallujah refugees whom I met before being kidnapped, says Manifesto reporter Giuliana Sgrena, who was kidnapped in Fallujah last February, in a recorded interview. I wanted to get the story out, but my kidnappers would not permit it.

RAI News 24 will broadcast video and photographs taken in the Iraqi city during and after the November 2004 bombardment which prove that the US military, contrary to statements in a December 9 communiqué from the US Department of State, did not use phosphorus to illuminate enemy positions (which would have been legitimate) but instend dropped white phosphorus indiscriminately and in massive quantities on the city's neighborhoods.

In the investigative story, produced by Maurizio Torrealta, dramatic footage is shown revealing the effects of the bombardment on civilians, women and children, some of whom were surprised in their sleep.

The investigation will also broadcast documentary proof of the use in Iraq of a new napalm formula called MK77. The use of the incendiary substance on civilians is forbidden by a 1980 UN treaty. The use of chemical weapons is forbidden by a treaty which the US signed in 1997

Antiwar Sermon Brings IRS Warning

2005-11-08T13:55:00.000-08:00

All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena risks losing its tax-exempt status because of a former rector's remarks in 2004.By Patricia Ward Biederman and Jason Felch
Times Staff Writers

November 7, 2005

The Internal Revenue Service has warned one of Southern California's largest and most liberal churches that it is at risk of losing its tax-exempt status because of an antiwar sermon two days before the 2004 presidential election.

Rector J. Edwin Bacon of All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena told many congregants during morning services Sunday that a guest sermon by the church's former rector, the Rev. George F. Regas, on Oct. 31, 2004, had prompted a letter from the IRS.

In his sermon, Regas, who from the pulpit opposed both the Vietnam War and 1991's Gulf War, imagined Jesus participating in a political debate with then-candidates George W. Bush and John Kerry. Regas said that "good people of profound faith" could vote for either man, and did not tell parishioners whom to support.

But he criticized the war in Iraq, saying that Jesus would have told Bush, "Mr. President, your doctrine of preemptive war is a failed doctrine. Forcibly changing the regime of an enemy that posed no imminent threat has led to disaster."

On June 9, the church received a letter from the IRS stating that "a reasonable belief exists that you may not be tax-exempt as a church … " The federal tax code prohibits tax-exempt organizations, including churches, from intervening in political campaigns and elections.

The letter went on to say that "our concerns are based on a Nov. 1, 2004, newspaper article in the Los Angeles Times and a sermon presented at the All Saints Church discussed in the article."

The IRS cited The Times story's description of the sermon as a "searing indictment of the Bush administration's policies in Iraq" and noted that the sermon described "tax cuts as inimical to the values of Jesus."

As Bacon spoke, 1984 Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a co-celebrant of Sunday's Requiem Eucharist, looked on.

"We are so careful at our church never to endorse a candidate," Bacon said in a later interview.

"One of the strongest sermons I've ever given was against President Clinton's fraying of the social safety net."

Telephone calls to IRS officials in Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles were not returned.

On a day when churches throughout California took stands on both sides of Proposition 73, which would bar abortions for minors unless parents are notified, some at All Saints feared the politically active church had been singled out.

"I think obviously we were a bit shocked and dismayed," said Bob Long, senior warden for the church's oversight board. "We felt somewhat targeted."

Bacon said the church had retained the services of a Washington law firm with expertise in tax-exempt organizations.

And he told the congregation: "It's important for everyone to understand that the IRS concerns are not supported by the facts."

After the initial inquiry, the church provided the IRS with a copy of all literature given out before the election and copies of its policies, Bacon said.

But the IRS recently informed the church that it was not satisfied by those materials, and would proceed with a formal examination. Soon after that, church officials decided to inform the congregation about the dispute.

In an October letter to the IRS, Marcus Owens, the church's tax attorney and a former head of the IRS tax-exempt section, said, "It seems ludicrous to suggest that a pastor cannot preach about the value of promoting peace simply because the nation happens to be at war during an election season."

Owens said that an IRS audit team had recently offered the church a settlement during a face-to-face meeting.

"They said if there was a confession of wrongdoing, they would not proceed to the exam stage. They would be willing not to revoke tax-exempt status if the church admitted intervening in an election."

The church declined the offer.

Long said Bacon "is fond of saying it's a sin not to vote, but has never told anyone how to vote. We don't do that. We preach to people how to vote their values, the biblical principles."

Regas, who was rector of All Saints from 1967 to 1995, said in an interview that he was surprised by the IRS action "and then I became suspicious, suspicious that they were going after a progressive church person."

Regas helped the current church leadership collect information for the IRS on his sermon and the church's policies on involvement in political campaigns.

Some congregants were upset that a sermon citing Jesus Christ's championing of peace and the poor was the occasion for an IRS probe.

"I'm appalled," said 70-year-old Anne Thompson of Altadena, a professional singer who also makes vestments for the church.

"In a government that leans so heavily on religious values, that they would pull a stunt like this, it makes me heartsick."

Joe Mirando, an engineer from Burbank, questioned whether the 3,500-member church would be under scrutiny if it were not known for its activism and its liberal stands on social issues.

"The question is, is it politically motivated?" he said. "That's the underlying feeling of everyone here. I don't have enough information to make a decision, but there's a suspicion."

Bacon revealed the IRS investigation at both morning services. Until his announcement, the mood of the congregation had been solemn because the services remembered, by name, those associated with the church who had died since last All Saints Day.

Regas' 2004 sermon imagined how Jesus would admonish Bush and Kerry if he debated them. Regas never urged parishioners to vote for one candidate over the other, but he did say that he believes Jesus would oppose the war in Iraq, and that Jesus would be saddened by Bush's positions on the use and testing of nuclear weapons.

In the sermon, Regas said, "President Bush has led us into war with Iraq as a response to terrorism. Yet I believe Jesus would say to Bush and Kerry: 'War is itself the most extreme form of terrorism. President Bush, you have not made dramatically clear what have been the human consequences of the war in Iraq.' "

Later, he had Jesus confront both Kerry and Bush: "I will tell you what I think of your war: The sin at the heart of this war against Iraq is your belief that an American life is of more value than an Iraqi life. That an American child is more precious than an Iraqi baby. God loathes war."

If Jesus debated Bush and Kerry, Regas said, he would say to them, "Why is so little mentioned about the poor?''

In his own voice, Regas said: ''The religious right has drowned out everyone else. Now the faith of Jesus has come to be known as pro-rich, pro-war and pro-American…. I'm not pro-abortion, but pro-choice. There is something vicious and violent about coercing a woman to carry to term an unwanted child."

When you go into the voting booth, Regas told the congregation, "take with you all that you know about Jesus, the peacemaker. Take all that Jesus means to you. Then vote your deepest values."

Owens, the tax attorney, said he was surprised that the IRS is pursuing the case despite explicit statements by Regas that he was not trying to influence the congregation's vote.

"I doubt it's politically motivated," Owens said. ""I think it is more a case of senior management at IRS not paying attention to what the rules are."

According to Owens, six years ago the IRS used to send about 20 such letters to churches a year. That number has increased sharply because of the agency's recent delegation of audit authority to agents on the front lines, he said.

He knew of two other churches, both critical of government policies, that had received similar letters, Owens said.

It's unclear how often the IRS raises questions about the tax-exempt status of churches.

While such action is rare, the IRS has at least once revoked the charitable designation of a church.

Shortly before the 1992 presidential election, a church in Binghamton, N.Y., ran advertisements against Bill Clinton's candidacy, and the tax agency ruled that the congregation could not retain its tax-exempt status because it had intervened in an election.

Bacon said he thought the IRS would eventually drop its case against All Saints.

"It is a social action church, but not a politically partisan church," he said.

2005-11-06T00:58:00.000-08:00

STRICT CONSTRUCTIONISM FROM A NEO-CON PERSPECTIVE

2005-11-06T00:56:00.000-08:00

THE MAN WITH THE PLAN.

2005-11-06T00:49:00.000-08:00

I LOVE MY CAT!

2005-11-06T00:45:00.000-08:00

Mr. Bush, what say you in response to your sliding poll numbers?

2005-10-20T23:20:00.000-07:00

Smile for the Camera, Motherf*****!

2005-09-28T13:56:00.000-07:00

My City Kicks Your City's Ass!

2005-09-28T13:54:00.000-07:00

2005-09-28T13:50:00.000-07:00

My City!!!!

O CANADA....

2005-09-28T13:10:00.000-07:00

O joyous moment... we have arrived. On September 21, 2005, Chris and I finally set foot on our new homeland - wonderful, beautiful, glorious Canada. And what a delight it has been. Toronto is absolutely charming, and with its rich cultural vibrance it is growing on us already.

We crossed into Canada at the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor, across the water from Detroit. As far as Detroit is concerned, by the way, America, you can keep it! And as far as America is concerned, Americans, you can keep it! Yuck! Good luck finding happiness in that stinking, polluted, rotten ghetto of a country. We are Canadians now, proud Canucks, who say eh!, drink Molson, watch hockey, and start every request with a please. We are polite, gentle and, above all, we are happy!

One thing I know for sure, I won't go back to the U.S. for a long, long time. One day, maybe, in twenty years or so, when my wounds have healed and Republicans are but a thing of the past... As for right now, we are too busy enjoying our new home, our new freedom, our new status as first-class citizens, our new happiness and each other.

Good luck to all of you who stayed behind, you will need it. Maybe one day you will see the light and join us up here.

So long, eh!

2005-09-15T07:40:00.000-07:00

ONE DOWN...

2005-09-15T07:37:00.000-07:00

Panem Et Circensem, indeed!

2005-09-14T19:28:00.000-07:00

At Least Us Republicans Know How To Make The Best Out Of Any Situation!

Mass. Lawmakers Reject Gay Marriage Ban

2005-09-14T13:22:00.000-07:00

By STEVE LeBLANC, Associated Press Writer

The Massachusetts Legislature on Wednesday rejected a proposed constitutional amendment that sought to ban gay marriage but legalize civil unions, a year after the state performed the nation's first government-sanctioned same-sex weddings.

It was the second time the Legislature had confronted the measure, which was intended to be put before voters on a statewide ballot in 2006. Under state law, lawmakers were required to approve it in two consecutive sessions before it could move forward.

After less than two hours of debate Wednesday, a joint session of the House and Senate voted 157-39 against the measure.

It was a striking departure from a year earlier, when hundreds of protesters converged on Beacon Hill and sharply divided legislators spent long hours debating the issue. In that session, in March 2004, lawmakers voted 105-92 in favor of the amendment.

This year, the crowds were tamer and some legislators who had initially supported the proposed change to the state constitution said they no longer felt right about denying the right of marriage to thousands of same-sex couples.

"Gay marriage has begun, and life has not changed for the citizens of the commonwealth, with the exception of those who can now marry," said state Sen. Brian Lees, a Republican who had been a co-sponsor of the amendment. "This amendment which was an appropriate measure or compromise a year ago, is no longer, I feel, a compromise today."

The proposal also was opposed by critics of gay marriage, who want to push for a more restrictive measure.

"The union of two women and two men can never consummate a marriage. It's physically impossible," said state Rep. Phil Travis, a Democrat. "The other 49 states are right and we are wrong."

Lawmakers already are preparing for a battle over another proposed amendment that would ban both gay marriage and civil unions. The earliest that initiative could end up on the ballot is 2008.

The state's highest court ruled in November 2003 that same-sex couples had a right under the state constitution to marry. The first weddings took place on May 17, 2004 — two months after lawmakers began the process of trying to change the constitution to reverse the court's ruling.

Since then, more than 6,100 couples have married.

Within a year of the first Massachusetts marriages, 11 states pushed through constitutional amendments banning gay marriage, joining six others that had done so earlier.

The Connecticut Legislature approved civil unions in April, joining Vermont in creating the designation that creates the same legal rights as marriage without calling it such. Earlier this month, California lawmakers passed legislation legalizing same-sex marriage, though Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has promised to veto it.

Although more than 6,100 same-sex couples were married in Massachusetts, the state barred out-of-state couples from getting married here, citing a 1913 law that prohibits couples from marrying in Massachusetts if their union would be illegal in their home states. A lawsuit challenging the legality of that law is pending before the SJC.

2005-09-11T00:04:00.000-07:00

...

2005-09-08T23:30:00.000-07:00

2005-09-02T22:31:00.000-07:00

Troops Bring Food, Medicine to New Orleans
By ROBERT TANNER, AP National Writer
To cries of "Thank you, Jesus!" and catcalls of "What took you so long?," a National Guard convoy packed with food, water and medicine rolled through axle-deep floodwaters Friday into what remained of New Orleans and descended into a maelstrom of fires and floating corpses.
"Lord, I thank you for getting us out of here!" Leschia Radford shrieked amid a throng of tens of thousands of storm victims outside the New Orleans Convention Center.
More than four days after the storm hit, the caravan of at least three-dozen camouflage-green troop vehicles and supply trucks arrived along with dozens of air-conditioned buses to take refugees out of the city. President Bush also took an aerial tour of the ruined city, and answered complaints about a sluggish government response by saying, "We're going to make it right."
In what looked like a scene from a Third World country, some people threw their arms heavenward and others nearly fainted with joy as the trucks and hundreds of soldiers arrived in the punishing midday heat.
But there were also profane jeers from many in the crowd of nearly 20,000 outside the convention center, which a day earlier seemed on the verge of a riot, with desperate people seething with anger over the lack of anything to eat or drink.
"They should have been here days ago," said 46-year-old Michael Levy, whose words were echoed by those around him yelling, "Hell, yeah!"
"We've been sleeping on the ... ground like rats," Levy added. "I say burn this whole ... city down."
The soldiers' arrival-in-force came amid angry complaints from the mayor and others that the federal government had bungled the relief effort and let people die in the streets for lack of food, water or medicine.
"The people of our city are holding on by a thread," Mayor Ray Nagin warned in a statement to CNN. "Time has run out. Can we survive another night? And who can we depend on? Only God knows."
By nightfall Friday, the mayor's tone had changed. Nagin returned from a meeting with President Bush a picture of calm.
"I feel much better. I feel like we've gotten everyone's attention, and hopefully they'll continue to do what they're doing," he said Friday, leaning against a railing in lobby of a hotel that houses his temporary lodgings and command post.
A day earlier, the mayor erupted in tears during a radio interview and told the government to "get off your asses and let's do something."
The president took a land and air tour of hard-hit areas of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, and admitted of the relief effort: "The results are not enough." Congress passed a $10.5 billion disaster aid package, and Bush quickly signed the measure.
What were perhaps the first signs of real hope for recovery came on a day that was ushered in with a thunderous explosion before daybreak and scattered downtown building fires that only confirmed the sense that New Orleans was a city in utter collapse.
The explosion at a warehouse along the Mississippi River about 15 blocks from the French Quarter jostled storm refugees awake and sent a pillar of acrid gray smoke over a city that the mayor has said could be awash with thousands of corpses. Other large fires fire erupted downtown.
With a cigar-chomping general in the convoy's lead vehicle, the trucks rolled through muddy water to reach the convention center. Flatbed trucks carried huge crates, pallets and bags of relief supplies, including Meals Ready to Eat. Soldiers in fatigues sat in the backs of open-top trucks, their rifles pointing skyward.
Gov. Kathleen Blanco said the military presence helped calm a jittery city.
"They brought a sense of order and peace, and it was a beautiful sight to see that we're ramping up," she said.
"We are seeing a show of force. It's putting confidence back in our hearts and in the minds of our people. We're going to make it through."
The governor also said refugees in the convention center should be evacuated Saturday.
Guardsmen carrying rifles also arrived at the Louisiana Superdome, where a vast crowd of bedraggled people � many of them trapped there since the weekend � stretched around the entire perimeter of the building, waiting for their deliverance from the heat, the filth and the gagging stench inside the stadium.
"The cavalry is and will continue to arrive," said Lt. Gen. Steven Blum, commander of the National Guard. He said 7,000 Guardsmen would be in the city by Saturday.
But another commander warned it may yet be days more before evacuations from the convention center begin, because the first priority is bringing in food and water.
"As fast as we can, we'll move them out," said Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore said. "Worse things have happened to America," he added. "We're going to overcome this, too. It's not our fault. The storm came and flooded the city."
Within minutes of the soldiers' arrival at the convention center, they set up six food and water lines. The crowd was for the most part orderly and grateful for the first major supply convoy to reach the arena.
Diane Sylvester, 49, was the first person through the line, and she emerged with two bottles of water and a pork rib meal. "Something is better than nothing," she said as she mopped sweat from her brow. "I feel great to see the military here. I know I'm saved."
Angela Jones, 24, began guzzling her water before she even cleared the line.
"Like steak and potatoes!" she said of the cool water. "I didn't think I was going to make it through that."
A rag shielding her from the searing heat and a cart holding her only belongings, 70-year-old Nellie Washington asked: "What took you so long? I'm extremely happy, but I cannot let it be at that. They did not take the lead to do this. They had to be pushed to do it."
With Houston's Astrodome already full with 15,000 storm refugees, that city opened two more giant centers to accommodate an additional 10,000. Dallas and San Antonio also had agreed to take refugees.
One group of Katrina's victims lurched from one tragedy to another: A bus carrying evacuees from the Superdome overturned on a Louisiana highway, killing at least one person and injuring many others.
At the broken levee along Lake Pontchartrain that swamped nearly 80 percent of New Orleans, helicopters dropped 3,000-pound sandbags into the breach and pilings were being pounded into place to seal off the waters. Engineers also were developing a plan to create new breaches in the levees so that a combination of gravity and pumping and would drain the water out of the city, a process that could take weeks.
Law and order all but broke down in New Orleans over the past few days. Storm refugees reported being raped, shot and robbed, gangs of teenagers hijacked boats meant to rescue them, and frustrated hurricane victims menaced outmanned law officers. Police Chief Eddie Compass admitted even his own officers had taken food and water from stores. Officers were walking off the job by the dozens.
Some of New Orleans' hospitals, facing dwindling supplies of food, water and medicine, resumed evacuations Friday. Rescuers finally made it into Charity Hospital, the city's largest public hospital, where gunfire had earlier thwarted efforts to evacuate more than 250 patients.
Behind, they left a flooded morgue where residents had been dropping off bodies. After it reached its capacity of 12, five more corpses were stacked in a stairwell. Other bodies were elsewhere in the hospital.
Administrator Don Smithburg said his numbed staff was forced to subsist on intravenous sugar solutions.
"Some of them are on the brink of unable to cope any longer," he said.

2005-09-02T22:30:00.000-07:00

Dueling Demonstrators Descend on Texas

2005-08-27T19:20:00.000-07:00

By ANGELA K. BROWN, Associated Press Writer

Several thousand people descended on President Bush's adopted hometown Saturday, most in a cross-country caravan for a pro-Bush rally and others to support an anti-war demonstration led by grieving mother Cindy Sheehan.

Bush supporters gathered for an event marking the culmination of the "You don't speak for me, Cindy!" tour, which started last week in California. The crowd of about 1,500 chanted, "Cindy, go home!"

"You are giving hope and encouragement to the enemies of America," said former California Assemblyman Howard Kaloogian, a Republican who co-founded the group that coordinated the rally.

Meanwhile, busloads of war protesters gathered several miles away at "Camp Casey," named for Sheehan's 24-year-old son who died in Iraq last year. Several hundred people attended a bell-ringing ceremony honored soldiers serving in Iraq.

"I know that the Camp Casey movement is going to end the war in Iraq," Sheehan said, adding that no other families should have to suffer the loss of a relative. She led the crowd in chanting "Not one more!"

A few Bush supporters went to the edge of the anti-war camp on Saturday, trying to remove some of the hundreds of white crosses bearing fallen soldiers' names. They had a list from families who did not want their sons' or daughters' names associated with Sheehan's group.

Sheriff's deputies said they could remove the name tags but not the crosses, so the group removed a few tags and left without incident.

There also were some heated moments at the pro-Bush rally when Bush supporters mistakenly identified two people as war protesters. The two walked in with a sign that read "Say No to War — Unless a Democrat is President."

Many Bush supporters only saw the top of the sign and believed the men were war protesters, so they began shouting and chasing the pair out. One man tore up their signs.

When Will Marean of Minneapolis kept repeating that he was on the Bush side, one Bush supporter shook his hand and apologized.

Sheehan, of Vacaville, Calif. started camping out off the road leading to Bush's ranch on Aug. 6, soon after the president's Texas vacation began. She vowed to remain unless he talked to her about the war with Iraq that claimed the life of her son Casey and more than 1,870 other U.S. soldiers.

Sheehan said that after the protest ends Wednesday, some of the group will spread its message on a tour, with the first stop probably in the Texas district of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, a Republican.

Bush has said he appreciates Sheehan's right to protest and understands her anguish but will not change his schedule to meet with her. His vacation is to end Sept. 2.

Sheehan and other grieving families met with Bush about two months after her son died last year, before she became a vocal opponent of the war.

White House Rejects Televangelist's Assassination Call

2005-08-23T21:34:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration swiftly and unequivocally distanced itself today from a suggestion by religious broadcaster Pat Robertson that American agents assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a frequent target of U.S. foreign policy.

Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, appearing at a Pentagon news conference, said when asked: "Our department doesn't do that kind of thing. It's against the law. He (Robertson) is a private citizen. Private citizens say all kinds of things all the time."

Acknowledging differences with the Caracas government, and saying it should be promoting democracy in the Western Hemisphere, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack called Robertson's remarks "inappropriate."

"This is not the policy of the United States government. We do not share his views," McCormack said in a flat refutation of Robertson's suggestion that the United States "take out" Chavez to stop Venezuela from becoming a "launching pad for communist influence and Muslim extremism."

"This is not the policy of the United States," the spokesman said.

In Caracas, Vice-President Jose Vicente Rangel called Robertson's statement criminal and terrorist. "The ball is in the U.S. court," he said.

Robertson, 75, is a founder of the Christian Coalition of America and a supporter of President Bush, who was elected twice with the solid backing of Christian conservatives.

"I would think that people around the world would take the comments for what they are," McCormack said. "They are the expression of one citizen."

The United States was believed in the past to have been involved in the assassination in 1963 of South Vietnam President Ngo Binh Diem and attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro of Cuba.

Political assassination was put off-limits by former President Gerald R. Ford in an executive order in the mid-1970s.

Rumsfeld said he knew of no consideration ever having been given to assassinating Chavez.

"Not to my knowledge and I would think I would have knowledge," Rumsfeld said.

McCormack said, "Any accusations or any idea that we are planning to take hostile action against Venezuela or the Venezuelan government — any ideas in that regard — are totally without fact and baseless."

The spokesman said the administration had urged Venezuela "to play a positive role in the hemisphere" and to have "an open, transparent and positive relationship that you would have between two sovereign states anywhere around the world."

Grooming Politicians for Christ

2005-08-23T21:32:00.000-07:00

By Stephanie Simon

WASHINGTON — In the blue and gold elegance of the House speaker's private dining room, Jeremy Bouma bowed his head before eight young men and women who hope to one day lead the nation. He prayed that they might find wisdom in the Bible — and govern by its word.

"Holy Father, we thank you for providing us with guidance," said Bouma, who works for an influential televangelist. "Thank you, Lord, for these students. Build them up as your warriors and your ambassadors on Capitol Hill."

"Amen," the students murmured. Then they picked up their pens expectantly.

Nearly every Monday for six months, as many as a dozen congressional aides — many of them aspiring politicians — have gathered over takeout dinners to mine the Bible for ancient wisdom on modern policy debates about tax rates, foreign aid, education, cloning and the Central American Free Trade Agreement.

Through seminars taught by conservative college professors and devout members of Congress, the students learn that serving country means first and always serving Christ.

They learn to view every vote as a religious duty, and to consider compromise a sin.

That puts them at the vanguard of a bold effort by evangelical conservatives to mold a new generation of leaders who will answer not to voters, but to God.

"We help them understand God's purpose for society," said Bouma, who coordinates the program, known as the Statesmanship Institute, for the Rev. D. James Kennedy.

At least 3.5 million Americans tune in to Kennedy's sermons, broadcast from Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Since 1995, the unabashedly political televangelist has also reached out to the Beltway elite with his Center for Christian Statesmanship in Washington.

The center sponsors Bible studies, prayer meetings and free "Politics and Principle" lunches for members of Congress and their staffs, often drawing crowds in the hundreds.

The Statesmanship Institute, founded two years ago, offers more in-depth training for $345.

It's one of half a dozen evangelical leadership programs making steady inroads into Washington.

The most prominent is Patrick Henry College in Purcellville, Va., an hour's drive from the capital. The college was founded five years ago with the goal of turning out "Christian men and women who will lead our nation with timeless biblical values." Nearly every graduate works in government or with a conservative advocacy group.

The Witherspoon Fellowship has had similar success, placing its graduates in the White House, Congress, the State Department and legislatures nationwide. The fellowship brings 42 college students to Washington each year to study theology and politics — and to work at the conservative Family Research Council, which lobbies on such social issues as abortion and same-sex marriage.

Such programs share a commitment to developing leaders who read the Bible as a blueprint.

As Kennedy put it: "If we leave it to man to decide what's good and evil, there will be chaos."

"I'm sure there are people who won't appreciate the fact that this class goes on here in the Capitol," Myal Greene said one recent evening.

He glanced around the stately dining room, reserved for the institute by a member of Congress. (House regulations allow private groups to hold events in the Capitol as long as they are noncommercial, nonpolitical and do not discriminate based on race, creed, color or national origin.)

To Greene, there could hardly be a more appropriate location. He considers his private faith and his public duty inseparable.

Greene, the deputy press secretary for a Republican congressman from Florida, signed up for the Statesmanship Institute in part because he felt his Christian ethics were under constant assault — from lobbyists offering him free steak dinners, from friends urging him to network over beers.

The seminars proved a revelation. In one, Greene learned that ministers ran many of America's earliest schools. He hadn't thought much about education policy before that class. Now he plans to fight for history lessons on the Founding Fathers' faith, science lessons drawn from the Book of Genesis and public school prayer.

"It's one thing to have a [biblically inspired] position on one or two issues," said Greene, 26, who was wearing a wristband printed with the slogan "Jesus Is My Homie." "This class has you look deeper. It gives you an intellectual consistency."

On this night, the topic was bioethics. As the students unwrapped deli sandwiches and brownies, prominent bioethicist Nigel M. deS. Cameron praised them for thinking about the "great questions of the day" through the prism of faith.

Too often, he added — to a few startled looks — "Christians are not noted for using their brains."

In an hourlong lecture, Cameron argued that Christians must move beyond denouncing abortion to see the "moral outrage" in other common practices, such as paying Ivy League students to donate eggs in the quest for a perfect baby.

"Taking human life made in God's image may not be as bad, from God's point of view, as making human life in your own image," said Cameron, a professor at Chicago-Kent College of Law. "Our humanity, warts and all, is what we have been given to steward. It's not to be manipulated."

When Cameron called for questions, one student tentatively raised his hand to ask about embryonic stem cell research — specifically, the use of "spare" embryos, frozen in fertility clinics. "Under current practice, they're going to be discarded" unless they're used for research, he said. "What do we say about that, as Christians?"

Cameron did not hold back.

"They're going to die anyway, right?" he said, indignant. "We don't apply the same principle to death row inmates. They're going to die anyway, so why can't we get some use out of them? We'd be able to do some fascinating experiments.

"The principle of manipulating human life to get experimental benefit," Cameron said, "that is a very, very serious line to cross."

The philosophy animating Cameron's lecture — that federal law should be based on biblical precepts — troubles the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

"This nation was founded specifically to avoid the government making religious and theological decisions," Lynn said. "We are not to turn the Holy Scriptures of any group into public policy."

Kennedy counters that evangelicals have every right to put up candidates who vote what they believe to be God's will — and let voters judge them.

To which Lynn responds, with exasperation: "He says that because he knows in a majority Christian country, the Christian view is going to be expressed by more voters. They have no problem imposing their biblical worldview on every American."

Evangelical conservatives acknowledge that's their goal.

And they now have a systematic plan for achieving it.

Early evangelical leaders were determined social activists, championing causes such as the abolition of slavery and the prohibition of alcohol. But in the 1920s, a theological dispute split the movement. The more liberal ministers pushed for continued engagement in politics — and went on to take leading roles in the civil rights movement and Vietnam War protests.

The conservative faction called for withdrawing from politics and focusing instead on building up the church.

"Getting into politics didn't fix anything. It just diverted them from saving souls," said Jim Guth, a political science professor at Furman University in Greenville, S.C.

With the legalization of abortion in 1973, some fundamentalists began to argue that they had an obligation to try to arrest society's moral decay.

"We realized we [were] having our little holy huddles but not having any influence in Washington," said George Roller, a former public school teacher who now directs Kennedy's Center for Christian Statesmanship.

Ministers such as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson jumped headlong into politics. They succeeded in helping to elect conservatives, starting with President Reagan. "But things haven't changed very much," said Robert D. Stacey, chairman of the government department at Patrick Henry College.

"Our candidates tick off the right policy positions, but it turns out, once they're in office, they're willing to compromise an awful lot — not just to bend but to break," he said. "Now, religious conservatives are saying they want the real thing."

To develop such steadfast politicians, evangelicals are building on decades of work by nonprofit groups such as the Leadership Institute and Young America's Foundation, which train conservatives in grass-roots activism, effective campaigning, even how to launch a right-wing magazine.

The new evangelical initiatives reach out to the same up-and-coming leaders, but put them through courses that sound a lot like a seminary.

"If you're clinging to conservatism just because you like conservatism, you don't put yourself on the line for your beliefs," Stacey said. "Your positions need to come from something deeper and more meaningful."

That message resonates with Jessica Echard, 23, who completed the Statesmanship Institute last year.

Growing up in rural West Virginia, Echard believed passionately in her church's teachings against abortion, but thought little about such issues as economic policy or foreign trade.

The institute gave her a framework for evaluating those topics.

Now the director of the Eagle Forum, a conservative lobbying group founded by Phyllis Schlafly, Echard says Jesus would approve of a call for lower taxes: "God calls on us to be stewards of our [own] money."

She dips into the Bible to explain her opposition to most global treaties, reasoning that Americans have a holy obligation to protect their God-given freedom by avoiding foreign entanglements.

"The Scripture talks of taking every thought and making it captive to Christ, and that's what the Statesmanship Institute helps us do," Echard said.

Like other evangelical training programs, the institute avoids endorsing any party or position. Lecturers this year include a Democratic congressman and a Republican who says the Lord inspired him to buck President Bush by demanding a timetable for withdrawing from Iraq.

Homework includes readings from the Bible — but also from Nietzsche, Engels, Machiavelli and Henry Kissinger.

"We don't tell our students what to think," Roller said.

Yet professors also make clear that "there absolutely is an objective truth," in the words of Paul J. Bonicelli, academic dean at Patrick Henry College.

Hannah Woody, for instance, came away from the institute's seminars confident that abolishing the Department of Education is not just a Republican goal, but also a Christian imperative.

The Bible gives parents — not some distant bureaucracy — the primary responsibility for raising children, said Woody, 26, who hopes to one day run for governor in her home state of North Carolina. (For now, she's working as a legislative assistant for a Republican congressman from Kansas.)

Kennedy offers a similar take on education policy in the gilt-edged, leather-bound Bible his staff delivers to each new member of Congress. In an introductory essay, Kennedy quotes Scripture to explain God's views on taxes, capital punishment, gay rights and a dozen other issues. Most of the policy prescriptions he finds in the Bible dovetail neatly with the Republican agenda.

That focus on legislative victory disturbs some evangelical leaders, who would prefer to work on spreading Christian values throughout society.

"Too many programs start with the idea that if we [enact] right-wing, conservative policies, we'll change America and God will be pleased," said Ryan Messmore, who runs a leadership academy aimed at helping young Christians share their faith through the arts, the media and other professions.

But to Rep. Walter B. Jones, a North Carolina Republican, it's clear the institute is "doing the Lord's work."

The nation needs more politicians who take their cues from God, not Gallup, or "our morality will crumble," he warned. "We won't recognize America."

Roller shares that fear. So he ended the recent class on bioethics with a plea: "Heavenly Father, we pray you will help us to know how we should respond to these issues."

The students answered as one: "Amen."

Roberts Disparaged States' Sex-Bias Fight

2005-08-18T22:00:00.000-07:00

By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent

Supreme Court nominee John Roberts disparaged state efforts to combat discrimination against women in Reagan-era documents made public Thursday — and wondered whether "encouraging homemakers to become lawyers contributes to the common good."

As a young White House lawyer, Roberts also expressed support for a national ID card in 1983, saying it would help counter the "real threat to our social fabric posed by uncontrolled immigration."

In words that may resurface — however humorously — at his confirmation hearing, he criticized a crime-fighting proposal by Sen. Arlen Specter (news, bio, voting record) as "the epitome of the `throw money at the problem" approach.

Specter, R-Pa., then a first-term senator, is now chairman of the Judiciary Committee and will preside at Roberts' hearings, scheduled to begin Sept. 6.

The documents, released simultaneously in Washington and at the Reagan Library in California, show Roberts held a robust view of presidential powers under the Constitution. "I am institutionally disposed against adopting a limited reading of a statute conferring power on the president," he wrote in 1985.

The materials made public completed the disclosure of more than 50,000 pages that cover Roberts' tenure as a lawyer in the White House counsel's office from 1982-86.

Nearly 2,000 more pages from the same period have been withheld on national security or privacy grounds.

Additionally, over the persistent protests of Senate Democrats, the White House has refused to make available any of the records covering Roberts' later tenure as principal deputy solicitor general during the administration of President George H.W. Bush.

Taken as a whole, the material released Thursday reinforced the well-established image of Roberts as a young lawyer whose views on abortion, affirmative action, school prayer and more were in harmony with the conservative president he served. In one memo, he referred favorably to effort to "defund the left."

Democrats say they will question Roberts closely on those subjects and others at his hearings, and they scoured the newly disclosed documents. And despite the apparently long odds against them, civil rights and women's groups are beginning to mount an attempt to defeat his nomination.

Emily's List, which works to elect female candidates, drew attention to a recent speech by Sen. Barbara Boxer (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif., in which Boxer raised the possibility of a filibuster if Roberts doesn't elaborate on his views on abortion and privacy rights at his hearings.

"I have the ultimate step," Boxer said. "I can use all the parliamentary rules I have as a senator to stand up and fight for you."

The documents released Thursday recalled the battles of the Reagan era and underscored the breadth of the issues that crossed the desk of Roberts, then a young lawyer in the White House.

Reviewing material for Reagan, he counseled the president against saying AIDS couldn't be transmitted through casual contact, writing that scientists at that time weren't completely certain. "I would not like to see the President reassuring the public on this point, only to find out he was wrong later," he wrote.

At one point, Roberts drafted a graceful letter to the actor James Stewart for Reagan's signature. "I would normally be delighted to serve on any group chaired by you," it began, then went on to explain why White House lawyers didn't want the president to join a school advisory council.

On a more weighty issue, he struggled to define the line that Reagan and other officials should not cross in encouraging private help to the forces opposing the leftist Sandinista government of Nicaragua.

A memo dated Jan. 21, 1986, said there was no legal problem with Reagan's holding a White House briefing for two groups trying to raise funds. Then, a month later, Roberts warned against getting too close to such groups, toning down letters of commendation drafted for Reagan's signature.

On immigration, he wrote Fred Fielding, White House counsel at the time, in October 1983 that he did not share his opposition to a national ID card. Separately, anticipating a presidential interview with Spanish Today, he wrote. "I think this audience would be pleased that we are trying to grant legal status to their illegal amigos."

Roberts reviewed a report that summarized state efforts to combat discrimination against women. "Many of the reported proposals and efforts are themselves highly objectionable," he wrote to Fielding.

As an example, he said a California program "points to passage of a law requiring the order of layoffs to reflect affirmative action programs and not merely seniority" — a position at odds with administration policy.

He referred to a "staggeringly pernicious law codifying the anti-capitalist notion of `comparable worth,' (as opposed to market value) pay scales." Advocates of comparable worth argued that women were victims of discrimination because they were paid less than men working in other jobs that the state had decided were worth the same.

In a third case, Roberts said a Florida measure "cites a (presumably unconstitutional) proposal to charge women less tuition at state schools, because they have less earning potential."

In a memo dated Sept. 26, 1983, Roberts cited the administration's objections to a proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution.

"Any amendment would ... override the prerogatives of the states and vest the federal judiciary with broader powers in this area, two of the central objections to the ERA," Roberts wrote.

His remark about homemakers and lawyers seemed almost a throwaway line in a one-page memo about the Clairol Rising Star Awards and Scholarship Program. The program was designed to honor women who made changes in their lives after age 30 and had made contributions in their new fields.

An administration official nominated an aide who had been a teacher but then became a lawyer. Roberts signed off on the nomination, then wrote: "Some might question whether encouraging homemakers to become lawyers contributes to the common good, but I suppose that is for the judges to decide."

More than a decade later, Roberts married an attorney.

2005-08-16T23:43:00.000-07:00

Benedict named as defendant in Texas sex abuse lawsuit; lawyers seek immunity
NICOLE WINFREDTue Aug 16, 7:09 PM ET
VATICAN CITY (AP) - Lawyers for Pope Benedict have asked President George W. Bush to declare the pontiff immune from liability in a lawsuit that accuses him of conspiring to cover up the molestation of three boys by a seminarian in Texas, court records show.
The Vatican's embassy in Washington sent a diplomatic memo to the State Department on May 20 requesting the U.S. government grant the Pope immunity because he is a head of state, according to a May 26 motion submitted by the Pope's lawyers in U.S. District Court for the Southern Division of Texas in Houston.
Joseph Ratzinger is named as a defendant in the civil lawsuit. Now Pope Benedict, he's accused of conspiring with the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston to cover up the abuse during the mid-1990s. The suit is seeking unspecified monetary damages.
In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Gerry Keener, said Tuesday that the Pope is already considered a head of state and automatically has diplomatic immunity.
International legal experts said Tuesday it would be "virtually impossible" for the case to succeed. "There's really no question at all, not the vaguest legal doubt, that he's immune from the suit, period," said Paolo Carozza, an international law specialist at the University of Notre Dame Law School.
Nevertheless, lawyers for abuse victims say the case is significant because previous recent attempts to implicate the Vatican, the Pope or other high-ranking church officials in U.S. sex abuse proceedings have failed - primarily because of immunity claims and the difficulty serving top Vatican officials with U.S. lawsuits.
"It has gone further than any suit before, and it should be instructive to the church that if evidence of their continued handling of these matters keeps coming to light and is inconsistent with fair play, that lawyers are going to pursue it," said Stephen Rubino, a New Jersey lawyer who is not involved but has handled hundreds of other cases of church sex abuse.
The three boys, identified in court documents as John Does I, II and III, allege that a Colombian-born seminarian on assignment at St. Francis de Sales church in Houston, Juan Carlos Patino-Arango, molested them during counselling sessions in the church in the mid-1990s.
Patino-Arango has been indicted in a criminal case by a Harris County, Texas grand jury and is a fugitive from justice, the lawsuit says.
Lawyer Daniel Shea, who is representing one of the three boys in the civil suit, said then-Cardinal Ratzinger, who headed the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith before becoming Pope, was involved in a conspiracy to hide Patino-Arango's crimes and to help him escape prosecution.
In the lawsuit, Shea cited a May 18, 2001 letter from Ratzinger, written in Latin to bishops around the world, explaining that "grave" crimes such as the sexual abuse of minors would be handled by his congregation. The proceedings of special church tribunals handling the cases were subject to "pontifical secret," Ratzinger's letter says.
The Vatican and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops have insisted that the secret church procedures in the sex abuse case were not designed to cover up abuse nor to prevent victims from reporting crimes to law enforcement authorities. The document deals with church law - not keeping secrets from secular authorities, they say.
"To insinuate that this letter from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is part of a Vatican conspiracy is a total and complete misunderstanding of the purpose of the letter," Archbishop Joseph Fiorenza said in a statement. He heads the Galveston-Houston Archdiocese and is also named as a defendant in the suit.

2005-08-15T11:17:00.000-07:00

Israeli Forces Encircle Outposts Defying Order to Leave Gaza
By STEVEN ERLANGER
GAN OR, Gaza, Aug. 15 - Thousands of Israeli policemen and soldiers moved to surround the Israeli settlements of Gaza today, warning residents that they have until early Wednesday to leave before they are pulled out of their homes.
The officers, some of them wearing new blue caps emblazoned not with their service insignia but with the Israeli flag, presented a show of force but avoided confrontation with the settlers and their supporters, many of them young and emotional.
But there were some fierce arguments between settlers and those who have moved in from the West Bank in the last few weeks. There were angry clashes as some settlers demanded that moving vans and the army be allowed to enter this settlement and Neve Dekalim to help them pack up and move, while the younger West Bankers attempted to block the roads and sometimes slash the tires of official vehicles with knifes or puncture them with "ninjas," nail-studded blocks of wood.
The gates to most of the settlements were closed to officials, and the soldiers and police said they would not attempt to open them now, but they negotiated throughout the day with community leaders in places like this one and Morag to allow in some officers to deliver the required notices and moving vans to ease the evacuation.
In some cases, the officers simply handed the notices to the head of the settlement to distribute. In the case of some particularly militant settlements, like Kfar Darom, which made clear that the police and army would not be welome, officers did not even approach.
As the searing heat of Gaza bore down, there were tearful scenes of remonstration, prayer and conversation between the residents, many of them in sweat-soaked orange T-shirts, and the troops, some of them quietly admitting that they would like to be elsewhere, fighting crime and terrorism instead of confronting their fellow citizens.
Israel's withdrawal from Gaza and four smaller settlements in the West Bank marks the first time that Israel will pull out of areas that were conquered in the 1967 war and are considered by the Palestinians to be a part of a future state. But many of the settlers here regard Gaza as part of the biblical land of Israel granted to the Jews by God, and the pullout as a betrayal of its finest citizens by the state.
Moshe Weiss, Bulgarian-born, shouted at a commander of the police special forces: "Nazis in black are standing facing me. You look just like the photos of Nazis facing Jews! They killed my whole family in black suits like this!"
The commander, Meir ben Yishai, pulled Mr. Weiss aside and tried to calm him, saying, "Moshe, Moshe, this is the uniform of the state of Israel's special forces."
Commander Yishai said moments later: "It's what we're expecting, and we won't break our work. That's the way he feels, it's his choice to see it that way. And he's shouting at people who feel and who are hurt with him, but who have a job to do."
Stopped on a roadside, Maj. Gen. Dan Harel, the southern commander of the army, said he intended to start slowly. "We have all the time in the world today, so we'll go and try to talk to them, and offer our help to leave," he said. "We have two days, and then we are in a very different mode."
This part of the operation has been named "a hand to brothers," marking a period for residents and demonstrators to reflect after their presence here became illegal at midnight Sunday, and for the army and police to provide help if asked.
But on Wednesday morning, army and police officials say, special teams of army and police will move in large numbers into settlements, their order and number to be determined day-to-day, and escort or force any remaining civilians to leave.
Armored vehicles and bulldozers will quickly push over fencing around settlements, avoiding the gates where the demonstrators sat today, and seal each settlement. Some smaller settlements, even if they do more than passively resist, will be overwhelmed with superior, though unarmed forces.
"There is no enemy here," said a senior police official near Morag. "We will do everything with sensitivity, but we will do it. It's impossible for the state to fail."
The army hopes publicly to finish the process by Sept. 4; some believe it will be concluded more quickly, especially if Palestinians militants do not disrupt the process with mortar or rocket attacks.
On Monday, the Israeli cabinet took its last vote authorizing the pullout from all 21 Gaza settlements. The discussion was brief, and the vote was 16 to 4, said the housing minister, Isaac Herzog.
"It's a military operation now," Mr. Herzog said in a telephone interview. "On Tuesday night, they can decide for themselves which settlements to evacuate."
Mr. Herzog said that temporary housing would be available to everyone, and that at least 50 percent of the residents will have left on their own before Wednesday. "But it's absolutely clear to me that there will be very difficult moments," he said, especially with these first two generations of settlement youths, born after 1967, who have been brought up in a different culture of patriarchal, communal and religious leadership.
"The big question is whether this Gaza action will alienate this generation or not," Mr. Herzog said. "I personally believe they will overcome it. But the question is also whether their rabbis will pump into their heads that the state betrayed them, or whether there will be more responsible."
As painful as this Gaza pullout has already been, the 9,000 settlers here are dwarfed by the 220,000 living in the West Bank beyond the 1967 boundaries, let alone another 200,000 living in east Jerusalem, annexed by Israeli but considered illegal settlers by much of the world. More than 80,000 settlers live in the West Bank beyond the route of the Israeli separation barrier - about nine times the number in Gaza.
"It's a painful and difficult day, but it's a historic day," Israel's defense minister, Shaul Mofaz, told Army radio.
In Neve Dekalim, Sima Gal stood with orange-shirted children behind the closed gates of the settlement as police cleared away a makeshift road block and stood in a loose formation in front. She was evacuated from Yamit in the Sinai in 1982, the last Israeli settlements vacated, she said, "and I still see in my eyes the army breaking down our doors." She had come here from Jerusalem to show her solidarity with these settlers and her disgust with the government. "My father was born in Leipzig and he's 82 today," she said. "He says it reminds him of very dark days and very dark laws. It's not nice to compare, but he says he can't help himself," Mrs. Gal said.
Here in Gan Or, residents nearly came to blows with their young supporters as Dani Dimri, his eyes wild, shouted at them to let the army enter to help him pack his house. Finally, the youngsters relented.
Marc Zell said: "Everyone is on edge. We have a lot of respect and good feelings for the army and to some extent for the police. But we don't know what they're planning. So when people ostensibly wanted the army to come in and allegedly help them to move, we worried it could be a trick."
But in principle, said Mr. Zell, every family must have the right to make its own choice. "The families here can't be coerced," he said. "They've been through hell, with the terrorism and the way the government has treated them."
Yuli Edelstein, a Likud legislator who moved to nearby Gadid to support the Gaza settlers, said: "There's a lot of tension, and some families just want it to be over," he said. "Every family has to have its own answer."
In Neve Dekalim, too, there were angry scenes before long-time residents convinced short-time supporters to allow moving vans into the settlement.
"You've been here only a month and we've been here 20 years!" one bearded man shouted, as people pointed fingers and faces grew even redder in the heat.
By the gate, teenaged women in orange were singing about their love for the army and weeping. Some men, in prayer shawls and tefillin, or phyllacteries, the leather-bound boxes with straps used in prayer, swayed in the heat, chanting, moving from side-to-side in their sandals. One man sat against a wall, his tefillin at an angle to his forehead. Next to him, another man sat, his mirrored sunglasses perched on his forehead at the same angle, a portrait of two Israels, here united, most likely in vain, against the decision of the country's democracy.
Steven Erlanger contributed reporting from Kfar Darom, Gaza Strip, and Dina Kraft from Neve Dekalim, Gaza Strip.

2005-08-15T11:12:00.000-07:00

2005-08-11T23:08:00.000-07:00

2005-08-11T23:07:00.000-07:00

Grieving Mother's War Protest Draws Notice

2005-08-10T17:55:00.000-07:00

By ANGELA K. BROWN, Associated Press Writer

The mother of a fallen U.S. soldier who started a quiet roadside peace vigil near President Bush's ranch last weekend is drawing supporters from across the nation.

Dozens of people have joined her and others have sent flowers and food. One activist called her "the Rosa Parks of the anti-war movement."

Cindy Sheehan, 48, of Vacaville, Calif., says she was surprised at the response.

"Before my son was killed, I used to think that one person could not make a difference," she said Wednesday under a tent where she has slept since Saturday. "But one person that is surrounded and supported by millions of people can be heard."

Although a few residents have complained about the protesters, no one has been arrested because the group has been on the public right-of-way, said Capt. Kenneth Vanek of the McLennan County Sheriff's Office.

On Saturday, two high-level Bush administration officials, the national security adviser and deputy White House chief of staff, talked to Sheehan for about 20 minutes.

Sheehan called the brief meeting "pointless" and still wants to talk to the president.

Her 24-year-old son, Casey, was killed in Sadr City, Iraq, in April 2004 just five days after he arrived. Two months later, Sheehan was among grieving military family members who met with Bush at Fort Lewis, near Seattle, Wash.

Since then, she said, various government and independent commission reports have disputed the Bush administration's claims that Saddam Hussein had mass-killing chemical and biological weapons — a main justification for the March 2003 invasion.

On Wednesday, a coalition of anti-war groups in Washington called on Bush to speak with Sheehan, who they say has helped to unify the peace movement.

"Cindy Sheehan has become the Rosa Parks of the anti-war movement," said Rev. Lennox Yearwood, leader of the Hip Hop Caucus, an activist group. "She's tired, fed up and she's not going to take it anymore, and so now we stand with her."

Some veterans and relatives of those killed have called Sheehan's vigil a distraction and continue to support the U.S. military action in Iraq.

At her makeshift camp in muddy ditches off the two-lane, winding road leading to Bush's ranch, Sheehan has spent the past several days talking to reporters, hugging fellow protesters and taking brief breaks to eat sandwiches and fruit brought by supporters. Her vigil has also become a hot topic on the Internet and blogs.

Although she doesn't expect Bush to meet with her in Crawford, she says if he did she would ask him whether he has encouraged his twin daughters to enlist.

"I want him to quit using my son's death to justify more killing," she said. "The only way he can honor my son's death is to bring the troops home."

Poll: Fewer Americans Think Bush Is Honest

2005-08-05T18:14:00.000-07:00

By WILL LESTER, Associated Press Writer

Less than half of Americans now say they think President Bush is honest, according to an AP-Ipsos poll taken at a time of increasing concerns about Iraq, a potential problem for a president who won re-election declaring that "people know where I stand."

The percentage of people who say they consider Bush honest has dropped slightly from the start of the year. In January, 53 percent described him that way in the AP-Ipsos poll, while 45 percent said they did not believe he was honest. Now, people are just about evenly split — 48 percent saying he's honest and 50 percent saying he's not.

"Whether you agree or disagree with him, the president has taken a pounding on perceptions of his honesty," said Karlyn Bowman, a public opinion analyst at the American Enterprise Institute. She cited as one example the administration's claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, but none have been found.

A solid majority still see Bush as likable and a strong leader, but a growing number view the president's confidence as arrogance, up from 49 percent in January to 56 percent now.

"He pushes and pushes and pushes until he gets his own way," said Diane Maley, a politically independent registered nurse from East Greenbush, N.Y. "I don't think he has the best interest of the country in mind."

For some people, especially Republicans, Bush is personally appealing.

"He's a man of character," said Cheryl Cheyney, a school bus driver from Cumming, Ga., and a Republican. "He's very honest in the things he says. I agree with his belief system, the way he believes in God and is not afraid to show it. That's very important to me."

Bush's overall job approval was at 42 percent, with 55 percent disapproving. That's about where his approval rating has been all summer but slightly lower than it was when the year began. His approval on handling Iraq was at 38 percent.

Some who don't approve of Bush's job performance admire him personally.

"I think he tries to be likable and I think he's somewhat honest," said Cindy Bashura, a Democratic-leaning resident of Seymour, Conn. "He tries to do what he thinks is right, but sometimes I think he takes the wrong advice from people in his circle."

Continuing worries about Iraq may do more than drag down Bush's standing with the public. They could become a major issue in the 2006 midterm congressional races, and if the war is still going in 2008, they could be a factor in the presidential race.

The war in Iraq also could have an impact on more than elections.

"Bush's standing with the public is a factor in his ongoing effort to influence legislation and to sustain support for his Iraq policy," said Bruce Buchanan, a professor of political science at the University of Texas. "The honesty dip is partly caused by a loss of faith in his credibility on Iraq."

The poll of 1,000 adults was conducted Aug. 1-3 by Ipsos, an international polling firm. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

___

Ipsos: http://www.ap-ipsosresults.com

In The Interest Of Fairness And Balance...

2005-08-04T15:22:00.000-07:00

Donated Help to Gay Rights Case

By Richard A. Serrano Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. worked behind the scenes for gay rights activists, and his legal expertise helped them persuade the Supreme Court to issue a landmark 1996 ruling protecting people from discrimination because of their sexual orientation.

Then a lawyer specializing in appellate work, the conservative Roberts helped represent the gay rights activists as part of his law firm's pro bono work. He did not write the legal briefs or argue the case before the high court, but he was instrumental in reviewing filings and preparing oral arguments, according to several lawyers intimately involved in the case.

Gay rights activists at the time described the court's 6-3 ruling as the movement's most important legal victory. The dissenting justices were those to whom Roberts is frequently likened for their conservative ideology: Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

Roberts' work on behalf of gay rights activists, whose cause is anathema to many conservatives, appears to illustrate his allegiance to the credo of the legal profession: to zealously represent the interests of the client, whoever it might be.

There is no other record of Roberts being involved in gay rights cases that would suggest his position on such issues. He has stressed, however, that a client's views are not necessarily shared by the lawyer who argues on his or her behalf.

The lawyer who asked for Roberts' help on the case, Walter A. Smith Jr., then head of the pro bono department at Hogan & Hartson, said Roberts didn't hesitate. "He said, 'Let's do it.' And it's illustrative of his open-mindedness, his fair-mindedness. He did a brilliant job."

Roberts did not mention his work on the case in his 67-page response to a Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire, released Tuesday. The committee asked for "specific instances" in which he had performed pro bono work, how he had fulfilled those responsibilities, and the amount of time he had devoted to them.

Smith said the omission was probably just an oversight because Roberts was not the chief litigator in Romer vs. Evans, which struck down a voter-approved 1992 Colorado initiative that would have allowed employers and landlords to exclude gays from jobs and housing.

"John probably didn't recall [the case] because he didn't play as large a role in it as he did in others," Smith said Wednesday. "I'm sure John has a record somewhere of every case he ever argued, and Romer he did not argue. So he probably would have remembered it less."

Jean Dubofsky, lead lawyer for the gay rights activists and a former Colorado Supreme Court justice, said that when she came to Washington to prepare for the U.S. Supreme Court presentation, she immediately was referred to Roberts.

"Everybody said Roberts was one of the people I should talk to," Dubofsky said. "He has a better idea on how to make an effective argument to a court that is pretty conservative and hasn't been very receptive to gay rights."

She said he gave her advice in two areas that were "absolutely crucial."

"He said you have to be able to count and know where your votes are coming from. And the other was that you absolutely have to be on top of why and where and how the state court had ruled in this case," Dubofsky said.

She said Roberts served on a moot court panel as she prepared for oral arguments, with Roberts taking the role of a Scalia-like justice to pepper her with tough questions.

When Dubofsky appeared before the justices, Scalia did indeed demand specific legal citations from the lower-court ruling. "I had it right there at my fingertips," she said.

"John Roberts … was just terrifically helpful in meeting with me and spending some time on the issue," she said. "He seemed to be very fair-minded and very astute."

Dubofsky said Roberts helped her form the argument that the initiative violated the "equal protections" clause of the Constitution.

The case was argued before the Supreme Court in October 1995, and the ruling was handed down the following May. Suzanne B. Goldberg, a staff lawyer for New York-based Lambda, a legal services group for gays and lesbians, called it the "single most important positive ruling in the history of the gay rights movement."

In the blistering dissent, Scalia, joined by Rehnquist and Thomas, said "Coloradans are entitled to be hostile toward homosexual conduct." Scalia added that the majority opinion had "no foundation in American constitutional law, and barely pretends to."

The case was one of several Roberts worked on pro bono at Hogan & Hartson, a prominent Washington law firm that expects partners to volunteer time in community service.

In his answers to the Senate questionnaire, Roberts talked generally about his volunteer work.

"My pro bono legal activities were not restricted to providing services for the disadvantaged," he wrote, explaining that he often donated behind-the-scenes time and expertise on projects.

He said he participated in a program sponsored by the National Assn. of Attorneys General to "help prepare representatives of state and local governments to argue before the Supreme Court." He said that several times a year he reviewed briefs in "selected cases" and met with state or local attorneys in moot court before their Supreme Court appearances.

He also said he had worked with high school and college students and teachers "studying the legal system and the Supreme Court." And he said he had "actively participated on a pro bono basis in efforts to achieve legal reform."

Roberts personally handled two pro bono cases.

In the first, Roberts was asked by Rehnquist — for whom he previously had been a clerk — to represent a man who had been convicted of Medicaid fraud, sentenced to prison and fined $5,000. The federal government also had filed a civil suit in the case and won a $130,000 judgment.

In U.S. vs. Halper, Roberts' first appearance before the high court, he argued that adding a civil penalty to a criminal one was double jeopardy and therefore unconstitutional.

In 1989, the court agreed unanimously. Eight years later the court reversed itself, again 9 to 0.

The second case was a Washington, D.C., welfare case that involved about 1,000 residents who lost benefits when the city cut programs amid a budget crisis.

Roberts, representing homeless people and others who could not work because of illness or injuries, argued before an appellate court that the city had erred in not first formally notifying recipients about the change in benefits.

The court ruled against him in December 1995 in one of Roberts' few appellate losses.

According to others who worked on the case, Roberts asked the court to reconsider, then appealed to the Supreme Court. The high court declined to hear the case.

"Mr. Roberts was essentially the principal counsel," recalled R. Scott McNeilly, a staff lawyer with the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless. "He was very involved."

When the welfare recipients lost in the courts, McNeilly said, most "were put out on the streets. They lost the money they were using to take the bus to see a social worker or money they were paying to a friend to sleep on his couch."

In the questionnaire, Roberts described them as "the neediest people" in Washington.

Iraq Veteran Seeks House Seat From Ohio

2005-08-02T06:38:00.000-07:00

By DAN SEWELL, Associated Press Writer

Republican Jean Schmidt was first in line when the polls opened Tuesday as voters in a southwestern Ohio congressional seat chose between her and Democrat Paul Hackett, an Iraq veteran who is critical of the war.

Tuesday's special election in the heavily GOP district was for the seat of former Rep. Rob Portman (news, bio, voting record), who stepped down this year to become U.S. trade representative.

Schmidt, a former state representative, voted shortly after 6:30 a.m. at a school in her Clermont County precinct.

"We're going to be in first place at 7:30 this evening," she predicted. Schmidt was joined at the poll by a dozen supporters.

Hackett planned to vote later in the morning in the Cincinnati suburb of Indian Hill.

Both candidates rang doorbells and shook hands with potential voters Monday in the final stages of a campaign that has drawn national attention largely because of Hackett's military service and his criticism of President Bush.

Hackett, who would be the first Iraq war combat veteran in Congress if elected, campaigned with fellow vets Monday. He also had weekend campaign help from two other veterans, former Sens. John Glenn of Ohio and Max Cleland of Georgia.

"This is what America is all about," Hackett said. "This is democracy in action."

Both campaigns had TV and radio commercials sweeping the district, while campaign workers focused on get-out-the-vote efforts. Hackett has been the strongest Democratic candidate in decades in Ohio's 2nd District, where Portman regularly received more than 70 percent of the vote during his 12 years in Congress.

Schmidt, 53, says that she has consistently supported Bush on the war and that voters in the conservative district do not like Hackett's criticism. She served as a state representative from 2001 until 2004, when she narrowly lost a GOP primary bid for state Senate. She currently serves as president of Greater Cincinnati Right to Life.

Hackett, a 43-year-old Marine Corps Reserve major who volunteered to serve a seven-month tour in Iraq, opposed the invasion and has said U.S. troops need better protection.

He was particularly critical of President Bush for his July 2003 "bring 'em on" comment about Iraqi insurgents, telling USA Today such talk was "incredibly stupid" and "cheered on the enemy."

http://www.hackettforcongress.com

Bush Appoints Bolton, Bypassing Senate

2005-08-01T11:18:00.000-07:00

By TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent

President Bush sidestepped the Senate and installed embattled nominee John Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations on Monday, ending a five-month impasse with Democrats who accused Bolton of abusing subordinates and twisting intelligence to fit his conservative ideology.

"This post is too important to leave vacant any longer, especially during a war and a vital debate about UN reform," Bush said. He said Bolton had his complete confidence.

Bush put Bolton on the job in a recess appointment — an avenue available to the president when the Congress is in recess. Under the Constitution, a recess appointment during the lawmakers' August break would last until a newly elected Congress takes office in January 2007.

Bolton was to be sworn in later Monday and go immediately to U.N. headquarters in New York to begin work, said White House spokesman Scott McClellan.

Bolton joined Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at the announcement ceremony and said he was honored and humbled by the president's appointment. "It will be a distinct privilege to be an advocate for America's values and interests at the U.N. and, in the words of the U.N. charter, to help maintain international peace and security," he said.

Bush said that Bolton's nomination had been supported by a majority of the Senate but that "because of partisan delaying tactics by a handful of senators, John was unfairly denied the up-or-down vote that he deserves."

Bush had refused to give up on Bolton even though the Senate had voted twice to sustain a filibuster against his nominee. Democrats and some Republicans had raised questions about Bolton's fitness for the job, particularly in view of his harsh criticism of the United Nations.

U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan welcomed Bolton's appointment and steered clear of the controversy over whether Bolton would be weakened by the recess appointment. "We look forward to working with him as I do with the other 190 ambassadors, and we will welcome him at a time when we are in the midst of major reform," Annan said. He said the manner of Bolton's appointment was Bush's prerogative.

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said Bolton was a "seriously flawed and weakened candidate." He charged that Bush "chose to stonewall the Senate" by using a recess appointment.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said, "The president did the right thing by sending Mr. Bolton to the U. N. He is a smart, principled and straightforward candidate, and will represent the president and America well on the world stage."

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (news, bio, voting record), D-Mass., sharply criticized the move.

"It's a devious maneuver that evades the constitutional requirement of Senate consent and only further darkens the cloud over Mr. Bolton's credibility at the U.N," Kennedy said."

Sen. Christopher Dodd (news, bio, voting record) of Connecticut, a senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said, "The president has done a real disservice to our nation by appointing an individual who lacks to the credibility to further U.S. interests at the United Nations."

Republican Sen. George Voinovich (news, bio, voting record) of Ohio also said he was disappointed.

"I am truly concerned that a recess appointment will only add to John Bolton's baggage and his lack of credibility with the United Nations," Voinovich said.

Bolton's appointment ends a five-month impasse between the administration and Senate Democrats.

The battle grabbed headlines last spring amid accusations that Bolton abused subordinates and twisted intelligence to shape his conservative ideology, and as White House and GOP leadership efforts to ram the nomination through the Senate fell short.

In recent weeks, it faded into the background as the Senate prepared to begin a nomination battle over John Roberts, the federal appeals judge that Bush chose to replace the retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor at the Supreme Court.

At Bolton's April confirmation hearing, Democrats raised additional questions about his demeanor and attitude toward lower-level government officials. Those questions came to dominate Bolton's confirmation battle, growing into numerous allegations that he had abused underlings or tried to browbeat intelligence analysts whose views differed from his own.

Despite lengthy investigations, it was never clear that Bolton did anything improper. Witnesses told the committee that Bolton lost his temper, tried to engineer the ouster of at least two intelligence analysts and otherwise threw his weight around. But Democrats were never able to establish that his actions crossed the line to out-and-out harassment or improper intimidation.

Separately, Democrats and the White House deadlocked over Bolton's acknowledged request for names of U.S officials whose communications were secretly picked up by the National Security Agency. Democrats said the material might show that Bolton conducted a witch hunt for analysts or others who disagreed with him.

The top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee received a limited briefing on the contents of the messages Bolton saw, but were not told the names.

Democrats said that was not good enough, but later offered a compromise. After much back and forth, with the White House claiming Democrats had moved the goal posts, no other senator saw any of the material.

Last week, the administration telegraphed Bush's intention to put Bolton on the job.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said the vacancy needed to be filled before the U.N. General Assembly's annual meeting in mid-September. Former Sen. John Danforth left the post in January.

In a letter released Friday, 35 Democratic senators and one independent, Sen. Jim Jeffords of Vermont, urged Bush not to give Bolton a recess appointment.

"There's just too much unanswered about Bolton, and I think the president would make a truly serious mistake if he makes a recess appointment," Sen. Joseph Biden (news, bio, voting record) of Delaware, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, said in an interview.

Reaction to Bolton's Appointment to U.N.

By The Associated Press

Reaction to President Bush's recess appointment of John Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations:

___

"At a time when we need to reassert our diplomatic power in the world, President Bush has decided to send a seriously flawed and weakened candidate to the United Nations. It's an unnecessary result, and the latest abuse of power by the Bush White House. ... Bolton arrives at the United Nations with a cloud hanging over his head." — Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

___

"The president did the right thing by sending Mr. Bolton to the U.N. He is a smart, principled and straightforward candidate, and will represent the president and America well on the world stage." — Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.

___

"We look forward to working with him as I do with the other 190 ambassadors and we will welcome him at a time when we are in the midst of major reform. I think it is the president's prerogative, and the president has decided to appoint him through this process." — U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan

___

"The president has taken an action that is fully within his authority, is in concert with a clear majority of the Senate, and is in the interest of achieving constructive reform of the United Nations." — Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Dick Lugar, R-Ind.

___

"The abuse of power and the cloak of secrecy from the White House continues. ... It's a devious maneuver that evades the constitutional requirement of Senate consent and only further darkens the cloud over Mr. Bolton's credibility at the U.N." — Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass.

___

"I am truly concerned that a recess appointment will only add to John Bolton's baggage and his lack of credibility with the United Nations. That said, the president has made this decision, and I will do everything in my power to support Mr. Bolton as he takes this new position." — Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio

___

"I accept and understand why the president had to do this. I think it's unfortunate that he had to use this option because John Bolton was denied the fairness of an up-or-down vote. I think John Bolton is well qualified. He is principled. And he will advocate for the U.S. taxpayers." — Sen. George Allen, R-Va.

___

"Making this recess appointment is certainly the president's right, but it is not right for America. Appointing John Bolton to the United Nations sends a terrible message to our intelligence professionals. It is the wrong signal for our intelligence reform efforts. ... I believe it was wrong to appoint him to that position over the Senate's objection." — Sen. Barbara Mikulski,D-Md.

___

"My doubts about his ability to protect and advance U.S. national security interests at the U.N. are simply too strong to support his nomination. John Bolton is the wrong person for the job and the decision to appoint him today will not serve American foreign policy well at all. ... His history of inflammatory statements about the U.N. will also make it difficult for him to effectively advance U.S. security interests in New York and bring about necessary reforms to that institution." — Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.

___

"The president has the right to make this recess appointment, but it's the wrong decision. It only diminishes John Bolton's validity and leverage to secure America's goals at the U.N. John Bolton has been rejected twice by the Senate to serve as our Ambassador to the United Nations. This is not the way to fill our most important diplomatic jobs." — Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.

___

"It's sad that even while the president preaches democracy around the world, he bends the rules and circumvents the will of Congress in appointing our representative to the United Nations." — Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (news, bio, voting record), D-N.J.

2005-07-31T00:30:00.000-07:00

2005-07-20T16:16:00.000-07:00

"Damage Control"

2005-07-20T15:02:00.000-07:00

Clearly, it's a mandate! (No, Mr. Gannon, a mandate, not a man-date!)

http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=250

Supreme Court Pick Shifts Attention From Rove, Agent Disclosure

2005-07-20T14:30:00.000-07:00

Kristin Jensen

President George W. Bush's nomination of a new Supreme Court justice may give White House adviser Karl Rove a temporary reprieve from public scrutiny of his role in the disclosure of an intelligence operative's identity.

About six in 10 Americans who are paying close attention to reports about who leaked information that helped unmask a covert intelligence agent say Rove should resign, according to a poll conducted last week by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.

The Supreme Court announcement may freeze things, ``and that's probably a good thing for the White House,'' said Carroll Doherty, an editor at the Washington-based Pew Center.

Bush accelerated his search for a Supreme Court nominee in part because of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation into the leak of a CIA agent's name, according to Republicans familiar with administration strategy.

Bush originally had planned to announce a replacement for retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on July 26 or 27, just before his planned July 28 departure for a month-long vacation at his Crawford, Texas, ranch, said two administration officials, who spoke on the condition they not be named.

The officials said those plans changed because Rove has become a focus of Fitzgerald's interest and of news accounts about the matter.

Presidential counselor Dan Bartlett said the only reason Bush announced his selection of appeals court Judge John G. Roberts Jr. last night was to allow the nominee to pay courtesy calls on members of the Senate before Congress begins its scheduled summer recess on July 29.

Questions

Bush has been questioned about Rove and his role in the matter during appearances with foreign leaders. His spokesman has deflected daily queries from reporters since Time magazine turned over notes and e-mails to a special prosecutor that revealed Rove was one of the sources for a 2003 Time.com report identifying Central Intelligence Agency operative Valerie Plame, who is married to a critic of Bush's Iraq policy.

Time reporter Matthew Cooper wrote in this week's issue of the magazine that Rove didn't give him Plame's name. Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, said last week his client has done ``nothing to expose him to any legal liability.''

The nomination debate will distract public attention while Fitzgerald finishes his investigation, said Ed Rollins, a Republican political consultant who served as an adviser to President Ronald Reagan.

`Battle Through'

``Rove is not going out the door unless the U.S. attorney comes forward and says, `He did it and I am going to indict him,''' Rollins said. ``Anything less than that and they are going to just battle through it.''

Bush this week said any member of his administration who committed a crime would be fired. Previously, he suggested that revealing the identity of a CIA agent would be enough to warrant termination. Rove, 54, is a longtime Bush adviser and the man the president called ``the architect'' of his election victories.

Bush and spokesman Scott McClellan have refused to answer questions about Rove's status, citing the investigation. Some Democrats, including Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, who ran against Bush in 2004, have called on the president to fire Rove. Others say he should lose his security clearance.

Thirty-nine percent of the public, including those who aren't following the case closely, say Rove should step down, the Pew poll found. At this point, Americans' interest in the Rove story is comparable to past Washington scandals, such as the ethics questions that dogged former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich, according to Doherty.

Following the Story

Forty-eight percent said they are paying either ``very close'' or ``fairly close'' attention to the story, the poll found. By comparison, only 29 percent of Americans said they were paying close attention to reports earlier this year that current House Majority Leader Tom DeLay had violated ethics rules by accepting travel from a lobbyist.

``The public isn't fully engaged on this yet,'' Doherty said. ``Eventually, the issue will play out. The grand jury will finish its business.'' Pew interviewed 1,502 adults July 13-17 for the poll.

Purposely and knowingly unmasking a covert operative is a crime under a 1982 federal law. Eleven former intelligence officers wrote a letter to congressional leaders on July 18 saying the ``tone and substance'' of the debate over the leak is harmful to U.S. undercover operatives.

`Unambiguous Message'

``We believe it is appropriate for the president to move proactively to dismiss from office or administratively punish any official who participated in any way in revealing Valerie Plame's status,'' they wrote. ``Such an act by the president would send an unambiguous message that leaks of this nature will not be tolerated.''

Fitzpatrick's investigation was prompted by a request from the CIA after a July 14, 2003, article by syndicated columnist Robert Novak first reported that Plame recommended her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, for a 2002 mission to check into reports Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger.

A week before, Wilson wrote an opinion article published in the New York Times questioning whether the Bush administration ``twisted'' some of the intelligence on Iraq's weapons to justify the war.

Novak discussed Wilson and his wife with Rove on July 8, 2003, according to the New York Times. The Times quoted an attorney familiar with Fitzgerald's probe of the identity leak as saying that when Novak mentioned that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA, Rove said, ``Yeah, I've heard that too.''

Cooper, in the July 25 edition of Time, wrote that Rove told him on July 11, 2003, that Wilson's wife works at the ``agency,'' which he took to mean the CIA.

Senate votes 47-21 to approve Liberal government's same-sex bill

2005-07-20T10:23:00.000-07:00

ALEXANDER PANETTA

OTTAWA (CP) - One of the most raucous debates in Canadian history resulted in a vote late Tuesday that made Canada the fourth country to sanction same-sex marriage.

The Senate erupted in a loud cheer as it adopted the Liberal government's Bill C-38, which will give gay and lesbian couples the right to marry in courthouses and city halls across the country. The 47-21 vote came after years of court battles and debate that divided families, religious groups and even political allies. Three senators abstained. There are currently 95 sitting senators and 10 vacancies.

The final word in the debate came from a Liberal senator who read to the hushed chamber an e-mail from a Yukon constituent.

"You have no idea what a difference it makes to the human spirit to know that you are treated equally under the law," said Ione Christensen, the 71-year-old senator from Whitehorse.

With that, members of the upper chamber were called in for a three-minute vote that came after about three years of political and legal battles.

The bill will become law when it receives royal assent in a ceremony as early as Wednesday.

"Same-sex, same rights," Liberal Senator Jim Munson quipped.

As the debate dragged on Tuesday, the Liberals threatened to invoke closure and call a snap vote on C-38. But the debate ran its course later in the night and members stood for a vote.

The country had been almost evenly split on the legislation, which found its greatest support among younger Canadians and small-l liberal voters.

But even within political clans the issue created irreconcilable fissures.

One Liberal MP - Pat O'Brien - quit his party caucus out of frustration with the bill and Joe Comuzzi resigned from the federal cabinet.

Conservative Leader Stephen Harper has said he will bring back the debate if he's elected prime minister.

One Conservative said voters will have the final say over Ottawa's decision to redefine marriage.

"Let the country speak at the next federal election," Tory Senator Gerry St. Germain said hours before the bill passed. "Let's not pass this legislation now. Let's wait. Let's make (the election) a referendum on this bill."

The Liberals say only one tool remains at the disposal of anyone wishing to turn back the clock: the Constitution's so-called notwithstanding clause.

No federal government has ever used that provision in the Charter of Rights, which allows governments to overrule rights deemed fundamental.

The Tories and Liberals have sparred over whether the legislation was preventable. A top Liberal senator said Tuesday there was no end in sight to the bickering and that it was time to vote.

"There is no point in further postponement," said Jack Austin, the Liberal leader in the Senate.

"There are no new issues to be argued, there are no new positions to be taken.

"I think everyone in this chamber understands that we have - along with the Canadian people - come to our own conclusions."

The Tories were hoping to amend C-38 to say marriage has traditionally been defined as the union of a man and woman, but the government side had two reasons for opposing the Tory move.

First, they dismissed it as an insignificant and unnecessary change to the legislation.

But proponents of same-sex marriage had a deeper fear: that the bill could potentially be scrubbed if any changes were made at this point.

Amendments would have sent the bill back to the House of Commons, which is adjourned for the summer break, only to have it return for further debate in the fall.

Since the Liberals have a minority government, they could theoretically be toppled at any time and legislation before the Commons would disappear if there were an election.

The marriage legislation stems from a 2003 Ontario Court of Appeal ruling that the exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage was unconstitutional.

The government had fought same-sex couples in court but became a proponent of redefining marriage as courts in Ontario and seven other provinces sided with gays and lesbians.

Then-prime minister Jean Chretien announced in June 2003 that he would not appeal the Ontario ruling and that he would table legislation heeding to same-sex couples' wishes.

He referred the legislation to the Supreme Court of Canada for a legal opinion and asked the court three key questions about the bill's constitutionality.

Prime Minister Paul Martin added a fourth question when he took office, a move that delayed the procedure and guaranteed that the bill would not pass until after the 2004 federal election.

Bill C-38 will extend same-sex rights to Alberta and P.E.I., the only two provinces where courts have not yet struck down traditional marriage laws.

The legislation also stipulates that the new definition of marriage is only binding on public institutions like courthouses and city halls.

It says religious institutions - churches, mosques, synagogues and temples - and individuals can continue defining marriage as they see fit.

However, some public officials have said they fear they might lose their jobs if they refuse to marry same-sex couples because of their personal religious convictions.

Justice Minister Irwin Cotler has said those individuals - and their jobs - will be protected by the legislation and by the Charter of Rights's guarantee of religious freedom.

2005-07-20T00:02:00.000-07:00

PRETTY IN PINK

2005-07-19T23:58:00.000-07:00

When Dobson and Focus on the Family are cheering, you know we're in trouble!

Bush Nominates Roberts for Supreme Court

2005-07-19T23:56:00.000-07:00

By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writer

President Bush named federal appeals judge John G. Roberts Jr. to fill the first Supreme Court vacancy in a decade on Tuesday, delighting Republicans and unsettling Democrats by picking a young jurist of impeccably conservative credentials.

If confirmed by the Republican-controlled Senate, the 50-year-old Roberts would succeed retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, long a swing vote on a court divided over abortion, affirmative action, states' rights and more.

Bush offered Roberts the job in a lunchtime telephone call, then invited him to the White House for a nationally televised, prime-time announcement. The president said his choice will "strictly apply the Constitution in laws, not legislate from the bench."

In brief remarks, Roberts said he has argued 39 cases before the Supreme Court in a career as a private attorney and government lawyer. "I always got a lump in my throat whenever I walked up those marble steps to argue a case before the court, and I don't think it was just from the nerves," he said.

"I look forward to the next step in the process before the United States Senate," he added.

That was a reference to confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee, expected to begin in late August or early September. That would allow plenty of time for the Senate to meet Bush's timetable of a vote before the high court begins its new term on Oct. 3.

Bush administration officials arranged for Roberts to pay his first courtesy calls on leading senators on Wednesday after breakfast with Bush in the White House residence. Republican reaction to the appointment was strongly supportive, while Democrats responded in measured terms.

"I'm just a little surprised that he's already subject to criticism. But this is America," said Sen. Arlen Specter (news, bio, voting record), R-Pa., chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (news, bio, voting record), D-Mass., reflecting an emerging Democratic strategy, said he would use the hearings to probe whether Roberts can "separate his personal ideology from the rule of law."

Advocacy groups on the left and the right have made plans for multimillion-dollar confirmation campaigns featuring television advertising and grass-roots organizing designed to sway swing vote senators. The ferocity of the battle is undetermined, however.

Abortion — arguably the most politically charged issue to confront Congress and the courts — swiftly emerged as a point of contention.

The abortion rights group NARAL Pro-Choice America announced its opposition to Roberts when word of his appointment leaked before Bush's formal announcement.

In a written statement, the organization cited a brief Roberts had filed with the Supreme Court while serving as deputy solicitor general in the first Bush administration. In the brief, Roberts said "Roe was wrongly decided and should be overruled," referring to Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling that established a woman's right to abortion.

In his defense, Roberts told senators during 2003 confirmation hearings to his current post that he would be guided by legal precedent. "Roe v. Wade is the settled law of the land. ... There is nothing in my personal views that would prevent me from fully and faithfully applying that precedent."

The National Right to Life Committee, which opposes abortion, countered with a statement of its own. "Liberal pressure groups will insist that Senate Democrats filibuster against Judge Roberts, unless he pledges in advance to vote against allowing elected legislators to place meaningful limits on abortion," said the group's legislative director, Douglas Johnson. "Millions of Americans will be watching to see if the Democratic senators bow to these demands."

While he lacks national name recognition, the Harvard-educated Roberts is a Washington insider who has worked over the years at the White House, Justice Department and in private practice.

His professional resume also includes a turn as clerk to William H. Rehnquist, who is 80 and battling thyroid cancer but recently affirmed his intention to remain as chief justice as long as his health allows. It was Rehnquist who presided over the swearing-in ceremony when Roberts took his seat on the appeals court for the District of Columbia.

It took a while for Roberts to get on the bench. He was nominated for the court in 1992 by the first President Bush and again by the president in 2001. The nominations died in the Senate both times. He was renominated in January 2003 and was confirmed by voice vote.

At the time, his nomination to the appellate court attracted support from both sides of the ideological spectrum.

This time, the hearings will be nationally televised, the vote widely watched.

Reaction from Republican senators was strongly supportive. "He is a brilliant constitutional lawyer with unquestioned integrity," said Sen. Orrin Hatch (news, bio, voting record), R-Utah.

Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee issued a statement calling for confirmation proceedings that "treat Judge Roberts with dignity and respect." Echoing a refrain from this spring's bitter struggle over Bush's conservative appeals court nominees, he called for a yes-or-no vote before the court's term begins Oct 3.

Democratic response was measured, but initially at least, offered no hint of a filibuster.

"The president has chosen someone with suitable legal credentials, but that is not the end of our inquiry," said Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada. Referring to planned hearings in the Senate Judiciary Committee, Reid said, "I will not prejudge this nomination. I look forward to learning more about Judge Roberts."

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said Democrats would want to probe Roberts' views to see whether he holds "mainstream values."

"He has been a judge for only two years and authored about 40 opinions, only three of which have drawn any dissent," said Wendy Long, a lawyer representing the conservative Judicial Confirmation Network, adding that his record appears to suit Bush's desire to nominate a judge who will apply the law, as written, and leave policy decisions to the elected branches of government.

Roberts was one of five prospective nominees Bush met with between Thursday and Saturday, according to a senior administration official who provided details of the selection before the announcement.

This official said Bush's meeting with Roberts was in the sitting area of the residence so that they could get to know each other in a comfortable setting. The president's dogs, Barney and Miss Beazley, were under foot.

To meet with Bush and his advisers, Roberts shuttled back and forth across the Atlantic from London, where he was teaching a class.

Bush did not ask Roberts any questions about abortion, gay marriage or other specific issues that might come before the Supreme Court, the official said.

Welcome To The Other Side Of The Coin... HaHaHa

2005-07-15T16:24:00.000-07:00

Adoption Agency Rejects Catholic Parents Fri Jul 15, 3:30 PM ET

A Christian adoption agency that receives money from Choose Life license plate fees said it does not place children with Roman Catholic couples because their religion conflicts with the agency's "Statement of Faith."

Bethany Christian Services stated the policy in a letter to a Jackson couple this month, and another Mississippi couple said they were rejected for the same reason last year.

"It has been our understanding that Catholicism does not agree with our Statement of Faith," Bethany's state director Karen Stewart wrote. "Our practice to not accept applications from Catholics was an effort to be good stewards of an adoptive applicant's time, money and emotional energy."

Sandy and Robert Steadman, who learned of Bethany's decision in a July 8 letter, said their priest told them the faith statement did not conflict with Catholic teaching.

Loria Williams of nearby Ridgeland said she and her husband, Wes, had a similar experience when they started to pursue an adoption in September 2004.

"I can't believe an agency that's nationwide would act like this," Loria Williams said. "There was an agency who was Christian based but wasn't willing to help people across the board."

Bethany, based in Grand Rapids, Mich., has 75 offices in 30 states, including three in Mississippi. The offices are independently incorporated and are affiliated with various religions, spokesman John Van Valkenburg said from the agency headquarters. He couldn't say whether any were Catholic-affiliated.

He said the Jackson office is affiliated with the Presbyterian Church of America.

"They included this practice of not including Catholics," Van Valkenburg said Friday.

Stewart told the Jackson Clarion-Ledger that Bethany's board will review its policy, but she didn't specify which aspects will be addressed.

The agency's Web site says all Bethany staff and adoptive applicants personally agree with the faith statement, which describes belief in the Christian Church and the Scripture. It does not refer to any specific branches of Christianity.

"As the Savior, Jesus takes away the sins of the world," the statement says in part. "Jesus is the one in whom we are called to put our hope, our only hope for forgiveness of sin and for reconciliation with God and with one another."

Sandy Steadman said she was hurt and disappointed that Bethany received funds from the Choose Life car license plates. "I know of a lot of Catholics who get those tags," she said.

She added: "If it's OK to accept our money, it should be OK to open your home to us as a family."

Bethany is one of 24 adoption and pregnancy counseling centers in Mississippi that receives money from the sale of Choose Life tags, a special plate that motorists can obtain with an extra fee.

Of $244,000 generated by the sale of the tags in 2004, Bethany received $7,053, said Geraldine Gray, treasurer of Choose Life Mississippi, which distributes the money.

"It is troubling to me if they are discriminating based on only the Catholics," Gray said.

The Bethany spokesman, van Valkenburg, said the offices in Mississippi do not receive any public money, but that some offices in other states do, for example, because they are involved in foster care.

2005-07-14T08:03:00.000-07:00

Joseph Wilson Calls on Bush to Fire Rove

Former Ambassador Joseph Wilson called on President Bush Thursday to fire deputy chief of staff Karl Rove, saying Bush's top-level aide engaged in an "abuse of power" by discussing Wilson's wife's job with a reporter.

Wilson decried what he called a White House "stonewall" in the wake of revelations that Rove, a longtime Bush confidant, was involved in the leak to the news media that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, was a CIA officer.

Bush said Wednesday that he would not comment on discussions that blew her cover because it is the subject of an ongoing investigation by special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald. White House press secretary Scott McClellan said, however, the president still has confidence in Rove.

Wilson, in an interview broadcast Thursday on NBC's "Today" show, said he thinks the White House's posture in this controversy represents a continuing "cover-up of the web of lies that underpin the justification for going to war in Iraq."

Wilson was asked about statements by Rove's defenders noting that an e-mail describing Rove's conversation with Time reporter Matthew Cooper indicated that Rove did not specifically mention Valerie Plame by name.

"My wife's name is Mrs. Joseph Wilson," he replied. "It is Mrs. Valerie Wilson. He named her. He identified her," Wilson said. "So that argument doesn't stand the smell test ... What I do know is that Mr. Rove is talking to the press and he is saying things like my wife is fair game. That's an outrage. That's an abuse of power."

Asked how he and his wife were coping with the continuing controversy, Wilson said, "We have two 5-year-old twins and they occupy most of our free time. She's obviously nonplussed at this unwanted attention brought to our family. But she's tough."

Wilson said that he and his wife "have great confidence in the institutions that have made our country great ... Yes, we do have confidence that justice will be done."

"I think the president should call in his senior advisers and say, 'Enough is enough, I want you to step forward and cooperate,' " he said.

"The president has said repeatedly, "I am a man of my word,' " Wilson added. "He should stand up and prove that his word is his bond and fire Karl Rove."

Wilson has said the leak of his wife's name was an attempt by the administration to discredit him after he challenged its assertion that Iraq's Saddam Hussein was seeking to obtain from Niger material to make nuclear weapons.

2005-07-07T05:54:00.000-07:00

Four Blasts Hit London, Killing at Least 2
By JANE WARDELL, Associated Press Writer 5 minutes ago
Three explosions rocked the London subway and one tore open a packed double-decker bus during the morning rush hour Thursday. The blasts killed at least two people and injured about 190 in what a shaken Prime Minister Tony Blair called a series of "barbaric" terrorist attacks.
Blair said it was clear the attacks were designed to coincide with the opening of the G-8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland. The prime minister said the meeting of world leaders would continue but that he would return to London.
"Whatever they do, it is our determination that they will never succeed in destroying what we hold dear in this country and in other civilized nations throughout the world," said Blair.
A group calling itself "The Secret Organization of al-Qaida in Europe" posted a claim of responsibility for the blasts, saying they were in retaliation for Britain's involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Web statement, republished on the site of the German magazine Der Spiegel, could not be immediately confirmed.
Britain's Home Secretary Charles Clarke said there were three explosions in the subway and one on a bus. "We do not know who or what organizations are responsible for these terrible criminal acts," Clarke said.
Officials at hospitals surveyed by The Associated Press reported about 190 people treated for injuries following the explosions. A senior police official said about 150 people were seriously injured.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Brian Paddick said the figure was based on reports from the London Ambulance Service. Police have confirmed that there were some fatalities but had not confirmed any numbers by early afternoon.
The blasts came one day after London was awarded the 2012 Olympics. Giselle Davies, a spokeswoman for the International Olympic Committee, said the committee still had "full confidence" in London.
Bloodied and bandaged witnesses reported panicked crowds fleeing the blast sites. A witness at the bus explosion said the entire top deck of the bus was destroyed.
Sir Ian Blair, London's police chief, said he was concerned the explosions were a coordinated attack but said he wouldn't speculate on who was responsible. He said officials had found indications of explosives at one of the sites.
Police reported "a number of fatalities" at one London subway station. "Things are still relatively confused," Superintendent John Morgan said.
Denying an earlier report, Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said that Israel was not warned by Scotland Yard in advance of the blasts.
"We have been at a very high state of alert. Of course if there had been any kind of specific warnings we would have dealt with it," Blair said.
One witness, Darren Hall, said some passengers emerging from an evacuated subway station had soot and blood on their faces. He told BBC TV that he was evacuated along with others near the major King's Cross station and only afterward heard a blast.
Police confirmed an explosion destroyed a double-decker bus at Russell Square in central London.
Paul Woodrow, an official with the ambulance service, told reporters that rescue operations were ongoing and that "there are large numbers of casualties." Officials at the Royal London Hospital told BBC that 95 injured had been brought into that hospital alone.
Jay Kumar, a business owner near the site of the bus blast, said he ran out of his shop when he heard a loud explosion. He said the top deck of the bus had collapsed, sending people tumbling to the floor.
Many appeared badly injured, and bloodied people ran from the scene.
"A big blast, a big bomb," he told The Associated Press. "People were running this way panicked. They knew it was a bomb. Debris flying all over, mostly glass."
"I was on the bus in front and heard an incredible bang, I turned round and half the double decker bus was in the air," Belinda Seabrook told Press Association, the British news agency.
Police said incidents were reported at the Aldgate station near the Liverpool Street railway terminal, Edgware Road and King's Cross in north London, Old Street in the financial district and Russell Square, near the British Museum.
Bradley Anderson, a subway passenger, told Sky News that "there was some kind of explosion or something" as his train reached the Edgware Road station in northeast London.
"Everything went black and we collided into some kind of oncoming train," Anderson said.
Simon Corvett, 26, who was on an eastbound train from Edgware Road station, said: "All of sudden there was this massive huge bang."
"It was absolutely deafening and all the windows shattered," he said. "There were just loads of people screaming and the carriages filled with smoke.
"You could see the carriage opposite was completely gutted," he said. "There were some people in real trouble."
London's cell phone network was working after the explosions but was overloaded and spotty, limiting communication.
The explosions sent stocks plummeting in Europe, with several of the major indexes down 3 percent.
On March 11, 2004, terrorist bombs on four commuter trains in Madrid killed 191 people.

Lord Help Us All!

2005-07-01T17:44:00.000-07:00

O'Connor Retires From Supreme Court

By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent

Sandra Day O'Connor stepped down unexpectedly from the Supreme Court on Friday, closing out a career as the first female justice and the anchor of a shaky majority for abortion rights. President Bush pledged to name a successor quickly as the costliest confirmation battle in history took shape.

O'Connor's decision to retire created the first vacancy at the high court in 11 years, and marked the departure of the justice who had become the majority maker in a stream of 5-4 cases covering abortion, affirmative action, the death penalty and more over a quarter-century.

Bush, under pressure from some conservatives to name an outright foe of abortion, said he would appoint a successor who "will faithfully interpret the Constitution and laws of our country." He said he would make his selection in time to have a full court in place before the new term opens in October.

"The nation also deserves a dignified process of confirmation in the United States Senate," he added.

Sen. Arlen Specter (news, bio, voting record), R-Pa., chairman of the Judiciary Committee that will hold hearings on Bush's candidate, said he doubted there would be a filibuster.

Democrats said that was up to Bush. "Above all, Justice O'Connor has been a voice of reason and moderation on the court," said Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada. "It is vital that she be replaced by someone like her."

O'Connor, 75 and a breast cancer survivor, kept her retirement a surprise even from her son, and it was not until Friday morning that she dispatched her letter, hand-delivered to the president.

It seemed to catch Bush's team off guard. The president and his staff had long been anticipating a retirement letter from Chief Justice William Rehnquist, 80 and ailing with thyroid cancer.

The Rehnquist guessing game continued. "If we haven't heard from him by now, the chances are you won't hear from him for some time," predicted Specter. The last time there were two simultaneous vacancies at the court was 1971; Rehnquist was picked for one of them.

Whatever the chief justice's plans, the short list of contenders, exclusively male, may have to be expanded in view of O'Connor's retirement, according to one White House official. That officials spoke only on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the discussions.

Speculation has included Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and J. Michael Luttig, John Roberts, Samuel A. Alito Jr., Michael McConnell, Emilio Garza and James Harvie Wilkinson III, all federal appeals court judges.

O'Connor's decision capped a pioneer's career. President Reagan broke nearly 200 years of tradition in 1981 when he named her — a top-ranked graduate of Stanford law school — as the first woman to wear the robes of a justice.

"As the first woman to be appointed to this court, Sandra Day O'Connor was thrust into the spotlight as no new justice has ever been," Justice Antonin Scalia said in a written statement issued by the court.

Aware by her own account of the historical burden, she evolved into a moderate conservative, but more importantly, the consistent center of a fractured court.

In her first term, she cast the deciding vote and wrote a 5-4 ruling that said a Mississippi all-women college must allow a male student to study nursing.

It was the first of many such cases.

She voted with the majority on three significant 5-4 cases in recent years: the disputed 2000 presidential election that went to Bush, a 2003 decision that upheld an affirmative action program at the University of Michigan law school and a ruling last year that said the war on terrorism did not give the government a blank check to hold terror suspects in legal limbo.

Nowhere was her legal thinking more carefully scrutinized than when it came to abortion, an issue that divides the court as it does the country.

O'Connor balked at letting states outlaw most abortions, refusing in 1989 to join four other justices who were ready to reverse the landmark 1973 decision that said women have a constitutional right to abortion.

In 1992, she helped forge a five-justice majority that reaffirmed the core holding of the 1973 ruling. Then, in 2000, she provided the fifth and decisive vote that struck down a Nebraska law that was aimed at banning a procedure critics call "partial-birth abortions."

In her opinion, she wrote that to be constitutional, a ban must include "an exception to preserve the life and health of the mother."

Last week, she sided with a 5-4 majority in a ruling that threw out the sentence of a death row inmate and warned state courts that shoddy legal defense representation wouldn't be tolerated.

She expressed her views tartly at times.

Last week, in a dissent to a 5-4 ruling that let local governments take personal property to build malls and other businesses, she wrote that the majority had unwisely handed more power to the powerful.

"The specter of condemnation hangs over all property," O'Connor wrote. "Nothing is to prevent the state from replacing ... any home with a shopping mall, or any farm with a factory."

Alone among the current justices, O'Connor ran for office. In 1975, she was elected judge of the Maricopa County Superior Court. She served until 1979, when she was appointed to the appellate bench in Arizona. Reagan named her to the high court two years later, and she won Senate confirmation unanimously.

In a one-sentence written statement on Friday, O'Connor cited her age and said she "needs to spend time" with her family.

Her official resignation letter was brief.

"It has been a great privilege indeed to have served as a member of the court for 24 terms," the 75-year-old justice wrote to Bush. "I will leave it with enormous respect for the integrity of the court and its role under our constitutional structure."

"For an old ranching girl, you turned out pretty good," Bush told her in a private call not long after receiving her letter, an aide said.

Then, in the Rose Garden outside the Oval Office, he praised her as "a discerning and conscientious judge and a public servant of complete integrity."

Lawmakers in both parties hastened to praise her, often taking note of her place in history. "She has been a wonderful role model for girls," said Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (news, bio, voting record), R-Texas.

In a Senate that narrowly avoided a meltdown over judicial nominations earlier in the year, much of the speechmaking seemed framed by the coming confirmation struggle.

"America needs judges who are fair, independent, unbiased and committed to equal justice under the law," said Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn. "I look forward to working with my colleagues to ensure a fair confirmation process in the Senate that will ensure the Supreme Court is at full strength to start its next term in October.

Liberal Democrats said they understood Bush would name a conservative, and signaled a willingness to go along, up to a point.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (news, bio, voting record), D-Mass., said he hoped Bush would name a replacement who was a "a conservative ... who is in the mainstream of judicial thinking."

The remark stirred echoes of Democratic filibusters against several of Bush's appeals court nominees whom Democrats had attacked for years as outside the mainstream.

Partisans on both sides have been preparing for a vacancy for months. Given her opinions on abortion, O'Connor's decision to step down raised the stakes for partisans on both sides of the issue.

Senate aides of both parties held strategy meetings during the day.

Republicans were instructed to say Bush's choice deserved an "up or down vote," and that no litmus test should be applied, whether on abortion or any other issue.

Bush pledged to consult with Senate leaders. He later talked with Frist, Specter and Sen. Pat Leahy, D-Vt., the senior Democrat on the Judiciary Committee.

Officials said they expected the Judiciary Committee to hold hearings three to six weeks after Bush submits a nomination, perhaps beginning in August when Congress is customarily gone.

Three to five days of testimony are likely, during which the panel would hear from the nominee as well as outside interest groups both for and against him or her.

2005-06-29T00:23:00.000-07:00

The Bad News Is, At This Point, The Only Way Is Up...

2005-06-29T00:20:00.000-07:00

YAWN!

2005-06-27T02:22:00.000-07:00

Parades Celebrate 35 Years of Gay Pride

2005-06-27T02:04:00.000-07:00

By JUSTIN M. NORTON, Associated Press Writer

Undeterred by recent setbacks in the push to legalize same-sex marriage, tens of thousands of festively dressed people marched in parades around the country Sunday to celebrate the 35th anniversary of gay pride.

People celebrated in San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Seattle, Atlanta and other cities, though the event comes during a tough period for gay rights advocates. A bill to legalize same-sex marriage died this year in the California Assembly, and many states have passed or are pursuing constitutional amendments outlawing gay marriage.

"I'm here to let the rest of the world know that we're here and we want to be seen," said Clarence Smelcer, 43, an AIDS activist watching the San Francisco parade. "We're part of everyone's lives and the parade is a wonderful way to show it."

Gay pride is a virtual holiday in San Francisco and thousands gathered early for the parade, including men in kilts sporting rainbow-colored wigs, cross-dressers in kimonos and heterosexual couples waving rainbow flags.

The parade opened with a blocks-long contingent of "Dykes on Bikes" — lesbians dressed in leather driving loud motorcycles. Participants also included a bearded man in a wedding gown singing Madonna's "Like a Virgin," a gay and lesbian marching band and a group of parents and friends of lesbians and gays.

The annual pride parades commemorate the Stonewall uprising of 1969, a series of fights between gays and police in New York widely considered the beginning of the gay rights movement. The parades began the next year in 1970.

There were also subtle reminders in the celebrations Sunday of the struggles ahead. Many in the San Francisco crowd wore stickers that read, "We All Deserve The Freedom to Marry."

"Anytime you have a big group of people screaming and hollering people will pay attention," said Jorge Vieto Jr., 27, who left Costa Rica because of discrimination against gays. "Marriage should be an equal opportunity, not a heterosexual right."

Ming Chan, 33, and Steve Ribisi, 34, watched the parade with their 18-month-old son, Joshua. Though they said some would view their relationship as a threat to the sanctity of marriage, they just wanted the chance to raise their son together.

"People should see us and know we're going through the same problems as other parents," Chan said.

Activists elsewhere also said they were energized by the political climate.

"People are more fired up this year," said George Estelle, who attended the Atlanta march and organized a parade float by Human Rights Campaign, a gay and lesbian lobbying group. "They're angry that they feel there's been a lot of misrepresentation about them done this year during the elections."

In New York, men in button-down shirts outnumbered men in G-strings in a parade some said was less flamboyant than in past years — but still politically relevant. U.S. Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Charles Schumer were among the marchers.

"It used to be all drag queens all the time," said Susan Yousem, of suburban Cortlandt Manor, N.Y. "Now it's been sort of mainstreamed — for good or bad. There are a lot of church groups, a lot of families."

Anthony Polito, marching in New York with the Stonewall Veterans' Association, remembered "knocking a couple of cops down" during the 1969 rioting. In a sign of the changing times, Sunday's parade featured contingents from the city police and fire departments, including recruitment vans.

In Conway, Ark., about 300 people marched in the city's second pride parade, easily outnumbering a small group of protesters. Last year, organizers reported receiving death threats and a farmer protesting the event dumped three tons of manure along the parade route.

Organizer Robert Loyd hailed this year's event as a success, though he accused the mayor of trying to sabotage it by changing the approved route a few days before.

"Last year we had to deal with 6,000 pounds of manure. This year we had to deal with manure of a different source, and we can thank Mayor Tab Townsell for that," Loyd said during a speech at the end of the parade.

Townsell said last week the change was made to ensure public safety and that the city welcomed "the full expression of everyone's American freedoms."

2005-06-22T09:11:00.000-07:00

Degrees of Abomination

2005-06-22T08:56:00.000-07:00

Letter to George Bush - from unknown devout Christian

Dear President Bush,

Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God's law. I have learned a great deal from you and try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind them that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination. End of debate. I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some other elements of God's Laws and how to follow them:

1. Leviticus 25:44 states that I may possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not to Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can't I own Canadians?

2. I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?

3. I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanliness (Lev. 15:19-24). The problem is, how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.

4. When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord (Lev. 1:9). The problem is my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?

5. I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states that he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, or should I ask the police to do it?

6. A friend of mine feels that, even though eating shellfish is an abomination (Lev. 11:10), it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don't agree. Can you settle this? Are there "degrees" of abomination?

7. Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle-room here?

8. Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev. 19:27. How should they die?

9. I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?

10. My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev. 19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them (Lev. 24:10-16)? Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family affair, like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws (Lev. 20:14)?

I know you have studied these things extensively and thus enjoy considerable expertise in such matters, so I am confident you can help.

Thank you again for reminding us that God's word is eternal and unchanging.

2005-06-21T01:04:00.000-07:00

Dad picks up $600 tab to get Marine battle ready
Jun. 18, 2005 12:00 AM
John Tod of Mesa had been prepared to face Father's Day worrying about his son's pending date with the war in Iraq.

Then Uncle Sam stepped in with more disappointing developments.

Marine Pfc. Jeremy Tod called home with news that his superiors were urging him and fellow Marines to buy special military equipment, including flak jackets with armor plating, to enhance the prospects of their survival.

The message was that such purchases were to be made by Marines with their own money.

"He said they strongly suggested he get this equipment because when they get to Iraq they will wish they had," Tod said.

Total estimated cost: $600.

Tod said his son's call about two weeks ago from the Marine Corps Air Station-Yuma was a sobering reminder that the military is not prepared to equip Pfc. Tod and fellow Marines with the best equipment.

Besides the essential flak jacket with steel "trauma" plates, the shopping list for the young Marine included a Camelbak (water pouch) special ballistic goggles, knee and elbow pads, a "drop pouch" to hold ammunition magazines and a load-bearing vest.

Tod, 45, is picking up the tab for a son who blew most of his savings on a new pickup truck. And dad says he is tempted to forward the bill to the Pentagon. "Or maybe I can write it off in taxes," he said with a grin.

It's not the cost that concerns him, even though the self-employed home repairman will have to dig deep for the cash.

"We're supposed to have a professional army," he said, "the best in the world. And we're not providing them with the type of gear they need to protect themselves as they do their jobs."

Marine Maj. Nat Frahy, a spokesman in Washington, said the military issues equipment, but it's possible that young Tod's commanders told him that it was perfectly OK to buy equipment that would help him on the battlefield.

Told about the Marine request, U.S. Rep. J. D. Hayworth, the Republican whose 5th District includes Mesa, said he has never heard of a service person being told to buy his own equipment.

Hayworth said he will contact the military to "find out what on earth is going on and why isn't that stuff there for them already. If it involves bottlenecks and glitches to get equipment to them then there should be a voucher system where military personnel can be reimbursed."

Tod refers to himself as a regular, middle-class, blue-collar guy who is a fairly close fit to the economic demographic of most families with sons and daughters serving in the armed forces. His son, now 19, enlisted last year after graduating from Mesa's Westwood High School.

His dad says America was better served with the military draft because today's professional army is not representative of the country's economic and cultural spectrum.

Yet Tod is proud of his youngest son's decision to serve even though dad doesn't believe American troops should be in Iraq.

In a recent interview, Tod recalled the kid who made an unassisted triple play in Little League and the boy who became his father's best fishing buddy before he went to Marine boot camp in San Diego.

"When I close my eyes I can see him looking up at me and asking, 'Pants on swimming, dad, can I, huh?' when he wanted to go for a swim," Tod said.

On Father's Day, Tod will hang out at his home in north central Mesa and hope that Jeremy, the 5-foot-5 155-pound Marine, will get time to call as he trains with about 2,800 fellow Marines in Yuma.

"I'll probably get to see him before he leaves for Iraq," Tod said. "I just hope and pray nothing happens to him."

Downing Street What?

2005-06-19T01:02:00.000-07:00

WH Press Secretary Mocks 'Downing Street Memo,' as Congressman Calls for Inquiry

By E&P Staff

NEW YORK With a forum about to begin on Capitol Hill on the so-called Downing Street Memo, hosted by Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), reporters at today's White House briefing by Press Secretary Scott McClellan naturally raised the subject, albeit briefly.

Rather than ask about details or implications of the 2002 internal British document -- which seemed to suggest that the Bush administration was determined to go to war against Iraq and that intelligence would be “fixed” to support it --the correspondents wondered if the White House was ever going to respond to a letter authored by Conyers and signed by 88 of his colleagues asking for information about the memo.

A transcript of two exchanges follows:

***

Q Scott, on another topic, has the President or anyone else from the administration responded to the letter sent last month by Congressman John Conyers and signed by dozens of members of the House of Representatives, regarding the Downing Street memo? Has the President or anyone else responded?

McCLELLAN: Not that I'm aware of.

Q Why not?

McCLELLAN: Why not? Because I think that this is an individual who voted against the war in the first place [Conyers] and is simply trying to rehash old debates that have already been addressed. And our focus is not on the past. It's on the future and working to make sure we succeed in Iraq.

These matters have been addressed, Elaine. I think you know that very well. The press --

Q Scott, 88 members of Congress signed that letter.

McCLELLAN: The press -- the press have covered it, as well.

Q But, Scott, don't they deserve the courtesy of a response back?

McCLELLAN: Again, this has been addressed….

***

Q Scott, on John Conyers, John Conyers is walking here with that letter again, as you have acknowledged from Elaine's comment. But 88 leaders on Capitol Hill signed that letter. Now, I understand what you're saying about him, but what about the other 88 who signed this letter, wanting information, answers to these five questions?

McCLELLAN: How did they vote on the war -- the decision to go to war in Iraq?

Q Well, you have two -- well, if that's the case, you have two Republicans who are looking for a timetable. How do you justify that?

McCLELLAN: I already talked about that.

Q I understand, but let's talk about this.

McCLELLAN: Like I said --

Q Well, just because -- I understand -- but if you're talking about unifying and asking for everyone to come together, why not answer, whether they wanted the war or not, answer a letter where John Conyers wrote to the President and then 88 congressional leaders signed? Why not answer that?

McCLELLAN: For the reasons I stated earlier. This is simply rehashing old debates that have already been discussed.

***

Later, across town, Rep. Charles Rangel was among Democratic House members who participated in the Conyers forum to air demands that the White House provide more information about what led to the decision to go to war in Iraq. Congress should conduct an official inquiry to determine whether President Bush intentionally misled the nation about the reasons for toppling Saddam Hussein, Rangle charged.

"Quite frankly, evidence that appears to be building up points to whether or not the president has deliberately misled Congress to make the most important decision a president has to make, going to war," Rangel said.

Conyers and a half-dozen other members of Congress were stopped at the White House gate later Thursday when they hand-delivered petitions signed by 560,000 Americans who want Bush to provide a detailed response to the Downing Street memo. When Conyers couldn't get in, an anti-war demonstrator shouted, "Send Bush out!" Eventually, White House aides retrieved the petitions at the gate and took them into the West Wing.

2005-06-16T00:14:00.000-07:00

Memo-mania

2005-06-16T00:03:00.000-07:00

New Memos Detail Early Plans for Invading Iraq
By John Daniszewski Times Staff Writer
Wed Jun 15, 7:55 AM ET

LONDON — In March 2002, the Bush administration had just begun to publicly raise the possibility of confronting Iraq. But behind the scenes, officials already were deeply engaged in seeking ways to justify an invasion, newly revealed British memos indicate.

Foreshadowing developments in the year before the war started, British officials emphasized the importance of U.N. diplomacy, which they said might force Saddam Hussein into a misstep. They also suggested that confronting the Iraqi leader be cast as an effort to prevent him from using weapons of mass destruction or giving them to terrorists.

The documents help flesh out the background to the formerly top-secret "Downing Street memo" published in the Sunday Times of London last month, which said that top British officials were told eight months before the war began that military action was "seen as inevitable." President Bush and his main ally in the war, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, have long maintained that they had not made up their minds to go to war at that stage.

"Nothing could be farther from the truth," Bush said last week, responding to a question about the July 23, 2002, memo. "Both of us didn't want to use our military. Nobody wants to commit military into combat. It's the last option."

Publication of the Downing Street memo at the height of Britain's election campaign at first garnered little notice in U.S. media or other British newspapers. But in the weeks that followed, anger has grown among war critics, who contend that the document proves the Bush administration had already decided on military action, even while U.S. officials were saying that war was a last resort.

The new documents indicate that top British officials believed that by March 2002, Washington was already leaning heavily toward toppling Hussein by military force. Condoleezza Rice, the current secretary of State who was then Bush's national security advisor, was described as enthusiastic about "regime change."

Although British officials said in the documents that they did not think Iraq's weapons programs posed an immediate threat and that they were dubious of any claimed links between the Iraqi government and Al Qaeda, they indicated that they were willing to join in a campaign to topple Hussein as long as the plan would succeed and was handled with political and legal care.

The documents contain little discussion about whether to mount a military campaign. The focus instead is on how the campaign should be presented to win the widest support and the importance for Britain of working through the United Nations so an invasion could be seen as legal under international law.

Michael Smith, the defense writer for the Times of London who revealed the Downing Street minutes in a story May 1, provided a full text of the six new documents to the Los Angeles Times.

Portions of the new documents, all labeled "secret" or "confidential," have appeared previously in two British newspapers, the Times of London and the Telegraph. Blair's government has not challenged their authenticity.

They cover a period when reports had begun appearing that the Bush administration was forming plans to go after Hussein in the next phase of its "war on terrorism." A Feb. 10, 2002, article in the Los Angeles Times, for instance, said that the U.S. was considering action against Hussein that might require a massive number of U.S. troops.

Published accounts, including those by the Washington Post's Bob Woodward and former U.S. counter-terrorism chief Richard A. Clarke, said that Bush and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld began focusing on Iraq soon after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon.

In his Jan. 29, 2002, State of the Union address, Bush described Iraq, Iran and North Korea as part of an "axis of evil."

The documents present a picture of a U.S. government fed up with the policy of containing Iraq, skeptical of the U.N. and focused on ousting Hussein.

Blair's advisors were weighing how Britain could participate in a war. The need to establish a policy on Iraq led to a flurry of meetings between senior U.S. and British officials and internal British government memos in advance of a Bush-Blair summit in April 2002 at the president's ranch near Crawford, Texas. (According to one of the subsequent documents that has been leaked, a British Cabinet briefing paper written in July 2002, Blair gave Bush a conditional commitment at the Texas summit to support military action to remove Hussein.)

In one memorandum, dated March 14, 2002, and labeled "secret — strictly personal," Blair's chief foreign policy advisor, David Manning, described to the prime minister a dinner he had had with Rice.

"We spent a long time at dinner on Iraq," wrote Manning, now the British ambassador to the U.S. "It is clear that Bush is grateful for your [Blair's] support and has registered that you are getting flak. I said that you would not budge in your support for regime change but you had to manage a press, a Parliament and a public opinion that was different from anything in the States. And you would not budge either in your insistence that, if we pursued regime change, it must be very carefully done and produce the right result. Failure was not an option."

The memo went on to say:

"Condi's enthusiasm for regime change is undimmed. But there were some signs, since we last spoke, of greater awareness of the practical difficulties and political risks…. From what she said, Bush has yet to find answers to the big questions:

• How to persuade international opinion that military action against Iraq is necessary and justified;

• What value to put on the exiled Iraqi opposition;

• How to coordinate a US/allied military campaign with internal opposition (assuming there is any);

• What happens the morning after?"

Manning told Blair that given Bush's eagerness for British backing, the prime minister would have "real influence" on the public relations strategy, on the issue of encouraging the United States to go first to the United Nations and on any U.S. military planning.

Manning said it could prove helpful if Hussein refused to allow renewed U.N. weapons inspections.

"The issue of weapons inspectors must be handled in a way that would persuade Europe and wider opinion that the U.S. was conscious of the international framework, and the insistence of many countries on the need for a legal basis. Renewed refusal by Saddam to accept unfettered inspections would be a powerful argument," Manning wrote Blair.

Four days after the Manning memo, Christopher Meyer, then the British ambassador in Washington, wrote to Manning about a lunch he had with Paul D. Wolfowitz, then the U.S. deputy secretary of Defense and a leading proponent in the administration of confronting Hussein. Meyer said in the memo that he had told Wolfowitz that U.N. pressure and weapons inspections could be used to trip up Hussein.

"We backed regime change," he wrote, "but the plan had to be clever and failure was not an option. It would be a tough sell for us domestically, and probably tougher elsewhere in Europe."

Meyer wrote that he had argued that Washington could go it alone if it wanted to. "But if it wanted to act with partners, there had to be a strategy for building support for military action against Saddam. I then went through the need to wrong-foot Saddam on the inspectors and the [U.N. Security Council resolutions] and the critical importance of the [Middle East peace process] as an integral part of the anti-Saddam strategy. If all this could be accomplished skillfully, we were fairly confident that a number of countries would come on board."

Another memo, from British Foreign Office political director Peter Ricketts to Foreign Secretary Jack Straw on March 22, 2002, bluntly stated that the case against Hussein was weak because the Iraqi leader was not accelerating his weapons programs and there was scant proof of links to Al Qaeda.

"What has changed is not the pace of Saddam Hussein's WMD programs, but our tolerance of them post-11 September," Ricketts wrote. "Attempts to claim otherwise publicly will increase skepticism about our case….

"U.S. scrambling to establish a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda is so far frankly unconvincing," he said.

Ricketts said that other countries such as Iran appeared closer to getting nuclear weapons, and that arguing for regime change in Iraq alone "does not stack up. It sounds like a grudge between Bush and Saddam." That was why the issue of weapons of mass destruction was vital, he said.

"Much better, as you [Straw] have suggested, to make the objective ending the threat to the international community from Iraqi WMD before Saddam uses it or gives it to terrorists," he said. A U.N. Security Council resolution demanding renewal of weapons inspections, he says, would be a "win/win."

"Either [Hussein] against all the odds allows Inspectors to operate freely, in which case we can further hobble his WMD programs, or he blocks/hinders, and we are on stronger grounds for switching to other methods," he wrote.

The arguments that Iraq had illegal, hidden weapons of mass destruction, programs to develop more of them, and that it might give them to terrorists were to become some of the Bush administration's chief reasons for the war. When no weapons were found, the administration blamed faulty intelligence and said the war still was justified because it ended Hussein's brutal dictatorship and allowed an emerging democratic government.

In November 2002, the U.S. and Britain managed to get a toughly worded resolution through the Security Council that reintroduced arms inspectors into Iraq for the first time since 1998. However, it fell short of authorizing the use of force against Hussein's government.

Straw, writing to Blair on March 25, 2002, expressed concern about a lack of support among members of Parliament from the governing Labor Party.

"Colleagues know that Saddam and the Iraqi regime are bad," he wrote. "But we have a long way to go to convince them as to: The scale of the threat from Iraq, and why this has got worse recently; what distinguishes the Iraqi threat from that of e.g. Iran and North Korea so as to justify military action; the justification for any military action in terms of international law; and whether the consequences really would be a compliant, law-abiding replacement government.

"Regime change per se is no justification for military action; it could form part of the method of any strategy, but not a goal," he said. "Elimination of Iraq's WMD capacity has to be the goal."

The new documents also include an earlier 10-page options paper, dated March 8, 2002, from the overseas and defense secretariat of the Cabinet Office, sketching out options for dealing with Iraq. The thrust of the memo was that the economic sanctions imposed on Iraq after the 1991 Persian Gulf War were likely to fail, and that, in any case, the U.S. had already given up on them.

"The U.S. has lost confidence in containment," the document said. "Some in government want Saddam removed. The success of Operation Enduring Freedom [the military code name for the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan], distrust of U.N. sanctions and inspection regimes, and unfinished business from 1991 are all factors.

"Washington believes the legal basis for an attack already exists. Nor will it necessarily be governed by wider political factors. The U.S. may be willing to work with a smaller coalition than we think desirable," it said.

The paper said the British view was that any invasion for the purpose of regime change "has no basis under international law."

The best way to justify military action, it said, would be to convince the Security Council that Iraq was in breach of its post-Gulf War obligations to eliminate its store of weapons of mass destruction.

The document appeared to rule out any action in Iraq short of an invasion.

"In sum, despite the considerable difficulties, the use of overriding force in a ground campaign is the only option that we can be confident will remove Saddam and bring Iraq back into the international community," it said.

SHAME

2005-06-14T10:12:00.000-07:00

The Senate on Monday formally apologized for having rejected decades of pleas to make lynching a federal crime as scores victims' descendants watched from the chamber's gallery.

No lawmaker opposed the measure, but 20 of the 100 senators had not signed a statement of support of it shortly before a vote was taken on a nearly empty Senate floor.

Here are the 20 Senators who

1) refused to co-sponsor the anti-lynching resolution passed yesterday, and
2) refused a roll-call vote so they'd have to put their name on the resolution.

Lamar Alexander (R-TN)
Robert Bennett (R-UT)
Christopher Bond (R-MO)
Jim Bunning (R-KY)
Conrad Burns (R-MT)
Saxby Chambliss (R-GA)
Thad Cochran (R-MS)
Kent Conrad (D-ND)
John Cornyn (R-TX)
Michael Crapo (R-ID)
Michael Enzi (R-WY)
Chuck Grassley (R-IA)
Judd Gregg (R-NH)
Orrin Hatch (R-UT)
Trent Lott (R-MS)
Lisa Murkowski (R-AK)
Richard Shelby (R-AL)
John Sununu (R-NH)
Craig Thomas (R-WY)
George Voinovich (R-OH)

So much for these frickin' pro-life Republicans and their American values. SHAME ON YOU!

Also, I would just like to emphasize the similarities between the Senate's refusal to outlaw lynching in the past and hate crimes in the present. A strikingly similar argument is used against both, namely that the actions sought to be outlawed (assault, battery, murder) are already illegal and that hence there is no real need for these laws.

However, what the Senate has conceded now is that a refusal to condemn is nothing less than a willingness to condone.

Maybe in 100 years Matthew Shepard and Gwen Araujo will get their apologies.

2005-06-13T11:05:00.000-07:00

Amen!

2005-06-12T10:48:00.000-07:00

Cheney Criticizes Dean Over Remarks
1 hour, 24 minutes ago
Howard Dean is "over the top," Vice President Dick Cheney says, calling the Democrats' chairman "not the kind of individual you want to have representing your political party."
"I've never been able to understand his appeal. Maybe his mother loved him, but I've never met anybody who does. He's never won anything, as best I can tell," Cheney said in an interview to be aired Monday on Fox News Channel's "Hannity & Colmes."
Dean was elected governor of Vermont five times between 1992 and 2000. He ran for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination but closed down his campaign after poor showings in early primaries.
In recent weeks, Dean has described the GOP as "pretty much a white, Christian party" and said many Republicans have "never made an honest living." Republican leaders have called on him to apologize, and even some Democrats have distanced themselves from his remarks.
"So far, I think he's probably helped us more than he has them," Cheney said in the interview taped Friday. "That's not the kind of individual you want to have representing your political party.
The vice president added: "I really think Howard Dean's over the top. And more important ... I think many of his fellow Democrats feel the same way."
Dean said Saturday that positive responses from influential supporters have reinforced his determination to keep talking tough.
"People want us to fight," Dean told the national party's executive committee. "We are here to fight."
Addressing Iowa party activists later Saturday in Des Moines, he added: "We need to be blunt and clear about the things we're going to fight for. I'm tired of lying down in front of the Republican machine. We need to stand up for what we believe in."

Hey asshole, by what exactly did you and your homies get so offended? The white part? C�mon. You may have a few colored puppets dancing on strings for you, but you don�t mean to tell me that your party is a beacon of racial, ethnic and cultural diversity. And it sure could not have been the Christian part that offended you. You may be chummy with the State of Israel, but only because you need them to fulfill your wet dreams of Armageddon. Is it not a fact that you have nothing but disdain for anyone not espousing your narrow views of fundamentalist televangelist Christianity? This somehow reminds of your indignation at Kerry�s mentioning of your GAY daughter, the Virgin Mary. Only those who despise the truth get offended when confronted with it.

2005-06-12T03:27:00.000-07:00

Hey Jimbo, Sit The Fuck Down And Listen!!!

2005-06-10T15:10:00.000-07:00

Rep. James Sensenbrenner(R-Wis) broke the law today by illegally and unilaterally adjourning a hearing on the Patriot Act. Gee, I wonder why.... But remember that not a single citizen has suffered any civil rights violations under the Patriot Act.

GOP Chairman Walks Out of Meeting
By JIM ABRAMS, Associated Press Writer

The Republican chairman walked off with the gavel, leaving Democrats shouting into turned-off microphones at a raucous hearing Friday on the Patriot Act.

The House Judiciary Committee hearing, with the two sides accusing each other of being irresponsible and undemocratic, came as President Bush was urging Congress to renew those sections of the post-Sept. 11 counterterrorism law set to expire in September.

Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., chairman of the panel, abruptly gaveled the meeting to an end and walked out, followed by other Republicans. Sensenbrenner declared that much of the testimony, which veered into debate over the detainees at Guantanamo Bay, was irrelevant.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (news, bio, voting record), D-N.Y., protested, raising his voice as his microphone went off, came back on, and went off again.

"We are not besmirching the honor of the United States, we are trying to uphold it," he said.

Democrats asked for the hearing, the 11th the committee has held on the act since April, saying past hearings had been too slanted toward witnesses who supported the law. The four witnesses were from groups, including Amnesty International USA and the American Immigration Lawyers Association, that have questioned the constitutionality of some aspects of the act, which allows law enforcement greater authority to investigate suspected terrorists.

Nadler said Sensenbrenner, one of the authors of the Patriot Act, was "rather rude, cutting everybody off in mid-sentence with an attitude of total hostility."

Tempers flared when Rep. Mike Pence (news, bio, voting record), R-Ind., accused Amnesty International of endangering the lives of Americans in uniform by referring to the prison at Guantanamo Bay as a "gulag." Sensenbrenner didn't allow the Amnesty representative, Chip Pitts, to respond until Nadler raised a "point of decency."

Sensenbrenner's spokesman, Jeff Lungren, said the hearing had lasted two hours and "the chairman was very accommodating, giving members extra time."

James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute, speaking immediately after Sensenbrenner left, voiced dismay over the proceedings. "I'm troubled about what kind of lesson this gives" to the rest of the world, he told the Democrats remaining in the room.

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, in a statement, said the hearing was an example of Republican abuse of power and she would ask House Speaker Dennis Hastert to order an apology from Sensenbrenner.

Un-fucking-believable!!!

2005-06-09T15:59:00.000-07:00

Hate Speech On the Other Line

BY JOHN P. AVLON
May 10, 2005

"Faith, Family and Freedom" - I'm in favor of them. And I'd sure be steamed if these American values were hijacked by some special interest in a crass attempt to profit from politics and people's fears. But, lo and behold, little is sacred in an era where the culture wars have graduated from grassroots skirmishes to organized armies. Not even your long-distance calling plan is safe in the ideological crossfire.

For example, a San Francisco-based company called "Working Assets" offers long-distance carrier service that donates a percentage of each customer's bill to groups such as Human Rights Watch, Planned Parenthood, and the ACLU. The company claims to have raised $47 million for these organizations over the past two decades. With so much activist cash available via unorthodox political outreach, it was only a matter of time until conservative organizations used the same strategy. That time has apparently arrived.

It was in late December 2004 when New York-based comedian Eugene Mirman first received a phone-call from a nonprofit organization called "Faith, Family and Freedom," asking if he opposed gay marriage and then offering to switch his long-distance service to a "Christian-based telephone carrier" identified as United American Technologies out of Oklahoma.

It turns out that Mr. Mirman had donated $50 to the presidential campaign of Alan Keyes in 2000. His name was consequently added to a conservative database. Amused and a bit disturbed, he recorded the subsequent solicitations, and added the tapes to his stand-up act. Excerpts of the transcripts speak for themselves.

After the call reaches a person they are prompted to press "1" if they oppose gay marriage. A holding message says "Please do not hang up ... This information will describe how the ACLU and gays are getting gay marriage in every state." The operator then enters the conversation:

Operator: Did you press 1 to oppose same sex marriages?

Mr. Mirman: Oh, I pressed it, yes.

Operator: Okay, that's great to hear. And are you against same sex marriages?

Mr. Mirman: Well, I want to destroy it, yes.

Operator: Okay. That's great to hear... -

Mr. Mirman: Like the fist of God we will smash them!

Operator: Exactly.

In another recorded conversation, the operator describes United American Technologies as "the only carrier that is taking an active stand against same sex marriages and hardcore child pornography."

Mr. Mirman sensibly interjects, "I think all child pornography is hardcore. I don't think there's non-hardcore child pornography." He then asks "AT&T sponsors child pornography?" The operator clarifies by saying "No. No, that's MCI."

Mr. Mirman: MCI has hardcore child pornography?

Operator: Yes, they are. They have a pedophile Web site for men who love boys. It's a Montr�al based Web site....

Mr. Mirman: And so MCI basically has a child pornography ring?

Operator: That's correct.

Mr.Mirman: What about the others? What does Verizon do?

Operator: Okay. Verizon, what they do is they train their employees to accept the gay and lesbian lifestyle.

Mr. Mirman: They try to turn their employees gay?

Operator: No, no. They train their employees to accept it.

Mr. Mirman coaxes out the absurdity of the script, but he's no left-wing activist with an axe to grind. Born in Russia, he explains, "My problem isn't with people of faith having certain convictions and wanting their money to support those convictions; it's with a phone company surreptitiously exploiting people's beliefs and fears for revenue. To have a nonprofit call people on your behalf and imply that MCI makes money from the rape of children and that God hates your competitors, I think, is inappropriate."

That's certainly one word for it. A call to United American Technologies shed further light on the fund-raising scheme. I spoke to Carl Thomspon, a senior consultant whose son-in-law Tom Anderson is CEO of the year-old company. He told me that 2,000 people a month were switching as a result of the calls and was forthright in admitting that "our main thing is calling against the gay and lesbian lifestyle." "We're not concerned about offending people who don't agree with us on these issues," he said.

More complicated was the arrangement he described with the "Faith Family and Freedom" 527 organization that had been placing the calls. The fund was created and maintained by the 33-year-old Republican floor leader of the Oklahoma House of Representatives, Lance Cargill. The funding arrangement, as both men described it, was that a percentage of the profits from each caller who switched would be directed back into the 527's coffers to pay for conservative political campaigns. This is a hate-speech-fueled food chain between a company professing faith and a political action fund.

Mr. Thompson said that both parties agreed to the script, a charge that Mr. Cargill denies. Mr. Cargill stated that the calls had been recently stopped because of complaints from folks who "didn't appreciate the phone calls," but other organizations continue to place calls on United American Technologies' behalf. This is a rare glimpse into the divide-to-conquer world of grassroots political activists in an age of poisonous partisanship. Some argue that left-wing groups like Working Assets created the environment that right-wing groups are now exploiting. But whatever the genesis, the result is the absurd and ugly state of our domestic politics, where an eye-for-an-eye threatens to leave everyone blind.

Gay Rights Battlefields Spread to Public Schools

2005-06-09T09:15:00.000-07:00

By MICHAEL JANOFSKY

Emboldened by the political right's growing influence on public policy, opponents of school activities aimed at educating students about homosexuality or promoting acceptance of gay people are mounting challenges to such programs, at individual schools, at statehouses and in Congress.

Chief among the targets are sex education programs that include discussions of homosexuality, and after-school clubs that bring gay and straight students together, two initiatives that gained assent in numerous schools over the last decade.

In many cases, the opponents have been successful. In Montgomery County, Md., for example, parents went to court to block a health education course that offered a discussion of homosexuality, while in Cleveland, Ga., gay and lesbian students were barred from forming a high school club of gay and straight youths.

Leading figures on both sides of the fight say they have never seen passions about public school activities run so high. They agree that much of the reason is conservative groups' eagerness to meet their adversaries with a forcefulness more common to modern-day election campaigns.

"The intensity of the culture wars has heated up over the last few years," said J. Michael Johnson, a lawyer with the Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative group that specializes in issues involving religion. "People are becoming more aware that they have rights, and they're feeling more emboldened to defend them. Across the country, people are saying enough is enough."

Mathew D. Staver, president and general counsel of another conservative group, Liberty Counsel, said: "We're concerned about the effort to capture youth through indoctrination into the homosexual lifestyle. Students are a captive audience, and they are being targeted by groups with that as an agenda."

The growing conflicts are centering on three issues: whether classrooms are an appropriate venue to explore issues of homosexuality, whether schools should lend sanction to extracurricular activities in which gay culture is a focus and whether textbooks that acknowledge homosexual relationships are suitable for younger children.

This spring, in one instance of the conservative response, the Alliance Defense Fund organized its first national Day of Truth for high school students uncomfortable with the National Day of Silence, an event sponsored for nine years by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network to protest discrimination in schools.

"We needed to present a counter or Christian perspective," said Mr. Johnson, whose event attracted participation by 340 schools. Kevin Jennings, founder and executive director of the gay education network, said more than 3,700 junior and senior high schools took part in his group's event.

Mr. Jennings and other gay rights leaders say the growing opposition to their efforts is in keeping with a predictable trend set off by disputes over issues like same-sex marriage that are playing out on the national stage.

"These are a bunch of people who very much want to remove from public discourse any mention of homosexuality," said James Esseks, litigation director of the Lesbian and Gay Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union. "They don't want any mention of the fact that gay people exist."

The struggles have broken out everywhere.

Last month in Montgomery County, Md., a parents' group, alarmed because revisions to a health education course for 8th and 10th grades included a discussion of homosexuality and a video that demonstrated how to use a condom, went into federal court and gained a restraining order to halt them. The county school board then voted 7 to 1 to eliminate the amended program, six months after unanimously approving it.

Conservative groups applauded the board's vote as a victory for religious conviction, and described the litigation strategy as a model for school districts across the country.

"This was huge," said Robert H. Knight, director of the Culture and Family Institute, which seeks to apply biblical principles to public policy.

Another battle involved student journalists at East Bakersfield High School in California. They wrote a series of articles for the school newspaper this spring that explored gay issues through student experiences. But the principal, John Gibson, citing concern for the safety of students who had been interviewed and photographed, would approve publication only if their identities were withheld.

The journalists refused and, with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union, sued the school district on May 19, seeking an emergency order that would have allowed the articles to be published in the final issue of the year, six days later. A county judge declined to overrule Mr. Gibson, saying the issues were too important for an instant ruling.

Christine Sun, a lawyer for the A.C.L.U., said that if Mr. Gibson had been motivated only by concern for student safety, "his actions are completely illogical."

"These kids were already 'out' on campus," Ms. Sun said of the articles' subjects. "To the extent there is any threat against them, neither they nor their parents were notified by the principal or anyone from law enforcement."

Mr. Gibson did not respond to a call seeking comment.

The war is being waged at the state level as well. Alabama lawmakers are considering a bill that would bar state spending on books or other materials that "promote homosexual lifestyle." Oklahoma passed a resolution last month calling on public libraries to restrict children's access to books with a gay theme. Louisiana is considering a similar measure.

Charles C. Haynes, a senior scholar at the Freedom Forum, a nonpartisan free-speech advocacy group, said gay rights issues involving public schools had become a litmus test to many religious conservatives.

"They feel the public schools are getting ahead of the country," Mr. Haynes said. "They believe the schools are imposing a view of homosexuality that offends their faith and is not consistent with where we are as a country."

Two members of the Southern Baptist Convention have prepared a "resolution on homosexuality in public schools," to be introduced at the denomination's annual gathering this month. The resolution implores Baptist churches to determine whether schools in their area have "homosexual clubs or curricula or programs" and, if so, to encourage parents to remove their children from the schools.

"Churches and parents need to be aware of what's going on," said Bruce N. Shortt, a Houston lawyer who is a co-author of the resolution.

After-school clubs known as Gay-Straight Alliances, which draw together students to share common experiences and concerns, have become a particular source of conflict. The issue has roiled a number of communities, including Ashland, Ky.; Klein, Tex.; Hanford, Calif.; and Cleveland, Ga., where a small group of gay and lesbian students were denied permission this year to form an alliance at White County High School.

Federal law often frowns on administrators' barring some clubs while allowing others, but Cleveland school officials told the students that they would abolish all after-school organizations before allowing a gay-straight alliance.

"They're just scared of change," said Kerry Pacer, 17, who is leading the students' effort. "We live in the Bible Belt. Anything that threatens change, people here don't want that."

Complaints over the students' endeavor led State Senator Nancy Schaefer to introduce a bill that would have required a parent's written permission before a student could join any after-school club. The legislature later deferred to the Georgia Department of Education, which is now considering a modified approach allowing each local school board to develop its own policy.

Ms. Schaefer dismisses the compromise as too weak.

"I just don't feel like homosexual clubs have anything to do with readin', writin' and 'rithmetic," she said.

2005-06-09T00:55:00.000-07:00

2005-06-08T22:54:00.000-07:00

When Marine recruiters go way beyond the call
Wednesday, June 8, 2005
By SUSAN PAYNTER
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST
For mom Marcia Cobb and her teenage son Axel, the white letters USMC on their caller ID soon spelled, "Don't answer the phone!"
Marine recruiters began a relentless barrage of calls to Axel as soon as the mellow, compliant Sedro-Woolley High School grad had cut his 17th birthday cake. And soon it was nearly impossible to get the seekers of a few good men off the line.
With early and late calls ringing in their ears, Marcia tried using call blocking. And that's when she learned her first hard lesson. You can't block calls from the government, her server said. So, after pleas to "Please stop calling" went unanswered, the family's "do not answer" order ensued.
But warnings and liquid crystal lettering can fade. So, two weeks ago when Marcia was cooking dinner Axel goofed and answered the call. And, faster than you can say "semper fi," an odyssey kicked into action that illustrates just how desperate some of the recruiters we've read about really are to fill severely sagging quotas.
Let what we learned serve as a warning to other moms, dads and teens, the Cobbs now say. Even if your kids actually may want to join the military, if they hope to do it on their own terms, after a deep breath and due consideration, repeat these words after them: "No," "Not now" and "Back off!"
"I've been trained to be pretty friendly. I guess you might even say I'm kind of passive," Axel told me last week, just after his mother and older sister had tracked him to a Seattle testing center and sprung him on a ruse.
The next step of Axel's misadventure came when he heard about a cool "chin-ups" contest in Bellingham, where the prize was a free Xbox. The now 18-year-old Skagit Valley Community College student dragged his tail feathers home uncharacteristically late that night. And, in the morning, Marcia learned the Marines had hosted the event and "then had him out all night, drilling him to join."
A single mom with a meager income, Marcia raised her kids on the farm where, until recently, she grew salad greens for restaurants.
Axel's father, a Marine Corps vet who served in Vietnam, died when Axel was 4.
Clearly the recruiters knew all that and more.
"You don't want to be a burden to your mom," they told him. "Be a man." "Make your father proud." Never mind that, because of his own experience in the service, Marcia says enlistment for his son is the last thing Axel's dad would have wanted.
The next weekend, when Marcia went to Seattle for the Folklife Festival and Axel was home alone, two recruiters showed up at the door.
Axel repeated the family mantra, but he was feeling frazzled and worn down by then. The sergeant was friendly but, at the same time, aggressively insistent. This time, when Axel said, "Not interested," the sarge turned surly, snapping, "You're making a big (bleeping) mistake!"
Next thing Axel knew, the same sergeant and another recruiter showed up at the LaConner Brewing Co., the restaurant where Axel works. And before Axel, an older cousin and other co-workers knew or understood what was happening, Axel was whisked away in a car.
"They said we were going somewhere but I didn't know we were going all the way to Seattle," Axel said.
Just a few tests. And so many free opportunities, the recruiters told him.
He could pursue his love of chemistry. He could serve anywhere he chose and leave any time he wanted on an "apathy discharge" if he didn't like it. And he wouldn't have to go to Iraq if he didn't want to.
At about 3:30 in the morning, Alex was awakened in the motel and fed a little something. Twelve hours later, without further sleep or food, he had taken a battery of tests and signed a lot of papers he hadn't gotten a chance to read. "Just formalities," he was told. "Sign here. And here. Nothing to worry about."
By then Marcia had "freaked out."
She went to the Burlington recruiting center where the door was open but no one was home. So she grabbed all the cards and numbers she could find, including the address of the Seattle-area testing center.
Then, with her grown daughter in tow, she high-tailed it south, frantically phoning Axel whose cell phone had been confiscated "so he wouldn't be distracted during tests."
Axel's grandfather was in the hospital dying, she told the people at the desk. He needed to come home right away. She would have said just about anything.
But, even after being told her son would be brought right out, her daughter spied him being taken down a separate hall and into another room. So she dashed down the hall and grabbed him by the arm.
"They were telling me I needed to 'be a man' and stand up to my family," Axel said.
What he needed, it turned out, was a lawyer.
Five minutes and $250 after an attorney called the recruiters, Axel's signed papers and his cell phone were in the mail.
My request to speak with the sergeant who recruited Axel and with the Burlington office about recruitment procedures went unanswered.
And so should your phone, Marcia Cobb advised. Take your own sweet time. Keep your own counsel. And, if you see USMC on caller ID, remember what answering the call could mean.

Mehlman Lied And All We Got Was This Lousy TV Show

2005-06-08T01:14:00.000-07:00

http://mediamatters.org

Russert failed to correct Mehlman's claim that 9-11 Commission, Senate report "totally discredited" Downing Street Memo

On the June 5 edition of NBC's Meet the Press, moderator Tim Russert questioned but failed to correct Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman's claim that the "findings" of the Downing Street Memo, a secret British intelligence memo suggesting that the Bush administration manipulated intelligence to support its case for war in Iraq, "have been totally discredited by everyone who's looked at it," including the 9-11 Commission and the Senate.

In fact, neither the 9-11 Commission nor the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence addressed the Bush administration's use of pre-war intelligence.

In the same appearance, Russert also failed to correct Mehlman when he made the misleading claim that the Bush administration "is the first administration ever that has funded with federal dollars embryonic stem cell research. In fact, Bush's stem cell policy replaced a less restrictive set of rules issued by the Clinton administration, though those rules had yet to take effect.

When Russert raised the issue of the Downing Street Memo's contention that, in the Bush administration's push for war in Iraq, "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy," Mehlman replied: "Tim, that report has been discredited by everyone else who's looked at it since then. Whether it's the 9-11 Commission, whether it's the Senate, whoever's looked at this has said there was no effort to change the intelligence at all." When Russert noted "I don't believe that the authenticity of this report has been discredited," Mehlman reiterated: "I believe that the findings of the report, the fact that the intelligence was somehow fixed, have been totally discredited by everyone who's looked at it."

The Senate Intelligence committee's report examined the creation of the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, which was the intelligence community's most comprehensive and authoritative statement about Iraq. But the committee decided at the outset not to investigate the Bush administration's use of intelligence, including public statements by administration officials, in the first phase of its investigation.

Though the committee initially planned to conduct the second phase of its investigation following the 2004 election, Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS) indicated in March that the committee's investigation into whether the administration misrepresented intelligence judgments in its public statements would be indefinitely postponed, because of administration officials' insistence that "they believed the intelligence, and the intelligence was wrong." "[W]e sort of came to a crossroads, and that is basically on the back burner," Roberts said.

The 9-11 Commission report said even less about the Bush administration's use of intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war. The 567-page report focuses entirely on issues surrounding the September 11 terrorist attacks, addresses Iraq only in the context of Al Qaeda and September 11, and does not assess the accuracy or honesty of the Bush's public statements about the Iraqi threat.

Other official reports have similarly avoided the question of whether the Bush administration politicized intelligence. The Robb-Silberman commission's report on intelligence regarding weapons of mass destruction noted: "[W]e were not authorized to investigate how policymakers used the intelligence assessments they received from the Intelligence Community." The Duelfer report presented the results of the Iraq Survey Group's hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq following the invasion but did not compare these findings either with Bush's prewar statements to the public or with the prewar assessments of the intelligence community.

The British inquiry into prewar assessments of Iraq's weapons program, known as the Butler report, determined that Bush's 2003 State of the Union address claim that the "British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa" was "well-founded," but did not examine the administration's other uses of intelligence. But despite the report's findings, Bush's statement clearly contradicted the judgments of the U.S. intelligence community: in a statement released in July 2003, then-CIA Director George Tenet said agency officials "differed with the British dossier on the reliability of the uranium reporting."

Beyond the Downing Street Memo, other evidence indicates that the Bush administration misused intelligence. For example, as Media Matters for America has documented, accounts by Bush administration and U.N. intelligence officials and consultants, documented by CBS News, the Associated Press, and Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, indicate that the administration and CIA were aware at the time that much of the information provided in former Secretary of State Colin Powell's February 5, 2003, speech to the United Nations Security Council was suspect.

2005-06-07T01:01:00.000-07:00

Sacre Bleu!

Pride or Prejudice

2005-06-07T00:38:00.000-07:00

Ok Ahnie, so weit so gut, but why don't you put your money where your mouth is, say, the next time a gay marriage bill lands on your desk awaiting your signature?

2005-06-05T16:28:00.000-07:00

SECRET AND STRICTLY PERSONAL - UK EYES ONLY

DAVID MANNING
From: Matthew Rycroft
Date: 23 July 2002S 195 /02
cc: Defence Secretary, Foreign Secretary, Attorney-General, Sir Richard Wilson, John Scarlett, Francis Richards, CDS, C, Jonathan Powell, Sally Morgan, Alastair Campbell

IRAQ: PRIME MINISTER'S MEETING, 23 JULY

Copy addressees and you met the Prime Minister on 23 July to discuss Iraq.

This record is extremely sensitive. No further copies should be made. It should be shown only to those with a genuine need to know its contents.

John Scarlett summarised the intelligence and latest JIC assessment. Saddam's regime was tough and based on extreme fear. The only way to overthrow it was likely to be by massive military action. Saddam was worried and expected an attack, probably by air and land, but he was not convinced that it would be immediate or overwhelming. His regime expected their neighbours to line up with the US. Saddam knew that regular army morale was poor. Real support for Saddam among the public was probably narrowly based.

C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.

CDS said that military planners would brief CENTCOM on 1-2 August, Rumsfeld on 3 August and Bush on 4 August.

The two broad US options were:

(a) Generated Start. A slow build-up of 250,000 US troops, a short (72 hour) air campaign, then a move up to Baghdad from the south. Lead time of 90 days (30 days preparation plus 60 days deployment to Kuwait).

(b) Running Start. Use forces already in theatre (3 x 6,000), continuous air campaign, initiated by an Iraqi casus belli. Total lead time of 60 days with the air campaign beginning even earlier. A hazardous option.

The US saw the UK (and Kuwait) as essential, with basing in Diego Garcia and Cyprus critical for either option. Turkey and other Gulf states were also important, but less vital. The three main options for UK involvement were:

(i) Basing in Diego Garcia and Cyprus, plus three SF squadrons.
(ii) As above, with maritime and air assets in addition.
(iii) As above, plus a land contribution of up to 40,000, perhaps with a discrete role in Northern

Iraq entering from Turkey, tying down two Iraqi divisions.

The Defence Secretary said that the US had already begun "spikes of activity" to put pressure on the regime. No decisions had been taken, but he thought the most likely timing in US minds for military action to begin was January, with the timeline beginning 30 days before the US Congressional elections.

The Foreign Secretary said he would discuss this with Colin Powell this week. It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran. We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force.

The Attorney-General said that the desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action. There were three possible legal bases: self-defence, humanitarian intervention, or UNSC authorisation. The first and second could not be the base in this case. Relying on UNSCR 1205 of three years ago would be difficult. The situation might of course change.

The Prime Minister said that it would make a big difference politically and legally if Saddam refused to allow in the UN inspectors. Regime change and WMD were linked in the sense that it was the regime that was producing the WMD. There were different strategies for dealing with Libya and Iran. If the political context were right, people would support regime change. The two key issues were whether the military plan worked and whether we had the political strategy to give the military plan the space to work.

On the first, CDS said that we did not know yet if the US battleplan was workable. The military were continuing to ask lots of questions.

For instance, what were the consequences, if Saddam used WMD on day one, or if Baghdad did not collapse and urban warfighting began? You said that Saddam could also use his WMD on Kuwait. Or on Israel, added the Defence Secretary.

The Foreign Secretary thought the US would not go ahead with a military plan unless convinced that it was a winning strategy. On this, US and UK interests converged. But on the political strategy, there could be US/UK differences. Despite US resistance, we should explore discreetly the ultimatum. Saddam would continue to play hard-ball with the UN.

John Scarlett assessed that Saddam would allow the inspectors back in only when he thought the threat of military action was real.

The Defence Secretary said that if the Prime Minister wanted UK military involvement, he would need to decide this early. He cautioned that many in the US did not think it worth going down the ultimatum route. It would be important for the Prime Minister to set out the political context to Bush.

Conclusions:

(a) We should work on the assumption that the UK would take part in any military action. But we needed a fuller picture of US planning before we could take any firm decisions. CDS should tell the US military that we were considering a range of options.

(b) The Prime Minister would revert on the question of whether funds could be spent in preparation for this operation.

(c) CDS would send the Prime Minister full details of the proposed military campaign and possible UK contributions by the end of the week.

(d) The Foreign Secretary would send the Prime Minister the background on the UN inspectors, and discreetly work up the ultimatum to Saddam.
He would also send the Prime Minister advice on the positions of countries in the region especially Turkey, and of the key EU member states.

(e) John Scarlett would send the Prime Minister a full intelligence update.

(f) We must not ignore the legal issues: the Attorney-General would consider legal advice with FCO/MOD legal advisers.

(I have written separately to commission this follow-up work.)

MATTHEW RYCROFT
Link:

Whose Guns Are Smoking Now?!

2005-06-05T01:14:00.000-07:00

The Other Bomb Drops

by JEREMY SCAHILL
[posted online on June 1, 2005]
http://thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20050613&s=scahill

It was a huge air assault: Approximately 100 US and British planes flew from Kuwait into Iraqi airspace. At least seven types of aircraft were part of this massive operation, including US F-15 Strike Eagles and Royal Air Force Tornado ground-attack planes. They dropped precision-guided munitions on Saddam Hussein's major western air-defense facility, clearing the path for Special Forces helicopters that lay in wait in Jordan. Earlier attacks had been carried out against Iraqi command and control centers, radar detection systems, Revolutionary Guard units, communication centers and mobile air-defense systems. The Pentagon's goal was clear: Destroy Iraq's ability to resist. This was war.

But there was a catch: The war hadn't started yet, at least not officially. This was September 2002--a month before Congress had voted to give President Bush the authority he used to invade Iraq, two months before the United Nations brought the matter to a vote and more than six months before "shock and awe" officially began.

At the time, the Bush Administration publicly played down the extent of the air strikes, claiming the United States was just defending the so-called no-fly zones. But new information that has come out in response to the Downing Street memo reveals that, by this time, the war was already a foregone conclusion and attacks were no less than the undeclared beginning of the invasion of Iraq.

The Sunday Times of London recently reported on new evidence showing that "The RAF and US aircraft doubled the rate at which they were dropping bombs on Iraq in 2002 in an attempt to provoke Saddam Hussein into giving the allies an excuse for war." The paper cites newly released statistics from the British Defense Ministry showing that "the Allies dropped twice as many bombs on Iraq in the second half of 2002 as they did during the whole of 2001" and that "a full air offensive" was under way months before the invasion had officially begun.

The implications of this information for US lawmakers are profound. It was already well known in Washington and international diplomatic circles that the real aim of the US attacks in the no-fly zones was not to protect Shiites and Kurds. But the new disclosures prove that while Congress debated whether to grant Bush the authority to go to war, while Hans Blix had his UN weapons-inspection teams scrutinizing Iraq and while international diplomats scurried to broker an eleventh-hour peace deal, the Bush Administration was already in full combat mode--not just building the dossier of manipulated intelligence, as the Downing Street memo demonstrated, but acting on it by beginning the war itself. And according to the Sunday Times article, the Administration even hoped the attacks would push Saddam into a response that could be used to justify a war the Administration was struggling to sell.

On the eve of the official invasion, on March 8, 2003, Bush said in his national radio address: "We are doing everything we can to avoid war in Iraq. But if Saddam Hussein does not disarm peacefully, he will be disarmed by force." Bush said this after nearly a year of systematic, aggressive bombings of Iraq, during which Iraq was already being disarmed by force, in preparation for the invasion to come. By the Pentagon's own admission, it carried out seventy-eight individual, offensive airstrikes against Iraq in 2002 alone.

"It reminded me of a boxing match in which one of the boxers is told not to move while the other is allowed to punch and only stop when he is convinced that he has weakened his opponent to the point where he is defeated before the fight begins," says former UN Assistant Secretary General Hans Von Sponeck, a thirty-year career diplomat who was the top UN official in Iraq from 1998 to 2000. During both the Clinton and Bush administrations, Washington has consistently and falsely claimed these attacks were mandated by UN Resolution 688, passed after the Gulf War, which called for an end to the Iraqi government's repression in the Kurdish north and the Shiite south. Von Sponeck dismissed this justification as a "total misnomer." In an interview with The Nation, Von Sponeck said that the new information "belatedly confirms" what he has long argued: "The no-fly zones had little to do with protecting ethnic and religious groups from Saddam Hussein's brutality" but were in fact an "illegal establishment...for bilateral interests of the US and the UK."

These attacks were barely covered in the press and Von Sponeck says that as far back as 1999, the United States and Britain pressured the UN not to call attention to them. During his time in Iraq, Von Sponeck began documenting each of the airstrikes, showing "regular attacks on civilian installations including food warehouses, residences, mosques, roads and people." These reports, he said, were "welcomed" by Secretary General Kofi Annan, but "the US and UK governments strongly objected to this reporting." Von Sponeck says that he was pressured to end the practice, with a senior British diplomat telling him, "All you are doing is putting a UN stamp of approval on Iraqi propaganda." But Von Sponeck continued documenting the damage and visited many attack sites. In 1999 alone, he confirmed the death of 144 civilians and more than 400 wounded by the US/UK bombings.

After September 11, there was a major change in attitude within the Bush Administration toward the attacks. Gone was any pretext that they were about protecting Shiites and Kurds--this was a plan to systematically degrade Iraq's ability to defend itself from a foreign attack: bombing Iraq's air defenses, striking command facilities, destroying communication and radar infrastructure. As an Associated Press report noted in November 2002, "Those costly, hard-to-repair facilities are essential to Iraq's air defense."

Rear Admiral David Gove, former deputy director of global operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on November 20, 2002, that US and British pilots were "essentially flying combat missions." On October 3, 2002, the New York Times reported that US pilots were using southern Iraq for "practice runs, mock strikes and real attacks" against a variety of targets. But the full significance of this dramatic change in policy toward Iraq only became clear last month, with the release of the Downing Street memo. In it, British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon is reported to have said in 2002, after meeting with US officials, that "the US had already begun 'spikes of activity' to put pressure on the regime," a reference to the stepped-up airstrikes. Now the Sunday Times of London has revealed that these spikes "had become a full air offensive"--in other words, a war.

Michigan Democratic Representative John Conyers has called the latest revelations about these attacks "the smoking bullet in the smoking gun," irrefutable proof that President Bush misled Congress before the vote on Iraq. When Bush asked Congress to authorize the use of force in Iraq, he also said he would use it only as a last resort, after all other avenues had been exhausted. But the Downing Street memo reveals that the Administration had already decided to topple Saddam by force and was manipulating intelligence to justify the decision. That information puts the increase in unprovoked air attacks in the year prior to the war in an entirely new light: The Bush Administration was not only determined to wage war on Iraq, regardless of the evidence; it had already started that war months before it was put to a vote in Congress.

It only takes one member of Congress to begin an impeachment process, and Conyers is said to be considering the option. The process would certainly be revealing. Congress could subpoena Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Gen. Richard Myers, Gen.Tommy Franks and all of the military commanders and pilots involved with the no-fly zone bombings going back into the late 1990s. What were their orders, both given and received? In those answers might lie a case for impeachment.

But another question looms, particularly for Democrats who voted for the war and now say they were misled: Why weren't these unprovoked and unauthorized attacks investigated when they were happening, when it might have had a real impact on the Administration's drive to war? Perhaps that's why the growing grassroots campaign to use the Downing Street memo to impeach Bush can't get a hearing on Capitol Hill. A real probing of this "smoking gun" would not be uncomfortable only for Republicans. The truth is that Bush, like President Bill Clinton before him, oversaw the longest sustained bombing campaign since Vietnam against a sovereign country with no international or US mandate. That gun is probably too hot for either party to touch.

2005-06-05T00:56:00.000-07:00

The Disassembling of the Free Press

2005-05-30T00:30:00.000-07:00

2005-05-30T00:25:00.000-07:00

Nucuoolar Options

2005-05-30T00:18:00.000-07:00

In a Culture of "Life"...

2005-05-30T00:13:00.000-07:00

Yet Another Free Speech De-Bachus

2005-05-25T23:42:00.000-07:00

2005-05-24T01:37:00.000-07:00

Read Newsweek, it's a riot!

2005-05-24T01:31:00.000-07:00

Pinche Fox!

2005-05-14T01:32:00.000-07:00

Dr. Hager's Family Values

by AYELISH MCGARVEY

[from the May 30, 2005 issue]

Late last October Dr. W. David Hager, a prominent obstetrician-gynecologist and Bush Administration appointee to the Advisory Committee for Reproductive Health Drugs in the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), took to the pulpit as the featured speaker at a morning service. He stood in the campus chapel at Asbury College, a small evangelical Christian school nestled among picturesque horse farms in the small town of Wilmore in Kentucky's bluegrass region. Hager is an Asburian nabob; his elderly father is a past president of the college, and Hager himself currently sits on his alma mater's board of trustees. Even the school's administrative building, Hager Hall, bears the family name.

That day, a mostly friendly audience of 1,500 students and faculty packed into the seats in front of him. With the autumn sunlight streaming through the stained-glass windows, Hager opened his Bible to the Old Testament Book of Ezekiel and looked out into the audience. "I want to share with you some information about how...God has called me to stand in the gap," he declared. "Not only for others, but regarding ethical and moral issues in our country."

For Hager, those moral and ethical issues all appear to revolve around sex: In both his medical practice and his advisory role at the FDA, his ardent evangelical piety anchors his staunch opposition to emergency contraception, abortion and premarital sex. Through his six books--which include such titles as Stress and the Woman's Body and As Jesus Cared for Women, self-help tomes that interweave syrupy Christian spirituality with paternalistic advice on women's health and relationships--he has established himself as a leading conservative Christian voice on women's health and sexuality.

When Hager's nomination to the FDA was announced in the fall of 2002, his conservative Christian beliefs drew sharp criticism from Democrats and prochoice groups. David Limbaugh, the lesser light in the Limbaugh family and author of Persecution: How Liberals Are Waging Political War Against Christianity, said the left had subjected Hager to an "anti-Christian litmus test." Hager's valor in the face of this "religious profiling" earned him the praise and lasting support of evangelical Christians, including such luminaries as Charles Colson, Dr. James Dobson and Franklin Graham, son of the Rev. Billy Graham.

Back at Asbury, Hager cast himself as a victim of religious persecution in his sermon. "You see...there is a war going on in this country," he said gravely. "And I'm not speaking about the war in Iraq. It's a war being waged against Christians, particularly evangelical Christians. It wasn't my scientific record that came under scrutiny [at the FDA]. It was my faith.... By making myself available, God has used me to stand in the breach.... Just as he has used me, he can use you."

Up on the dais, several men seated behind Hager nodded solemnly in agreement. But out in the audience, Linda Carruth Davis--co-author with Hager of Stress and the Woman's Body, and, more saliently, his former wife of thirty-two years--was enraged. "It was the most disgusting thing I've ever heard," she recalled months later, through clenched teeth.

According to Davis, Hager's public moralizing on sexual matters clashed with his deplorable treatment of her during their marriage. Davis alleges that between 1995 and their divorce in 2002, Hager repeatedly sodomized her without her consent. Several sources on and off the record confirmed that she had told them it was the sexual and emotional abuse within their marriage that eventually forced her out. "I probably wouldn't have objected so much, or felt it was so abusive if he had just wanted normal [vaginal] sex all the time," she explained to me. "But it was the painful, invasive, totally nonconsensual nature of the [anal] sex that was so horrible."

Not once during the uproar over Hager's FDA appointment did any reporter solicit the opinion of the woman now known as Linda Davis--she remarried in November 2002 to James Davis, a Methodist minister, and relocated to southern Georgia--on her husband's record, even though she contributed to much of his self-help work in the Christian arena (she remains a religious and political conservative). She intermittently thought of telling her story but refrained, she says, out of respect for her adult children. It was Hager's sermon at Asbury last October that finally changed her mind. Davis was there to hear her middle son give a vocal performance; she was prepared to hear her ex-husband inveigh against secular liberals, but she was shocked to hear him speak about their divorce when he took to the pulpit.

"In early 2002," Hager told the churchgoers that day, "my world fell apart.... After thirty-two years of marriage, I was suddenly alone in a new home that we had built as our dream home. Time spent 'doing God's will' had kept me from spending the time I needed to nourish my marriage." Hager noted with pride that in his darkest hour, Focus on the Family estimated that 50 million people worldwide were praying for him.

Linda Davis quietly fumed in her chair. "He had the gall to stand under the banner of holiness of the Lord and lie, by the sin of omission," she told me. "It's what he didn't say--it's the impression he left."

Sex was always a source of conflict in the marriage. Though it wasn't emotionally satisfying for her, Davis says she soon learned that sex could "buy" peace with Hager after a long day of arguing, or insure his forgiveness after she spent too much money. "Sex was coinage; it was a commodity," she said. Sometimes Hager would blithely shift from vaginal to anal sex. Davis protested. "He would say, 'Oh, I didn't mean to have anal sex with you; I can't feel the difference,'" Davis recalls incredulously. "And I would say, 'Well then, you're in the wrong business.'"

By the 1980s, according to Davis, Hager was pressuring her to let him videotape and photograph them having sex. She consented, and eventually she even let Hager pay her for sex that she wouldn't have otherwise engaged in--for example, $2,000 for oral sex, "though that didn't happen very often because I hated doing it so much. So though it was more painful, I would let him sodomize me, and he would leave a check on the dresser," Davis admitted to me with some embarrassment. This exchange took place almost weekly for several years.

Money was an explosive issue in their household. Hager kept an iron grip on the family purse strings. Initially the couple's single checking account was in Hager's name only, which meant that Davis had to appeal to her husband for cash, she says. Eventually he relented and opened a dual account. Davis recalls that Hager would return home every evening and make a beeline for his office to balance the checkbook, often angrily summoning her to account for the money she'd spent that day. Brenda Bartella Peterson, Davis's friend of twenty-five years and her neighbor at the time, witnessed Hager berate his wife in their kitchen after one such episode. For her part, Davis set out to subvert Hager's financial dominance with profligate spending on credit cards opened in her own name. "I was not willing to face reality about money," she admits. "I thought, 'Well, money can't buy happiness, but it buys the kind of misery you can learn to live with.'"

These financial atmospherics undoubtedly figured into Linda's willingness to accept payment for sex. But eventually her conscience caught up with her. "Finally...I said, 'You know, David, this is like being a prostitute. I just can't do this anymore; I don't think it's healthy for our relationship,'" she recalls.

By 1995, according to Davis's account, Hager's treatment of his wife had moved beyond morally reprehensible to potentially felonious. It was a uniquely stressful year for Davis. Her mother, dying of cancer, had moved in with the family and was in need of constant care. At the same time, Davis was suffering from a seemingly inexplicable exhaustion during the day. She began exhibiting a series of strange behaviors, like falling asleep in such curious places as the mall and her closet. Occasionally she would--as she describes it--"zone out" in midsentence in a conversation, and her legs would buckle. Eventually, Davis was diagnosed as having narcolepsy, a neurological disorder that affects the brain's ability to regulate normal sleep-wake cycles.

For Davis, the diagnosis spelled relief, and a physician placed her on several medications to attain "sleep hygiene," or a consistent sleep pattern. But Davis says it was after the diagnosis that the period of the most severe abuse began. For the next seven years Hager sodomized Davis without her consent while she slept roughly once a month until their divorce in 2002, she claims. "My sense is that he saw [my narcolepsy] as an opportunity," Davis surmises. Sometimes she fought Hager off and he would quit for a while, only to circle back later that same night; at other times, "the most expedient thing was to try and somehow get it [over with]. In order to keep any peace, I had to maintain the illusion of being available to him." At still other moments, she says, she attempted to avoid Hager's predatory advances in various ways--for example, by sleeping in other rooms in the house, or by struggling to stay awake until Hager was in a deep sleep himself. But, she says, nothing worked. One of Davis's lifelong confidantes remembers when Davis first told her about the abuse. "[Linda] was very angry and shaken," she recalled.

Heehaw!!!

2005-05-12T00:12:00.000-07:00

2005-05-09T00:59:00.000-07:00

The Liberal Media Bias

2005-05-09T00:52:00.000-07:00

Heart of Darkness anno 2005

2005-05-09T00:49:00.000-07:00

Runaway Journalism

2005-05-09T00:30:00.000-07:00

2005-05-05T19:07:00.000-07:00

Darwin on trial: Evolution hearings open in Kansas
By Carey GillamThu May 5, 3:45 PM ET

A six-day courtroom-style debate opened on Thursday in Kansas over what children should be taught in schools about the origin of life -- was it natural evolution or did God create the world?

The hearings, complete with opposing attorneys and a long list of witnesses, were arranged amid efforts by some Christian groups in Kansas and nationally to reverse the domination of evolutionary theory in the nation's schools.

William Harris, a medical researcher and co-founder of a Kansas group called the Intelligent Design Network, posed the core question about life's beginnings before mapping out why he and other Christians want changes in school curriculum.

School science classes are teaching children that life evolved naturally and randomly, Harris said, arguing that this was in conflict with Biblical teachings that God created life.

"They are offering an answer that may be in conflict with religious views," Harris said in opening the debate. "Part of our overall goal is to remove the bias against religion that is currently in schools. This is a scientific controversy that has powerful religious implications."

Conservative groups are trying to convince state education officials to change guidelines for how evolution theory is taught in science classes at a time when Kansas education authorities are producing new science teaching guidelines.

The hearings -- organized by a committee of the Kansas Board of Education -- were taking place 80 years after the so-called "Monkey Trial" of John Scopes, a Tennessee biology teacher who was found guilty of illegally teaching evolution.

There is renewed debate over evolution in more than a dozen U.S. states and a resurgence across the nation in the influence of religious conservatives, who played an important part in the reelection of Republican President Bush last year.

TEACHERS AND PREACHERS

The Kansas hearing drew a large crowd that included students, teachers and preachers. National and local scientific leaders for the most part boycotted the event.

Pedro Irigonegaray, a lawyer defending evolution in the debate, said he planned to call no witnesses, though he did cross-examine witnesses, sometimes combatively.

Harris acknowledged under questioning that there were many people who saw no incompatibility between religious beliefs that God created life and evolutionary teachings about how life evolved through natural processes.

Outside the hearing room, outraged scientists challenged the validity of the hearings. "This is a showcase trial," said Jack Krebs, vice president for Kansas Citizens for Science. "They have hijacked science and education."

Ken Schmitz, a University of Missouri/Kansas City chemistry professor attending the hearing said he worried that the attack on evolution could confuse students and endanger their ability to excel in science.

"They are not going to understand this," said Schmitz.

Changes to the curriculum proposed by the conservatives would not require inclusion of Biblical beliefs in science classes, also called "creationism" - the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1987 that creationism could not be taught in public schools alongside evolution.

But they would involve questioning the principles of evolution as explanations for the origins of life, the universe and the genetic code. As well, teachers would be encouraged to discuss with students "alternative explanations."

Kansas has been struggling with the issue for years, capturing worldwide attention in 1999 when the state school board voted to downplay Charles Darwin's theory of evolution in science classes.

Subsequent elections altered the membership of the board and led to renewed backing for evolution instruction in 2001. But elections last year gave conservatives a 6-4 majority and the board is now producing new science teaching guidelines.

2005-05-05T01:01:00.000-07:00

Spy-D Cards Anyone?

2005-05-05T00:53:00.000-07:00

National ID cards on the way?

By Declan McCullagh
Story last modified Mon Feb 14 04:00:00 PST 2005

A recent vote in Congress endorsing standardized, electronically readable driver's licenses has raised fears about whether the proposal would usher in what amounts to a national ID card.

In a vote that largely divided along party lines, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a Republican-backed measure that would compel states to design their driver's licenses by 2008 to comply with federal antiterrorist standards. Federal employees would reject licenses or identity cards that don't comply, which could curb Americans' access to everything from airplanes to national parks and some courthouses.

The congressional maneuvering takes place as governments are growing more interested in implanting technology in ID cards to make them smarter and more secure. The U.S. State Department soon will begin issuing passports with radio frequency identification, or RFID, chips embedded in them, and Virginia may become the first state to glue RFID tags into all its driver's licenses.

What's new:

A recent vote in Congress endorsing standardized, electronically readable driver's licenses has raised fears about whether the proposal would usher in what amounts to a national ID card.

Bottom line:

Proponents of the Real ID Act say it's needed to frustrate both terrorists and illegal immigrants. Critics say it imposes more requirements for identity documents on states, and gives the Department of Homeland Security carte blanche to do nearly anything else "to protect the national security interests of the United States."

More stories on privacy and national security

"Supporters claim it is not a national ID because it is voluntary," Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, one of the eight Republicans to object to the measure, said during the floor debate this week.

"However, any state that opts out will automatically make nonpersons out of its citizens. They will not be able to fly or to take a train."

Paul warned that the legislation, called the Real ID Act, gives unfettered authority to the Department of Homeland Security to design state ID cards and driver's licenses. Among the possibilities: biometric information such as retinal scans, fingerprints, DNA data and RFID tracking technology.

Proponents of the Real ID Act say it adheres to the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission and is needed to frustrate both terrorists and illegal immigrants. Only a portion of the legislation regulates ID cards; the rest deals with immigration law and asylum requests. "American citizens have the right to know who is in their country, that people are who they say they are, and that the name on the driver's license is the real holder's name, not some alias," F. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wisc., said last week.

"If these commonsense reforms had been in place in 2001, they would have hindered the efforts of the 9/11 terrorists, and they will go a long way toward helping us prevent another tragedy like 9/11," said House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas.

Now the Real ID Act heads to the Senate, where its future is less certain. Senate rules make it easier for politicians to derail legislation, and an aide said Friday that Sen. Patrick Leahy, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, was concerned about portions of the bill.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, the top Democrat on a terrorism subcommittee, said "I basically support the thrust of the bill" in an e-mail to CNET News.com on Friday. "The federal government should have the ability to issue standards that all driver's licenses and identification documents should meet."

"Spy-D" cards?

National ID cards are nothing new, of course. Many European, Asian and South American countries require their citizens to carry such documents at all times, with legal punishments in place for people caught without them. Other nations that share the English common law tradition, including Australia and New Zealand, have rejected such schemes.
A host of political, cultural and even religious concerns has prevented a national ID from being adopted in the United States, even during the tumultuous days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that ushered in the Patriot Act.

Conservatives and libertarians typically argue that a national ID card will increase the power of the government, and they fear the dehumanizing effects of laws enacted as a result. Civil liberties groups tend to worry about the administrative problems, the opportunities for criminal mischief, and the potential irreversibility of such a system.

Some evangelical Christians have likened such a proposal to language in the Bible warning "that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name." That mark is the sign of the "end times," according to evangelical thinking, which predicts that anyone who accepts the mark will be doomed to eternal torment.

Those long-standing concerns have become more pointed recently, thanks to the opportunity for greater tracking--as well as potentially greater security for ID documents--that technologies such as RFID provide. Though the Real ID act does not specify RFID or biometric technology, it requires that the Department of Homeland Security adopt "machine-readable technology" standards and provides broad discretion in how to do it.

An ad hoc alliance of privacy groups and technologists recently has been fighting proposals from the International Civil Aviation Organization to require that passports and other travel documents be outfitted with biometrics and remotely readable RFID-type "contact-less integrated circuits."

The ICAO, a United Nations organization, argues the measures are necessary to reduce fraud, combat terrorism and improve airline security. But its critics have raised questions about how the technology could be misused by identity thieves with RFID readers, and they say it would "promote irresponsible national behavior."

In the United States, the federal government is planning to embed RFID chips in all U.S. passports and some foreign visitor's documents. The U.S. State Department is now evaluating so-called e-passport technology from eight different companies. The agency plans to select a supplier and issue the first e-passports this spring, starting in Los Angeles, and predicts that all U.S. passport agencies will be issuing them within a year.

The high-tech passports are supposed to deter theft and forgeries, as well as accelerate immigration checks at airports and borders. They'll contain within their covers a miniscule microchip that stores basic data, including the passport holder's name, date of birth and place of birth. The chip, which can transmit information through a tiny included antenna, also has enough room to store biometric data such as digitized fingerprints, photographs and iris scans.
Border officials can compare the information on the chip to that on the rest of the passport and to the person actually carrying it. Discrepancies could signal foul play.

In a separate program, the Department of Homeland Security plans to issue RFID devices to foreign visitors that enter the country at the Mexican and Canadian borders. The agency plans to start a yearlong test of the technology in July at checkpoints in Arizona, New York and Washington state.

The idea is to aid immigration officials in tracking visitors' arrivals and departures and snare those who overstay their visas. Similar to e-passports, the new system should speed up inspection procedures. It's part of the US-VISIT program, a federal initiative designed to capture and share data such as fingerprints and photographs of foreign visitors.

A "Trojan horse"

The legislation approved by the House last Thursday follows a related measure President Bush signed into law in December. That law gives the Transportation Department two years to devise standard rules for state licenses, requires information to be stored in "machine-readable" format, and says noncompliant ID cards won't be accepted by federal agencies.

But critics fret that the new bill goes even further. It shifts authority to the Department of Homeland Security, imposes more requirements for identity documents on states, and gives the department carte blanche to do nearly anything else "to protect the national security interests of the United States."

"In reality, this bill is a Trojan horse," said Paul, the Republican congressman. "It pretends to offer desperately needed border control in order to stampede Americans into sacrificing what is uniquely American: our constitutionally protected liberty."

Unlike last year's measure, the Real ID Act "doesn't even mention the word 'privacy,'" said Marv Johnson, a lobbyist for the American Civil Liberties Union.

"What I think the House is planning on doing is attaching this bill to tsunami relief or money to the troops," Johnson says. "When they send it to the Senate, the Senate will have to either fish or cut bait. They can approve it or ask for a conference committee, at which point the House can say 'they're playing games with national security.'"

In response to a question about a national ID card, White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters on Friday that "the president supports the legislation that just passed the House." McClellan pointed to a statement from the White House earlier in the week that endorsed it.

Another section of the Real ID Act that has raised alarms is the linking of state Department of Motor Vehicles databases, which was not part of last year's law. Among the information that must be shared: "All data fields printed on drivers' licenses and identification cards" and complete drivers' histories, including motor vehicle violations, suspensions and points on licenses.

Some senators have indicated they may rewrite part of the measure once they begin deliberations.

Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., chairman of a terrorism subcommittee, is readying his own bill that will be introduced within a few weeks, spokesman Andrew Wilder said on Friday. "He has been at work on his own version of things," Wilder said. "Senator Kyl does support biometric identifiers."
CNET News.com's Alorie Gilbert contributed to this report.

Copyright ©1995-2005 CNET Networks, Inc. All rights reserved.

2005-05-05T00:11:00.000-07:00

It's All Relative

2005-05-04T00:42:00.000-07:00

Clearly, it's a mandate!

2005-05-03T22:15:00.000-07:00

The Blind Leading The Blind

2005-05-03T00:54:00.000-07:00

2005-05-03T00:53:00.000-07:00

The Weakly Standard

2005-05-01T20:29:00.000-07:00

Wow, watch the GOP play the race card, and accuse Dems of doing so...

Minority Rule?
From the May 9, 2005 issue: How the Democrats decide who to filibuster.
by Steven G. Calabresi 05/09/2005, Volume 010, Issue 32

THE LEGAL LEFT IS DANGEROUSLY close to winning the political war it has been fighting against the Bush administration over the future direction of the federal courts. The evidence of this is that whenever rumors are floated of possible Bush Supreme Court nominees, there are some very prominent conservative names that aren't mentioned, though they should be.
The eminently qualified conservatives Democrats have quashed include Miguel Estrada, who is Hispanic, Janice Rogers Brown, who is African American, Bill Pryor, a brilliant young Catholic, and two white women, Priscilla Owen and Carolyn Kuhl. By keeping these five nominees off the federal courts of appeals, Democrats seem to have blocked Bush from considering them for the Supreme Court.

When George W. Bush became president in 2001, the legal left and the Democratic party rallied around the slogan "No more Clarence Thomases." By that they meant that they would not allow any more conservative African Americans, Hispanics, women, or Catholics to be groomed for nomination to the High Court with court of appeals appointments. The Democrats have done such a good job of this that, today, the only names being floated as serious Supreme Court nominees are those of white men.

This is what is at stake in the fight that rages now over whether the filibuster of judges gets abolished. Leading Democratic activists like Bruce Ackerman have called on Senate Democrats never to allow another Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court. If they succeed in establishing the proposition that it takes 60 instead of 51 votes to get on the Supreme Court, conservatives can forget about ever again appointing a Scalia or a Thomas.

Some Republicans have explored the idea that maybe a compromise is possible with the Democrats whereby Bush's court of appeals nominees are allowed through but the power to filibuster judicial nominees is retained. This would be a bad deal because the fight over the filibuster was always a fight about the future direction of the Supreme Court, and as long as the device is retained, it will be trotted out against any clearly conservative Bush Supreme Court nominee. It is time to drive a stake through the heart of the filibuster of judges.

Senate Democrats also reportedly proposed a "compromise" of their own: Filibusters against Thomas Griffith and William Myers, nominated for the D.C. Circuit and Ninth Circuit respectively, would be dropped if Republicans would withdraw the nominations of Janice Rogers Brown and Priscilla Owen. But this bad deal just shows how afraid Senate Democrats are of Brown and Owen.

Why are Senate Democrats so afraid of conservative judicial nominees who are African Americans, Hispanics, Catholics, and women? Because these Clarence Thomas nominees threaten to split the Democratic base by aligning conservative Republicans with conservative voices in the minority community and appealing to suburban women. The Democrats need Bush to nominate conservatives to the Supreme Court whom they can caricature and vilify, and it is much harder for them to do that if Bush nominates the judicial equivalent of a Condi Rice rather than a John Ashcroft.

Conservative African-American, Hispanic, Catholic, and female judicial candidates also drive the left-wing legal groups crazy because they expose those groups as not really speaking for minorities or women. They thus undermine the moral legitimacy of those groups and drive a wedge between the left-wing leadership of those groups and the members they falsely claim to represent.

Take Janice Rogers Brown, who won reelection to her state supreme court seat with a stunning 76 percent of the vote in one of the bluest of the blue states, California. Or take Priscilla Owen, who won reelection to the Texas Supreme Court with a staggering 84 percent of the vote in Texas. It is Brown and Owen who represent mainstream opinion in this country--not the Senate Democrats who have been using the filibuster to block their confirmation to the federal bench. If Brown or Owen were nominated to the Supreme Court, the record suggests she would win the ensuing national contest for hearts and minds. Best of all for conservatives, Senate Democrats would be forced by their left-wing interest groups to go down fighting these popular minority and female nominees. At a bare minimum, Republican Senate candidates would acquire a great issue for 2006.

Thus the driving force behind the Democrats' filibuster of conservative minorities and women is political--driven by a desire to protect the party's advantage with minority and women voters and cater to left-wing interest groups. Democrats are also driven in part by their odd belief that "real" African Americans and Hispanics and women cannot be conservative.

The filibuster of judges has crippled the Bush administration's efforts to appoint judges like Scalia and Thomas to the federal courts of appeals. Take the D.C. Circuit--a federal appeals court that all agree is second in importance only to the Supreme Court, and a grooming place for future Supreme Court nominees. In his eight years in office, Ronald Reagan appointed Robert Bork, Antonin Scalia, Kenneth Starr, Laurence Silberman, James Buckley, Stephen Williams, David Sentelle, and Douglas Ginsburg to this all-important court. Five years into his presidency, George W. Bush has appointed only a single judge to that court, John Roberts. The score on the D.C. Circuit is Reagan eight, Bush one--thanks to Senate Democrats and the filibuster.

The story on the D.C. Circuit is being repeated on federal courts of appeals all over the country. As Reagan and Bush-senior judges retire, their spots are being filled by those GOP nominees who are "acceptable" to Senators Charles Schumer and Dick Durbin. It is a safe bet that it is the future Scalias and Thomases who are being kept off the courts, not the future Anthony Kennedys and Sandra Day O'Connors.

It is impossible to exaggerate just how important the upcoming vote on abolishing the filibuster of judges really is. For 214 years of our history, there was not a single filibuster of a judicial nominee who had the support of a majority of the Senate. Before 2003, there was never once a filibuster of a lower court judicial nomination. Today such filibusters have become commonplace, and they will become positively routine if filibuster reform fails to go through. The stakes for conservatives could not be higher.

Steven G. Calabresi is George C. Dix professor of constitutional law at Northwestern University.
© Copyright 2005, News Corporation, Weekly Standard, All Rights Reserved.

2005-04-30T23:28:00.000-07:00

Conservatives Heart 'South Park'

By FRANK RICH

Conservatives can't stop whining about Hollywood, but the embarrassing reality is that they want to be hip, too. It's not easy. In the showbiz wrangling sweepstakes of 2004, liberals had Leonardo DiCaprio, the Dixie Chicks and the Boss. The right had Bo Derek, Pat Boone and Jessica Simpson, who, upon meeting the secretary of the interior, Gale Norton, congratulated her for doing "a nice job decorating the White House." Ms. Simpson may be the last performer in America who can make Whoopi Goldberg seem like the soul of wit.

What to do? Now that Arnold Schwarzenegger's poll numbers have sunk, the right's latest effort to grab a piece of the showbiz action is a new and fast-selling book published by Regnery, home to the Swift Boat Veterans, and promoted in lock step by the right-wing media elite of Fox News, The Wall Street Journal's editorial page and The New York Post. "South Park Conservatives: The Revolt Against Liberal Media Bias," by Brian C. Anderson of the conservative think tank the Manhattan Institute, gives a wet kiss to one of the funniest and most foul-mouthed series on television. The book has even been endorsed by the grim theologian Michael Novak, who presumably forgot to TiVo the "South Park" episode that holds the record for the largest number of bleeped-out repetitions (162) of a single four-letter expletive in a single television half-hour. Then again, The Weekly Standard has informed us that William Bennett, egged on by his children, has given the show a tentative thumbs up.

Cynics might say that conservatives, flummoxed by the popularity of Jon Stewart, are eager to endorse any bigger hit on Comedy Central: The animated adventures of four obstreperous fourth graders in the mythical town of South Park, Colo., outdraws "The Daily Show" by a million or so viewers. But Mr. Anderson has another case to make. He quotes "South Park" profanity without apology and cheers the "scathing genius" with which it mocks "hate-crime laws and sexual harassment policies, liberal celebrities, abortion-rights extremists."

In one episode he praises, "Butt Out," a caricatured Rob Reiner journeys from Hollywood to South Park to mount a fascistic antismoking campaign that "perfectly captures the Olympian arrogance and illiberalism of liberal elites." Mr. Anderson also applauds last fall's "South Park" adjunct, "Team America: World Police," the feature film in which the show's creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, portray Michael Moore as a suicide bomber and ridicule the antiwar activism of Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon, Alec Baldwin, Sean Penn and Janeane Garofalo by presenting them as dim-witted, terrorist-appeasing puppets (literally so, with strings) who are ultimately blown to bits at a "world peace conference" convened by Kim Jong Il. (The film is out on DVD, with an expanded marionette sex scene featuring coprophilia, on May 17.)

So far, so right. Among their other anarchic comic skills, Mr. Parker and Mr. Stone have a perfect pitch for lampooning what many Americans find most irritating about liberals, especially Hollywood liberals: a self-righteous propensity for knowing better than anyone else and for meddling in everyone's business, whether by enforcing P.C. speech codes or plotting to curb S.U.V.'s and guns.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the publication of "South Park Conservatives": Emboldened by the supposed "moral values" landslide on Election Day, the faith-based right became the new left. Just as Mr. Anderson's book reached stores in early April, Mr. Parker and Mr. Stone, true to their butt-out libertarianism, aimed their fire at self-righteous, big-government conservatives who have become every bit as high-handed and meddlesome as any Prius-pushing movie star. Such is this role reversal that the same TV show celebrated by Mr. Anderson and his cohort as the leading edge of a potential conservative victory in the culture wars now looks like a harbinger of an anti-conservative backlash instead.

In the March 30 episode, Kenny, a kid whose periodic death is a "South Park" ritual, lands in a hospital in a "persistent vegetative state" and is fed through a tube. The last page of his living will is missing. Demonstrators and media hordes descend. Though heavenly angels decree that "God intended Kenny to die" rather than be "kept alive artificially," they are thwarted by Satan, whose demonic aide advises him to "do what we always do - use the Republicans." Soon demagogic Republican politicians are spewing sound bites ("Removing the feeding tube is murder") scripted in Hell. But as in the Schiavo case, they don't prevail. Kenny is allowed to die in peace once his missing final wish is found: "If I should ever be in a vegetative state and kept alive on life support, please for the love of God don't ever show me in that condition on national television."

This remarkably prescient scenario, first broadcast on the eve of Terri Schiavo's death, anticipated just how far the zeitgeist would swing in the month after the right's overreach in her case. A USA Today poll a week later found that Americans by 55 to 40 percent believe that "Republicans, traditionally the party of limited government, are 'trying to use the federal government to interfere with the private lives of most Americans' on moral values." In other words, what Hillary Clinton's overreaching big-government health care plan did to the Democrats a decade ago is the whammy the Schiavo case has inflicted on the G.O.P. today. And like the Democrats back then, the Republican elites have been so besotted with their election victory and so out of touch with the mainstream they didn't see their comeuppance coming. At the height of the feeding-tube frenzy, Peggy Noonan told her Wall Street Journal troops that federal intervention in the Schiavo family brawl was a political slam dunk: "Politicians, please, think of yourselves! Move to help Terri Schiavo, and no one will be mad at you, and you'll keep a human being alive." (Italics hers.)

Oops. But what's given the Schiavo case resonance beyond the Schiavo story itself is that it crystallized the bigger picture of Olympian arrogance and illiberalism on the right. The impulse that led conservatives to intervene in a family's bitter debate over a feeding tube is the same one that makes them turn a debate over a Senate rule on filibusters into a litmus test of spiritual correctness. Surely no holier-than-thou Hollywood pontificator could be harder to take than the sanctimonious Bill Frist, who, unlike Barbra Streisand, can't even sing.

The same arrogance that sent Republicans into Terri Schiavo's hospice room has also led them to try to police the culture of sex more rabidly than the left did the culture of sexism. No wonder another recent poll, from the Pew Research Center, finds that for all the real American displeasure with coarse entertainment, a plurality of 48 percent believes that "the government's imposing undue restrictions" on pop culture is "a greater danger" to the country than the entertainment industry itself. Who could have imagined that the public would fear Focus on the Family's James Dobson more than 50 Cent?

But in this crusade, too, few on the right seem to recognize that they're overplaying their hand; they keep upping the ante. One powerful senator, Ted Stevens of Alaska, has proposed that cable and satellite be policed by the federal government along with broadcast television - a death knell for even the Sirius incarnation of Howard Stern, not to mention much of Comedy Central. A powerful House committee chairman, James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin, topped that by calling for offenders to be pursued through a "criminal process." Last week President Bush signed a Family Entertainment and Copyright Act that allows "family-friendly" companies to sell filter technology that cleans up DVD's of Hollywood movies without permission or input from the films' own authors and copyright holders. That sounds innocuous enough until you learn that even "Schindler's List" isn't immune from the right's rigid P.C. code. As the owner of CleanFlicks, the American Fork, Utah, company that goes further and sells pre-sanitized DVD's, once explained to The New York Times : "Every teenager in America should see that film. But I don't think my daughters should see naked old men running around in circles." And so Big Brother can intervene to protect our kids from all that geriatric Holocaust porn.

On the first page of "South Park Conservatives," its author declares that "CBS's cancellation in late 2003 of its planned four-hour miniseries 'The Reagans' marked a watershed in America's culture wars." It did, in the sense that the right's successful effort to stifle what it regarded as an un-P.C. (i.e., somewhat critical) treatment of Ronald Reagan sped the censorious jihad that's now threatening everything from "The Sopranos" on HBO to lesbian moms on PBS. Of course "South Park" is also on this hit list: the Parents Television Council, the take-no-prisoners e-mail mill leading the anti-indecency charge, has condemned the show on its Web site as a "curdled, malodorous black hole of Comedy Central vomit." Should such theocratic conservatives prevail, "South Park" conservatives will be hipper than they ever could have imagined - terminally hip, you might say.

2005-04-30T02:34:00.000-07:00

2005-04-27T20:50:00.000-07:00