The W machine keeps pumping them out...tsk tsk. THIS FROM:
Op/Ed-The Nation
Monday Feb. 28, 11:15 AM ET
By Ari Berman
It's been an inauspicious start for Scott Bloch, head of the government's Office of Special Counsel (OSC), the agency charged with protecting federal whistleblowers. After moving from the Justice Department's Office of Faith-Based Initiatives in January 2004, Bloch suggested that federal employees could essentially be fired for being gay. Then, directly contradicting his organization's purpose, Bloch complained of "leakers" within the OSC and issued a gag order for employees. In a speech last fall Bloch admitted he knew little about the Counsel's work before Bush nominated him. Now he's pushing forward a controversial agency "reorganization" plan that watchdogs liken to a purge.
Under Bloch's orders, 20 percent of the Counsel's legal and investigative team will be fired or relocated. With no prior consultation, Bloch ordered twelve employees to transfer from Washington to Oakland, Dallas or the newly-opened Detroit field office. Senior staff were given only ten days to agree to the transfer and sixty days to move. As a result, seven employees quit, one retired and four agreed to relocate. The Project on Government Oversight labeled the decision "a purge to stifle dissent and re-staff the agency with handpicked loyalists."
"The irony is overwhelming," says POGO's Danielle Brian. "How could the federal protector of whistleblowers make a bigger mockery of the agency's mission that this?" The Office of Special Counsel was created in 1976 to protect whistleblowers in the wake of Watergate. In 1989, George Bush)--at Congress' unanimous urging--passed the Whistleblower Protection Act. Congress extended safeguards for informers of corporate fraud in 2002.
During the Bush Administration, whistleblower complaints of government waste, fraud and abuse have doubled from 380 reported cases in 2001 to 535 in 2003. Less than one percent of these cases lead to an investigation. Instead of addressing the Counsel's obvious deficiencies, Bloch hired highly conservative, personal friends as consultants through no-bid contracts. Then he announced that the number of backlogged cases had decreased by 90 percent in the past year, from 700 cases down to 100.
Government watchdogs, such as Jeff Ruch of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, say Bloch merely dumped hundreds of cases. When Ruch filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to verify Bloch's claim, the OSC said it lacked the resources to respond to the FOIA until at least July 2005. "Bloch is claiming that he does not have enough staff to even respond to FOIA requests and then a week later he fires seven more staff," Ruch laments. "Go figure." Yet another example of the Bush Administration hurting the very people it purports to help.
Monday, February 28, 2005
A Voice Of Reason In Canada, Tony Martin Speaks Out On Same-Sex Marriage
Sault Ste. Marie MP Tony Martin has said he will vote in favour of same-sex marriage legislation, regardless of his own personal Roman Catholic convictions, stating that gay marriage is a justice issue.”
I believe same-sex marriage for civil society is a justice issue but I wanted it clarified that I believe this because of my own personal Roman Catholic convictions, not in spite of them.
As a lifelong, church-going Catholic, I try very hard to make sure that nothing trumps my personal, religious beliefs. Indeed, the recognition of minority rights is part of those religious beliefs, including for example funding for Catholic education which rests upon the claim that Catholic minority rights must be protected even when such rights are not granted to other religious organizations.
In our broader society, while practicing and teaching our own beliefs in our Church, it is incumbent for us to protect the rights of all minorities.
My personal religious beliefs dictated that I inform my conscience, give proper weight to my Church’s teaching and work to safeguard the principle of religious freedom to protect religious officials from being compelled by the state to perform same-sex marriage. I have done all that.
Like all MPs, I am receiving a huge amount of mail on this issue. While a good number of those who write disagree with my position, I am also hearing from a significant number of Catholics who support my stand.
I welcome the Catholic bishops’ legitimate place in this debate. I am celebrating the 22nd anniversary of my marriage this year. As a married Catholic, I have to say that gay and lesbian couples I have known have never once threatened my marriage.
I believe that access to civil marriage for gay and lesbian couples will add to the stability of Canadian families and Canadian society.
This is a world that needs more people who are willing to make loving, lifelong commitments to each other and who are willing to take full responsibility for their relationships.
As my statement on my web site indicates, I have also asked my leader, Jack Layton, to make this a free vote for the caucus.
Tony Martin
MP, Sault Ste. Marie
I believe same-sex marriage for civil society is a justice issue but I wanted it clarified that I believe this because of my own personal Roman Catholic convictions, not in spite of them.
As a lifelong, church-going Catholic, I try very hard to make sure that nothing trumps my personal, religious beliefs. Indeed, the recognition of minority rights is part of those religious beliefs, including for example funding for Catholic education which rests upon the claim that Catholic minority rights must be protected even when such rights are not granted to other religious organizations.
In our broader society, while practicing and teaching our own beliefs in our Church, it is incumbent for us to protect the rights of all minorities.
My personal religious beliefs dictated that I inform my conscience, give proper weight to my Church’s teaching and work to safeguard the principle of religious freedom to protect religious officials from being compelled by the state to perform same-sex marriage. I have done all that.
Like all MPs, I am receiving a huge amount of mail on this issue. While a good number of those who write disagree with my position, I am also hearing from a significant number of Catholics who support my stand.
I welcome the Catholic bishops’ legitimate place in this debate. I am celebrating the 22nd anniversary of my marriage this year. As a married Catholic, I have to say that gay and lesbian couples I have known have never once threatened my marriage.
I believe that access to civil marriage for gay and lesbian couples will add to the stability of Canadian families and Canadian society.
This is a world that needs more people who are willing to make loving, lifelong commitments to each other and who are willing to take full responsibility for their relationships.
As my statement on my web site indicates, I have also asked my leader, Jack Layton, to make this a free vote for the caucus.
Tony Martin
MP, Sault Ste. Marie
Media Finally Shows Concern over Bush and the Media
Well for the first time in some time the main stream media has decided that maybe, just maybe there is something a bit foul in the White House Press Corp, or it was a very slow news day. A story about the whole Gannon/Guckert scandal, compounded with the revelations that the Bush Administration has been paying for good press has made the front page of a major market newspaper.
The reporter here did a great job of posting the facts in the case, and the fact that it is on the front page, makes it a real story (Almost 5 weeks after it broke). If you took this whole saga, and replace the name Bush with Clinton, it would have taken less than 5 mines to make the front page.
The Gannon thing is debunking one of the greatest myths the republicans love to hang on to, that the media is a liberal haven, if so, you would think they would have jumped on this from day one, like the countless other scandals of the Bush Administration.
On the front page of the Philadelphia Inquirer, political analyst, Dick Polman wrote a story “White House stirs debate on media tactics."
Some excerpts,
And his employer, a conservative Web site operated by Texas Republican activists, having already erased all traces of "Gannon," announced Thursday that it was unplugging its Web site to "reevaluate operations."
But the Jeff Gannon/James Guckert saga is far from over. It remains unclear how a graduate of a conservative training program, someone with no previous journalism experience, someone whose writings were often lifted directly from White House press releases, still managed to gain access to the White House press room, where he spent two years lobbing gentle questions at the press secretary and the President.
And some political analysts who monitor President Bush's relations with the media insist that Gannon (who, referring to Democrats, recently asked Bush, "How are you going to work with people who seem to have divorced themselves from reality?") should not be viewed as an isolated case. Rather, they contend that Gannon is symptomatic of a broader White House strategy to undermine the traditional media by disseminating the Bush message in creative new ways.
Larry Gross, who runs the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Southern California, says: "Richard Nixon hated the press, Bill Clinton hated the press - but they accepted the basic rules of the game. Bush has a strategy of discrediting, end-running, and even faking the news. Those prepackaged videos sent to local TV stations 'looked' like news, much the way Gannon 'looked' like a reporter. We're seeing something new: Potemkin-village journalism."
The reporter here did a great job of posting the facts in the case, and the fact that it is on the front page, makes it a real story (Almost 5 weeks after it broke). If you took this whole saga, and replace the name Bush with Clinton, it would have taken less than 5 mines to make the front page.
The Gannon thing is debunking one of the greatest myths the republicans love to hang on to, that the media is a liberal haven, if so, you would think they would have jumped on this from day one, like the countless other scandals of the Bush Administration.
On the front page of the Philadelphia Inquirer, political analyst, Dick Polman wrote a story “White House stirs debate on media tactics."
Some excerpts,
And his employer, a conservative Web site operated by Texas Republican activists, having already erased all traces of "Gannon," announced Thursday that it was unplugging its Web site to "reevaluate operations."
But the Jeff Gannon/James Guckert saga is far from over. It remains unclear how a graduate of a conservative training program, someone with no previous journalism experience, someone whose writings were often lifted directly from White House press releases, still managed to gain access to the White House press room, where he spent two years lobbing gentle questions at the press secretary and the President.
And some political analysts who monitor President Bush's relations with the media insist that Gannon (who, referring to Democrats, recently asked Bush, "How are you going to work with people who seem to have divorced themselves from reality?") should not be viewed as an isolated case. Rather, they contend that Gannon is symptomatic of a broader White House strategy to undermine the traditional media by disseminating the Bush message in creative new ways.
Larry Gross, who runs the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Southern California, says: "Richard Nixon hated the press, Bill Clinton hated the press - but they accepted the basic rules of the game. Bush has a strategy of discrediting, end-running, and even faking the news. Those prepackaged videos sent to local TV stations 'looked' like news, much the way Gannon 'looked' like a reporter. We're seeing something new: Potemkin-village journalism."
"Don't Ask, Don't Tell" Cost U.S. Millions And Is A National Security Threat
A government report due out Friday shows "don't ask, don't tell," the military's ban on lesbian, gay and bisexual personnel, has cost the Pentagon hundreds of millions of dollars to implement, prompting members of Congress to announce new plans to repeal the measure.
"Don't ask, don't tell" (DADT) was adopted by Congress in 1993 and signed into law by President Bill Clinton. Under the law, lesbian, gay and bisexual military personnel cannot reveal their sexual orientations without risking expulsion from the armed forces.
Approximately 10,000 service members have been discharged under the policy, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a non-partisan congressional accounting agency.
Analysis by the GAO found the Pentagon has spent nearly $200 million to recruit and train replacements of enlisted personnel discharged under the policy.
The cost is likely much higher because the Defense Department does not track specific costs of investigating or discharging gay service members or for handling legal challenges and reviews of dismissals, according to the GAO report.
"DADT is both a waste of human and material resources which any nation can ill afford during a time of war," said Ken Sholes, vice president of American Veterans for Equal Rights.
The report also did not include costs associated with discharging officers or trained specialists. Among the nearly 800 specialists with critical skills who were discharged, 322 were linguists, including 54 who specialized in Arabic.
Sholes told the PlanetOut Network that training a linguist can take up to a year or more.
Rep. Marty Meehan, D- Mass, the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Terrorism, Conventional Threats and Capabilities, has drafted the Military Readiness Enhancement Act, a proposal that would end the ban on gay and lesbian military personnel.
Meehan plans to introduce the measure next week, with support from a coalition of congressional representatives, including Reps. John Conyers, D-Mich. and Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y.
Meehan called DADT "counterproductive." "Now we have the numbers to prove that the policy itself is undermining our military readiness," he told the Boston Globe.
Many U.S. allies have abandoned policies that discriminate against gays in the military, including Britain, which is now actively courting gays as recruits for the Royal Navy
"Don't ask, don't tell" (DADT) was adopted by Congress in 1993 and signed into law by President Bill Clinton. Under the law, lesbian, gay and bisexual military personnel cannot reveal their sexual orientations without risking expulsion from the armed forces.
Approximately 10,000 service members have been discharged under the policy, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a non-partisan congressional accounting agency.
Analysis by the GAO found the Pentagon has spent nearly $200 million to recruit and train replacements of enlisted personnel discharged under the policy.
The cost is likely much higher because the Defense Department does not track specific costs of investigating or discharging gay service members or for handling legal challenges and reviews of dismissals, according to the GAO report.
"DADT is both a waste of human and material resources which any nation can ill afford during a time of war," said Ken Sholes, vice president of American Veterans for Equal Rights.
The report also did not include costs associated with discharging officers or trained specialists. Among the nearly 800 specialists with critical skills who were discharged, 322 were linguists, including 54 who specialized in Arabic.
Sholes told the PlanetOut Network that training a linguist can take up to a year or more.
Rep. Marty Meehan, D- Mass, the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Terrorism, Conventional Threats and Capabilities, has drafted the Military Readiness Enhancement Act, a proposal that would end the ban on gay and lesbian military personnel.
Meehan plans to introduce the measure next week, with support from a coalition of congressional representatives, including Reps. John Conyers, D-Mich. and Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y.
Meehan called DADT "counterproductive." "Now we have the numbers to prove that the policy itself is undermining our military readiness," he told the Boston Globe.
Many U.S. allies have abandoned policies that discriminate against gays in the military, including Britain, which is now actively courting gays as recruits for the Royal Navy
Don't Blame Walmart
Don't Blame Wal-Mart
By Robert B. Reich
The New York Times
Monday 28 February 2005
Berkeley, Calif. - Bowing to intense pressure from neighborhood and labor groups, a real estate developer has just given up plans to include a Wal-Mart store in a mall in Queens, thereby blocking Wal-Mart's plan to open its first store in New York City. In the eyes of Wal-Mart's detractors, the Arkansas-based chain embodies the worst kind of economic exploitation: it pays its 1.2 million American workers an average of only $9.68 an hour, doesn't provide most of them with health insurance, keeps out unions, has a checkered history on labor law and turns main streets into ghost towns by sucking business away from small retailers.
But isn't Wal-Mart really being punished for our sins? After all, it's not as if Wal-Mart's founder, Sam Walton, and his successors created the world's largest retailer by putting a gun to our heads and forcing us to shop there.
Instead, Wal-Mart has lured customers with low prices. "We expect our suppliers to drive the costs out of the supply chain," a spokeswoman for Wal-Mart said. "It's good for us and good for them."
Wal-Mart may have perfected this technique, but you can find it almost everywhere these days. Corporations are in fierce competition to get and keep customers, so they pass the bulk of their cost cuts through to consumers as lower prices. Products are manufactured in China at a fraction of the cost of making them here, and American consumers get great deals. Back-office work, along with computer programming and data crunching, is "offshored" to India, so our dollars go even further.
Meanwhile, many of us pressure companies to give us even better bargains. I look on the Internet to find the lowest price I can and buy airline tickets, books, merchandise from just about anywhere with a click of a mouse. Don't you?
The fact is, today's economy offers us a Faustian bargain: it can give consumers deals largely because it hammers workers and communities.
We can blame big corporations, but we're mostly making this bargain with ourselves. The easier it is for us to get great deals, the stronger the downward pressure on wages and benefits. Last year, the real wages of hourly workers, who make up about 80 percent of the work force, actually dropped for the first time in more than a decade; hourly workers' health and pension benefits are in free fall. The easier it is for us to find better professional services, the harder professionals have to hustle to attract and keep clients. The more efficiently we can summon products from anywhere on the globe, the more stress we put on our own communities.
But you and I aren't just consumers. We're also workers and citizens. How do we strike the right balance? To claim that people shouldn't have access to Wal-Mart or to cut-rate airfares or services from India or to Internet shopping, because these somehow reduce their quality of life, is paternalistic tripe. No one is a better judge of what people want than they themselves.
The problem is, the choices we make in the market don't fully reflect our values as workers or as citizens. I didn't want our community bookstore in Cambridge, Mass., to close (as it did last fall) yet I still bought lots of books from Amazon.com. In addition, we may not see the larger bargain when our own job or community isn't directly at stake. I don't like what's happening to airline workers, but I still try for the cheapest fare I can get.
The only way for the workers or citizens in us to trump the consumers in us is through laws and regulations that make our purchases a social choice as well as a personal one. A requirement that companies with more than 50 employees offer their workers affordable health insurance, for example, might increase slightly the price of their goods and services. My inner consumer won't like that very much, but the worker in me thinks it a fair price to pay. Same with an increase in the minimum wage or a change in labor laws making it easier for employees to organize and negotiate better terms.
I wouldn't go so far as to re-regulate the airline industry or hobble free trade with China and India - that would cost me as a consumer far too much - but I'd like the government to offer wage insurance to ease the pain of sudden losses of pay. And I'd support labor standards that make trade agreements a bit more fair.
These provisions might end up costing me some money, but the citizen in me thinks they are worth the price. You might think differently, but as a nation we aren't even having this sort of discussion. Instead, our debates about economic change take place between two warring camps: those who want the best consumer deals, and those who want to preserve jobs and communities much as they are. Instead of finding ways to soften the blows, compensate the losers or slow the pace of change - so the consumers in us can enjoy lower prices and better products without wreaking too much damage on us in our role as workers and citizens - we go to battle.
I don't know if Wal-Mart will ever make it into New York City. I do know that New Yorkers, like most other Americans, want the great deals that can be had in a rapidly globalizing high-tech economy. Yet the prices on sales tags don't reflect the full prices we have to pay as workers and citizens. A sensible public debate would focus on how to make that total price as low as possible.
Robert B. Reich, the author of "Reason: Why Liberals Will Win the Battle for America," was secretary of labor from 1993 to 1997.
By Robert B. Reich
The New York Times
Monday 28 February 2005
Berkeley, Calif. - Bowing to intense pressure from neighborhood and labor groups, a real estate developer has just given up plans to include a Wal-Mart store in a mall in Queens, thereby blocking Wal-Mart's plan to open its first store in New York City. In the eyes of Wal-Mart's detractors, the Arkansas-based chain embodies the worst kind of economic exploitation: it pays its 1.2 million American workers an average of only $9.68 an hour, doesn't provide most of them with health insurance, keeps out unions, has a checkered history on labor law and turns main streets into ghost towns by sucking business away from small retailers.
But isn't Wal-Mart really being punished for our sins? After all, it's not as if Wal-Mart's founder, Sam Walton, and his successors created the world's largest retailer by putting a gun to our heads and forcing us to shop there.
Instead, Wal-Mart has lured customers with low prices. "We expect our suppliers to drive the costs out of the supply chain," a spokeswoman for Wal-Mart said. "It's good for us and good for them."
Wal-Mart may have perfected this technique, but you can find it almost everywhere these days. Corporations are in fierce competition to get and keep customers, so they pass the bulk of their cost cuts through to consumers as lower prices. Products are manufactured in China at a fraction of the cost of making them here, and American consumers get great deals. Back-office work, along with computer programming and data crunching, is "offshored" to India, so our dollars go even further.
Meanwhile, many of us pressure companies to give us even better bargains. I look on the Internet to find the lowest price I can and buy airline tickets, books, merchandise from just about anywhere with a click of a mouse. Don't you?
The fact is, today's economy offers us a Faustian bargain: it can give consumers deals largely because it hammers workers and communities.
We can blame big corporations, but we're mostly making this bargain with ourselves. The easier it is for us to get great deals, the stronger the downward pressure on wages and benefits. Last year, the real wages of hourly workers, who make up about 80 percent of the work force, actually dropped for the first time in more than a decade; hourly workers' health and pension benefits are in free fall. The easier it is for us to find better professional services, the harder professionals have to hustle to attract and keep clients. The more efficiently we can summon products from anywhere on the globe, the more stress we put on our own communities.
But you and I aren't just consumers. We're also workers and citizens. How do we strike the right balance? To claim that people shouldn't have access to Wal-Mart or to cut-rate airfares or services from India or to Internet shopping, because these somehow reduce their quality of life, is paternalistic tripe. No one is a better judge of what people want than they themselves.
The problem is, the choices we make in the market don't fully reflect our values as workers or as citizens. I didn't want our community bookstore in Cambridge, Mass., to close (as it did last fall) yet I still bought lots of books from Amazon.com. In addition, we may not see the larger bargain when our own job or community isn't directly at stake. I don't like what's happening to airline workers, but I still try for the cheapest fare I can get.
The only way for the workers or citizens in us to trump the consumers in us is through laws and regulations that make our purchases a social choice as well as a personal one. A requirement that companies with more than 50 employees offer their workers affordable health insurance, for example, might increase slightly the price of their goods and services. My inner consumer won't like that very much, but the worker in me thinks it a fair price to pay. Same with an increase in the minimum wage or a change in labor laws making it easier for employees to organize and negotiate better terms.
I wouldn't go so far as to re-regulate the airline industry or hobble free trade with China and India - that would cost me as a consumer far too much - but I'd like the government to offer wage insurance to ease the pain of sudden losses of pay. And I'd support labor standards that make trade agreements a bit more fair.
These provisions might end up costing me some money, but the citizen in me thinks they are worth the price. You might think differently, but as a nation we aren't even having this sort of discussion. Instead, our debates about economic change take place between two warring camps: those who want the best consumer deals, and those who want to preserve jobs and communities much as they are. Instead of finding ways to soften the blows, compensate the losers or slow the pace of change - so the consumers in us can enjoy lower prices and better products without wreaking too much damage on us in our role as workers and citizens - we go to battle.
I don't know if Wal-Mart will ever make it into New York City. I do know that New Yorkers, like most other Americans, want the great deals that can be had in a rapidly globalizing high-tech economy. Yet the prices on sales tags don't reflect the full prices we have to pay as workers and citizens. A sensible public debate would focus on how to make that total price as low as possible.
Robert B. Reich, the author of "Reason: Why Liberals Will Win the Battle for America," was secretary of labor from 1993 to 1997.
The Torture Administration
It's Called Torture
By BOB HERBERT
Published: The New York Times: February 28, 2005
As a nation, does the United States have a conscience? Or is anything and everything O.K. in post-9/11 America? If torture and the denial of due process are O.K., why not murder? When the government can just make people vanish - which it can, and which it does - where is the line that we, as a nation, dare not cross?
When I interviewed Maher Arar in Ottawa last week, it seemed clear that however thoughtful his comments, I was talking with the frightened, shaky successor of a once robust and fully functioning human being. Torture does that to a person. It's an unspeakable crime, an affront to one's humanity that can rob you of a portion of your being as surely as acid can destroy your flesh.
Mr. Arar, a Canadian citizen with a wife and two young children, had his life flipped upside down in the fall of 2002 when John Ashcroft's Justice Department, acting at least in part on bad information supplied by the Canadian government, decided it would be a good idea to abduct Mr. Arar and ship him off to Syria, an outlaw nation that the Justice Department honchos well knew was addicted to torture.
Mr. Arar was not charged with anything, and yet he was deprived not only of his liberty, but of all legal and human rights. He was handed over in shackles to the Syrian government and, to no one's surprise, promptly brutalized. A year later he emerged, and still no charges were lodged against him. His torturers said they were unable to elicit any link between Mr. Arar and terrorism. He was sent back to Canada to face the torment of a life in ruins.
Mr. Arar's is the case we know about. How many other individuals have disappeared at the hands of the Bush administration? How many have been sent, like the victims of a lynch mob, to overseas torture centers? How many people are being held in the C.I.A.'s highly secret offshore prisons? Who are they and how are they being treated? Have any been wrongly accused? If so, what recourse do they have?
President Bush spent much of last week lecturing other nations about freedom, democracy and the rule of law. It was a breathtaking display of chutzpah. He seemed to me like a judge who starves his children and then sits on the bench to hear child abuse cases. In Brussels Mr. Bush said he planned to remind Russian President Vladimir Putin that democracies are based on, among other things, "the rule of law and the respect for human rights and human dignity."
Someone should tell that to Maher Arar and his family.
Mr. Arar was the victim of an American policy that is known as extraordinary rendition. That's a euphemism. What it means is that the United States seizes individuals, presumably terror suspects, and sends them off without even a nod in the direction of due process to countries known to practice torture.
A Massachusetts congressman, Edward Markey, has taken the eminently sensible step of introducing legislation that would ban this utterly reprehensible practice. In a speech on the floor of the House, Mr. Markey, a Democrat, said: "Torture is morally repugnant whether we do it or whether we ask another country to do it for us. It is morally wrong whether it is captured on film or whether it goes on behind closed doors unannounced to the American people."
Unfortunately, the outlook for this legislation is not good. I asked Pete Jeffries, the communications director for House Speaker Dennis Hastert, if the speaker supported Mr. Markey's bill. After checking with the policy experts in his office, Mr. Jeffries called back and said: "The speaker does not support the Markey proposal. He believes that suspected terrorists should be sent back to their home countries."
Surprised, I asked why suspected terrorists should be sent anywhere. Why shouldn't they be held by the United States and prosecuted?
"Because," said Mr. Jeffries, "U.S. taxpayers should not necessarily be on the hook for their judicial and incarceration costs."
It was, perhaps, the most preposterous response to any question I've ever asked as a journalist. It was not by any means an accurate reflection of Bush administration policy. All it indicated was that the speaker's office does not understand this issue, and has not even bothered to take it seriously.
More important, it means that torture by proxy, close kin to contract murder, remains all right. Congressman Markey's bill is going nowhere. Extraordinary rendition lives.
E-mail: bobherb@nytimes.com
By BOB HERBERT
Published: The New York Times: February 28, 2005
As a nation, does the United States have a conscience? Or is anything and everything O.K. in post-9/11 America? If torture and the denial of due process are O.K., why not murder? When the government can just make people vanish - which it can, and which it does - where is the line that we, as a nation, dare not cross?
When I interviewed Maher Arar in Ottawa last week, it seemed clear that however thoughtful his comments, I was talking with the frightened, shaky successor of a once robust and fully functioning human being. Torture does that to a person. It's an unspeakable crime, an affront to one's humanity that can rob you of a portion of your being as surely as acid can destroy your flesh.
Mr. Arar, a Canadian citizen with a wife and two young children, had his life flipped upside down in the fall of 2002 when John Ashcroft's Justice Department, acting at least in part on bad information supplied by the Canadian government, decided it would be a good idea to abduct Mr. Arar and ship him off to Syria, an outlaw nation that the Justice Department honchos well knew was addicted to torture.
Mr. Arar was not charged with anything, and yet he was deprived not only of his liberty, but of all legal and human rights. He was handed over in shackles to the Syrian government and, to no one's surprise, promptly brutalized. A year later he emerged, and still no charges were lodged against him. His torturers said they were unable to elicit any link between Mr. Arar and terrorism. He was sent back to Canada to face the torment of a life in ruins.
Mr. Arar's is the case we know about. How many other individuals have disappeared at the hands of the Bush administration? How many have been sent, like the victims of a lynch mob, to overseas torture centers? How many people are being held in the C.I.A.'s highly secret offshore prisons? Who are they and how are they being treated? Have any been wrongly accused? If so, what recourse do they have?
President Bush spent much of last week lecturing other nations about freedom, democracy and the rule of law. It was a breathtaking display of chutzpah. He seemed to me like a judge who starves his children and then sits on the bench to hear child abuse cases. In Brussels Mr. Bush said he planned to remind Russian President Vladimir Putin that democracies are based on, among other things, "the rule of law and the respect for human rights and human dignity."
Someone should tell that to Maher Arar and his family.
Mr. Arar was the victim of an American policy that is known as extraordinary rendition. That's a euphemism. What it means is that the United States seizes individuals, presumably terror suspects, and sends them off without even a nod in the direction of due process to countries known to practice torture.
A Massachusetts congressman, Edward Markey, has taken the eminently sensible step of introducing legislation that would ban this utterly reprehensible practice. In a speech on the floor of the House, Mr. Markey, a Democrat, said: "Torture is morally repugnant whether we do it or whether we ask another country to do it for us. It is morally wrong whether it is captured on film or whether it goes on behind closed doors unannounced to the American people."
Unfortunately, the outlook for this legislation is not good. I asked Pete Jeffries, the communications director for House Speaker Dennis Hastert, if the speaker supported Mr. Markey's bill. After checking with the policy experts in his office, Mr. Jeffries called back and said: "The speaker does not support the Markey proposal. He believes that suspected terrorists should be sent back to their home countries."
Surprised, I asked why suspected terrorists should be sent anywhere. Why shouldn't they be held by the United States and prosecuted?
"Because," said Mr. Jeffries, "U.S. taxpayers should not necessarily be on the hook for their judicial and incarceration costs."
It was, perhaps, the most preposterous response to any question I've ever asked as a journalist. It was not by any means an accurate reflection of Bush administration policy. All it indicated was that the speaker's office does not understand this issue, and has not even bothered to take it seriously.
More important, it means that torture by proxy, close kin to contract murder, remains all right. Congressman Markey's bill is going nowhere. Extraordinary rendition lives.
E-mail: bobherb@nytimes.com
Sunday, February 27, 2005
Bush Loves Democracy.....If He's Always Right
W.'s Stiletto Democracy
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: THE NEW YORK TIMES, February 27, 2005
It was remarkable to see President Bush lecture Vladimir Putin on the importance of checks and balances in a democratic society.
Remarkably brazen, given that the only checks Mr. Bush seems to believe in are those written to the "journalists" Armstrong Williams, Maggie Gallagher and Karen Ryan, the fake TV anchor, to help promote his policies. The administration has given a whole new meaning to checkbook journalism, paying a stupendous $97 million to an outside P.R. firm to buy columnists and produce propaganda, including faux video news releases.
The only balance W. likes is the slavering, Pravda-like "Fair and Balanced" coverage Fox News provides. Mr. Bush pledges to spread democracy while his officials strive to create a Potemkin press village at home. This White House seems to prefer softball questions from a self-advertised male escort with a fake name to hardball questions from journalists with real names; it prefers tossing journalists who protect their sources into the gulag to giving up the officials who broke the law by leaking the name of their own C.I.A. agent.
W., who once looked into Mr. Putin's soul and liked what he saw, did not demand the end of tyranny, as he did in his second Inaugural Address. His upper lip sweating a bit, he did not rise to the level of his hero Ronald Reagan's "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall." Instead, he said that "the common ground is a lot more than those areas where we disagree." The Russians were happy to stress the common ground as well.
An irritated Mr. Putin compared the Russian system to the American Electoral College, perhaps reminding the man preaching to him about democracy that he had come in second in 2000 according to the popular vote, the standard most democracies use.
Certainly the autocratic former K.G.B. agent needs to be upbraided by someone - Tony Blair, maybe? - for eviscerating the meager steps toward democracy that Russia had made before Mr. Putin came to power. But Mr. Bush is on shaky ground if he wants to hold up his administration as a paragon of safeguarding liberty - considering it has trampled civil liberties in the name of the war on terror and outsourced the torture of prisoners to bastions of democracy like Syria, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. (The secretary of state canceled a trip to Egypt this week after Egypt's arrest of a leading opposition politician.)
"I live in a transparent country," Mr. Bush protested to a Russian reporter who implicitly criticized the Patriot Act by noting that the private lives of American citizens "are now being monitored by the state."
Dick Cheney's secret meetings with energy lobbyists were certainly a model of transparency. As was the buildup to the Iraq war, when the Bush hawks did their best to cloak the real reasons they wanted to go to war and trumpet the trumped-up reasons.
The Bush administration wields maximum secrecy with minimal opposition. The White House press is timid. The poor, limp Democrats don't have enough power to convene Congressional hearings on any Republican outrages and are reduced to writing whining letters of protest that are tossed in the Oval Office trash.
When nearly $9 billion allotted for Iraqi reconstruction during Paul Bremer's tenure went up in smoke, Democratic lawmakers vainly pleaded with Republicans to open a Congressional investigation.
Even the near absence of checks and balances is not enough for W. Not content with controlling the White House, Congress, the Supreme Court and a good chunk of the Fourth Estate, he goes to even more ludicrous lengths to avoid being challenged.
The White House wants its Republican allies in the Senate to stamp out the filibuster, one of the few weapons the handcuffed Democrats have left. They want to invoke the so-called nuclear option and get rid of the 150-year-old tradition in order to ram through more right-wing judges.
Mr. Bush and Condi Rice strut in their speeches - the secretary of state also strutted in Wiesbaden in her foxy "Matrix"-dominatrix black leather stiletto boots - but they shy away from taking questions from the public unless they get to vet the questions and audiences in advance.
Administration officials went so far as to cancel a town hall meeting during Mr. Bush's visit to Germany last week after deciding an unscripted setting would be too risky, opting for a round-table talk in Mainz with preselected Germans and Americans.
The president loves democracy - as long as democracy means he's always right.
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: THE NEW YORK TIMES, February 27, 2005
It was remarkable to see President Bush lecture Vladimir Putin on the importance of checks and balances in a democratic society.
Remarkably brazen, given that the only checks Mr. Bush seems to believe in are those written to the "journalists" Armstrong Williams, Maggie Gallagher and Karen Ryan, the fake TV anchor, to help promote his policies. The administration has given a whole new meaning to checkbook journalism, paying a stupendous $97 million to an outside P.R. firm to buy columnists and produce propaganda, including faux video news releases.
The only balance W. likes is the slavering, Pravda-like "Fair and Balanced" coverage Fox News provides. Mr. Bush pledges to spread democracy while his officials strive to create a Potemkin press village at home. This White House seems to prefer softball questions from a self-advertised male escort with a fake name to hardball questions from journalists with real names; it prefers tossing journalists who protect their sources into the gulag to giving up the officials who broke the law by leaking the name of their own C.I.A. agent.
W., who once looked into Mr. Putin's soul and liked what he saw, did not demand the end of tyranny, as he did in his second Inaugural Address. His upper lip sweating a bit, he did not rise to the level of his hero Ronald Reagan's "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall." Instead, he said that "the common ground is a lot more than those areas where we disagree." The Russians were happy to stress the common ground as well.
An irritated Mr. Putin compared the Russian system to the American Electoral College, perhaps reminding the man preaching to him about democracy that he had come in second in 2000 according to the popular vote, the standard most democracies use.
Certainly the autocratic former K.G.B. agent needs to be upbraided by someone - Tony Blair, maybe? - for eviscerating the meager steps toward democracy that Russia had made before Mr. Putin came to power. But Mr. Bush is on shaky ground if he wants to hold up his administration as a paragon of safeguarding liberty - considering it has trampled civil liberties in the name of the war on terror and outsourced the torture of prisoners to bastions of democracy like Syria, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. (The secretary of state canceled a trip to Egypt this week after Egypt's arrest of a leading opposition politician.)
"I live in a transparent country," Mr. Bush protested to a Russian reporter who implicitly criticized the Patriot Act by noting that the private lives of American citizens "are now being monitored by the state."
Dick Cheney's secret meetings with energy lobbyists were certainly a model of transparency. As was the buildup to the Iraq war, when the Bush hawks did their best to cloak the real reasons they wanted to go to war and trumpet the trumped-up reasons.
The Bush administration wields maximum secrecy with minimal opposition. The White House press is timid. The poor, limp Democrats don't have enough power to convene Congressional hearings on any Republican outrages and are reduced to writing whining letters of protest that are tossed in the Oval Office trash.
When nearly $9 billion allotted for Iraqi reconstruction during Paul Bremer's tenure went up in smoke, Democratic lawmakers vainly pleaded with Republicans to open a Congressional investigation.
Even the near absence of checks and balances is not enough for W. Not content with controlling the White House, Congress, the Supreme Court and a good chunk of the Fourth Estate, he goes to even more ludicrous lengths to avoid being challenged.
The White House wants its Republican allies in the Senate to stamp out the filibuster, one of the few weapons the handcuffed Democrats have left. They want to invoke the so-called nuclear option and get rid of the 150-year-old tradition in order to ram through more right-wing judges.
Mr. Bush and Condi Rice strut in their speeches - the secretary of state also strutted in Wiesbaden in her foxy "Matrix"-dominatrix black leather stiletto boots - but they shy away from taking questions from the public unless they get to vet the questions and audiences in advance.
Administration officials went so far as to cancel a town hall meeting during Mr. Bush's visit to Germany last week after deciding an unscripted setting would be too risky, opting for a round-table talk in Mainz with preselected Germans and Americans.
The president loves democracy - as long as democracy means he's always right.
Saturday, February 26, 2005
Religious Leaders Reject Pope's Defamation of Same-Sex Couples
National Religious Leaders Reject Pope's Defamation of Same-Sex Couples
Washington D.C. The National Religious Leadership Roundtable today rejected Pope John Paul II’s statement in his recently-published book calling equal civil marriage rights for same-sex couples "part of a new ideology of evil."
"We share with the rest of the world concerns for the Pope’s health in light of his recent illness, and pray for his strength and wholeness. But we cannot be silent when he questions the human dignity of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people," said Bob Gibeling* on behalf of the National Religious Leadership Roundtable.
"As the Pope's fellow clergy and religious leaders, we strongly disagree with the Pope's statement that protecting the rights of gay people, 'attempts to pit human rights against the family and against man,'" Gibeling continued, "We call on him to remember that the essence of the Christian faith and all religious tradition is the continued empowerment of the poor, the outcast and the marginalized. We believe that greater recognition of the inherent value of gay and lesbian families through equal rights can only lead to strengthening of the family and humankind."
Gibeling added, "As people of faith, we call on the Pope to pray and consider the devastating results of his statements to millions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Christians. We challenge all religious leaders to contemplate the reality that history and the Creator have brought the world to a place of understanding that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people are a necessary component of the human family."
National Religious Leadership Roundtable member Sam Sinnett, President of Dignity USA further commented, "One cannot properly teach morality on homosexuality if one excludes the vast body of medical and social science knowledge that shows it is a normal part of the great diversity of God's creation and if one excludes the lived experience of same-sex couples experiencing love and intimacy in the families they form," Sinnett called on the Pope and other Roman Catholic leaders to, "properly form their consciences and abandon their misguided attempts to equate homosexuality and same-gender marriage with evil."
"If same-sex marriage qualifies as part of 'a new ideology of evil,' then the world is in far better shape than I thought," said Catholic theologian and National Religious Leadership Roundtable member Mary Hunt, Co-director of Women's Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual (WATER). "Marriage, whether in a same-sex or opposite-sex context, is a celebration of love and commitment, fidelity and family, and all desirable aspects of common life. Poverty, greed, war, and ecological destruction would better fit the Pope's category of 'evil' and be more worthy of his scrutiny. In a world full of such evil, the power of same-sex love is a refreshing antidote."
* Bob Gibeling is a member of the steering committee of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Religious Leadership Roundtable and a member of Lutherans Concerned.
Washington D.C. The National Religious Leadership Roundtable today rejected Pope John Paul II’s statement in his recently-published book calling equal civil marriage rights for same-sex couples "part of a new ideology of evil."
"We share with the rest of the world concerns for the Pope’s health in light of his recent illness, and pray for his strength and wholeness. But we cannot be silent when he questions the human dignity of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people," said Bob Gibeling* on behalf of the National Religious Leadership Roundtable.
"As the Pope's fellow clergy and religious leaders, we strongly disagree with the Pope's statement that protecting the rights of gay people, 'attempts to pit human rights against the family and against man,'" Gibeling continued, "We call on him to remember that the essence of the Christian faith and all religious tradition is the continued empowerment of the poor, the outcast and the marginalized. We believe that greater recognition of the inherent value of gay and lesbian families through equal rights can only lead to strengthening of the family and humankind."
Gibeling added, "As people of faith, we call on the Pope to pray and consider the devastating results of his statements to millions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Christians. We challenge all religious leaders to contemplate the reality that history and the Creator have brought the world to a place of understanding that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people are a necessary component of the human family."
National Religious Leadership Roundtable member Sam Sinnett, President of Dignity USA further commented, "One cannot properly teach morality on homosexuality if one excludes the vast body of medical and social science knowledge that shows it is a normal part of the great diversity of God's creation and if one excludes the lived experience of same-sex couples experiencing love and intimacy in the families they form," Sinnett called on the Pope and other Roman Catholic leaders to, "properly form their consciences and abandon their misguided attempts to equate homosexuality and same-gender marriage with evil."
"If same-sex marriage qualifies as part of 'a new ideology of evil,' then the world is in far better shape than I thought," said Catholic theologian and National Religious Leadership Roundtable member Mary Hunt, Co-director of Women's Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual (WATER). "Marriage, whether in a same-sex or opposite-sex context, is a celebration of love and commitment, fidelity and family, and all desirable aspects of common life. Poverty, greed, war, and ecological destruction would better fit the Pope's category of 'evil' and be more worthy of his scrutiny. In a world full of such evil, the power of same-sex love is a refreshing antidote."
* Bob Gibeling is a member of the steering committee of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Religious Leadership Roundtable and a member of Lutherans Concerned.
Major positive changes in The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Creates New Department to Focus on Federal Affairs
Powerhouse Team — Including Former U.S. Assistant Attorney General — Hired
Larger Voice in Washington Will Work for New Money,
New Laws, and Equal Protections for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Americans
"In both breadth and depth, this team brings an extraordinary and unique combination of knowledge, expertise, and political savvy to our movement. They will lead the way in getting our people a fair share of their tax dollars and in moving forward on new federal antidiscrimination legislation."
—Matt Foreman, Executive Director
WASHINGTON, Feb. 25. The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force today announced the creation of a new Department of Public Policy and Government Affairs and the hiring of three noted leaders and advocates – including former U.S. Assistant Attorney General Eleanor D. (Eldie) Acheson – to staff the department.
The new department, a significant strengthening of the Task Force's voice in federal matters, will lead two new initiatives – leveraging government resources to meet the pressing health and human service needs of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community and a drive for new, comprehensive legislation to addresses inequities faced by gay people well beyond workplace discrimination. The new initiatives are part of the Task Force's mission to build the grassroots strength of the LGBT movement. The new Public Policy and Government Affairs staff also will expand upon the current Task Force policy work of providing technical assistance, training and strategic advice on legislative and policy matters to state and local LGBT organizations.
"For the past 32 years the Task Force has worked closely with LGBT community organizations across the nation. This new team will not only work hand-in-hand with our local, state and national colleagues but will also seek to magnify their voices and expertise to access federal resources and protections. Together, we will work to respond to the needs our community, from hate violence to economic justice to services for seniors," said Rea Carey, the Task Force's Deputy Executive Director.
The new department will also assume management and coordination of the National Policy Roundtable, comprised of the Executive Directors of national policy-focused LGBT organizations, and the National Religious Leadership Roundtable comprised of interfaith leaders from pro-LGBT faith, spiritual, and religious organizations.
While the new department is a marked ratcheting up of its voice and involvement in Washington, DC, the Task Force has a long and proud history of involvement in federal affairs. In 1974, it was the driving force behind the first gay rights bill introduced in Congress (a bill introduced by Bella Abzug and Ed Koch to amend civil rights laws to include discrimination based on sexual orientation). In the late 1970's the Task Force hired the first full-time gay and lesbian rights lobbyist, and in 1982, the first federal lobbyist on HIV/AIDS. In more recent years, it has led efforts to insure that proposed legislation include protections for transgender people.
The three exceptional leaders hired to staff the department are:
Eldie Acheson, former U.S. Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Policy Development, will serve as Director of Public Policy and Government Affairs. During her eight-year tenure at the Department of Justice, Ms. Acheson managed the agency’s judicial appointment process and had responsibility for a broad array of criminal and civil justice policy and legislative initiatives, including law enforcement, crime and violence control, violence against women, and sexual assault.
Dave Noble, who stepped down as Executive Director of National Stonewall Democrats last week, has been appointed Political Director.
Amber Hollibaugh, will serve as Senior Strategist. She comes to the Task Force from SAGE (Services and Advocacy for GLBT Seniors) and is one of the nation’s leading experts on LGBT senior issues and HIV in women.
They will be joined by a Government Affairs Coordinator in the coming months, as well as two attorneys already on staff – Kara Suffredeni (Legislative Lawyer) and Lisa Mottet (Transgender Civil Rights Project Lawyer) — who will continue to provide legislative and policy assistance to state and local LGBT rights organizations.
Powerhouse Team — Including Former U.S. Assistant Attorney General — Hired
Larger Voice in Washington Will Work for New Money,
New Laws, and Equal Protections for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Americans
"In both breadth and depth, this team brings an extraordinary and unique combination of knowledge, expertise, and political savvy to our movement. They will lead the way in getting our people a fair share of their tax dollars and in moving forward on new federal antidiscrimination legislation."
—Matt Foreman, Executive Director
WASHINGTON, Feb. 25. The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force today announced the creation of a new Department of Public Policy and Government Affairs and the hiring of three noted leaders and advocates – including former U.S. Assistant Attorney General Eleanor D. (Eldie) Acheson – to staff the department.
The new department, a significant strengthening of the Task Force's voice in federal matters, will lead two new initiatives – leveraging government resources to meet the pressing health and human service needs of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community and a drive for new, comprehensive legislation to addresses inequities faced by gay people well beyond workplace discrimination. The new initiatives are part of the Task Force's mission to build the grassroots strength of the LGBT movement. The new Public Policy and Government Affairs staff also will expand upon the current Task Force policy work of providing technical assistance, training and strategic advice on legislative and policy matters to state and local LGBT organizations.
"For the past 32 years the Task Force has worked closely with LGBT community organizations across the nation. This new team will not only work hand-in-hand with our local, state and national colleagues but will also seek to magnify their voices and expertise to access federal resources and protections. Together, we will work to respond to the needs our community, from hate violence to economic justice to services for seniors," said Rea Carey, the Task Force's Deputy Executive Director.
The new department will also assume management and coordination of the National Policy Roundtable, comprised of the Executive Directors of national policy-focused LGBT organizations, and the National Religious Leadership Roundtable comprised of interfaith leaders from pro-LGBT faith, spiritual, and religious organizations.
While the new department is a marked ratcheting up of its voice and involvement in Washington, DC, the Task Force has a long and proud history of involvement in federal affairs. In 1974, it was the driving force behind the first gay rights bill introduced in Congress (a bill introduced by Bella Abzug and Ed Koch to amend civil rights laws to include discrimination based on sexual orientation). In the late 1970's the Task Force hired the first full-time gay and lesbian rights lobbyist, and in 1982, the first federal lobbyist on HIV/AIDS. In more recent years, it has led efforts to insure that proposed legislation include protections for transgender people.
The three exceptional leaders hired to staff the department are:
Eldie Acheson, former U.S. Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Policy Development, will serve as Director of Public Policy and Government Affairs. During her eight-year tenure at the Department of Justice, Ms. Acheson managed the agency’s judicial appointment process and had responsibility for a broad array of criminal and civil justice policy and legislative initiatives, including law enforcement, crime and violence control, violence against women, and sexual assault.
Dave Noble, who stepped down as Executive Director of National Stonewall Democrats last week, has been appointed Political Director.
Amber Hollibaugh, will serve as Senior Strategist. She comes to the Task Force from SAGE (Services and Advocacy for GLBT Seniors) and is one of the nation’s leading experts on LGBT senior issues and HIV in women.
They will be joined by a Government Affairs Coordinator in the coming months, as well as two attorneys already on staff – Kara Suffredeni (Legislative Lawyer) and Lisa Mottet (Transgender Civil Rights Project Lawyer) — who will continue to provide legislative and policy assistance to state and local LGBT rights organizations.
Wednesday, February 23, 2005
DQRC Announces New Scholarship Fund for Deaf Queer Youth!
CLICK THE TITLE TO VISIT THE SITE FOR MORE INFORMATION AND APPLICATION
From NGLTF (The Task Force)
DQRC Announces New Scholarship Fund for Deaf Queer Youth!
The Deaf Queer Resource Center is proud to announce the establishment of the Deaf Queer Youth Scholarship Fund, a new fund that awards monetary scholarships to deserving self-identified Deaf Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Intersex college-bound youth
"The main purpose of the fund is to identify, support and empower the next generation of Deaf Queer youth by recognizing and celebrating their achievements," said Dragonsani Renteria, Director of the Deaf Queer Resource Center. "We are especially interested in supporting Deaf Queer youth who have shown a commitment to creating social change."
The initial scholarships will be offered in the amounts of $250 to $500 each. In order to be considered for a scholarship, applicants must be under 25 years of age, be enrolled in high school or college, have a cumulative grade point average (GPA) of 2.5 or better, and submit a written or video essay and other supporting documentation.
The deadline to apply is July 15, 2005.
Deaf Queer youth of color are especially encouraged to apply
From NGLTF (The Task Force)
DQRC Announces New Scholarship Fund for Deaf Queer Youth!
The Deaf Queer Resource Center is proud to announce the establishment of the Deaf Queer Youth Scholarship Fund, a new fund that awards monetary scholarships to deserving self-identified Deaf Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Intersex college-bound youth
"The main purpose of the fund is to identify, support and empower the next generation of Deaf Queer youth by recognizing and celebrating their achievements," said Dragonsani Renteria, Director of the Deaf Queer Resource Center. "We are especially interested in supporting Deaf Queer youth who have shown a commitment to creating social change."
The initial scholarships will be offered in the amounts of $250 to $500 each. In order to be considered for a scholarship, applicants must be under 25 years of age, be enrolled in high school or college, have a cumulative grade point average (GPA) of 2.5 or better, and submit a written or video essay and other supporting documentation.
The deadline to apply is July 15, 2005.
Deaf Queer youth of color are especially encouraged to apply
Tuesday, February 22, 2005
Of, By, and For Big Business
CLICK THE TITLE TO LINK TO THE ARTICLE
Hardly a surprise to anyboy that scans the major dailys. Still a well written article that brings it all together into one big lump for us to swallow. Big business triumphs like never before on the Bush agenda priorities. It's going to be a long 4 years. Perhaps?
Hardly a surprise to anyboy that scans the major dailys. Still a well written article that brings it all together into one big lump for us to swallow. Big business triumphs like never before on the Bush agenda priorities. It's going to be a long 4 years. Perhaps?
Stop The Propoganda
Sent by: Rep. Louise M. Slaughter (NY-28)
Ranking Member, Committee on Rules
CLICK THE TITLE TO SIGN THE PETITION
Dear Ray,
For any other White House, the fact that a partisan operative managed to masquerade as a reporter in the White House press corps might be taken as a slip. But this is no ordinary White House, and in fact, this was no ordinary partisan operative. It has now become clear that the reporter for Talon News known as "Jeff Gannon" was actually James D. Guckert, an individual who had no journalistic credentials whatsoever.
During the February 10 White House briefing, Press Secretary Scott McClellan stated that Jeff Gannon, "...like anyone else, showed that he was representing a news organization that published regularly" in order to receive his day pass to press briefings. It has now been confirmed that Jeff Gannon was in the White House briefing room, actively participating in these briefings, as early as February 28, 2003 a full month before Talon News even existed.
For almost two years Gannon breezed through security and was allowed to lob softball questions to spokesman Scott McClellan and even President Bush himself - culminating in an absurd and factually inaccurate question to the President on national television about how he could deal with Senate Democrats "who seem to have divorced themselves from reality." Wait, there's more.
We've also learned that in December of 2003, Gannon bragged to Talon News that he'd had access to classified documents revealing the identity of former Ambassador Joe Wilson's wife as a covert operative for the CIA. At the time Gannon said, "For something that is supposed to be classified, it seems that this document is easily accessible." He added, "Washington is leaking like a cheap umbrella." Talon News, the "news outlet" that Mr. Guckert worked for was at best a front for a Republican activist website called GOPUSA.com owned by a Texas Republican. Worse yet, Gannon's news "stories" consisted mostly of verbatim Republican press releases and claims that John Kerry "might someday be known as 'the first gay president.'"
It has been well over a week since I wrote President Bush seeking answers in this matter. I have not yet received a reply. Along with Rep. John Conyers, I have also submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for all DHS records regarding Mr. Guckert's admittance into the White House. With each new revelation it becomes more and more clear that the relationship between the White House and Jeff Gannon was anything but typical.
It is time for this Administration to stop the stonewalling and come clean with the American people.
I have worked on media fairness and reform throughout my stay in the House, and never have I seen such an open assault on the standards of a free press as I have in the past four years. We have seen several right wing pundits who were being paid with tax dollars to promote Administration policies with no disclosure. We have seen fake news reports distributed to media outlets with no indication of their origin; we have seen those fake segments deemed "illegal covert propaganda" by the General Accounting Office; and then we have seen the White House simply continue on with the technique completely unphased. We now know that prior to the war in Iraq, Iraqi exiles with checkered pasts, allied with (and paid by) the White House distributed bogus intelligence on WMD to produce perhaps more than 100 newspaper articles hyping the case for war! Even now President Bush flies around the country at taxpayer expense holding televised "town hall discussions" on Social Security in which nobody who does not support him is allowed in.
This must stop, and it must stop now. This sort of manipulation of the free press - one of most pivotal checks & balances in our Constitution - demonstrates a contempt for democracy, the rule of law, and the great people of this nation, many of whom trust this president with all their hearts.
I ask you to stand with me - and the DCCC - in demanding an end to the propaganda.
Please sign our petition:
http://www.democraticaction.org/propaganda/index.php?source=feb22email
Sincerely,
Rep. Louise M. Slaughter (NY-28)
Ranking Member, Committee on Rules
Ranking Member, Committee on Rules
CLICK THE TITLE TO SIGN THE PETITION
Dear Ray,
For any other White House, the fact that a partisan operative managed to masquerade as a reporter in the White House press corps might be taken as a slip. But this is no ordinary White House, and in fact, this was no ordinary partisan operative. It has now become clear that the reporter for Talon News known as "Jeff Gannon" was actually James D. Guckert, an individual who had no journalistic credentials whatsoever.
During the February 10 White House briefing, Press Secretary Scott McClellan stated that Jeff Gannon, "...like anyone else, showed that he was representing a news organization that published regularly" in order to receive his day pass to press briefings. It has now been confirmed that Jeff Gannon was in the White House briefing room, actively participating in these briefings, as early as February 28, 2003 a full month before Talon News even existed.
For almost two years Gannon breezed through security and was allowed to lob softball questions to spokesman Scott McClellan and even President Bush himself - culminating in an absurd and factually inaccurate question to the President on national television about how he could deal with Senate Democrats "who seem to have divorced themselves from reality." Wait, there's more.
We've also learned that in December of 2003, Gannon bragged to Talon News that he'd had access to classified documents revealing the identity of former Ambassador Joe Wilson's wife as a covert operative for the CIA. At the time Gannon said, "For something that is supposed to be classified, it seems that this document is easily accessible." He added, "Washington is leaking like a cheap umbrella." Talon News, the "news outlet" that Mr. Guckert worked for was at best a front for a Republican activist website called GOPUSA.com owned by a Texas Republican. Worse yet, Gannon's news "stories" consisted mostly of verbatim Republican press releases and claims that John Kerry "might someday be known as 'the first gay president.'"
It has been well over a week since I wrote President Bush seeking answers in this matter. I have not yet received a reply. Along with Rep. John Conyers, I have also submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for all DHS records regarding Mr. Guckert's admittance into the White House. With each new revelation it becomes more and more clear that the relationship between the White House and Jeff Gannon was anything but typical.
It is time for this Administration to stop the stonewalling and come clean with the American people.
I have worked on media fairness and reform throughout my stay in the House, and never have I seen such an open assault on the standards of a free press as I have in the past four years. We have seen several right wing pundits who were being paid with tax dollars to promote Administration policies with no disclosure. We have seen fake news reports distributed to media outlets with no indication of their origin; we have seen those fake segments deemed "illegal covert propaganda" by the General Accounting Office; and then we have seen the White House simply continue on with the technique completely unphased. We now know that prior to the war in Iraq, Iraqi exiles with checkered pasts, allied with (and paid by) the White House distributed bogus intelligence on WMD to produce perhaps more than 100 newspaper articles hyping the case for war! Even now President Bush flies around the country at taxpayer expense holding televised "town hall discussions" on Social Security in which nobody who does not support him is allowed in.
This must stop, and it must stop now. This sort of manipulation of the free press - one of most pivotal checks & balances in our Constitution - demonstrates a contempt for democracy, the rule of law, and the great people of this nation, many of whom trust this president with all their hearts.
I ask you to stand with me - and the DCCC - in demanding an end to the propaganda.
Please sign our petition:
http://www.democraticaction.org/propaganda/index.php?source=feb22email
Sincerely,
Rep. Louise M. Slaughter (NY-28)
Ranking Member, Committee on Rules
Report from the Orlando Hydrogen Event 2/18/2005
Reported by Corbett Kroehler of The Sierra Club
Click Title for event photos
When I stepped out my front door to catch the 10:00
bus to the airport, I quickly noted how the weather
would be just about ideal for the historic event yet
to come, the groundbreaking of Florida's first
hydrogen filling station and the launch of Florida's
Hydrogen Highway. Since the morning's theme was to be
clean transportation, it only seemed fitting that I do
my part by using a combination of mass transit and
shoe leather to travel to the event instead of my
gasoline-powered automobile.
I also was eager to attend because I knew that having
Governor Jeb Bush as keynote speaker would assure at
least moderate press coverage. However, when I arrived
and saw a huge Ford Sustainable Mobility Technologies
tractor trailer sitting just north of the event
entrance, I knew that the best was yet to come.
As I strolled along the mulch and sod entry way and
claimed my preprinted nametag, I glanced at the agenda
card handed to me and quickly noted that several other
significant names appeared after Governor Bush's,
including those of Bill Ford, CEO of Ford, Gregory
Vesey, CEO of ChevronTexaco, Dale Oliver, Regional VP
of Progress Energy and Florida State Senator Lee
Constantine! I nearly did a cartwheel on the spot. I
knew right then and there that the day's event would
be more than a bunch of lip service married with a few
photo ops.
Wishing to eschew my typical partisan rhetoric in the
interest of moving Florida and North America away from
fossil fuels, I hung on every word of each speaker's
prepared remarks, hoping to find political middle
ground. I didn't have to listen too intently! I
quickly learned that from the angle of Florida's
government, genuine revenue is being directed to this
project. Governor Bush mentioned several times that
monies which the Florida legislature has directed
toward the project have been matched roughly 2:1 with
federal dollars, totaling around $10 million so far.
He never uttered the words but as I listened between
the lines of Jeb's speech, I heard a sub text aimed at
the Governor of each other state which is trying to
forge ahead as the nation's leader in hydrogen-based
transportation: “Governor Pataki, Governor Richardson,
Governor Schwarzenegger, Florida will be a major
player in hydrogen-based clean transportation.”
Jeb didn't stop there, though. He even addressed an
area of strife with his brother. While not mentioning
the White House specifically, Governor Bush noted that
since he is a staunch opponent of new drilling for oil
and gas off the Florida coast, it would be
hypocritical of him not to use the good graces of his
office to help Florida find other sources of energy.
That was a most welcome remark.
The fact that Florida's initiative has real funding
and real momentum was gratifying to hear but merely
the appetizer. When Bill Ford stepped to the podium
and spoke about his company's conviction that hydrogen
is the only way to go, spending around $2 billion on
research and development to make it happen, I knew
that the rubber truly had hit the road. It was
abundantly clear that the chicken-and-egg paradox of
moving away from petroleum to hydrogen was fading –
that you can't convert to a different fuel without
vehicles to use the fuel and no automaker will produce
hydrogen cars without readily-available fuel.
Consider, a man of Ford's power and stature doesn't
need to put himself out there, speaking to a crowd of
about 200 people gathered around a make-shift stage
with a mulch and sod floor below to crow about clean
transportation. He very easily could have limited
himself to huge auto shows with multi-million-dollar
budgets and flashy video presentations. Instead, he
spoke with eloquence and zeal in the middle of a
vacant lot near Orlando International Airport. That
fact spoke volumes to me.
As impressed as I was with Mr. Ford, though, I was
truly bowled over by the next speaker, Gregory Vesey,
CEO of ChevronTexaco, a true powerhouse (pun intended)
in the global energy market. His words resonated with
the vibrato of a man who controls vast stores of
fossil fuels yet to be burned yet with a hint of
genuine belief that investing in hydrogen for consumer
use now would yield first-to-market cachet. Mr. Vesey
didn't stop there. In place of platitudes about the
balance between profit and protection, he declared
ChevronTexaco's commitment to doing their part to help
build truly self-contained hydrogen fueling stations.
Yes, he said that trucking in hydrogen to be dispensed
to vehicles was less than ideal. He wants
ChevronTexaco hydrogen stations to manufacture their
own fuel on site.
That was very significant because it means that his
company at least has realized that the environmental
community won't be truly happy about burning hydrogen
as a transportation fuel unless it is as green as
possible. While I still had the impression that Mr.
Vesey would have preferred that his trip to Orlando
from Houston include 18 holes of golf instead of a
speech to 200 bureaucrats, environmentalists and
politicians, I left with a profound sense of hope
that, unlike ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco has decided to
work with us rather than against us.
Next up was Dale Oliver, Regional VP of Progress
Energy. Progress' record thus far of offering green
tags or other options to consumers to pay extra to
derive a portion of their commercial and/or
residential electrical power from renewable sources
has been spotty at best. Nevertheless, Mr. Oliver
expressed pride that Progress Energy will play a
significant role in Florida's move to clean
transportation. When he spoke about his strong ties to
the Central Florida community and Progress' commitment
to put its money where its mouth is by using Ford
hydrogen-powered vehicles in its daily operations, my
interest was piqued. During 2004's tragic hurricane
season, Progress did an outstanding job of restoring
electrical service in relatively short spans of time
considering the unspeakable devastation which most of
the state suffered. Many of their line workers, as
well as those crews whom Progress imported, worked 18
hours a day for weeks at a time to help Florida come
out of the dark. That commitment was impressive and I
heard in Mr. Oliver's words a similar pledge to help
Florida move away from fossil fuels.
The final speaker of the event had perhaps the
greatest portion of zeal in his address, Florida
Senator Lee Constantine. Known to the environmental
community throughout the Southeast as a stalwart
supporter of conservation efforts, he has his hands in
several of Tallahassee's cookie jars as they relate to
clean transportation. At Governor Bush's behest, he
has proposed legislation in the Florida Senate to help
assure a continued steam of state monies into
construction of the Hydrogen Highway and committed his
bottomless energies to help his counterparts in the
Florida House see fit to do likewise. Perhaps most
significant in that legislation is a statewide
standard for building codes for hydrogen filling
stations, right down to the nozzle which connects to
the vehicle.
In conclusion, then, I can say without exaggeration
that the event covered every topic necessary to put
Florida on the road to using hydrogen as the
next-generation transportation fuel. While I am
certain that we will encounter many roadblocks and
impediments in the coming months, I am equally certain
that the hydrogen die is cast in Florida. Sure, we
could be much farther along than we are but the wheels
of change turn slowly and convincing entrenched
industries captained by the likes of ChevronTexaco and
Ford to change their tune to become not just allies
but team players in uncharted territory is an
accomplishment which cannot be overstated.
I commend the Florida Department Of Environmental
Protection for sponsoring the event. I commend
Governor Bush for crossing the aisle to tap Florida
Senator Constantine as legislative point person on
many important logistical issues. I commend Ford Motor
Company for sending its CEO along with two
demonstration vehicles and an engineer to speak about
their street-legal products ready for immediate use. I
congratulate ChevronTexaco CEO Gregory Vesey for
sounding more like BP's John Browne and less like
ExxonMobil's Lee Raymond. I congratulate Progress
Energy for committing instead of procrastinating.
Lastly, I offer yet another round of applause to
Florida Senator Constantine for placing yet another
feather in his environmental cap, this time with
perhaps the strongest bipartisan support of any of his
recent efforts.
Click Title for event photos
When I stepped out my front door to catch the 10:00
bus to the airport, I quickly noted how the weather
would be just about ideal for the historic event yet
to come, the groundbreaking of Florida's first
hydrogen filling station and the launch of Florida's
Hydrogen Highway. Since the morning's theme was to be
clean transportation, it only seemed fitting that I do
my part by using a combination of mass transit and
shoe leather to travel to the event instead of my
gasoline-powered automobile.
I also was eager to attend because I knew that having
Governor Jeb Bush as keynote speaker would assure at
least moderate press coverage. However, when I arrived
and saw a huge Ford Sustainable Mobility Technologies
tractor trailer sitting just north of the event
entrance, I knew that the best was yet to come.
As I strolled along the mulch and sod entry way and
claimed my preprinted nametag, I glanced at the agenda
card handed to me and quickly noted that several other
significant names appeared after Governor Bush's,
including those of Bill Ford, CEO of Ford, Gregory
Vesey, CEO of ChevronTexaco, Dale Oliver, Regional VP
of Progress Energy and Florida State Senator Lee
Constantine! I nearly did a cartwheel on the spot. I
knew right then and there that the day's event would
be more than a bunch of lip service married with a few
photo ops.
Wishing to eschew my typical partisan rhetoric in the
interest of moving Florida and North America away from
fossil fuels, I hung on every word of each speaker's
prepared remarks, hoping to find political middle
ground. I didn't have to listen too intently! I
quickly learned that from the angle of Florida's
government, genuine revenue is being directed to this
project. Governor Bush mentioned several times that
monies which the Florida legislature has directed
toward the project have been matched roughly 2:1 with
federal dollars, totaling around $10 million so far.
He never uttered the words but as I listened between
the lines of Jeb's speech, I heard a sub text aimed at
the Governor of each other state which is trying to
forge ahead as the nation's leader in hydrogen-based
transportation: “Governor Pataki, Governor Richardson,
Governor Schwarzenegger, Florida will be a major
player in hydrogen-based clean transportation.”
Jeb didn't stop there, though. He even addressed an
area of strife with his brother. While not mentioning
the White House specifically, Governor Bush noted that
since he is a staunch opponent of new drilling for oil
and gas off the Florida coast, it would be
hypocritical of him not to use the good graces of his
office to help Florida find other sources of energy.
That was a most welcome remark.
The fact that Florida's initiative has real funding
and real momentum was gratifying to hear but merely
the appetizer. When Bill Ford stepped to the podium
and spoke about his company's conviction that hydrogen
is the only way to go, spending around $2 billion on
research and development to make it happen, I knew
that the rubber truly had hit the road. It was
abundantly clear that the chicken-and-egg paradox of
moving away from petroleum to hydrogen was fading –
that you can't convert to a different fuel without
vehicles to use the fuel and no automaker will produce
hydrogen cars without readily-available fuel.
Consider, a man of Ford's power and stature doesn't
need to put himself out there, speaking to a crowd of
about 200 people gathered around a make-shift stage
with a mulch and sod floor below to crow about clean
transportation. He very easily could have limited
himself to huge auto shows with multi-million-dollar
budgets and flashy video presentations. Instead, he
spoke with eloquence and zeal in the middle of a
vacant lot near Orlando International Airport. That
fact spoke volumes to me.
As impressed as I was with Mr. Ford, though, I was
truly bowled over by the next speaker, Gregory Vesey,
CEO of ChevronTexaco, a true powerhouse (pun intended)
in the global energy market. His words resonated with
the vibrato of a man who controls vast stores of
fossil fuels yet to be burned yet with a hint of
genuine belief that investing in hydrogen for consumer
use now would yield first-to-market cachet. Mr. Vesey
didn't stop there. In place of platitudes about the
balance between profit and protection, he declared
ChevronTexaco's commitment to doing their part to help
build truly self-contained hydrogen fueling stations.
Yes, he said that trucking in hydrogen to be dispensed
to vehicles was less than ideal. He wants
ChevronTexaco hydrogen stations to manufacture their
own fuel on site.
That was very significant because it means that his
company at least has realized that the environmental
community won't be truly happy about burning hydrogen
as a transportation fuel unless it is as green as
possible. While I still had the impression that Mr.
Vesey would have preferred that his trip to Orlando
from Houston include 18 holes of golf instead of a
speech to 200 bureaucrats, environmentalists and
politicians, I left with a profound sense of hope
that, unlike ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco has decided to
work with us rather than against us.
Next up was Dale Oliver, Regional VP of Progress
Energy. Progress' record thus far of offering green
tags or other options to consumers to pay extra to
derive a portion of their commercial and/or
residential electrical power from renewable sources
has been spotty at best. Nevertheless, Mr. Oliver
expressed pride that Progress Energy will play a
significant role in Florida's move to clean
transportation. When he spoke about his strong ties to
the Central Florida community and Progress' commitment
to put its money where its mouth is by using Ford
hydrogen-powered vehicles in its daily operations, my
interest was piqued. During 2004's tragic hurricane
season, Progress did an outstanding job of restoring
electrical service in relatively short spans of time
considering the unspeakable devastation which most of
the state suffered. Many of their line workers, as
well as those crews whom Progress imported, worked 18
hours a day for weeks at a time to help Florida come
out of the dark. That commitment was impressive and I
heard in Mr. Oliver's words a similar pledge to help
Florida move away from fossil fuels.
The final speaker of the event had perhaps the
greatest portion of zeal in his address, Florida
Senator Lee Constantine. Known to the environmental
community throughout the Southeast as a stalwart
supporter of conservation efforts, he has his hands in
several of Tallahassee's cookie jars as they relate to
clean transportation. At Governor Bush's behest, he
has proposed legislation in the Florida Senate to help
assure a continued steam of state monies into
construction of the Hydrogen Highway and committed his
bottomless energies to help his counterparts in the
Florida House see fit to do likewise. Perhaps most
significant in that legislation is a statewide
standard for building codes for hydrogen filling
stations, right down to the nozzle which connects to
the vehicle.
In conclusion, then, I can say without exaggeration
that the event covered every topic necessary to put
Florida on the road to using hydrogen as the
next-generation transportation fuel. While I am
certain that we will encounter many roadblocks and
impediments in the coming months, I am equally certain
that the hydrogen die is cast in Florida. Sure, we
could be much farther along than we are but the wheels
of change turn slowly and convincing entrenched
industries captained by the likes of ChevronTexaco and
Ford to change their tune to become not just allies
but team players in uncharted territory is an
accomplishment which cannot be overstated.
I commend the Florida Department Of Environmental
Protection for sponsoring the event. I commend
Governor Bush for crossing the aisle to tap Florida
Senator Constantine as legislative point person on
many important logistical issues. I commend Ford Motor
Company for sending its CEO along with two
demonstration vehicles and an engineer to speak about
their street-legal products ready for immediate use. I
congratulate ChevronTexaco CEO Gregory Vesey for
sounding more like BP's John Browne and less like
ExxonMobil's Lee Raymond. I congratulate Progress
Energy for committing instead of procrastinating.
Lastly, I offer yet another round of applause to
Florida Senator Constantine for placing yet another
feather in his environmental cap, this time with
perhaps the strongest bipartisan support of any of his
recent efforts.
Confronting the evidence: A call to reopen the 9-11 Investigation
The video is mightier than the pen.
Monday, February 21, 2005
So, this is social security
Sent to me via email, source material not researched by me.
Perhaps we are asking the wrong questions during election years.
The Senate and Congress do not pay into Social Security and of course, do not collect from it either.
You see, Social Security benefits were not suitable for persons of their elevated stature in society.
They felt they should have a special plan set aside just for themselves.
So, many years ago they voted in their own benefit plan.
In more recent years, no congressperson would ever consider changing this golden umbrella.
After all, it is a great plan and for all practical purposes their plan works like this:
When they retire, they continue to draw the same pay until they die.
Except it may increase from time to time for cost of living adjustments.
For example, Senator Byrd and Congressman White and their wives may expect to draw $7,800,000.00 (Seven Million, Eight-Hundred Thousand Dollars) with their wives drawing $275,000.00 (that’s $22,916.67 per month) or ($753.42 per day) during the last years of their lives, for simply being married to a public servant.
This is calculated on an average life span for each of those two public servants.
Younger public servants who retire at early, will receive much more during the rest of their lives. Their cost for this excellent plan is $0.00. NADA.... NOTHING…. ZILCH....This extraordinary perk is free to them, and passed unanimously in the dark of night while you and I were fast asleep.
You and I pick up the tab for this plan. The funds for this fine retirement plan come directly from the General Funds; "OUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK"!!!! From our own Social Security Plan, we all pay into every payday until we retire (which amount is matched by our employer) we can expect to get an average of $1,000 per month after retirement. Or, in other words, we would have to collect our average of $1,000 monthly benefits for 68 years and one 1 month to equal Senator Bill Bradley's benefits!
Social Security could be very good if only one small change were made.
That change would be to: remove the Golden Fleece Retirement Plan from under the Senators and Congresspersons. Put them into the Social Security plan with the rest of us then sit back.....and watch how fast they would fix it.
Perhaps we are asking the wrong questions during election years.
The Senate and Congress do not pay into Social Security and of course, do not collect from it either.
You see, Social Security benefits were not suitable for persons of their elevated stature in society.
They felt they should have a special plan set aside just for themselves.
So, many years ago they voted in their own benefit plan.
In more recent years, no congressperson would ever consider changing this golden umbrella.
After all, it is a great plan and for all practical purposes their plan works like this:
When they retire, they continue to draw the same pay until they die.
Except it may increase from time to time for cost of living adjustments.
For example, Senator Byrd and Congressman White and their wives may expect to draw $7,800,000.00 (Seven Million, Eight-Hundred Thousand Dollars) with their wives drawing $275,000.00 (that’s $22,916.67 per month) or ($753.42 per day) during the last years of their lives, for simply being married to a public servant.
This is calculated on an average life span for each of those two public servants.
Younger public servants who retire at early, will receive much more during the rest of their lives. Their cost for this excellent plan is $0.00. NADA.... NOTHING…. ZILCH....This extraordinary perk is free to them, and passed unanimously in the dark of night while you and I were fast asleep.
You and I pick up the tab for this plan. The funds for this fine retirement plan come directly from the General Funds; "OUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK"!!!! From our own Social Security Plan, we all pay into every payday until we retire (which amount is matched by our employer) we can expect to get an average of $1,000 per month after retirement. Or, in other words, we would have to collect our average of $1,000 monthly benefits for 68 years and one 1 month to equal Senator Bill Bradley's benefits!
Social Security could be very good if only one small change were made.
That change would be to: remove the Golden Fleece Retirement Plan from under the Senators and Congresspersons. Put them into the Social Security plan with the rest of us then sit back.....and watch how fast they would fix it.
Moral Values
This is an incredibly powerful speech and one that should be heard/read over and over again... read on:>
Dr. Robin Meyers' Speech to students at OK University
As some of you know, I am minister of Mayflower Congregational Church in Oklahoma City, an Open and Affirming, Peace and Justice Church in northwest Oklahoma City, and professor of Rhetoric at Oklahoma City University. But you would most likely have encountered me on the pages of the Oklahoma Gazette, where I have been a columnist for six years, and hold the record for the most number of angry letters to the editor.
Tonight, I join ranks of those who are angry, because I have watched as the faith I love has been taken over by fundamentalists who claim to speak for Jesus, but whose actions are anything but Christian. We've heard a lot lately about so-called "moral values" as having swung the election to President Bush. Well, I'm a great believer in moral values, but we need to have a discussion, all over this country, about exactly what constitutes a moral value-- I mean what are we talking about? Because we don't get to make them up as we go along, especially not if we are people of faith. We have an inherited
tradition of what is right and wrong, and moral is as moral does. Let me give you just a few of the reasons why I take issue with those in power who claim moral values are on their side:
1. When you start a war on false pretenses, and then act as if your deceptions are justified because you are doing God's will, and that your critics are either unpatriotic or lacking in faith, there are some of us who have given our lives to teaching and preaching the faith who believe that this is not only not moral, but immoral.
2. When you live in a country that has established international rules for waging a just war, build the United Nations on your own soil to enforce them, and then arrogantly break the very rules you set down for the rest of the world, you are doing something immoral.
3. When you claim that Jesus is the Lord of your life, and yet fail to acknowledge that your policies ignore his essential teaching, or turn them on their head (you know, Sermon on the Mount stuff like that we must never return
violence for violence and that those who live by the sword will die by the sword), you are doing something immoral.
4. When you act as if the lives of Iraqi civilians are not as important as the lives of American soldiers, and refuse to even count them, you are doing something immoral.
5. When you find a way to avoid combat in Vietnam, and then question the patriotism of someone who volunteered to fight, and came home a hero, you are doing something immoral.
6. When you ignore the fundamental teachings of the gospel, which says that the way the strong treat the weak is the ultimate ethical test, by giving tax breaks to the wealthiest among us so the strong will get stronger and the weak will get weaker, you are doing something immoral.
7. When you wink at the torture of prisoners, and deprive so-called "enemy combatants" of the rules of the Geneva convention, which your own country helped to establish and insists that other countries follow, you are doing something immoral.
8. When you claim that the world can be divided up into the good guys andthe evil doers, slice up your own nation into those who are with you, or with the terrorists -- and then launch a war which enriches your own friends and seizes control of the oil to which we are addicted, instead of helping us to kick the habit, you are doing something immoral.
9. When you fail to veto a single spending bill, but ask us to pay for a war with no exit strategy and no end in sight, creating an enormous deficit that hangs like a great millstone around the necks of our children, you are doing something immoral.
10. When you cause most of the rest of the world to hate a country that was once the most loved country in the world, and act like it doesn't matter what others think of us, only what God thinks of you, you have done something immoral.
11. When you use hatred of homosexuals as a wedge issue to turn out record numbers of evangelical voters, and use the Constitution as a tool of discrimination, you are doing something immoral.
12. When you favor the death penalty, and yet claim to be a follower of Jesus, who said an eye for an eye was the old way, not the way of the kingdom, you are doing something immoral.
13. When you dismantle countless environmental laws designed to protect the earth which is God's gift to us all, so that the corporations that bought you and paid for your favors will make higher profits while our children breathe dirty air and live in a toxic world, you have done something immoral. The earth belongs to the Lord, not Halliburton.
14. When you claim that our God is bigger than their God, and that our killing is righteous, while theirs is evil, we have begun to resemble the enemy we claim to be fighting, and that is immoral. We have met the enemy, and the enemy is us.
15. When you tell people that you intend to run and govern as a "compassionate conservative," using the word which is the essence of all religious faith-compassion, and then show no compassion for anyone who disagrees with you, and no patience with those who cry to you for help, you are doing something immoral.
16. When you talk about Jesus constantly, who was a healer of the sick, but do nothing to make sure that anyone who is sick can go to see a doctor, even if she doesn't have a penny in her pocket, you are doing something immoral.
17. When you put judges on the bench who are racist, and will set women back a hundred years, and when you surround yourself with preachers who say gays ought to be killed, you are doing something immoral.
I'm tired of people thinking that because I'm a Christian, I must be a supporter of President Bush, or that because I favor civil rights and gay rights I must not be a person of faith. I'm tired of people saying that I can't support the troops but oppose the war.
I heard that when I was your age--when the Vietnam war was raging. We knew that war was wrong, and you know that this war is wrong--the only question is how many people are going to die before these make-believe Christians are removed from power?
This country is bankrupt. The war is morally bankrupt. The claim of this administration to be Christian is bankrupt. And the only people who can turn things around are people like you--young people who are just beginning to wake up to what is happening to them. It's your country to take back. It's your faith to take back. It's your future to take back. Don't be afraid to speak out. Don't back down when your friends begin to tell you that the cause is righteous and that the flag should be wrapped around the cross, while the rest of us keep our mouths shut. Real Christians take chances for peace. So do real Jews, and real Muslims, and real Hindus, and real Buddhists--so do all the faith traditions of the world at their heart believe one thing: life is precious. Every human being is precious. Arrogance is the opposite of faith. Greed is the opposite of charity.
And believing that one has never made a mistake is the mark of a deluded man, not a man of faith. And war -- war is the greatest failure of the human race -- and thus the greatest failure of faith.
There's an old rock and roll song, whose lyrics say it all: War, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing. And what is the dream of the prophets? That we should study war no more, that we should beat our swords into plowshares and our spears into pruning hooks.
Who would Jesus bomb, indeed? How many wars does it take to know that too many people have died?
What if they gave a war and nobody came? Maybe one day we will find out.
Dr. Robin Meyers' Speech to students at OK University
As some of you know, I am minister of Mayflower Congregational Church in Oklahoma City, an Open and Affirming, Peace and Justice Church in northwest Oklahoma City, and professor of Rhetoric at Oklahoma City University. But you would most likely have encountered me on the pages of the Oklahoma Gazette, where I have been a columnist for six years, and hold the record for the most number of angry letters to the editor.
Tonight, I join ranks of those who are angry, because I have watched as the faith I love has been taken over by fundamentalists who claim to speak for Jesus, but whose actions are anything but Christian. We've heard a lot lately about so-called "moral values" as having swung the election to President Bush. Well, I'm a great believer in moral values, but we need to have a discussion, all over this country, about exactly what constitutes a moral value-- I mean what are we talking about? Because we don't get to make them up as we go along, especially not if we are people of faith. We have an inherited
tradition of what is right and wrong, and moral is as moral does. Let me give you just a few of the reasons why I take issue with those in power who claim moral values are on their side:
1. When you start a war on false pretenses, and then act as if your deceptions are justified because you are doing God's will, and that your critics are either unpatriotic or lacking in faith, there are some of us who have given our lives to teaching and preaching the faith who believe that this is not only not moral, but immoral.
2. When you live in a country that has established international rules for waging a just war, build the United Nations on your own soil to enforce them, and then arrogantly break the very rules you set down for the rest of the world, you are doing something immoral.
3. When you claim that Jesus is the Lord of your life, and yet fail to acknowledge that your policies ignore his essential teaching, or turn them on their head (you know, Sermon on the Mount stuff like that we must never return
violence for violence and that those who live by the sword will die by the sword), you are doing something immoral.
4. When you act as if the lives of Iraqi civilians are not as important as the lives of American soldiers, and refuse to even count them, you are doing something immoral.
5. When you find a way to avoid combat in Vietnam, and then question the patriotism of someone who volunteered to fight, and came home a hero, you are doing something immoral.
6. When you ignore the fundamental teachings of the gospel, which says that the way the strong treat the weak is the ultimate ethical test, by giving tax breaks to the wealthiest among us so the strong will get stronger and the weak will get weaker, you are doing something immoral.
7. When you wink at the torture of prisoners, and deprive so-called "enemy combatants" of the rules of the Geneva convention, which your own country helped to establish and insists that other countries follow, you are doing something immoral.
8. When you claim that the world can be divided up into the good guys andthe evil doers, slice up your own nation into those who are with you, or with the terrorists -- and then launch a war which enriches your own friends and seizes control of the oil to which we are addicted, instead of helping us to kick the habit, you are doing something immoral.
9. When you fail to veto a single spending bill, but ask us to pay for a war with no exit strategy and no end in sight, creating an enormous deficit that hangs like a great millstone around the necks of our children, you are doing something immoral.
10. When you cause most of the rest of the world to hate a country that was once the most loved country in the world, and act like it doesn't matter what others think of us, only what God thinks of you, you have done something immoral.
11. When you use hatred of homosexuals as a wedge issue to turn out record numbers of evangelical voters, and use the Constitution as a tool of discrimination, you are doing something immoral.
12. When you favor the death penalty, and yet claim to be a follower of Jesus, who said an eye for an eye was the old way, not the way of the kingdom, you are doing something immoral.
13. When you dismantle countless environmental laws designed to protect the earth which is God's gift to us all, so that the corporations that bought you and paid for your favors will make higher profits while our children breathe dirty air and live in a toxic world, you have done something immoral. The earth belongs to the Lord, not Halliburton.
14. When you claim that our God is bigger than their God, and that our killing is righteous, while theirs is evil, we have begun to resemble the enemy we claim to be fighting, and that is immoral. We have met the enemy, and the enemy is us.
15. When you tell people that you intend to run and govern as a "compassionate conservative," using the word which is the essence of all religious faith-compassion, and then show no compassion for anyone who disagrees with you, and no patience with those who cry to you for help, you are doing something immoral.
16. When you talk about Jesus constantly, who was a healer of the sick, but do nothing to make sure that anyone who is sick can go to see a doctor, even if she doesn't have a penny in her pocket, you are doing something immoral.
17. When you put judges on the bench who are racist, and will set women back a hundred years, and when you surround yourself with preachers who say gays ought to be killed, you are doing something immoral.
I'm tired of people thinking that because I'm a Christian, I must be a supporter of President Bush, or that because I favor civil rights and gay rights I must not be a person of faith. I'm tired of people saying that I can't support the troops but oppose the war.
I heard that when I was your age--when the Vietnam war was raging. We knew that war was wrong, and you know that this war is wrong--the only question is how many people are going to die before these make-believe Christians are removed from power?
This country is bankrupt. The war is morally bankrupt. The claim of this administration to be Christian is bankrupt. And the only people who can turn things around are people like you--young people who are just beginning to wake up to what is happening to them. It's your country to take back. It's your faith to take back. It's your future to take back. Don't be afraid to speak out. Don't back down when your friends begin to tell you that the cause is righteous and that the flag should be wrapped around the cross, while the rest of us keep our mouths shut. Real Christians take chances for peace. So do real Jews, and real Muslims, and real Hindus, and real Buddhists--so do all the faith traditions of the world at their heart believe one thing: life is precious. Every human being is precious. Arrogance is the opposite of faith. Greed is the opposite of charity.
And believing that one has never made a mistake is the mark of a deluded man, not a man of faith. And war -- war is the greatest failure of the human race -- and thus the greatest failure of faith.
There's an old rock and roll song, whose lyrics say it all: War, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing. And what is the dream of the prophets? That we should study war no more, that we should beat our swords into plowshares and our spears into pruning hooks.
Who would Jesus bomb, indeed? How many wars does it take to know that too many people have died?
What if they gave a war and nobody came? Maybe one day we will find out.
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