news2notice

2012-01-23T10:54:00.000-08:00

This bears repeating: The Palm Beach Post printed this, by Tom Blackburn 10/13/08
"A lot of people who want to prevent abortions think they have to vote Republican to get action. It is hard to see why. No party that uses the distortions, evasions and dissimulation of the current administration to torture people can claim to respect human dignity. It is not pro-life. It could still be anti-abortion. Its deeds do not lend much support to that possibility, though, no matter what it says. Before 1972, abortion laws were spotty. It was "on demand" in two states. Several, including FL, allowed it in cases of rape, incest and for the health...of the mother. It was totally illegal in much of the country. Then in 1972 came Roe vs. Wade in which the Supreme Court said states couldn't interfere with abortion in the first trimester. That's the decision anti-abortion folks rally against in Washington each January.
Who wrote it? A Repub justice (Harry Blackmun) appointed by Repub Nixon. The court's majority consisted of four Repubs and three Dems. The dissenters were one Repub. (William Rehnquist) and one Dem (Byron White)...
Repub presidents stayed opposed to abortion rhetorically...(Saying an actor "phoned in" his performance implies his heart wasn't in it. Prez Reagan flew to Phoenix to speak to the National Rifle Assn. but never drove a few blocks to make a speech to the antiabortion rallies each January outside the Supreme Court building. He literally phoned it in. Being heard by phone but not seen with abortion opponents has been President Bush's style as well. By the 20th anniv. of Roe vs. Wade the Supreme Court had 8 Repubs and the original Dem dissenter (Justice White). That court upheld some state regulations but explicitly upheld abortion as a constitutional right. Abortion was legalized and kept legal by black robed Republicans, not by a cabal of San Francisco Dems. In Congress, Repubs could complain that Dems thwarted efforts to curb abortions. But then that excuse ran out. From 2003 to 2006 they held both houses of Congress. & the White House. & the Supreme Court.
You'd think something would happen after all the talk. They could have set up a law case for the current court with seven Republican appointees to use to reverse the 1972 decision.
In 2003 they passed the "partial-birth abortion" ban, which their floor managers explained would apply to only a very few abortions. The Supreme Court upheld it in 2007. That's all they accomplished on abortion while they controlled everything. It's all they tried to do.
Abortion has been very good for Republicans running for election. But for 35 years the Republicans who ran on it haven't done much to reward their supporters. People who supported President Bush for what he said about abortion now have an unnecessary war and torture on their consciences. And abortion is still legal." Tom Blackburn, Palm Beach Post

2012-01-18T11:31:00.000-08:00

These bear repeating: from a Washington Post article:
“The fiscal shift in the Reagan years was staggering. In January 1981, when Reagan declared the federal budget to be "out of control," the deficit had reached almost $74 billion, the federal debt $930 billion. Within two years, the deficit was $208 billion. The debt by 1988 totaled $2.6 trillion. In those eight years, the United States moved from being the world's largest international creditor to the largest debtor nation.”

Joe Conason, 1-14-2012
Leslie Stahl on “60 minutes” showed President Ronald Reagan “announcing his 1982 tax increase-sometimes described as the largest tax hike in American history-”

“...even though Ronald Reagan cut taxes, he also pushed through several tax increases, including one in 1982 during a recession , as Reagan intones, ‘Make no mistake about it, this whole package is a compromise.’”

“In fact, Reagan comprised on many issues, including an agreement with Dem House Speaker O’Neill, to improve the solvency of Social Security for the past several decades....

Reagan was forced to raise taxes because his cuts didn’t “pay for themselves” as the mythology also insists-and he didn’t raise taxes enough to avoid a legacy of deficits that only Bill Clinton’s 1993 tax increase on the top tier began to remedy.

The Bush tax cuts, like Reagan’s, set the nation on its current fiscal path, worsened by his multitrillion-dollar misadventure in Iraq..”

“In an election year, when every Republican candidate has vowed to refuse any compromise that will reduce future deficits, the urge to erase history and distort facts, must be exposed over and over again.”
Joe Conason, also referring to rep Eric Cantor’s aide assertion that Reagan didn’t raise taxes.

2012-01-05T07:57:00.000-08:00

Jon Stewart on "the Daily Show", 1-4-12, interviewed Elizabeth Dowling Taylor, who wrote the book: "A slave in the White House. It's the story of Peter Jennings, a slave who could read & write, who himself wrote the first White House Memoir, titled something like, Memories of James Madison. Jennings was owned by James Madison. 8 of our earliest presidents owned slaves, Dowling Taylor said. Jennings thought Dolly Madison would free him upon James Madison's death, but she didn't. ( Jennings wife and children had been sold to another Virginia family). So Jennings borrowed $200 from Daniel Webster to buy his own freedom, and then worked for Webster to buy his family's freedom. He was able to later buy a small piece of property, and house, and often forged papers for other slaves, his great granddaughter told Elizabeth Dowling Taylor. Jon Stewart read what President James Madison had once written about slaves, calling them thieves, and he did not have a good opinion of them at all. Yet Madison is responsible for the Bill of Rights. I've read that half of the signers of the Constitution owned slaves. What a compromise for those that didn't. I've read George Washington didn't dare release his slaves while he was alive, for fear of repercussions by his neighbors. And now, the signers of Grover Norquist's Pledge, don't dare end the Bush tax cuts, even for those making more than $1,000,000.00 a year, after deductions. This is "...the land of the brave"

2012-01-03T08:25:00.000-08:00

Will FL state Senator Joe Negron's proposed bill (SB 402) just test newborns for prescription drugs, or methylmercury, also?
"Women in Martin County have the highest methylmercury contamination nationally, according to data from similar studies: Martin County women were at 25 percent, Duval County at 7 percent, Escambia and Santa Rosa Counties were at 16 percent, while 12 percent was the national average.
A CDC report in 2002 showed that 6 percent of women had elevated levels of mercury nationally, according to their website."
http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2011/sep/21/martin-booklet-lists-fish-less-likely-to-have/

How about for the most dangerous pesticides used in FL?

2011-12-28T11:55:00.000-08:00

Now House of Representatives member David Rivera tried to reinstate travel restriction to Cuba, by relatives of Cubans.
Back when Crist was governor. then State Rep David Rivera was instrumental in bypassing Enterprise FL to get John Textor $20 million more of FL taxpayers' money.

http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2009/oct/12/port-st-lucie-project-got-20-million-state-safegua/

...”An amendment gave Gov. Charlie Crist’s office, which helped craft the language, sole authority to award $42 million in economic development money. As a result, nine companies, each identified only by a code name, were awarded shares of the money within a week this summer. One $7.4 million project in Taylor County was never discussed in public....Nearly half of the summer’s total went to Project Bumblebee — a proposal from John Textor, who is targeting Port St. Lucie for a spinoff of Digital Domain...But while the city considers its offer, the last-minute state budget amendment has already benefited the election campaigns of Crist and state Reps. Kevin Ambler, R-Tampa, and David Rivera, R-Miami, whose support was critical for the amendment...In June, Textor gathered $2,000 in donations for Ambler and $1,500 for Rivera. “

State rep. Rivera also shared a house with then state rep. Marco Rubio, in Tallahassee, and they apparently kept
deferring their mortgage payments.

2011-12-23T09:14:00.000-08:00

From a Palm Beach Post article by Charles Elmore, Nov.11, 2011: "Florida's failure to prepare for the Affordable Care Act has already cost the state at least $40 million in Federal money..." "State leaders including Gov. Scott "have maintained such spending makes little sense considering FL and other states want the U.S Supreme Court to declare key provisions of the act unconstitutional."
The $40 million "could be used for projects such as helping nursing-home patients get care in their own homes, ahead of full implementation of the act by 2014". So if the act is declared constitutional, THEN nursing home patients will have that opportunity? Meanwhile, other states can take the $40 million FL has rejected.

So FL state legislators are essentially gambling on the Supreme Court.
The aspects of the Affordable Care act that went into effect in 2010, "such as no lifetime limits on insurance benefits and allowing children to stay on their parents' policies until age 26" seem to have already lowered the numbef of people on Medicaid.
Isn't that good for states?

2011-12-19T18:11:00.000-08:00

Dec.15,2011::
4,474 U.S service members and 13 Defense Dept. civilians have reportedly been killed in the Iraq War.
In Afghanistan, the numbers are 1,739 and 3, respectively.

At least 100,000 Iraqis have been killed. How many maimed, tortured, tormented, and/or displaced?

2011-12-19T17:15:00.000-08:00

From USA Today article by Tom Vanden Brook, 12-16-2011: "The Pentagon has spent $720 Million on late fees in the past 10 years..." " to shipping companies for failing to return containers on time." "Shipping companies charge the govt., daily 'container detention fees' after the grace period ends for the box to be returned. If the military fails to return a container, a rent-to-own arrangement requires it to pay the shipper nearly $7,400 for a 20-foot container worth $3,200."

(Barbara Walters face saying "What?"

Ashton Carter is the No.2 official at the Pentagon. 3 senators, Tom Carper, Tom Coburn, and Scott Brown, have asked him "to report by Jan 30 on what has been done rein in late fees."

2011-12-16T17:23:00.000-08:00

As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

— H. L. Mencken

2011-09-30T12:24:00.000-07:00

"Natasha's Justice Project, based on NY's Long Island, believes there could be as many as 180,000 untested rape kits nationwide.

Natasha Alexenko started the organization this year, (9-20-11 article in the Stuart, FL news).

She says Stony Brook University researchers and a group called Strategic Planning will try to determine the number.

Alexenko has publicly identified herself as a survivor of sexual assault. Manhattan prosecutors caught her attacker when they
tested her rape kit nine years after the crime.

2010-08-24T13:01:00.000-07:00

The Washington Post reported: "for the first time in 15 years, U.S officials have lost their ability to inspect Russian long-range nuclear bases", according to David Broder's column reprinted in our Stuart News. And Republican Senator Jon Kyl of AZ, just assumed the inspections would continue? He and some other Republican senators didn't know the consequences of blocking the renewal of the START treaty, which expired in April?

Reminds me of AZ putting a guy who stabbed someone 51 times in a medium security prison, while cracking down on immigrants.

2010-07-31T04:45:00.001-07:00

"Music Within", good movie, rated R, 2007, about the man most responsible for getting the ADA law passed.

"Invictus", with Matt Damon & Morgan Freeman, produced by Clint Eastwood, also inspiring.

2010-07-31T04:45:00.000-07:00

2010-02-16T08:02:00.000-08:00

"In the Loop", by director Armando Iannuci, is a British comedy, it seems, but ends up telling how the tragedy of the
War on Iraq came to be. See if you recognize the principals in the U.S government.

2010-01-28T13:31:00.000-08:00

From Joe Conanson's column in the New York Observer, reprinted in the Stuart News, 1-23-10:

"If scored strictly by his legislative attainments,...the scrupulously nonpartisan Congressional Quarterly rated him the most effective president of the past 5 decades... When e enunciated a clear position in the House and Senate, his success rate was 96.7%-anumber that surpassed the records set by LBJ and Ike".

Mr. Conason continues: "If scored by his campaign promises, Obama also wins high marks. That judgement also comes from a respected nonpartisan source, the Pulitzer Prize-winning political Web site known as Politifact.com. Tracking in detail the progress of 500 policy pledges made during the 2008 campaign, Politifact has assembled an "Obameter" that rates each promise as kept, broken, compromised, or 'in the works.' Their finding is that he has made good on 91 promises so far, and broken only 14; 275 are in the works, meaning that he is seeking to fulfill them, and 87 are stalled, which indicates little progress. For a president who has yet to complete his first year, those are not only decent ratings but a strong indication of good faith"...

2009-12-25T04:14:00.000-08:00

"Champions of the Wild" try to help Beluga whales in the St. Lawrence River, Rhinos in Africa, etc.,
and the Animal Planet TV station shows you their work, at 6:30 am weekdays.

2009-12-09T08:18:00.001-08:00

“God did not put us on this earth to be wards of the state”, says Mike Haridolpolus. But is the state of FL paying his healthcare premiums? And God did tell us to be stewards of the earth, and all its living creatures, not “Drill, baby drill”.

2009-12-08T05:08:00.000-08:00

Conservative Republican Marco Rubio didn’t have to pay healthcare
premiums for 8 years? Governor Crist and State Senator Mike
Haridopolos still don’t? ''It’s not like we pay nothing. There are
co-pays and deductibles,’’ Haridopolos said. ''It’s not like
Medicaid.’’ (http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2009/nov/30/fla-lawmakers-balk-at-helping-poor-get-health-45/)
Miami Herald article by Beth Reinhard and Marc Caputo) It sure
sounds like “socialized medicine” and the redistribution of $45
million a year of Florida’s wealth.

Our now--Senator George LeMieux further explained his many years
accepting free healthcare, “... But government employees get paid
less, so you have to balance that out’’. Yet, “Of the 27,479 state
employees, appointees, elected officials, etc. , not paying premiums,
“2,431 (of them) earn more than $100,000.” (Beth Reinhard & Marc
Caputo, Miami Herald, reprinted @ TCPalm)

Explaining why Governor Crist can put his new stepdaughters, who go to
school in NY, on Florida’s bill, come January, Crist spokesman
Sterling Ivey said: ''There is not a residency requirement for
coverage,’’ (That quote was not in the very-shortened print verson of
Reinhard & Caputo’s article in the Stuart News)

All the nations who have been giving all their citizens, what Rubio,
Crist, and Haridopolos got, live longer and pay less than we do. Their
businesses have been freed from the “Denver boot” of healthcare costs.
“It’s a social responsibility”, is what the surgeon who worked on Bob
Dole, told us.

“Republican Sen. Tom Coburn, a doctor from Oklahoma, offered an
amendment to the current healthcare bill being developed in the Senate
that would require all members of Congress use the public option if
passed. ‘Let's demonstrate leadership—and confidence in the system—by
requiring that every member of Congress go into it,’ Coburn said”
(http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/7/20/754958/-Thank-You,-Senator-Coburn!-(Sun-Tzu-Health-Care-Action)
Yes! Let’s do it! Surely We the People can compete with Corporate
Communism.

2009-11-23T11:50:00.001-08:00

Canada's government freed up their businesses from providing healthcare, 50 years ago;
Result, they live longer, pay half as much per capita, have lower unemployment and
banks stronger than Switzerland's.

2009-11-19T18:33:00.001-08:00

T.R Reid, author of "The Healing of America", said on C-Span: If you've had a hip or knee replacement, you can thank the French; for Viagra, the British; for better MRI's at lower cost, the Japanese. The developed countries that have made a moral commitment to give healthcare to all their citizens, have to find ways to save money, and that increases, not decreases, innovation and research. They have to find ways to do it better. In America, the average length of time a customer is with one particular insurance company, is 4.8 years. So there is no incentive to provide preventative care. But in all the other developed countries, there is that incentive to spend on prevention, to prevent higher costs later. recommends

2009-11-09T11:58:00.000-08:00

reality writes on the TCPalm blog site:

Republicans Tom Rooney and Bill Posey voted against permanently extending security requirements on some 6000 chemical plants (Stuart news 11-8-09, p.B3) The rules requiring makers and storers of chemicals to make plans to prevent & respond to terrorist attacks, do background check on employees, and allow Dept.of Homeland security inspections, were due to expire next year. The same bill Posey and Rooney voted NO to, also requires public & private sewage treatment facilities to do similar things, and the EPA to have a security program for drinking water facilities too. Why would Rooney and Posey say NO to such Common Sense rules? Previously Rooney voted NO to increased government scrutiny of companies that process and distribute large amounts of food products. If I understood Rooney's response then, he worried about frivolous lawsuits by consumers against food processors, and food plants shutting down for what might turn out to be no good reason. Today, the Stuart News Opinion has Rooney joking about the Steelers and Vikings game, and the usual ad for Rooney's blog. I wish instead he would explain his NO vote for our security here, even as he urges sending more Americans into the meat grinder of Afghanistan. At what cost? What is the CBO estimate of that? On the House floor, Rooney denounced the Trillion $ cost of health reform here at home, but leaves out that that cost should be divided by 10 years. Has the Stuart news asked Rooney and Posey what has been the cost of the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq? And does Rooney know the numbers of dead and wounded in each war, so far, as the Stuart news omits such info? The claim of local focus falls false, though, as Pittsburgh and Minnesota are far from here, as are most of the Celebrities on p.2, section 1.

2009-11-03T12:13:00.000-08:00

MN Rep. Michelle Bachmann is outraged at our “Gangster government” that took over GM, for $5 Billion. Yet President Bush, without Congress, rescued AIG with $180 Billion in taxpayer $$. Republican Bachmann
calls it “cronyism” that 2 GM dealerships were saved because their Democratic Senator and/or Democratic representatives intervened, while one in her district was shut down. If Republicans were the Majority
party, would it have been the opposite? And if Obama and the Dems had not bailed out GM, would all GM dealerships have been closed?

GM and most other “private enterprises” in America, have huge expenses from buying healthcare insurance for their employees. Private enterprises in Canada, Great Britain, and Europe, don’t have that “Denver boot”
holding them back. Why aren’t Republicans helping Dems take that burden off of our private enterprises?

“Pro-lifers” argue, “what if the aborted fetus would have turned into a great scientist, engineer, etc.? But Repubs don’t apply that to healthcare? If all Americans had good healthcare provided all their lives, who knows how many more citizens would be truly contributing.

“... to promote the general welfare” is in the Preamble to our Constitution. So please explain all the accusations by Repubs/Conservatives, that it is Dems not obeying the Constitution?

George Will has long been against the legalization and regulation of marijuana, yet he too claims to be against “Gangster govt” and “cronyism”. So why is a plant the “Intelligent Designer” put all over this earth, prohibited from our “Free Market”? To eliminate competition for “Big Pharma and the cigarette companies? Is that an example of what Dylan Ratigan calls, “Corporate
Communism”? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dylan-r...
The Stuart news recently reported a jail sentence of 25 years for a man who had skillfully remodeled a house to grow marijuana. "ganster govt." using its power to prevent competition in the marketplace?

2009-11-03T07:15:00.000-08:00

Kevin McDonough, of United Features Syndicate, writes in the Stuart News 11-3:

"MSNBC analyst and 'West Wing' producer/writer Lawrence O'Donnell observes that only PBS's Jim Lehrer has maintained the notion of news as a civil forum and a public service, and that everybody else (including himself) is chasing ratings.
Why are so many Americans so badly informed about the rest of the world? Apparently, they don't care. Tucker Carlson, now of Fox News, observes that the minute-by-minute ratings analysis shows that the second a newscast turns to a story about any foreign country or subject ('and that includes Tijuana or Ottawa') the audience goes 'right to "Wheel of Forturne"" "
Kevin McDonough of United Features Syndicate

2009-11-03T07:14:00.000-08:00

Posted on the TCPalm website, November 3, 2009 10:13 a.m. reality writes:
(Republican Rep.) "Bogdanoff noted a 'lot of America likes to gamble' and the state could attract major conventions to casino-hotel sites." A lot of Americans like to smoke or eat Marijuana too. http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2009/may/2... What would be FL taxpayers' share of the $77 Billion the US could perhaps be raking in if Marijuana was regulated as tobacco and alcohol are?
And it is also a Republican who wants to create a new government bureaucracy to compete with private enterprise? "Rep. Alan Hays, R-Umatilla, proposed that the state create a gambling commission and contract with private operators to run casinos, similar to how the state runs the $4 billion-a-year Lottery. That would allow the state to keep a larger share of casino profits, he said.
"We can compete head on with the tribe," he said. "We need to say absolutely no to this compact ; period."
Isn't totally hypocritical that Republicans are scaring Americans with dire warnings of "government control" of Health care, but are eager to takeover the "gaming industry"? Will that benefit the Rooney family? Sure sounds like Republicans are lobbying for what Dylan Ratigan calls "Corporate Communism" http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dylan-r...

2009-10-29T10:10:00.000-07:00

Letter to Senator Bill Nelson of FL:

What have you learned from space travel, if not that we are all, Russians included, on this "small spaceship earth" together? The Russians saved our astronauts after the Challenger Disaster. Isn't it called "the International Space Station"? Every country that wants in, should help share the costs. But bombing the Moon? A nation that claims to believe in God, "the Intelligent Designer" the Creator? That sure seems like blasphemy to me. All those who claim to believe the Bible is the word of God, don't wonder why the Tower of Babel story is in there? The only reason for a base on the moon is to show off, or to bomb people from on high. We dropped more bombs on Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam than we dropped on Japan and Germany combined. Are we better off? That big dam China is building affects the orbit of the earth, I hear. If that is true, what are we doing risking damage to the Moon? "Conservatives"/Repubs, objected to spending $5 Billion to save GM jobs. Is it the same people who now want to save NASA/FL jobs? You can have it both ways, but you may bankrupt our country and destroy the earth, too.

2009-10-29T07:36:00.001-07:00

Sure hope you're helping Nancy Pelosi get us what Canada, Great Britain, and Europe, have for their citizens. If not, please remove us from your robo-call and mailing list, because there is no way we ever vote for you. You're eager to send more Americans into harm's way halfway around the world, and admire Cantor, who helped get over 5000 of them killed and even more wounded? "Fighting for our freedom"? I can't try marijuana without getting arrested? Are you for continuing to spend $77 BILLION a year on just the Marijuana War- as Middle school students are dumb enough to have "Pharm parties"? Posey wants more BILLIONS to go to the moon to save those jobs, and has never heard of the Tower of BABEL story? $445 million for a 2-minute flight today-but taking care of the least of our brethren? Did you read Dear Abby by Jeanne Phillips today?

2009-10-29T07:11:00.000-07:00

MN Rep. Michelle Bachmann is outraged at "Gangster government" that
took over GM, for $5 Billion. Yet President Bush, without Congress,
rescued AIG with $180 Billion in taxpayer $$. Republican Bachmann
calls it "cronyism" that 2 GM dealerships were saved because their
Democratic Senator and/or Democratic representatives intervened, while
one in her district was shut down. If Republicans were the Majority
party, would it have been the opposite? And if Obama and the Dems had
not rescued GM, would all GM dealerships have been closed?

GM and most "private enterprises" in America, have huge expenses from
buying healthcare insurance for their employees. Private enterprises
in Canada, Great Britain, and Europe, don't have that "Denver boot"
holding them back. Why aren't Republicans helping Dems take that
burden off of our private enterprises?

"Pro-lifers" argue, "what if the aborted fetus would have turned into
a great scientist, engineer, etc.? But Repubs don't apply that to
healthcare? If all Americans had good healthcare provided all their
lives, who knows how many more citizens would be truly contributing.
"... to promote the general welfare" is in the Preamble to our
Constitution. So please explain all the accusations by
Repubs/Conservatives, that it is Dems not obeying the Constitution?

George Will has long been against the legalization and regulation of
marijuana, yet he too claims to be against "Gangster govt" and
"cronyism". So why is a plant the "Intelligent Designer" put all
over this earth, prohibited from our "Free Market"? To eliminate
competition for "Big Pharma and the cigarette companies? Dylan
Ratigan calls it "Corporate
Communism"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dylan-ratigan/the-cost-of-corpor
ate-com_b_312516.html
The Stuart news recently reported
a jail sentence of 25 years for a man who had outfitted a house to
grow marijuana. That's not "ganster govt."?

2009-10-29T07:09:00.000-07:00

Sent to "Bite-sized" views at TCN Palm:

Big story: NASA spent $445 million on a 2 minute flight; Little story: NASA spent $11 million
secretly asking questions of 29 pilots for 30 minutes, and taxpayers still
are not allowed to know what maybe a whole bunch of "Sullys" might have said?

2009-10-20T11:50:00.001-07:00

http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2009/oct/12/port-st-lucie-project-got-20-million-state-safegua/ is not corruption, or perhaps conspiracy? Gov. Crist, and 2 State of FL reps, Republicans all, got the rules changed so a guy from Jupiter could get $20 million of FL taxpayers' money without the Budget Committees approval or the required investigation? $7 million is already in his pocket, so Charlie gets a $5000 donation, while Ambler and Rivera get $2000 and $1000? What is the point of 18 citizens wasting their time recommending anti-corruption legislation, if Crist & the FL Repubs can sneak in and negate such laws real quick, anytime? Was this before or after Repubs started attacking the Dems Stimulus plan? I've read lots of Repubs complaints as to how the Dems plan won't work, and/or it isn't right to use taxpayer money. This walks & talks like a "Stimulus". 9 "private" enterprises, too sneaky to even give the name of their companies, using code names like "project Bumblebee", will be getting $42 million of FL taxpayers's money? Previously Jeb and the Repubs "High tech" handouts, also walking & talking like a "Stimulus"-used up how much, $2 Billion of taxpayer monies?
Michael Bender's article mentions "Enterprise FL" and other state "stimulus" agencies. Just how much do all these FL "stimulus" bureaucrats get, even as our libraries cut hours and staff? Repubs also charge that Dems aren't obeying the Constitution. Our Founding Fathers in the Preamble, said they were rebelling "...to promote the general welfare...."
which would seem to be libraries, not animated video-game producers.

2009-10-17T05:39:00.000-07:00

http://senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=111&session=1&vote=00308
S.Amdt. 2588 to H.R. 3326 (Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2010)
Statement of Purpose:
To prohibit the use of funds for any Federal contract with Halliburton Company, KBR, Inc., any of their subsidiaries or affiliates, or any other contracting party if such contractor or a subcontractor at any tier under such contract requires that employees or independent contractors sign mandatory arbitration clauses regarding certain claims.

Jon Stewart on “The Daily Show” on Comedy Central thought it would be a “no-brainer” to vote for this amendment. Senator Al Franken proposed it, after a 19-year old employee of KBR in Iraq, was raped by some of her fellow employees, then locked in a crate to keep her from reporting it.
No law enforcement agency could investigate, because our Defense Dept.’s contract with KBR, allows them to settle all disputes among employees with mandatory arbitration.

Senator Jeff Sessions argued that the govt. should not be interfering in private contract matters. But these are taxpayer $$, paying KBR to act in our name. It was wrong for ACORN to get public funds to help pimps and prostitutes. Isn’t it wrong for public money to go to a company that does not permit a crime victim to seek justice?

I was glad to see that our new Republican Senator Lemieux voted for Senator Franken’s amendment; Republican Senators Richard Lugar, Oylmpia Snowe, and Bennett of Utah, also. But the list of Republican Senators voting NO is troubling. Will the House now have to vote on this very important decision of how we the people supervise those we hire?

2009-10-08T12:31:00.000-07:00

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/opinion/content/opinion/epaper/2009/10/01/a10a_swancol_1002.html
COLUMN: My kid over your needle
By Rhonda Swan
Palm Beach Post Editorial Writer
Thursday, October 01, 2009
Take three shots and sue us in the morning.
That’s essentially what Uncle Sam is telling a Florida Panhandle teen who doesn’t want to take Gardasil. The vaccine supposedly prevents the two strains of the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus (HPV) that cause 70′percent of cervical cancers. Simone Davis, 17, of Port St. Joe said she doesn’t need Gardasil because she has no plans to become sexually active. The U.S. government has said, Get the shots or go back to England.Female immigrants between 11 and 26 must get Gardasil vaccinations to become citizens. Simone, who is seeking citizenship, moved to Florida from England when she was 3, adopted by her grandmother, who had married an American. Their request for a waiver on moral and religious grounds was denied.
“I kind of feel like they may be experimenting with immigrants to see how we will react, and then give the vaccine to citizens,” Simone said. “If it is such a great vaccine, why isn’t it mandatory for everyone?”
A better question: Why is it mandatory for anyone?
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says Gardasil is safe for females between 11 and 26. There’s no proof, however, that the vaccine protects against HPV longer than five years. So we’re keeping 11-year-olds safe from a sexually transmitted virus until they’re 16. How about we just try and keep them virgins instead?
Even a lead researcher for Gardasil’s manufacturer, pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co., now has doubts. “The benefit to public health is nothing,” said Dr. Diane Harper, who helped design and carry out studies to get Gardasil approved. “There is no reduction in cervical cancers; they are just postponed, unless the protection lasts for at least 15 years, and over 70 percent of all sexually active females of all ages are vaccinated.”Then there are the side effects. As of Sept. 1, the CDC had received 15,037 reports of “adverse events” from the more than 26 million doses of Gardasil distributed. Forty-four of those “events” were deaths. Other serious reactions include paralysis, blood clots and cases of a rare disorder that causes muscle weakness.
There’s no proof that Gardasil caused these “adverse events.” There’s also no proof that the drug did not.
Officials in the United Kingdom are resuming mandatory shots of Cervarix, a similar vaccine manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline, after an autopsy showed that a 14-year-old girl who died hours after being vaccinated had a malignant tumor in her chest. GlaxoSmithKline is trying to get Food and Drug Administration approval for Cervarix here.
The agency put off its decision after news about the British teen’s death. The FDA should have put off approving Gardasil. There have been no long-term studies about the drug’s effects. Instead, the FDA fast-tracked approval, and the government added it to the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. So claims by victims of side-effects are paid out of taxpayers’ pockets, and Merck is off the hook.
My pediatrician looked at me sideways when I refused two years ago to let her give Gardasil to my daughter. Merck’s multimillion-dollar, award-winning marketing campaign didn’t impress me the way it did our government or the Florida legislators who tried and failed in 2007 to make Gardasil vaccinations a requirement for 11- and 12-year-old girls attending public and private school. Then again, maybe our legislators were impressed with the money Merck and its employees has given to state campaigns across the country – nearly $5 million from 2000 to 2006, the year the FDA approved Gardasil. Florida candidates and political parties, says the Institute on Money in State Politics, got $256,000.
With the drug priced at $360 for a three-dose regimen, Merck stands to make billions off government forcing Gardasil on our children. All of us, even immigrants, should have the right to say, “Thanks, but no thanks.”
Rhonda Swan is an editorial writer for The Palm Beach Post. Her e-mail address is rhonda_swan@pbpost.com

2009-10-07T11:21:00.000-07:00

Reporter Richard Engel just returned from Afghanistan. The Afghans are sick and tired of Americans, he said. When asked about all the humanitarian groups working there, Engel related being in a cafe in Kabul, when 3 Americans in white tennis gear with rackets walked in. Engel said this is typical, and it is almost like the old colonist days there, with all the UN, NATO, and NGO's not doing really very much work out in the field.

Retired general Jack Jacobs? was also there on CNN? , and was asked about the request for 40,000 more troops. He said, for what purpose, to accomplish what? You don't provide resources, until you know what you want to accomplish with them.

2009-10-02T08:46:00.000-07:00

posted on TCPalm letters to the editor: reality writes:
http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2009/may/2... says the U.S could be taking in $77 Billion instead of paying out $33 Billion, if we ended the Prohibition of Marijuana and taxed it as we do cigarettes and alcohol. "The Intelligent Designer" seems to have put the Cannabis family of plants all over the earth, and it has been useful to Man since he was created. George Washington grew it, and drank opium every day of his life too, but let's start with marijuana, and tax it to the max. Obama has previously said we could just go back to the tax exemptions allowed during the Reagan years to pay for health care reform. What should be mandatory, is that our govt., like the Canadian, British, Swedish, Italian, French, etc., govts, pay for health care for all its citizens, letting us hire health ins. companies to do it for us, or letting us choose to decide how to spend our govt. provided $$ ourselves. thank you

2009-09-23T13:00:00.000-07:00

Commenting on Michael Moore and Health Care on the Stuart News site:

To LDouglas: Moore's "Sicko" is worth your time. He takes some of our 9-11 responders, who couldn't prove they really worked at the site, to Cuba, for health care. Also, an old British guy explains: we noticed during WWII we had full employment. So we figured out that spending the money on health care, education,& infrastructure, like we did on War, would also mean full employment. I sure hope America figures that out.

http://sickforprofit.com/ceos/ shows the CEO of the health ins. co. that gets paid by taxpayers to "manage" my Medicare, for 14% more than if I had chosen original medicare. One of his bureaucrats called last night, wanting me to explain why I didn't go to a network hospital for my surgery 6 months ago. I did; my network dr said "it would have been a bloodbath" if he had continued the emergency bronchoscopy at the network hospital. He ordered an ambulance to take me to the Univ. of FL hospital-Shands. No, I've never smoked anything, had never been in a hospital except for 1 day at childbirth, and have never been fat. I had gone to my network dr. , coughing up blood, on Feb.16. It took until March 19 to get a bronchoscopy scheduled. I didn't make it that long. The Friday before, thicker, oxygenated blood starts coming up. There's more of it, and more often. If I had been able to proceed with the non-network lung specialist I found Feb. 18th, who had scheduled a broncho the following week, would all this have cost taxpayers less?

We'll never know, because the health ins. comp. told me I would have to pay 20% not just of the non-network dr.'s bill, but also of every test, the broncho, hosp, etc. That scared us. So we went thru the network, waiting at every step. I'm lucky to be alive. It was a shock to see how little the surgeon received, and how his and the hospital fees were "adjusted" by the health ins. company. How a "Christian" nation, and esp. the party that claims to value "life" the most, fights to keep this tight-fisted, suspicious, convoluted form of delivering health care services, I do not understand

2009-09-17T08:13:00.000-07:00

Response to letter to the Editor in the stuart news today:

Republicans had big majorities in the House and Senate from 1995 to 2007, and a Repub prez for 6 of those years. Dems did not take control of the House till 2007. They still do not have 60 votes in the Senate. Bush/Cheney had 7 months and 23 days to prevent the 9-11 attacks, which destroyed a third of our economy, I remember David Gergen saying. Richard Clark had been appointed by Ronald Reagan, and tried repeatedly to warn Bush/Cheney. Bush/Cheney stopped Clinton's program of following Osama and other terrorists with the spy drones. They cut Clinton's anti-terrorist funding dramatically. The order went out to all commanders of our military air bases, that they had to get approval from Rummy to respond to a wayward plane, like one did to Payne Stewart's. They did not investigate 9-11 at all, and ordered FEMA to haul away the evidence and make it disappear. Then they invaded Iraq, whose Trillion $$ cost they kept "off-budget". 4,343 Americans have died, over 13,000 have been grievously wounded, and taxpayers will be paying for their lifetime care. They're the ones who lost their freedoms, as did the 3000 Americans who were murdered on 9-11, when Repubs had completely taken over our government.

2009-09-15T03:30:00.000-07:00

Response to LTE in the stuart news:

The Republicans had absolute power during the first 6 years of Bush's 8 years, and invaded Iraq, which had nothing to do with 9-11. They didn't even worry about paying for it, as John McCain said it would be over quickly. They kept it "off budget" . Now, at least $1 Trillion has been spent, and the Dems put it "on budget", so you see the credit card bill. 4,343 Americans are dead, over 13,000 so badly wounded they will need lifetime care, and you're mad about "Big Brother"? 100,000 Iraqis, at least are dead, all the Christians, who used to live peacefully among Sunnis and Shia, are also either dead, wounded, or fled, and you're bragging about America? That Repub majority led by Bush, caused the biggest drop in our GNP in our history. If we're one nation, under God, why aren't Repubs helping? Increasing taxes just a little bit, on people who make more than $250,000 a year, would allow us to be like the rest of the truly Christian countries, who invest in their citizens, giving then free healthcare, which frees their businesses to do business.

2009-09-11T12:55:00.001-07:00

Posted by reality on September 11, 2009 at 3:24 p.m. on the TCPalm Opinion website.

You are taking a lot for granted. Firefighter Ronnie Bucca, on p. 116 of "Triple Cross", by Peter Lance, did not accept the FBI excluding the FDNY from the investigation of the first WTC bombing. He found out that the FBI had had an informant who was spying on the Blind Sheik Omar, but had harassed & endangered him, & he quit, though he kept trying to warn them. Later, in 1999, Firefighter Bucca found out about another Egyptian, who had gotten the blueprints of the WTC, before the first bombing. This man had been seen in news footage walking with the Blind Sheikh, translating for him. He had been an FDNY accountant for 25 years! When Bucca took this info to the Joint Terrorism Task Force, he was blown off. Ramzi Yousef had said he would be back to bring the WTC down. The State dept. caught him, not the FBI. "Everyone was trying their best", you say? The families of the 9-11 victims' questions are listed, in "Inside Job" by Jim Marrs. They still haven't been answered, and the site itself remains a hole in the ground? We don't just have rights & privileges, we have responsibilities. Lance actually investigates the murders of 3000 Americans, and names names, shows copies of documents. I hope you will at least read it.

2009-09-11T12:50:00.000-07:00

LTE to both the PalmBeach Post and the Stuart news:

Rep. Joe Wilson also yelled “Lie!” about us giving chemical & biological weapons to Saddam. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9_x_o0LzjA) But it’s true. Bush 41 overruled his own Commerce Dept., as I remember, to “sell” Saddam all sorts of high tech stuff. Which Saddam bought with money from loans and grants from our Agricultural Dept., if I recall correctly. Maybe some other oldsters remember the connection with the BCCI Bank Scandal. I think William Safire wrote many columns about it. Ted Koppel said the joke going around in 2003, was: “of course we know Saddam has weapons of mass destruction, we gave them to him.” Now Rep. Wilson wants healthcare providers to stop "illegal aliens". Wasn't it the CIA that gave a visa to the Blind Sheik Omar? Our FBI seems to have paid Ali Mohamed, Osama's bodyguard, for many years. Widow Mindy Kleinberg tells about the legal visas all the hijackers had, in "Inside Job" by Jim Marrs.

2009-09-04T07:35:00.000-07:00

Response to Hal Valeche in the Stuart News, Sept. 4, 2009

The big deficits started with Obama? "SEPTEMBER 16, 2008
U.S. to Take Over AIG in $85 Billion Bailout; Central Banks Inject Cash as Credit Dries Up" (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122156561931242905.html) Bush/Cheney just handed out taxpayer money w/o going to Congress. Next their Treasury sec. Paulson, asked Congress to" transfer $700 billion taxpayer dollars to purchase the distressed assets of several failed financial institutions..." (Jason Linkins of the Huffington Post) But Paulson snuck in a few sentences that said our courts and/or Congress wouldn't be allowed to challenge any of that handout. January 2007, when Dems took over the House, the Trillion $$ bill for Bush/Cheney's invasion of Iraq, had been kept "off budget" by the long-time Repub Majority, like keeping 2 sets of books. Where were all these "fiscal conservatives" worried about the Constitution then? Obama's Stimulus has given how much money to FL? Sure wish the Stuart news would list all the handouts this Repub-run state govt. has benefitted from, instead of listing celeb birthdays, or Madonna's travel schedule. And Jeb and the Repubs setting up a new appointed bureaucracy take $2 Billion from all Floridians and give it to "high tech" enterprises, was not "Communism/Socialism? From all who paid their tax bills, to the few Scripps, Max Planck, etc.? "Economic Stimulus &/or Development" boards also take public money and redistribute that wealth. How many have Repubs set up, and how many Repubs collect a real nice salary and benefits from such bureaucracies?

2009-09-02T06:20:00.000-07:00

The Republican Majority did not pay for their 2003 Healthcare"Reform". They just put it on our credit card, at 3 am, after Speaker Hastert had got rid of their guy with the numbers telling the truth about its tremendous costs. Which is why big Pharma & the insurance cos. started making even more profits, as the govt (us) paid them 12% more than Medicare allowed itself to have. "In 2010 payroll taxes on working people (many themselves uninsured) and general revenue (income taxes) will fund about 80% of Medicare. Beneficiary premiums will cover just 12%. (The rest comes from the states and Medicare trust fund interest.) writes Froma Harrop in the Providence Journal.

Bush/Cheney have already put $1Trillion on our credit card in just 6 years of their War on Iraq. And they did not tell you about it, as they put it "off budget"-like your kid sneaking money out of your wallet. This nation that claims to be "Christian" just can't bear to increase taxes on those making over $250,000 a year, to pay for health care for every American? England, Canada, France, Italy, Germany, etc., do it for their citizens, and their govt run programs spend less and their people live longer. America used to brag that it was practical, and did what works. Did you read Germany's unemployment is going down, Iceland has recovered? Their businesses are free to do business because their govt of the people does healthcare by the people, for the people.

2009-08-18T15:25:00.000-07:00

Letter to president Obama:

I hope you saw Jon Stewart last night. And the Ed show today, Linda Douglass sure hemmed and hawed. If 80% of the bill is done, where is the clear explanation of what's in it, and what's not in it, e.g. abortion, death panels? We are lucky enough to be on Medicare. We want it for everyone. It is the right, Christian thing to do, and Obama needs to make another address and explain that, and refute, in strong language, the lies. Call George Bush. He should be helping. It's the least he could do for all the death & debt he has left behind.

2009-08-15T08:34:00.001-07:00

Posted on the Palm Beach Post website: When Bush lied, Americans did die. Over 4000 of them so far, with over 13,000 so terribly wounded that they will need lifetime care. Bush put the $1Trillion cost, so far, on your tab.
John Boehner and other Repubs, voted for “end of life” counseling in 2003, when they had filibuster proof majorities and Bush. Newt is shown pointing out how much money hospitals save when they have the same kind of end of life protocols that this year, a Republican Senator (Issacson?) put in the proposed healthcare reform bill. At this time in Bush’s term, he had cut anti-terrorism funds drastically, seems to have stopped individual air base commanders from responding to wayward planes like Payne Stewarts, and made it nec. to get Rummy’s permission, and would be telling the CIA guy who went to Crawford to report all the “Osama bin Laden determined to attack inside the U.S” -type reports they were getting, “Ok, now you’ve covered your ass”? Some of our troops are on their 6th tours of duty in the Mideast, thanks to Bush/Cheney. And you’re mad as hell at Obama

2009-08-07T06:28:00.000-07:00

Responding to editorial calling for Port St. Lucie, St. Lucie County, and the State of FL to subsidize a movie-making studio:

Ronald Reagan called it "lemon capitalism". PSL, SLC, and FL taxpayers will have to SUBSIDIZE this particular business? Sarasota offered $32 million & 20 acres of land, and it wasn't enough? Fox news derided the "Clunker" law as a handout. What is the difference? Meanwhile, all other ordinary businesses will now be assessed fees for fire protection, water & sewer, etc. Following the FL State Repubs example in figuring out they can take in more money with fees, and still claim not to have raised taxes, according to a previous editoral. Ending the sales tax exemption for bottled water would raise money, and lessen pollution. Ending the Prohibition of marijuana, and taxing it like alcohol and cigarettes would save the U.S $44 Billion a year, and give taxpayers $77 Billion instead, said former cop Marshall Frank quoting a Harvard economist. Republicans used to be the party of COMMON SENSE. What happened?

2009-08-06T05:19:00.001-07:00

To WI Senator Russ Feingold:

My husband says you're voting NO for more troops to Afghanistan. He hasn't read "Charlie Wilson's War" by George Crile either. If you had read it, you would know we used those people as our "Commie Killers". Most of our $billions went thru Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the most vicious warlord of all. So the most hateful to women people got all these weapons & training from us, and now you say, "not our problem"? What happens to the Afghan women if we do not set up a civil society there? You did not read your own McCain-Feingold bill either, apparently, which allowed McCain to use Cindy's plane for campaigning? And created the Swift boat people that brought down John Kerry? How did William Proxmire win re-election each year w/o spending the millions that Senators say they now must have? Max Baucas got $737,000 from a nursing home assn? Senate, heal thyself, before leaving the Afghan women locked in their burkas.

2009-08-05T11:49:00.000-07:00

e-mail to ttsouderos at the Chicago Tribune:

So has your dog ever been ashamed, knowing it had done something wrong?

Humans often try to cover up. Patrick Fitzgerald, according to "Triple Cross", by Peter Lance,
flew to CA to take Ali Mohamed out to dinner. After, he called him "the most dangerous man he
had every met, who should not be allowed out on the streets". But Fitz did not arrest him,
until 2 of of embassies in Africa shortly after, were bombed?

So where is Ali Mohamed? Fitz is hailed as a hero for catching Blago, and you've never had
the least bit of curiosity as to why the guy who trained Osama's bodyguards, was paid by our
FBI as an informant for years?

Jim Marrs, too, in "Inside Job", simply asks how the FBI knew to go immediately to a Sheraton,
a gas station, and a highway dept, to confiscate surveillance videos that had to had filmed the
Pentagon hit. Your dog would at least be curious, and investigate.

Where's the plane big enough to hold over 200 people? 2 pieces of metal is all that's left, while fragile
DNA from most of the passengers survived? Your name doesn't indicate it, but you must be a "good German".

Helen Frigo, 9650 S. Ocean Dr., Jensen Beach, FL 34957
Amazing how many people are so unwilling to end their pet's life in a peaceful, painless way, but
yet let the horrible, horrible deaths of almost 3000 innocent human beings, go uninvestigated,

2009-07-21T08:19:00.000-07:00

Responding to the PBP Opinion Poll about going to Mars:

Gee, how many Americans believe the "Intelligent Designer" created the earth 10,000 years ago? Ask that in your opinion poll. Werner von Braun is not even mentioned. Wasn't it "our Nazi's" technological achievement? The Russians rescued Americans stranded in space after the Challenger disaster. That is not mentioned either. All those who we subsidized to go to the moon came down and informed everyone that we're all on this beautiful blue planet together, and should learn to get along, right? Angeline Jolie has done more for World Peace. The Russians are trying to go to a Mars's moon? That's why we have to beat them to Mars? Why not let them continue to waste their money on their "glory days", while we grow up and take care of the "least of our brethren", as the founder of the religion we claim to belong to, admonished us.

2009-07-21T07:30:00.000-07:00

COMMENT ON DAN MOFFETT'S COLUMN IN THE PALM BEACH POST, JULY 21, 2009:

Mr. Moffett doesn't mention "The Drug War" at all. If marijuana were regulated like cigarettes & alcohol, would Indiana farmers again be the biggest producers of marijuana? And could U.S taxpayers be raking in $77 Billion a year, rather than paying out $44 Billion? 74% of the marijuana used in the U.S is now being grown on our public lands, with "illegal" immigrants camping out on them to tend the crop. Wnen does the PBP report about people making an untaxed fortune bringing drugs, slaves, etc. into this country thru tunnels (See Showtime's Weeds, now in its 4th season, on DVD at your library). Tell us how that raises the "illegal" immigration numbers, and what does the CBO say it costs us?

2009-07-10T08:06:00.000-07:00

Sent to our representative Tom Rooney today: I wrote a Letter to the Editor about your "NO" vote to the funding request from our generals in the 2 wars Pres. Bush started. Please spare me the Repubs' list of excuses. I've rec's automated phone calls from you twice, and am not impressed. Now, Tom Blackburn has written that Republicans had 3 years of total Majority in the Exec., Congressional, and Supreme Court. Roe vs. Wade could have been overturned, Soc. Security could have been put back in its lockbox, etc. Instead, Repubs caused the biggest fiscal swing in American history, from surplus to deficity, Robt. Altman said on Charlie Rose. It's time for Repubs to stop kicking Dems in the shin, and start helping. We are now stuck with you because of Mahoney's stupidity. So represent us, please. Single payer health care has long worked for our Swedish and Italian relatives, and for members of Congress. We want what they have, not what our 33-year rep Hastert forced upon us with lies at 3.am. And if you're looking to save money, no missile shield for Europe. Our Defense Dept failed on 9-11. That wasn't incoming from Iran; or Iraq. But $1 Trillion has gone up in smoke in Iraq, along with their Christian population, and McCain jokes about bombing Iran! Act like the Christian you claim to be, please!

2009-06-12T09:50:00.000-07:00

Posted on the Opinion Zone for the Palm Beach Post newspaper editorial about "drill, baby, drill" off FL's 2 coasts.

"So where are the FL "Christians", the ones who read the Bible? Where God gives us the job of being stewards of all the earth? FL Republicans go against God's wishes? How much man-made mechanical and polluting equipment will have to be hauled out into the Gulf that God made, over and over, back and forth, for years, so that maybe, just maybe, the price of gasoline goes down? And there is no guarantee. "Speculators" were blamed for Germany's hyper inflation after WWI, which led to mass hysteria and hatred on the part of European Christians.
Now American Christians are working themselves into a frenzy, this time making "Greenies" the scapegoat. Jesus Christ walked all over, depended on dona†ions, and sure seemed to have what is now called a small carbon footprint. How do today's "speculators" and profiteers fool so many Christians so much of the time?"

2009-03-13T11:25:00.000-07:00

Companies that sell bottled water, pump 5 million gallons out of Florida’s acquifers every day? And all they pay into state coffers is a $150 yearly permit fee?

Meanwhile, in the Police Blotter, “Someone used an outside spigot to steal water from a home.. 23,000 gallons had been used...the charge for the water was $180.23.”

Gov. Christ wants bottling companies like Nestle’s, to pay 6 cents for every gallon of water they take away from all of us. God did tell us to be stewards of the earth. FL’s “earth” is a honeycomb of ancient coral formations, blessed with clearwater springs and acquifers. We sell it off like Esau sold his birthright?

Ending FL’s sales tax exemption on bottled water also sounds like a good thing. $42 million more into state coffers, and fewer plastic bottles coming & going in trucks on our roads, and less litter on our beaches and waterways.

2008-10-18T19:23:00.000-07:00

“During the same period that Bill Ayers was a member of the Weather Underground, Gordon Liddy was making plans to firebomb a Washington think tank, assassinate a prominent journalist, undertake the Watergate burglary, break into the office of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist, and kidnap anti-war protesters at the 1972 Republican convention.” wrote Carl Bernstein on the Huffington Post.

John McCain has told Liddy he is proud of him, and has congratulated him on his “adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great”, Carl Bernstein again, and continuing: around the time Ayres and Obama were on that board together, Gordon Liddy in 1994 was telling his listeners: "Well, if the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms comes to disarm you and they are bearing arms, resist them with arms. Go for a head shot; they're going to be wearing bulletproof vests." In 1998, Liddy gave a fundraiser in his Scottsdale, Arizona home for McCain's senatorial reelection campaign

Now John McCain has praised another “plumber” who is also not a real plumber. Joe Wurzelbacher didn’t complete all the work necessary to be licensed, and owes on his taxes? And his last name brings up: “A son-in-law of Charles H. Keating Jr. pleaded guilty today to three Federal fraud counts in connection with the collapse of the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors ...The guilty plea today was from Robert M. Wurzelbacher Jr., who had been a senior vice president of Lincoln's parent company, the American Continental Corporation of Phoenix, and the chief executive of an investment firm owned by Lincoln Savings. Mr. Wurzelbacher, who is 38 years old, is married to the former Elizabeth Keating, one of Mr. Keating's daughters.”By RICHARD W. STEVENSON, NY Times: May 16, 1992 If http://my.barackobama.com/page/invite/keatingvideo

2008-09-28T05:00:00.000-07:00

(My comment to LTE on TCPalm blog) Half of our Founding Fathers owned slaves. The rest went along with slavery because otherwise there would have been no union. Great Britain abolished slavery way before we did, without a war, and Canada has universal health care, and a parliamentary system. The Founding Fathers set up the Electoral College, based on the College of Cardinals that chooses a pope. They didn't trust the people. FL Senator Bill Nelson has started up efforts to improve the way we now elect presidents. I hope you will use your energy and talents to help that effort. I know from experience that you will be throwing your vote away if you vote for someone who has absolutely no chance of winning. If you do not vote for Barack, John McCain could win, and the terrible War he helped start in Iraq, which had nothing to do with 9-11, will continue. Please reconsider, sir.

2008-09-12T05:09:00.000-07:00

@ TCPalm comment page, letters to editor: People have been doing terrible things to other people throughout the centuries. Judeo-Christians claim to believe in "Thou shalt not kill". We're supposed to be better than the "godless" or Muslims. So how did we come to be so invested in Arms dealing and military solutions? Iran was not a threat in 1953-Mossadegh admired us! We overthrew him, sneakily, and put a military Monarch in power, and kept him there, for 24 years. Babes killed in mothers' arms? How many times did that happen during our war on Vietnam? Israel attacked the unarmed USS Liberty in 1967, first by plane, then by air, killing 30+ Americans. John McCain's father did a one-week investigation. Bush has kept Reagan's papers from being released, and Cheney said Nixon's mistake was knowing too much about what his underlings were doing? Charlie Reese at least told the American people what was their money was being used for-now it's huge barrier walls, all over Baghdad, Israel, and on the border of the "land of the free and home of the brave".

2008-07-31T11:30:00.000-07:00

Has George Bush hired Ramzi Yousef’s people to foment revolution in Iran? Ramzi made the bomb calculated to make one WTC tower fall against the other. Except he didn’t drive the truck into the very lowest level, but one up. He and his uncle, KSM, are from Baluchistan, where Benazir Bhutto’s father once violently put down a bloody uprising.

“The Baluchis are Sunni fundamentalists who hate the regime in Tehran, but you can also describe them as Al Qaeda...These are guys who cut off the heads of nonbelievers; in this case, it’s Shiite Iranians. The irony is that we’re once again working with Sunni fundamentalists, just as we did in Afghanistan in the 1980’s, Robert Baer, former CIA, tells Seymour M. Hersh in The New Yorker, 7-7-08.

Bush had already authorized US Special Operations Forces to cross the border into Iran last year? But now the “scale & scope of operations in Iran...have been significantly expanded”...(Seymour M. Hersh in The New Yorker). Admiral Fallon, by law was responsible for all military operations and strategy for Iran, Iraq, & Afghanistan. When he tried to make sure he knew about all the overt and covert activity in his command, was he forced out? Bush wants Congress to reaffirm that we are at war with al-Qaeda. So is he aiding and abetting the enemy?

2008-07-25T12:25:00.000-07:00

From reading this article by Leonard Pitts-The common denominator in all the programs helping kids at risk,
is longer school days and longer school years; giving principals the power to hire good teachers and fire bad ones;
high expectations, parental involvement, counseling, consistency, incentives, and field trips.

Why should anyone pay to help Geoffrey Canada of Harlem Children's Zone help poor kids? Spending $3,500
a year on "Alfred", who is 8 is too much money? But when Alfred turns 18 and has to be locked up for ten years,
it costs $60,000 a year. Not to mention the other costs to society from "Alfred" actions. (Leonard Pitts, Jr.,
7-23-08 in the Palm Beach Post)

2008-07-22T12:02:00.000-07:00

Attorney General Michael Mukasey now recognizes the “extraordinary risk” of terror suspects? Mukasey was judge at the trial of those who plotted to blow up targets in NYC. The lawyer for one of them wanted Ali Mohamed hauled in as a witness, but Mukasey didn’t do anything about it.

“’Yes, we saw him (Ali Mohamed) on that splendid videotape’”, Judge Mukasey is quoted by Peter Lance in “Triple Cross”. Would that be the FBI photos of Ali Mohamed teaching lots of middle-eastern men how to fire off AK-47’s on Long Island? If so, shouldn’t it have occurred to Judge Mukasey that this was a dangerous guy?

Ali Mohamed somehow got into our country in 1983, and was like dancing around, daring the FBI, DOJ, etc., to catch him. He confessed in 1993 to his FBI “handler”, says Lance. P.128 of “Triple Cross”: “According to a sworn affidavit filed in Federal Court in 1998, Ali Mohamed admitted that ‘Osama bin Laden ran an organization called al Qaeda and was building an army which may be used to overthrow the Saudi government. Mohamed further stated that bin Laden was operating camps in the Sudan....” Ali even pointed them out on a map.

Now Mukasey wants Congress to make a law that dangerous people can’t come into our country. Why didn’t he catch the one he knew about? Bush wants Congress to reaffirm that we are at war with al-Qaeda. After he whisked Osama’s family out of the U.S?

2008-04-06T12:51:00.000-07:00

An editorial in the Palm Beach post today, reports that the foster parents of a little girl the FL Dept of Children and Families returned to a home where she was brutally beaten, are not receiving any of the $26.8 million they are entitled to for her lifetime of care. "...(FL) legislators blame this year's budget cuts for the lack of attention" to Marissa's relief bill. But the FL House did find time to consider new tax breaks for racetracks and Jai Alai frontons, said an editorial in the Stuart News, 4-3-08. Already, the Professional Golf Hall of Fame gets a $2 million subsidy from FL taxpayers? Is that annually? "The International Game Fish Assoc. World Center in Dania Beach enjoys a $1.2 million sales tax exemption", the same editorial continues. "...Tropicana Field/Tampa Bay Rays ($2 milllion annually), Raymond James Stadium/Tampa Bay Buccaneers ($2million), and Home Depot Stadium/Florida Panthers ($2 million)". You pay as they play? Doesn't FL have Republican majorities in the House and Senate? Besides what would be Welfare by any other name, stadium skyboxes and racehorse feed are exempt from FL sales taxes? But the Republicans who want children to pledge we are a "nation under God", have no time or money to do what is right for "the least of our brethren"?

2008-04-04T19:41:00.000-07:00

A horse is magnificent, big, strong, fast. Yet if a tiny piece of paper flies up in front
of it, it rears and runs in total panic and fear. That's US with Cuba. China's
Communist dictators, though, can ride us to the bank.

2008-03-01T11:54:00.000-08:00

“...U.S officials would have been caught unaware (of the plot to blow up U.S bound airliners in 2006) without the British discovering the plan”, the FBI said in a recent AP article.

But didn’t the U.S try Ramzi Yousef for just that, in 1996? Ramzi was in the NY Met jail, and Gregory Scarpa, Jr., was in the cell between him and his friend Murad. (Peter Lance, in “Triple Cross”)

Ramzi thinks the Mafia hates the U.S as much as he does. He offers to show Scarpa how to sneak a bomb on to a plane, and make it blow up later, in mid air. Ramzi had done it himself on a Philippines airliner, but the seat he put the bomb under, was not above the center wing fuel tank. So only the man in that seat was killed, and the plane managed to land.

Ramzi figures out what he did wrong. He wants “his people” to blow up another plane while he is in jail, so he can ask for a mistrial. He asks Scarpa to pass his drawings, instructions, etc. to Murad, in hopes of getting them out. Scarpa tells his lawyer, who tells the FBI, who give Scarpa a tiny camera.

Scarpa passes on info for 11 months. The FBI sets up phony “Roma Corp.” so Ramzi can telephone while the Feds listen. But Ramzi speaks Baluchistan. Flight 800 blows up, and Scarpa is sentenced to hard solitary time. His info is declared a hoax, and a VIP asks that all reference to the fake company, be redacted. Lance shows a copy of it.

While Scarpa’s in Supermax, Terry Nichols tells him the FBI, in 3 searches, missed a huge stash of explosives in his house in a residential area.

2008-02-09T12:18:00.000-08:00

Prescription Tracking system:

Didn’t Jeb and the Repubs rule FL for a long time? Why didn’t “the Party of Character” make a State law to establish a prescription tracking system? Doctors & medical groups want it, so they can monitor a patient’s drug use. Federal money is available. But such a law, that would prevent deadly overdoses, has no chance in “Pro-Life” FL?

Jeb and the Repubs didn’t consider that “High Tech” enough? They handed out $235 Million supposedly for life-saving drug research. So why not a common sense prescription tracking system, like 37 other states have? With his brother in the White House, Jeb could have pushed for a national system.

Instead, here we go again, throwing more people in Jail. Palm Beach Co. Sheriff’s detective Gary Martin is quoted 2-8-08 in the PBPost. “We’re aggressively looking at a broad range of statutes....If someone took an active role in an overdose death, we’re going to charge them”. The PBP article by Jane Musgrave continues. “Detectives are keeping track of doctors... and if the same name turns up in overdoses, that doctor can expect a visit from a person in uniform”.

This “nation under God” has 500,000 “Drug Criminals” in jail already. Police can kick in doors, strip search 10-year olds, and confiscate property used for drug purposes, for 50 years? Are we better off now, than when George Washington grew hemp and took laudanum for the pain in his jaw, in “the land of the free...”?

2008-01-22T16:49:00.000-08:00

Dr. Mehmet Oz, has an Ask Dr. Oz column in Esquire Magazine. the 12-07, question is: Will an unhealthy past come back to haunt me? Smoke a little weed now and then? Dr. Oz answers: "There's no evidence that occasional marijuana use causes any mental impairment or increases cancer risk. In fact, some studies suggest that a little dope may protect against cancer; THC, the active ingredient, is known to inhimpit the growth of certain cancerous cell". Dr.Mehmet Oz in Esquire 12-07

2008-01-20T12:05:00.000-08:00

Thank you, Mr. George McEvoy; who wrote in the Palm Beach Post: "Let's Not be blind to Recession".

He looked up "what American business and govt. leaders were saying as the Great Depression of the 1930's crept up from
1929 and then took hold with an economic death grip in 1932."

George McEvoy continues: "The show business newspaper Daily Variety told the story in a bleak front page headline:
'Wall Street Lays an Egg', referring to the great stock market crash of Oct. 29, 1929". The New York Post headline recently,
was "Fall Street".

Back to McEvoy: "...but heck, times were good...(and) hardly anyone outside Wall Street paid it much heed. ...Sure,
there was a rash of bankruptcies, but even after the crash, life went on as always. Months went by, and then came
word that folks in OK and TX were losing their farms at sheriffs' auctions. At first, a bankrupt farmer's neighbors
would show up with shotguns and dare anyone to bid higher than the one dollar they offered. ...they would turn it
back to the farmer. But now, few could afford the dollar".

George McEvoy continues: "...the Depression differed from what might be a recession today. While prices got lower
(then), prices are going thru the roof today." President Herbert Hoover had been a hero for feeding the Belgians
after WWI. In the Depression, people said, "He can feed all the Belgians but not one American". Similar to Iraq today?
(my question) Hoover had been the Great Engineer, "...who had built dams and bridges all across China..." says McEvoy.

Even in 1932, Hoover was promising that "prosperity is just around the corner". " Nobody doubted (then) that we
were in a Depression", wrote McEvoy. "The only optimism came from Wall Street itself, where brokers kept saying
that good times were on their way back. ...the idiocy called Prohibition was done away with. Breweries reopened
and more jobs were created. ...Sure, some people called (FDR) a traitor to his class." (George McEvoy)

Only Ron Paul seems to realize the serious cost of what really has been a secret WW3, from our first attack on Iran in 1953. Similar "dirty tricks" in Guatemala, and later with Reagan's revival of fear of Commies, had a whole lot of our money going out, creating problems that still require expensive solutions. And there still seems to be no accounting, no recognition that secret wars definitely qualify as Newt Gingrich's World that doesn't work.

These guys have no shame, and refuse to take the blame, I heard said about many Wall Street Experts. That seems true of some of the experts who won "Charlie Wilson's War", by George Crile. Milt Bearden is on CBS news now. That they and their ilk successors didn't see 9-11 coming, is as dumb as today's financial mess.

Where is David Gergen's quote about 9-11 destroying 1/3 of our economy? Last night on McLaughlin, I think 3 or 4 of them said the War in Iraq has had no effect on the economy. George McEvoy said hardly How much of the financial costs have been as disguised and/or manipulated as the borrowing in Wall St?

2008-01-18T07:41:00.000-08:00

“In accordance with the Constitution, FL law does not require students to recite the pledge...” writes FL’s attorney general. “...but it (FL) does ask them to obtain written parental permission in order to opt out”.

That doesn’t make sense. If students are not required to recite the pledge, then they don’t have to. Why should a student have to get a note not to do something he is not required to do?

Further on, Bill McCollum writes: “While the Supreme Court has correctly upheld certain rights of children in public schools, these protections are targeted to protect them from coercive governmental policies, not from their parents.”

So it is parents who have coerced their children into saying the pledge in school? It looks more like the attorney general, a member of a government. who seems to be coercing children to say the pledge. If “every morning, all across America...” children are saying the pledge, that sounds like a decree went out from an emperor like Caesar Augustus.

President Bush surely must have said the pledge millions of times. But he constantly calls the U.S a democracy. The pledge says, correctly, we are a republic. And that we are one nation. And if the God we are under, is the One who decreed “Thou shalt not kill”, as well as; “thou shalt not commit adultery”, Bush & a whole lot of adults are the ones who should be coerced into learning it.

2008-01-17T18:15:00.000-08:00

Another tough crackdown on gangs is recommended, as we just celebrated the start of Prohibition in 1920? How’d that work? Gangs rose up, machine guns, corruption, innocents killed. The solution then was government regulation of booze, and tax it to the max.

Why can’t we try that with marijuana? Newt Gingrich is on YouTube, with the “World that works, v.s the World that Fails”. If you find it hilarious, please consider where the The Drug War belongs.

Nixon started up the Drug War. He had to be “tough” on something to make up for withdrawing from Vietnam? When marijuana was outlawed, gangs turned to cocaine for its higher profits to make the risk of jail worth it. Indiana is the biggest producer of marijuana, Louis Rukeyser reported many years ago. How many American farmers could get off govt. subsidies if marijuana, and hemp, were legalized?

Jeb and the Repubs are spending hundreds of millions of $$, to “shine a light on science”. Yet every scientific study of the safety and/or usefulness of marijuana, is like burned at the stake. It’s a plant that’s been used for centuries, presumably put on this earth by the “Intelligent Designer”. Whom so many claim to have “Faith” in.

But FL is putting its money on man-made “creations” from subsidized laboratories? Or throwing even more, at more jails, more kicking down doors, more strip searches, even of children who happen to be in a house where an adult is selling “controlled substances”? (sent as letter to the editor of the Palm Beach Post)

2008-01-16T09:24:00.000-08:00

The Palm Beach Post, 1-15-08, quotes Jamal Khashoggi, editor in chief of the Saudi daily "al-Watan":

"The Saudi position is that we want to be friends with Iran and move away from the possible US-Iranian confrontation".

The Iraqi defense minister, Abdul Qadir, from a NYTimes article in the same PBP, says Iraq will not be able to take full responsibility
for its internal security until 2012, nor be able to defend Iraq's borders from external threat until at least 2018.

Qadir "is laying out requests for purchasing new weapons through Washington's program of foreign military sales.

2008-01-13T12:45:00.000-08:00

"When we complain about the social ills that befall us, we need to also acknowledge our contribution to them by having accepted or tolerated abortion." writes Betty R. McKinley in the Stuart News. I too, think you could say the same for WAR. 1959 is the first date on the Vietnam Memorial. 50,000 Americans dead; how many of their children, like kicked in the stomach? Bush is still pushing for War with Iran. Our CIA snuck into Iran in 1953, to get rid of their elected leader. All our problems with Iran stem from that. Neither Iran nor Iraq had anything to do with 9-11. Yet we have been handing over to Bush, $300 million a day, for almost 5 years now. Tomorrow is the 6th anniversary of Bush saying he choked on a pretzel, passed out, and woke up to find his 2 dogs "looking at me a little funny". When do we start looking at Bush a little funny? The U.S is a REPUBLIC. If it were a Democracy, FL's millions of people would have way more than the 2 senators Wyoming gets. The president of Iran is at least smart enough to know he lives in a Republic.

2008-01-11T07:58:00.000-08:00

to mark.tomasik and laurence.reisman of the Stuart News, a TCPalm newspaper:

"an investigative panel validated (Mark Foley's former chief of staff) Kirk Fordham's
claim that he had warned the House Speaker's office of Foley's behavior".
(from a Sun-Sentinel article you put on page TWELVE, 1-10-2008.) The
Speaker of the House was Dennis Hastert, Repub., then, was it not?
Did Fordham also inform any FL state Republican leader way back then?

Yet the day before, on page THREE, you have a headline with PELOSI in dark print,
over an article about some FL state official (Repub?) having a devil of a time trying
to get Pelosi to turn over Foley's e-mails! Though she had just received
his snail-mail- letter a week ago!
And Hastert is mentioned to get in a sniff, that he at least tried to cooperate!

Isn't a clarification in order, if not a correction? Thank you.

2008-01-07T08:01:00.000-08:00

If carloads of black men had been driving out to Long Island to shoot off AK-47's, etc., surely Rudy would have made that a campaign issue in 1989. But they were "middle-eastern" men, loading up with cases of ammo and duffel bags of guns, from a mosque in Brooklyn. ("Triple Cross", by Peter Lance). The FBI squad that "Got Gotti", just followed the cars out to the Calverton shooting range, 4 weekends in a row, never bothering to pull them over? All they did was take photos. Rudy didn't hear about one of the shooters' violent murder of Rabbi Kahane the next year? If it had been a "mob" hit, and 47 boxes of secret papers were found in the killer's house, wouldn't Rudy have made a fuss? Even when Rudy's really good friend, Michael Mukasey, is judging the "Day of Terror" trial, and admits he recognizes Ali Mohamed in the 1989 photos, Rudy doesn't ask, who is this Ali? An Egyptian stationed with our army at Ft. Bragg, driving to NY those 4 weekends, to give weapons training to all those "middle-eastern" men, is allowed to stay an FBI informant, because Mexicans with phony passports are a bigger danger to us? Rudy was part of the whole NY-Washington-FBI-DOJ establishment that seems to have neglected basic police work, for the glory of MOB convictions, and "tough on drugs" posturing.

2008-01-06T08:29:00.000-08:00

NOT in the Stuart News:

12-30-07 in The Palm Beach Post: U.S deaths in Operation Enduring Freedom:

Total since late 2001-Four hundred sixty eight
In combat-276
Other causes-192

Wounded in action-1,840
Returned to duty- 722
NOT Returned to duty-1,118

"Ghost War", by Steve Coll, what happened in Afghanistan and Pakistan in "Charlie Wilson's War" (see book by George Crile)

Thanks to both authors, who have informed We the People.

2008-01-03T10:14:00.000-08:00

This was in "The Nation" magazine:

"On the Intelligence Report Finding That the War in Iraq Has Produced a New Generation of Jihadists and Increased Terrorism"
CALVIN TRILLIN

"One of the hardest parts of my job is to
connect Iraq to the war on terror."
--George W. Bush to Katie Couric
"Iraq's connected, just as Bush implied--
Producing fighters for the other side.
If we just stay the course and not take flight,
We'll never lack for terrorists to fight."
by Calvin Trillin in "The Nation"

2008-01-01T07:17:00.000-08:00

Pope John XXIII:

"Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in,
but with what it is still possible for you to do".

2007-12-30T08:32:00.000-08:00

Rabbi Johnathan Kendall, 12-19-07 in The Stuart News, wrote:

"her (Israel's) secure survival is one of the most important aspects of Judaism". Why? Did the God you believe in, create this whole big, blue planet, and even more wondrous universe? Or is only that tiny speck of Israel "Holy Land" to Him? Is He not within and without us? If He made us in imitation of Him, with a soul, why do so many who claim "Faith" in Him, act like animals marking and protecting their territories? He gave us the best brains to find more better ways to destroy intruders? Is "Go forth and multipy" only in the "Christian" bible? Stay put and keep separate, does not seem to be how God manages this diverse and ever-changing world.

2007-12-26T20:04:00.000-08:00

Listening toTim Russert interviewing Ron Paul:

The U.S has 572,000 troops overseas. Ron Paul says it makes no sense. They don’t defend us; they get us into trouble, and they cost maybe a TRILLION $$ a year.

We left Vietnam under the worst of circumstances, and they’re becoming Westernized, said Paul. Us “protecting” South Korea, Israel, etc., just makes them second class citizens, and keeps them dependent on us. And, they are still big problems to us.

We can’t afford to be policeman of the world, Paul said. Empires end when countries go bankrupt, when the currency crashes, and that’s happening to us now. He would stop military aid to Israel, and to the Arab countries, who receive 3 times as much.

With al-Qaeda Ron Paul gave the example of a snake pit. You step into one knowingly, and the snakes bite you. How do you say who is to blame?

Is there an ideological struggle for Islamic fascists to take over the world? They have their fanatics just as we do. We have 700 bases in 130 countries.

After 9-11, Ron Paul said “Now we’re going to get big government”. He quoted Randolph Bourne, “war is a helpless state”. People are willing to sacrifice their liberties to be safe and secure. He’s against the CIA fighting secret wars, and against the FBI spying on people like MLK. He quotes Sinclair Lewis,
when fascism comes to this country, it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross. Fascism today is corporatism when the military industrial complex runs the sow. Loss of civil liberties, big government in bed with big business, And the medical industry complex, the financial industry complex and the communications industry.

I just would add the drug war-criminal justice complex. Ron Paul thinks all drugs should be regulated like alcohol and cigarettes.

2007-12-25T18:56:00.000-08:00

When do we put Christ into our Foreign Policy?

Ronald Reagan told in his diary (about) “a highly secret convoluted process that sees Israel freeing some 20 Hizballahs who aren’t really guilty of any blood letting. At the same time they sell Iran some ‘Tow’ anti-tank weapons . We in turn sell Israel replacements & the Hizballah free our 5 hostages. Iran also pledges there will be no more kidnappings. We sit quietly & never reveal how we got them back”.

An Iranian dissident, Manucher Ghorbanifar seems to have done that deal. The CIA had declared him a huckster & profiteer. All he got right on lie detector tests, were his name and nationality. But the Israelis and Ollie North seem to have run interference for him. (“Charlie Wilson’s War”, by George Crile)

In Dec. 2001, it’s Michael Ledeen of the American Enterprise Institute, who gets Ghorbanifar into a 3-day hush-hush meeting with Pentagon officials in Italy. (”The Italian letter” , by Peter Eisner and Knut Royce). “Either at this meeting, a similar one in June 2002, or both, Ledeen and Ghorbanifar discuss ways to destabilize the Iranian government, possibly using the Mujahedeen-e Khalq, a US-designated terrorist group, as a US proxy.” (cooperativeresearch.org, from The Boston Globe)

At the same time, Iran was assisting in our war against the Taliban. (John H.Richardson in the 11-7-08 Esquire magazine). Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann, both with great “right-wing” credentials are his sources. Both quit their high-level jobs with the Bush administration, as Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Hadley, overruled all efforts to work with the Iranians.

Also at the same time, was the alleged Iraq-Niger deal. The Italian reporter who gets the actual letters, checks the facts on google, & finds many discrepancies. She even goes to Niger, where yellowcake is strictly controlled by a French company, and is appalled when Bush believes such obvious fakery.

2007-12-22T12:53:00.000-08:00

This is from the book, "Charlie Wilson's War, by George Crile:

p.288: "The CIA's paramilitary unit, officially known as the Special Operations Group...had once been a major component of the CIA, ...with land, air, and sea branches. ...at the Bay of Pigs, it was 2 cowboy PM officers who had led the Cubans ashore and fired the first shots. PM officers had been at the heart of the successful overthrow of the Arbenz government in Guatemala in 1954. Close to a hundred of them had run a massive air-support operation in Laos in the late 1960's. They had always been a critical component of every major covert operation involving force because the general case officers rarely had such expertise." *

"*The paramilitary branch had been radically reduced during the Carter years. Under Bill Casey it had once again expanded to staff the Agency's burgeoning paramilitary campaigns in Nicaragua, Angola, Cambodia, Libya, Chad, and Afghanistan".

Should a "nation under God" have a secret service (SS) like this? Faith means not being afraid, because you trust in your Creator. Also, cost-effective-wise, how are we doing so far? The Afghan "Holy Warriors" seem to have morphed into al-Qaeda, and did their first attack on us, in 1990 with Rabbi Kahane's murder. ("Triple Cross", by Peter Lance)

And, all those Third World economies we disabled by enabling dictators,
have flooded us with refugees.

2007-12-16T21:28:00.000-08:00

"The Italian Letter", by Peter Eisner and Knute Royce. "How the Bush administration used a fake letter to build the case for war in Iraq". All the facts about Niger. Adam Synder of Ft. Pierce was burned horribly and died, in Iraq, 12-5-07. The Stuart News
published his last e-mail today.

"No Simple Victory", by Norman Davies. How the Soviets really defeated the Nazis, and won half of Europe. WWII history
most Americans don't know. Answering questions from the audience after his talk on C-Span, Mr. Davies said Europeans
were wondering which was the most dangerous enemy, Franco and fascism, or the Communists who had taken over the
Spanish Republic. He speculated that if the Communists had won in Spain, perhaps they would have been deemed the
greater threat. But historians deal in facts, and he sure had them. The Soviets had 400 divisions, the Nazis 235, and
the Allies 100, in Europe, for instance.

2007-11-02T13:25:00.001-07:00

Bush (was) laying out what he said is a stark ideological divide between a fiscally prudent, free market-loving GOP prez and a Congress that aims to raise taxes and nationalize health care, according to TCPalm, 11-1-07

His invasion of one country where al-Qaeda wasn’t, will cost a $Trillion if he Decides right now to leave? How much will it cost for him to invade a second country where al-Qaeda isn’t?

And if he truly believes in a free market where he can buy booze and cigarettes, why isn’t he allowing marijuana in?
How much more in taxes could we collect from allowing marijuana growing for oneself, or in licensed shops?

2007-11-02T13:23:00.000-07:00

2007-11-02T13:20:00.000-07:00

2007-11-02T13:17:00.000-07:00

2007-11-02T11:58:00.000-07:00

Published in TCPalm newspaper, 10-31-07:

It just doesn’t seem right. TCPalm newspapers doesn’t print even the names of our troops killed in Iraq & Afghanistan. But every single day, a list of celebrities’ birthdays.

The obits of 2 celebs got more space than the p.13 follow-up about the B-52 with 6 nuclear missiles, flying over us, from North Dakota to Louisiana. 70 members of our Air Force didn’t need no rules, they had their own “informal” system? An “axis” of arrogance, incompetence and laziness, that could have set off WW3 in the Heartland?

It was front page news, thank you TCPalm, that NASA hid the results of an $8.5 Million study of air travel safety. Now they’re going to destroy the whole report! Thanks to the AP also, for spending 14 months trying to find out what sure sounds like useful information. 24,000 pilots surveyed about their experiences flying into and out of U.S airports, but our government doesn’t want us to know what should be fixed or improved?

That sounds eerily like the Pentagon ordering the destruction of 2.5 terabytes of data about al-Qaeda, in March of 2000. Peter Lance in “Triple Cross” shows the declassified link chart, with many photos and names you might now recognize. What if they had been shown to the American public back then?

Bush and his supporters keep insisting there are “Jihadi-sized dots” (Michelle Malkin’s words), in Iraq and Iran, and it is amazing how they know so much about 2 countries halfway around the world, whose languages we don’t know.

What about our country? Chris Matthews wishes there was like a “Pentagon Papers” for this War. Peter Lance’s “Triple Cross” sure seems to be it. And is the NASA report what we need to make sure air travel remains safe?

2007-04-30T08:33:00.001-07:00

Our FL Senator Martinez: "I applaud the Court's decision to uphold this ban. (on partial-birth abortion) When lawmakers decided to end this appalling procedure, it spoke highly of society's core values to protect the sanctity of life".
Yet Senator Martinez has voted to continue destroying Life in Iraq. "Conservatives" want women having abortions to see their sonograms first. But they don't want to see photos of morgues in Iraq.
Robert Scheer, on C-Span, reminded that our 13,000 troops in Vietnam increased to 500,000. We dropped more bombs there, than on Japan and Germany combined. Some Americans think we should have continued until we "won".
Now here they go again, treating another small country like a tiny blob of a nuisance to get rid of, so that "our way of life" won't be inconvenienced. "Bomb, bomb Iran" is a joke? We already did an "abortion" of Iran's self-determination in 1953. We have a long history of creating lots of "bastards" all over the world, including Saddam, without a thought to the long-term consequences. Now we are at a crossroads. Just what are our "core values"?

2007-03-12T10:05:00.000-07:00

Re editorial in Palm Beach Post about the high cost of funding Gov. Crist's anti-murder bill

2 small articles in the PBP Sunday tell how to free up jail space for potential murderers.

Let Richard Paey out. FL put him in jail for having too many prescriptions for pain pills.
FL law enforcement staked him out for 6 months, and never saw him selling drugs, yet
prosectuted him and sentence him to 15 years in jail. "60 Minutes" showed him in jail
in a wheel chair with a morphine pump, because apparently, he is in great pain from a
past car accident.

A similar tiny article was about a FL county paying $350,000 to a woman serving a 2-year
jail term for prostitution. All the publicity given to abortion, but this woman's baby died
in a toilet because apparently no one believed that she was in labor?

Lots of protest about Libby not committing a "real" crime. Neither did those 2. Let's save
jail for those who are truly dangerous. Is that guy who killed 4 people with his bare hands
at Savannahs hospital, not in jail at all, but in a mental hospital? Last I read he was walking
the grounds, supervised?

On another subject: The DVD, "Who Killed the Electric Car?" is a well-done mystery that will make you wonder.

2007-03-10T07:25:00.000-08:00

Army finds evil can be outsourced
By Stebbins Jefferson
Palm Beach Post Columnist Saturday, March 10, 2007

"If you're like me, you're wondering how the outpatient facilities at Walter Reed Army Medical Center could have fallen into such a state of disrepair and how our elected leaders failed to notice that unconscionable system failure until The Washington Post series appeared.
If so, like me, you're trying to determine how such a god-awful state of bungled bureaucracy could have developed with the best minds in the country in charge of veterans' health care.We tend to attribute such egregious errors to partisan politics and concede that any dysfunction must be tolerated until the next election. Then, we can throw out the bums and replace them with a new group slickly packaged for our consumption. But this time, that solution is not workable. It is a national disgrace that we have failed to provide appropriate care and support for our wounded troops. We have to decide whether incompetence, callousness or evil allowed this to happen.
I'm leaning toward evil. But then, from time to time, I have been accused of being too critical of government. So let me explain.
Since 2000, Bill Clinton's last year in power, outsourcing government responsibilities to private companies has been the favored strategy for doing federal business on the cheap. In keeping with that "reinventing government" philosophy, conditions at Walter Reed were scrutinized. Supposedly, detailed comparison studies were made to determine what services could be outsourced more economically to private firms.
Predictably, the jobs of civilian federal employees who do the grunt work were chosen for this experiment. The next step was to seek private proposals to do the work and let current federal workers work for those private contractors or find employment elsewhere.
If you think you've heard this brilliant proposal before, you have. It has been considered by many local school systems. But I digress.
In the case of Walter Reed, after several years of dickering, the federal civilian workers got together and proposed a bid to self-manage their jobs. When their bid was chosen, the Army Audit Agency overturned it, and the Government Accountability Office upheld that decision.
Meanwhile, Walter Reed was put on the list of Army facilities to be closed. Apparently, even after the war in Iraq began and casualties began to flow in like the waters of Lake Ponchatrain spilling over and through the levees during Hurricane Katrina, no one in the administration or Congress saw the need to reverse that myopic plan.
Enter here IAP Worldwide, a Florida-based management company headed by Al Neffgen and David Swindle - no pun intended. They are former executives of Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root. Founded in 1989, by 2005 IAP had gained about $1.5 billion in federal contracts. This company had failed miserably in a $103 million contract last year to revamp IRS file management by a specified date. At the beginning of this year, IAP began the takeover of management at certain levels of Walter Reed for a contracted fee of $120 million over five years.
In September, the Walter Reed garrison commander, Army Col. Peter Garibaldi, sent his superiors a memo warning that the substantial number of skilled workers leaving because of the impending IAP takeover was worsening physical conditions at the center. Patients and their families had futilely begged for better outpatient care.
Ignorance of the looming crisis is in no way plausible. But do not despair. Congress is graciously holding hearings on-site at the veterans hospital, and President Bush has appointed former Republican Sen. Bob Dole and Democrat Donna Shalala, who was President Clinton's secretary of health and human services, to head a review task force.
I thank President Bush for his noble gesture. The report probably will take enough months of study to end his tenure and consume enough trees to hasten global warming.
Forgive my cynicism. I forewarned you that I believe evil is afoot." Stebbins Jefferson in the Palm Beach Post, 3-10-07

2007-03-10T07:21:00.000-08:00

To our Senator, FL's Bill Nelson. Thank you for your reply. I agree completely about community policing, etc. But Marijuana has been used for centuries w/o killing anyone, yet we classify it as more dangerous than cocaine. And cocaine also has been chewed for centuries in leaf form. We lived in Hastert territory for 33 years, and I remember a Chicago Tribune photo of him with a Columbia police honcho, and we gave Billions because Hastert was really going to stop the flow from Columbia. Now I see we're supposed to keep throwing more money into the Drug Pit, even though nothing has improved, except maybe our prison population #'s. If the Drug War was treated like ADC or Schools, we would be demanding reform and common sense. Speaking of which, we have law enforcement arresting travel agents for selling trips to Cuba, and other govt. employees practicing what happens with another Mariel boatlift? Vengeance is ours, for 47 years now? "Free Trade" ? Open Markets?

2007-03-06T07:57:00.000-08:00

Page 32 of the PalmBeachPost, 2-25-07, "most U.S intelligence shared with the U.N nuclear watchdog agency has proved
inaccurate..." Page 24 of the PBP 3-2-07: "while U.S intelligence helped reveal Iran's secret nuclear program in 2002,
none of the info ...since...had led to meaningful leads. Still unproven is whether Tehran is using the cover of a nuclear
power plant program to try to make atomic weapons."

As to North Korea, "It appears that U.S intelligence overstated a purported secret N.K second-track nuclear program",
PBP,3-2-07, from the AP. "...belief that such a program exists was now 'at the mid-confidence level'"

When do we call for accountability in the huge "Intelligence" bureaucracy, as we do with Welfare, Schools, etc.?
"Trust, but verify", Reagan's standard should apply to them, too. They're from the government, and are they
here to help us, or to "make work" for the Military Industrial Complex?

2007-03-01T13:51:00.000-08:00

"America at Night: the True Story of 2 rogue CIA Operatives, Homeland Security Failures, Dirty Money, and a plot to steal the 2004 U.S Presidential election...by Larry J. Kolb. Riverhead, 305 pages, $26.95, reviewed in the Palm Beach Post, 2-25-07.

His first book was "Overworld"

2007-01-27T19:46:00.000-08:00

Paul Krugman, NY Times columnist in the Palm Beach Post 1-27-07, "Nothing to Fear from Partisanship",
says FDR "faced fierce opposition as he created the institutions -Social Security, unemployment insurance,
more progressive taxation and beyond-that helped alleviate inequality. And he didn't shy away from confrontation."

Then Mr. Krugman quotes FDR: "We had to struggle" (he declared in 1936) "with the old enemies of peace-
business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war
profiteering. Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate
as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me-and I welcome their hatred."

2007-01-08T17:25:00.000-08:00

Bob Woodward's book, "Veil:secret wars of the CIA 1981 to 1987" Here's an excerpt:
P.372-3 (Bill Casey is in his 4th year as Ronald Reagan's CIA director)
“In July, Congressman Charlie Wilson obtained another $50 million for the Afghan covert operation. With the money he had gotten earlier plus the CIA’s request, that meant $120 million....With the Saudis matching dollar for dollar, soon a half billion would be going to the Afghan rebels. That was fine with Casey, but as he surveyed the globe he concluded that it was not rational to put virtually all the covert eggs into a single basket.”

“There were 2 other covert support operations that were important...Casey had still managed to keep them secret. One was the $5 million in the budget for the Cambodian-resistance support operation, and his plan was to add another $12 million at the end of the year, even though this helped the Khmer Rouge indirectly. .....Casey was willing to dance cautiously with the devil. He saw the anti-Communist resistance movements as a unit-Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Angola, Ethiopia and Cambodia were the battleground. This was the ‘Reagan Doctrine’” (Bob Woodward's book, "Veil: secret wars of the CIA 1981 to 1987"

2006-12-19T21:16:00.000-08:00

President Bush still thinks he is the Emperor in brand new clothes. If we don't start believing our eyes, our troops will keep dying in Iraq. Look at the photo of the Pentagon on 9-ll. Can you find a clear photo of the hole right after the hit, anywhere in our "Mainstream Media"? Only "Loose Change" on Google seems to have it. There are 2 glass windows on either side of the hole that Bush says a jumbo jet made. The glass windows are unbroken, the grass below the hole is untouched. Time Magazine, in its 9-11-06 issue, says it had to be a jumbo jet, because where else is it? Like saying no Emperor would go out naked. Jon Stewart showed Time Magazine's man of the year issue has a mirror on the cover. Since Time owns CNN, some honcho made a big deal of it, and Soledad O'Brien is staring into the mirror, fixedly. Jon Stewart said it seems the Mainstream Media has totally abdicated its responsibility. We the People too?

2006-12-18T19:13:00.000-08:00

My comment on the PalmBeach Post editorial about the Baker report:
"The Post and Baker et al have already pretty much taken away any sticks the administration could use" says Rick. This administration has used nothing but "sticks" for more than 3 years. Rick using the word "play" reminds of the British Empire long ago calling their attempt to control the world, "the Great Game". Churchill used poison gas to control the rebellious tribes. Now our embassy is bigger than a palace, and we are building 14 military bases in Iraq for our empire? The Post points out the Iraqi Constitution calls for 3 autonomous states. Joe Biden said it looked like the Kurds are now seriously considerng a sharing-the-oil-agreement, because they think we are getting out soon.
Biden thought the Kurdish president not insisting on the de-Arabization of Tikrit in his comments on Baker's report, was a good sign too. If Iraqis know we are going to leave, they will have to solve their problems themselves. As I type this, Joe Biden is on C-Span explaining the Kurdish problem, as to why Iran, Turkey, and Syria, would want to help establish peace in Iraq. It is in their own self interest to prevent the major war that would result if Kurds in Iraq, Turkey, and Iran would establish a new country of their own. Answering a question about Lebanon, he pointed out that us and others never followed thru on financial committments to train a Lebanese arrmy; $22 million total to Iran's $400 million to Hezbollah, he said. And us calling Iran "evil" , when we financed, and again, learned from the Brits how to do a coup, and install a Monarch, the Shah, is just plain wrong. Especially when that Shah tortured, imprisoned and killed his own people for 24 years. Our CIA had a big station there that whole 24 years, and didn't know a Revolution was coming. (They didn't speak Farsi?) And did the first Bush give a "green light" to Saddam to attack Iran? Did we give intell, and sell weapons to both sides, to keep them fighting for 8 years? Look up Ollie on the web, selling Israeli missiles to the Ayatollah to get money for the Contras, because Congress had cut off funds for that other great threat to the U.S, Nicaragua. When do we deal with other nations straight up, face to face, no Secret Services playing games?

2006-12-02T11:53:00.000-08:00

posted to Palm Beach Post comments to Elisha Cramer's Column about Michael Richards: "Please, Obiwan, read the book "Kindred", by Octavia Butler (Science Fiction). It is exciting. Slaves became a big financial cushion to their owners, as they and/or their offspring could be sold westward, as America expanded. Separation of families for profit, and/or punishment. As for the PBB, the Accent section did a William Styron depression "test". I didn't see any mention of "The Confessions of Nat Turner", his book about a slave who violated the law against slaves learning to read. Slavery ended, and soon lynchings began, averaging one a day till after WWII. HoChiMinh, as a sailor in the merchant marine, was shocked to see notices of up-coming lynchings advertised in the New Orleans newspaper; this was America, land of the Free?"

2006-11-24T07:11:00.000-08:00

“Blasts rock Baghdad” was the front page of the PBP, Fri. 11-24-06. Further inside the paper: “Before dawn Thursday, U.S and Iraqi forces searching for a kidnapped American soldier swept thru ...Sadr City, killing 4 Iraqis, wounding 8, detaining 5...”

That was the 4th raid in 6 days by Coalition Forces. The next to the last paragraph says 3 Marines were killed in Anbar province, raising the U.S death toll so far this month to 92.

Enough. As David Ignatius writes in the Opinion pages: “Like the Saudis (have done), the Iraqis will have to save themselves, working within the authentic poitical framework of their culture, religion and region. The more we try to subsitute our will for theirs, with more American troops or exhortation, the more we enfeeble them.”

The very experienced experts have had their chance. Obama makes more sense. The Chicago Tribune printed his whole statement: The president should announce to the Iraqi people that our policy will include a gradual and substantial reduction in U.S. forces. He should then work with our military commanders to map out the best plan for such a redeployment and determine precise levels and dates. When possible, this should be done in consultation with the Iraqi government--but it should not depend on Iraqi approval. I am not suggesting that this timetable be overly-rigid. We cannot compromise the safety of our troops, and we should be willing to adjust to realities on the ground. The redeployment could be temporarily suspended if the parties in Iraq reach an effective political arrangement that stabilizes the situation and they offer us a clear and compelling rationale for maintaining certain troop levels. Moreover, it could be suspended if at any point U.S. commanders believe that a further reduction would put American troops in danger.
Barack Obama, in a speech Monday to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs

2006-11-19T06:45:00.000-08:00

A letter to the editor of the Palm Beach Post, on 11-17, said: “Today, if the president were elected by popular vote, the only states electing the president would be those on the East and West coast because they have the largest populations.”

But Kerry won California and New York in 2004. Bush voters in those states had to hand over their Electors to Kerry. Likewise Kerry voters in TX and FL had to give theirs to Bush Electors.

Sorta like if, at the end of each inning in baseball, whichever team had the most runs, got to add the runs of the other team into its own score.

With a Constitutional Amendment to elect the President by popular vote, each run by each voter in whatever state, would count toward the total score of their canditate. Whichever canditate won the most votes nationwide would win.
The wisdom of the Founding Fathers’ day, dictated bleeding as the treatment for George Washington’s sore throat. He stuck to it for several days, and died.

2006-11-15T12:27:00.000-08:00

Robert P. King in The Palm Beach Post, 11-14-o6: Cuts in the budgets of U.S. Wildlife Refuges "are a response
to President Bush's warnings that programs unrelated to national security should expect flat or declining
budgets..." So 88 of 748 refuge jobs will be eliminated in the 10-state SE region, a drop of $736,000
from last year.

A few weeks back, we read of prison jobs being cut by the same Congress, which has made the jobs of
the guards remaining, more dangerous.

And even though the fiscal year began Oct. 1, this Republican majority congress has not passed the budget?

2006-11-07T10:23:00.000-08:00

The back page of the Business section in the PalmBeachPost, 11-7-06, tells of marijuana being delivered by package delivery services in NY. "The phenomenon isn't new. It has long been the case around the country that those with enough money and the right connections could get cocaine or other drugs discreetly delivered to their homes and places of business".

So why isn't Marijuana legalized and taxed like cigarettes so we all benefit? The article by Tom Hays continues: "Authorities conceded the home delivery trade will probably survive because of the high demand for marijuana and the low penalties for dealing it."

The City of St. Lucie has found 166 "grow houses" so far. The last one could have killed someone, with its illegal connection to the power source. Will taxpayers have to pay to prosecute and jail all those offenders? Then more immigrants will have to come into the U.S from Mexico and South and Central America to replace them? And more children will be shot because their parents are fighting "turf wars"? We've put out faith in "Drug Czars" long enough. The people are supposed to rule, not some Caesar-imitators. Thank you

2006-11-07T09:55:00.000-08:00

My web mail to Senator Bill Nelson of FL:

This "nation under God" says no Medicaid for babies born to immigrants until their parents fill out the proper forms? And do they have to wait until they have those papers to get medical care for their infants?

It sounds like we're saying "no room at the inn, so go out to the barn to have Jesus (I haven't figured out how to put accent marks in)? Thinking it over, my father in law, who recently died at 92, was such an "anchor baby", as were my mom and her 9 siblings, my dad also. Any in your family?

If the U.S is going to do things like this, plus lower Medicare payments, plus make our wounded soldiers wait months for treatment, please remove "under God" from the Pledge. And eliminate those House and Senate Chaplain programs,
and no more prayers before every governmental function.

2006-11-02T04:34:00.000-08:00

The DVD, "The Goebbels Experiment" does have subtitles, lots of film footage from the 30's and 40's, and
Kenneth Branaugh's narration turns into Goebbels.

2006-11-01T10:31:00.000-08:00

In answer to Kathleen Parker's column in the PalmBeachPost, 11-1-06

Bush doesn't sound paranoid to you, mission from God, mentally ill?

One of those annoying holes at the bottom of the newspaper was in "offense", so I had to check
twice. Shouldn't that be "defense"? Bush just being afraid of Saddam gives him the right to
bomb Bagdad. So if Kim jong Il truly believes going to bomb him,
he has the right to attack us?

"If we leave, they will follow us here". Who will? The Sunnis, the Shia? Won't they be
fighting for control of their own country? The "extremists" in Iraq are attacking each
other! As Bill Maher said, isn't that good for us? Didn't Ollie rejoice at the Ayatollah
and Saddam fighting each other for 8 years, both buying weapons from us?

Our Immigration Dept, under control of General Myers' niece, still can't tell the difference
between someone who looks like the 19 terrorist, and an overweight, retired tourist?

"It is worth recalling that even the possibility of Hussein's having WMD was unacceptable
at that time". To you, KP, maybe. Not to those of us who believed Hans Blix.

Iraq had "an alliance of reasonable people" to run Iraq, and Bremer dismissed them!
And just when are these helpful conversations with Iran and Syria going to start?

"...we tried everything else first." You believe Bush, and not Paul O'Neill, David Kay, etc.?

Bush, hearing about the first attack on 9-11, said "It's a fluke, right", to Condy who
had called him, after her secretary called her to the televison (Oprah magazine)
And he sits for 7 minutes after learning of the second attack, looking totally confused.

And where is Osama and Al Qaeda? If they are the masterminds, shouldn't we been seeing
their photos everywhere, with any possible changes in appearance? Why is Bush not
interested at all, in finding them? They're not "the extremists"? The people of Iraq are?

You still haven't read "Inside Job", by Jim Marrs'? Or looked at the hole in the Pentagon
shown only on "Loose Change" on google. Try finding that photo anywhere else in the
"land of the free".

"That our continued liberty ultimately depends on liberty elsewhere" seems unarguable to
you? Gee, having slaves didn't seem to interfere with any white American's liberty. China
taking over Tibet didn't bother us at all. We even helped Pinochet overturn an elected
President in Chile on Tuesday, Sept. 11, 1973.

And the obit of Battista's wife said he was ready to resign and leave when
Castro was obviously winning, but we wouldn't stand for that?

On the DVD, "the Goebbels Experiment", he says National Socialism is the new religion.
"fear of extremists" is Bush/Cheney's new religion, and it sounds like you're a convert.

I'm with Leonard Pitts on the Orwell comparison.

2006-10-18T12:34:00.000-07:00

“Iran (is) the other major target (with North Korea) of the U.S Treasury Department’s efforts ‘to isolate bad actors from the global financial system’” writes Jim Hoagland.

So much for the “free market”. It’s OK for the Israelis to buy cluster bombs from us, and Ollie to sell anti-tank missiles to the Ayatollah, but North Korea and Iran, like Cuba for 40 some years, we ghetto-ize.

China, however, was welcomed into the marketplace. They later wiped out Tibet, destroying 6000 monasteries, it says on Wikipedia, and ran down their own people with tanks in Tianemen Square. We hear over and over how many people have suffered under the bit actors on the world stage, but China? Oh, they’ll come along, eventually, when they see that Capitalism is a good thing.

We only practice tolerance, forgiveness, and mercy with China, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, etc.? The pulpit is used to bully the little countries? “Squeeze the economy dry”. I forgot who said that, but that was the first step when Iran, Nicaragua, etc., chose leaders we didn’t like. From 1953 to Pinochet, we or our surrogates, did all kinds of terrorist actions. Unlike the Soviet Union, we could afford ruling an empire, and proud of it, it seems. I wonder what the Prince of Peace thinks.