Franks says Kerry qualified for president

WASHINGTON (AP) — Retired Gen. Tommy Franks, producer of the early military successes in Afghanistan and Iraq, said Sunday that criticism of John Kerry's war record is political hyperbole and Kerry is "absolutely" qualified to be commander in chief.

source:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/president/2004-08-08-franks-on-kerry_x.htm

Florida Professional Firefighters Endorse John Kerry / Backed George W. Bush in 2000

Press Release Source: International Association of Fire Fighters

MIAMI, July 14 /PRNewswire -- The Florida Professional Firefighters has announced its endorsement of John Kerry for President. The FPF endorsed George W. Bush in 2000, and supported Jeb Bush in both of his campaigns for Governor of Florida.

The FPF represents 19,000 paid professional firefighters and EMS personnel working in over 150 cities, counties and fire districts throughout the State of Florida. Their endorsement is the latest in an outpouring of support from firefighters across the country for the Kerry/Edwards ticket, and is vital to Kerry/Edwards' get-out-the-vote efforts in the state that gave George W. Bush the victory in 2000.

"The FPF proudly endorses John Kerry for President because he shares our vision of a safe and strong America," said Bob Carver, President of the FPF. "There is no stronger voice on firefighter and Homeland Security issues than John Kerry, and we will work hard to help him win the state of Florida.

"Kerry has consistently championed legislation to provide our members with the right to collective bargaining and to improve funding and increase the number of America's firefighters, our training and to provide us with the equipment first responders need to serve the people of America in defense of our homeland in an emergency, natural disaster, or, God forbid, in the event of another terrorist attack."

Kerry has had the enthusiastic support of the International Association of Fire Fighters, AFL-CIO/CLC, at the national level since early in the Democratic primary campaign. The IAFF, which represents 265,000 professional firefighters and emergency response personnel in every state in the nation, was the first union to endorse Kerry for President and has become a fixture on the campaign trail with their gold and black "Fire Fighters for Kerry/Edwards" signs and shirts.

"Firefighters see the values, principals, experience and skills in John Kerry that citizens see in their firefighters -- sense of duty, commitment, courage and sacrifice," said IAFF General President Harold A. Schaitberger. "John Kerry's strong record of service to his country and to the needs of firefighters is why we are supporting him for President."

"I am running for president to improve this nation's security and I am proud to have the endorsement of Florida's firefighters, and of firefighters across this country. I look forward to working with them to protect our communities," said John Kerry. "Under my administration, firefighters will receive the support and recognition they deserve."

John Kerry is the cosponsor of IAFF's SAFER (Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response) legislation that authorizes 7.7 billion dollars over the next ten years to hire 75,000 new firefighters in order to address the critical staffing shortages that plague over two-thirds of the nation's fire departments. He has also been involved in a number of other endeavors on behalf of firefighters including fighting for more funding for fire equipment and sponsoring a bill to provide parity to federal firefighters with their municipal counterparts in classifying certain cancers and heart ailments as job related ailments.

About the International Association of Fire Fighters -- http://www.iaff.org

The International Association of Fire Fighters, headquartered in Washington, DC, represents more than 263,000 full-time professional fire fighters and emergency medical personnel who protect 80 percent of the nation's population.

Source: International Association of Fire Fighters

E-voting / paper trail / Diebold Inc.

Schwarzenegger signs e-voting 'paper trail' bill
By Richard Shim CNET News.com September 28, 2004, 2:52 PM PT

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill into law Tuesday that requires a paper backup for ballots cast using electronic voting systems.

After aggressively deploying paperless e-voting setups, California is requiring machines to be retrofitted or replaced to meet the requirements of the new law, which will go into effect by the 2006 primaries. The law also prevents the certification of any new e-voting systems after Jan. 1, 2005, and prohibits purchase of systems after Jan. 1, 2006.

The bill, called SB 1438, was co-authored by Senators Ross Johnson, a Republican from Orange County, and Don Perata, a Democrat from Alameda County. Though other states have begun pursuing paper-trail legislation, California is among the first to enact a law.

The law is a response to nationwide criticisms over flaws in e-voting systems. Security researchers have said current systems have significant security vulnerabilities, and a paper trail has been the recommended method of ensuring the reliability and security of e-voting.

The Golden State's attorney general, Bill Lockyer, said he will sue Diebold, maker of e-voting machines used in California, for fraud. The state will charge that the company made false claims about its products, which were not tested or approved.

source: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9592_22-5387633.html

of special interest:

Published on Thursday, August 28, 2003 by the Cleveland Plain Dealer
Voting Machine Controversy
by Julie Carr Smyth

COLUMBUS - The head of a company vying to sell voting machines in Ohio told Republicans in a recent fund-raising letter that he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."

The Aug. 14 letter from Walden O'Dell, chief executive of Diebold Inc. - who has become active in the re-election effort of President Bush - prompted Democrats this week to question the propriety of allowing O'Dell's company to calculate votes in the 2004 presidential election.

O'Dell attended a strategy pow-wow with wealthy Bush benefactors - known as Rangers and Pioneers - at the president's Crawford, Texas, ranch earlier this month. The next week, he penned invitations to a $1,000-a-plate fund-raiser to benefit the Ohio Republican Party's federal campaign fund - partially benefiting Bush - at his mansion in the Columbus suburb of Upper Arlington.

for the entire article visit: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0828-08.htm

----------------------
   More Troubles for Diebold
    The New York Times | Editorial

    Monday 04 October 2004

    Diebold, the much-criticized electronic voting machine company, got another black eye last week. A federal court in California ruled that it had violated federal law when it falsely charged two students with violating its copyrights by posting critical information about its voting machines on the Internet. The case raises more questions about Diebold's honesty and its commitment to transparency.

    The story began early last year when someone - it is unclear who - posted internal Diebold e-mail messages on the Internet that discussed flaws in the company's electronic voting machines. Two students from Swarthmore College then posted those messages on various Web sites. Diebold sent out a flurry of cease-and-desist letters claiming that the postings violated its copyrights. The students sued, charging that Diebold knowingly misrepresented its rights under copyright law.

    The United States District Court for the Northern District of California agreed. Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, it is illegal to send a cease-and-desist letter while knowing that the claim of copyright infringement is false. The court held that Diebold knew that its e-mail messages "discussing possible technical problems" with its voting machines were not copyrighted, but went ahead anyway.

    This is the second recent setback to Diebold's already troubled reputation. Last month, California's attorney general, Bill Lockyer, joined a false-claims suit against Diebold charging it with lying to the state about the security of its voting systems. Now, a federal court has ruled that Diebold made knowing misrepresentations to get damaging information about its machines' security off the Internet.

    Diebold has a great deal to do to make its work transparent and its company trustworthy if it wants to remain in the elections business.

source: http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/100504E.shtml

Bullying / Schools / Retaliation

Father Says Va. Students Bullied Son
Parents Express Regret For Terrorizing of School

By Ian Shapira
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 30, 2004; Page B05

The father of a seventh-grader who stormed into his Prince William County middle school with a high-powered rifle and threatened to shoot people said yesterday that his son was the target of incessant bullying and that school officials did not do enough to stop the problem.

"My son was tormented," said David Lewis of Haymarket, whose son is 13 years old. ". . .Although his actions were not justified . . . bullying should not be tolerated."

Lewis, 40, spoke publicly for the first time after a closed hearing in Prince William Juvenile and Domestic Relations court, where a judge ordered his son to undergo a psychological exam, according to prosecutors. At the boy's next hearing on Nov. 24, Judge Janice Brice could release him, send him to a juvenile home or continue to hold him in a state detention facility up to age 21, they said.

If Brice sends the boy to a state detention facility, Department of Juvenile Justice officials will determine when he is released, said Prince William Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Claiborne T. Richardson II.

Last month, the seventh-grader pleaded guilty in juvenile court to three felony weapon and abduction charges stemming from the siege at Bull Run Middle School on June 18, the last day of classes.

Flanked by his wife, Naomi, and their attorney outside the courtroom, David Lewis expressed regret for his son's actions, which have haunted the community.

"My wife and I want to apologize for the actions of our son," he said, adding his gratitude for the "measured response and skill" of the Prince William County Police Department. Lewis then criticized school officials, saying they had done little to combat bullying. "It's one thing to have a zero-tolerance policy, but it's another thing to see it actually enforced," he said.

Lewis said he and his wife tried to get their son, then 12, to tell them whether there were problems at school, "but he never came out and said 'Here's what's happening, here's who's doing what.' " Friends have said the boy was bullied because of his clothing and his size.

source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60698-2004Sep29.html

Poll: ' Persuadable ' voters key for Kerry

Poll: ' Persuadable ' voters key for Kerry
By Associated Press
Wednesday, September 29, 2004

WASHINGTON -- If Democrat John Kerry [related, bio] has a chance of winning the White House, he must win over many in the small but central slice of the electorate known as "persuadable" voters who harbor serious doubts about his leadership abilities.
They tend to like Kerry better on handling the economy, and half say a fresh start would be worth the risk. But doubts about his leadership skills are mentioned early as an obstacle to those considering a switch to the Democratic nominee.
An Associated Press poll of 1,329 persuadable voters highlighted the difficult task facing Kerry in the dwindling weeks of the presidential campaign. The poll was conducted for the AP by Knowledge Networks.
About one in every five voters is persuadable - including about 5 percent who tell pollsters they don't know who will get their vote and about 15 percent who say they are leaning toward one candidate but could switch to another.
The number of persuadable voters has been as high as one-third in recent presidential elections, but voters chose sides early in this campaign after the close 2000 contest, the Sept. 11 terror attacks and the Iraq war.
Among all persuadable voters - the undecided and the leaners - Bush has a lead of 40 percentage points on the question of who would best protect the nation.
"I've been thinking about the scare tactics (Vice President) Cheney and them are using," said James Willis, of Ayden, N.C., about GOP warnings that electing Kerry would be dangerous for the country. "It makes you wonder about turning the country over to a new person."
Kerry faces Bush in the first presidential debate Thursday night at the University of Miami and both will get a chance to outline their stance on foreign policy.
"I'm glad to see Kerry's finally speaking up," said Darlene Wood, a 42-year-old voter from San Jose, Calif., who leans toward Kerry. "I think Bush has been far more misleading and critical in his campaigning than Kerry had been. Now Kerry's taking more of the same aggressive tack, fighting fire with fire."
While vulnerable on foreign policy, Kerry holds a 2-to-1 advantage among persuadables on who would best create jobs. The Democrat has lost his advantage on the jobs issue in polls of all likely voters.
"I wish they'd quit slamming each other and let me know what they're going to do," said Wanda Ramsey, an undecided voter from Owasso, Okla. "I want to hear more about health care for the poor and the elderly."
Like many of the persuadable voters, she also wants Kerry to spell out his plans for Iraq.
Concerns about Kerry's leadership abilities in areas like fighting terrorism and the Iraq war are frequently mentioned by those pondering a switch to Kerry.
By contrast, when undecided voters and others say what might block them from switching to Bush they are quick to mention differences with him on issues. For many, those concerns certainly include Iraq policy.
Six in 10 persuadable voters say sending troops to Iraq was a mistake - a higher level of concern than among the electorate generally.
But they favor Bush over Kerry on the question of who would best handle the situation in Iraq, 52 percent to 41 percent, roughly the same as all likely voters.
In the AP polling, 1,329 people were first interviewed Aug. 31 to Sept. 2 and then re-interviewed Sept. 21-27. In the initial screening, 18 percent said they didn't know who would get their vote, with the rest evenly split between leaning Kerry or leaning Bush. The follow-up interviews found that 13 percent of the 1,329 had become committed to Bush and 11 percent to Kerry. That left 937 people who said they were still persuadable.
On personality traits, only 32 percent of persuadable voters consider Kerry decisive while 79 percent attribute that quality to Bush. That tracks with polls of all likely voters.
Some 42 percent of persuadable voters say Bush is honest, considerably lower than he rates among all likely voters.
"I'm not inclined to support either one of those guys," said Gregory Wemhoff, a military retiree from Bremerton, Wash. "I will be holding my nose when I vote."
The survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points for the initial sample of 1,329 persuadable voters, and plus or minus 3 percentage points for the subgroup of 937.
AP and Knowledge Networks will resurvey voters in mid-October.


source: http://news.bostonherald.com/election/view.bg?articleid=46621

What the local " talking heads " don't want you to see or hear !

50 Former U.S. Diplomats, Retired Military Say Bush Should Not Be Trusted; Bush Has Made America More Vulnerable To Terrorists

9/28/2004 4:15:00 PM
WASHINGTON, Sept 28 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Today 50 former high- level diplomats, generals and admirals declared President Bush has made America less safe and called for his ouster.

Members of the group are available for interview, including in Miami, where several are giving public presentations this week in the run up to the Presidential Debate on Thursday. Several are fluent in Spanish.

The group released a public statement that says President Bush has squandered American lives and should not be trusted.

"The claim that we are safer is the biggest lie of this campaign season," states the group. "Now we are bogged down there in a quagmire with no solution in sight."

Additional excerpts:

"The plain fact is that George W. Bush and his team have succeeded in making our country and our people less safe, and more vulnerable to new terrorist attacks, by an unnecessary war against a threat that did not exist."

"We have lost the hard-won respect and admiration that America enjoyed ... Some of these losses are irrecoverable and others will take decades to repair, a process we must begin immediately by electing a new administration."

The group also accuses the President of gross negligence, stating, "Prior to 9/11 Mr. Bush and his team ignored repeated warnings about the danger of terrorist attacks."

"The American people must surely not reelect someone presenting himself as a strong and resolute war leader who is responsible for such a sorry record of judgment and performance."

"Leadership in the wrong directions is not the leadership we need or want. We can have no trust in such leadership for the next four years. It is definitely time for a change."

The retired officials who signed the statement include five general and admirals. These include Retired Adm. William J. Crowe Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President Reagan and Retired Air Force Gen. Merrill A. (Tony) McPeak. McPeak, former Air Force chief of staff under George H.W. Bush, was Oregon chairman for the 1996 Dole/Kemp campaign and in 2000 was a backer of George W. Bush.

Their full statement is available at: http://www.diplomatsforchange.com/press/kits.shtml

http://www.usnewswire.com/
2004 U.S. Newswire 202-347-2770/

Another View: Why I will vote for John Kerry for President

By JOHN EISENHOWER
Guest Commentary

THE Presidential election to be held this coming Nov. 2 will be one of extraordinary importance to the future of our nation. The outcome will determine whether this country will continue on the same path it has followed for the last 31⁄2 years or whether it will return to a set of core domestic and foreign policy values that have been at the heart of what has made this country great.

Now more than ever, we voters will have to make cool judgments, unencumbered by habits of the past. Experts tell us that we tend to vote as our parents did or as we “always have.” We remained loyal to party labels. We cannot afford that luxury in the election of 2004. There are times when we must break with the past, and I believe this is one of them.

As son of a Republican President, Dwight D. Eisenhower, it is automatically expected by many that I am a Republican. For 50 years, through the election of 2000, I was. With the current administration’s decision to invade Iraq unilaterally, however, I changed my voter registration to independent, and barring some utterly unforeseen development, I intend to vote for the Democratic Presidential candidate, Sen. John Kerry.

The fact is that today’s “Republican” Party is one with which I am totally unfamiliar. To me, the word “Republican” has always been synonymous with the word “responsibility,” which has meant limiting our governmental obligations to those we can afford in human and financial terms. Today’s whopping budget deficit of some $440 billion does not meet that criterion.

Responsibility used to be observed in foreign affairs. That has meant respect for others. America, though recognized as the leader of the community of nations, has always acted as a part of it, not as a maverick separate from that community and at times insulting towards it. Leadership involves setting a direction and building consensus, not viewing other countries as practically devoid of significance. Recent developments indicate that the current Republican Party leadership has confused confident leadership with hubris and arrogance.

In the Middle East crisis of 1991, President George H.W. Bush marshaled world opinion through the United Nations before employing military force to free Kuwait from Saddam Hussein. Through negotiation he arranged for the action to be financed by all the industrialized nations, not just the United States. When Kuwait had been freed, President George H. W. Bush stayed within the United Nations mandate, aware of the dangers of occupying an entire nation.

Today many people are rightly concerned about our precious individual freedoms, our privacy, the basis of our democracy. Of course we must fight terrorism, but have we irresponsibly gone overboard in doing so? I wonder. In 1960, President Eisenhower told the Republican convention, “If ever we put any other value above (our) liberty, and above principle, we shall lose both.” I would appreciate hearing such warnings from the Republican Party of today.

The Republican Party I used to know placed heavy emphasis on fiscal responsibility, which included balancing the budget whenever the state of the economy allowed it to do so. The Eisenhower administration accomplished that difficult task three times during its eight years in office. It did not attain that remarkable achievement by cutting taxes for the rich. Republicans disliked taxes, of course, but the party accepted them as a necessary means of keep the nation’s financial structure sound.

The Republicans used to be deeply concerned for the middle class and small business. Today’s Republican leadership, while not solely accountable for the loss of American jobs, encourages it with its tax code and heads us in the direction of a society of very rich and very poor.

Sen. Kerry, in whom I am willing to place my trust, has demonstrated that he is courageous, sober, competent, and concerned with fighting the dangers associated with the widening socio-economic gap in this country. I will vote for him enthusiastically.

I celebrate, along with other Americans, the diversity of opinion in this country. But let it be based on careful thought. I urge everyone, Republicans and Democrats alike, to avoid voting for a ticket merely because it carries the label of the party of one’s parents or of our own ingrained habits.

John Eisenhower, son of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, served on the White House staff between October 1958 and the end of the Eisenhower administration. From 1961 to 1964 he assisted his father in writing “The White House Years,” his Presidential memoirs. He served as American ambassador to Belgium between 1969 and 1971. He is the author of nine books, largely on military subjects.

source: http://www.theunionleader.com/articles_showa.html?article=44657

Bush's Hometown Newspaper Endorses Kerry

Bush's Hometown Newspaper Endorses Kerry

CRAWFORD, Texas (Reuters) - The newspaper in President Bush's adopted hometown of Crawford threw its support on Tuesday behind Bush's Democratic rival, Sen. John Kerry.
The weekly Lone Star Iconoclast criticized Bush's handling of the war in Iraq and for turning budget surpluses into record deficits. The editorial also criticized Bush's proposals on Social Security and Medicare.
"The publishers of The Iconoclast endorsed Bush four years ago, based on the things he promised, not on this smoke-screened agenda," the newspaper said in its editorial. "Today, we are endorsing his opponent, John Kerry."
It urged "Texans not to rate the candidate by his hometown or even his political party, but instead by where he intends to take the country."
Bush spends many of his weekends and holidays at his Crawford, Texas, ranch.
The Iconoclast's publisher and editor-in-chief, W. Leon Smith, said the newspaper is sent to Bush's ranch each week. "But I don't know if he reads it," Smith said.
The Kerry campaign welcomed the endorsement in an email to reporters.

source:http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20040928/pl_nm/campaign_endorsement_dc_1

---------------------------
Businesses Protest Hometown Bush Paper

Monday, October 04, 2004

CRAWFORD, Texas — The editor of the Crawford, Texas, weekly that bills itself as President Bush's (search) hometown newspaper says he has no regrets about endorsing John Kerry (search), even after a dozen businesses pulled their advertising from the publication.

"I'd do it again," Leon Smith, publisher of the Lone Star Iconoclast (search), told the Waco Tribune-Herald in Sunday's editions.

The Iconoclast, which endorsed Bush in 2000, said it now supports the Democrat because of disillusionment with the war and Bush's actions on Social Security (search), the economy and other issues. An editorial dated Sept. 29 accuses the president of having a "smoke-screened agenda" and leading the United States into a "quagmire" in Iraq on flimsy pretenses.

The newspaper, with a circulation of 425, has become scarce, and copies have shown up on the eBay (search) online auction site.

Business leaders in Bush's adopted hometown of 705 residents about 20 miles west of Waco say they support the president and are critical of the upstart newspaper.

"I think what's his name, Leon Smith, is entitled to his own opinion," said Vicki Martin, an employee at the Coffee Station convenience store and cafe, where Bush sometimes stops during stays at his ranch. "Unfortunately, his opinion hurt a lot of feelings around here. Bush is our neighbor."

source: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,134335,00.html

Those tree hugging Liberals !

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF JOE REPUBLICAN

Joe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards. With his first swallow of coffee, he takes his daily medication. His medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought to insure their safety and that they work as advertised.
All but $10 of his medications are paid for by his employer's medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance - now Joe gets it too.
He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Joe's bacon is safe to eat and comes from pigs not rats because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry. When he eats, he also knows how much of each nutrient and fat his food contains because of those no good, namby pamby liberals.
In the morning shower, Joe reaches for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient because some crybaby liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body.
Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some environmentalist wacko liberal fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air. He walks to the subway station for his government-subsidized ride to work.
It saves him considerable time each morning, not to mention all the money he saves on money in parking, tolls and gas because some fancy-pants liberal fought for affordable public transportation.
Joe begins his work day. He has a good job with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some lazy liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Joe's employer meets these standards because Joe's employer doesn't want his employees to call the union.
If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed, he'll get a worker compensation or unemployment check because some stupid liberal didn't think his family should lose their home because of his temporary misfortune.
Its noontime and Joe needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe's deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some godless liberal wanted to protect Joe's money from unscrupulous
bankers who ruined the banking system before the Great Depression.
Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage and his below-market federal student loan because some elitist liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his lifetime.
Joe gets home from work and visits his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive. His car is among the safest in the world because some America-hating liberal fought for car safety standards. He arrives at his boyhood home. His was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers' Home Administration because bankers didn't want to make rural loans. The house didn't have electricity until some big-government liberal stuck his nose where it didn't belong and demanded rural electrification.
He is happy to see his father, who is now retired. His father lives on Social Security and a union pension because some wine-drinking, cheese-eating liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn't have to.
Joe gets back in his car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and
conservatives are good. He doesn't mention that the beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Joe
enjoys throughout his day.
Joe agrees: "We don't need those big-government liberals ruining our lives! After all, I'm a self-made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have."

Salem , NY

source:http://www.congress.org/congressorg/bio/userletter/?letter_id=108091796&content_dir=congressorg

What Others Are Writing ... Letters To The Editor

Zell Flip-Flops; GOP Slithers

John Kerry would let Paris decide when America needs defending, was one of the gems from Zell “flip-flop” Miller. The GOP forgot to mention what he had to say about Kerry back in 2001. I will quote him: “One of this nation’s authentic heroes, one of this party’s best-known and greatest leaders — and a good friend . . . (Kerry) has worked to strengthen our military, reform public education, boost the economy and protect the environment . . . (that he, Kerry) has fought against government waste and worked hard to bring some accountability to Washington.”
Sounds like Karl Rove and Ashcroft must have had some incriminating information on poor ol’ Zell (dead woman, live boy?) to get him to scream the GOP’s talking points, or perhaps Miller thought that he might get a consultant job at Halliburton as payback for his good deeds.
I thought that the GOP had slithered to the very bottom of the snake pit with Miller’s performance, but they struck new lows when Dick Cheney declared that Kerry was “unfit” to be president. Kerry’s two (count ’em) tours in Vietnam obviously doesn’t add up to the stature of Cheney’s five (5) deferments. Dick said that he had “other priorities” at the time.
As I was gagging on Cheney’s tripe, I found myself in absolute “shock and awe” when they passed out the “purple heart Band-Aids.” This incredible insult to John Kerry is just as much an insult to every veteran and fighting man and woman in the United States. The sheer gall of these people who “had other priorities” when it was their turn to serve, and then mock those of us who served WITH HONOR is the most disrespectful, denigrating insult of all.

Wolf Grulkey
ADJ-2, U

source: http://www.swtimes.com/archive/2004/September/23/opinion/letters.html

'Pro Life' Not Just One Issue

I’m wondering these days what some folks mean by “pro-life.” The Catholic Church teaches that ALL life is sacred from conception to natural death. That means that it is inappropriate and unjust to characterize the whole content of our faith in a single issue, as is sometimes done by the media and a few of our religious leaders.
The “pro-life voter,” it seems, must seriously consider the wide range of issues and discern which ones promote life and which ones diminish the dignity and rights of the human person. Essential issues to a “pro-life voter” would include, it seems to me, war, abortion, capital punishment, denial of health care, scandalous poverty, mistreatment of immigrants and prisoners and racism and manipulation through scare tactics, to name but a few.
Are we consistently “pro-life” when we choose to engage in a war in which 1,000 of our troops have died and 7,000 seriously wounded? And God only knows how many thousands of innocent Iraqis have been killed and mutilated in a war that Pope John Paul II and other religious leaders repeatedly called unjust and unnecessary.
Don’t all faiths call us to embrace life and hold it sacred?
It seems to me it would be tragic for this to be a one-issue election.

Sister Rosalie Ruesewald
St. Scholastica Monastery
Fort Smith

War In Iraq Big Mistake

I would prefer not to write this letter in consideration of our military serving in Iraq. However, I can’t stand to see this lie continue!
This war was a big mistake and diversion from those truly responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Despite what this administration and overpaid “talking heads” have implied or asserted, there was no connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida. In fact, as a Republican congressman recently “let slip” on a talk show: The Baathist Party and al-Qaida were bitter enemies.
Now, who was the leader of the Baathist Party? Saddam!
Al-Qaida wanted Saddam removed so as to establish an Islamic state in Iraq. Saddam intended to keep Iraq a secular state! Brutal and mean? Yes, but not stupid! Remember those al-Qaida training camps reported in northern Iraq? Who do you suppose was supporting them? The Kurds! Now I wonder why Saddam would want to increase his unpopularity with the Kurds by gassing them? Connected any dots yet?
Who else is our enemy and was Saddam’s enemy? Answer: Iran, who is now building nuclear bombs to use against us or Israel!
The Shiites also control over 60 percent of the population of Iraq and are now receiving financial/military support from Iran, a Shiite country. Now, if al-Qaida and Iran can just outlast us in Iraq, their long-awaited goal of control over Iraq will be realized, the worst possible outcome!
Osama and Iran should send their heartfelt thanks to George W. Bush for removing Saddam for them! Wouldn’t it have been wiser to completely defeat al-Qaida, capture/kill Osama and deal with Iran first?
So, is George W. Bush really that stupid or just using “fear politics” to retain power, while in the bulging pocket of big oil and corporate war profiteers?

Paul Blagg
Greenwood

Let's Quit Being World's Police

The war in Iraq is predestined to failure, as is the war on terror, if we do not change our ways. This is true for several reasons:
1. The Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists came from Saudi Arabia, and the money to finance them came from Saudi Arabia. So we attack Iraq. Is that reasonable?
2. There have been wars in this region since the beginning of time. There will be wars in this region until the end of time. We are like the man who jumps into the middle of a large family fight to help one side. The whole family will frequently attack that man, including the side he was trying to help.
3. We have lost more than 1,000 soldiers in Iraq while killing 10,000. The mullahs that hold power in the Islamic world are more than willing to trade us millions of martyrs at this price. How long will we play this game?
4. President Bush is an elephant that is trying to fight a billion ants. If he kills a million today, 2 million will take their place tomorrow.
The real reason we are so hated in the Islamic world is because we are financing and supporting the descendants of the two southern tribes of Israel (the Jews) in their war against the Palestinians (the descendants of the 10 northern tribes).
This war will continue until the end of time or until we go broke. We need to change direction and quit discriminating against the people of the Islamic world. We need to respect the rights of all people. We need to stop trying to be the lone ranger policeman of the world.

Joe T. Stroub
Cecil

Republicans' Campaign Strategy: Tell Lies

It’s amazing how simple- minded, gullible people can be allowed to vote, especially those who will vote on only one issue. These are the ones that attack ad/lies are geared toward — people who believe something if they see the lie enough times. I have seen some of the attack ad/lies in the “letters.”
Sens. John Kerry, John McCain and Max Cleland all went to Vietnam and did their duty, but the shills who work for the George Bush campaign spread vicious lies about all three of them, most recently against Kerry. President Bush was taken off flight status in the Texas National Guard in August 1972 for not taking a medical exam, along with a drug test.
One of the lies is that Democrats are for gay and lesbian marriage. J. Edgar Hoover was a cross-dressing gay. Dick Cheney’s daughter is a lesbian, and the Log Cabin Republicans are the gay and lesbian branch of the Republican party. Another lie is that the Democrats are going to take all our guns away. Democrats also own guns.
Some people think Democrats are godless because they disagree with the use of “under God” in the flag pledge. These people need to be reminded that we fought and won WW II without those words.
I am old enough to remember when the words were added, and we didn’t hear angels sing or the classroom get suddenly brighter as we mumbled our way through the pledge in the morning.
After all of the Bush lies have been exposed, hopefully, Americans will be extremely skeptical and won’t take their statements at face value when deciding for whom to vote in November. When President Clinton lied, our soldiers didn’t die.

Frank Newman
Huntington

Bush Drags His Feet On Some Things

There have been several letters concerning the presidential candidates, abortion and same-sex marriages.
George Bush says he is against both. After four years, he, just before the election, passed a law banning partial birth abortion. Why did he wait four years, just before the election to do it? Why didn’t he make it on all abortions? Have our morals improved under Bush? It looks to me as if TV and the Internet are getting more filthy every day.
Bush did mention, after four years, getting a constitutional amendment on same-sex marriage. Is he serious? He has not done it. He knows that it generally takes years for a constitutional amendment to be approved.
If they can pass laws to break into your house without a search warrant, spy into your personal life or even force you to wear a seat belt, then they should be able to do the same on abortion and same-sex marriage.
As a Christian, I am against both. But which would you prefer? One who truthfully tells you he is for women’s choice or one who tells you he is against it, could do something about it, but doesn’t. Which man is most truthful? Actions speak plainer than words.
If you are going to quote the Bible, the Lord said there will be false prophets, and you will know them by their fruits. Don’t forget, it was the hard headed, ill-informed, ignorant, so-called Christians that crucified Christ. To the pretenders, the Lord will say, depart from me; I never knew you.

C.E. Reed
Pocola

Abortion A Moral Issue

Would someone please enlighten me when did God Almighty die and leave Republicans in charge of judging all Democrats as being without values and doomed to hell? The gist is “read the Bible and you have to vote Republican.”
I have three translations, including the King James, and I read it’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven. Jesus told the crowd condemning the adulterous woman, “those without sin, cast the first stone.” He cautioned the Pharisees about touting how good they were. When the rich man asked him what he had to do to enter Heaven, he said, “Sell all you have and give to the poor and follow me.”
Isn’t it amazing, since it’s nearing election, that Dick and Lynn Cheney now admit they have a lesbian daughter and are against the marriage amendment. The keynote speakers at the convention were all pro-choice, liberal thinkers. Is this a “flip flop” or a weapon of mass destruction?
Ministers are successfully pushing families from the church by portraying George W. Bush as almost God and John Kerry as a man of no values. I think the question of abortion and gay marriage should be addressed from the pulpit, but as a moral issue, not a political one. They have no bearing on running this country, and saying you’re a Christian doesn’t make it so any more than standing in your garage makes you a car.

Mary Lewis
Van Buren

Bush Isn't 'God's Choice'

The best I can figure, about half the people in the United States think the Lord delivered George Bush to us to “save us from the evil Democrats and stop the murder of unborn children.” Even if stem cell research might save many lives, it is evil unless stem cells that are already harvested are used.
The other half think that George Bush stole an election with the help of brother Jeb Bush and a Republican Supreme Court. They think he did the right thing in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, but he has made a big mistake in Iraq. They never saw much religion from him until he realized it would get him votes. They think he lied to us and the whole world and connived to finish a job on Iraq that Dad didn’t.
He is also accused of catering to the rich and big business. There are even some intelligent, deeply religious people that are convinced that if George gets four more years, he will prove to be the beast of which the Bible speaks.
The country has not been this divided since the Civil War. America has separation of church and state, and most people will accept a fair and untarnished vote and cling to their religion, and the rift will heal by and by.
But do we have separation of church and state? There are pastors of churches asking people to vote against evil and give George Bush four more years.
Asking God to give our leaders the wisdom and guidance to lead us should be in everyone’s prayers. Asking God to give us John Kerry or George Bush is just stirring the pot. I do not recall any scripture that says “Blessed be the agitator.” I remember it being “Blessed be the Peacemaker.”

Ruth Wilson
Poteau

Oil Prices: From $ 26.00 to over $ 50.00 a Barrel

Energy prices causing the recovery to sputter
Experts say expense is stalling job growth; Wal-Mart says consumers feeling drained

Dallas Morning News 11:21 PM CDT on Monday, September 27, 2004
By ANGELA SHAH / The Dallas Morning News

Airlines bleed as precious resources are diverted to pay for jet fuel. The world's largest retailer has said its No. 1 challenge is high energy prices. And economists say the added stress will mean continued lackluster job growth.
Even if oil doesn't close above the psychologically important price of $50 a barrel today, it's already pumping life out of a middling economic expansion. "Higher energy prices create a lot of uncertainty," said Stephen Brown, director of energy economics at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. "Firms aren't sure what they want to do."

As the price of West Texas Intermediate crude crept up to close at $49.64, Wall Street headed for the exits, sending stocks down. "The single most-watched price in the world is the price of gasoline," said Ray Perryman, economist at the Perryman Group in Waco. The $50 price tag is more than just a psychological marker.

A year ago, oil cost $26 a barrel. That premium translates into real money taken out of corporate budgets and family pocketbooks. In an $11 trillion economy, that's about $902 per U.S. household.
"The Number 1 issue facing the customer today is, in fact, energy prices," said Lee Scott, chief executive of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., at an analysts' conference earlier this month.

"For us, that's particularly important because if you look at Wal-Mart's core customer, that is clearly a customer that is economically challenged," he said. "So when you take disposable income out of their pockets and transfer it to their oil companies, it is just money they do not have to spend."

for the entire article visit:http://www.dallasnews.com

All " Politics " begin locally !

Democrat Says He Helped Bush Into Guard to Score Points

By Michael Dobbs Washington Post Staff Writer

Saturday, September 4, 2004; Page A02

A former senior politician from Texas has told close friends that he recommended George W. Bush for a pilot's slot in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War because he was eager to "collect chits" from an influential political family.

The reported comments by former Texas lieutenant governor Ben Barnes add fuel to a long-running controversy over how Bush got a slot in an outfit known as the "Champagne Unit" because it included so many sons of prominent Texans. Friends said that Barnes had recorded an interview for the CBS program "60 Minutes" that will address the question of whether Bush pulled strings to evade being sent to Vietnam.

Barnes, a longtime Democrat who works as a lobbyist and political consultant in Austin, has said that he is now "very ashamed" of helping "a lot of people who had family names of importance get in the National Guard." He made the statement during a meeting with John F. Kerry supporters in Austin on May 27, a video of which is now circulating on the Internet.

Barnes has told friends that he intervened with Rose to help a number of other prominent, young Texans into the National Guard. In addition to Bush, who was accepted for pilot training in May 1968, other recruits to the Texas National Guard during the late 1960s included the son of former Texas senator Lloyd M. Bentsen (D) and members of the Dallas Cowboys football team.

"I was collecting chits," Barnes told a friend, in explaining why he was willing to help Republicans as well as Democrats.

source:www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60319-2004Sep3.html

Dallas Morning News Letter to the Editor

A call for calm

Re: "Angry left and right are crowding out the practical middle," by William McKenzie, Tuesday Viewpoints.

As an enthusiast (and practitioner) of the "practical middle" or "sensible middle," I was glad to see Bill McKenzie bring a political viewpoint other than the extremes with which we are pelted these days.

Those on the right and left snarl and drool at each other, rarely listen to anyone else, or consider the "logical" extremes of their positions.

Those in the middle are the ones who quietly get things done while the ideologues posture. Those in the middle are, indeed, problem solvers. Those on the ends of > the spectrum tend to be problem generators.

Those on the left and right do have strong beliefs that motivate "true believers." However, frequently, strong beliefs are a substitute for thought. The right and left have co-opted the political process, driving out moderates by sheer volume of their intolerance for other views.

We have liberals because we have conservatives, and vice versa. Probably the best thing that "sensible middlers" can do in today's rather mean-spirited political environment is remain voices for calm and reason.

Bob Savage, Sachse

source: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/
letters/stories/092404dnedifridayletters.4be0b.html

Quote

"Eventually, there is no safety in looking away, seeking the quiet life by ignoring the struggles and oppression of others."

~ President G.W. Bush - United Nations, Sept. 21, 2004

Angry left and right are crowding out the practical middle

12:22 AM CDT on Tuesday, September 21, 2004

By William McKenzie / The Dallas Morning News

Maybe it happens this way in most elections. But it really seems the political moderates are getting squeezed in this presidential race. I found myself in a ringside seat to this clash recently in New York as I moderated a 45-minute exchange between Gary Bauer of the evangelical right and Joseph Hough of the Protestant left.I watched a verbal boxing match. And as I walked back to my hotel, I wondered, "Where have all the moderates gone?" Sadly, they're hard to find. John Kerry is riding his angrycrats and George W. Bush is doing the same with the GOP's perpetually mad crowd.The angry, fervent true believers from the left and right leave many of us in the middle wondering which way to go. The left's anger is pretty clear. It stems from the president's Iraq policy, his stem cell decision and his call for a gay marriage ban. And, of course, some angry lefties simply don't like George W. Bush, like the grumpy, resentful Michael Moore, who seethes with rage against Mr. Bush. The right is mad for different reasons. The GOP's angry wing thinks John Kerry won't make the tough calls around the world. Maybe yes, Maybe no. But Sen. Zell Miller came across at the GOP convention as an old-fashioned crank. What happened to the sunny conservatism Reaganites so fondly recalled just three months ago at the former president's funeral?It's hard to find because some true-believing conservatives – much like Michael Moore on the left – like being resentful. It's their natural state. They're lost without having a target to attack.This is going to get me in trouble, but the rise of radical Islam benefits their cause at just the right moment. Not one single conservative would want a 9-11, but some may find radical Islamists a convenient target, particularly since communists no longer matter. It helps their fund-raising drives, and gives them a new force to attack.Anger doesn't drive voters in the middle. They tend toward the practical, for the candidate who can best resolve Iraq, best improve the deficit and best give the economy enough juice. They mostly care about getting their problems solved.The downside is that moderates lack the ideals that propel the true believers. The belligerent left and right have strong beliefs. The practical middle looks at the world on a case-by-case basis. Thankfully, the moderate middle still matters in this campaign's closing weeks. With such a close election, the nominees and their strategists need them to close the deal. And one thing's for sure: Screamers like Michael Moore and Zell Miller won't reach the practical moderates. Carroll Doughtery of the Pew Center for the People and the Press says their recent polls show that "negativity" from both camps really bothers the middle.It seems to me that the candidate who understands this point reaches the practical middle and wins the White House. Before George Bush or John Kerry can do that, they're going to have to tone down their Zell Millers and Michael Moores.

William McKenzie is an editorial columnist for The Dallas Morning News. His e-mail address is wmckenzie@dallasnews.com.

source: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/columnists/wmckenzie/
stories/092104dnedimckenz.979d3.html

Quote

"We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another."

~ Jonathan Swift

A Passion for hatred

"Despite our pretensions of modernity and humanitarianism, the world is currently plagued by Christian, Jewish, Islamic and Hindu fundamentalists who seem more passionate about employing their holy books as weapons than as instruments of peace."

source: http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=16526

Republican Bob Barr: " Bush's problem is that true conservatives remember their history."

An Agonizing Choice: Conservatives Have Plenty of Cause to Abandon Bush
    By Bob Barr
    Creative Loafing

    Thursday 07 October 2004

    Voting for president used to be so easy, at least for a conservative. There was the Republican candidate. You knew he generally stood for lower taxes, less government spending, giving fewer powers to the government, lower deficits and a zealous regard for individual privacy.

    Then, there was the Democrat. You knew he generally stood for higher taxes, more government and deficit spending, and a zealous regard for civil liberties.

    Throughout my own presidential voting history, the choices have rarely, if ever, been agonizing. Nixon vs. McGovern? Carter vs. Reagan? Reagan-Mondale? Dukakis, a Massachusetts liberal? Clinton? Al Gore? Ah, the good ol' days. Each of those races presented clear choices, easily resolved.

    Now we have the election of 2004. For the first time in my voting life, the choice in the race for president isn't so clear And, among true conservatives, I'm not alone.

    What's making the contest so difficult? It's certainly not that both candidates are so conservative that we have a choice of riches. It's not even that John Kerry is sort of right wing compared to George W. Bush. The incumbent clearly is the more "conservative" of the two.

    But the concerns for many conservative voters - concerns that may cause them not to vote for Mr. Bush on Nov. 2 - fall generally into three categories: fiscal, physical (as in the physical security of our nation) and freedom (as in protecting our civil liberties).

    When Bush became president Jan. 20, 2001, he inherited an enviable fiscal situation. Congress, then controlled by his own party, had - through discipline and tough votes - whittled down decades of deficit spending under presidents of both parties, so that annual deficits of hundreds of billions of dollars had been transformed to a series of real and projected surpluses. The heavy lifting had been done. All Bush had to do was resist the urge to spend, and he had to exert some pressure on Congress to resist its natural impulses to do the same. Had he done that, he might have gone down in history as the most fiscally conservative president in modern times.

    Instead, what we got were record levels of new spending, including nearly double-digit increases in nondefense discretionary spending. We now have deficits exceeding those that the first Republican-controlled Congress in 40 years faced when it convened in January 1995.

    The oft-repeated mantra that "the terrorists made us spend more" rings hollow, especially to those who actually understand that increases in nondefense discretionary spending are not the inevitable result of fighting terrorists. It also irritates many conservatives, whether or not they support the war in Iraq, that so much of defense spending is being poured into the black hole of Iraq's internal security, while the security of our own borders goes wanting.

    That brings us to the second major beef conservatives have with the president. He's seen as failing to take real steps to improve our border security. In many respects, because of his apparent desire to appease his compadre to the south - Mexican President Vincente Fox - Bush has made matters worse. More people are entering our country illegally than ever before, more than 3 million this year alone - and most of them are stampeding across from Mexico.

    It seems as if every time an effort is made to implement measures that would crack down on illegal immigration, Fox complains, and the White House tells our enforcement folks to back off. Perhaps that is why intelligence reports indicate al-Qaeda is actively recruiting in Central America.

    At the same time, here at home, many law-abiding citizens accurately perceive that their own freedoms and civil liberties are being stripped. They are being profiled by government computers whenever they want to travel, their bank accounts are being summarily closed because they may fit some "profile," they are under surveillance by cameras paid for by that borrowed federal money, and, if the administration has its way, they will be forced to carry a national identification card. That skewed sense of priorities really rankles conservatives.

    Those are but three tips of the iceberg that signal the deep dissatisfaction many conservatives harbor against the president. Thus far, however, with Bush's political gurus telling him he's ahead and to just lay low and not make any major gaffes, he seems unwilling to recognize the problems on his right flank. Or he seems to have concluded that he doesn't need to address those concerns because the ineptitude of the Kerry campaign hasn't forced him to.

    But the race appears to be tightening again. It's likely to remain tight until Election Day. Those dissatisfied conservative voters will become increasingly important, but it's going to be impossible for the president to pull them back in with hollow, last-minute promises.

    Bush's problem is that true conservatives remember their history. They recall that in recent years when the nation enjoyed the fruits of actual conservative fiscal and security policies, a Democrat occupied the White House and Congress was controlled by a Republican majority that actually fought for a substantive conservative agenda.

    History's a troublesome thing for presidents. Even though most voters don't take much of a historical perspective into the voting booth with them, true conservatives do.

    Hmmm. Who's the Libertarian candidate again?

------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Lifelong Republican Bob Barr represented parts of Cobb County and northwest Georgia in Congress from 1995 to 2003.

Quote

"To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart."

~ Donald Laird

History of "Religious Extremists" Overplaying Their Hand

Here's one example ! Note the Almighty God quote.

Loving vs Virginia

Presented here is the actual text of the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Loving v. Virginia, the case which overturned the laws against interracial marriage still in effect as late as 1967 in 16 states. Many other states had enacted such laws in previous years, but had repealed them by the time of the Loving Decision.

The case is not only about intermarriage, but also, about how this country defined people in terms of "race", for not only did the Virginia statute in question prohibit the intermarriage of "whites" with "coloreds" and American Indians, it also assigned multiracial people to one or the other of these groups (but never to more than one or to a separate mixed category), depending upon the degree and type of mixture.

A white person was someone with no trace of any but "Caucasian blood", with the exception of a person who had 1/16 or less of American Indian ancestry (and no other non-white ancestry), an allowance notably covering some wealthy and well-respected descendants of Pocahontas and John Rolfe. A black person was anyone with any "ascertainable" negro blood, the classic expression of the infamous "one-drop-rule". An American Indian was anyone with at least 1/4 Indian ancestry, or anyone with at least 1/4 Indian blood and no more than 1/16 "Negro" blood and who was also a member of an Indian tribe.

The 25th Anniversary of the Loving Decision was commemorated by AMEA in 1992 at the Loving Conference. A movie for television was made in 1996 dramatizing the story of the Lovings, starring Timothy Hutton, Lela Rochon and Ruby Dee. For more information about this film, here is the link to the Internet Movie Data Base: Mr.& Mrs.Loving

NOTE: The text reproduced here has been abridged to make for easier reading. To read the full text, go to any law library and find the case using the case citations below.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

RICHARD PERRY LOVING et ux., Appellants,
v.
VIRGINIA
388 US 1, 18 L ed 2d 1010, 87 S Ct 1817
Argued April 10, 1967. Decided June 12, 1967.

OPINION OF THE COURT

Mr. Chief Justice Warren delivered the opinion of the Court.

This case presents a constitutional question never addressed by this Court: whether a statutory scheme adopted by the State of Virginia to prevent marriages between persons solely on the basis of racial classifications violates the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. For reasons which seem to us to reflect the central meaning of those constitutional commands, we conclude that these statutes cannot stand consistently with the Fourteenth Amendment.

In June 1958, two residents of Virginia, Mildred Jeter, a Negro woman, and Richard Loving, a white man, were married in the District of Columbia pursuant to its laws. Shortly after their marriage, the Lovings returned to Virginia and established their marital abode in Caroline County. At the October Term, 1958, the Circuit Court of Caroline County, a grand jury issued an indictment charging the Lovings with violating Virginia's ban on interracial marriages. On January 6, 1959, the Lovings pleaded guilty to the charge and were sentenced to one year in jail; however, the trial judge suspended the sentence for a period of 25 years on the condition that the Lovings leave the State and not return to Virginia together for 25 years. He stated in an opinion that:

"Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix."

After their convictions, the Lovings took up residence in the District of Columbia. On November 6, 1963, they filed a motion in the state trial court to vacate the judgment and set aside the sentence on the ground that the statutes which they had violated were repugnant to the Fourteenth Amendment. The motion not having been decided by October 28, 1964, the Lovings instituted a class action in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia requesting that a three-judge court be convened to declare the Virginia antimiscegenation statutes unconstitutional and to enjoin state officials from enforcing their convictions. On January 22, 1965, the state trial judge denied the motion to vacate the sentences, and the Lovings perfected an appeal to the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia. On February 11, 1965, the three-judge District Court continued the case to allow the Lovings to present their constitutional claims to the highest state court.
-----------------
These statutes also deprive the Lovings of liberty without due process of law in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.

Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival. To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discriminations. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.

source: http://www.ameasite.org/loving.asp
--------------------
House candidate uses Bible to defend Southern slavery

by Phillip Rawls -- Associated Press, May 5, 1996
MONTGOMERY, Alabama -- A white state senator running for Congress wrote a speech in which he argued that slavery is justified by the Bible and was good for blacks.
"People who are bitter and hateful about slavery are obviously bitter and hateful against God and his word, because they reject what God says and embrace what mere humans say concerning slavery," Charles Davidson wrote.
Davidson, 61, a Republican from Jasper, Ala. had prepared the speech for a Senate debate Tuesday over his proposal to fly the Confederate battle flag over the Capitol. The measure was tabled before he had a chance to speak, but he passed out copies later.
"It's sad to think we have anyone who has that type of thinking in 1996. That may have been appropriate in the 1930's and 1940's, but not in 1996," said state Rep. Laura Hall, chairwoman of the Legislative Black Caucus.
Davidson cited the Book of Leviticus -- "You may acquire male and female slaves from the pagan nations that are around you" -- and quoted 1 Timothy as saying slaves should "regard their own masters as worthy of all honor."
"The incidence of abuse, rape, broken homes and murder are 100 times greater, today, in the housing projects than they ever were on the slave plantations in the old south," he wrote.
"The truth is that nowhere on the face of the earth, in all that time, were servants better treated or better loved than they were in the Old South by white, black, Hispanic and Indian slave owners."
Davidson, a restaurateur elected to the state Senate in 1994, is running for the GOP nomination for the U.S. House seat being vacated by Democrat Tom Bevill. The primary is June 4.
"The issue is not race. It's Southern heritage. I'm on a one-man leadership crusade to get the truth out about what out Southern heritage is all about," he said at a news conference Thursday.

source: http://personalwebs.myriad.net/steveb/slavery.html
-----------------------
Preventing Women the right to vote by abusing GOD's Word

The struggle for women's suffrage in America began in the 1820s with the writings of Fanny Wright. In her book, Course of Popular Lectures (1829) and in the Free Enquirer Wright not only advocated women being given the vote but the abolition of slavery, free secular education, birth control and more liberal divorce laws.

Wright received little support for her views and the next significant development did not take place until 1840 when two members of the Society of Friends, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, travelled to London as delegates to the World Anti-Slavery Convention. Both women were furious when they, like the British women at the convention, were refused permission to speak at the meeting. Stanton later recalled: "We resolved to hold a convention as soon as we returned home, and form a society to advocate the rights of women."

However, it was not until 1848 that Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott organised the Women's Rights Convention at Seneca Falls. Stanton's resolution that it was "the duty of the women of this country to secure to themselves the sacred right to the elective franchise" was passed, and this became the focus of the group's campaign over the next few years.

for the entire article visit: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAsuffrage.htm

Homophobia and the Republican Party

From Capitol Hill Blue

The Rant
Homophobia and the Republican Party
By DOUG THOMPSON
Oct 4, 2004, 06:05

The House and Senate, in a rare moment of common sense, sacked President George W. Bush’s homophobic constitutional amendment that would have defined marriage as a union only between men and women. That kills the issue for this year but we will be forced to visit it again as long as right-wing whack jobs dominate the Republican Party.

Of all the extreme positions that emanate from the rabid conservatives that control the GOP (and there are many), none are more despicable than their outright hatred of homosexuals.

They may scream loudly that gay-bashing actions like the proposed constitutional amendments are not homophobic but they are. Such hatred emerges easily from the same intolerance, bigotry and racism that still infect the roots of the Grand Old Party.

Yet they look the other way and practice a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy when one of their own is gay. Back in the early 1980s, Terry Dolan’s National Conservative Political Action Committee was the toast of the right-wing while Dolan’s homosexuality dominated Washington’s whispers and people snickered at the anti-gay stances of the organization. When Dolan died of AIDS, many Republicans publicly professed shock and privately sighed with relief that he was gone.

Nowadays, the rabid right-wing idolizes openly-conservative and pro-Republican Internet gossip monger Matt Drudge who bashes gays on his web site but who was outed as gay by Jeanette Walls of MSNBC in 2000 in her book, Dish. Walls interviewed a number of Drudge’s gay friends, including ex-lover David Cohen. Drudge’s response? “My youth to me is a blur.”

Vice President Dick Cheney’s daughter is gay and he has split with the administration over the marriage amendment, saying such a decision should be left up to states – a position more consistent with claimed GOP policies on states’ rights. Cheney’s stand brought vicious attacks from the party’s right wing.

Such hypocrisy is typical of the GOP: They preach less government while increasing the size, power and breadth of the federal bureaucracy. They espouse fiscal restraint while spending the federal budget into the largest deficits in history. They claim love of country while trampling on the Constitution – the foundation of the nation – with rights-robbing laws like the USA Patriot Act.

And they talk of compassion while practicing homophobia and bigotry. They claim gays are “out to destroy the American way of life,” a charge that conservatives like to toss at anyone who does not agree with their narrow view of the world. In a Republican’s eyes, if you question the actions of their President, you are anti-American. If you question his war in Iraq, you are unpatriotic. And if you dare suggest that people of the same sex should be able to love one another and live together as a married couple, you are guilty of crimes against God, country and humanity.

Like most bigotry, homophobia is driven by hate and fear. Bigots fear what they don’t understand and they don’t understand a lot of things. Fear and hate appeal to the lowest parts of humanity, to simple minds that – in their own ignorance – cling to outdated concepts that a belief, point of view, lifestyle or philosophy must be superior to another.

These hate mongers accuse others of hate while spreading their own vileness in the name of God, country and party.

Yet all they accomplish with their blather and bluster is prove their own hate, bigotry and homophobia. In the end, they are sad, pathetic people who should be pitied, ignored and treated with the same disrespect the U.S. Congress showed in rejecting George W. Bush’s homophobic Constitutional amendment on marriage.

© Copyright 2004 Capitol Hill Blue

source: http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/printer_5400.shtml

Girlie men ? Letter to the editor

Girlie men ?

September 14, 2004

At the recent Republican National Convention, Arnold Schwarzenegger, the super-rich governor of California, said Americans who complain about hard times are nothing but ''economic girlie men.'' The Sept. 6 Abilene Reporter-News front-page story, ''Texans take a dim view of the economy,'' says, ''Texans continue to have a pessimistic view of the economy with 62 percent saying economic conditions in the country are only fair or poor.''

I guess, by Arnold's standards, the majority of Texans are ''girlie men''!

Steve Harris
Brownwood

source: http://www.reporter-news.com/abil/cda/article_print/
0,1983,ABIL_7984_3179662_ARTICLE-DETAIL-PRINT,00.html

Barnes tells his story on 60 Minutes

By Candace Cooksey Fulton -- Brownwood Bulletin

In 1968, Bert V. Massey was working on Texas Speaker of the House Ben Barnes' staff.It was a position Massey said he is confident he got solely because Groner Pitts asked Barnes to give him the job.And though Massey did not see Barnes' interview Wednesday with Dan Rather on 60 Minutes, in which Barnes said he was "at last going to tell the whole story" of how he helped get George W. Bush into the Air National Guard, he has followed the story over the last few months.Barnes got his political start as a state representative out of Brownwood. Though he lost his bid for governor in 1972, and since has been out of the political limelight, some in Brownwood remember him as being the "rising star" of the time.
Stuart Coleman said he had forgotten the interview was to be aired on Wednesday and didn't watch the show. As to whether it was strings pulled by Barnes that got Bush into the National Guard, Coleman said he didn't want to guess."I really had no idea of Ben helping George W. Bush, if he helped him. I'm sure he might have helped a lot of people get into the National Guard if he had the power to do so," Coleman said. "A lot of men served in the National Guard and it was considered an honorable thing to do. They weren't deserters.
Deserters went to Canada."

source: http://www.brownwoodbulletin.com/articles/2004/09/10/news/news03.txt

Powell criticizes Vietnam-era draft avoidance

WILLIAM C. MANN
WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Colin Powell, once the country's highest-ranking soldier, reaffirmed his distaste today for Vietnam War draft policies that allowed sons of the powerful to avoid combat.The year that Bush joined the National Guard, both Powell and John Kerry, now Bush's Democratic rival for the presidency, were young officers among hundreds of thousands of American troops in Vietnam.In his 1995 autobiography, My American Journey, Powell characterized draft policies during most of the Vietnam era as "an antidemocratic disgrace.""I am angry that so many sons of the powerful and well-placed managed to wangle slots in Reserve and National Guard units,"he wrote. Asked about that and Bush's military career on Fox News Sunday, Powell said: "I disagree with the policies that were in place at that time. I didn't think it was the right set of policies for the challenge the nation was facing.On ABC's This Week, Powell added: "Yes, that system was disturbing to me. That's why I was such a supporter of the voluntary army when it came. I was also a supporter of cleaning up the draft system, so that you couldn't duck the draft."Questions have arisen about the Vietnam service of both Bush and Kerry. CBS' 60 Minutes aired interviews and documents last week that indicated Bush, whose father was a Texas congressman at the time, was given preferential treatment in a National Guard unit and was lax in fulfilling his duties late in his six-year obligation.

source: http://www.thestar.com

Brownwood, Bibles, Teenagers, Sex & Scare Tactics

Danielle Lyles: Parents, sex is rampant, and scare tactics don't work

10:01 PM CST on Friday, March 11, 2005
By DANIELLE LYLES
When I was in junior high, I was a member of a girls' Bible study group, and a big moment for us was the day we signed our names on laminated abstinence cards. These days, some of those same girls are self-proclaimed Kamasutra experts, most are sexually active and one is a 16-year-old mother.
Sure it's easy to write off this example as the exception – or to blame such behavior on revealing clothes, explicit music and suggestive magazines. But parents who do so are just kidding themselves. It's an orgy out there; casual sex is growing like weeds.
Here are the facts in our terms: Friends-with-benefits are trendy, trains are becoming more popular, orgies are more accepted than ever, and oral sex is more casual than denim.
A friends-with-benefits relationship is one in which two platonic friends have repeated sexual encounters to fulfill their urges without strings attached. It often results in scarring because (gasp!) teenagers are super-hormonal and leach onto each other fast.
Trains occur when one girl has two to 20 sexual partners in an evening, often without the use of a condom. This trend is spreading because the reservoir of women with low self-esteem is deep, as is the well of sexually charged males.
Orgies are back in style because of the fantasy appeal. Ideally, all three partners are platonic and can be open without anyone feeling jealous or neglected. And the use of the term "oral sex" is almost unheard of because many teenagers don't view it as sex at all. Often it's as common as kissing on a first date.
All of this is not to say that the abstinence-until-marriage teens don't exist, but best I can tell, that population is slimming rapidly.
So here's my solution: knowledge. But not scare tactics.
I have attended countless sex "education" classes, both at school and church, beginning in fourth grade and continuing to the present. I've found none to be helpful or informative. I distinctly remember one program in junior high during which a projector displayed large and disturbing pictures of genital herpes while the instructor provided an anecdote about a girl who refused to have sex with her boyfriend but took a nap naked next to him and contracted an ungodly STD. The instructor seemed to imply that teenagers shouldn't even touch one another – and thus quickly lost credibility.
None of the sex education programs discussed proper condom usage or the option of masturbation. You simply can't fight pleasure with herpes horror stories.
Many adults and teens push for abstinence-only education in the name of Christian ethics. But Christianity has always advocated wisdom, not ignorance. So says Proverbs 12:1, "Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates correction is stupid."
The very foundation of Christianity is having the faith to obtain much knowledge and use it to discern right from wrong. Therefore, it makes sense that a full-circle education is absolutely necessary to walk a righteous path.
It would be easy to assume that I'm exaggerating, but that's just denial speaking. This is really happening to kids as young as 13.
By withholding knowledge, parents are unintentionally fertilizing that orgy. Those who would give teenagers better tools to make their own decisions would uproot the weed. Ignorance is indefensible.
Sixteen-year-old Danielle Lyles is a senior at Berkner High School, where she is managing editor of the Rampage. Her e-mail address is daniluvsumost@aol.com.

Ben Barnes says his friends support his Bush comments

By Celinda Emison / Abilene Reporter-News Staff Writer

September 11, 2004

BROWNWOOD - Reaction in Brownwood was mixed after former Texas Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes' interview Wednesday night on the CBS program ''60 Minutes II.''During the interview, Barnes told Dan Rather of CBS that he helped ''a lot of young men from prominent families get in the National Guard,'' according to The Associated Press. That included, he said, George W. Bush, whose father was a congressman at the time.Barnes, a lifelong Democrat who hails from De Leon, got his political start in Brownwood, and went on to become one of the most-powerful politicians in Austin during the 1960s and 1970s. Barnes said that since the interview aired Wednesday, comments from friends and supporters in Texas have been positive.Brownwood Mayor Bert Massey, who worked in Barnes' office as a committee clerk in the late 1960s, said that requests for appointments to the National Guard were not uncommon at the time.''In retrospect, it may look bad, but at the time, this was happening for a lot of people, and it was not uncommon,'' Massey said. ''By the same token, it was not uncommon for people like John Kerry, who served in Vietnam, to come back and protest the war - it was a very interesting time.''Massey said he does not believe Barnes' comments on ''60 Minutes II'' will cost Bush votes in Texas.George Day of Brownwood, a former Brown County attorney, helped initiate Barnes' first run for the Texas House of Representatives in 1960. Day, a retired Army colonel and veteran of the Korean War, also helped with Barnes' campaign for lieutenant governor.''Barnes' comments point out the fact that poor people actually fight the wars, and they do the dying - just like it is today,''said Day.

source:http://www.reporter-news.com/abil/nw_local/article/0,1874,ABIL_7959_3174448,00.html

Teens plead guilty in cross-burning case

COVINGTON, Kentucky (AP)

Two teenagers accused of burning a cross in the front yard of a black family have pleaded guilty in federal court.Matthew Scudder, 18, of Hebron and James Foster, 19, of Independence pleaded guilty Thursday to violating the family's civil rights, intimidating the family and to aiding and abetting a juvenile involved in the crime.

source: http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/09/03/cross.burning.ap/index.html

Quote

"Watch your thoughts; they become words.
Watch your words; they become actions.
Watch your action; they become habits.
Watch your habits; they become character.
Watch your character; it becomes your destiny."

~ Frank Outlaw

Texas Department Of Public Safety on Racial Profiling

Page 1
Produced by DPS Public Information, (512) 424-2080
November 2001
DPS online: www.txdps.state.tx.us DPS “on the air”:
512-424-7777

Dear Fellow Employee,
The events of the past two months continue to remind us that we must remain vigilant and aware of what’s going
on around us. Remember that all of our jobs here
at DPS—whether commissioned or civilian personnel—include the responsibility to stay alert and be conscious of our surroundings. If you see anything out
of the ordinary, immediately report it to local law enforcement and to the DPS Special Crimes Service at
1-800-252-5402.
Having said that, it’s important to remember—and to remind others—that you cannot judge a person
based on appearance or ethnicity.

The stance of the Department of Public Safety on racial profiling is clear—racial profiling is illegal, unethical, against the principles of good police work and will not be tolerated.

source: http://64.233.179.104/search?q=cache:VAUkZy8Kx5wJ:www.txdps.state.tx.us/director_staff/public_information/publications/chaparral/chap1101.pdf+brownwood+texas+hate+crime&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

In the weeks prior to the mass killings in Rwanda, RTLM repeatedly characterized the rival Tutsis as "cockroaches".

"It was RTLM's relentless dehumanization of the 'enemy' that was adjudged as an incitement to violence," Lynch says. "The hateful messages reaching listeners across the US today are dangerous in the same way. Our own intensively mediated societies are also vulnerable to such baleful messages, if repeated often enough."
source:http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0521-13.htm

Democracy, Faith and Values

Published on Monday, February 7, 2005 by CommonDreams.org
'I'm Ready to Die'
Fundamentalist Christianity Instills in Millions of American Followers a Depressing-and Dangerous-Nihilism
by Dr. Teresa Whitehurst
 
Six weeks ago, a young man sat down next to an older woman waiting for him and stated grimly, "I don't care. That's it. He can say what he wants. As for me, I'm ready to die".

Referring several times to nearby CBN (Christian Broadcasting Network), he laid a Bible on the table at the Norfolk coffee shop where I was writing a book proposal. I felt badly for him; he seemed to have an incurable disease. The woman mumbled something.

He quickly retorted, "I don't care what he said. I won't work with him." His voice was clipped as he emphasized his refusal to negotiate with a particular coworker.

The older woman sat holding her coffee, rarely even sipping it, with a hopeless-looking expression on her face. She showed no sympathy, looking at him as if she knew what he was about to say. Now I doubted that he was dying of a terminal illness.

The slender dark-haired 20-something, looked straight ahead without touching his coffee. The older lady asked quietly, "Don't you think that maybe-"

He cut her off: "Look, the end is coming. I know that and you know that. You've seen the signs. I just don't care about this guy, I don't care what he says. The end is coming very soon. None of this is going to matter." For the first time showing emotion, he added angrily, "I'm ready to die-I'm ready to go today, right now!"

I immediately recognized this as rapture talk. This young man does have an incurable disease, but it's spiritual, not physical: It's called fundamentalism (aka "millennialism"), the kind of Christianity to which Bush and his "conservative" advisers ascribe.

Early last year, I overheard another conversation that made me tremble for this nation under Bush and his Dobsonian advisers. This one, however, brought back tragicomic memories of a childhood spent in fundamentalist churches.

No longer hearing that depressing conversation, images of a scary old barn flooded my mind. I was 14, and was riding with our youth group to a dark field out in the middle of nowhere. It was summer but dark, so it must have been 8:30 p.m. or later.

As we got out of our cars, we were taken to a huge barn--to this day I don't know what kind of barn, because it had no farm equipment in it--and seated in folding chairs facing a large pull-down screen. We giggled as usual, flirting and complaining about missing our favorite TV shows as the adults fiddled with the film projector. But we knew the score: when the film started, we were to be absolutely quiet and "reverent".

After a few words of prayer and a reading from Revelations, the youth director started the film. I remember vividly the opening scene: a boy of about 13 ("the age of accountability") is walking home from school. As he enters the house, he finds it empty.

"Mom? Mom!", the boy calls, but she doesn't answer. He shrugs and goes to the kitchen to get his own snack, looking annoyed. Then the music shifts to an ominous minor key, horror-movie style, and he begins to search the house. Holding a sandwich, he races through the house calling desperately, "Mom! Mom! Where are you?!"

Then the narrator explains--Mom has been raptured up into the heavens to be with God, leaving the boy bereft to regret his sinful ways, then burn in hell for all eternity.

Conservative Christianity's Legalistic Loopholes: Repent then Die

There were other scenes, like the one where an elderly couple is carrying groceries in the house when the man cries out, grabs his chest, and falls on the sidewalk. His wife rushes inside to call the ambulance. The EMTs put him on the stretcher and start for the door.

But before they can take him to the hospital, the man's saintly wife delays them in order to pray with him, urging him to repent now while there's still time. She convinces him to repent of his drinking, cussing and sinful lifestyle, urging him to accept Jesus as his personal savior and repeat John 3:16. He does so, then dies. As they take his body away she's kind of sad, but smiles gratefully towards the ceiling: He's on his way to heaven.

The message was clear: You can rape, murder, torture prisoners, bomb civilians, order executions, cut social programs for the poor, persecute gays, feminists, or any racial group you choose, and do anything you please for 75 years or more, then simply whisper a few magic words for a first-class seat in heaven, right next to Mother Teresa.

I rejected this as contrary to Jesus' teachings, seeing through the scare tactics used by eternally sweating preachers who wiped their sweaty foreheads, weary night after weary night, with the obligatory handkerchief. Without exception, the revivalists pounded the longsuffering wooden pulpit, demanding, "Are you ready to die right now?"

The "good folks" would nod and answer, "Amen!" but certain recalcitrant husbands and teenagers refused to do so. As punishment for their defiance, the evangelists would walk down the aisle and stand right next to the offending party, staring and slapping an open Bible while describing in lurid detail how it feels to be "licked with the flames of hell".

Not every teen was immune to rapture threats. Some kids took them seriously and developed the kind of nihilism--the "readiness for death" masking despair borne of terror-displayed by the young man who "didn't care" because "the end is coming". One boy developed such intense fears of being left behind in the coming rapture that he stopped playing with neighborhood friends (they could lead him to sin) and stayed safely in his bedroom, rocking and reading the Bible for hours every day after school.

This boy and the other more "obedient" kids prayed constantly, growing increasingly paranoid about committing even the most minor "sins", e.g., not reading the scriptures before and after school, inadvertently leaving someone out of bedtime prayers, failing to ask a classmate if Jesus was his or her personal savior, etc. These kids worried that some day they'd come home to find their parents gone. GONE. Forever.

Fighting for Purity

For a child raised in fundamentalist "conservative" churches, there is no safe haven. Everyone is a potential threat, not just of contamination of oneself--to burn for all eternity--but of causing the child to suffer the more tangible threat of losing his or her parents, siblings, and grandparents.

The rapture film and others like it strike at the very core of normal childhood needs for security and parental love. Those who succumbed to the rapture threats grew up to be legalistic Christians, paranoid and ever on the watch for sinful people. Contamination by Christians of other denominations was to be avoided at all costs. Imagine, then, how much greater the fear of Catholics (considered "a cult", not "Christian" by many fundamentalists), Jews, Muslims, and other "sinful" citizens. In Purity We Trust.

Google "purity" with names of Bush's conservative advisers and "think tank" writers: Notice how they promote this fearsome concept. Hitler knew the power of "purity", and so do today's fundamentalists: Avoid contamination by whatever means necessary.

To make a pure nation you have to break a few heads. Sure, people will die: the enemy, "our troops", maybe you, too. But it will have been worth it if even one soul is saved. Anyway, your choice is stark: Die today (be sure to repent first) or burn for all eternity. Be "ready to die" at every moment-because the end is coming. As Freddy Mercury sang so sadly, "nothing really matters anymore".

In our brave new fundamentalist nation, it really doesn't matter anymore how many people you kill, or how much of the earth's environment you destroy. What matters is this and only this: If you don't want to come home one day to an empty house and suffer in the lake of fire for all eternity, you'd better hate all the right people, bomb all the right countries, and back your rapture-ready president in whatever hare-brained scheme he comes up with next.

Life itself is a snare, a temptation of the flesh. Your safest bet is to repent and then die young, before you're Left Behind.

Dr. Teresa Whitehurst is a clinical psychologist, author of 'Jesus on Parenting: 10 Essential Principles That Will Transform Your Family' (2004) and coauthor of 'The Nonviolent Christian Parent' (2004). She writes the column, 'Democracy, Faith and Values: Because You Shouldn't Have to Choose Just One'.

source:http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0207-20.htm

Is it Hate Radio ?

COVER STORY:
Hate Radio
September 17, 2004   Episode no. 803
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week803/cover.html

BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: In much of rural America, talk radio tends to be conservative --rarely liberal. And in some places, archconservative radio broadcasters rail against immigrants, environmentalists, the UN, and everything they think is liberal. Critics call them purveyors of fear and say they sow the seeds of hate. Defenders say it's a free expression of ideas. Lucky Severson reports.
LUCKY SEVERSON: Traveling under the big sky of Montana requires some sturdy wheels, preferably a pickup truck, and a good radio, which usually offers FM music and AM talk.
In this part of the world, on the airwaves conservative talk has a virtual lock. Odds are the talk will progress from Rush Limbaugh to someone even more conservative -- like John Stokes, owner of station KGEZ in Kalispell, Montana.
JOHN STOKES (Radio Host, KGEZ, Kalispell, Montana, on Radio): When the Left extremists are out of power, they are vicious, and it is pure, unadulterated, satanic evil. And they may look like your neighbors. It's evil.
SEVERSON: If you're in Montana, or much of rural America, you will hear very little of what people in these parts call "namby-pamby" liberalism on AM radio, and that's music to John Stokes's ears.
Mr. STOKES: I think it's gone so far extreme to the left that there was a backlash, and that's where you're probably seeing more people come out of the closet and say, "Enough is enough."
SEVERSON: He thinks talk radio is an outlet for America's aggravations.
Mr. STOKES: This is the great thing about America -- is that you can still get on your soapbox and do something. These people say that I incite people to violence. That's the last thing I want.
SEVERSON: But his detractors say some of his broadcasts have incited harassment and stifled public debate. Consider his program shortly after 9/11, when he equated environmentalists with terrorists.
Mr. STOKES (On Radio): So when these left-wing lunatic liberals complain that I have somehow connected them to this, yes, you are responsible. The Green extremists out there, the Green Nazis. Look in the mirror; it's your political correctness that has caused these problems.
KEN TOOLE (Montana Human Rights Network): People contacted us and said, "I've had things happen to my house, and I think it's because they talked about me on the program." Then you've got a problem, and that definitely affects not only the ability to have civic debate, but it also affects the decision making.
SEVERSON: Ken Toole is a Montana state senator and program director for the Montana Human Rights Network. He has been critical of Stokes's talk show called THE EDGE. He says the rhetoric has pushed some listeners over the edge to harass targets of Stokes's attacks. That may be why Stokes refers to Toole as "king fool of the human rights nitwits."
Mr. TOOLE: We went to Stokes and said, "You've got to knock this stuff off," and called him out on it. This is bullying. Does the schoolyard bully affect the schoolyard? I think so.
Mr. STOKES: There hasn't been one incident of violence at all by anybody that's been related to this show.
SEVERSON: How about harassing phone calls?
Mr. STOKES: We get them.
SEVERSON: How about some of these people who are mentioned on your program -- do they get them?
Mr. STOKES: I wouldn't know about that.
MARIA ARRINGTON (Quaker): Since he came into the valley, I'm seeing bumper stickers that are totally offensive to me, that literally say, "Kill the Green Nazis," and from their definition of a Green Nazi, here I am. Do you want to kill me?
SEVERSON: Maria Arrington and Jean Hand Triol are both Quakers and self-described liberals living in the Kalispell area.
Ms. ARRINGTON: I don't think there's any problem having conservative talk radio. My problem with the stations that we're talking about right now is that they're sowing the seeds of hate and fear, and that is dividing the community.
JEAN HAND TRIOL (Quaker): Even if we had different political views, we could have a dialogue, and now a lot of people are afraid to even express a liberal view.
SEVERSON: There is, of course, the other point of view, one you might hear from many of the men in this Bible study group. They call themselves "dirt bags" instead of "sinners," and they meet every Friday morning for Scripture lessons at a local casino.
JOHN CREAMER (Bible Study Leader): Father, we thank you for good health, for this beautiful place ...
SEVERSON: The "dirt bag" Bible discussions are conducted by John Creamer. He's a friend of John Stokes and has a religious program on Stokes's radio station. Creamer thinks talk radio is good for the community because it gets the juices flowing.
Mr. CREAMER: I think it stimulates a lot of thought and discussion, and it may not be the best way to do it, but what is a better alternative to get people thinking about what they should be thinking about?
SEVERSON: But the expression of views on talk radio is almost exclusively one-sided. That's been the trend since the demise in the 1980s of the fairness doctrine that required giving voice to opposing opinions. There are differing views on National Public Radio, but Montana NPR stations play mostly music during the day. By and large, radio talk is coming from local personalities like John Stokes and nationally popular right-wing hosts like Michael Savage.
MICHAEL SAVAGE (On Radio): And the Democrats are now functioning like old Soviets before the fall of the wall. And I do believe that they're finished. That's why they're getting this desperate. Akron, Ohio: Joe, you're on THE SAVAGE NATION ...
SEVERSON: In this part of Montana, dozens of timber mills have closed, costing hundreds of jobs. Many locals blame government regulations, and especially the environmentalists, Stokes's so-called Green Nazis.
Mr. STOKES (On Air): This hue and cry now that you're starting to hear from the environmentalists, the Green Nazis: "We need have a dialogue. We need to sit down and understand each other." Don't. We need to finish them off and make sure they don't have babies.
SEVERSON: This is a scratchy picture of John Stokes's Earth Day protest. He is burning the swastika, his symbol for Green Nazis or environmentalists.
He says a thousand people turned out to join his protest against the United Nations, where they shot the UN flag full of bullet holes.
Mr. STOKES: America is in peril. We are under threat of imminent attack. You know, we are being invaded. You can't get anything changed unless you can get people excited about the issues.
SEVERSON: But it's not only issues. It's gays, African Americans, all illegal immigrants, and others. Montana Human Rights Network director Ken Toole:
Mr. TOOLE: We very regularly bring a Holocaust survivor to Montana to talk about the Holocaust, to talk about bigotry and intolerance and take them through the schools. Stokes referred to him as a whore doing the work of the Human Rights Network.
SEVERSON: Researchers have reached different conclusions as to whether biased talk radio simply reinforces listeners' values or causes them to take action. So how influential can a station like KGEZ be? Stokes says he has about 20,000 listeners in a market of around 100,000. But Ken Toole says the size of the audience isn't that important.
Mr. TOOLE: Despite the fact people say, "Oh yeah, he's wacky. It doesn't matter. Nobody listens to him," we think people do hear it. It's not that they do agree. It's not that they're fans, but it is that those kinds of hosts tend to cast how the community debates occur.
SEVERSON: The Reverend Donna Schram of the Flathead Valley United Church of Christ is concerned about the chilling effect of Stokes's brand of discourse.
Reverend DONNA SCHRAM (Flathead Valley United Church of Christ): It's pretty hard, I think, to live that Christian life of give and take of love when you're constantly looking over your shoulder and being in a fearful state.
SEVERSON: The reverend's church is part of the Montana Association of Churches, which has begun asking members to get more involved in civic affairs to counter the influence of talk radio.
Mr. STOKES: The Association of Churches is one of the most leftist, communist organizations in Montana. They put stuff out in churches to boycott all my sponsors. I mean, they're an extremist group.
SEVERSON: Stokes's defenders contend that talk radio is nothing more than a gauge of small-town America's pent-up frustrations.
Mr. CREAMER: It's one of the first times that there has been a measurement taken of the people's temperature, and it's frightening to some people what that temperature is, and it's like, "Oh my gosh, we need to put this thermometer away because it's showing much too high of a temperature."
SEVERSON: Jean Triol agrees that the temperature is much too high, but blames talk radio for elevating it.
Ms. TRIOL: Everyone I speak with is concerned about the same thing and kind of ashamed that they're hunkering down and, you know, not out there with their opinions. It's a bad feeling.
Mr. STOKES (On Car Radio): Good morning on THE EDGE. What do you want to bet that when all is said and done, the foundations that fund our local environmental terrorists are also the primary foundation behind the Taliban? There will be a connection.
SEVERSON: And if you don't agree with him, John Stokes says there is a solution.
Mr. STOKES: Anybody who doesn't like what I'm doing can turn the radio station off. Turn the dial.
SEVERSON: For now, Stokes says his audience keeps getting bigger and bigger.
For RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY, I'm Lucky Severson in Kalispell, Montana.

Brownwood "Hate" Radio & Hal Lindsey

When I challenged Hal on Brownwood’s KXYL regarding Israel’s military policy of including everyone for service ( he acknowledged it was true ! ) and Jerusalem's Pride Celebration ( also acknowledged it was true! ), he responded: “ You’re as full of CRAP as a Christmas Turkey ! ” After learning more about Mr Lindsey, I find his attack an honor !

Hal Lindsey
General Teachings/Activities
-  Hal Lindsey is best known for his multi-million copy best seller The Late Great Planet Earth. He has written many other prophecy-related books and speaks frequently at "evangelical" prophecy conferences. He was also the pastor of Tetelestai Christian Center in Torrance, California prior to his resignation in 1996.

Sadly, in recent years Lindsey has become quite comfortable ministering with hyper-charismatics and neo-evangelicals, and has most recently taken up an active interest in the area of religious humanism. [Part of this may be due to Lindsey's unscriptural divorces and remarriages (see below).] (Lindsey has even taken up with Roman Catholics: A regular guest and commentator on Lindsey's radio program is John Gizzy. Lindsey calls him "Mr. Conservative" and a brother-in-Christ. In late-1994, Gizzy handled the call-in portion of the show for three weeks while Hal was on vacation in Italy. Gizzy is a Roman Catholic.)

-  Hal Lindsey is currently married to his fourth wife, having divorced his previous three. On the back cover of the sixth printing of his 1974 book, There's a New World Coming, is a picture of Lindsey with his second wife, Jan. (Jan is the mother of Hal's three grown daughters.) He also dedicates the book to "my best pal, my wife Jan ..." However, "best pal" Jan is gone from the back cover of the book's 1984 "updated" edition, as is the dedication to her. A later Lindsey' book, Planet Earth--2000 A.D. (18 million in circulation as of 1/95), carries a picture of Hal and his third wife, Kim, who is approximately 25 years his junior. (Kim is the sister of author Johanna Michaelsen, and the sister-in-law of Tetelestai Center's Associate Pastor, Randy Michaelsen.) After dumping Kim, Hal is now married to wife #4, JoLyn, a member of Tetelestai and in a Bible class taught by Lindsey when she was evidently "discovered" by Hal.

-  Lindsey is a big fan of country music, and believes that God is also!:


"A current revival of the ballad-type is known as 'country music.' This is my favorite. I like this kind of music because it runs the gamut of emotions from gloom to glee. After a Johnny Cash concert, I'm worn out! That music comes right out of the soul and grabs me! I wouldn't be at all surprised or disappointed if the new song which the hosts of heaven sing to extol the incomparable Son of God has a 'country music' style!" (There's a New World Coming, 1974 edition -- p. 97; 1984 edition -- p. 80).


-  Lindsey claims that he does not go along with many of the charismatic excesses presented on the hyper-charismatic Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN -- owned and operated by Paul and Jan Crouch), yet he continues to be part of its programming. One can regularly tune-in to TBN programs and find Lindsey as a guest, or even hosting the show, heaping praise upon its charismatic and social activist participants. Lindsey also co-hosts a one-half hour weekly TV program aired on TBN, a prophecy program called "International Intelligence Briefing." By Lindsey's participation in the programming of TBN, he not only remains silent about the many heresies being taught on TBN, but he actually helps build TBN's audience. The Crouches provide Lindsey's program either free of charge or at reduced rates, knowing full well that they are attracting viewers who would not otherwise tune in nor support TBN financially.

-  On TBN's 12/29/99 "Praise the Lord" program, Hal Lindsey and his sidekick, Cliff Ford, hosted. One of their guests was Chuck Missler. Missler said he was there for the purpose of endorsing TBN's movie, The Omega Code, and promoting his own new book on the Code. The three of them carried on and on about how great TBN is and how everyone needs to continue to support the network to spread the gospel around the world. 

What they didn't say is that the new gospel of the hidden messages in the Bible (Omega Code) and the prosperity gospel are two different gospels, not the Gospel that was preached in the New Testament. The Omega Code movie did NOT promote the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but rather gave credence to the latest big lie -- that there are hidden messages in the Bible when one uses the letters as an acrostic puzzle. This is the latest blasphemy sweeping through the professing church -- using the Bible as a tool for divination. The movie and the books on the subject would have us believe that historical events, such as the death of Princess Diana, the assassination of President Kennedy, and the Challenger space shuttle disaster are not only significant events in God's plan for the Ages, but were secretly coded into the Bible just waiting for sleuths like Lindsey to discover them. What a pitiful cosmic joke! (Source: The Christian Sentinel Report, Jackie Alnor, Eastern Christian Outreach web site, 12/99.)

-  As an example of the extent to which men like Hal Lindsey will go in the pursuit of furthering the social gospel, Lindsey actually held a position with the Sun Myung Moon's now defunct Coalition for Religious Freedom (CRF). (Moon is the founder of the Unification Church, and the self-proclaimed Messiah to the world.) Other so-called evangelicals that served with Lindsey at CRF as executive committee and/or advisory board members were Tim LaHaye (CRF's paid chairman at the time!), Don Wildmon (founder and president of the social activist American Family Association), Paul Crouch (TBN Network's infamous founder), Marlin Maddoux (Point Of View nationwide radio talk show host), James Robison, Jimmy Swaggart, and D. James Kennedy (author and pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida) -- an agenda of social activism certainly makes for strange ecumenical bedfellows. (Reported in the 11/90, Omega-Letter.)

for the entire article visit: http://www.rapidnet.com/~jbeard/bdm/exposes/lindsey/lindsey.htm

------------
“ Most notably of those charged with plagiarism is, as the subtitle mentions is a popular pop prophecy author, Hal Lindsey.”

Book Review:
The Three R’s Rapture, Revisions, Robbery

By Pastor J. S. Brown (preacher@link2000.net)

    The subtitle of this 1998 book published by P.O.S.T, Inc. well indicates what this volume is addressing, "Pretribulaion Rapturism from 1830 to Hal Lindsey." As would be expected, of course, the subject of the rapture is dealt with in this book. The coverage, however, is not nearly as extensive as in MacPherson’s other works, to which he refers to throughout this edition. The book retails for $9.95 plus shipping and handling and may be ordered directly or by contacting Pastor Brown in the various methods listed below.

for the entire article visit: http://www.preteristarchive.com/PartialPreterism/brown-js_pp_01.html

Brownwood "Hate" Radio ?

" KXYL FM NEWSTALK 96.9 - is the trade area's only news, sports, and information radio station. People are hungry for information and we are willing to feed the starving minds. Talk Radio is addictive. The more we feed them, the more they want. This is news and talk radio at its best, delivering your advertising message (7) days a week, 24 hours a day " ( visit their website: http://www.wattsradio.net/about_us.htm )

The Texas Observer

GOOD MORNING, BROWNWOOD. The year is 2001. So some Brownwood residents were dismayed on June 6 to hear Mikey Wayne, one of the hosts of a conservative talk show on talk/news station KXYL, refer to "fags" in a discussion of gays and the Boy Scouts. Wayne apologized the next day, but meanwhile City Councilman Ed McMillian, a regular caller to the show, telephoned to say he had bet a friend a six-pack that other people would be upset by the remark, and encouraged Wayne to say it again so he could win another six-pack. According to Brownwood deli owner Steve Harris, who testified at the Capitol during the hearings on hate crimes legislation this spring, Brownwood has seen a number of violent crimes and incidences of harassment against gay people in recent years. In light of that history, "fag" just doesn't fly, he says. "It's like we're living in a freaking dark hole."

Cathy Marie Hail, station manager for KXYL, says that the controversy has been a learning experience for the 6-week-old station. "'Fag' was a very harsh terminology," she says. "I felt it was harsh myself. I'm from Southern California, and in Southern California they refer to themselves as fags.... But Mikey Wayne used an improper term that is not appropriate for this area."
source:http://www.texasobserver.org/showArticle.asp?ArticleFileName=010622_pi.htm

Site text search results for search string: brownwood    
Pineapples vs. Chicken-Fried Steak (Dateline Texas 9/14/01)
A multi-purpose activist in Brownwood.
Political Intelligence (6/22/01)
Flip-Flops All Over the Place
Two Cheers for the Hate Crimes Bill (Editorial 3/16/01)
The Hate Crimes Bill satisfies neither conservatives nor liberals but is probably the best bill we can expect from the current legislature.
source: http://www.texasobserver.org/search_results.asp?SearchText=brownwood
--------------------------------
From: Steve Harris and Steve Puckett
Date: Sun May 23, 2004 04:49:00 PM US/Central
To: steve_squared@verizon.net, Jake Bernstein , sblow@dallasnews.com, djennings@dallasnews.com, bud@budkennedy.com, maxwell@sptimes.com, bobherb@nytimes.com
Subject: airwaves of Central Texas

T A L K  R A D I O source: Brown County Democratic Newsletter September 2003 

NEWS/TALK Radio 96.9 FM has lost a listener. I’m so tired of the continuous right-wing babble coming from the local jocks here in Brownwood --Ted and Marion in the morning with their little smirks and jabs and James in the afternoon with his always trashing the Democrats. I’m not even talking about Rush and Laura Ingraham and Hannity. They’re bad enough. Somehow, I take the local stuff more personally. It's poisoning my brain and making me downright irritable. I’ve caught myself screaming at the radio one too many times, so, my radio listening days are over until KXYL decides to put on something with at least a centrist political view, or even maybe some non-political talk.

 James Williamson was at the Post Office the other day seen attempting a conversation with a local Democrat. The Democrat was having none of it! It apparently hurt James’ feelings because he mentioned it on his show. All I can say to James is, “what do you expect? Do you think you can call us Democrats roaches, slime, perverts, etc. then expect us to be civil to you?” We Democrats have taken a lot from our local station and I think more and more of us will switch off our radios and stay away from sponsors who finance rightwing "hate" programming coming from anywhere!

From: Steve Harris and Steve Puckett
Date: Fri May 21, 2004 11:56:22 PM US/Central
To: Sheila Richardson
Cc:
Subject: Brownwood's kxyl "hate radio" connection (cockroach etc.)

In the weeks prior to the mass killings in Rwanda, RTLM repeatedly characterized the rival Tutsis as "cockroaches".

"It was RTLM's relentless dehumanization of the 'enemy' that was adjudged as an incitement to violence," Lynch says. "The hateful messages reaching listeners across the US today are dangerous in the same way. Our own intensively mediated societies are also vulnerable to such baleful messages, if repeated often enough."

source: http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0521-13.htm

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

From: Steven Puckett/ Steve Harris
Date: Sat Mar 01, 2003 10:51:31 AM US/Central
To:
Subject: letter to the editor rough draft

Kudos and Much Appreciation to Howard Payne University School of Music and Fine Arts, Dr Nancy Jo Humfeld, The Cast, The Production Staff, and those special individuals listed under "acknowledgments" in the "And Then They Came for Me" program. I attended Friday nights performance and was very moved by not only the play but more importantly by the attendance of Eva Schloss, a Holocaust Survivor. Afterwards,Mrs Schloss was kind of enough to field many question from the audience members. I was moved by her "spirit". I'm also thankful for her sharing her direct knowledge of the events that took so many innocent victims to their deaths due to other peoples hatred and indifference to the daily barrage of the very well crafted & controlled print and radio media. Why should any one of us be surprised when those who are compared to cockroaches and rats on a daily basis by this "media forum" are eventually attacked physically ? Can this happen again ? I've experienced this same type of "Goebbels type" (Goebbels - Hitler's Nazi Minister for Propaganda media for many years in Brownwood via several (same host different microphone) local radio stations. I refer to one as "Hate Radio" or " Radio with a Bad Attitude". Their constant barrage of personal and hate filled attacks (comparing those who they disagree with as cockroaches ! ) directed to those who are "different" ( Liberals, Democrats, Pagans, Gays, Lesbians, Immigrants, etc, etc,, etc. ) It's very obvious that this group (Name Callers) relishes in the controversies because it's the point of talk radio to create as much controversy as possible. It's all about the money, right, so who cares who gets hurt in the process ? I've heard individuals in our community say that these folks should just be ignored and "they've always been this way" ( even in High School ! ). It's one thing to have differing opinions, it's another thing to encite people with hateful words. Their counterparts in Nazi Germany proved to me what happens when a community fails to confront the daily barrage of hateful words. Ignoring the hate today will manifest itself to physical assaults just like it did in the Europe of the 30's the 40"s against those who were deemed rats, cockroaches, diseased,etc. Proof of this is a recent critical letter that was read on air and the host refused to tell the listeners the name of the critic for his fear that a cross would be burned it the yard or a rock through the window by one of his listeners ! He must know his audience ! Same tactics = same results ! I have chosen to "not remain silent" regarding this issue and have exposed many "outsiders" to the "local" atrocities that are the direct result of a community who chose to remain silent while members of it's community were beaten, intimidated, driven to suicide(?),sexually assaulted, & murdered because of their "difference". What struck me most in last nights performance was when the young Nazi Hitler youth recited his pledge several times in the play. The words " Under God " were a part of their (Nazi's) pledge ! Radical Fundamentalism has a strange way of always wrapping itself in "God's Cloth" so that anyone who questions these people become the enemy ! For those "locals" who have chosen "God's Cloth" and have made it their mission in life to abuse people of our community (even in putting together real estate deals!), let this be my public statement that I find it an honor to be labled your "enemy". For the local press, and other very educated people, who have "decided" to not confront this daily barrage of "Hate", I pity you, for you represent a very large layer in what is commonly referred to as the "sin of omission" ! I believe the HPU production of "And Then They Came for Me" was timely and very powerful as the note from the director stated; "This is a powerful story and serves to remind us of what can happen when ideologies overcome humanity."

Steve Harris
Brownwood, Texas

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

Gary Bledsoe of Austin, president of the Texas Conference of the NAACP, places blame for what he says is waning tolerance and anti-political correctness sentiment squarely on the back of talk radio, which he said has made people feel emboldened to express hate.
"If you listen to talk radio, 98 percent of it is hate," Mr. Bledsoe, 51, said. "You drive around listening to it, people are mocking, poking fun, speaking in black dialect trying to be funny. It's almost like inciting a riot."
Mr. Bledsoe says it is clear to him that "people who are hostile to minorities, people who harbor racist views, are able to manipulate others" into believing that they shouldn't feel guilty about using derogatory or insensitive terms.
And Mr. Bledsoe goes further. He even takes issue with the term "political correctness," saying he believes it trivializes the actions and thoughts of those who tried to be more tolerant in their views and dealings with others.
"I don't agree with the term," he says forcefully. "That was a term brought in by the far right. It became political correctness when you're trying to educate people. To sit in a room and not call somebody a nigger, that's just fundamental. It is not political correctness."

source: http://www.dallasnews.com/s/dws/dn/opinion/sundayreader/stories/041104dnsunpc.f17c.html

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

Yeah, I'm not surprised. It's kind of scary on your end of the district.
Things will blow over with Lester though. People will forget about him and
things will be forgiven and forgotten.
On the Bulletin, we've come to expect it. You can't control the press though
and they did cover the story pretty fairly so we should comment them for
that.
Jeff

He and his people are out of touch with reality. They believe that they can
do or say anything in the name of God and it's ok. We ran into it all over
during the campaign. But we know now that it's only a small segment of the
population...About 25% :)
We are going to just let things settle down in Brownwood for a little while.
And then we will kiss and make up.

Jeff, In todays Brownwood Bulletin Editorial it was written that Bill
Lester ran a clean campaign. Am I missing something ? I find his run
for office comparable to the FreePAC'rs and our community has had plenty
of experience with them ( We and Mayor Massey publicly stood up against
their dirty campaigning as well ! ) What are your thoughts ?



fyi - wanted you to have this record of KXYL on air comments.

Subject: should be concerned if you are living/visiting within these
public airwaves

Mikey Wayne - I've got a cure for aids (after spending time discussing
gays and South Africans) it's a M16 Rifle !

Bob Clark - two weeks prior to Sept. 11, 2001 while talking about Gays
and the military looking for a new place to practice bombing (since the
Puerto Rican Island of Vieques was being abandoned due to too much
opposition ) Bob said " Why don't we just bomb San Francisco ? "

Phil Watts ( studio guest Dia Catalani ) after listening to James
Williamsons show, Phil states
" the only good liberal is a dead liberal ". After Paul Wellstone's
death I asked James Williamson (on air) if this was what he meant by
"the only good liberal is a dead liberal". He had a chance to correct
the saying and chose to not do so. James has also made it a point that
"our enemies at home (liberals) are more of a threat to us than our
enemies abroad. " If we are actively trying to kiil our enemies
abroad, what is James inferring we should do to the enemies (Liberals)
at home ? Is it very clear ?

Connie Carmichael on Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ; " I hope that
Mel makes so much money on his film and bulldozes Hollywood down."

Pete Monday on " leveling (bombing the hell out of them) Iraq and
lettting God sort it out ".

KXYL's defining of Liberal ? :
Most all of the media except for Fox news and Newstalk.
anyone pro choice (pro baby killer), pro equal rights, or anybody else
who does not believe exactly like them on religious issues, anyone
"left" of their "Hard-right" position !

I was once a guest (talking about our ad) on Newstalk 969 FM (behind
the mic with Phil Watts & Marion Bishop) and was on the receiving end
of a call from Connie. She said everytime she heard our commercial "if
you don't love your neighbor you don't love God" that she got furious
because she knew that I recorded the show and in her words was "playing
gotcha" and was changing the "rules of the game" (I have no idea what
rules she is referring to and when asked (on air) she could not tell
me !). She also stated that I was working with groups like the ACLU
(which is true- however they would defend their right to free speech !
I'm working with them on other issues like "Hate crimes" etc.) and that
this was the reason for my recording the shows. As usual and as in
this example Connie does not know her facts before she states them on
the air. I purposely did not correct her on her misinformation. It
was not the ACLU who had requested the recordings, I had been asked to
record the shows by the FBI because of the terroristic nature of the
(comments) threats (see above). Also outside media is very interested
in the taped recordings. There is quite a public viewable paper trail already !

So when a candidaate like Bill Lester uses the local airwaves and
constantly labels his opponent (in the same party) as a"Liberal" it
should be no surprise what that means to the listener of KXYL. What I
find very telling is that the "liberal record of Mike Conaway"
disappeared from the front page of Bill Lester's website immediately
after Mr Lester's defeat ! Like the "damage" can be undone with the
click of a button !

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

From:
Date: Thu Aug 05, 2004 10:04:09 AM US/Central
To: Steve Harris and Steve Puckett
Subject: Re: FYI - more hate from Brownwood's KXYL airwaves !
Reply-To:

--- Steve Harris and Steve Puckett wrote:

Yesterday morning around 8:45am while discussing Farenheit 911 coming to
Brownwood/Early, Marian Bishop (morning host) on Newstalk 969FM made the
statement " ya'll don't fire-bomb the theater because this was a
corporate decision and not a local decision ". note: The movie starts
showing here Friday !

On James Williamnson's show yesterday afternoon James began his show
with the Missouri vote rejecting gay marriage. His first caller was so
enraged that he made the comment that gays better not get married in
west texas because " all of us rednecks " will drag them behind trucks.
James just laughed it off and only later after being challenged on his
encitement of violent acts against Gays and Lesbians by Fred (caller
from Hawley) did he back down.

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

"Kerry is the atheist and Bush is the Christian" Does this come from someone who listens to " Hate " radio, Brownwood style ?

Dallas Morning News

For woman, partisan pilfering is a sign of the times

08:52 PM CDT on Saturday, October 2, 2004
By HOLLY YAN / The Dallas Morning News

Zoe Vilicic keeps getting her freedom of speech stolen.

In the last two weeks Mrs. Vilicic, a stay-at-home mom in Far North Dallas, has posted three signs supporting John Kerry and John Edwards in front of her two-story brick home. All three have disappeared.

After the first was snatched, Mrs. Vilicic promptly replaced the sign and added two: "Thou Shalt Not Steal" and "We have a Constitutional right to put up a candidate sign! Please stop stealing."

They didn't work. Someone stole the signs, only to return the homemade signs two days later.

"I thought someone's mother had made them put it back," she said.

Mrs. Vilicic was pleasantly surprised that the thief even replanted the signs in the yard. Then she saw the messages on the backs.

On the back of Mrs. Vilicic's "Thou Shalt Not Steal" sign, the culprit wrote, "No, you got it backwards. Kerry is the atheist and Bush is the Christian."

On the back of the sign Mrs. Vilicic made proclaiming her constitutional rights, the thief wrote, "Kerry supporters have the rights that I allow you to have, and I will allow you the right to put up a sign that says Kerry is a [expletive]."

Her third Kerry-Edwards sign was never returned.

Dallas police have not found the thief, who scribbles in bold green marker. They said it would be difficult to catch the suspect unless he or she is caught returning to Mrs. Vilicic's yard.

"If they didn't agree with my opinions, I'd be happy to invite them in for coffee and a discussion," said Mrs. Vilicic, who recently moved to Texas from Maryland. "Our friends are Republicans, Democrats, libertarians and Greens."

Mrs. Vilicic remains undaunted. On Friday, she planted her fourth Kerry-Edwards sign inside her roundabout driveway – next to her freshly spray-painted "Thou Shalt Not Steal" sign.

E-mail hyan@dallasnews.com

source: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/
politics/local/stories/100304dnmetsigns.2c035.html

Heard on Brownwood's KXYL ( "Hate Radio" )

Dear Editor,

I just heard Mr Neugebauer’s radio ad on Brownwood Talk Radio and am appalled, not surprised, at the tactics he has employed in attacking his opponent Charlie Stenholm. So Mr Neugebauer. let me get this “straight”, you want Central Texans to believe that Mr Stenholm approves of Flag Burning, Removing “Under God” from the Pledge, and is in support of “Gay Marriage”. We’ve seen these same tactics used before in Central Texas. Here’s what former Texas Lt Governor Bill Ratliff (Republican), and many others, have said regarding these tactics:

" This type of hate mongering is reminiscent of the Nazis; this type of hate mongering is reminiscent of the Ku Klux Klan; this type of hate mongering is typical of the skinheads; this type of hate mongering is now being practiced by the al Qaeda and the Taliban."

Republican Texas Lt Governor Bill Ratliff
Source: The Austin Chronicle March 15, 2002

“ One of them has engaged in a mailing campaign sending brochures that contain nothing but untruths about Jim Keffer’s record of service.”
On “Freedom Pac” : “ That organization’s statements about Jim Keffer are untrue, a distortion of his record, and are the most vicious statements in any political campaign that I have ever seen. Jim’s two opponents should have publicly repudiated” Freedom Pac “

Brownwood Mayor Bert Massey
source: Brownwood Bulletin - Sunday March 10, 2002 (pg. 8a)

Dallas Morning News Editorial
DESPICABLE
“ The Free Enterprise Political action committee’s attempt to smear some Texas Republicans for supporting a needed hate crimes law deserves the come-uppiance it received from acting Lt Gov. Bill Ratliff and 22 Senators. The Free-pac mailer took Texas politics to a new low. ”

Source: DMN Saturday, March 09, 2002

Mr Neugebauer, I agree with Don Parker (Interfaith Alliance) who commented on these style of political tactics: " What they are doing is despicable. They are playing on people's fears and emotions."

Steve Harris
Brownwood, Texas

Wonder what the Cheney's would think of Brownwood and KXYL's James Williamson's Daily Gay Bashing ?

The Cheneys = Hypocrisy personified
Posted by beaconess
Added to homepage Fri Oct 15th 2004, 09:00 AM ET

Pat Robertson: Blames Mary Cheney, by extension, of responsibility for 9/11 terrorist attacks. "I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America--I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen."(September 2001)

Lynn and Dick Cheney's response: Silence

Rick Santorum: Accuses Mary Cheney, by definition, of immorality comparable to polygamy, adultery and incest. "If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual (gay) sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything." (April 2003)

Lynn and Dick Cheney's response: Silence

Alan Keyes: Specifically accuses Mary Cheney, by name, of being a "selfish hedonist." (August 2004)

Lynn and Dick Cheney's response: Silence

John Kerry: Sympathetically and eloquently explains that the Cheney's gay daughter is "she's being who she was. She's being who she was born as."

Lynn and Dick Cheney's response: THIS IS NOT A GOOD MAN!!!! WHAT A CHEAP AND TAWDRY POLITICAL TRICK!!! YOU SAW A MAN WHO WILL DO AND SAY ANYTHING TO GET ELECTED!!!
-------------------------------------------------

Cheneys blast Kerry’s remarks on daughter
Democrat invoked Mary Cheney’s sexuality in final debate
The Associated Press
Updated: 8:23 p.m. ET Oct. 14, 2004

FORT MYERS, Fla. - Vice President Dick Cheney called himself “a pretty angry father” on Thursday after Sen. John Kerry mentioned their gay daughter during the final presidential debate — comments Kerry said were meant to be positive about families with gay children.

advertisementThe vice president’s wife, Lynne Cheney, called Kerry “not a good man” and his remarks about daughter Mary Cheney “a cheap and tawdry political trick.” Meanwhile, Elizabeth Edwards, the wife of vice presidential candidate John Edwards, suggested in a radio interview that Mrs. Cheney might feel “a certain degree of shame” because her daughter is a lesbian.

Mary Cheney, one of two Cheney daughters, is openly gay and an official in the Bush-Cheney campaign. The vice president has spoken at length about his daughter’s sexuality and his view of gay relationships, even disagreeing with the president about the need for a constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex marriages.

Kerry addresses choice issue
Asked Wednesday night by debate moderator Bob Schieffer whether homosexuality is a choice, Kerry said: “We’re all God’s children, Bob, and I think if you were to talk to Dick Cheney’s daughter, who is a lesbian, she would tell you that she’s being who she was. She’s being who she was born as. I think if you talk to anybody, it’s not a choice.”

Kerry issued a statement Thursday after the Cheneys had expressed anger over his remarks: “I love my daughters. They love their daughter. I was trying to say something positive about the way strong families deal with this issue.”

Cheney told supporters at a rally Thursday in Fort Myers, “You saw a man who will do and say anything to get elected, and I am not just speaking as a father here, although I am a pretty angry father.” He made no other reference to Kerry’s remarks about his daughter.

‘This is not a good man’
Mrs. Cheney, introducing her husband in a post-debate appearance Wednesday night in Coraopolis, Pa., also avoided a specific reference to her daughter’s sexuality when she made clear she thought Kerry had crossed a line into family privacy.

“Now, you know, I did have a chance to assess John Kerry once more and now the only thing I could conclude: This is not a good man,” Mrs. Cheney said. “Of course, I am speaking as a mom, and a pretty indignant mom. This is not a good man. What a cheap and tawdry political trick.”

In an interview Thursday with ABC Radio, Elizabeth Edwards said of Mrs. Cheney: “She’s overreacted to this and treated it as if it’s shameful to have this discussion. I think that’s a very sad state of affairs. ... I think that it indicates a certain degree of shame with respect to her daughter’s sexual preferences. ... It makes me really sad that that’s Lynne’s response.”

No Cheney objection in earlier debate
Cheney expressed no objection when Edwards brought up Mary Cheney during their debate. Edwards expressed “respect for the fact that they’re willing to talk about the fact that they have a gay daughter, the fact that they embrace her. It’s a wonderful thing.”

Cheney thanked his opponent for the “kind words he said about my family and our daughter. I appreciate that very much.”

Bush said in their debate he does not know whether homosexuality is a choice or fate. He and Kerry spoke of their belief that marriage is the union of man and woman, but the president supports a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and the Democrat does not. Kerry supports giving gay couples many of the civil rights that come with marriage, while stopping short of conferring that status on same-sex couples.

In an interview in the Oct. 26 issue of the gay magazine The Advocate, Kerry said gay Americans should support his candidacy because he will appoint Supreme Court justices who will fight for equality and a fair interpretation of the equal protection clause and due process. He said he pays a political price for opposing attempts at “gay bashing” in the Senate.


“The difference between me and George Bush will be the difference to gay and lesbian couples and individuals across this country — whether rights are afforded them or whether or not they are discriminated against,” Kerry said. He added, “If people take a walk on those things, life’s going to be worse.”
© 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

source: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6245927/