Steve's Soapbox

Thursday, March 31, 2005

KXYL's James Williamson is Abominable ? Play the Game !

Holding up a mirror to James Williamson's " Light " !
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KXYL Talk show host, Brown County Republican Spokesman, and Southern Baptist James Williamson says:

" The ACLU was founded by a card carrying Communist. They are abominable "
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I say:

" The Southern Baptist Convention (Church) was founded on the support of Slavery using Ephesians 6:5. Using James Williamsons logic, Southern Baptists' are abominable ? "
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  • ACLU & The NRA: What James is afraid you'll see......
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    Play the "Think Like James" ACLU Game....... Replace ACLU below with the word Communists.....

    ACLU Defends College Republicans
    “It is a truism, but one worth repeating, that the cure for ‘bad’ speech is not its censorship, but instead the exercise of ‘good’ speech by others.”
    http://www.riaclu.org/02272004.html

    ACLU, Republicans, & Libertarians
    "I'm as convinced as ever now that the greatest threat to our liberty is not the welfare state, the tax code, or Social Security -- though those are all valid concerns. The greatest threat, I think, is directed at our civil liberties, and comes under the guise of national security."
    http://www.patriotist.com/jaarch/ja20030623.htm

    Jerry Falwell Supported by ACLU
    In Win for Rev. Falwell (and the ACLU), Judge Rules VA Must Allow Churches to Incorporate
    April 17, 2002
    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
    RICHMOND, VA--A federal judge has struck down a provision of the Virginia Constitution that bans religious organizations from incorporating, in a challenge filed by the Rev. Jerry Falwell and joined by the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia, the group announced today. 
    http://www.aclu.org/ReligiousLiberty/ReligiousLiberty.cfm?ID=10147&c=142

    ACLU and Christians helped to right the injustice in Tulia !
    Tulia, Too Late
    “ That probe began in October 2000 in response to requests from the Texas ACLU and NAACP -- who also called for a halt in federal funding to the Panhandle Task Force, one of several such narcotics operations in Texas. ”
    http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/dispatch/2002-09-06/pols_feature3.html
    Tulia injustice.....
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  • Brownwood: Beware the Wolf !

    Wolf in Sheeps Clothing ? Who’s in bed with the Wolf ? Neo-Conservative Media Owners: Are they Wolves ?
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  • -----------
    and while KXYL's Neo-con Connie Carmichael and Brown County Republican Spokesman and KXYL Host James Williamson bash the ACLU, this is what is going on with their fellow neo-cons in Washington......
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  • Wednesday, March 30, 2005

    Kinky, Gene, Shannon & The Brownwood Steves

    Is Brownwood Native, and World Famous Restauranteur, Gene Street missing the
    Friedman Express ?

    Alan Peppard :
    Flying into action
    11:53 PM CST on Tuesday, March 29, 2005
    Like a train going off a cliff, the Kinky Friedman for governor campaign is gaining an irreversible momentum. The latest celebutante to jump on the Friedman Express is Dallas restaurateur Shannon Wynne , scion of the Texas family that gave us American Liberty Oil, Six Flags Over Texas and the Gardere Wynne law firm.
    Shannon has spent most of his life as a Yellow Dog Democrat, raising the middle-finger salute of friendship at his right-wing Park Cities neighbors by filling his yard with Democratic campaign signs.
    But not for this next election. "I have established the Flying Saucer [his watering hole on Montfort in Addison] as an official site for helping Kinky raise mucho dinero," says Shannon. "Our first event at the Flying Saucer will be on May 25. The next day, we'll have one at the Flying Fish [his Preston Center seafood restaurant] in the heart of the Park Cities." For both occasions, he is introducing a new beer glass that reads, "Get Kinky in the Mansion."
    Like everything about this campaign, Shannon's involvement begs the inevitable question: Are you serious?
    "I think this started off as a joke but has gotten very real," Shannon says. "How often do you get the opportunity to work for a guy who wants to relax political correctness?"
    Shannon is approaching this endeavor with the same fervor he normally reserves for sticking it to his lifelong nemesis, fellow restaurateur Gene Street.
    "This will be the most fun I've had since spiking Gene's wedding cake," says Shannon.

    http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/fea/entertainment/columnists/all/stories/033005dnovepeppard.140fd.html
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  • She knows of what she speaks !

    Ann Coulter causes stir at KU
    Heckling, standing ovations interrupt right-wing commentator
    By Mike Belt, Journal-World
    Wednesday, March 30, 2005

    "I've come to find I like liberals a lot more," Coulter said early in her speech. "They're kind of cute when they're cold, shivering and afraid."

    http://www.ljworld.com/story200443.html

    Frigid ? She would know !

    Brownwood: "Fox Blocker" and " Big Eddie Blocker"

    March 26, 2005 by the Associated Press
    Man Sells Device That Blocks Fox News
    by Emily Fredrix
    TULSA, OK - It's not that Sam Kimery objects to the views expressed on Fox News. The creator of the "Fox Blocker" contends the channel is not news at all. Kimery figures he's sold about 100 of the little silver bits of metal that screw into the back of most televisions, allowing people to filter Fox News from their sets, since its August debut.
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    March 28, 2005 by SM&D Blogger

    Brownwood Man Offers Device that is “Free, Fair and Balanced & Fun ” ! Who's blocking Big Ed ?
    by Steve Harris

    Brownwood, TX - Due to Brownwood’s Propoganda Minister unwillingness to offer you “Fair and Balanced” community talk radio, Steves’ Market and Deli will be offering 12 lucky Brownwoodians free XM Satellite Radio with over 150 stations that include “Fair and Balanced” Talk Radio, Music, News & Entertainment.

    Please register in person at Steves’ Market and Deli / 110 East Chandler / Brownwood, Texas. Complete rules posted at Steves’. Registration begins April 4, 2005. "We don't believe in blocking, we belive in offering" !
    XM Radio
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  • Big Ed
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  • Tuesday, March 29, 2005

    KXYL's James Williamson (Brown County Republican Spokesman) Broadcasting Live from Jerusalem ?

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  • Breaking News

    Mar 29, 7:26 PM EST
    Falwell Again Battling Viral Pneumonia
    By BOB LOWRY
    Associated Press Writer
    LYNCHBURG, Va. (AP) -- The Rev. Jerry Falwell was hospitalized in critical condition Tuesday, battling his second case of viral pneumonia in just five weeks, hospital and church officials said.
    Falwell, 71, was admitted to Lynchburg General Hospital shortly before midnight Monday suffering from "respiratory arrest," the hospital said in a statement, meaning his breathing had slowed or stopped.
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    Our thoughts and prayers are with Jerry and his loved ones.

    Applicable to the Brownwood Talk Radio Discussion

    Living will is the best revenge
    By ROBERT FRIEDMAN, Perspective Editor
    Published March 27, 2005
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Like many of you, I have been compelled by recent events to prepare a more detailed advance directive dealing with end-of-life issues. Here's what mine says:
    * In the event I lapse into a persistent vegetative state, I want medical authorities to resort to extraordinary means to prolong my hellish semiexistence. Fifteen years wouldn't be long enough for me.
    * I want my wife and my parents to compound their misery by engaging in a bitter and protracted feud that depletes their emotions and their bank accounts.
    * I want my wife to ruin the rest of her life by maintaining an interminable vigil at my bedside. I'd be really jealous if she waited less than a decade to start dating again or otherwise rebuilding a semblance of a normal life.
    * I want my case to be turned into a circus by losers and crackpots from around the country who hope to bring meaning to their empty lives by investing the same transient emotion in me that they once reserved for Laci Peterson, Chandra Levy and that little girl who got stuck in a well.
    * I want those crackpots to spread vicious lies about my wife.
    * I want to be placed in a hospice where protesters can gather to bring further grief and disruption to the lives of dozens of dying patients and families whose stories are sadder than my own.
    * I want the people who attach themselves to my case because of their deep devotion to the sanctity of life to make death threats against any judges, elected officials or health care professionals who disagree with them.
    * I want the medical geniuses and philosopher kings who populate the Florida Legislature to ignore me for more than a decade and then turn my case into a forum for weeks of politically calculated bloviation.
    * I want total strangers - oily politicians, maudlin news anchors, ersatz friars and all other hangers-on - to start calling me "Bobby," as if they had known me since childhood.
    * I'm not insisting on this as part of my directive, but it would be nice if Congress passed a "Bobby's Law" that applied only to me and ignored the medical needs of tens of millions of other Americans without adequate health coverage.
    * Even if the "Bobby's Law" idea doesn't work out, I want Congress - especially all those self-described conservatives who claim to believe in "less government and more freedom" - to trample on the decisions of doctors, judges and other experts who actually know something about my case. And I want members of Congress to launch into an extended debate that gives them another excuse to avoid pesky issues such as national security and the economy.
    * In particular, I want House Majority Leader Tom DeLay to use my case as an opportunity to divert the country's attention from the mounting political and legal troubles stemming from his slimy misbehavior.
    * And I want Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist to make a mockery of his Harvard medical degree by misrepresenting the details of my case in ways that might give a boost to his 2008 presidential campaign.
    * I want Frist and the rest of the world to judge my medical condition on the basis of a snippet of dated and demeaning videotape that should have remained private.
    * Because I think I would retain my sense of humor even in a persistent vegetative state, I'd want President Bush - the same guy who publicly mocked Karla Faye Tucker when signing off on her death warrant as governor of Texas - to claim he was intervening in my case because it is always best "to err on the side of life."
    * I want the state Department of Children and Families to step in at the last moment to take responsibility for my well-being, because nothing bad could ever happen to anyone under DCF's care.
    * And because Gov. Jeb Bush is the smartest and most righteous human being on the face of the Earth, I want any and all of the aforementioned directives to be disregarded if the governor happens to disagree with them. If he says he knows what's best for me, I won't be in any position to argue.
    Robert Friedman is editor of Perspective. He can be reached at friedman@sptimes.com
    http://www.sptimes.com/2005/03/27/Columns/Living_will_is_the_be.shtml

    Brownwood Civility & Respect ?

    Oh, now we need civility
    Re: "A Little Respect, Please – When debate gets this ugly, democracy suffers," Friday Editorials. (read editorial below)
    It is telling that when every poll shows Republicans way out of the mainstream on issues like Social Security and Terri Schiavo – and GOP leaders like Tom DeLay, Bill Frist and President Bush are finally seen for the extremists they are – The Dallas Morning News feels the need to ask for respect and civility in public discourse.
    I don't remember The News bemoaning the lack of respect and civility when the Republicans impeached a twice-elected president for lying about sex or when Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn called for the execution of doctors who perform abortions.
    What's the matter, afraid the right can't take it?
    Ferris Whitney, Dallas
    http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/letters/stories/032905dnedilet.9abd4.html
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    A Little Respect, Please: When debate gets this ugly, democracy suffers
    10:08 PM CST on Thursday, March 24, 2005
    A situation as emotionally charged as the Terri Schiavo saga can be expected to bring out the very worst in people. But some of the public commentary – a sliver of which we present here – has been simply jaw-dropping in its self-righteousness, viciousness and vulgarity. What we're seeing in the Schiavo tragedy, as in so many other instances of public controversy, is a repugnant practice becoming all too common in our (un)civil life: the strident assertion that the other side is not only wrong, but evil.
    "This is a struggle of good and evil. And we are the good," Democratic Party chairman Howard Dean told a rally of the faithful earlier this year. Republicans say the same thing all the time. When you convince yourself that you and your tribe are avatars of moral rectitude, you quit checking your own behavior and your own arguments. Critics do not have to be taken seriously, for they are Evil. Thus do we arrive at the perfectly ridiculous moment when a besieged Republican politician rages against – wait for it – a Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy.
    We Americans are losing the habit of the mind and heart required to make pluralist democracy work: namely, the conviction that the other guy, however mistaken, is to be taken as a worthy opponent until proved otherwise. A politics that binds people together by evoking hatred of the Other amounts to a cheap, rancid populism, one ripe for exploitation by demagogues. Where are the prominent figures of the left and the right who have the decency, the foresight and, dare we say, the patriotism, to say, "Enough!"?
    “One thing that God has brought to us is Terri Schiavo, to help elevate the visibility of what is going on in America. … This is exactly the issue that is going on in America, of attacks against the conservative movement, against me and against many others.”
    House Majority leader Tom DeLay, March 18
    “Terri Schiavo lives so that others, notably [Senate Majority leader Bill] Frist, can run for higher office.”
    Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen, March 22
    “Stalinism at the N.Y. Times and Washington Post: Leftist editors call for Terri Schiavo’s murder”
    Headline on conservative Web site MichNews.com
    “I think [Terri Schiavo’s parents] want to keep her around as an animated meat-sack to assuage their guilt and their grief at her loss.”
    Anonymous blogger on DemocraticUnderground.com
    http://www.dallasnews.com/s/dws/dn/opinion/editorials/stories/032505dnedicivility.a8c40.html

    Monday, March 28, 2005

    Brownwood History, Texas Downtown Association & GSD&M

    Confronting "Brutal Facts" Takes Faith and a very strong love for your Hometown to become a hospitable place for "everyone" !

    Often, Negative Press Coverage is the Catalyst for Positive Advertising Campaigns. Discussing the facts, some very brutal, of the time frame leading up to the creation of a marketing campaign “Feels Like Home” is important to some and could help other communities deal with “attitudes” they may encounter when they challenge elected community leaders and the “system” that makes up the local “status quo” !
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    Advertising group talks marketing in Brownwood
    By Celinda Emison / Reporter-News Staff Writer
    April 2, 2005
    BROWNWOOD - It took a lot of work, but the development of the Brownwood Reunion Celebration served as a catalyst for change and created pride in the city, two employees of an Austin advertising firm said.
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    “Both said cities should find a purpose and confront the brutal facts about their towns, but never to lose faith”
    http://www.reporter-news.com/abil/nw_business/article/0,1874,ABIL_7948_3669216,00.html
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    Brownwood History......
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  • Brownwood Coffee Talk

    Coffee Talk
    Local shop offers forum for lectures on various topics
    By Brian Bethel / Reporter-News Staff Writer
    March 28, 2005
    Standing in front of a small group of listeners, Dr. Philip LeMasters describes how Eastern Orthodox Christianity sees the world we all inhabit - a place of wonder, beauty and mystery, where all of creation is inherently sacred.
    The message is uplifting, but LeMasters isn't in a cathedral. He's in a coffee shop.
    After his talk, which dealt specifically with the sacredness of the earth as viewed through an Orthodox Christian lens, LeMasters expressed gratitude for the forum - the Bean Counter, 3301 S. 14th St.
    ''I think it's great that they're offering a place where people can come share what they know in a public forum,'' he said. ''I think it's a great opportunity for people who want to come learn and share their views on a variety of topics.''
    http://www.reporter-news.com/abil/et_events/article/0,1874,ABIL_11416_3655276,00.html
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    Steves’ & Brownwood Coffee Talk

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  • President Bush Poll

    Bush’s approval rating is at the lowest of his presidency. Why ?

    Bush is “Doing the work of god”
    Even republicans are tired of seeing big business get special treatment
    Takes too long to respond to major events like the school shootings and the tsunami
    He imposes democracy on unwilling nations
    Plays politics too much on things like the Schiavo case
    It’s a vast left wing conspiracy perpetrated by liberal talk radio.

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  • Terri Schiavo, Political (R's & D's) Opportunists & Religious Hucksters

    BuzzFlash Editorial
    March 28, 2005
    Terri Schiavo Was Just An Innocent Bystander To A Political, Elmer Gantry Circus Of GOP Political Opportunists And Religious Hucksters
    A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL
    Terri Schiavo deserves our sympathy and our Godspeed.
    She was just an innocent bystander to a political, Elmer Gantry circus of GOP political opportunists and religious hucksters.
    The origins of the travesty and moral crime of exploitation was a family feud of sorts. It was about a wrenching decision made thousands of times a year by Americans about loved ones who are in vegetative states or terminal conditions.
    But with the help of the infamous Randall Terry and the GOP hypocrisy machine, a case long ago settled by the courts, was hijacked to advance Republican fortunes and fill the pocket books of celebrity fundamentalist preachers.
    Terri Schiavo, like anyone in her situation, deserves our sympathy and our empathy. She didn't ask for a three ring circus, but the Bush brothers and Tom "the Exterminator DeLay" could care less about her dignity or her life. She's only of use to them if her parents' campaign can help them further consolidate power -- or, in the case of DeLay, cling onto it amidst a rash of ethical and legal problems.
    We are always a bit baffled when the mainstream media and centrist Democrats "concede" that the Republicans have some sort of monopoly on the "values issue." The only value that the GOP leadership seems to consistently embrace is hypocrisy. Virtually, everything else is brazen showboating by hardened sinners and liars, immoral opportunists and slick river boat gamblers playing the role of saintly pious men.
    Take Tom DeLay as the Los Angeles Times did this week -- and as BuzzFlash has over the past five years. DeLay decried judges and anyone who would remove a feeding tube from Terri Schiavo as barbaric (even though it is done in such cases thousands of times a year). And that was just the beginning of his self-righteous fire and brimstone invective.
    But it turns out that Tom "Hypocrisy Central" DeLay approved of removing life support from his father some years back. And, as for DeLay casting judgment on Michael Schiavo (who sat at his wife's bedside for years), Tom hasn't, according to the Washington Post, talked to his mother or siblings for years. He didn't even invite his mother to his daughter's wedding. If there is anyone who DOESN'T practice family values, it's Tom DeLay.
    And then you have the Bush brothers. George W. Bush, who couldn't be bothered to interrupt his 2001 Crawford Ranch photo-op vacation to try and prevent 9/11 after receiving red alert warnings, flew back from Crawford to sign an unprecedented violation of the separation of powers law that would move the Schiavo case to the Federal Courts. The rather glaring hypocrisy here was that George W. Bush had signed a radically different kind of law while Governor of Texas, one that not only declared the spouse the person to decide (along with the doctor) if life support should be removed; he also allowed an option for doctors to remove life support from patients whose families did not have the means to pay for their care! Now, that's some hypocrisy!
    And of course, Bush loved it when he set the record for executing people in Texas, killing more than 100,000 Iraqis, avoiding funerals of the 1500 plus GIs killed in Iraq, reducing health services to Veterans, and cutting Medicaid, among other deathly actions. But save one clinically brain dead woman and Bush is a hero to the people who are only for life for "saved" white Christians and unborn fetuses. Everyone else can pretty much rot in Hell. Heck, an infant was allowed to die in a Texas hospital under Bush's Lone Star State law -- against his mother's wishes -- while the Schiavo case was gaining full steam among the Republicans. Pook kid, if God wanted to save him, he would have been born a White Christian!
    As for Jeb, his not so discreet angling for the 2008 presidential nomination, led him to send law enforcement officials to seize Terry Schiavo, according to the Miami Herald. Fortunately for the rule of law, the local police turned Jeb's troops away since they were violating a judge's court order. The next day Jeb denied the whole thing, even though the Miami Herald claimed three sources. Oh, and why is so Jeb interested in keeping a woman in a 15-year vegetative state from being at peace with her maker when he has decimated his state's Medicaid budget that helps keep kids and seniors alive and run a scandal-ridden department of children and family services? It's the Bush hypocrisy stupid.
    Of course, heart surgeon Dr. Bill Frist once fessed up to rounding up stray cats during his medical school days, euthanizing them, and then practicing dissection on them. That was just the beginning of strange medical practices for Dr. Frist. He was able to diagnose, he claims, Terry Schiavo's condition from a videotape, even though the doctor appointed by Jeb Bush and all her attending doctors disagree with his rosy prognosis. It wouldn't be that Dr. Frist was looking to tie up the support of the loony wing of the religious right as he seeks the presidency in 2008, would it? Guess, if he wins, we won't have cats running loose around the White House.
    And of course, unknown to most of the public, the Schiavo parents were being assisted by an army of PR luminaries from the so-called pro-life fanatics, including the infamous Randall Terry. A group of friars from Minnesota became one of the main visual images of the Schiavo parents' "religiosity." But, strangely enough, one of the friars admitted that they "pulled the plug" on the founder of their small group when he became seriously ill. Brother John Kaspari told the Tampa Bay Tribune, "He would have required intubation to keep him alive," Kaspari said. "We chose not to go that route. His lungs were full of fluid."
    Are any of these religious right fanatics NOT hypocrites? Are they clinically delusional? Are they dangerous?
    Perhaps, all of the above.
    Judge Greer, who allowed the removal of Terri Schiavo's feeding tube, has received death threats and is under armed guard, even though he is a loyal Republican and observant Baptist. "Kill for Life," we guess. Just like the anti-choice terrorists who claim they are preserving the sanctity of life by killing doctors who perform abortion.
    In a farcical side note on "the shooters for life" contingent of the GOP, one man was arrested after trying to hold up a gun store with a box cutter. He wanted a gun to shoot his way into "rescuing" Terri Schiavo. The gun store owner, with plenty of guns to spare, pointed a handgun at "Terri's savior" and told the guy to lie down like a good puppy.
    We are a nation gone mad, aren't we?
    After all, the man who pulled the plug on democracy in 2000, Antonin Scalia, is running around the country campaigning to be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Even many Democrats praise his alleged "brilliance."
    But we aren't impressed. First of all, he stole the presidency for George W. Bush. That's the work of a thug, not a genius.
    Second of all, he thinks America lives under divine law. If so, he should be a Priest or legal counsel at his beloved Opus Dei, not a Supreme Court Chief Justice. This country is a democracy not a church.
    Finally, he recently told a synagogue audience that Jews would be safer under a Christian nation. Uh, Antonin, didn't Hitler build up the Nazi era in Germany in the name of Christ? Just a lesson to you, Nino, the Jews didn't fare too well in that Christian nation. God, the guy ought to read a history book, instead of "Rapture."
    And people think this guy is bright.
    He's just another muscle guy for the GOP.
    Terry Schiavo, you deserved better.
    But when you have a nation run by a party whose ONLY real value is hypocrisy in pursuit of the maintenance of power, that's the Barnum and Bailey environment you get.
    No one blames you for a thing. We just wish you final peace.
    It's the rest of us who are daily at risk from this freak sideshow run amuck, with the carnival barkers operating out of the White House.

    A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL

    http://www.buzzflash.com/editorial/05/03/edi05039.html

    Sunday, March 27, 2005

    Brownwood, the Meth Beltbuckle of the State of Texas ?

    East Texas in the grip of meth
    Henderson County has trained its sights on drug plague, but there's been no end to the devastation
    09:41 PM CST on Saturday, March 26, 2005
    By LEE HANCOCK / The Dallas Morning News
    ATHENS, Texas – Meth horror stories are all too easy to find in Henderson County.
    At the hospital, emergency room doctor Dan Bywaters is haunted by the abandoned toddler who vomited uncontrollably after eating methamphetamine.
    At the jail, Sheriff J.R. "Ronny" Brownlow has scabby prisoners tell him to his face that they'll go back on meth the day they go free.
    At the court building, state district Judge Carter Tarrance jokes about running a full-time meth court.
    At Cedar Creek Lake, army retiree Al Gusner tells war stories about twitchy neighbors who rammed his car and held a knife to his throat for trying to chase meth users and labs from his neighborhood.
    The drug known as "white-trash crack" has stalked the back roads of Henderson County, fueling child abuse, violence and misery for the last four years.
    "Epidemic is almost not strong enough a word, because it doesn't go away," said Dr. Bywaters, the ER medical director at East Texas Medical Center-Athens, the county's only hospital. "It's hard to believe the scope of the problem, to be honest."
    The problem is hardly isolated to Henderson County.
    The drug is so easy to make, and so many labs have been discovered across the northern half of Texas since 2000, that the area stretching from the Panhandle, through Dallas, to the Louisiana-Arkansas line has become the state's meth belt.
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  • http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/032705dntexmeth.a924a.html

    Drug cuts ugly swath across state
    09:41 PM CST on Saturday, March 26, 2005
    By LEE HANCOCK / The Dallas Morning News
    A look at just a fraction of the human toll caused by Texas' meth problem:
    Small-town police surprised no one's been killed
    COMANCHE – Meth's alarming effect on this West Texas farm town: two officers shot in "rolling gun battles" just in the last six months.
    A parole violator and drug user tried to shoot a Comanche police officer with a 12-gauge shotgun earlier this month, then wounded a sheriff's deputy, Mitchell Best, in the left shoulder with buckshot after police responded to a domestic disturbance.
    The gun battle spilled onto the streets and ended only after Albert Fred Marino, 33, ran out of ammunition. Police found meth in his pockets, said Comanche Police Chief Ron Moe.
    Last September, a different wanted felon and drug user tried to pistol whip a city officer and then blasted another city officer and a sheriff's deputy with a stolen shotgun, the chief said. That suspect, Michael Scott Townsend, 41, ran from house to house trying to escape police and didn't realize he'd been shot in the buttocks until officers managed to wrestle him to the ground.
    Mr. Townsend warned police that he had a needle in his pocket. Officers found a syringe with liquid meth.
    Chief Moe said the incidents are only the most extreme indicators of the drug's encroachment into his town of 4,482 and surrounding Comanche County, where dairy farms provide easy access to anhydrous ammonia used in illicit meth labs.
    "I'm surprised we haven't had somebody killed before now," he said.

    http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/texassouthwest/stories/032705dntexmethvignettes.a931b.html
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    Brownwood Meth.....
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  • Saturday, March 26, 2005

    Adam and Steve ?

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  • KXYL's Connie Carmichael says follow the money. Does that include the Terri Schiavo case ?

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  • Bullying, Denial, Football and Texas Towns Image

    Hazing allegations put team to shame
    S. Texas prep players charged in sexual assaults on freshmen
    08:53 PM CST on Friday, March 25, 2005
    By TRACEY EATON / The Dallas Morning News
    DONNA, Texas – Back when men wore crew cuts and the Twist was the latest dance craze, an unheralded high school football team won the state championship, putting this small, struggling South Texas town on the map.
    More than four decades later, the Donna Redskins have again drawn the spotlight, but this time, townspeople are shaken and embarrassed.
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  • Candy crosses big sellers (In Brownwood ?)

    Business
    By Matt Sedensky | Associated Press Writer
    Kansas City, Mo. |

    A symbol of Christianity that sits atop church steeples, dangles from necks and hangs on walls is being worshipped in a new way - in the mouths of the faithful.
    A mass-produced chocolate cross is being sold this Easter by Russell Stover Candies Inc. in about 5,000 stores nationwide.
    Chocolate crosses have long been available. But chocolate expert Clay Gordon said Russell Stover's chocolate cross under its Pangburn's brand appears to be the first by a major American company.
    "Obviously they've seen that there's a market for chocolate crosses at Easter," said Lisbeth Echeandia, a consultant for Candy Inform-ation Service, which monitors candy industry trends. "I don't see it growing tremendously but I think there would be growth in the Christian market."

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  • * " Diversity is Perversity "

    ( * A quote from Brownwood Republican Party Spokesperson, KXYL Radio Talk Show Host, and self-professed Christian James Williamson )

    Obviously we have a differing opinion on the subject of diversity. We support diversity in the workplace and also support the Texas Diversity Council.
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  • Brownwood & Religious Zealots: " A Bad Thing" !

    “ Being a religious zealot is apparently a bad thing.”

    Brownwood Bulletin Reporter and Columinist Steve Nash
    http://www.brownwoodbulletin.com/articles/2005/03/25/op_ed/columnist/opinion05.txt

    Note: I do not believe that the majority of those who want Terri's feeding tube reinserted are Religious Zealots but I do believe the RZ's have hijacked the debate and are using Terri to further their other motives (see Randall Terry as example and many Politicians !) I believe this is a very difficult issue and offer prayers for all involved.

    Religious Zealot Examples:

    Salem Witch Trials
    Justified Slavery using God’s Word (see Southern Baptist Convention apology- a little late ! )
    Refusal to allow women right to vote using God’s word
    Refusal of recognizing interracial marriages using God’s word
    Refusal of recognizing & supporting of 1964 Civil Rights Act using God’s Word
    Refusal of treating every American equally, justly and fairly using God’s Word.

    Religious Zealots have always used God’s word (via Laws) to impose their belief onto others. Abusing God’s words to abuse God’s people has a rich history in our country and our community.
    -----------------------
    The quality of zealotry: Those who believe they hold all the answers make the most mischief
    Saturday, December 13, 2003

    The mind of a religious zealot is essentially the mind of a voluntary slave. Whether it be a Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Jewish or a generic zealot, the definition still holds. This is a mind absolutely frozen in its own rectitude, consistently incapable of self criticism, invariably unwilling or unable to believe it could possibly be wrong, and eventually driven to translate its creeds into the kind of action that cannot tolerate disagreement. Indeed, by surrendering totally to the belief or ideology of its choice, it cannot even entertain the possible existence of doubt. Such unquestioning obedience is the very essence of spiritual and intellectual slavery.
    Any serious student of history -- particularly the history of religions -- knows that zealotry has regrettably always co-existed with true religious belief. From Savonarola to Torquemada to Oliver Cromwell and his roundheads to Cotton Mather to John Brown to Billy Sunday to the hashashim to the Irgun Zwei to the current televangelicals and their political counterparts, zealots in their flaming righteousness have been there to pervert the true end of all religions. That common end is to reconcile man with God.
    The zealot has no such goal. Using religion as his justification, the zealot believes that he is called to impose his beliefs upon others, which is another way of saying that he thinks he is called to impose his will on others (by force if necessary). From the point of view of the zealot, you are either with him or against him. Those who are with him are often blinded by their own trust in their leader to the consequences of their commitment, as were the followers of Jim Jones in Latin America, Charles Manson in California and David Koresh in Texas. Dissent is not an option, and those who are not glassy-eyed disciples (as was Manson's harem) are brought into line by any means available, i.e., threats, persecution, punishment, isolation, cajolery, torture, deceit or blackmail.
    It should be clearly understood that religion and zealotry are never compatible. If religion is understood as the way in which believers profess their faith and if faith is the bridge between creature and creator, zealotry has no place in this relationship -- in theory or in fact. The zealot, however, often uses (or abuses) religion to justify (usually in advance and occasionally afterward) whatever agenda he chooses to pursue.
    And because the zealot believes he is always right (or called or chosen), he frequently assumes he's been anointed to be one of mankind's protectors. One of his standard lines is to declare that God has commanded him to do what he does as if he and God are on intimate speaking terms whenever the zealot chooses to initiate the conversation.
    The spirituality of the belief of the truly religious is not marked by such assurance. If one reads the writings or biographies of the most renowned and devout people who have ever lived, one notes a definite hesitancy on their parts to profess or even acknowledge their own virtue. On the contrary, what is noteworthy is their sense of their own unworthiness.
    History shows that the activities of zealots, when limited by time and geography, have not much of a reputation for longevity. The meek and not the brazen eventually do inherit the earth. It's only when religious fervor and political power mix that real social dangers emerge. Error is never admitted. Indeed, errors are often repeated with even greater emphasis, confirming Norman Mailer's observation that the first rule of dictators obliges them to reinforce their mistakes.
    Having embraced unilateralism as a right conferred on it by the fact that the United States is the world's only superpower, the Bush administration exhibits many of the qualities of zealotry. Because of its belief in its inherent rightness, it has acted in disregard of international law, implying that it is above the law or, what is more dangerous, is the law.
    It has unilaterally broken or abrogated treaties on trade, nuclear proliferation and the environment. It has spurned the United Nations, and, if the new majority of fundamentalist Republican officials in Texas is a harbinger, it is moving closer to getting the United States out of the United Nations and getting the United Nations out of the United States.
    The current tactics of occupation in Iraq are a veritable facsimile of Israeli policy on the West Bank and Gaza as conceived by a man Bush astonishingly called a "man of peace," Ariel Sharon. Attorney General John Ashcroft's impingements on civil liberties in the name of "fighting terror" need no further corroboration, and his messianic remarks echo the recent declarations of Lt. Gen. William Boykin almost to the letter.
    The damage to the body politic by having zealots in positions where foreign and domestic policy agendas are initiated is not minor. Debate on serious issues simply does not happen. Legitimate questions are treated as assaults. The motives and even the characters of the questioners are made to look suspicious. The debate, if it happens at all, is rarely conducted on the merits.
    The result is that those in power simply make pronouncements, and the public is expected to assent to them. This is standard operating procedure in those realms where the people are considered simply as subjects. It is totally at odds with how elected or appointed representatives should speak to people considered as citizens -- or rather fellow citizens.
    Where is the dispassionate voice of reason and human feeling in all this public disquisition? It was heard briefly in the poems of those poets who opposed the war and were considered unworthy to be hosted in the White House. They were probably regarded simply as another "focus group."
    Ironically, they were, but it was the right focus. If the purpose of language is to witness to the truth, they were good witnesses. They were not engaged in "spin" or deception or self-serving exploitation of the suffering of others. And no soldiers, Marines or civilians paid for their words with their lives. Zealots cannot make a similar claim.
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------
    (Samuel Hazo is director of the International Poetry Forum and McAnulty Distingushed Professor Emeritus at Duquesne University (hazo@stargate.net).)
    http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/03347/250711.stm

    Friday, March 25, 2005

    Same speech & call for violence against Judges being heard on Brownwood's KXYL

    Religious right hate speech leads to yet another attempt on a judge's life
    by John in DC - 3/25/2005 08:41:00 PM @ www.americablog.org
    Surprise, surprise, surprise. You heard it here first. Who said, what, 3 weeks ago that the religious right's "judicial activism" hate speech was helping create a climate in which judges' very lives could be threatened. Today it happened.
    Meanwhile, FBI agents have arrested a North Carolina man on suspicion of soliciting offers over the internet to kill Michael Schiavo and Greer. Richard Alan Meywes of Fairview is accused of offering $250,000 for the killing of Schiavo and another $50,000 for the "the elimination of the judge who ruled against Terry."
    Meywes was arrested without incident at his home around 5 p.m. Friday on charges of solicitation of murder and transmission of a threatening communication via interstate commerce, authorities said.
    If convicted, Meywes could face up to 15 years in prison and up to $500,000 in fines. He is expected to make an initial court appearance Monday in U.S. District Court in Asheville, North Carolina.
    Greer has been under 24-hour protection by two U.S. marshals due to increased threats against his life by those unhappy with his handling of the Schiavo case.
    On Thursday, police arrested an Illinois man they said robbed a gun store in Seminole, Florida, as part of an attempt to "rescue Terri Schiavo."
    Michael W. Mitchell, 20, faces charges of attempted armed robbery, aggravated assault and criminal mischief, said Marianne Pasha, spokeswoman for the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office.

    http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/03/25/schiavo/index.html

    Bulletin Editorial on School Shooting (What was left out ? )

    Friday March 25, 2005
    Op Ed
    In school tragedies, hindsight is perfect
    In retrospect, students and officials at the high school on the Red Lake Indian Reservation in Minnesota could see that all the signs were there. But while most may agree that such a tragedy can strike anywhere, it is human nature to assume it won't.
    Red Lake found out differently.
    Jeff Weise looks baby-faced and almost cherubic in the photograph made available to the media after he killed nine persons and then himself on Monday. His chin is shown resting on one arm, and that hint of a smile offers no clue to the turmoil boiling within.
    Weise, 16, was far from the way he appeared. But his classmates and acquaintances didn't recognize the depth of his troubles until Weise killed his grandfather and the grandfather's companion, then took his murderous rampage to the high school campus. There, authorities said, he killed five students, a teacher and an unarmed security guard. Seven others were wounded in the bloodiest episode of school violence since the 1999 Columbine, Colo., massacre.
    Communities must never drop their guard to the possibility of school violence, and many have taken needed steps toward prevention. After 15 persons died at Columbine High School -- including the two teen-age killers -- many schools around the nation installed metal detectors, hired security guards and developed emergency plans. In Brownwood, plans for school improvements developed prior to last month's passage of a $29 million school bond included provisions for enhanced security.
    Sometimes, though, emergency plans, improved architecture and better technology are not enough. Red Lake High School had taken many of the recommended precautions, including the hiring of security guards.
    The line separating the rebellious behavior typical of many teen-agers and the more hostile activities leading to violence is not always clearly defined. It is easy to brush aside signs which suggest that a teen-ager is in deep trouble. There can be a tendency to avoid overacting to situations which may not be symptoms of anything at all.
    Still, it is only through their tears that Weise's classmates could see a pattern in his unorthodox behavior and realize that his sketches and Web postings were indications of what was to come. He was a loner, and his father had committed suicide. His mother suffered serious brain damage in a car accident, and is confined to a care center.
    The national outpouring of grief -- the shock and amazement -- which accompanied previous school massacres has not been as evident for Red Lake as it has been in similar situations. Hopefully that's not a sign of acceptance of these type of tragedies. Perhaps the legal maneuvers being made on behalf of Terri Schiavo of Florida have distracted our collective attention this week.
    But the results are no less tragic. We may never know how many such incidents prevention and intervention programs may be averting, but the deaths at Red Lake prove, if nothing else, that such efforts to identify and help teen-agers in crisis must continue.
    http://www.brownwoodbulletin.com/articles/2005/03/25/op_ed/editorial01.txt
    --------------------------------
    please see our post for
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    what the KXYL Bullies don't want to talk about
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  • --------------
    Tuesday, July 27, 2004 "Where the rubbber meets the road" !

    " 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
    Printed in the Brownwood Bulletin - September 25, 2004 - Church Page Ad for Steves' Market and Deli
    ---------------------------------
    Mr President, I couldn’t agree more with your words !
    ------------------------------------
    “ The focus of this statement is on hate crimes related to 9/11. We wish not to dismiss other acts of hate that have been leveled against people of color and the gay and lesbian community in Texas.
    For one example, the ACLU, with local concerned citizens, is currently investigating a rash of hate crime in Brownwood, Texas. We suspect at least 10 hate crimes in that town alone-including murders and even murders of witnesses to those hate crimes. Local officials have repeatedly refused to investigate or prosecute these crimes according to the mandates of the the Hate Crimes Act. In one instance, a field officer drafted a crime report which clearly documented race as the motive of the violent crime. Nevertheless, the local District Attorney's office still refused to prosecute this at all, much less as a hate crime. Our conclusion is that the law alone is not enough. The Texas Attorney General, or some external body, must be vested with full authority to prosecute these crimes or at least monitor the law's enforcement in some meaningful way. ”
    William Harrell, Esq. Executive Director, ACLU of Texas
    To the House Judicial Affairs Committee Regarding
    The Committee's Oversight of the Texas Attorney General's Office
    August 15, 2002 San Antonio, Texas
    source: House Judicial Affairs Committee
    [PDF/Adobe Acrobat]
    ... the ACLU, with local concerned citizens, is currently investigating a rash of hate crime in Brownwood,. Texas. We ...
    archive.aclu.org/news/2002/harrell_statement.pdf
    ------------------------------------------------------
    Note:
    Brown /Mills County District Attorney Sky Sudderth (R) resigned
    May 24 as part of a plea agreement in which three felony indictments against him - charges of aggravated perjury, tampering with or fabricating physical evidence and tampering with a government record - were dismissed.
    source: http://www.woai.com/news/state/story.aspx?content_id=
    2E2EB83E-DC23-42CF-A4CA-4EF22CF7777F
    posted by Steves' Market & Deli @ 10:14 AM
    ------------------------------------------
    The Bulletin Editorializes on the School Shooting and focuses on the Bricks, Mortar and Metal Detectors, but fails to mention this....
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  • Question: The Pope and Terri Schiavo

    Question- If the Pope has to be put on "Life Support" like Terri Schiavo, how long will the Catholic Leaders keep him on life support ?
    --------------------------------------------
    World News-March 25, 2005
    Pope is ‘serenely giving himself to the will of God’
    By Ruth Gledhill Religion Correspondent
    THE POPE is “serenely abandoning” himself to God’s will, according to a senior Vatican cardinal. Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, the head of the Congregation of Bishops, made his comments during a sermon at a Maundy Thursday Chrism Mass at St Peter’s, in Rome, where he was standing in for the ailing Pope John Paul II.
    Senior Roman Catholic sources in London emphasised last night that the comments referred to the Pope’s spiritual rather than physical health, but acknowledged that his health was deteriorating.
    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1541316,00.html
    ------------------------
    Feeding Tube a Worrying Sign for Pope's Health
    Reuters
    Mar. 30, 2005 - The feeding tube inserted into Pope John Paul's nose will be causing him considerable discomfort and may not be enough to resolve his difficulties feeding himself, medical experts said on Wednesday.
    The Pope already has a tube in his throat to aid breathing and a second one, for "naso-gastric feeding," can only be temporary. If he does not regain the ability to eat normally, he may have to have a tube inserted directly into his stomach.
    "Nutrition via the esophagus (food pipe) is more simple than directly into the stomach," said Professor Roberto Filipo, an ear, nose and throat specialist at Rome's Sapienza University.
    "But is it very uncomfortable for the patient and only short term."
    The Pope's need for a feeding tube is almost certainly linked to his Parkinson's disease, Filipo said.
    The neurological condition which makes the Pope tremble, has taken away much of his facial expression and slurred his speech over the years, is now probably affecting the muscles needed to swallow, he said.
    This would indicate a very advanced state of Parkinson's, a sometimes debilitating disease for which there is no cure.
    http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/print?id=626183

    Who's surprised ? Just listen in to the local KXYL conversation !

    Breaking News! Local Police Force Jeb Bush To Back Down: Police Showdown Averted
    by Michael in New York - 3/26/2005 01:12:00 AM
    Wow. WOW! This is literally out of control. The Miami Herald has numerous sources confirming that Jeb Bush was sending in the troops -- ignoring the rule of law, the Supreme Court and the opinion of the vast majority of Americans -- to in effect delcare martial law and seize Terri Schiavo. (Thanks to blogger Andrew A. Gill for the heads-up on this one.)Think about this. Top far-right religious leaders told Jeb Bush he shouldn't be pushed around by some "piddling judge." Anne Coulter shouted they should send in the National Guard. Silly talk-radio/Fox News rhetoric? Jeb Bush damn near did it. And if the brave men and women of the local police hadn't decided to uphold the law, Bush would have succeeded.
    "Hours after a judge ordered that Terri Schiavo was not to be removed from her hospice, a team of state agents were en route to seize her and have her feeding tube reinserted -- but they stopped short when local police told them they would enforce the judge's order, The Herald has learned," reports the Miami Herald.
    "Agents of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement told police in Pinellas Park, the small town where Schiavo lies at Hospice Woodside, on Thursday that they were on the way to take her to a hospital to resume her feeding.
    "For a brief period, local police, who have officers at the hospice to keep protesters out, prepared for what sources called ``a showdown.''
    "In the end, the squad from the FDLE and the Department of Children & Families backed down, apparently concerned about confronting local police outside the hospice," all per the Miami Herald's ground-breaking coverage.
    Do we live in some pathetic dictatorship now where judges who don't "cooperate" are threatened and their families are murdered and the rule of law is a joke?
    This has nothing to do anymore with what decisions you or I or anyone make at the end of their lives. This has to do with a far-right minority deciding they want to dismantle our form of government, attack the independent judiciary until it is weak, and encourage a governor to send in the troops.
    This is outrageous. The mere fact that Jeb Bush could even CONSIDER such a move is outrageous. There need to be Congressional hearings, Bush needs to be censured by the Congress if this proves accurate and a respect for this country's laws needs to be instilled again in our people. This isn't even mob rule, since most Americans think Bush and the Congress and Jeb should BUTT out.

    Happy Easter - Did You Know ......... ?

    Easter is a time of springtime festivals. In Christian countries Easter is celebrated as the religious holiday commemorating the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the son of God. But the celebrations of Easter have many customs and legends that are pagan in origin and have nothing to do with Christianity
    Scholars, accepting the derivation proposed by the 8th-century English scholar St. Bede, believe the name Easter is thought to come from the Scandinavian "Ostra" and the Teutonic "Ostern" or "Eastre," both Goddesses of mythology signifying spring and fertility whose festival was celebrated on the day of the vernal equinox
    Traditions associated with the festival survive in the Easter rabbit, a symbol of fertility, and in colored easter eggs, originally painted with bright colors to represent the sunlight of spring, and used in Easter-egg rolling contests or given as gifts
    The Christian celebration of Easter embodies a number of converging traditions with emphasis on the relation of Easter to the Jewish festival of Passover, or Pesach, from which is derived Pasch, another name used by Europeans for Easter. Passover is an important feast in the Jewish calendar which is celebrated for 8 days and commemorates the flight and freedom of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt
    The early Christians, many of whom were of Jewish origin, were brought up in the Hebrew tradition and regarded Easter as a new feature of the Passover festival, a commemoration of the advent of the Messiah as foretold by the prophets. (For more information please visit our Passover celebration - Passover on the Net)
    Easter is observed by the churches of the West on the first Sunday following the full moon that occurs on or following the spring equinox (March 2I). So Easter became a "movable" feast which can occur as early as March 22 or as late as April 25
    Christian churches in the East which were closer to the birthplace of the new religion and in which old traditions were strong, observe Easter according to the date of the Passover festival
    Easter is at the end of the Lenten season, which covers a forty-six-day period that begins on Ash Wednesday and ends with Easter. The Lenten season itself comprises forty days, as the six Sundays in Lent are not actually a part of Lent. Sundays are considered a commemoration of Easter Sunday and have always been excluded from the Lenten fast. The Lenten season is a period of penitence in preparation for the highest festival of the church year, Easter
    Holy Week, the last week of Lent, begins its with the observance of Palm Sunday. Palm Sunday takes its name from Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem where the crowds laid palms at his feet. Holy Thursday commemorates the Last Supper, which was held the evening before the Crucifixion. Friday in Holy Week is the anniversary of the Crufixion, the day that Christ was crucified and died on the cross
    Holy week and the Lenten season end with Easter Sunday, the day of resurrection of Jesus Christ

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  • Thursday, March 24, 2005

    Is Tube Feeding Life Support ?

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  • KXYL's Connie Carmichael's Topic of Interest: Let's Bash the .........

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  • But Connie and the rest of the KXYL Talking Heads do not want you to discuss this

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  • Wednesday, March 23, 2005

    Kudos to the Brownwood Bulletin.....

    ....for listening to their customers and posting "letters to the editor" on their website: www.brownwoodbulletin.com

    No Wonder (read below) KXYL's James Williamson talked about Kerry, Gays, & Clinton today !

    Wednesday, March 23, 2005
    Americans are cranky about this one
    by Joe in DC - 3/23/2005 08:15:00 PM
    The latest CBS News poll has amazing numbers on the Schiavo issue. And, those numbers are not at all good for Bush and Congress....they really stepped in it:
    An overwhelming 82 percent of the public believes the Congress and President should stay out of the matter.
    Just 13 percent of those polled think Congress intervened in the case out of concern for Schiavo, while 74 percent think it was all about politics. Of those polled, 66 percent said the tube should not be inserted compared to 27 percent who want it restored.
    82 percent. Wow. When was the last time 82 percent of Americans agreed on anything? And, especially on a so-called moral issue. The intensity factor, which the GOP was figuring was on their side...well, it's on both sides:
    The issue has generated strong feelings, with 78 percent of those polled -- wheter for either side of the issue -- saying they have strong feelings.
    This mess has resulted in HUGE negatives for Congress and Bush:
    Public approval of Congress has suffered as a result; at 34 percent, it is the lowest it has been since 1997, dropping from 41 percent last month. Now at 43 percent, President Bush’s approval rating is also lower than it was a month ago.
    I think this was one issue that Americans understood. Too many people have had to go through a tough family medical crisis....and too many people have their own intra-family issues. The Schiavo case opened a window for the American people on what kind of leaders they really have in George Bush and Tom DeLay. And they don't like what they see.
    These guys are power crazed and out of control.

    http://www.americablog.org/

    Shameless right-wingers exploiting Terri Schiavo

    Did God create Schiavo case to deliver Tom DeLay from political persecution?
    Never underestimate the Republican leaders in Washington. Whenever they appear to have exhausted the possibilities for cynical abuse of their authority, they can still inflict fresh outrages upon the nation.
    By intervening in the sad dispute over Terri Schiavo between her husband and parents, the President and his Congressional allies have again revealed how little respect they have for any conservative or constitutional principle that doesn't enhance their partisan power. In the name of defending human life, they have swept aside their own party's traditional commitment to federalist respect for state law and to the separation of powers between the legislature and the judiciary. In the name of equal protection under the law, they have departed from all traditional notions of legality.
    Under civilized rules of debate -- particularly over a matter as emotionally disturbing as this one -- it is wise as well as polite to assume that everyone is arguing from a position of sincerity. The Schiavo case shows why those rules have become increasingly difficult to observe with a straight face.
    While husband, parents and the brain-damaged woman herself are all deeply sympathetic figures, touching the deepest feelings of people on both sides of this vexing issue, that cannot be said for the politicians who claim to be advocating Ms. Schiavo's cause. Their claim to the presumption of integrity has been voided by their own behavior.
    In the Senate, Republicans circulated a "talking points" memo last week discussing Ms. Schiavo's fate in terms that emphasized political opportunism. "This is an important moral issue and the pro-life base will be excited that the Senate is debating this important issue," that memo explained. "This is a great political issue, because Senator [Ben] Nelson of Florida has already refused to become a cosponsor [of the Schiavo bill] and this is a tough issue for Democrats."
    In the House, Majority Leader Tom DeLay rightly denounced that Senate memo as "disgusting." But then a recording surfaced of remarks he'd delivered the other day to the Family Research Council, a powerful religious-right group that backs Republicans. There Mr. DeLay declared that the Almighty -- working as always in the most mysterious ways -- intended that Ms. Schiavo should relieve him of his mounting legal and ethical problems.
    "One thing that God has brought to us is Terri Schiavo, to help elevate the visibility of what is going on in America," Mr. DeLay explained, according to The New York Times. "This is exactly the issue that is going on in America, of attacks against the conservative movement, against me and against many others." (He also mentioned "a huge, nationwide, concerted effort to destroy everything we believe in" -- a category that clearly includes free golf vacations provided by casino lobbyists.)
    And in the White House, George W. Bush rose from his bed the other night to sign the bill that provides a special privilege of federal legal appeal solely to Ms. Schiavo's parents. For dramatic effect, he had rushed back to the capital from Texas. Perhaps he didn't want to sign that awful legislation in his home state, thus recalling another law he signed as Governor in 1999.
    That Texas statute permits hospitals to withdraw critical care in certain cases, despite the most vehement objections of family members. It established a bureaucratic process that can doom such patients even if, unlike Ms. Schiavo, they are fully capable of speech, thought and feeling. And under that statute, Ms. Schiavo's husband Michael would have been designated as her "surrogate." With her doctors concurring, Mr. Schiavo would have been able to discontinue her life support -- without enduring federal interference.
    When Mr. Bush signed that earlier bill, he was trying to save money for the Texas Hospitals Association, of course. Although he claims to honor a "culture of life" and would spare nothing in defense of innocent humanity, the harsher truth is that keeping people alive when their brains and organs can no longer function is extremely expensive. Presented with an easily exploited symbol like Ms. Schiavo, the President and his Congressional allies will pretend that money is no object. Yet they are hardly inclined to spend whatever might be needed to preserve every single human life for as long as possible.
    Instead, the Republicans consistently prefer to relieve the suffering of their wealthiest constituents. Consider the new budget crafted by Mr. DeLay and his minions, in which they proposed to cut as much as $20 billion from Medicaid, the health-insurance program for the nation's poorest citizens. The House budget could deprive more than a million children of basic medical care, while providing still more tax breaks for people whose luxuries include the most advanced medical attention on the planet.
    These pious politicians don't really care about defending human life. If they did, they would immediately enact and fund a national health-insurance program -- to protect the 18,000 Americans who now die every year for lack of essential care.

    http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=18774

    Ed Schultz now broadcasting in Central Texas.......

    http://www.bigeddieradio.com/

    Stations in: TX
    on KCYL, 1450 AM
    at 8:00pm - 10:00pm CST
    broadcasting out of Lampasas, TX
    coverage includes: Killeen, Temple and Central Texas

    Brownwood: Texas Law and Terri Schiavo

    Mon, Mar. 21, 2005
    Attorneys question whether Texas, federal law at odds
    KELLEY SHANNON
    Associated Press
    AUSTIN - The federal law President Bush signed to prolong Terri Schiavo's life in Florida appears to conflict with a Texas law he signed as governor, attorneys familiar with the legislation said Monday.
    The 1999 Advance Directives Act in Texas allows for a patient's surrogate to make end-of-life decisions and spells out how to proceed if a hospital or other health provider disagrees with a decision to maintain or halt life-sustaining treatment.
    If a doctor refuses to honor a decision, the case goes before a medical committee. If the committee agrees with the doctor, the guardian or surrogate has 10 days to seek treatment elsewhere.
    Thomas Mayo, an associate law professor at Southern Methodist University who helped draft the Texas law, said that if the Schiavo case had happened in Texas, her husband would have been her surrogate decision-maker. Because both he and her doctors were in agreement, life support would have been discontinued.
    The Texas law does not include a provision for dealing with conflicts among family members who disagree with the surrogate decision-maker - as has happened in the Schiavo case - although in practice hospital ethics committees would try to resolve such disputes, he said.
    The Texas law tends to keep such cases out of court, allowing life-support decisions to be made privately, Mayo said. However, within the last month two Houston cases went to court; one resulted in a baby being removed from life support, while the other led to the transfer of an elderly man to a nursing home.
    Five-month-old Sun Hudson died last week, seconds after being removed from a ventilator. His mother, Wanda Hudson, waged an unsuccessful court battle to force Texas Children's Hospital to keep him alive artificially. The baby boy suffered from a rare and incurable genetic disorder that prevented his lungs from growing and had been on a ventilator since birth.

    Janette Nikolouzos won temporary restraining orders against St. Luke's Hospital to prevent the hospital from removing her husband from life support. Spiro Nikolouzos, 68, has been in a persistent vegetative state since 2001. On Sunday, he was transferred to a San Antonio nursing home after a three-week search for a place that would take him.
    Bruce Howell, a private health law attorney in Dallas who was involved in 2003 updates to the state law, agreed with Mayo that Bush's signing of the federal law appears to be inconsistent with his actions as governor.
    "These are incredibly private decisions," Howell said. "I would hope that this case does not result in federal law overriding what I think was carefully and incredibly well intentionally thought out."
    The White House said Monday the law allowing a federal court to intervene in the Schiavo case was narrowly tailored and not intended as a precedent for Congress to step into such battles.
    White House press secretary Scott McClellan dismissed the claim, raised by a Florida Democrat on the House floor, that Bush's signature on the Texas law conflicts with his action Monday.
    "The legislation he signed is consistent with his views," McClellan said. "This is a complex case, and I don't think such uninformed accusations offer any constructive ways to address this matter."
    State Rep. Garnet Coleman, a Houston Democrat and one of the sponsors of the 1999 bill, said the law states that life-sustaining treatment can be withheld for the right purpose, when a person is essentially dead.
    "In Florida, the doctor and the guardian are not in disagreement," Coleman said.
    End-of-life decisions should not be overseen by the federal government, but the newly signed law by Bush does that, he said.
    "This is not a federal issue. These are issues left to the states for particular reasons," Coleman said.
    Coleman and others noted that after Bush vetoed a Texas bill in 1997 regarding termination of life support, a diverse coalition including the medical community and the Texas Right to Life Committee agreed on the 1999 bill, which Bush signed.
    Elizabeth Graham, director of the Texas Right to Life Committee, said her organization didn't like the 1997 proposed state law because it allowed "involuntary euthanasia."
    But the committee compromised in crafting the 1999 law because it provided 10 days, or in some cases longer, to seek an alternative treatment site if a doctor or hospital wanted to terminate life support when the patient's guardian or surrogate did not. Graham said she doesn't think the new federal law conflicts with that. She said it's too early to know whether the federal law will override Texas law.

    http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/state/11194670.htm

    "Drunk with Power Republicans" start at Brownwood's Doorsteps ! Just listen to KXYL.....

    Published on Wednesday, March 23, 2005 by Knight Ridder
    Republicans Have Deserted Their Core Principles, Critics Say
    by Dick Polman
     In the beginning, the architects of conservatism proclaimed their antigovernment creed.
    Barry Goldwater said in 1964, "I fear Washington and centralized government more than I do Moscow." Ronald Reagan said in 1975, "The basis of conservatism is a desire for less governmental interference, or less centralized authority." And Newt Gingrich vowed in 1994 that a Republican Congress would hasten "the end of government that is too big, too intrusive."
    But today, as evidenced by the Republican Congress' intervention in the Terry Schiavo case, it's clear that the traditional conservative credo no longer guides the GOP. The core mission has radically changed during the Bush era. "Small government" and "state's rights" are out; wielding federal power to advance moral issues at the local level is in.
    The GOP's federal action over the weekend, which took the case away from the local judge in Florida (a southern Baptist and Republican) who had ruled that Schiavo should be allowed to die in accordance with state law and previous state court rulings, is merely the latest manifestation of the new party credo. And there is currently a vociferous debate, within conservative circles, over whether this historic shift is a victory for morality - or a betrayal of the movement.
    The dramatic congressional intervention was clearly unusual, but, given the new governing philosophy, it should not be viewed as a surprise. Working with President Bush (and the religious right, which wields clout in elections), the GOP Congress has assumed an activist role on social values, with millions of dollars earmarked for federal programs that are designed, among other things, to promote traditional marriage and teach sexual abstinence.
    But it's the Republican-led response to the Schiavo case, the use of the federal government as an agent of moral values, that is sparking fervent dissent in conservative ranks. The dissenters believe that the ruling GOP has betrayed the traditional conservative respect for local control and the rule of law. (The local judge, aided by outside experts, had ruled in favor of husband Michael Schiavo's desire to let Terry die; but House Majority Leader Tom DeLay said the other day, "I don't care what her husband says.")
    Ryan Sager, a conservative commentator, said Tuesday that "the national Republican party has been corrupted by power, and has forgotten what used to be its beliefs," and that the GOP was guilty of "hypocrisy" for flexing federal muscle just like the Democrats whom they had always condemned.
    Jim Pinkerton, a conservative thinker and ex-Republican operative, lamented Tuesday that "the social-issue core of the newly energized, southernized, and Christianized Republican party cares a lot more about its faith and its values than about the old verity of small government."
    Meanwhile, on a conservative Web site, law professor Jonathan Adler of Case Western Reserve University argued Tuesday that the GOP action "creates a terrible precedent for ad hoc federal interference" in the numerous life-and-death cases that are typically decided by local courts. (Last weekend, some conservative legal scholars urged the Republicans not to intervene, but they were spurned.)
    Marshall Wittmann, a centrist Democratic scholar who previously worked in various conservative venues (as a Christian Coalition lobbyist, a Heritage Foundation think tank fellow, and as an aide to Arizona Sen. John McCain), said Tuesday that the overhaul of conservatism can be traced to several factors:
    "Conservatives have become intoxicated with power. It's easy to talk about `limited government' when you're out of power. But now that their appetites have been whetted, now that they have gained control of the leviathan state, they have found it to their liking, so they have tossed principles aside."
    Also, he said, the balance of power within the GOP coalition has shifted. The business folks are as strong as ever. But the limited-government conservatives (who eschewed moral issues and stressed balanced budgets) don't wield the same clout that they enjoyed just 10 years ago; essentially, said Wittmann, they have been supplanted by the religious and social conservatives, "the most animated force within the Republican party today" - and a voting bloc that seeks a strong federal role in the promotion of morality.
    Their power is self-evident. In the exit polls last November, roughly one-quarter of the electorate was comprised of white evangelicals and born-again Christians; among these voters, 78 percent chose Bush, 21 percent chose John Kerry. In the rest of the electorate, Kerry beat Bush, 56 to 43 percent.
    Also, congressional Republicans, mindful that religious conservative voters will wield clout in the 2006 elections, may have seen a way to serve the bloc by jumping into the Schiavo controversy; witness the memo that billed her case as "a great political issue." (In response, some dissenters note that movement architect Barry Goldwater didn't like the religious right; in 1981, Goldwater said, "I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of `conservatism.'")
    But defenders of the new conservative credo argue that core principles have not been dumped; they are merely being pursued in a new way. Rich Lowry, a conservative analyst, posted this argument online Tuesday: "If it is disorienting to see Republicans scrambling for federal intervention, at least they are acting on their deepest pro-life convictions ... preserving it is a paramount value."
    Some analysts say that Ronald Reagan's small-government credo was a myth, anyway. Jack Pitney, an ex-Republican aide, noted Tuesday, "Reagan was going to reduce the federal government and cut some Cabinet departments. By the time he left office, he'd increased the government, and added a department."
    But the Schiavo case is not a political winner; as reported in an ABC poll, 70 percent of Americans saw the GOP's intervention as inappropriate. Even evangelical Protestants, by 50 to 44 percent, opposed the move. GOP chairman Ken Mehlman said Tuesday that the party acted on principle, but Ryan Sager, the conservative dissenter, saw political danger in that principle, and a warning for the post-Reagan party.
    He said, in an online posting: "Not a few people - especially boomers with aging parents - are going to see themselves in this (Schiavo) case, and they are going to picture Rep. DeLay in the hospital room with them, standing between them and their loved ones."

    http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0323-05.htm

    Brownwood's Republican Lawmakers on Terri Schiavo Case

    Abilene Reporter News
     Area lawmakers support Schiavo bill
    But local Democratic leader says law is a private medical, not political, issue
    By Jerry Daniel Reed / Reporter-News Staff Writer
    March 22, 2005
    The three Republican lawmakers who represent Abilene in Congress stoutly defend passing a law that could lead to reinsertion of a disabled Florida woman's feeding tube, but a local Democratic leader calls it unwarranted government intrusion.
    U.S. Rep. Randy Neugebauer of Lubbock, and both of the state's senators, Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn, supported legislation signed into law early Monday to restore Terri Schiavo's nutrition and hydration.
    All three stressed congressional responsibility for helping those who cannot help themselves.
    Roger Spier, Taylor County Democratic club president, said Congress and the Democratic club are equally not entitled to take a position on a family's intimate medical matters.
    ''This is not a political issue. This is a medical issue,'' said Spier, a retired Air Force surgeon with 30 years of practice.

    http://www.reporter-news.com/abil/nw_local/article/0,1874,ABIL_7959_3640919,00.html

    What kind of Republican are you ?

    G.O.P. Right Is Splintered on Schiavo Intervention
    By ADAM NAGOURNEY
    Published: March 23, 2005
    WASHINGTON, March 22 - The vote by Congress to allow the federal courts to take over the Terri Schiavo case has created distress among some conservatives who say that lawmakers violated a cornerstone of conservative philosophy by intervening in the ruling of a state court.
    The emerging debate, carried out against a rush of court decisions and Congressional action, has highlighted a conflict of priorities among conservatives and signals tensions that Republicans are likely to face as Congressional leaders and President Bush push social issues over the next two years, party leaders say.
    "This is a clash between the social conservatives and the process conservatives, and I would count myself a process conservative," said David Davenport of the Hoover Institute, a conservative research organization. "When a case like this has been heard by 19 judges in six courts and it's been appealed to the Supreme Court three times, the process has worked - even if it hasn't given the result that the social conservatives want. For Congress to step in really is a violation of federalism."
    Stephen Moore, a conservative advocate who is president of the Free Enterprise Fund, said: "I don't normally like to see the federal government intervening in a situation like this, which I think should be resolved ultimately by the family: I think states' rights should take precedence over federal intervention. A lot of conservatives are really struggling with this case."
    Some more moderate Republicans are also uneasy. Senator John W. Warner of Virginia, the sole Republican to oppose the Schiavo bill in a voice vote in the Senate, said: "This senator has learned from many years you've got to separate your own emotions from the duty to support the Constitution of this country. These are fundamental principles of federalism."
    "It looks as if it's a wholly Republican exercise," Mr. Warner said, "but in the ranks of the Republican Party, there is not a unanimous view that Congress should be taking this step."
    In interviews over the past two days, conservatives who expressed concern about the turn of events in Congress stopped short of condemning the vote in which overwhelming majorities supported the Schiavo bill, and they generally applauded the goal of trying to keep Ms. Schiavo alive. But they said they were concerned about what precedent had been set and said the vote went against Republicans who were libertarian, advocates of states' rights or supporters of individual rights.
    "My party is demonstrating that they are for states' rights unless they don't like what states are doing," said Representative Christopher Shays of Connecticut, one of five House Republicans who voted against the bill. "This couldn't be a more classic case of a state responsibility."
    "This Republican Party of Lincoln has become a party of theocracy," Mr. Shays said. "There are going to be repercussions from this vote. There are a number of people who feel that the government is getting involved in their personal lives in a way that scares them."

    http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/23/politics/23repubs.html?

    KXYL's Connie Carmichael diatribe on Senator Clinton's proposal

    Sen. Clinton pushes voting holiday, allowing ex-cons to vote
    WASHINGTON (AP) — Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, a possible White House candidate in 2008, joined 2004 nominee John Kerry and other Democrats Thursday in urging that Election Day be made a federal holiday to encourage voting.
    In addition to creating a federal holiday for voting, the bill would:
    • Require paper receipts for votes.
    • Authorize $500 million to help states make the changes in voting systems and equipment.
    • Allow ex-felons to vote. Currently an estimated 4.7 million Americans are barred from voting because of their criminal records.
    • Require adoption of the changes in time for the 2006 election.

    Both parties have called for changes to ensure a more accurate vote count. Republican efforts have centered on reducing voter fraud, while Democrats have called for making access to the ballot box easier and simpler.

    http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-02-17-clinton-vote_x.htm

    The Judge that is being crucified on Brownwood Talk Radio

    The Terri Schiavo Case
    Quiet judge persists in Schiavo maelstrom
    Circuit Judge George Greer, who is regularly reviled and travels with security, is not the man his critics might suspect.
    By WILLIAM R. LEVESQUE, Times Staff Writer
    Published March 6, 2005
    Circuit Judge George Greer has a reputation for taking things in stride, even the barrage of criticism he has faced in the Terri Schiavo case.
    CLEARWATER - Some of the hundreds of e-mails and letters he gets call him a "murderer."
    "Are you related to (Josef) Mengele, or just a student?" one man wrote, referring to the ruthless Nazi doctor.
    An indignant woman who believed his decisions weren't Christian once called and asked if he thought he was going to heaven.
    Deputies who fear for his safety escort him to and from work.
    That's life these days for Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge George W. Greer, who has ruled that Terri Schiavo's feeding tube could be removed, allowing her to die. Greer sits at the epicenter of the international debate over Schiavo's life, a judge who answers critics with the only rebuttal allowed by rules of judicial conduct:
    Silence.
    "The really difficult part of this job," Greer said, "is that you can't defend yourself."
    The world knows so much about Schiavo's life, but little about the 63-year-old Greer.
    A balding man whose voice has no trace of his native Brooklyn, he travels to unwind and jogs to stay fit. He has run two marathons, though the last was 20 years ago. Friends say his eyesight is awful. It's so bad, in fact, that he doesn't drive.
    And Greer, vilified by many religious protesters, is a church regular. He also is a conservative Republican in a state whose conservative Republican governor tried to overturn one of Greer's orders.
    "George is the religious right," said lawyer David Kurland, a longtime friend.
    Friends say Greer's intellect is perfectly formed to withstand the very tempest he now faces. Always calm, not prone to mood swings or flares of temper, unerringly polite, he is not easily ruffled, they say.
    But the criticisms sting, friends say. His relationship with his church, for example, has changed.
    "He's been through a lot of storms in his life," said Mary Repper, a political consultant and friend. "This is just another one. George takes everything in stride."
    Just don't ask Greer about his college housemate Jim Morrison, the legendary front man of the rock 'n' roll group the Doors.
    Nobody took Morrison in stride, not even Greer.
    When Greer came into adulthood in the 1960s, he was about as counterculture as Barry Goldwater, the presidential candidate he voted for in 1964. One of Greer's favorite bands is the Bee Gees.
    His biggest brush then with nonconformity: being cited for underage drinking about the time he entered FSU and hunting without a license in 1959.
    Greer, whose family moved to Dunedin when he was 4, spent 21/2 years at St. Petersburg Junior College before entering Florida State University in 1962 as a 20-year-old. He majored in marketing.
    He moved to a house about a mile from the FSU campus with a friend and some students he didn't know. Greer described the house this way: "Jim Morrison and five normal people."
    One Halloween, Greer recalled, Morrison greeted children out trick-or-treating at the front door completely naked. Morrison had lighter fluid in his mouth. He spit it out, touching a match to the fluid to create a roaring flame.
    "The poor little kids ran screaming to their parents," Greer said.
    The Morrison biography, No One Here Gets Out Alive by Jerry Hopkins and Daniel Sugerman, provides a description Greer won't contradict.
    Morrison "drank their beers, ate their food, and wore their clothes without asking," the book said of Morrison's relationship with his housemates.
    "He kept careful records of all his actions, and their reactions, writing in his journals as if he were an anthropologist and his housemates were his subjects. In less than three months' time, Jim had the household frantic. Everyone was living in a constant state of anxiety over what was going to happen next.
    "It all blew up one night in December ... when Jim was playing Elvis too loud."
    After one semester, the housemates asked Morrison to leave. He transferred to UCLA in California, where he found fame.
    "He was a bright guy," Greer said. "He liked his tequila. All of us at one time or another had him on the floor with our fists raised."
    Housemate Chris Kallivokas, now a Washington financial consultant, said Greer was the steady influence in a crazy house.
    "George was stable, mature and structured," Kallivokas said. "He was an organized guy with a sort of balanced personality, very even-headed, not controversial, very solid. He went to class every day."
    After graduating from FSU and earning a law degree from the University of Florida, Greer settled into a Clearwater practice, specializing in zoning and land use issues. He married, had twin boys, and divorced in the mid 1970s.
    In 1984, he ran for Pinellas County Commission, running against the board's only Democrat. Greer won a narrow victory, campaigning on his opposition to building a Pinellas sports stadium that would eventually be built and is today Tropicana Field.
    Greer, who would serve as commission chairman, won a second term to the commission unopposed, and looks back fondly to those political days.
    "I think it prepared me to decide issues on their merits, and not on personalities," he said.
    Greer looked to a judgeship as the pinnacle of a lawyer's career, and ran for an open seat. He won it, unopposed, in 1992.
    "I don't think he had any real enemies," said Kurland, the lawyer who is a friend and once roomed with the judge in the 1970s. "He has a political streak in him. He understands political survival."
    One of the lowest points in Greer's career as a judge came in 1998, when he denied an injunction for a wife seeking protection from her husband. He note d that the woman had not liste d any acts of violence by the man.
    Days later, the husband stabbed her to death.
    Greer said he followed the law, and the woman's co-workers protested outside the courthouse.
    "As a judge, there's always the fear that you're going to miss something and somebody is going to get hurt," Greer said. "It happens in all cases. When you make those kind of decisions, there's very little you can do to be 100 percent certain because you never have 100 percent of the facts."
    Soon enough, protesters in much greater number would be asking Greer to prolong the life of a woman named Terri Schiavo.
    After a 2000 trial, Greer heard testimony about statements Schiavo made before she collapsed in 1990 indicating, the judge ruled, that she did not want to live by artificial means. Greer decided she was in a persistent vegetative state and that her feeding tube should be removed.
    Schiavo's parents disagree, and have waged a bitter court fight since to reverse Greer. So far, they have failed.
    But the case has become an international media phenomenon, and Greer has been assailed by many.
    "Judge Greer's performance has been so deficient that he should be removed from the case forthwith, if not impeached," Wesley J. Smith, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, a nonpartisan public policy think tank, wrote in an article.
    In 2003, attorney Pat Anderson, representing Schiavo's parents, accused Greer of being biased.
    "I feel that if Terri called you from hospice, you'd try to talk her into giving up and dying," Anderson said. "I feel that you're that committed to her death."
    She asked him to step down - the fourth time Greer had been asked to disqualify himself from the case. Greer refused, although it would have been an easy escape.
    "Four of the worst decisions I ever made," Greer later joked.
    Greer is a Southern Baptist who attended Calvary Baptist Church in Clearwater. But his attendance faltered after a Baptist publication the church supported became highly critical of him, he said.
    Greer, who said he had other unrelated problems with the church, said he explained to a deacon, "If I don't like what the St. Pete Times writes about me, my only recourse is to cancel my subscription." So he stopped his donations to the church, though he is still a member.
    Last year, Greer drew his first opponent in any race for re-election. Protesters in the Schiavo case rallied around Jan Govan. But Greer easily defeated Govan.
    For Greer, Schiavo is particularly difficult. He has always been easy with the media, giving some reporters his cell phone number. When someone asks a question, he answers it, though he is always careful not to talk about the merits of any case.
    After one Schiavo hearing, he answered reporters' questions, only to see lawyers try to remove him from the case for it. Now, he measures his words, and even was reluctant to talk about his days with Morrison.
    While friends say Greer's personality has largely remained unaffected, they do note some small differences from the pressures of the case.
    "I think he's a little quieter, a little more reserved, not around friends but around other folks," said Ed Armstrong, a Clearwater lawyer and close friend. "I don't think he has enjoyed being in the spotlight."
    Neither Armstrong nor Greer will discuss one thing few know about Greer: In 2002, the judge offered to donate one of his kidneys to Armstrong, who needed a transplant. Armstrong found another donor. "If the critics knew the man, they wouldn't say some of the things they do about him," Armstrong said.
    Greer said he is sometimes baffled by the more hateful criticism. He said his faith has not been shaken.
    "What's so exasperating is that my faith is based on forgiveness because that's what God did," Greer said. "When I see people in my faith being extremely judgmental, it's very disconcerting."
    But he follows the law, he said. "There are no Ten Commandments out there," he said, pointing to his outer office.
    "My oath is to follow the law, and if I can't follow the law, I need to step down," he said.
    Critics who condemn him in the religious press, he said, "have nothing to do with my relationship with God. They can't affect it."
    He accepts the security precautions, Greer said, as a necessary inconvenience. But he acknowledges that his wife worries.
    "I can't dwell on it. I'm not going to do anything stupid. But I'm not going to dig a hole and crawl into it. ... This isn't Colombia. This isn't drug lords terrorizing the judiciary. It's America."
    He realizes that whatever his accomplishments, he will always be remembered for the Schiavo case.
    And Greer's answer to the indignant protester who called asking if he thought he was going to heaven: yes.

    Times researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.
    GEORGE W. GREER
    AGE: 63
    FAMILY: Married to his second wife for about 20 years. Father of twin boys, now adults.
    EDUCATION: Associate's degree, St. Petersburg Junior College, 1962; bachelor's degree, Florida State University, 1964; law degree, University of Florida College of Law, 1966.
    PROFESSIONAL: Solo practitioner in Clearwater, 1969-1992; county commissioner, 1984-1992; elected Pinellas-Pasco circuit judge in 1992, re-elected in 1998 and again in 2004. Greer says he will retire after his six-year term finishes. Currently serves in probate division, which handles wills, estates and guardianships.
    PERSONAL: Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., grew up in Dunedin, where he says he pitched the first no-hitter in history of Dunedin Little League as a 12-year-old; hobbies include running and traveling. He owns a Yorkshire terrier named Mr. Bailey.

    http://www.sptimes.com/2005/03/06/Tampabay/Quiet_judge_persists_.shtml
    -----------------------
    Judge in Schiavo case withdraws membership from church
    Mar 18, 2005
    By Art Toalston

    CLEARWATER, Fla. (BP)--Judge George Greer -- whose rulings set the March 18 removal of Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube -- has withdrawn his membership at Calvary Baptist Church in Clearwater, Fla.
    William E. Rice, who became Calvary’s pastor last September, confirmed that a letter from Greer withdrawing his longstanding membership was received by the church March 17.
    Rice, in an interview with Baptist Press March 18, said he sent a letter to Greer several days after the judge commented about his church involvement in a front-page article in the St. Petersburg Times March 6.
    In his exchange of letters with Greer, Rice said, “We communicated about his relationship with the church and his public statements that he had withdrawn from the church and statements that he had made in the paper about his relationship with the church. We communicated about the nature of his commitment to the church and what he wanted that to be in the future.”
    Rice, who himself was a member of Calvary as a teenager years ago, said he offered to meet with Greer but instead received the judge’s letter withdrawing his membership.
    The St. Petersburg Times, in its March 6 article, reported:
    “Greer is a Southern Baptist who attended Calvary Baptist Church in Clearwater. But his attendance faltered after a Baptist publication the church supported became highly critical of him, he said.
    “Greer, who said he had other unrelated problems with the church, said he explained to a deacon, ‘If I don’t like what the St. Pete Times writes about me, my only recourse is to cancel my subscription.’ So he stopped his donations to the church, though he is still a member.”
    The publication Greer was referring to is the Florida Baptist Witness, newsjournal of the Florida Baptist State Convention, which first editorialized about the Schiavo case in September 2003 and since has carried several editorials and an extended number of breaking news stories and in-depth reports about the right-to-life case that has generated national and international attention in recent months.
    Calvary, with about 1,500 in worship on Sundays, utilizes the Florida Baptist Witness to carry its monthly newsletter to church members.
    Concerning Greer’s comments in the St. Petersburg Times, Rice told Baptist Press, “I felt like that opened the door for me to write him and ask what kind of relationship he desired to have with the church.”
    The pastor said he prefers not to release the correspondence with Greer, viewing it as “a private communiqué between him and his pastor.” Rice said he sent copies of his letter to Greer both at home and at the courthouse and realizes the letter might be made public if deemed to be court-related correspondence.
    Rice said he has informed the church’s deacons via e-mail of Greer’s withdrawal of his membership.
    A column by Rice challenging the removal of Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube was published by the Florida Baptist Witness online March 14 and in its print edition March 17. Rice said Greer did not reference the column and may not have read it when he wrote his letter withdrawing his membership from the church.
    “Our church has not had an antagonistic relationship with Judge Greer,” and he has not been publicly criticized in any church gathering, Rice said. “He has friends at the church on a personal level,” the pastor added.
    Rice, in his column in the Florida Baptist Witness, commended the weekly Baptist newspaper, noting, “The facts of the case are well known and few have done as admirable a job of reporting them as has Florida Baptist Witness.”
    James A. Smith Sr., executive editor of the Florida Baptist Witness, told Baptist Press March 18, “My editorials and our news coverage have focused on the facts and ethical implications of this case and not at all concerning Judge Greer’s personal faith commitment or his church membership.”
    Smith said he did not become aware of Greer’s membership at Calvary until after he had written a second editorial on the Schiavo case later in September 2003.
    “The Witness stands by all of its editorials and news coverage on the Terri Schiavo matter,” Smith said. “I remain convinced, especially in light of events of the last few days, of the critical importance of this case for the sanctity of human life in our state and in our nation.”
    Smith also told Baptist Press, “It appears that Judge Greer has chosen to remove himself from the loving care of a biblically sound church rather than to submit to the biblical obligation to exercise his public duties in a manner that is consistent with his Christian faith. This is regrettable for Judge Greer because he could not be better served than to be under the teaching of Dr. Rice.
    “Dr. Rice is to be commended for his courageous defense of Terri Schiavo in spite of the difficult circumstances related to his now-former church member’s involvement,” Smith said. “I believe that other Southern Baptist churches would be well-served to follow the model of Dr. Rice in the manner in which he has dealt with this difficult situation.”
    --30--
    http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?ID=20385

    What would the Brownwood Republicans do ?

    Local Republicans back Greer
    Accused of "murder" in the Schiavo case by U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay, the judge is defended at home.
    By MICHAEL SANDLER, Times Staff Writer
    Published March 22, 2005
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------
    CLEARWATER - Many local Republicans shuddered last weekend when U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay accused a Pinellas judge of "murder" and "terrorism."
    Such labels, troubling in any context, are particularly grating when they involve two members of the same political party.
    "I was absolutely so disgusted with what he said," said County Commissioner Bob Stewart.
    Pinellas County Property Appraiser Jim Smith, a former state legislator and Republican state committeeman, called DeLay's remarks "a disgrace."
    Local Republicans had their own words for Judge George Greer, who, as presiding judge in the Terri Schiavo case, ordered the removal of her feeding tube on March 18.
    Conscientious. Honest. Compassionate. A good Christian. An outstanding lawyer.
    "Those folks that are saying anything bad about Judge Greer, they don't know him, and apparently they don't understand the law and the separation of powers," said state Rep. Everett Rice, R-Treasure Island, who stood behind Greer's decision last week in Tallahassee.
    In Washington, Republican lawmakers worked through the weekend after Greer refused to let congressional subpoenas interfere with his order. Today would be Schiavo's fourth ful l day without nourishment.
    Leading the way was DeLay, the House majority leader, who used inflammatory language while marshaling congressional Republicans to swiftly force a federal judge in Tampa to hear a request by Schiavo's parents to reinsert her feeding tube.
    "Right now, murder is being committed against a defenseless American citizen in Florida," DeLay said.
    He also said, "Schiavo's life is not slipping away - it is being violently wrenched from her body in an act of medical terrorism."
    DeLay's office did not respond to requests for comment.
    Greer, who declined to comment for this story, has been the subject of verba l attacks from religious and right-to-life groups since his ruling on Schiavo. He has als o received at least one death threat.
    His Republican colleagues in Pinellas are saddened by DeLay's statements in the already emotional debate.
    "I personally don't agree with Judge Greer's decision," said Ken Burke, Pinellas County Clerk of the Circuit Court and an active Republican. "But I respect the way he made it. I think those are inappropriate comments on DeLay's part."
    "We need more judges like Judge Greer, not fewer," said Bruce McManus, a Largo probate lawyer who specializes in elder law.
    McManus has found himself in a particularly difficult position. He's a member of groups that have been critical of Greer, such as the Southern Baptist Convention. But he also specializes in the area of law that Greer is interpreting.
    McManus said Greer has done his best to make a tough decision, and called DeLay's comments "ridiculous."
    "Judge Greer is an evangelical Christian man," McManus said. "He believes in the right to life as much as some of the people who are criticizing him so harshly. But he also believes in the rule of law, which he was sworn to uphold. To the best of his ability, that's what he is trying to do."
    Rice is also a lawyer and last week opposed a bill in Tallahassee that would have blocked the removal of Schiavo's feeding tube.
    "I can safely assume Judge Greer did the right thing in this case," Rice said. "And those people trying to vilify him about this are wrong. They are screaming and hollering for political gain. That's the only reason I can figure."
    Rice said the comments have to hurt, but he knows the judge is taking them in stride.
    "I think one of the most telling things about Judge Greer's integrity is that he could have dumped this case many times," Rice said. "He would not shirk his responsibility and he would not dump it on a fellow judge."
    For Tony DiMatteo, the chairman of the Pinellas County Republican Executive Committee, the Schiavo case is "an emotional issue" that has brought out a variety of opinions in the party. DiMatteo has chosen to keep his to himself. He offered a few words from a former Republican president.
    "Ronald Reagan had the 11th commandment: Thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican," DiMatteo said. "I wish more would follow the commandment of Ronald Reagan."
    http://www.sptimes.com/2005/03/22/Northpinellas/Local_Republicans_bac.shtml

    Tuesday, March 22, 2005

    Brownwood Case & Texas Futile Care Law -Terri Schiavo Case & Local Implications ?

    Note: George W. Bush signed a law in Texas that expressly gave hospitals the right to remove life support if the patient could not pay and there was no hope of revival, regardless of the patient's family's wishes. It is called the Texas Futile Care Law. Under this law, a baby was removed from life support against his mother's wishes in Texas just this week.
    ----------------------------------------
    Tuesday March 22, 2005
    News
    Uncle: MRI shows brain damage in Modgling
    By Steve Nash -- Brownwood Bulletin
     An MRI has revealed that Garret Modgling suffered brain damage when he fell into a septic tank Thursday and nearly drowned, Brian Wade, an uncle of the 2-year-old boy, said Monday.
    Wade said he did not know specifics of what the MRI, or magnetic resonance imaging, showed about Garret's brain or how severely it has been damaged.
    "It's kind of a waiting game at this point," Wade, who has made several trips to be with his nephew at Cook Children's Medical Center in Fort Worth, said by phone in Brownwood.
    He said family members have not wavered from their faith in God and still believe a miracle can restore the boy to health. "No giving up on that at all," he said. " ... Our request to God hasn't changed."
    But Wade acknowledged that fatigue is taking a toll on the family.
    "It is trying at times. You have to fight that discouragement," he said.
    He said is nephew is hooked up to a ventilator and other medical apparatus, but "overall he looks really good," Wade said. "His skin tone is good."
    He said doctors have said they want to remove the ventilator soon to see if the boy can breathe on his own. He said Garret has taken some breaths and overridden the ventilator.
    Wade said doctors are also concerned about the lack of a "gag reflex" in Garret, which Wade said is crucial in allowing the boy to swallow but avoid asphyxiating on saliva.
    Garret had no pulse for an hour or more as he underwent CPR and other life-saving efforts after falling into the septic tank on another family member's property on County Road 592, about 2 miles north of Early.
    http://www.brownwoodbulletin.com/articles/2005/03/22/news/news01.txt
    -------------------
    March 10, 2005, 10:49PM
    Right to Life backed law that irks wife
    By RICK CASEY
    Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle
    Jannette Nikolouzos is angry with the Texas law that allows St. Luke's Hospital to unhook her husband from life support tomorrow.
    "I'm so ashamed of my state that it executes civilians without criminal history," she told reporter Todd Ackerman.
    She may be surprised to learn that National Right to Life, the organization that is helping to lead the fight to keep a Florida hospital from removing life support for Terri Schiavo, helped write the Texas law.
  • rest of story...

  • -----------------
    March 15, 2005, 8:16PM
    Baby born with fatal defect dies after removal from life support
    By LEIGH HOPPER
    Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle
    The baby wore a cute blue outfit with a teddy bear covering his bottom. The 17-pound, 6-month-old boy wiggled with eyes open and smacked his lips, according to his mother.
    Then at 2 p.m. today, a medical staffer at Texas Children's Hospital gently removed the breathing tube that had kept Sun Hudson alive since his Sept. 25 birth. Cradled by his mother, he took a few breaths, and died.
    "I talked to him, I told him that I loved him. Inside of me, my son is still alive," Wanda Hudson told reporters afterward. "This hospital was considered a miracle hospital. When it came to my son, they gave up in six months .... They made a terrible mistake."
    Sun's death marks the first time a hospital has been allowed by a U.S. judge to discontinue an infant's life-sustaining care against a parent's wishes, according to bioethical experts. A similar case involving a 68-year-old man in a chronic vegetative state at another Houston hospital is before a court now.
  • rest of story...
  • Judges Not Safe In Brownwood Texas ?

    After listening for the last several weeks to comments by on air Hosts and callers into Newstalk 96.9 FM KXYL (Brownwood Texas), it is very easy to surmise that the Judges who are involved in Terri Schiavo's case (all of them who have ruled in the Husbands favor) would not be safe in Brownwood Texas. Anarchy radio has arrived Brownwood. It's really been here all along but was dressed in a costume much like "wolves in sheeps clothing" !

    Terri & Terry: Terri Schiavo & Randall Terry

  • rest of story...



  • rest of story...
  • KXYL Spoon feeding: Terri Schiavo, & ACLU

    You'd think with the KXYL Talking Heads and some of their callers bashing the ACLU, they would give their audience both sides of the case and other points of views (like the press release below). Isn't it very telling that the local talk radio hosts stopped using call in guests because maybe the guests agreed too often with the progressives in this community ! Too much light ?

    Terry Schiavo - Statement of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida
    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
    Friday, March 18, 2005
    CONTACT:
    Kimberly Lavender at 305-576-2337 ext. 16
    Howard Simon at 305-576-2337 ext. 14 or cell at 786-208-7103
    We believe that Congressional leaders, including Speaker Dennis Hastert, Majority Leader Tom Delay and Tom Davis, Chairman of the Committee on Governmental Reform, acted inappropriately by attempting to interfere in the legal proceedings involving Terri Schiavo by the issuance of four Congressional subpoenas.
     The issuance of subpoenas is nothing more than an attempt to circumvent the decisions of the courts – both state and federal – over seven years of litigation that has involved numerous appeals in the state and federal system. All have resulted in court orders directing that Terri Schiavo’s wishes be observed and that she not to be sustained on artificial life support.
     The American public should reject the efforts of politicians attempting to use the machinery of government to override what courts—by “clear and convincing evidence”—have found to be the wishes of an individual.
     If Congress can intervene in the Schiavo case, it can intervene in any case with which those in control of Congress disagree with the intensely personal judgment of a family to end extraordinary life sustaining measures for a family member who is in the end stages of a terminal illness or who has suffered a catastrophic accident with no hope of recovery.
    Politicians have no business interfering in these intensely personal decisions that are faced by families every day, and the courts have a very limited role in all of this -- to determine the wishes of a patient then get out of the way -- even if those wishes involve the refusal of life sustaining treatment and the consequences involves hastening death. 
     Howard Simon
    Executive Director
     Randall Marshall
    Legal Director
     Rebecca Harrison Steele
    Director, West Central Florida ACLU Office

    School Shootings & Cause and Effect ?

    Red Lake has troubled history
    Sharon Schmickle, Star Tribune
    The secluded Red Lake Indian Reservation in northern Minnesota has been plagued over the decades by more than its share of the seeds of violence: troubled schools, poverty, unemployment and bitter intertribal battles over basic rights and control of the reservation.
    Red Lake High School scored second-lowest of Minnesota schools last year on state comprehensive tests for 11th-grade math and third-lowest for 10th-grade reading. According to the state Department of Education's 2004 report card on the school, nearly one-fourth of the 355 students required special education, and the school failed to meet federal standards for reading and math. Four in five of the students met government poverty standards making them eligible for free and reduced-price lunches and other benefits.
    On the reservation, which is largely closed to outsiders, all of the Red Lake High School students are American Indian, the state report said.
    While school shootings have become a tragic reality for American students from a range of ethnic and economic backgrounds, many of the Red Lake students were born into a legacy of violence. And teens have lost their lives in earlier flare-ups on the reservation.
    In 1979, dissidents staged an insurrection after then-tribal leaders removed one of their sympathizers from the Tribal Council. Five armed dissidents broke into the reservation's law enforcement center and took several hostages. The FBI quickly ordered all police and sheriff's officers off the reservation, saying they faced life-threatening gunfire.
    With no police presence on the reservation, dissident tribal members captured the police department's weapons and raided the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs storage area for confiscated liquor.
    Then the insurgents set the law enforcement center on fire and went on a rampage of shooting and looting. The home of Roger Jourdain, who was then the tribal chairman, and other government buildings were burned to the ground.
    When the rioting ended, two teenagers were dead of gunshot wounds, several were wounded and about $4 million in property was damaged, primarily by fire.
    Five men were convicted and sentenced to prison in connection with the rioting.
    In the 1980s, there was more unrest at the reservation over allegations of civil-rights abuses. Lawyers had been barred from tribal courts, and defendants were routinely denied bail, jury trials and other rights that federal laws were supposed to extend to Indians.
    In 1986, a Red Lake band member, Gregory Good, accused Chief Tribal Judge George Sumner of running a court system that violated civil rights. One night after a dispute, Good shot Sumner to death. After hearing that Sumner had chased and beaten Good, a federal jury accepted arguments of self-defense and acquitted Good of homicide charges.
    Under pressure of a losing federal funding, tribal officials moved to improve the courts during the 1990s.
    Because of its isolation, Red Lake has had little luck with casino gambling, which has pulled some Minnesota Indians out of poverty. While the tribe has run casinos, revenues have been relatively low and many of the customers have been Red Lake residents.
    Red Lake has pulled itself up recently, reducing its poverty rate during the 1990s, but more than four in 10 residents remained unemployed, according to a recent census report. During the 1990s, a new generation of tribal leaders also moved toward a more open and less autocratic government than the reservation had known earlier.
    Sharon Schmickle is at sschmickle@startribune.com.

    Brownwood: Cap Rock, KXYL & Craddick

    URL: http://www.reporter-news.com/abil/nw_state/article/0,1874,ABIL_7974_3640505,00.html
    Questions raised at Cap Rock Energy Corp.
    By Associated Press
    March 22, 2005
    AUSTIN - A recent hearing has raised questions of poor management and improper executive perks at a West Texas energy utility.
    According to testimony presented to a panel of three administrative judges last week in Austin, Midland-based Cap Rock Energy Corp. paid for trips to Bermuda, the Caribbean, Arizona and Colorado for its chief executive officer, David Pruitt and his wife, even though the company was suffering operating losses and looking to increase rates.
    The company's service area includes parts of Fisher, Howard, Mitchell, Nolan and Scurry counties in the Big Country.
    Cap Rock also paid for the use of a private jet for other executives and spent more than $16,000 on questionable hotel expenses.
    The hearing was held last Wednesday as part of a 14 percent rate increase request by Cap Rock. The panel denied the increase, instead recommending a 7.5 percent decrease, or about $5 million per year.
    Their recommendation now goes to the Texas Public Utility Commission, which is expected to make a final ruling in about two months.
    According to evidence cited in the case, company officers and directors earned more than $1 million in bonuses between 1996 and 2001, despite operating losses during the same period.
    Cap Rock officials maintain the trips were for legitimate business purposes and that its executive compensation is in line with comparable utilities.
    ''We feel that our rates and our requested small rate increase are justified and that our evidence supports that,'' said Pruitt, the chief executive.
    Company officials say evidence against them is based on innuendo by a small group of West Texas detractors.
    They said the extra money requested in the rate increase is needed to make a reasonable rate of return on investments.
    Cap Rock converted from a rural electric cooperative to an investor-owned utility in late 1998.
    Because of a little-known clause in the 1999 electric deregulation law, Cap Rock had free rein on setting its rates. The loophole was closed by lawmakers in 2003.
    The company also made headlines in 2003, after revelations that it received exclusive, behind-the-scenes help from then-state Rep. Tom Craddick, before he became speaker of the Texas House.
    Craddick, Republican-Midland, also accepted more than $10,000 in a deal with a Cap Rock subsidiary, and was offered a position on the company's board. Craddick declined the board position and has downplayed his involvement with the company.

    note: If you listen to KXYL you will notice CapRock Advertisements running. Just another example that "all politics are local" ? Follow the money !

    Terri Schiavo - Dallas Morning News Editorial

    Life and Death With Dignity: Intervention makes tragic situation more so
    10:55 PM CST on Monday, March 21, 2005
    Now and again, someone's life imitates death.
    Such is the tragic case of Terri Schiavo, who has lived the past 15 years in a "persistent vegetative state" attached to a life-sustaining feeding tube.
    It's a pitiful existence that has left the nation in tears. Few among us are so presumptuous as to suggest to others when a life has ceased to be worth living. That decision is best the result of soulful family agreement in accordance with the previously expressed wishes of the incapacitated person.
    But such agreement wasn't reached in this case, and Congress and President Bush have stepped into this most personal of issues in a troubling way. Perhaps there is no completely right answer, but congressional and presidential intervention is certainly the wrong one.
    Like the president and Congress, we share the heartbreaking reaction to this case that makes intervention seem appealing. The Schiavo family has begged to become Terri's guardian, but her husband has not only refused but also succeeded in having her feeding tube removed, a seemingly cold move. As most parents would, Terri Schiavo's mom and dad hold out hope, no matter how unrealistic, for their daughter's recovery.
    It's doubtful, however, that federal intervention has done more than complicate a family tragedy. In Florida, numerous judges in various courts have issued rulings upholding Michael Schiavo's decision. Across the country, state laws generally support the authority of a spouse to make such crucial decisions for a partner.
    Moreover, this is a worrisome precedent for congressional intervention into cases in which families and state courts should have the final word. Regrettably, this situation has turned into a debate over which family member has most standing or possesses the purest motive.
    The take-away from this case should concern all families. In the absence of previously expressed and documented desires of the person incapacitated, they too could face such a dilemma. A durable power of attorney, which appoints someone to handle financial affairs or medical affairs if a person is incapacitated, or a "directive to physicians," otherwise known as a living will, to let doctors know that the incapacitated person doesn't want extraordinary measures taken to prolong life, are steps every family should take.
    Death, like life, should be with dignity.
    What is a living will?
    Also known as a directive to physicians, it "allows you to declare, in the event your death is deemed imminent by a physician due to disease, illness, or accident, that you do not wish to have your life prolonged by artificial means," according to the State Bar of Texas.
    The bar has a living-will form and more information on its Web site, www.texasbar.com.
    Give copies to your doctor, your family and your health care agent. You can change or revoke it at any time.

    http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/editorials/stories/032205dnedischiavo.9f05d.html
    --------------
    Letters for Tuesday
    10:43 PM CST on Monday, March 21, 2005
    THE TERRI SCHIAVO CASE

    Prepare your living will
    The one positive I see from the Terri Schiavo case is that it should open people's eyes to the importance of having a living will and durable power of attorney for health care. Ask your doctor about getting these forms.
    Supporters pray at a vigil for Terri Schiavo, whose feeding tube was removed Friday.
    Without them, you may have the courts and politicians making decisions for you.
    Mary Beth Dimijian, Dallas

    We need a merciful option
    How much sense does it make to let an innocent person starve to death when prisoners are treated more mercifully with lethal injections?
    I beg society to consider how we allow our loved ones to die. We treat animals more mercifully. I would not want to be left in Terri Schiavo's condition, but I also wouldn't want to be left to starve to death.
    Surely we can consider a more merciful option.
    Susan Romero McMenamy, Plano

    Congress does more harm
    As a physician who helps patients and their loved ones deal with end-of-life decision-making, Congress' actions in the Terry Schiavo case are shortsighted and dangerous.
    Law and legal precedents have given us guidelines for those difficult cases when a patient has left no written instructions. In Texas, one such statute, based on broad-based input and experience, says that for a married patient, decision-making falls to his or her spouse.
    To focus this kind of attention and develop policy based on a single case is likely to do more harm than good.
    Lisa Clark, Dallas

    Starving is not a painless death
    Re: "Ethics, politics a delicate mix," Saturday news story.
    Your article by Robert Dodge makes it seem like death by starvation and dehydration will be painless for Terri Schiavo, almost a non-event.
    You disregard the doctors who claim she can be rehabilitated. You disregard the doctors who have determined she is not in a vegetative state. What happened to the whole truth? Starvation and dehydration will not be painless; it will be barbaric.
    If you want the Catholic position, quote the Catechism and Pope John Paul II, not some fool in Boston. Duplicity ruins your credibility.
    Timothy Norman, Irving

    As a Republican, I'm embarrassed
    For a party so concerned about judicial activism to use the Terri Schiavo case to engage in blatant congressional activism perplexes me, as a regular Republican voter and contributor.
    Does our leadership really support rule of law and states' rights, which I remember as part of the Republican Party's core values? I am embarrassed.
    Jim Gould, Heath

    DeLay practices 'thug' politics
    I cannot believe that U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay believes that Terry Schiavo's husband has not guarded her rights. He has turned down more than a million dollars to regulate her care to others.
    All I can see is that he is carrying out her wishes against ardent public opposition. Mr. DeLay is practicing thug politics; Mr. Schiavo truly loves his mate. I know which one is more moral.
    Joel Rutledge, Carrollton

    How we treat vulnerable
    Terri Schiavo breathes on her own. She may have suffered brain damage, but she is not brain dead.
    I find it ironic that if you starve your children in Texas, CPS will take them away. If you starve your animals, the city will take them away. If we remove Terri's feeding tube, we are in effect starving her.
    What kind of country treats its most vulnerable citizens this way? I worry about everyone young and old who cannot feed themselves.
    Carol Stroud, Carrollton

    Terri Schiavo and Political opportunism

    Political opportunism
    By A Times Editorial
    Published March 22, 2005
    http://www.sptimes.com/2005/03/22/Opinion/Political_opportunism.shtml
    In 1999, as governor of Texas, George W. Bush signed a bill that would allow hospitals to override the wishes of family members and remove a patient's life support when further treatment was judged futile by a hospital committee. But on Sunday, the president rushed back to Washington from his Texas ranch to sign a bill, cobbled together in an emergency weekend session of Congress, to keep one severely brain-damaged woman alive despite what her husband says - and what state courts have held - is her desire not to linger in a persistent vegetative state. Have his convictions changed? Or his politics?
    With the family tragedy of Terri Schiavo transformed into a cause celebre for religious conservatives, the Republican leadership in Congress and the White House have turned it into a travesty. The likes of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and our own Republican freshman senator, Mel Martinez, have been ringmasters of a congressional circus, using outright lies and half-truths regarding Schiavo's care and condition to justify passing a highly intrusive and, we believe, unconstitutional bill.
    Some lawmakers no doubt voted their convictions, but there also was a whiff of political opportunism in the air. An unsigned memo that was circulated among Republican senators over the weekend said the case could be exploited as "a great political issue" that could excite the party's "prolife base" for the next election.
    Forget the Republican Party's traditional support for federalism and state's rights. It doesn't matter that Florida's courts have grappled with this case for seven years, with 19 state judges - after lengthy trials and painstaking review of the medical evidence - consistently upholding Michael Schiavo's right to carry out his wife's wishes and remove her feeding tube. It doesn't matter to Tom DeLay and Bill Frist that a brain scan and electroencephalogram indicate she has no cerebral activity. Frist said the images he saw in a short, carefully edited video of Schiavo "depicted something very different" from a persistent vegetative state. As a physician, surely he knows better.
    The legislation that is now law allowed Bob and Mary Schindler, Schiavo's parents - and them alone - to bring suit in federal court on Monday claiming that Schiavo's civil rights have been violated. In the statute, the court is directed to review the allegations raised by the Schindlers without regard for any findings by Florida's courts.
    Just as the 2003 law passed by the Florida Legislature applied to the Schiavo case alone, so too does this new federal law. Its sole function is to reverse a specific court judgment, and it should suffer the same fate as the 2003 law, which the Florida Supreme Court found unconstitutional.
    This case has demonstrated just how beholden our Congress and president are to a narrow ideological fringe group that wants to interfere in painful, personal decisions regarding the end of life. Once again, it is up to the courts to set things right.

    Monday, March 21, 2005

    Terri Schiavo's Case & Texas Similarities !

    By now most people who read liberal blogs are aware that George W. Bush signed a law in Texas that expressly gave hospitals the right to remove life support if the patient could not pay and there was no hope of revival, regardless of the patient's family's wishes. It is called the Texas Futile Care Law. Under this law, a baby was removed from life support against his mother's wishes in Texas just this week. A 68 year old man was given a temporary reprieve by the Texas courts just yesterday.
    Those of us who read liberal blogs are also aware that Republicans have voted en masse to pull the plug (no pun intended) on medicaid funding that pays for the kind of care that someone like Terry Schiavo and many others who are not so severely brain damaged need all across this country.
    Those of us who read liberal blogs also understand that that the tort reform that is being contemplated by the Republican congress would preclude malpractice claims like that which has paid for Terry Schiavo's care thus far.
    Those of us who read liberal blogs are aware that the bankruptcy bill will make it even more difficult for families who suffer a catastrophic illness like Terry Schiavo's because they will not be able to declare chapter 7 bankruptcy and get a fresh start when the gargantuan medical bills become overwhelming.
    And those of us who read liberal blogs also know that this grandstanding by the congress is a purely political move designed to appease the religious right and that the legal maneuverings being employed would be anathema to any true small government conservative.
    Those who don't read liberal blogs, on the other hand, are seeing a spectacle on television in which the news anchors repeatedly say that the congress is "stepping in to save Terry Schiavo" mimicking the unctuous words of Tom Delay as they grovel and leer at the family and nod sympathetically at the sanctimonious phonies who are using this issue for their political gain.
    This is why we cannot trust the mainstream media. Most people get their news from television. And television is presenting this issue as a round the clock one dimensional soap opera pitting the "family", the congress and the church against this woman's husband and the judicial system that upheld Terry Schiavo's right and explicit request that she be allowed to die if extraordinary means were required to keep her alive. The ghoulish infotainment industry is making a killing by acceding once again to trumped up right wing sensationalism.
    What he said. More Digby on the flip.
    Media ::
    This issue gets to the essence of the culture war. Shall the state be allowed to interfere in the most delicate, complicated personal matters of life, death and health because a particular religious constituency holds that their belief system should override each individual's right to make these personal decisions for him or herself. And it isn't the allegedly statist/communist/socialist left that is agitating for the government to tell Americans how they must live and how they must die.
    One of the things that we need to help America understand is that there is a big difference between the way the two parties perceive the role of government in its citizens personal lives. Democrats want the government to collect money from all its citizens in order to deliver services to the people. The Republicans want the government to collect money from working people in order to dictate individual citizen's personal decisions. You tell me which is the bigger intrusion into the average American's liberty?
    Digby and I and others have been advocating a polarizing political strategy of exposing the extremism that is today's GOP. I agree with Digby that this travesty is Exhibit A of why this is the right way to go.

    http://meteor-blades.dailykos.com/story/2005/3/20/23916/5653

    Terri Schiavo: Tom Delays State of Mind !

    Published on Sunday, March 20, 2005 by New York Newsday / Long Island
    DeLay Hammers Home his Heartless Influence on Terri
    by Ellis Henican
     Here's Tom DeLay, ready to tell the rest of us how to live our lives.
    Personally, I can't think of anyone I'd less want to see stomping around in my own family life at the most delicate imaginable moment, say while the grief-stricken Henicans were confronting a decision concerning a comatose loved one.
    Tom DeLay, the former small-town Texas exterminator. Tom DeLay, the most powerful man in Congress today. Tom DeLay, the feared Republican enforcer seemingly on the verge of criminal indictment for fund-raising abuses. Tom DeLay, a legislator so famously hard-hearted that he is known around Washington, with both trepidation and respect, as "The Hammer."
    Yes, that Tom DeLay.
    And what was he doing at week's end?
    He was inserting himself - not into my family, thank God - but into poor Terri Schiavo's. And the moment could not possibly have been worse.
    Terri, of course, is the comatose 41-year-old Florida woman who has been lying in an uninterrupted vegetative state for 15 years now, ever since her heart stopped and her brain was severely damaged and all the court-appointed doctors said she has no hope of ever recovering anything that vaguely resembles a genuine life.
    That Terri Schiavo.
    Terri's husband, Michael, has spent all that time hoping, praying, waiting and trying to carry out what he believes to be his wife's most profound wishes - not to be lying in suspended animation for years on end, unable to speak, to move, to feel or to think. He has been trying, in the face of her parents' disagreement and the taunts of angry protesters, pandering politicians and uninvited lawsuits, to give his wife the quiet and dignified death he believes she asked him to.
    Finally, the day arrived. The legal way cleared. An imperfect peace was made. And in stepped Tom DeLay.
    Not since George Wallace stood in that schoolhouse door at the University of Alabama had a pandering politician done something so bold in support of something so wrong.
    He knew what was better for Terri Schiavo than her husband did. And he would try anything - anything! - to enforce his own view.
    DeLay wasn't alone in this. Not by a long shot. There were other pandering politicians in Washington and Tallahassee, standing right beside him and launching their own heartless attacks on Michael Schiavo and the husband's desperate desire to do what he thought was right.
    All day yesterday, Republican leaders in Washington worked frantically to undo Terri's chance for a dignified death. The GOP meddlers came up with a plan to have federal courts take the case, and George Bush planned to jet back from his Crawford ranch to sign whatever they cooked up.
    But it really was DeLay who led the assault on this loving couple, their decent doctors and the crucial principle of a self-determined life.
    His words were so devoid of compassion, so viciously cruel, so blithely ignorant of the real-life complexities that loving families sometimes face, it was fair to ask if DeLay has been in some kind of coma himself.
    A coma that let him talk and walk and run for office, but somehow kept his heart in formaldehyde.
    There is nothing to do but quote the man's empty words.
    "Right now," Tom DeLay said on Friday, "murder is being committed against a defenseless American citizen in Florida. Terri Schiavo's feeding tube should be immediately replaced, and Congress will continue working to explore ways to save her."
    As if Tom DeLay and his band of zealots knew what was good for this suffering family a thousand miles away.
    "Mrs. Schiavo's life is not slipping away - it is being violently wrenched from her body in an act of medical terrorism," DeLay said. "Mr. Schiavo's attorney's characterization of the premeditated starvation and dehydration of a helpless woman as 'her dying process' is as disturbing as it is unacceptable. What is happening to her is not compassion - it is homicide. She doesn't need to die, and as long as Terri Schiavo can breathe and her supporters can pray, we will not rest."
    And who would know better than an ex-exterminator from Texas named Tom DeLay?
    The words echoed down to Texas, where he needs support with his legal problems. They bounced up the stairs of the Pinellas Circuit Court in Florida, where Judge George Greer, a Republican and a Southern Baptist, had the clear mind and the good sense not to be intimidated by some bully from Washington.
    He told the outsiders to get away from the hospice and to leave Michael Schiavo alone. Then he told an exterminator from Texas he wasn't getting his way this time. He might as well put his hammer away.
    It was certainly about time.

    http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0320-22.htm

    Shiavo Case: Republican Leadership out of touch ?

    GOoPers out of touch
    by kos
    Mon Mar 21st, 2005 at 09:22:54 PST
    Latest polling on the Shiavo case.
    ABC News (PDF). 3/20. MoE 4.5% (No trend lines.)
    Removal of feeding tube
    Support 63
    Oppose 28
    Federal Intervention
    Support 35
    Oppose 60
    Appropriate for Congress to get involved?
    Appropriate 27
    Not Appropriate 70
    Reason political leaders are trying to keep Shiavo alive
    Concern about Shiavo 19
    Political Advantage 67
    Even among evangelicals, 46 percent support removal of the feeding tube, as opposed to 44 percent who oppose. Conservatives support removal of the feeding tube 54-40.
    So really, this isn't even a conservative crusade, as the genuine conservative is probably offended by the rejection of state rights and the intrusion of the government into a private family affair. Not to mention some conservatives are probably offended for using public (taxpayer) funds to pay for her hospitalization. (Remember, Bush signed a law in Texas allowing hospitals to pull the plug against a family's wishes if the change for recovery was non-existent.)
    So this spectacle is done on behalf of the evangelical bloc, and even they oppose federal intervention 44-50 percent (in addition to narrowly supporting the removal of the feeding tube, as noted above). Catholics support removing the feeding tube 63-26, and oppose federal intervention 38-56.
    These numbers are unambigious, even after a week of media demonizing of Terri's husband. DeLay's and Frist's crass political play is obvious to just about everyone.

    http://lawnorder.dailykos.com/

    Republicans brag Schiavo's plight is "a great political issue" !

    * Religious Right (Randall Terry) talking points reach Brownwood Airwaves via KXYL talking heads ! (as pointed out by Ben from Coleman on this mornings KXYL show.) Note to Ben: They didn't get your point !
    -------------------------------------
    GOP brags that Schiavo's plight is "a great political issue"
    by John in DC - 3/20/2005 06:17:00 PM
    Well, I'm glad Terri Schiavo being a barely-alive invalid was able to make the GOP's day. So much for this being about saving a woman's life. It's always about screwing the other guy with the current Republican leadership in Washington. And if they have to play games with a dying woman's life to do it, so be it. Which God again do they claim to worship?
    More from the Washington Post:

    An unsigned one-page memo, distributed to Republican senators, said the debate over Schiavo would appeal to the party's base, or core, supporters. The memo singled out Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), who is up for reelection next year and is potentially vulnerable in a state President Bush won last year.
    "This is an important moral issue and the pro-life base will be excited that the Senate is debating this important issue," said the memo, which was reported by ABC News and later given to The Washington Post. "This is a great political issue, because Senator Nelson of Florida has already refused to become a cosponsor and this is a tough issue for Democrats."
    This shouldn't be a tough issue for Democrats at all. It's an easy issue, and one that is begging to blow up in the Republicans' face. I'll bet lots of Americans have no desire to be kept alive in a vegetative state, and the last person they want deciding whether they should live or die is Tom DeLay and the partisan children who wrote that Republican memo.
    This issue is easy for any Democrat with the balls and conscience to stand up and say "enough already" to an increasingly over-reaching immoral majority.

    http://www.americablog.org/
    ----------------------------------
    By now most people who read liberal blogs are aware that George W. Bush signed a law in Texas that expressly gave hospitals the right to remove life support if the patient could not pay and there was no hope of revival, regardless of the patient's family's wishes. It is called the Texas Futile Care Law. Under this law, a baby was removed from life support against his mother's wishes in Texas just this week. A 68 year old man was given a temporary reprieve by the Texas courts just yesterday.
    Those of us who read liberal blogs are also aware that Republicans have voted en masse to pull the plug (no pun intended) on medicaid funding that pays for the kind of care that someone like Terry Schiavo and many others who are not so severely brain damaged need all across this country.
    Those of us who read liberal blogs also understand that that the tort reform that is being contemplated by the Republican congress would preclude malpractice claims like that which has paid for Terry Schiavo's care thus far.
    Those of us who read liberal blogs are aware that the bankruptcy bill will make it even more difficult for families who suffer a catastrophic illness like Terry Schiavo's because they will not be able to declare chapter 7 bankruptcy and get a fresh start when the gargantuan medical bills become overwhelming.
    And those of us who read liberal blogs also know that this grandstanding by the congress is a purely political move designed to appease the religious right and that the legal maneuverings being employed would be anathema to any true small government conservative.
    Those who don't read liberal blogs, on the other hand, are seeing a spectacle on television in which the news anchors repeatedly say that the congress is "stepping in to save Terry Schiavo" mimicking the unctuous words of Tom Delay as they grovel and leer at the family and nod sympathetically at the sanctimonious phonies who are using this issue for their political gain.
    This is why we cannot trust the mainstream media. Most people get their news from television. And television is presenting this issue as a round the clock one dimensional soap opera pitting the "family", the congress and the church against this woman's husband and the judicial system that upheld Terry Schiavo's right and explicit request that she be allowed to die if extraordinary means were required to keep her alive. The ghoulish infotainment industry is making a killing by acceding once again to trumped up right wing sensationalism.
    This issue gets to the essence of the culture war. Shall the state be allowed to interfere in the most delicate, complicated personal matters of life, death and health because a particular religious constituency holds that their belief system should override each individual's right to make these personal decisions for him or herself. And it isn't the allegedly statist/communist/socialist left that is agitating for the government to tell Americans how they must live and how they must die.
    One of the things that we need to help America understand is that there is a big difference between the way the two parties perceive the role of government in its citizens personal lives. Democrats want the government to collect money from all its citizens in order to deliver services to the people. The Republicans want the government to collect money from working people in order to dictate individual citizen's personal decisions. You tell me which is the bigger intrusion into the average American's
    liberty ?

    http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_03_20_digbysblog_archive.html#111134934659869241

    Thursday, March 17, 2005

    Brownwood: Who is David Barton ? Depends on who you ask !

    Protesters' presence shows not all are on evangelical's bandwagon
    By Staci Semrad / Reporter-News Staff Writer
    February 22, 2005

    The Paramount Theatre entrance became a sparring ground over the separation of church and state Monday as author David Barton prepared to speak inside.
    Barton, an Aledo man recently named by Time magazine as one of the country's top 25 evangelicals, was invited to Abilene by The Discovery Center, a local Christian education center.
    As more than 700 people arrived for the event, many were puzzled to find more than a dozen people marching with signs bearing messages such as, ''Mind your own marriage,'' and ''The Founders presupposed God transcended the state. Right wing extremists want the state to make tokens of God.''
    Most picketers were with the Taylor County Democratic Party.
    Dave Haigler, chairman of the Taylor County Democrats, told a passer-by, ''We're protesting for religious freedom.''
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  • -------------------
    David Barton
    Master of myth and misinformation

    By Rob Boston

    The constitutional principle of separation of church and state has given Americans more religious freedom than any people in world history. Around the globe, those suffering under the heavy heel of government-sponsored religious oppression look to America's church-state model with longing. The "wall of separation between church and state" is America's bulwark of true religious liberty.
    Despite its proven track record of success, separation of church and state is increasingly becoming just another target for the Religious Right's smear campaign strategists. In the past few years, an entire cottage industry has sprung up in Religious Right circles that seeks to "prove" that mainstream history is all wrong. The United States was really founded to be a fundamentalist Christian nation. Separation of church and state was never intended; it was, these far-right activists allege, foisted on the country by the Supreme Court in recent times.
    The Religious Right's leading practitioner of this type of historical revisionism is David Barton, who runs an outfit called WallBuilders out of Aledo, Texas.1 Barton makes a lucrative living traveling the right wing's lecture circuit where he offers up a cut-and-paste version of U.S. history liberally sprinkled with gross distortions and, in some cases, outright factual errors. Crowds of fundamentalist Christians from coast to coast can't get enough of it.
    Barton's propaganda frequently leaches into the secular media. Fundamentalist activists who have read his self-published books or watched his videotape "America's Godly Heritage" use the material to attack separation of church and state in local newspapers through letters to the editor and opinion columns. Religious Right-backed candidates spout Barton's history as they seek public office.
    In addition, Barton has been eagerly embraced by TV preacher Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition. For three years running Barton has been a featured speaker at Christian Coalition meetings, where his presentation on America's "Christian" roots and salvos against church-state separation draw huge crowds.2 Local units of the Christian Coalition have hosted Barton as well, and some sell his books and videos.
    Other major Religious Right luminaries have lauded Barton's "research." Jerry Falwell has praised Barton's anti-separation of church and state screed The Myth of Separation (1989) from his television pulpit and sells it through Liberty University's bookstore. Barton has been interviewed by Dr. James Dobson, the radio psychologist who heads the wealthy and powerful Focus on the Family in Colorado Springs. During a flap over religion in public schools in Utah four years ago, Barton materials surfaced through the local branch of Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum. The Rev. D. James Kennedy of Coral Ridge Ministries is also an enthusiastic Barton booster.3
    Robertson, Christian Coalition executive director Ralph Reed, and other Religious Right bigwigs have hooked up with Barton despite his links to the most extreme elements of the radical right wing. On two occasions Barton has delivered his presentation before white supremacist organizations with ties to neo-Nazis.
    In 1991 Barton addressed the Rocky Mountain Bible Retreat of Pastor Pete Peters' Scriptures for America, a group that espouses the racist "Christian Identity" theology. Advocates of this bizarre dogma insist that white Anglo-Saxons are the "true" chosen people of the Bible and charge that today's Jews are usurpers. Aside from being a virulent anti-Semite, Peters has advocated the death penalty for homosexuals. According to the Anti-Defamation League, other speakers at the event included white supremacist leader and 1992 presidential candidate James "Bo" Gritz, a leader of the radical and increasingly violent militia movement, and Malcolm Ross, a Holocaust denier from Canada. In November of that same year, Barton spoke at Kingdom Covenant College in Grants Pass, Oregon, another "Christian Identity" front group with ties to Peters.4
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  • --------------
    Abilene Reporter News
     We need balance
    March 5, 2005
    In the article about the demonstration in front of the Paramount recently, Dave Barton, one of the primary proponents of constitutionalism, was quoted as saying that, ''Some people are against everything.'' This remark was a blatant attempt to discredit anyone who disagrees with him.
    Neo-cons are against separation of church and state, and against the Supreme Court interpreting the Constitution. The demonstration was for separation of church and state, democracy, and the balance of power that protects it.
    The Neo-cons will tell you that they represent what the founding fathers stand for, but the right of the Supreme Court to interpret the constitution was handed down by James Madison, who was not only one of the founding fathers, but the Father of the Constitution.
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    David Barton is not a historian
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  • ---------------------------
    GOP thanks Dems
    March 12, 2005
    This is a short and sincere note of thanks to Democrat Party Chairman Dave Haigler for clearly defining the basic differences between the major parties in Taylor County and the nation. Dave's picket line protest recently at the Paramount Theatre calling attention to his party's stance on social issues was dramatic and extremely welcome. The protesting young lady pictured on the Abilene Reporter-News AA cover said it all. Her shirt proclaimed that, ''Life begins at birth.''
    This is why Democrats support partial-birth abortion. Republicans do not. We have noticed that sonograms are moving pictures!
    Our thanks are extended to the Discovery Center for bringing David Barton to town. Our thanks go also to Dave Haigler for putting Barton on the front page of section AA.
    Paul Washburn, Chairman Taylor County Republican Party
    Abilene
    source: http://www.reporter-news.com/abil/op_letters_editor/article/0,1874,ABIL_7984_3615417,00.html
    -------------------------
    URL: http://www.reporter-news.com/abil/op_letters_editor/article/0,1874,ABIL_7984_3627887,00.htmlProtesting speaker
    Letter to the editor-March 17, 2005
    Last month members of the Taylor County Democratic Club, joined by libertarians picketed the appearance of David Barton at the Para-mount Theater. Mr. Barton is the vice Chairman of the state Republican Party and has been named by Time magazine as one of the 25 most influential evangelicals. He is the founder and leader of Wall Builders, an organization dedicated to a narrow interpretation of the Constitution. They contend the fathers never intended to separate church and state but rather recognized Christianity and Judeo-Christian values as the basis of our national establishment.
    Most were Christians, some were mechanists and deists. As a result of this diversity, they were purposely vague regarding the role of religion in the federal arena. Twelve of the original colonies had established denominations. Following reconstruction the Court applied the 14th amendment to state sectarianism, prohibiting government sanctioned religion. The Courts have affirmed and reaffirmed the applicability of the 14th amendment to the issues of religion and The State. This increasingly diverse country has been well served by this legal evolution. For a national religious identity to be visited upon us would rip the fabric of our country asunder as would the re-establishment of slavery or the revocation of the right of women to vote. Thus, David Barton and his wall builders are both dangerous and anachronistic. The Democratic Party will continue to oppose any infringement on the principle of the separation of church and state and our picketing is our affirmation of our party's just stance.
    Dave Haigler
    Taylor County Democratic Chair
    Abilene

    "Media", Massages & Happy Endings !

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  • Iraq: "Neo-Conservatives" and their Polls ?

    March 16, 2005
    Wednesday -- Non-Partisan
    USA Today is running a poll that says about 62-percent of Iraqis believe their country is headed in the right direction. Normally we would be happy to receive the news that Iraqis prefer the idea of burgeoning democracy to that of a dictatorship, but then we saw how the poll was presented:
    "The poll, by the International Republican Institute (IRI), [is] due to be made public Wednesday... The IRI is a non-partisan, U.S. taxpayer-funded group that promotes democracy abroad."
    A little research on the IRI turned up this information:
    - All 24 of the organization’s board members, including its president, are Republicans.
    - The IRI is the indirect product of a new agenda of democratic globalism spearheaded in the late 1970s by neoconservatives.
    - The IRI came to fruition in 1982 when President Ronald Reagan proposed a new U.S.-led effort to promote free-market democracies around the world.
    - George A. Folsom, IRI's president and CEO, was a member of the Bush-Cheney Transition Team.
    - Millions of dollars in U.S. taxpayer money channeled through the IRI funded groups opposed to Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez during the years preceding a failed April 2002 coup against the Venezuelan President.
    - When it was falsely believed that the coup was successful, Folsom rejoiced over Chávez' removal from power. "The Venezuelan people rose up to defend democracy in their country."
    - The IRI supplied aid to opposition groups in Haiti.
    So, we have a Republican-led and controlled group, one that perpetuates the Neo-con agenda of unilateral nation building, conducting a poll that serves its own interests by justifying the Iraq war as necessary means to a democratic society. Again, here's USA Today's presentation of the poll:
    "The IRI is a non-partisan, U.S. taxpayer-funded group that promotes democracy abroad."
    Infuriating? Yes. Dishonest? Possibly. Surprising? Hardly, especially considering the current culture of bought-and-paid-for-news-reports that are being disseminated by the Bush administration.
    Is there nothing that can be done about this? Here's a start. Go to StopFakeNews.org to petition the FCC to investigate this flagrant abuse of the Free Press. And how about sending some letters to USA Today telling them to stop being shills and get back to doing what they do best: Making colorful graphs and pie charts.
    http://forums.airamericaradio.com/weblogs/ms/archives/2005/03/wednesday_1.html#comments

    Wednesday, March 16, 2005

    Hoot_baker, KXYL's James Williamson & Jeff Gannon

    Maybe KXYL’s James Williamson (the voice of Brown County Republicans) will take Hoot_baker’s advice (see below) and invite Jeff Gannon for a live broadcast from Riverside Park !

    Who is Jeff Gannon:
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  • -------------------------
    Post below was posted at cityofbrownwood.com website:

    hoot_baker
    Senior Member
    Turkmenistan
    179 Posts Posted - March 12 2005 :  23:41:37    
    Since Riverside Park is now Gay Park, maybe James W. needs to do a live broadcast from there sometime and "cleanse" it of all the gay spirits.

    ÇÂÒÚӘ͇ Ë ‚Á„Îfl‰˚ - ‚˚ ‰ÓÎÊÌ˚ ÔÓβ·ËÚ¸ Ëı?

    "Feels Like Home" ?

    Wednesday March 16, 2005
    News
    Deputy finds disrobed man inside car in ditch
    By Steve Nash
     Brownwood Bulletin
    A sheriff's investigator was in for a surprise when he checked on a vehicle parked in a ditch, and saw a naked man sitting in the driver's seat. A pornographic magazine was in the seat next to the man, investigator Brian Lundy's report states.
    The 27-year-old Early man, who hastily tried to clothe himself as Lundy approached, was arrested on a charge of disorderly conduct, a Class C misdemeanor, jail records show.
    Lundy was driving on County Road 405 at 11 a.m. Monday when he stopped to check on the Jeep in the ditch, Lundy's report states.
    Lundy initially saw that the man was shirtless, and asked if he was all right or if he had a vehicle problem. The man said he was just getting away from home, Lundy's report states.
    "The subject was acting odd, like other subjects I had encountered who had been using ... methamphetamine," Lundy's report states.
    Lundy parked, then approached the driver's side and saw that the man was naked, with his underwear around his ankles. "I'm so embarrassed," Lundy's report quoted the man as saying.
    Lundy searched the man's Jeep and found a package of syringes and a bag with items including measuring spoons, snorting straws and a baggie with a trace amount of possible methamphetamine, Lundy's report states.
    A drug-related charge will be filed if a lab test shows that the substance in the baggie was methamphetamine, the report states.
    In an unrelated incident, a cleaning crew at Brownwood High School found an open window on the second floor of the Brownwood High School student center. An amplifier from the choir room was found on the roof.
    Police did respond to an alarm report at the high school Saturday and did not find anyone inside. Police found an unlocked door at the student center. Police speculate that someone used a ladder to get onto a covered walkway, got inside the building and left through the door that was found unlocked.
    Authorities are investigating other unrelated incidents including:
    * A man told police a woman he did not know knocked on his door in the 400 block of West Chandler and asked to use the rest room. The man allowed her to do so. After she left, the man discovered that his wallet had been removed from some jeans that were draped across a chair in another room. The woman left the wallet behind but removed $950, the man told police.
    * Two boys in foster care, ages 13 and 14, got in a fight while playing backyard basketball on Country Road 354. One of the boys started the fight because he was angry that he was losing, and one boy sustained a broken bone in his finger, a foster parent told deputies.
    * A 20-year-old Brownwood man, Selso Martinez, was arrested on a felony charge of unauthorized use of a motor vehicle and on misdemeanor charges while police investigated a hit-and-run accident. A deputy was involved in the investigation because the vehicle involved in the accident, a 1952 Ford F-250 pickup, had disappeared from outside a home on FM 3254 during a birthday party.
    * A 52-year-old Brownwood man was charged with making a terroristic threat after a witness told police he heard the man threaten to shoot two women.
    The man told officer Johnny Jackson he exchanged words with two women after one of them bumped into him in the EZ Mart store, 101 CC Woodson, and knocked a cigarette out of his mouth.
    The witness heard the man call out to a passenger in his vehicle, which was parked outside the store, to bring him his shotgun, Jackson's report states.
    The man cursed at Jackson and called him a Nazi, the report states.
    * A man told police a guitar and amplifier, which is had been keeping for his sister who is in the Navy, had disappeared. The man saw the items in a local pawn shop.
    * Someone took a guitar from a home in the 2400 block of Monticello.
    * Someone took CD players from vehicles parked in the 1600 block of Sixth and the 1800 block of Fourth.
    * Someone took a cell phone and purse from a vehicle parked in the 1600 block of Avenue I.
    * Police arrested a 25-year-old Brownwood woman on a DWI charge after she drove her vehicle through a pipe fence at Borden and Coleman.
    * Police investigated a domestic disturbance in which two brothers got in a fight in the 100 block of Broadmoor Circle.
    * A 26-year-old Early man, Audey Mitchell, was arrested on a felony charge of possession of a controlled substance and on a misdemeanor charge of possession of drug paraphernalia after a traffic stop at West Adams and Center. The man was also arrested on outstanding misdemeanor warrants.
    * Someone drove a truck through a yard in the 2000 block of Avenue D. Police found the truck parked in the 2400 block of Coggin. The man was arrested on a charge of public intoxication and on outstanding warrants.
    * A man told police he got out of prison, and returned home to find his record collection was missing. The man had been collecting records since he was 12 and had 2,000 88 RPM records and 1,000 45 rpm records.
    * Someone took items including a television, a DVD player, a CD player, a tackle box, tools and filet knives from a home in the 6900 block of Shamrock Drive.
    http://www.brownwoodbulletin.com/articles/2005/03/16/news/news03.txt

    Company's coming to "Historic" Downtown Brownwood

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  • Air America, "Women Cops", and Neo_Con

    See our post by "Neo-Conservative Columnist" Michelle Malkin “Women Cops Suck”
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  • ------------------------
    AIR AMERICA'S LOUSY RATINGS
    By Michelle Malkin   ·   March 02, 2005 04:53 AM
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  • -------------------------
    Obviously we don't agree with Michelle nor the local Neo-Conservative Talk Show Hosts on these points !

    Avoid Mexico, victim's dad urges spring breakers

    Texas man makes plea; offficials across border play down fears
    08:19 PM CST on Tuesday, March 15, 2005
    By TRACEY EATON / The Dallas Morning News
    BROWNSVILLE – The father of a Texas student killed in a 1989 sadistic ritual murder during spring break in Mexico is warning students to avoid crossing the border this year.
    "I just hope students stay out of Mexico," said Jim Kilroy, a resident of Santa Fe, near Houston. "The drug dealers are ruining it, and the police aren't there to protect you."
    Mark Kilroy, 21, disappeared on March 14, 1989, while barhopping with friends in Matamoros. Investigators later blamed the murder on Adolfo Jesus Constanzo, a self-styled practitioner of African voodoo whose followers had chosen Mr. Kilroy at random.
    -----------------
    Mark Kilroy, a pre-med student from the University of Texas at Austin, had dashed across the border to visit the clubs in Matamoros. His friends reported him missing the next day, and the case captured national attention.
    -----------------------
    Mr. Constanzo had told followers that he wanted to sacrifice someone to protect a load of 800 pounds of marijuana that he planned to send across the border.
    Mr. Constanzo, linked to at least 23 ritual murders, was not captured alive. He ordered a follower to shoot him before he could be apprehended.
    Other members of the cultlike ring got jail terms ranging from 40 to 67 years. And that's "without probation," Mr. Kilroy said.
    After the killing, Mr. Kilroy and his wife Helen started an anti-drug group, the Mark Kilroy Foundation. The nonprofit organization (www.markkilroyfoundation.org) supports drug treatment centers and educational programs. Its 10th dinner dance and auction will be April 9 in Hitchcock, near Houston.
    "When something like this happens, you kind of get appointed by a higher force to get involved and try to keep children safe," said Mr. Kilroy, who wrote a book about the tragedy and donates the proceeds to the foundation. "If I were just some ordinary person, people wouldn't listen."
    But they should, he said, especially during spring break.
    E-mail teaton@dallasnews.com
    http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/texassouthwest/stories/031605dntexkilroy.42e0f.html

    "What to Think" ?: Don't need KXYL Talking Heads Either

    See our March 12, 2005 Post regarding talk radio

    Dallas Morning News Letter to the Editor

    Liberals don't need it
    Re: "A Texas forum for Franken – albeit faint," Friday news story.
    Can a left-leaning radio network be successful in North Texas? Not likely. The reason is simply that the liberal thinkers don't need a Rush Limbaugh or Bill O'Reilly to tell them what to think.
    Jack Duncan, Hughes Springs

    http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/letters/stories/031605dnediwedletters.7c76.html

    10 reasons why Tom DeLay should resign from Congress

    See our previous posts on March 06, 2005.............

    CampaignWithout DeLay:
    Clean Up Congress Now
    1. Tom DeLay violates ethics rules at will – he has received four ethics violations -- and is a national embarrassment.
    2. Tom DeLay embodies the worst of pay-to-play politics – puts big donors like Enron ahead of the rest of us.
    3. Tom DeLay abuses his position as House Majority Leader to trample on the legislative process.
    4. Tom DeLay accepted travel expenses from a registered foreign agent, in apparent violation of House rules.
    5. Tom DeLay used illegal corporate contributions to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of Texas voters with his anti-democratic re-districting scheme.
    6. Tom DeLay uses tax dollars and government resources for partisan political gain.
    7. Tom DeLay opposes any reasonable campaign finance laws, even disclosure of donations.
    8. Tom DeLay shakes down small business owners for campaign contributions.
    9. Tom DeLay received all expenses-paid junket from a lobbyist accused of bilking tens of millions of dollars from six Native American tribes.
    10. Tom DeLay believes he is above the law.

    source: http://www.pcactionfund.org/withoutdelay/facts/

    Tuesday, March 15, 2005

    KXYL's James Williamson broadcasting from Jerusalem ?

    Will Brown County Republican Spokesman and KXYL Talk Show Host (“All Gay all Day”) , James Williamson, be Broadcasting Live from Jersuleum’s WorldPride 2005 ? Will Jeff Gannon be Co-hosting with James ? Will Hal Lindsey, “Flyboy Harold’s Friend”, be there with his fourth wife speaking about “abominations” ? These questions are posed because KXYL owner, Phil Watts, has stated before that the "Gay" issue (when they used Fag on air) is what launched Brownwood Talk Radio and James rakes in the callers ( $$$$$) when he starts in on his partisan (Blame it on the Democrats, etc., etc.) gay bashing. This Bully of the airwaves was chosen to speak to Brownwood Independent School District students as the representative of the Republican Party. (see our extensive archives posts for more on this topic)
    ------------------------
    Love without Borders: Jerusalem WorldPride 2005
    Jerusalem, the Holy City, the city the world looks towards from east and west. With more than 5,000 years of recorded history, the very name evokes vivid images even in those who have not yet visited. Temples, mosques, and churches; the great city walls of honey-colored stone. For centuries Jerusalem has been home to vibrant and diverse communities with ancient traditions. They have contributed to the city’s unique atmosphere as a cultural crossroads and inspiration for faith.
    What is WorldPride 2005 ?
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  • Who is Jeff Gannon ?
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  • Will James choose to co-host with one of the following ?:
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  • ---------------------
    Will James Williamson and his Brownwood Posse be using this plane for their trip to Israel....
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  • Brownwood Meth: "The More Things Change........."

    Look at the Headlines of todays Brownwood Paper and go back and look at the story of Brownwood Meth from 1989. Some of the suspects arrested Friday were 2 to 8 years old when "Drugs - Deep in the Heart of Texas" was written. Is our strategy working ?

    Tuesday March 15, 2005
    News
    Meth lab raid could become a federal case
    By Steve Nash -- Brownwood Bulletin
     BLANKET -- Federal charges may be filed after lawmen raided a methamphetamine lab Friday near Blanket, a law enforcement official said.
    Officers with the West Central Texas Interlocal Crime Task Force, the Brown County Sheriff's Office, and the Brownwood and Early police departments arrested four people and seized a large amount of chemicals and equipment used for making methamphetamine, task force commander Billy Schat said.
    Two guns were also seized, and one was reported stolen in Brown County, Schat said.
    The lawmen served a search warrant at a home on County Road 321, Schat said.
    Schat said the lab was one of the larger ones lawmen have seen in Brown County.
    "We were glad to get this one," he said.
    source: http://www.brownwoodbulletin.com/articles/2005/03/15/news/news01.txt

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  • Polar X-press On It's Way

    Storm Dumps 3 Feet of Snow on N.M. Town
    Tue Mar 15,11:29 AM ET
    LAS VEGAS, N.M. - A slow-moving storm dumped 2 to 3 feet of snow on parts of northern and eastern New Mexico, closing major highways, schools and some government offices Tuesday.
    "I've lived here for all my life, and this is one of the worst as far as how quick it (snow) accumulates," said Steve Lucero, owner of a tow truck service at Las Vegas, where 2 feet of snow had fallen since the storm developed Monday.
    The heaviest snowfall was 34 inches at Mineral Hill, a small community about 15 miles west of Las Vegas, said Kerry Jones, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service (news - web sites) in Albuquerque. The Sipapu Resort ski area in northern New Mexico reported 28 inches and the Angel Fire Resort ski area reported 18.
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  • “Off the Mark” ? You gotta love it !

    Greenspan, Clinton Clash on Forecasts
     Business - AP
    By JEANNINE AVERSA, AP Economics Writer

    WASHINGTON - Alan Greenspan (news - web sites) and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (news - web sites) clashed briefly Tuesday over rosy surplus forecasts the Federal Reserve (news - web sites) Chairman relied on to support President President Bush (news - web sites)'s 2001 tax cuts, estimates that turned out to be considerably off the mark.
    "It turns out that we were all wrong," Greenspan conceded at a Senate hearing.
    "Just for the record, we were not all wrong, but many people were wrong," Clinton, D-N.Y., quickly shot back.
    Greenspan lent critical support for Bush's first-term tax cuts, saying they would stimulate the then-ailing economy. Clinton and many Democrats voted against the tax cuts, arguing that they would mainly benefit the wealthy and that federal deficits would balloon.
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  • Don't Look At This.....

    .....If you are in lockstep with the Brownwood "Neo-Conversative" Talking Heads. They'll tell you there is no market (audience) for progressive talk. They want to spoon feed you their spin and are afraid of a challenging viewpoint because when they are challenged they double team you and cut your call short or start in on the name calling ! And they wonder why other viewpoints don't call in ! Reminds me of a schoolyard bully who complains why no one will play with them ! Their distortions are being disassembled every day by thinking Americans !
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  • Quote

    "Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion is."

    ~ Mohandas K. Gandhi

    Are Budgets Moral Documents ?

    As Christians committed to social justice and the common good, we believe that budgets are moral documents. Apparently, Congress didn't get the memo.
    The House and Senate Budget Committees approved budgets last week that make dramatic cuts to Medicaid, Food Stamps, and countless other low-income programs while extending tax cuts and (unbelievably) proposing new ones for the wealthiest Americans. This week, the budgets will be discussed and voted on by the full House and Senate, with all members of Congress being able to participate.
    Your response to our "The Budget is a Moral Document" campaign has been overwhelming. Almost 20,000 of you have sent e-mails to Congress in the past month, and staff on Capitol Hill report they have never seen this much constituent response about the budget. As people of faith, we must now ramp up our efforts and send one clear message to Congress: Don't pass a morally bankrupt budget!
  • rest of story...
  • Brownwood "Neo-Conservatives" Silent on this one !

    Rolling the Dice on a GOP Rift
    By E. J. Dionne Jr.
    Tuesday, March 15, 2005; Page A23
    House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's ethics troubles threaten more than his own political future. They have the potential to create a much wider scandal over lobbying on the Indian gambling issue and to open a rift among socially conservative Republicans.
    For now much of the public attention focuses on DeLay's connections with lobbyist Jack Abramoff's efforts to protect Indian gambling interests. The Post reported on Saturday that DeLay, a Texas Republican, took a trip to Britain in 2000 that was largely financed by two of Abramoff's clients, the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and eLottery Inc.

  • rest of story...
  • Judge in gay marriage case is a Catholic Republican appointee

    Posted on Tue, Mar. 15, 2005
    DAVID KRAVETS
    Associated Press
    SAN FRANCISCO - Supporters of same-sex marriage found an ally in San Francisco Judge Richard Kramer - a Catholic Republican appointed to the bench by a former GOP governor.
    "We're certainly feeling the judge's decision is right," said San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, whose city's lawsuit prompted Kramer's ruling Monday that gays and lesbians have the right to marry in California, despite a law and a voter-approved measure declaring marriage to be the exclusive realm of heterosexuals.
    Opponents of gay marriage immediately declared that 57-year-old Kramer is a judicial activist whose decision was "ludicrous" and "nonsense."
    "We knew Judge Kramer was under tremendous political pressure to redefine marriage, but we were hopeful he would recognize the limited role of the judiciary," said Robert Tyler, an Alliance Defense Fund attorney trying to uphold California's traditional marriage laws. "We do not believe it is appropriate for judges in this setting to overturn the will of the people."
    With a 27-page stroke of the pen, Kramer did just that. "The parade of horrible social ills envisioned by the opponents of same-sex marriage is not a necessary result from recognizing that there is a fundamental right to choose who one wants to marry," he wrote in the decision, which won't be enforced for 60 days, to give opponents time to appeal.
  • rest of story...
  • “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

    Babylonian Code of Hammurabi:
  • rest of story...
  • Moderate Republicans & Why we support them

    Some G.O.P. Senators Resist Proposed Medicaid Cuts
    By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
    Published: March 11, 2005 Doug Mills/The New York Times
    WASHINGTON, March 10 - President Bush's request that Congress slow the growth of Medicaid, a centerpiece of the White House budget for 2006, is drawing opposition from some Senate Republicans, who are caught between their desire to support the president and pressure from home-state governors resisting the cuts.
    One Republican, Senator Gordon Smith of Oregon, said he would call for a commission to examine the finances of Medicaid, the government insurance plan for the poor, in an attempt to generate bipartisan proposals about how to rein in the soaring cost of the program. Another, Senator Mike DeWine of Ohio, said he was worried about the impact Medicaid cuts would have on his state. A third, Senator Norm Coleman of Minnesota, said he was not ready to sign off on cuts.

    source: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/11/politics/11budget.html

    Monday, March 14, 2005

    "Neo-Con" Republicans & Their Pastors Drunk with Power ?

    (see our March 06 posts for more on Tom Delay & Enron)

    Delay and Company
    By KAREN TUMULTY
    Monday, March 14, 2005 Posted: 2:07 PM EST (1907 GMT)

    “ Now the machinery that DeLay and his pastor built threatens to derail DeLay. He was slapped three times last year by the House ethics committee for violations of House rules, and finds himself potentially facing more serious trouble on multiple fronts.”

    source: http://www.cnn.com/2005/ALLPOLITICS/03/14/delay.company.tm/

    Women cops suck ? So says "Neo-Con" Republican Columnist Michelle Malkin. We don't agree with Michelle...

    Women cops suck
    by John in DC - 3/14/2005 10:54:00 AM
    Or so says GOP love child Michelle Malkin. Malkin, you'll recall, is the uber-popular conservative writer who thinks detentions camps for Japanese-Americans during WWII were really quite plush, and she thinks we ought to consider using them again for other nasty minorities we don't trust (can we start with conservative writers who hate themselves?)
    In this case, Malkin is railing about female cops. Apparently they kill people because they're so incompetent. Well, at least that's the lesson Malkin says we should take from the recent murders in Atlanta. Malkin says the perp overpowered a female court guard and got her gun. So that means all women cops kill people through their incompetence. And she notes the AUDACITY of the authorities in Georgia to let a mere woman escort the perp now that he's in custody (see photo below).
    So does Malkin think US female soldiers kill people too?
    And a special note to all your female police officers, FBI agents and soldiers out there. Malkin is a darling of the GOP. This is what you voted for last fall if you voted GOP.
    PS My favorite part of Malkin's entire post is the headline, check it out:
    What's wrong with this picture? Oh, I don't know. Maybe that an Asian-American WOMAN could be so bigoted against Asians and women?
    (Kudos to Atrios for spotting this story.)
    Comments (76)  |  Permanent Link |   
    Español | Deutsch | Français | Italiano | Português
    source: http://www.americablog.org/
    --------------------------
    Monday March 14, 2005

    News
    Gender isn't an issue for Brown County's first woman patrol deputy
    By Steve Nash -- Brownwood Bulletin
     
    Lana Guthrie said some people are born knowing they want to be law enforcement officers. With others, it takes a little time.
    Guthrie, who went to work as a Brown County Sheriff's deputy on Feb. 22, said she was in the latter category. Guthrie was working as a dispatcher in Fayette County when she realized she didn't want to do the sending but wanted to be the one being sent.
    Guthrie became a patrol deputy, and later a criminal investigator for Fayette County, specializing in crimes against children and women.
    "I loved it from the beginning," Guthrie, who is Brown County's first-ever female patrol deputy, said of being a law officer.
    She and her husband, James, and a daughter moved to Brown County because of her husband's promotion with the Texas Parks and Wildlife in late 2003. James Guthrie is the major in charge of the region that includes Brown County.
    Guthrie said her gender, or being the county's first female patrol deputy, isn't an issue. "It doesn't make any difference," she said. "In law enforcement, you kind of lose sight of the gender line."
    Guthrie's first job for a sheriff's department was in Edwards County, where she worked as a jailer. Her next job was in Fayette County. As a dispatcher, she would pull child abuse referrals off the fax machine, and Guthrie believed that anyone who could make a difference in those cases should "step up to the plate."

    for the rest of the story please visit: http://www.brownwoodbulletin.com/articles/2005/03/14/news/news01.txt

    Surprise, Surprise !

    An Opinionated Network
    Monday, Mar 14, 2005; 7:05 AM

    In covering the Iraq war last year, 73 percent of the stories on Fox News included the opinions of the anchors and journalists reporting them, a new study says.
    By contrast, 29 percent of the war reports on MSNBC and 2 percent of those on CNN included the journalists' own views.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/nation/columns/kurtzhoward/

    Sunday, March 13, 2005

    6 Degrees of Separation: From Brownwood Tx. to Brookfield Wisc.

    Does this Sound like the attitudes and views expressed on Brownwood Talk Radio ? Our thoughts and prayers to all of those who are suffering from this tragedy.

    " Ratzmann was affiliated with the Living Church of God, a born-again denomination that focuses on "end-time" prophecies and uses news to "prove" that these are end times."

    Police baffled by motive in church gun rampage
    RYAN NAKASHIMA, Brookfield, Wisconsin March 14 2005
    http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/35193.htmlMon 14 Mar 2005
    ------------------------------
    The God-fearing gunman who killed seven at church service
    RYAN NAKASHIMA
    THIS is the face of the man behind the United States’ latest gun atrocity, in which seven people were killed as they were gathered at an evangelical church service at a hotel in a suburb of Milwaukee.
    Last night the gunman, who also wounded four others attending the Living Church of God service on Saturday before turning the gun on himself, was identified by police as Terry Ratzmann, 44, of New Berlin, Wisconsin.
    The church’s minister and his teenage son were among the victims of the massacre at the Sheraton Hotel.
    Ratzmann, a buttoned-down churchgoer known for sharing home-grown vegetables with his neighbours, walked into the room and fired 22 rounds from a 9mm handgun.
    http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=275572005
    -------------
    Wisconsin Church Gunman May Have Been Angry at Sermon
    Sun Mar 13, 2005 05:42 PM ET
    BROOKFIELD, Wis. (Reuters) - A gunman who opened fire at a crowded church service in a Wisconsin hotel, killing seven people, including the pastor and his son, was a congregant who may have been angry about a sermon, police said on Sunday.
    The gunman, who also wounded four others attending the Living Church of God service on Saturday before shooting himself in the head, was identified by police as 44-year-old Terry Ratzmann of New Berlin, Wisconsin.
    Police said Ratzmann attended the church, which has met regularly at the Sheraton Hotel in Brookfield 10 miles west of Milwaukee for the past several years.
    It was during a church gathering in a meeting room at the hotel that Ratzmann, a computer programer who was about to lose his job, entered the room from the back. He fired a total of 22 shots into the crowd of about 50 to 60 people, police told reporters.
    "There were so many shots. Everybody was screaming. It was mayhem," witness Chandra Frazier was quoted as saying in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel newspaper.
    Police said the killer's motive was unclear. It was also not clear whether he targeted his victims or shot randomly. But witnesses told police that two weeks earlier, Ratzmann had stood up and walked out of a church meeting during a taped sermon by one of the church's chief evangelists.
    Ratzmann, who did not give a warning or say anything during the shooting, used up one clip, then stopped to reload and immediately opened fire again, said police, who interviewed several witnesses. He then shot himself.
    During the shooting, police said someone a witness described as a friend of Ratzmann, shouted, "Stop! Stop! Why?"
    "There is nothing significant in his background and no mental illness to indicate why he would do this," Brookfield Police Captain Phil Horter told reporters.
    Among the dead were church pastor Randy Gregory and his 17-year-old son, James. The others who died but whose names were not released were a 15-year-old boy, three men aged 44, 58 and 72, and a 55-year-old woman, police said.
    Four of those wounded, including a 10-year-old girl, were being treated at area hospitals.
    Ratzmann, who lived with his mother and sister, was described by neighbors speaking on local television as an avid gardener and animal lover.
    Police searched the home and confiscated three computers, a rifle and a box of bullets matching those used in the shooting.
    The church, headquartered in Charlotte, N.C., believes the Sabbath should be observed on Saturday. According to its Web site it is active in North and South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia with over 200 congregations.
    The church is an offshoot of the Worldwide Church of God, founded by American evangelist Herbert W. Armstrong in 1933.
    http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=7885894
    -----------------------
    Worldwide Church of God / http://www.wcg.org/
    Brownwood Connection to this church ?
    Pastor Terry Lambert
    terry.lambert@wcg.org
    Pastor: Abilene, Texas (Hawley, TX)
    ------------
    http://www.livingcog.org/congregations.htm
    Abilene Texas John Ogwyn ( Randy Gregory now in Wisconsin )
    -------------
    Last update: March 13, 2005 at 12:48 PM
    A look at the Living Church of God
    Associated Press
    March 13, 2005 SECT0314
    Terry Ratzmann, the man who police say killed seven people and then himself during a church service, was a member of the Living Church of God, a denomination that focuses on "end-time'' prophecies.
    The church's estimated 6,300 members in 40 countries place a strong emphasis on using world news to "prove'' that these are end times, to be followed by Christ's second coming.
    This year, the group's leader, Dr. Roderick C. Meredith, wrote that events prophesied in the Bible are "beginning to occur with increasing frequency.''
    "We are not talking about decades in the future. We are talking about Bible prophesies that will intensify within the next five to 15 years of your life,'' he wrote in the church's magazine, Tomorrow's World.
    He advised members to gather emergency food supplies and follow government instructions on how to prepare for an emergency. He also warned about a coming "financial emergency'' and cited an article from the San Francisco Chronicle about the financial fallout as baby boomers retire.
    The Charlotte, N.C.-based Living Church of God grew out of a schism in the Worldwide Church of God, formed in 1933 as the Radio Church of God by Herbert W. Armstrong. Armstrong, an Oregon advertising man, preached that Anglo-Americans were Jews, descendants of the lost "ten tribes of Israel.''
    The Worldwide Church of God changed their doctrine after Armstrong's death in 1986, but more than half the membership withdrew and formed splinter groups.
    Meredith and Raymond McNair led one of the numerous groups that broke away, forming what was then called the "Global Church of God'' in 1992 to perpetuate Armstrong's original teachings.
    Armstrong's followers worshipped Saturday mornings, as Ratzmann did, and often rented facilities rather than erecting its own buildings. Adherents believe in faith healing and strict opposition to divorce, among other things. Members are told to shun worldly involvements, including politics, military service or participation in juries.
    http://www.startribune.com/stories/462/5289579.html

    Saturday, March 12, 2005

    For the " Love of God " !

    'IT'S HUMAN CARNAGE'
    8 dead, 4 wounded as New Berlin man
    opens fire in church meeting at Brookfield hotel
    By CROCKER STEPHENSON
    cstephenson@journalsentinel.com
    Posted: March 12, 2005
    A man neighbors described as quiet and devout opened fire Saturday on a group of men, women and children attending a weekly church service at a Brookfield hotel, killing eight people - including himself - and seriously wounding four others.
    "He planned to shoot us all," said Chandra Frazier, a 31-year-old woman attending the Living Church of God gathering.
    Frazier said some 80 members of the church, which has been holding services at the Sheraton Hotel, 375 S. Moorland Road, for years, came from Illinois and Wisconsin. They were planning to hold a fashion show and a pot luck dinner Saturday and were in high spirits.
    Although there was no known motive, Frazier said the man believed responsible for the shootings, Terry Ratzmann, 44, of New Berlin, was suffering from depression and was upset about a taped sermon he had heard a couple of weeks before by one the church's chief evangelists, Roderick C. Meredith.
    http://www.jsonline.com/news/wauk/mar05/309035.asp
    ------------------
    Tragedy puts spotlight on small, obscure church
    Illinois-based pastor is among those killed in shooting
    By DAVE UMHOEFER
    dumhoefer@journalsentinel.com
    Posted: March 12, 2005
    The Living Church of God, a relatively new organization born of a contentious split over religious doctrine, is small but spreads its word through weekly telecasts on 150 stations in several countries.
    While there was no known motive for Saturday's slayings at a Brookfield hotel, the man believed responsible had been upset about a taped sermon by the church's spiritual leader, Roderick C. Meredith, according to a fellow congregation member who survived the attack. She reported that the sermon by Meredith, who is seen on many of those broadcasts, dealt with a coming "spiritual war."
    The shootings brought the relatively obscure church, its members and its teachings into the spotlight in a tragic way.
    The slayings came on Saturday, the church's day of worship as practiced in the time of the Old Testament. Members, who believe the Bible is the literal word of God, were gathering as they do throughout the country in small groups at rented halls, hotels and other locations.
    Members believe that the "Great Tribulation" - war and famine as prophesied in the Bible - is nearing and that Christ will return as "King of kings."
    Meredith, the church's presiding evangelist, warned in a February sermon of the urgent need to prepare physically and spiritually for the "end time," according to a text of the sermon on the church's Web site. He talked of a pending financial collapse that could devastate the United States, and he encouraged church members to prepare by paying off debts and gathering savings to guard against job loss and bank failures.
    source: http://www.jsonline.com/news/state/mar05/309134.asp
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------
    By Roderick C. Meredith, Editor in Chief
    Are You PREPARED?

         Events prophesied in your Bible are now beginning to occur with increasing frequency. In this Work of the living God, we are able to warn you about what is going to happen soon. We are not talking about decades in the future. We are talking about Bible prophecies that will intensify within the next five to 15 years of your life!
         Please understand. We are not "scaremongers." We love our fellow man. So it is our responsibility to warn our peoples—ahead of time—to prepare for the future. Most of our advice is spiritual in nature. However, in this editorial I want to give you some common sense advice involving your physical survival and your financial well-being.
         We must always remember the "Big Picture" prophecy of Matthew 24:6–11. Christ explains that there will be smaller wars within "nations" and major conflicts between "kingdoms." He indicates in Luke 21:11 that "fearful sights"—or, as a number of translations have it, "terrors"—will come upon us, as well as truly "great" earthquakes at the time of the end. Concurrently, there will be famine and disease epidemics.
         If we are truly Bible-believing Christians, we need to prepare for these situations. We are reminded of the old adage, "God helps those who help themselves!" Many examples indicate that although God will often intervene supernaturally to deliver us, He expects us to use wisdom and do our part to protect ourselves.
         God warned Joseph, back in the land of Egypt, to set aside extra food for a prophesied famine (Genesis 41:25–57). Obviously, God could have said: "Don’t worry or take any evasive action, I will simply deliver you—no matter what happens!" However, the Bible—which reveals the mind of God—indicates that God wanted Joseph and his people to go through the experience of setting aside extra foodstuffs and learning to do their part in preparing for a future calamity. As the Apostle James wrote, "faith without works is dead" (James 2:20).
         It is better for human beings to learn the lessons through these situations, and experience exercising caution, wisdom and perseverance, rather than having God "deliver" us from every possible catastrophe. For God is training us to be His full sons in His Kingdom and family forever. We must learn to develop the understanding of His will and the wisdom to do what is right in handling many different situations. Then we will be better fit and better prepared to be kings and priests, ruling under Christ, in Tomorrow’s World.
         Our Father tells us in Proverbs 22:3 that a "prudent man foresees evil and hides himself, but the simple pass on and are punished." Obviously, God does not want us to be cowards. But it is also obvious that a wise man or woman should sometimes "hide himself"—take evasive action—or be secretly let down over the city wall and "flee"—as the Apostle Paul did in a dangerous situation (Acts 9:23–25)!
         So we must each examine our own situation to determine what action we should take. Are we living in a low-lying coastal area where we may be in danger at a time of increasing hurricanes, tsunamis or similar natural disasters? Do we have at least a week’s supply of emergency food and water, flashlight batteries, a first-aid kit, a battery-powered radio, prescription medications and other essential items? Have we read the instructions from our nation or region about how to prepare for such emergencies as hurricanes, earthquakes or terrorists attacks?
         I also want to strongly encourage our subscribers—especially the Americans—to prepare for a financial emergency that may strike our nation within a very few years. Although I am certainly not a financial expert, I do have access to many very reliable news sources. Right now, more and more news reports are warning of an impending financial collapse that may devastate the United States within the next several years! Note carefully a few highlights from a September 12, 2004 article by Carolyn Lochhead in the San Francisco Chronicle:
          "The first of the 77 million-strong Baby Boom generation will begin to retire in just four years.… ‘Chilling’ is the word U.S. Comptroller General David Walker uses to describe the budget outlook.
          ‘The long-term budget projections are just horrifying,’ added Leonard Burman, co-director of tax policy for the Urban Institute. ‘I’ve got four children and it really disturbs me. I just think it’s irresponsible what we’re doing to them.’ ….
         ‘To give you [an] idea how big the problem is,’ said Laurence Kotlikoff, economics chairman at Boston University, who has written extensively on the subject, to close a $51 trillion fiscal gap, ‘you’d have to have an immediate and permanent 78 percent hike in the federal income tax.’
         These obligations are not imaginary. And unlike the 1980s and 1990s, economic growth cannot bail out the government because the Baby Boom retirement is at hand. Those born in 1946 will reach age 62 in 2008, allowing them to take early retirement and receive Social Security benefits.… A pathbreaking study by Jagadeesh Gokhale of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland and Knet Smetters, a former deputy assistant secretary at the Treasury—commissioned by former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill—estimated a $44 trillion fiscal gap. It laid out a few painful options on how to meet the liabilities:
         More than double the payroll tax, immediately and forever, from 15.3 percent of wages to nearly 32 percent; Raise income taxes by two-thirds, immediately and forever;
         Cut Social Security and Medicare benefits by 45 percent, immediately and forever;
         Or eliminate forever all discretionary spending, which includes the military, homeland security, highways, courts, national parks and most of what the federal government does outside of the transfer of payments to the elderly.
         Such corrective actions grow more severe each year. Waiting just until 2008, the end of the next presidency, would mean raising the payroll tax to 33.5 percent instead of 32 percent, the study found.
         Gokhale said that fresh numbers from the Medicare trustees show the fiscal gap has since grown to $72 trillion, $10 trillion of that for Social Security and an astonishing $62 trillion for Medicare, the government health care program for the elderly."
         Think!
         Does an amount like $72 trillion get your attention? Does the need to raise the income tax by two-thirds—"immediately and forever"—seem significant? Does the need to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits by nearly half seem serious?
         And whom have we just quoted? Some religious fanatics or financial weirdos? No! We have just quoted the U.S. Comptroller General and several respected economists, including two Federal Reserve Bank officials. They are the ones giving these astonishing figures, which portend the biggest economic challenge of modern times. So each of us should carefully consider what lies ahead, and get our own financial house in order.
         A first priority would be to pay off all credit card debts—and all other debts we possibly can. We should also have at least the equivalent of 60 days’ living expenses in case of a sudden breakdown in the banking system or a similar emergency. Also, we should gradually work out a family budget that allows us, over time, to set aside financial resources to carry us through a year or more in case of job loss, catastrophic health situation, etc.
          Finally, we should not leave God out of the picture. Although the natural reaction would be to take care of the financial side and forget about God, the truly wise approach is to honor our Creator in this matter and know, in faith, that He will then bless and guide all our other efforts. The Bible tells us, "Honor the Lord with your possessions, and with the firstfruits of all your increase; so your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will overflow with new wine" (Proverbs 3:9–10).
         Jesus Christ Himself instructed: "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also" (Matthew 6:19–21).
         If you truly believe in the living God and in His inspired word, you will do your part to support His Work even in trying times. Then the Creator will certainly "be there" when you desperately need Him. But even if you do not yet understand this spiritual matter, be sure to be aware of what is going to happen physically, and take immediate steps to begin putting your own financial house in order. You owe it to your family and yourself!
    —Roderick C. Meredith
    http://www.livingcog.org/files/magazines/janfeb2005/personal012005.htm

    This Man Scares The Talk Radio Neo-Con’s of Brownwood ! So does Ed Schultz !

    A Texas forum for Franken – albeit faint
    Air America Radio picks up KXEB, but will left-leaning listeners be able to hear?
    11:03 AM CST on Friday, March 11, 2005
    By COLLEEN McCAIN NELSON / The Dallas Morning News
    Democrats, long drowned out in Dallas by conservative radio hosts, are finding their voice.
    But some may strain to hear it.
    Air America Radio, the left-leaning network, is taking on Texas.
    Its round-the-clock political talk will hit the air Monday in Austin and debut March 21 in the Dallas area, replacing the Spanish-language programming on KXEB-AM (910). Air America is already on in Corpus Christi.
    In North Texas, Air America's success could be limited by the reach of the low-wattage station. Static nearly drowns out KXEB in some areas, but officials at Border Media Partners, the station's owners, said they were trying to strengthen the signal.
    Air America executives, who called the expansion in Texas the high point for the network, said Mr. Franken will find an audience, even in President Bush's home state.
    "We're providing an alternative for a minority that feels alienated," CEO Danny Goldberg said.
    Comedian-turned-commentator Al Franken provides the star power for the network, which has signed up 51 stations in less than a year. In North Texas, his afternoon show will battle conservatives Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly – a competition Mr. Franken relishes.
    "We don't lie. Rush lies all the time. ... He's ridiculous on so many levels," said Mr. Franken, who will be in Austin for his first show on KOKE-AM (1600).
    Others aren't convinced that listeners will turn the radio dial to the left.
    "You're in Bush country, you're a liberal, and you have a bad signal. That's a lot going against you," said Jeff Hillery, program director for KLIF-AM (570).
    E-mail cmccain@dallasnews.com
    source: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/nation/stories/031105dnnatfranken.9f130.html
    -----------------
    What the Brownwood Talk Radio Neo-Con’s Don’t want you to read or hear ! They want to keep you dumb and only let you hear their spin on the stories ! No market for progressive talk radio ? Keep spinning guys !

    http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/toc/05_12/B3925magazine.htm

    Friday, March 11, 2005

    Brownwood: Bankruptcy Bill Said to Hit Poorest Americans Hardest

    Republicans control the house, the senate, & the whitehouse. this is exactly the reason we are Independent Texans who split our ticket when we vote. This is what happens when the "checks and balances" get out of kelter !
    But just remember it's the "condoms and cucumbers" that matter most ! By the way, both of Brownwoods Republican Senators voted in favor of this legislation....follow the money !

  • rest of story...

  • ------------------
    Dallas Morning News Letter to the editor

    No-compassion GOP
    Re: "Senate OKs measure to toughen bankruptcy," yesterday's news story.
    The "compassionate conservative" Republicans again show that compassion only extends to the corporate world. They ignore the large percentage of bankruptcies filed by people who lost their jobs or had huge medical bills.
    As they also left the loophole that allows rich people to avoid their bills, I'm left wondering where the compassion is.
    Philip B. Stephens, Dallas

    Kudos to Brownwoods State Representative (R) Jim Keffer

    Friday March 11, 2005
    News-Brownwood Bulletin
    Bill gives redistricting to citizens commission
    By Gene Deason -- Brownwood Bulletin
     
    A bill designed to take the congressional redistricting process out of the hands of the Texas Legislature and delegate it to an independent, bipartisan citizens commission has been filed by state Rep. Jim Keffer (R-Eastland).
    Keffer's office said he filed the legislation Thursday which would create the Texas Congressional Redistricting Commission. A parallel bill was filed in the Texas Senate by Sen. Jeff Wentworth (R-San Antonio).
    Thirteen states currently have a public citizen redistricting commission: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Washington.
    House Bill 2752 is authored or co-authored by six Republicans and 14 Democratic representatives, and its Senate companion, Senate Bill 1404, is authored by two Republicans and three Democratic senators. Under its provisions, the Texas Congressional Redistricting Commission would be comprised of four Republicans, four Democrats and a nonvoting presiding officer selected by the commission members. Senate Republicans and Senate Democrats would select two commission members each, and House of Representatives Republicans and Democrats would do the same.
    Members of the commission may not be a current elected public officeholder, official in a political party, or registered lobbyist, nor may the member have been in the position during the previous two years.
    Sen. Wentworth previously chaired the Senate Redistricting Committee in 2001, when no agreement on congressional redistricting could be reached by lawmakers. The work resumed in 2003 through a number of special sessions, and caused deep partisan divisions within the legislature.
    "Partisan congressional redistricting is a contentious, divisive process that I firmly believe would be handled better by an independent commission of Texans, made up of an even number of Republicans and Democrats," Wentworth said. "I was convinced of that during the 1991 redistricting, and after the problems that have ensued since we began the process in 2001; I remain committed to changing this fatally flawed system."
    In addition to Keffer, Rep. Rick Hardcastle (R-Vernon), Patrick Rose (D-Dripping Springs), David Farabee (D-Wichita Falls) and Mark Homer (D-Paris) are joint-authors on HB 2752.
    "I am pleased to be joined by many of colleagues in support of this bipartisan legislation," Keffer said. "Developing this commission will put the congressional redistricting in the control of the citizens allowing the Texas Legislature to focus its energy on the topics that are facing Texans and I am pleased to have the opportunity to work with Senator Wentworth."

    source: http://www.brownwoodbulletin.com/articles/2005/03/11/news/news01.txt

    ----------------------
    and the Local & National Neo-Conservative (Not Conservative) talking heads continue to try and write us Independent Voters out of the equation.
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  • Brownwood KXYL’s “Anarchy Radio” : From Hate to Arnachy !

    Anarchy (New Latin anarchia) is a term that has a number of different but related usages.

    Political disorder and confusion

    http://encyclopedia.laborlawtalk.com/Anarchy
    -------------------------
    My Commentary on Local Talk Radio:

    It’s been said that everything starts locally. I believe this statement. I’ve noticed through observation that local talk radio hosts have now turned their comments towards outright anarchy utilizing encitement type comments and language. Whenever a talk show host disagrees with a judges decision and calls for a violent act (“beating his head against the sidewalk”- KXYL’s Connie Carmichael- see our 1/22/05 post) against that judge, this directly attacks our judicial system. How do our local Judges and their families, Court Reporters & their families, Law Enforcement and their families, Reporters and their families feel about these type of comments being spewed over our communties “public” airwaves. The reason I listed all of these people and their families is because these are the ones who are affected by Todays shooting of the Atlanta Judge, Court Reporter, Sherrif Deputy and the Carjacking (Assault) of the Atlanta Constitution Reporter. I’m noting and documenting this behaviour because even though I don’t know any of the victims in Georgia, I do know and respect many of our local community members who work daily in our Judicial System. Will our local & regional press report on the local implications ?
    Why is it the folks who boycott/pickett Harry Potter because of the possible negative influence of their children, remain silent when these talking heads of local talk radio who identify themselves as Christians/Republican's speak of such violent action and daily name calling. James Williamson is the voice of the " Brownwood Republicans/Christians". Guess this is why he was chosen to represent the Republican Party to Brownwood Elementary students recently !
    Is the fact that nobody called in to challenge these local talk radio statements a result of few local/regional listeners or is this an approval of the local/regional audience and advertisers ?

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  • ----------------------------
    FYI-

    2005
    On Feb. 28, the husband and mother of federal Judge Joan Lefkow are slain execution-style in the basement of the judge's Chicago home. Although they originally feared some connection to white supremacists because of previous threats on Lefkow's life, police now believe the killer was a Chicago electrician who was upset over a ruling that Lefkow had made against him in a medical malpractice lawsuit. That man, Bart Ross, killed himself when Milwaukee police made a routine traffic stop of his van on March 9, 2005.
    1999
    Los Angeles County Court Commissioner H. George Taylor was killed after being struck by three shotgun blasts as he entered his home’s driveway. His wife Lynda was shot and killed when she rushed outside to investigate. No arrests were made, but detectives are convinced that the slayings were connected to Taylor’s work in court.
    On Feb. 28, the husband and mother of federal Judge Joan Lefkow are slain execution-style in the basement of the judge's Chicago home. Although they originally feared some connection to white supremacists because of previous threats on Lefkow's life, police now believe the killer was a Chicago electrician who was upset over a ruling that Lefkow had made against him in a medical malpractice lawsuit. That man, Bart Ross, killed himself when Milwaukee police made a routine traffic stop of his van on March 9, 2005.
    1999
    Los Angeles County Court Commissioner H. George Taylor was killed after being struck by three shotgun blasts as he entered his home’s driveway. His wife Lynda was shot and killed when she rushed outside to investigate. No arrests were made, but detectives are convinced that the slayings were connected to Taylor’s work in court.
    1989
    Federal judge Robert Vance was killed when he opened a bomb-laden package in his home outside Birmingham, Ala. His wife was severely injured but survived. Walter Leroy Moody Jr. was convicted and sentenced to die. Moody sent mail bombs to Vance and to a black civil rights lawyer, Robert Robinson, because he was angry that a 1972 conviction for possessing a pipe bomb had not been overturned.
    1987
    Mississippi judge Vincent Sherry and his wife Margaret, a former Biloxi city councilwoman and mayoral contender, were murdered in their home. Later convicted as part of a racketeering organization that arranged for their contract murders were a former mayor of Biloxi, Pete Halat, and three other people. Prosecutors alleged the killings were ordered over missing profits from a prison scam that had been kept in the law office Halat and Sherry once shared.
    1987
    Federal judge Richard J. Daronco was killed at his Pelham, N.Y., home by Charles L. Koster, a retired New York City police officer apparently seeking revenge for the judge’s dismissal of a $2.5 million lawsuit filed by his daughter. Koster then shot and killed himself.
    1987
    Mobster Joel Cacace hired a trio of hitmen to kill federal prosecutor William Aronwald for disrespecting the Columbo crime family. By mistake they tailed Aronwald’s father, George, a 78-year-old city administrative law judge who shared an office with his son, and shot him dead as he stopped to pick up his laundry.
    1983
    Illinois Judge Henry Gentile was shot to death in his courtroom by a disgruntled man whose divorce case was being heard by Gentile. Also slain was lawyer James Piszczor. Hutchie Moore was convicted of murder in the shootings.
    1979
    U.S. District Judge John Wood was slain by a sniper outside his home in San Antonio. The killer was hired because defendants in a Colombian drug-smuggling case before the judge believed he would impose a maximum sentence on them. Charles Harrelson, the father of actor Woody Harrelson, was convicted and sentenced to two life terms in the first assassination of a federal judge in the 20th century.
    1974
    Washington state Superior Court Judge James Lawless was killed when he opened a brown package. Ricky Anthony Young was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. Lawless had been scheduled to sentence Young in an arson case, and sometime earlier had sent him to jail in the burglary of a drug store.
    1970
    Superior Court Judge Harold Haley is kidnapped during a trial at the Marin County Courthouse in San Rafael, Calif., in a bid to win freedom for the "Soledad Brothers." Haley, his kidnapper and two fleeing inmates die in a hail of police bullets.
    Source: The Associated Press

    As this relates to KXYL's Connie Carmichael's Recent Comment Regarding Judge's Decisions

    Reports: Judge Shot In Atlanta
    ATLANTA, March 11, 2005
     
    (CBS/AP) A shooting occurred inside the Fulton County Courthouse in downtown Atlanta Friday morning.
    Television reports say a judge and deputy were shot and the suspected shooter got away in a car he seized — a gray Mercury Sable. The extent of possible injuries was not immediately known. One report said the judge had been killed.

    source: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/03/11/national/main679544.shtml

    See our 1/22/05 post for background info. on KXYL's Connie Carmichael's call for violent action against judges because of their decisions.

    "Wolves in Sheeps Clothing" !

    Feds: Men were cops by day, hitmen by night
    Friday, March 11, 2005 Posted: 5:45 AM EST (1045 GMT)

    NEW YORK (AP) -- Two police detectives led double lives as Mafia hitmen, kidnapping and killing rival gangsters and giving confidential information to the mob for more than a decade, federal prosecutors charged Thursday.
    One of the suspects, Louis Eppolito, wrote an autobiography titled "Mafia Cop: The Story of an Honest Cop Whose Family Was the Mob," which dealt among other things with what he described as false charges of Mafia involvement.
    He and his former partner, Stephen Caracappa, were arrested Wednesday night at a restaurant off the Las Vegas Strip, law enforcement officials said. The pair have been living in Las Vegas, across the street from each other, since retiring in the early 1990s.
    Each is charged with eight murders, two attempted murders, murder conspiracy, obstruction of justice, drug distribution and money laundering.
    "These corrupt former detectives betrayed their shields, their colleagues, and the citizens they were sworn to protect," U.S. Attorney Roslynn Mauskopf said.
    The pair appeared late Thursday in federal court in Las Vegas but did not enter pleas. The hearing was postponed until Friday.
    Outside court, Caracappa's lawyer David Chesnoff accused the government of using "organized crime figures who are trying to save their lives" to build their case. "The government is relying on the words of rats," he said.
    Family members declined to comment.
    According to court documents, Eppolito, 56, and Caracappa, 63, targeted several mobsters in retaliation for the attempted assassination of Luchese family underboss Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso.
    In 1987, the detectives kidnapped a mob figure, stuffed him in a car trunk and delivered him to Casso, who tortured and killed him, prosecutors said.
    Eppolito and Caracappa also allegedly took $65,000 from Casso in 1992 to kill Eddie Lino, a Gambino family captain suspected of involvement in the attempt on Casso's life. The detectives followed Lino from a Brooklyn social club, pulled him over and shot him to death, prosecutors charged.
    In addition, the detectives were accused of accessing police files to give mob associates the names of three confidential informants who were slain for their cooperation with police, prosecutors said. Another informant was shot but survived.
    Eppolito, the grandson, son and nephew of Mafia members, became known in the 1970s and '80s as much for his suspected ties to the mob as his rough-and-tumble arrests of street thugs. In his 1992 autobiography, he described his family background and decorated career, while rebutting the mob allegations.
    Caracappa, who helped found the New York Police Department's Organized Crime Homicide Unit, was a gatekeeper of information about Mafia killings investigated by police.
    The two men had been suspected of Mafia involvement for more than a decade, but authorities did not have the evidence to make a case against them. Court documents indicate prosecutors now have wiretapped conversations and the testimony of witnesses.

    http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/03/10/mafia.cops.ap/index.html

    Thursday, March 10, 2005

    Brought to you by ABC,CBS,CNN,and NBC: But Not Brownwood's KXYL !

    Girl Abducted, Killed After Seeing Meth Use, Police Say
    10-Year-Old Was Town's First Murder Victim in 25 Years
    Feb. 4, 2005 - A suspect in the death of a southern Indiana girl told investigators the 10-year-old was abducted last week because she saw people taking part in illegal drug activity, according to court records.
    Charles James Hickman, 20, allegedly told police that some people using or making methamphetamine thought Katlyn "Katie" Collman had seen them at it in their home near a store where the girl had gone to buy toilet paper, so they abducted her Jan. 25 in Crothersville and brought her to Hickman's home.
    Police on Friday arrested a second man, Timothy C. O'Sullivan II, 22, on charges he lied to police when questioned about the girl's abduction.
    Katie's body was found three days after an Amber Alert was issued, and five days after she first was reported missing.
    Hickman was arrested Wednesday and is charged with murder and criminal confinement. He is being held in solitary confinement for his own safety, police said.
    The killing was the first murder in Crothersville, a town of less than 2,000 people located 40 miles north of Louisville, Ky., in 25 years, police said.
    According to a probable cause affidavit, Hickman told police that he and the people who allegedly abducted Katie wanted to intimidate the girl, so he took her to a body of water about 20 miles away. He said the girl's hands were tied, and she either fell in or was bumped into the water, where she drowned, according to the affidavit.
    The Crothersville girl's body was found Sunday by a state trooper in a stream near Seymour.
    Hickman made his initial court appearance today at Jackson County Courthouse in Brownstown, where he entered a plea of not guilty and was ordered held without bail. His trial was set for October.
    Jackson County Prosecutor Steve Pierson said he would consider pursuing the death penalty against Hickman. Police said Thursday that they were looking into the possibility that more than one person was involved in Katie's death, but they didn't identify anyone other than Hickman as a suspect.
    "We are not satisfied with just one arrest," Indiana State Police Sgt. Jerry Goodin said. "If that's what it leads to in this case, if that's all it boils down to, then obviously we are. But if there are other people involved, then we are going to seek those other people out."
    Authorities said they believe Katie, a fourth-grader at Crothersville Elementary School, was abducted on the afternoon of Jan. 25 while she was returning home from a store on foot. Police issued an Amber Alert on Jan. 27 after someone reported seeing the girl on the day she disappeared with a man in a white Ford F-150 pickup truck in Crothersville.
    According to the affidavit, Hickman told investigators that when Katie's abductors took her to his home, they arrived in a truck that matched that description.
    Katie's father said he wants justice.
    "I asked the Lord if he never answered another prayer to answer one, and that was to catch who did this before we had to lay her to rest," said John Neace, the girl's father. "And we believe that prayer was answered."
    Neace said he would rather not comment yet about whether those responsible for his daughter's death should get the death penalty. He said he just wants the judicial process to run its course.
    "Katie deserves to get justice for the people that did this to her," Neace said. "My family deserves justice. No one deserves to die for something that we don't even know why, especially a child."
    Neace added that he doesn't like to wonder what happened to his daughter in the days and hours before her death.
    "There's lots of unanswered questions," he said. "Imagining what she endured in her last hours is a nightmare."
    Police said at a news conference Thursday that the investigation is no more than 15 percent complete, and others might be involved in the girl's death. They also said they think some people might have given them false information to keep investigators from focusing on Hickman.
    "Some of the information provided us was not correct information," Goodin said. "Maybe they didn't give us the correct information because they were lying to us, maybe it was something in their memory that they just forgot." Investigators had chased hundreds of tips since the girl disappeared, including some that turned out to be false, he said. He warned that anyone who had misled police, deliberately or through a "memory lapse," should contact investigators or they could face criminal charges.
    "We will be pursuing charges of false informing on folks who have provided us false information in this investigation," he said.
    Goodin also said Hickman knew Katie.
    "He knew her because it's a small town and everybody knows everybody," he said.
    An autopsy was conducted Monday at a hospital in Louisville, Ky., but the Jackson County coroner has not yet released a cause of death. Goodin said it could be up to two weeks before the autopsy results are released.
    Her funeral is scheduled for Sunday at Crothersville High School. ABC News affiliate WRTV in Indianapolis contributed to this report.
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  • -------------------------
    KXYL talking heads frequently bash the alphabet networks for what they are not covering. Fair play is to point out what you are not hearing from the local talking heads ! And to think why you are not hearing these stories too. Remember the locals use "Smoke and Mirrors" and "Condoms and Cucumbers" to keep you distracted !

    Revenge Violence & KXYL's Connie Carmichael Comments

    Report: Suicide Linked to Chicago Slayings
    Mar 10, 8:25 AM (ET)
    CHICAGO (AP) - Chicago police sent detectives to a Milwaukee suburb to investigate a suicide, and a newspaper said the man had left a note claiming responsibility for the slayings of a federal judge's mother and husband.

    The Chicago Tribune reported on its Web site Thursday that U.S. District Judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow had rejected a lawsuit brought by the man, who shot himself in the head during a traffic stop Wednesday in West Allis, Wis.

    The newspaper, citing unidentified sources, said the man's suicide note, claiming responsibility for last week's slayings, included details not released to the public. The note said the legal judgment had cost him "his house, his job and family," the paper quoted a source as saying.

    Lefkow found the bodies of her husband, Michael Lefkow, 64, and her mother, Donna Humphrey, 89, in the basement of her Chicago home when she returned from work Feb. 28.
    The Tribune said on its Web site that the man who killed himself was Bart Ross, whose last known address was on Chicago's North Side.
    Ross filed a lawsuit against the University of Illinois over cancer treatment in the early 1990s, the newspaper said. Lefkow rejected it on a technicality in 2004.

    Investigators discovered .22-caliber shells in the man's van, the same caliber as the casings found in Lefkow's home, the Tribune reported. They also found a list in the van of people who Ross thought had mistreated him, including judges, the newspaper said.

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  • for more on how this relates to the revenge violence comment and mentality see our 1/22/05 post

    Addicted to Porn: How Members of Congress Benefit from Pornography

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  • Wednesday, March 09, 2005

    Texas BBQ Trail and Civil Rights

    Texas Eat 'Em
    By Jim Shahin - Washington Post
    “ Situated hard by the railroad tracks, it's a divey little joint with a low ceiling that, in its way, could still exist in the '40s, when owner Vencil Mares opened it. A thick cloud of cigarette smoke hangs in the air, almost defiantly against modern times. There are deer heads on the wall. A display of spurs on a slab of wood is suspended above the beer cooler.
    The place is a throwback in other ways, too. The Taylor Cafe, as it is called, has two separate doors, one used by blacks, the other by whites. Two long Formica-topped counters run parallel nearly the length of the establishment. The evening I visited, blacks sat on one side, drinking beer mostly, whites on the other, drinking beer mostly.
    No one is required to use a certain door or sit on a specific side of the room. "They just want to stay with their people," is the way Mares puts it.
    To some ears, his words may sound racist. They're anything but. When Mares, who is 81 years old, opened the Taylor Cafe in 1948, his decision to allow blacks and whites under the same roof was nothing short of subversive. In the small Southern town of Taylor, segregationist laws prohibited the races from mingling. It wouldn't be until the 1970s that the public schools were desegregated statewide. The railroad tracks divided white from black. Mares opened right next to those tracks, skirting the border between the races, and he let them all inside. “

    ï Taylor Cafe, 101 N. Main St., 512-352-2828. Go for the anthropological experience, stay for the turkey sausage.
    -- Jim Shahin
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/admin/emailfriend?contentId=A7496-2005Mar4&sent=no&referrer=emailarticle

    H W Bush - Clinton Pardons

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  • Brownwood's KXYL: James Williamson, Condoms & Cucumbers

    Some talk show hosts use the ole "Smoke and Mirrors" routine to spin their news and views. Brownwood has it very own James Williamson and his "Condoms and Cucumbers" routine.

    Todays radio Host's are talking about Dan Rather so you won't hear about Jeff Gannon ! Jeff who ? If the press was truly " Liberal " don't you think the Networks would have been all over this ?

    Jeff Gannon/Guckert ? Read it for yourself @
    http://blogs.salon.com/0002874/2005/02/08.html

    Condoms and Cucumbers ? Tell em James sent ya !
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  • Brownwood Media & The Fairness Doctrine

    The only ones we seem to hear opposing the fairness doctrine are the media outlets (Brownwood Talk Radio) who are "unfair and unbalanced" ! Take for example, the Brownwood Bulletin, The Abilene Reporter News, The Dallas Morning News, etc) prints columns & opinion pieces from all over the political map (Left, Right & Middle) so their readers can make up their own minds. Part of the Sheepling of the people starts with the local spoonfeeding and withholding the rest of the story !

    Smoke & Mirrors and Condoms & Cucumbers

    KXYL's James Williamson keeps his audience busy thinking about condoms and cucumbers so they don't focus on issues like this:

    79th LEGISLATURE
    Study finds poor Texans would bear brunt of tax changes
    By Mike Ward, W. Gardner Selby
    AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
    Wednesday, March 09, 2005
    As House members publicly fought Tuesday over how to fund and manage schools, cracks began showing in efforts by Republican leaders to enact a multibillion-dollar tax plan to pay for proposed cuts in property taxes.
    Fueling the growing dissent over the tax bill was a new state study that showed that the tax burden would increase for households earning $100,000 a year or less, even after taking into account proposed property tax cuts approved this week by a House committee.

    for the entire story please visit:
    http://www.statesman.com/news/content/shared/tx/legislature/stories/03/9TAXFIGHT.html
     

    Brownwood, Fairness Doctrine, KXYL & "Spoonfeeding": Want the rest of the story ? Read this.....

     The GOP Media Machine Churns On
      By Robert Parry
      AlterNet
    Wednesday 02 February 2005
    Armstrong Williams and Maggie Gallagher are not breaking new ground in accepting money for favorable coverage. The ethical line separating conservative "journalism" from government propaganda has long since been wiped away.
     Sometime after 2009, when historians pick through the wreckage left behind by George W. Bush's administration, they will have to come to grips with the role played by the professional conservative media infrastructure.
    Indeed, it will be hard to comprehend how Bush got two terms as President of the United States, ran up a massive debt, and misled the country into at least one disastrous war - without taking into account the extraordinary influence of the conservative media, from Fox News to Rush Limbaugh, from the Washington Times to the Weekly Standard.
     Recently, it's been revealed, too, that the Bush administration paid conservative pundits Armstrong Williams and Maggie Gallagher while they promoted White House policies. Even fellow conservatives have criticized those payments, but the truth is that the ethical line separating conservative "journalism" from government propaganda has long since been wiped away.
    For years now, there's been little meaningful distinction between the Republican Party and the conservative media machine.
    In 1982, for instance, South Korean theocrat Sun Myung Moon established the Washington Times as little more than a propaganda organ for the Reagan-Bush administration. In 1994, radio talk show host Limbaugh was made an honorary member of the new Republican House majority.
    The blurring of any ethical distinctions also can be found in documents from the 1980s when the Reagan-Bush administration began collaborating secretly with conservative media tycoons to promote propaganda strategies aimed at the American people.
    In 1983, a plan, hatched by CIA Director William J. Casey, called for raising private money to sell the administration's Central American policies to the American public through an outreach program designed to look independent but which was secretly managed by Reagan-Bush officials.
     The project was implemented by a CIA propaganda veteran, Walter Raymond Jr., who had been moved to the National Security Council staff and put in charge of a "perception management" campaign that had both international and domestic objectives.
    In one initiative, Raymond arranged to have Australian media mogul Rupert Murdoch chip in money for ostensibly private groups that would back Reagan-Bush policies. According to a memo dated Aug. 9, 1983, Raymond reported that "via Murdock [sic], may be able to draw down added funds." (For details, see Parry's Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq.)
     Besides avoiding congressional oversight, privately funded activities gave the impression that an independent group was embracing the administration's policies on their merits. Without knowing that the money had been arranged by the government, the public would be more inclined to believe these assessments than the word of a government spokesman.
     "The work done within the administration has to, by definition, be at arms length," Raymond wrote in an Aug. 29, 1983, memo.
     In foreign countries, the CIA often uses similar techniques to create what intelligence operatives call "the Mighty Wurlitzer," a propaganda organ playing the desired notes in a carefully scripted harmony. Only this time, the target audience was the American people.
     Journalists As Domestic Propaganda Machines
     In the 1980s, there were also propaganda operations directly comparable to the payments to Williams and Gallagher.
     In a May 13, 1985, memo, which surfaced during the Iran-Contra scandal, Reagan-Bush official Jonathan Miller boasted about what he called "white propaganda" successes. As an example, he cited the Wall Street Journal's publication of a pro-administration opinion piece on Nicaragua that had been written by a government consultant, history professor John Guilmartin, Jr.
    "Officially, this office had no role in its preparation," wrote Miller, who worked out of the State Department's Office of Public Diplomacy. "The work of our operation is ensured by our office's keeping a low profile."
     At the time, a Reagan-Bush National Security Council official told me that the administration's domestic propaganda campaign was modeled after CIA psychological operations abroad where information is manipulated to bring a population into line with a desired political position.
     "They were trying to manipulate [U.S.] public opinion - using the tools of Walt Raymond's tradecraft which he learned from his career in the CIA covert operations shop," the official said.
     Another administration official offered a similar description to the Miami Herald's Alfonso Chardy. "If you look at it as a whole, the Office of Public Diplomacy was carrying out a huge psychological operation, the kind the military conduct to influence the population in denied or enemy territory," the official said.
    After disclosure of these "perception management" schemes, a legal opinion by the congressional General Accounting Office concluded that the administration's secret operation amounted to "prohibited covert propaganda activities designed to influence the media and the public to support the administration's Latin American policies."
    Conservative Echo Chamber
    But these ad hoc propaganda tactics of the 1980s didn't go away.
    With the investment of billions of dollars over the next two decades, the strategy grew into the permanent conservative media machine that we know today, a vast echo chamber to amplify conservative messages on TV, in newspapers, through magazines, over talk radio, with book publishing and via the internet.
     This media machine gives conservatives and Republicans a huge political advantage both during elections and between elections. It has even changed how Americans perceive the world and what information they rely on to make decisions.
    The clout of this conservative media machine explains why millions of viewers to Rupert Murdoch's Fox News believe "facts" that aren't facts, such as their stubborn beliefs that the Bush administration did find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was collaborating with al-Qaeda in the Sept. 11 attacks.
    These days, a large number of Americans are fed a steady diet of conservative propaganda disguised as information - and millions more are influenced by the conservative messages that pervade TV, radio and print.
    But the influence doesn't stop there. Since the 1980s, this conservative media machine - often in collaboration with Republican politicians - has targeted and pressured mainstream journalists who discover information that conflicts with the propaganda.
     Many independent-minded mainstream reporters have seen their careers damaged or destroyed after being denounced as "liberal" or "anti-American." Other journalists have protected themselves by tilting their reporting to the right or avoiding many controversial stories altogether.
    So, in 2002-2003, for instance, the major news media largely acquiesced to - rather than challenged - the Bush administration's false claims about Iraqi WMDs.
    When some mainstream reporters, such as The Washington Post's Walter Pincus, did produce skeptical WMD stories, the articles were killed or buried deep inside the papers where they got little attention. By contrast, editors at The Washington Post and The New York Times trumpeted the administration's WMD charges on their front pages.
     New Rationales
    In the weeks after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the conservative news media continued to hype every false alarm suggesting that WMDs had been found, possibly explaining why so many Americans think WMD was discovered.
    Whenever that would happen, even at a small outlet like Consortiumnews.com, we would get e-mails from conservative readers demanding that we apologize to President Bush for doubting his word.
    Surely at large news organizations like The New York Times and The Washington Post, the stakes were much higher. If WMD caches had been found, any reporter who had displayed any skepticism before the Iraq invasion would have been pilloried by the right-wing media and its legions of angry e-mail writers.
    Those future historians gazing back on the Bush administration should not underestimate this fear factor in explaining why so few journalists at the major news outlets were willing to take the chance.
     It's also true that while career death awaited any journalist who questioned the WMD case - if stockpiles had been found - journalists have not suffered any serious consequences for buying into the Bush administration's false claims. Most right-wing commentators simply have shifted their war rationales and continued to berate critics of Bush's war policies.

     The Game
    Rather than face up to any responsibility for the deaths of more than 1,400 U.S. soldiers and the killing of tens of thousands of Iraqis, the propaganda game has just moved on.
     Indeed, listening to the continued angry rhetoric on Fox News or right-wing talk radio, a listener would get the impression that these very well-paid, mostly white men were part of some persecuted minority, not a group of privileged individuals wielding extraordinary power.
     By now, the huge investment of money in this conservative media machine may mean that even if conservative "journalists" did reach an honest conclusion that their behavior was damaging the United States, they would be hard pressed to change course.
     That's because like any large bureaucracy, the conservative media machine has taken on a life of its own.
    Thousands of conservative "journalists" are dependent on its perpetuation for their livelihoods. There are mortgages to pay and school tuitions due. It's much easier just to continue doing the job and keeping the assembly lines of propaganda humming, rather than trying to shut the operation down or dramatically change the product.
     In that way, the conservative "journalists" are like workers in a factory that's polluting a river which flows through the neighboring countryside. If the pollution is stopped, they fear they will lose their jobs. So it's in their interest to fight environmental controls, keep the factory running and leave it to someone else to clean up the mess.

    Dirty Money
    Another aspect of the conservative media corruption can be found in where some of the right-wing money originates.
    The evidence is clear, for instance, that the wealth of one major conservative media tycoon - Rev. Sun Myung Moon - traces back to money illicitly laundered into the United States and possibly even to operatives connected to organized crime.
    In the late 1970s, a congressional investigation, headed by Rep. Donald Fraser, discovered that Moon was a South Korean intelligence operative whose operations were financed from secretive bank accounts in Japan. Investigators also uncovered Moon's close ties to the Japanese yakuza crime syndicate which runs drugs, gambling and prostitution rings in Asia.
    Moon also associated with right-wing South American leaders implicated in cocaine trafficking. In 1980, Moon's organization aided Bolivia's "Cocaine Coup" conspirators who overthrew a left-of-center government and seized dictatorial power. The violent coup installed drug-tainted military officers at the head of Bolivia's government, giving the putsch the nickname the "Cocaine Coup."
    U.S. government evidence about Moon's money-laundering activities led to his conviction for tax fraud in 1982. But in that same year, flush with seemingly unlimited supplies of cash, Moon established the Washington Times as a reliable booster of Reagan-Bush policies.
    Since then, the theocrat, who considers himself the new Messiah, has become a political untouchable in Washington. Both President Ronald Reagan and President George H.W. Bush made special pronouncements about how valuable they considered Moon's newspaper.
    After leaving office, George H.W. Bush gave paid speeches on behalf of Moon's front groups. Though the exact amount of Moon's payments to Bush has never been revealed, one former Unification Church official told me the Moon organization had budgeted $10 million for the ex-president.
    Confusion
    So, Armstrong Williams might be understandably confused by the furor over his $241,000 grant from Bush's Education Department to promote the "no children left behind" program. The same may be true of columnist Maggie Gallagher who touted Bush's pro-marriage policies while on a $21,500 contract from the Department of Health and Human Services.
     After all, many of their conservative colleagues have taken buckets full of money from Moon's bottomless well of cash.
    Amid this moral confusion on the right - as the U.S. national treasury is drained, the dollar sinks to record lows and American soldiers die in a war launched for a fake reason - it's getting harder and harder to notice any bright ethical lines.
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------
      Fair and Balanced?
      By Eric Boehlert
      Salon.com
    Tuesday 01 February 2005
    Some Democrats are using Bush's pay-for-say media scandals to push for a new Fairness Doctrine for broadcasting.
    As the punditocracy's payola scandal - which has featured conservative commentators such as Armstrong Williams cashing Bush administration checks - continues to spread in Washington, some Democrats hope the fallout will be enough to kick-start support for the Fairness Doctrine. Rescinded in 1987 by the Federal Communications Commission, the original doctrine made sure that radio and television broadcasters covered political topics with fairness and balance.
    Architects of the policy, established in 1949, concerned themselves with keeping the airwaves open to both opponents and proponents of public-policy issues. They likely never foresaw the possibility of broadcast pundits secretly being on the government payroll while touting White House policies.
     But Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., thinks the growing outrage over media misconduct will help spur interest in the doctrine. Last week she introduced the Fairness and Accountability in Media Act, which would revive the Fairness Doctrine with new requirements for local broadcasters. Currently, the FCC is investigating the Williams case for possible payola violations - accepting cash to say things on the air and not disclosing the payments to audiences.
      "It's a lot different now since Armstrong Williams," Slaughter says. "The airwaves should be used for public benefit. It's broadcasters' one obligation for condition of license. There's no question they don't operate in the public good."
     She and some other congressional members blame the loss of fair broadcasting on the ongoing consolidation of newspapers and broadcast outlets, resulting in few owners controlling much of America's information. Media consolidation "is the most critical issue facing the American people today: whether to allow a handful of people to determine what information we receive and influence the decisions we make," says Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., who will head the soon-to-be announced Media Reform Caucus in Congress. "In a free and open society, in a democratic republic, you need a free and open discussion of the issues. We don't have that today."
    The success of the Reagan administration in overturning the Fairness Doctrine ushered in a new age of talk radio, allowing stations to broadcast one political point of view day after day, week after week. As Hinchey and others point out, talk radio has spurred a rightward tilt of the press. A study released last June by Democracy Radio, revealed that national and local conservative broadcasts totaled over 40,000 hours every week, while weekly liberal programming totaled just over 3,000 hours. "We need to return to a free and open discussion of the issues," Hinchey says.
    Hinchey and Slaughter face entrenched opposition from both broadcasters who don't want the return of regulation and Republicans who are quite content with the current media landscape. During the Fairness Doctrine debate in the 1980s, the Republican opposition seemed to flow from a general philosophy that there ought to be fewer government regulations on big business. By the '90s, with right-wing talkers such as Rush Limbaugh enjoying enormous success, Republicans often challenged any attempt to bring back the Fairness Doctrine on purely partisan grounds, labeling them efforts to "Hush Rush."
    As for the station owners themselves, "We think it's a dangerous for the government to be dictating what's on radio and television programming," says Dennis Wharton, spokesman for the National Association of Broadcasters, which lobbied strenuously to get the Fairness Doctrine repealed. "Look at the media business since the Fairness Doctrine was eliminated, which was before satellite TV and the Internet. You'd be hard-pressed to make the case that there are fewer outlets for expression today than there was then."
      "I'm troubled by this development because the Fairness Doctrine has been found to be unconstitutional," adds Adam Thierer, director of telecommunications studies at the Cato Institute in Washington. "Somebody forgot to tell Representative Slaughter the '80s are over." Indeed, for Beltway insiders, any discussion about the Fairness Doctrine will bring back memories of the exhausting debate, which dragged on - in and out of the courtrooms - for years during the Reagan administration.
    When the FCC instituted the Fairness Doctrine in 1949, it considered station licensees "public trustees," obligated to give a reasonable opportunity for contrasting points of view to be heard on controversial issues of public importance. The FCC never used a stopwatch to time how many minutes proponents and opponents of an issue were given, nor did the FCC require that specific programs grant "equal time" to guests. It simply stated that in the big picture, over a span of days, weeks and months, broadcast outlets should be able to show a general balance granted to certain topics.
    The doctrine proved its staying power in 1969, when, in a celebrated case, the Supreme Court ordered a Pennsylvania television station to give equal airtime to an author who had been attacked during the course of a program. Within 20 years, though, Republican-appointed judges and a Republican-appointed FCC chairman succeeded in dismantling the doctrine.
     The first blow came in 1981 with appointment of Mark Fowler to head the FCC. A communications attorney who had served on Ronald Reagan's campaign staff in 1976 and 1980, and who once equated television to a "toaster with pictures," Fowler was determined to rescind the Fairness Doctrine over the objections of Congress. In 1985, his FCC issued the "Fairness Report," which concluded that the doctrine had a "chilling effect" on public debate and likely violated the First Amendment: "We no longer believe that the Fairness Doctrine, as a matter of policy, serves the public interest."
    Judges took note. In 1986, the U.S. Court of Appeals' Antonin Scalia and Robert Bork ruled in a 2-1 decision that the Fairness Doctrine was not a law passed by Congress and was therefore not binding; it was merely an agency regulation, which meant Fowler's FCC had final say in the matter. In August 1987 the FCC, with Reagan's support, announced the doctrine was dead and that the agency would no longer enforce it.
    Capitol Hill revolted. Within months, the House voted 301-102 to codify the doctrine as law, thereby forcing the FCC to reinstate the guideline. The Senate followed suit. Rep. Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., and Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., were among the those who led the bipartisan charge to save the Fairness Doctrine, and in the halls of Congress, Phyllis Schlafly, president of the conservative Eagle Forum, lobbied on its behalf.
     Nevertheless, Reagan vetoed the final bill. In 1989, bipartisan Congress members again sought to revive the doctrine, but President George H.W. Bush threatened a veto and stymied their attempt. A third effort in 1993 to get the doctrine passed into law met with little support from the Clinton White House, and so it too languished in Congress.
    Today, there are indications that bipartisan support for the Fairness Doctrine lives on, albeit outside Congress. In a poll conducted last April by Garin Hart Yang Research, and commissioned by the liberal advocacy group Media Matters for America, an overwhelming majority of voters - 77 percent - favored restoring rules requiring fairness and balance on the public airwaves. What's more, 74 percent of conservatives, and 71 percent of Republicans, agreed that television and radio should be required to present issues in a balanced way.
    As an opponent of the doctrine, Thierer at the Cato Institute fears that the recent bad press surrounding the Williams controversy, Sinclair Broadcasting's attempt last fall to run a one-sided anti-John Kerry documentary, and CBS's ill-fated report on Bush's Texas Air National Guard record, may indeed prompt more and more Congress members to give the doctrine another look. When it comes to what ails the media, Thierer says, "The left and the right came to same regulatory conclusion: We should do 'something' about it."
    Bipartisan displeasure with the press may also allow the Media Reform Caucus, which at first will likely consist entirely of Democrats, to enlist some Republicans. In the uphill battle to restore real fairness and balance to the airwaves, backers will need all the help they can get.
    © Copyright 2005 by TruthOut.org

    Brownwood: Pocketbooks & Politics

    These are the topics that are "NOT" being discussed on Brownwood "Neo-Conservative" Talk Radio. These are the issues that directly relate to Brownwood Residents but the talking heads would rather "smoke and mirror" their listeners and "spoon feed" them away from the current goings on in Austin !

    Analysis: Tax bill would benefit richest
    Burden would rise 5% for poorest 1.7 million households in state
    09:45 AM CST on Wednesday, March 9, 2005
    By ROBERT T. GARRETT / The Dallas Morning News
    AUSTIN – Only Texans in households making more than $100,000 would receive a net tax cut under the tax overhaul bill that the House is considering, according to a nonpartisan legislative analysis.
    Under the bill, the poorest 1.7 million households – those earning less than $23,000 – would see their tax burden rise more than 5 percent, as lawmakers would add a penny to the sales tax rate and sharply boost taxes on snacks and cigarettes.
    The richest 840,000 households – those with annual incomes of more than $140,000 – would have their taxes cut nearly 3 percent, according to the Legislative Budget Board, a research agency run by a group of legislative leaders who track the budget.
    The bill, slated for debate by the House on Thursday, would cut school property taxes by a third. To make up the loss, it would levy the highest state sales tax rate in the nation, 7.25 percent, and impose a new business payroll tax. Other changes include an increase in motor vehicle sales taxes, the cigarette tax, and a new 3 percent levy on soft drinks and snack food not sold in restaurants.
    Democrats quickly seized on the analysis as cinching their argument that the bill is unfair, and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, a Republican, emphasized that the Senate intends to try to cushion the poorest Texans from a bigger sales tax bite. The Senate's plan would cut by 40 percent the sales tax rate levied when welfare or food stamp recipients use the Lone Star Card.
    House leaders downplayed how the tax increases are distributed, emphasizing property tax relief.
    Rep. Jim Dunnam, the House Democratic leader from Waco, cited the analysis on Tuesday as the House took up a companion measure on school finance.
    "The net effect is raising taxes to the tune of $1.1 billion on all Texans making under $100,000 a year," he said, citing the estimate for how much more would be collected from 6.7 million households in fiscal 2007. The wealthiest 20 percent of households would pay $437 million less.
    "Do you think that that is fair and real tax relief?" Mr. Dunnam said to Rep. Kent Grusendorf, R-Arlington, a leading architect of the House's proposed school finance and tax swap package.
    Cutting property taxes
    Mr. Grusendorf noted that the package cuts school property taxes by a third.
    "Additionally, it provides that those rates will not come back up automatically," he said. "So this provides ... greater taxpayer protection than we've ever seen in the state of Texas."
    The analysis has limitations. The tax bill's impact on specific individuals or families depends on whether they own or rent their homes; if they own a small business and what type; and lifestyle matters such as how much tobacco and bottled water they consume.
    The analysis also uses only broad income categories, lumping together people whose housing and other choices often vary, which would alter the result. Still, it's the only in-depth economic analysis of how the bill would affect tax equity.
    House leaders have insisted they want a "revenue neutral" tax bill, with increases raising no more money than it takes to slash school property taxes. They contend that cuts to other state programs and efforts to improve government efficiency would provide the $1.5 billion a year in new money promised for schools.
    Some tax experts said the House bill would make Texas' tax system even more regressive – meaning that the poor pay a larger percentage of income than the rich – than it is now.
    'Very regressive tax'
    "We are taking a very regressive tax, the sales tax, and using it to replace a less regressive tax, the property tax," said Dick Lavine, senior fiscal analyst at the Center for Public Policy Priorities, which advocates for low-income Texans.
    Bernard Weinstein, director of the Center for Economic Development and Research at the University of North Texas, said, "There are two words they don't speak in the Legislature: one is income tax and the other is regressive."
    He said that if the bill is enacted, the state will "still have an upside-down revenue system."
    A spokesman for a group advocating limited government and free markets noted that after Congress attempted several years ago to tax luxury items such as yachts and private jets, low-income people lost jobs at factories producing those goods.
    "You have to be careful about the knee-jerk statement that this is regressive or progressive, because all taxes get shared," said Michael Quinn Sullivan of the Texas Public Policy Foundation.
    Mr. Sullivan said the payroll tax would eliminate jobs filled by unskilled, poorly educated Texans. Under the bill, the existing business franchise tax would be repealed and all businesses would have to pay 1.15 percent of each employee's salary, up to $90,000 per worker annually.
    Mr. Sullivan said the House should have considered alternatives such as expanding the sales tax to services provided by stockbrokers, travel agents and interior designers, services that "people at the lower end of the economic scale don't use."
    E-mail rtgarrett@dallasnews.com
    http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/030905dntextaxes.40443.html
    -----------------------------------
    Study weighs tax bill's burden
    Impact on businesses would vary by sector, state analysis indicates
    12:37 AM CST on Wednesday, March 9, 2005
    By VIKAS BAJAJ / The Dallas Morning News
    A proposal to overhaul Texas taxes would increase tax bills for service businesses by up to 20 percent. Finance, insurance and real estate companies would see reductions of more than 11 percent.
    An analysis by the Legislative Budget Board released Tuesday tallied the impact of a House bill that would add a payroll tax, raise the sales tax, eliminate the corporate franchise tax and cut local school property taxes.
    On balance, businesses would pay 0.7 percent less in all state taxes, while individuals would pay 1.32 percent more.
    Most industries would see a net improvement in their tax liabilities because of the reductions in the franchise and property taxes.
    Finance, insurance and real estate would benefit to the tune of $897 million, and utilities and transportation firms would gain $222 million.
    Three sectors would lose: Services would pay $1.1 billion more; construction, about $206 million; and trade, about $103 million.
    Bob Hamer, owner of the Wild Turkey restaurant in northwest Dallas, estimated that his state taxes would jump 57 percent. He employs about 35 people who make $8.50 to $9 an hour.
    "We generally don't run with too many extra employees, but one thing is for sure, I wouldn't hire any more," Mr. Hamer said.
    He said the additional taxes wouldn't put him out of business but would hit him just as he was starting to recover from the city of Dallas' smoking ban that went into effect two years ago.
    "We are slowly recovering, but we have not gotten back there," Mr. Hamer said.
    On the flip side, real estate and other capital-intensive businesses say they will get some relief under the proposal.
    Officials at the Texas Building Owners and Managers Association say they are cautiously optimistic but realize that the House proposal is just one of several the state will consider this spring. Senate leaders have indicated that they will take a different approach.
    "At this point we would have to be pleased with what has come out," said Bill Carey, president of the association and a property manager in Houston. "It's very preliminary. Until things start to solidify, it could change at any time."
    Mr. Carey said most commercial property leases have provisions to pass any property tax savings or increases to tenants.
    Lawmakers are tinkering with taxes for several reasons: to raise more money for public schools as required by a court ruling; to lower property taxes; and to close loopholes in the franchise tax that is only paid by one out of six businesses.
    "There is a case to be made ... that the business tax burden should be more broadly based in the state," said Bernard Weinstein, director of the Center for Economic Development and Research at the University of North Texas. "One way to do that is to go to the payroll tax because all businesses have a payroll."
    But critics say the tax would hurt smaller, labor-intensive businesses the most and punish companies that are hiring.
    Dr. Weinstein said it's unclear whether a 1.15 percent payroll tax was significant enough to hurt the job market.
    "Would that drive certain industries and businesses to really look at other opportunities to substitute capital for labor? I don't know. Companies have been doing that for decades."
    Texas lawmakers have left themselves only a few options.
    Legislative leaders have ruled out personal or corporate income taxes, which voters would have to approve. Also, taxes on corporate income and revenue could be susceptible to the same kind of loopholes that have hurt collection of the franchise tax.
    "There is no free lunch out there," Dr. Weinstein said. "And the reality is if we are not going to consider a personal income tax or a corporate income tax or a gross receipts tax, there really aren't a lot of alternatives to generating new revenue."
    E-mail vbajaj@dallasnews.com

    HOW BUSINESSES WOULD FARE
    The service industry would take the biggest hit under a Texas House proposal to revamp the state's tax system. Here is a breakdown by industry prepared by the Legislative Budget Board. Dollars are in millions.
    Industry Tax tab today Change % change
    Services $5,552 $1,139 20.52%
    Construction $1,129 $206 18.22%
    Trade $3,028 $103 3.39%
    Agriculture $690 -$73 -10.55%
    Information $2,867 -$91 -3.19%
    Mining $3,783 -$169 -4.47%
    Utilities and Transportation $4,178 -$222 -5.32%
    Manufacturing $4,637 -$231 -4.97%
    Finance, Insurance,
    Real Estate $7,818 -$897 -11.47%
    Total $33,681 -$235 -0.70%

    SOURCE: Legislative Budget Board

    Homegrown Osamas & Local Denial

    OP-ED COLUMNIST
    Homegrown Osamas
    By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
    Published: March 9, 2005
    Before the "Rev. Dr." Matt Hale, the white racist leader, was arrested for seeking the murder of a federal judge, and long before the judge returned home last week to find her husband and mother murdered, I had lunch with him.
    Mr. Hale, who is smart, articulate and malignant, ranted about "race betrayers" as he picked at his fruit salad: "Interracial marriage is against nature. It's a form of bestiality."
    "Oh?" I replied. "Incidentally, my wife is Chinese-American."
    There was an awkward silence.
    Mr. Hale was convicted last year of soliciting the murder of Federal District Judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow. Now the police are investigating whether there is any link between Mr. Hale or his followers and the murders. Some white supremacists celebrated the killings, but Mr. Hale has strongly denied any involvement.
    The possibility that extremists carried out the murders for revenge or intimidation sends a chill through our judicial system, because it would then constitute an assault on our judiciary itself. Throughout U.S. history, only three federal judges have been murdered, but all three murders occurred after 1978 and all at their homes.
    Threats to federal judges and prosecutors have increased sharply since they began to be tabulated 25 years ago, but the attack on Judge Lefkow's family, if it was related to her work, would take such threats to a new level. Who would want to be a judge if that risked the lives of loved ones?
    Whatever the circumstances of those murders, Mr. Hale provides a scary window into a niche of America that few of us know much about. Since 9/11, we've focused almost exclusively on the risk of terrorism from Muslim foreigners, but we have plenty of potential homegrown Osamas.
    I interviewed Mr. Hale in 2002 because I had heard that he was becoming a key figure in America's hate community, recruiting followers with a savvy high-tech marketing machine. Over lunch in East Peoria, Ill., he described how as a schoolboy he had become a racist after seeing white girls kissing black boys.
    "I felt nauseous," he told me earnestly.
    Mr. Hale said attacks on race-betrayers and "mud people" were understandable but a waste of time. "Suppose someone goes out and kills 10 blacks tonight," he said, shrugging. "Well, there are millions more."
    What troubled me most about Mr. Hale was not his extremist views, but his obvious organizational ability and talent to inspire his followers. When he was denied a law license in 1999 because of his racist views, a follower went on a rampage and shot 11 people - all blacks, Asians or Jews.
    After the Oklahoma City bombing, American law enforcement authorities cracked down quite effectively on domestic racists and militia leaders. But Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors 760 hate groups with about 100,000 members, notes that after 9/11, the law enforcement focus switched overwhelmingly to Arabs.
    The Feds are right to be especially alarmed about Al Qaeda. But we also need to be more vigilant about the domestic white supremacists, neo-Nazis and militia members. After all, some have more W.M.D. than Saddam.
    Two years ago, for example, a Texan in a militia, William Krar, was caught with 25 machine guns and other weapons, a quarter-million rounds of ammunition, 60 pipe bombs and enough sodium cyanide to kill hundreds of people.
    We were too complacent about Al Qaeda and foreign terrorists before 9/11. And now we're too complacent about homegrown threats.
    Mr. Hale handed me some of his church's gospels, including "The White Man's Bible" - which embarrassed me at the airport when I was selected for a random security screening and the contents of my bag laid out on a table. Then, even though the screeners apparently believed that I was a neo-Nazi with violent, racist tracts, they let me board without any further check.
    That "White Man's Bible" says: "We don't need the Jews, the [blacks], or any other mud people. ... We have the fighting creed to re-affirm the White Man's triumph of the will as heroically demonstrated by that greatest of all White leaders - Adolf Hitler. So let us get into the fight today, now! You have no alibi, no other way out, White Man! It's either Fight or Die!"
    So we don't have to go to Saudi Arabia to find violent religious extremists steeped in hatred for all America stands for. Wake up - they're here.
    E-mail: nicholas@nytimes.com
    source: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/09/opinion/09kristof.html?hp

    Tuesday, March 08, 2005

    Throwing the Bait !

    On todays afternoon "News and Views", KXYL's James Williamson, threw out the bait to his audience fishing for any comments on the KTAB story that he has been hyping for the last week. Nobody took the bait ! To view the story go to: http://www.cityofbrownwood.com/dl_goto.asp?id=9

    Who's The Bully James ?

    Dr. James Dobson and Gay Bashing ''101-201''
    By: David Palmer
    Independent Media TV
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------
    First and foremost, it should be noted that I am not an advocate for or against Gay people; however, I am an ardent and unapologetic believer that every person is entitled to be treated equally and fairly regardless of their ethnicity, race, religious beliefs, and/or sexual preference. To assert and/or publicly opine that one is a true Christian when one engages in name-calling and exhorting others to openly discriminate against another person or group gives Christian hypocrisy a bad name.
    The recent election results have surely taught us that Gay Bashing has turned into a “successful” Olympian sport by so-called Christian moralists like Dr. James Dobson and his cadre of enablers and opportunists.
    Well-known Focus on the Family founder Dr. James Dobson has spent a great deal of time, effort and money (none of which was his) in vilifying and viciously attacking the gay community. Dobson’s vehicle for spewing forth his homophobic rant is aimed at amending the US Constitution to outlaw gay marriages.
    In October, Dobson spoke on behalf of Senatorial Candidate Tom Coburn of Oklahoma at a rally at Oklahoma Christian University in support of a constitutional ban on gay marriages. To prove that gay marriages led to fewer men and women getting married, Dobson cited countries such as Norway that have allowed same-sex couples to marry.
    Dobson said 80 percent of children are born out of wedlock in Norway. “Homosexuals are not monogamous. They want to destroy the institution of marriage. It will destroy marriage. It will destroy the Earth, Dobson said.” (The Oklahoman, 10-23-03)
    Not to be outdone by his mentor and political supporter, Tom Coburn told Rogers County Republicans last year, “The gay community has infiltrated the very centers of power in every area across this country, and they wield extreme power… That agenda is the greatest threat to our freedom that we face today. Why do you think we see the rationalization for abortion and multiple sexual partners? That’s a gay agenda.”
    Lord have mercy, if these statements are true, and who would question the veracity of Christian stalwarts like Dobson and Coburn, then we (that’s us so-called straight God-fearing folks) should be truly concerned about the power (Is that extreme power Mr. Coburn? Is there another kind, said Jack Nicholson, I’m sorry, I mean Coburn) of the gay community that will (a) destroy marriages, (b) destroy the earth (whew, and I was worried about global warming), and (c) the greatest threat to our freedom (I guess so, now that Saddam’s been captured).
    Oklahomans are lucky to have voted for a visionary (soothsayer) like Senator Tom Coburn who was able to perceive that abortion is a “gay agenda.” Whew, Dr. Tom must be blessed with ESPN, don’t ya think? I don’t know about you, but I find it laughable at best to claim that abortion is a gay issue. Ever heard of a gay couple seeking an abortion or lamenting over an unwanted pregnancy? Now, I don’t mean to disparage Dr. Tom if ya know what I mean. After all, he’s a gynecologist and I’m not; however Dr. Tom should stop buying recreational drugs from street vendors in Tulsa who accept double off coupons.
    In 1998, Dr. Dobson gave a speech wherein he stated, “You don’t have to be taught that it’s wrong to steal and to lie and to extort and to bribe and to oppress the poor and to express racial hatred and to be promiscuous, both homosexually and heterosexually. There’s no difference between those two. Promiscuity it immoral, as is adultery. That law is eternal and it is written on the heart of man.”
    It sees as though Dr. Dobson finds it convenient to tell “lies” while bashing the gay community. Dobson’s statement that 80 percent of children in Norway are born out of wedlock is false and a total fabrication. According to Statistics Norway (government entity), which can be found at http://www.ssb.no/www-open/english/ the rate in 2003 was 50.5%, which isn’t anywhere near 80%. I suppose this Christian lie is acceptable when bashing gays, right Dr. Jim?
    Dr. Dobson’s fabrication in disabusing Norwegians to promote his gay bashing by claiming that gay marriages will destroy the earth, our moral fiber (values) and lead to destruction of marriage is not only absurd it is patently false. Put simply, Dr. Jim found Norwegians to be an acceptable target by claiming their liberal views on same sex marriage led to runaway abortions, out of wedlock marriages and destruction of marriages (divorces) and that America would face the same damnable fate if it failed to abide by his Christian values in bashing gays.
    Well, I’m here to tell ya that Dr. Jim is a damn liar! The real truth according to US and Norwegian government statistics as to abortions, divorces and children born out of wedlock are as follows.
    - 2000—Norway had 14,655 abortions—population 4.5 million
    - Alabama had 13,830 abortions—population 4.4 million
    - Tennessee had 19,010 abortions—population 5.7 million
    - North Carolina had 37,610 abortions—population 8.0 million

    - 2001-03—Norway had 31,515 divorces—population 4.5 million
    - Arkansas had 50,109 divorces—population 2.7 million
    - Arizona had 71,206 divorces—population 2.7 million
    - Alabama had 68,333 divorces—population 4.4 million
    - Kentucky had 62,998 divorces—population 4.0 million
    - Tennessee had 90,685 divorces—population 5.7 million

    - 2001—Norway had 28,515 out-of-wedlock birth—population 4.5 million
    - Arizona had 33,475 out-of-wedlock births—population 2.7 million
    - Louisiana had 30,980 out-of-wedlock births—population 4.5 million
    Source: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/pdf/nvsr52_22_t3.pdf

    The factual statistics above prove beyond all doubt that Dr. Jim and his cadre of enablers and False Profits like Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Robert Land and Senator Coburn and their ilk find it both acceptable to spew forth total fabrications in their lust and zeal to paint themselves as moral Christian-Value crusaders that are servants and spokesmen for Christ.
    When openly discriminating against African Americans (albeit it in a Christian way) no longer guaranteed political power and financial success, these vile men set out to find a new minority to target, which was and is the gay community. They then manipulated their flocks by spewing forth hateful and discriminatory claims under the guise that they were the guardians of Christianity.
    Senator Coburn’s statement that the gay community has infiltrated the very centers of power in every area across this country, and that they wield extreme power” is pure hyperbole (bs). I don’t consider the local hair salon to be a “center of power,” do you? Of course the real centers of power are located in places like the Whitehouse or statehouse in Sacramento. Other than a few girly-men running amuck in Sacramento, I’m not aware of any gay power brokers operating there or in DC, are you?
    The sad truth is that these kinds of zealots and ideologues are willing to do/say anything to obtain power and/or enrich themselves at the expense of those they falsely claim to represent. Setting into motion an agenda (scheme) to dupe their flocks in believing that minority gays deserve to be ostracized, humiliated and discriminated against for the betterment of the country and in the name of Christ is appalling.
    Who will these purveyors of hate target for the 2008 election? What group among us will they claim threatens our freedom? Will it be your group? Or will it be my mine? How many more lies and fabrications will they be willing to foist upon us in the name of Jesus?
    Finally, we all have an inalienable right to disagree with anyone’s lifestyle; however, none of us has a right to impose our so-called values on our fellow brothers and sisters no matter how righteous we believe our cause to be.
    Original Link: http://www.independent-media.tv/item.cfm?fmedia_id=9988&fcategory_desc=Under%20Reported

    Brownwood Bully of the Airwaves Says: "Deal with the Bully !"

    Creating an ally for students Alliance School to open doors to those who feel bullied, harassed
    By SARAH CARR scarr@journalsentinel.com
    Posted: March 6, 2005
    Ashley Werner does not mince words when describing her experience as a lesbian at Milwaukee's Pulaski High School.
    "If you are even remotely different, (the students) harass and make fun of you," Werner said. The 17-year-old junior said she is teased, called names and singled out almost every day. The situation was no better when Werner attended Clintonville High School as a freshman and sophomore. "I decided that I had had enough with Clintonville and moved down here," Werner said.
    Werner hopes her situation will improve next year. She plans to attend the Alliance School, a charter high school that will focus on students who feel discriminated against or bullied. That might be a Goth student, a painfully shy student or a gay one. All three have enrolled in the school, which plans to open in August.
    The school will be the first of its kind in the state, and possibly the nation, its founders say.
    Last spring, the Milwaukee School Board approved the concept, and school officials are looking for a building. A charter school is publicly funded, but has more autonomy and flexibility than most traditional schools.
    "I saw a lot of students who were being bullied and no one was doing anything about it," said Tina Owen, a teacher at Milwaukee's Washington High School who will leave her job to become the lead teacher at Alliance. Some students who look and act different from the mainstream are "really tormented," she said. "I've even seen teachers be really hard on them."
    The school will be open to all students, but the focus is on kids who are floundering socially or academically in traditional schools because of harassment or abuse.
    "There's one girl who is really shy and quiet and gets picked on a lot," Owen said. "When she heard about the school, she said, 'Can I come? Can I come?' I said, 'Of course.' "
    Another student, who dresses in a Goth style, was shunned by some teachers and students.
    "The ultimate goal is to give kids a place where they want to come to school," Owen said.
    The school has encountered no opposition so far, although Jonathan Turley, a professor of public interest law at George Washington University Law School, said he worries that "the creation of separate schools tends to take pressure away from school administrators to fulfill their basic duties for the student body."
    "The students who should be removed from the school are those who are doing the harassment," he said.
    Alliance will be small, student-driven and offer classes year round. Because of the size - about 100 students - teachers hope they will be able to connect with each of the students.
    "There will be none of this, 'Oh, gosh, who is that one kid?' " said Nicole Powers, a teacher who devised the concept along with Owen.
    Not just for gay students Luke Ashauer, who attends Clintonville High School, is thinking of moving to Milwaukee this summer to go to Alliance. He said his fellow students "are not exactly open to new concepts, such as being gay or just being different."
    Ashauer does not expect Alliance to be perfect, but he is tired of other students mockingly imitating him in Clintonville.
    "(Alliance) is a school and there are teenagers there, so there is going to be some prejudice," said Ashauer, who is gay. "But at least the school itself will be very student based and driven."
    Owen and Powers said they recognized from the start that they did not want the school to serve solely gay and lesbian students. "From the get go, we knew that was one of the markets that would be attracted to our type of school, but it's never been the sole focus," Powers said.
    "If you take that group by themselves, what are they learning about the rest of the world, and what is the rest of the world learning about them?" Owen said.
    In New York City, Harvey Milk High School, a program geared toward gay and lesbian students, opened a year and a half ago. Almost immediately, a conservative state senator known for his opposition to gay causes sued the school, arguing that it is illegal under New York's sexual bias laws and a waste of taxpayers' money.
    Turley, the law professor, strongly opposes the Harvey Milk School, although he is an advocate for gay rights in general. "The school becomes a powerful symbol to be used by abusive and hateful students," he said. "In New York, if you are suspected of being gay, you are sometimes told to go to Harvey Milk. This creates the impression that gay and lesbian students need special protection and have special needs. The focus should be on identifying those homophobic students who need to conform to basic social values or be expelled."
    Turley is more optimistic about a school like Alliance, where the mission is defined more broadly, but he still has some concerns.
    "High schools are often the last opportunity to instill basic citizenship values, including tolerance for a pluralistic society, and removing victims from that environment is, in many ways, a concession. . . . If these administrators cannot guarantee a healthy and safe environment, the solution is to get new administrators, not create a new school."
    Support, not isolation The teachers at Alliance say their goal is not to isolate or segregate victims, but create an environment where students feel safe, and can learn how to go back out into the community and fight discrimination. They plan to work with groups like Pathfinders and the Counseling Center of Milwaukee to maintain a supportive environment.
    "Oftentimes the sheer size makes it very difficult" in traditional schools, Powers said. "I think there are caring teachers and administrators and counselors in every school in the city, but they might be dealing with thousands of kids, and there are policies that the students had no say in, and they had no say in."
    The teachers at Alliance are recruiting through school counselors; at Project Q, the youth program of the Milwaukee LGBT Community Center; and at hangouts such as Node Coffee Shop on North Ave.
    Lorie Bump, Ashley Werner's mother, said she is happy that there will be "a safe place for kids like Ashley to go and get an education.
    "Hopefully they will get away from the cliques and 'keeping up with the Joneses,' " she said. "From what Ashley has told me, it is going to be for kids who feel different, whether they are smart or gay or just want to be their own person."
    Werner says she would like to focus on English and psychology in school. She's fascinated by psychology because she thinks the world would be a better place if "people understand why they act the way they do."
    Regardless, she's hoping school will be a better place for her next year.
    It would be nice if "you could be who you are without fear of being harassed," she said.

    The dark side of secularism

    Published on Tuesday, March 8, 2005 by the Boston Globe
    The Dark Side of Secularism
    by James Carroll
     
    Last week the US Supreme Court took up two cases having to do with "government displays of the Ten Commandments" – the old question of church and state. Those who emphasize the "bright line" of separation are conscious of the breakthrough it was when, after savage religious wars led by God-intoxicated rulers, a new politics required the state to be religiously neutral.
    Thomas Jefferson stood on the shoulders of figures like Benedict Spinoza, Roger Williams, and Mary Dyer, who paid dearly for this principle.
    Far from an insult to faith, the "wall of separation" was a guarantee that each citizen, free of public coercion, could worship at the altar of conscience – or not. This foundational idea of American democracy protects political freedom of a diverse citizenry but also creates space within which authentic religion can thrive. The courts are right to keep the line sharp, and new democracies around the world are right to draw it.
    But there is a dark side to the separation of church and state, and its shadow grows longer. This core notion has been distorted into a terrible dichotomy that undercuts both politics and belief.
    Early on, "church and state" became a euphemism for the separation of the private realm from the public – the separation of morality from law. "You can't legislate morality," Americans told each other. Because the language of morality was associated with religion, the discourse of "secular" politics became ethically hollow. Thus, for example (in an observation made by the writer Wendell Barry), Thomas Jefferson could in his public role argue against slavery, while clinging to slaves as "private" property, about which the state had nothing to say. On this issue, Americans would fight a war to enshrine morality in law.
    Speaking of war, the traditional distinction between the hard-nosed "realism" of policymakers and the "idealism" of conscientious objectors is another instance of the dichotomy between state and church. By removing considerations of "morality" from, for example, the Cold War construction of nuclear deterrence theory and its arsenal – prepare to destroy the world to save it – Washington teamed with Moscow to create a stillrampant monster. When George Kennan objected to the Hbomb, Dean Acheson said to him: "George, if you persist in your view in this matter, you should resign from the Foreign Service and assume a monk's habit." Or, as Curtis LeMay put it, "To worry about the 'morality' of what we were doing – nuts!" By assigning "morality" to the private sphere, Americans also eviscerated the true meaning of education. The phrase "family values" is code for this evisceration, as if the family alone is the realm in which young people are explicitly enabled to reflect on the moral meaning of choices. Keeping prayers out of schools – a proper refusal to coerce the conscience of any citizen – thus becomes reduced to the absurd idea that public education must be "values neutral." Is it any wonder that some teenagers, compulsively "hooking up," have learned so little about humane sexual expression?
    Or take the college admissions process, which has become the distilled essence of the American educational agenda: When the triumph of one student assumes the defeat of another, the deadly separation has become the ultimate one of "me against you." Every student, parent, and admissions officer knows of this literal demoralization, but schools lack the, yes, sacred language with which to address it.
    But drawing a bright line between morality and the rest of life has become the American way. Thus hospitals and corporations have "ethicists" – specialists who, alone of officials, are held to a high standard of moral reasoning. Ethicists, of course, are not decision makers. WorldCom and Enron are the result.
    And as lucrative new technologies redefine the beginning of life, the end of life, every genome in between – who expects that the interests of the sponsoring venture capitalists will come second to those of the human species? The separation of church and state in business means the separation of choice from consequence.
    But religion itself has been trivialized by this tradition, too.
    Walling off the "sacred" from the "secular" has removed the faith from its rigorous partnership with reason, which is why, for example, so many mistakenly assume a contradiction between Genesis and Darwin. Otherwise well-educated religious people remain theologically illiterate, which is the ground of intolerance.
    Knowing only that something is terribly wrong with all of this, they mistakenly assume it can be corrected by a new imposition of "values," symbolized, say, by the display of the Ten Commandments in a courtroom.

    James Carroll's column appears regularly in the Globe. His most recent book is "Crusade: Chronicles of an Unjust War."

    Brownwood, Bankruptcy & Politics

    All roads lead to Brownwood and the Republicans are Driving........
    ---------------------
    Dallas Morning News Editorial
    Balance Due: Bankruptcy bill is too tough on borrowers
    10:57 PM CST on Monday, March 7, 2005
    Q: What do you call a Congress that blames profligate consumer spending for the nation's soaring bankruptcy rate yet shows little concern about its own deficit-spending ways?
    A: Hypocritical.
    It doesn't take much for someone to land in bankruptcy court. A lost job, a divorce, catastrophic medical costs and, of course, irrational credit card use could do the trick.
    But not all bankruptcies are created the same, and that fact is missing in the Senate bill now moving through Congress. The Senate measure would set up a rigid means test to make sure that debtors who can pay do so and would greatly reduce the discretion of bankruptcy judges.
    In principle, borrowers ought to honor financial obligations. This bill, however, bails out aggressive lenders and treats hardworking, financially distressed Americans as deadbeats. Credit card debt has climbed over the past decade, with senior citizens, middle-class families and minimum-wage earners making up a growing percentage of the insolvent. Other studies link personal bankruptcies to medical setbacks and the absence of affordable medical insurance.
    Most of these aren't professional deadbeats; they're average people who have fallen on tough times.
    Responsibility works two ways. In an era of easy credit, lenders share blame for personal bankruptcies. Industry practices such as skyrocketing penalties and fees – the fastest-growing revenue source for credit card companies – increasingly mire borrowers in debt.
    Bankruptcy is a serious national problem. But before Congress changes the laws, lawmakers should ask themselves whether they could meet such an inflexible standard.
    Just look at the federal budget, and you have your answer.

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  • Republicans Don't Like the Rules ? Let's Change Em !

    Note to Local Talk Radio Talking Heads......It's understandable that you would withhold this information from your listeners so as to spin them into thinking that President Bush's Judicial Nominees are hardly ever approved. How about a 90 to 95% approval rate ! I accuse you of "dumbing down" your audience members...............
    -----------------
    GOP May Target Use of Filibuster
    Senate Democrats Want To Retain the Right to Block Judicial Nominees
    By Helen Dewar and Mike Allen
    Washington Post Staff Writers
    Monday, December 13, 2004; Page A01
    As speculation mounts that Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist will step down from the Supreme Court soon because of thyroid cancer, Senate Republican leaders are preparing for a showdown to keep Democrats from blocking President Bush's judicial nominations, including a replacement for Rehnquist.
    Republicans say that Democrats have abused the filibuster by blocking 10 of the president's 229 judicial nominees in his first term -- although confirmation of Bush nominees exceeds in most cases the first-term experience of presidents dating to Ronald Reagan. Describing the filibusters as intolerable, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) has hinted he may resort to an unusual parliamentary maneuver, dubbed the "nuclear option," to thwart such filibusters.
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  • --------------------
    Bush's Judicial Nominations Are Hardly Mainstream
    February 17, 2005
    President Bush has re-nominated seven candidates for the federal appeals courts. Each was blocked by Senate Democrats during his first term. He also sent back to the Senate five other nominees for the federal appeals courts whose confirmations were slowed because of Democratic concerns regarding their legal backgrounds. Bush has accused Democrats of blocking votes on so many of his nominations that they have created "judicial emergencies."
    In reality, Bush has had more judicial nominees approved than was the case in the first terms of Presidents Clinton and Reagan, and the administration of his father. Of the 214 nominees sent to the Senate for a vote during his first term , Democrats blocked only ten, using the filibuster. As such, 95 percent of Bush's nominees have been approved. By contrast, from 1995 to 2000, the Republican Senate blocked 35% of Clinton's circuit court nominees. Bush has repeatedly said that all of his nominees are well qualified to serve on the nation's courts. He has said, "They are of the highest caliber. These are superb nominees." And he has stressed that "they represent mainstream values." However, a review of his nominees indicates that most of them could hardly be construed as holding mainstream legal and public policy ideas.
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  • Monday, March 07, 2005

    Brown County Farmers - An End to Days of High Cotton ?

    GOP Constituents Caught in Battle Over Subsidies
    By Dan Morgan
    Washington Post Staff Writer
    Tuesday, March 8, 2005; Page A01
    A Bush administration proposal that would cut billions of dollars in subsidies to big cotton growers has struck at a core GOP constituency, setting off a battle in Republican congressional ranks that pits budget cutters and prairie-state populists against traditional agricultural interests.
    The Bush plan threatens an elaborate government safety net that is the handiwork of such legendary southern Democrats as Lyndon B. Johnson (Tex.) and James O. Eastland (Miss.), as well as a new generation of Republican leaders from the region. The move reflects growing pressure to hold down soaring federal deficits and a recognition that even a business woven deeply into the history, economy and politics of the South must come to terms with dramatic changes underway in global trade.
    Underscoring that reality, the World Trade Organization in Geneva ruled Thursday that U.S. cotton subsidies violate global trade rules because they exceed limits agreed to in 1944. If the United States does not correct the situation, Brazil, which brought the complaint, could retaliate against U.S. products.
    As part of its 2006 budget proposal, the Bush administration would trim benefits for growers of most staple crops, including wheat, corn and soybeans. But economists and officials say the hardest hit would be the big producers of cotton in Republican strongholds of Texas, Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia. Large-scale operators in California and Arizona would also be affected.

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  • Is this what KXYL's Connie Carmichael had in mind ?

    See our March 01, 2005 Post......

    Posted on Mon, Mar. 07, 2005
    Women accused of threatening judge
    By Max B. Baker
    Star-Telegram Staff Writer
    FORT WORTH - Texas Rangers arrested two women waiting for a trial to begin Monday in state District Judge Wayne Salvant's courtroom after Salvant told prosecutors that they had threatened him at his home during the weekend.
    Lesha Ferrell, 42, and Rebecca Hanson, 31, were in court for the trial of Ferrell's son, Montrail Ferrell, on a drug possession charge.
    Prosecutor Jim Hudson said Salvant told the Tarrant County district attorney's office that Lesha Farrell and others came to his home Friday.
    "The jury panel was out in the hallway, and the judge came in and told the district attorney what had happened, and a decision was made to consult with the Texas Rangers," Hudson said.
    The women were taken into custody without incident because they "were surrounded by about a half-dozen Texas Rangers," Hudson said.
    Ferrell and Hanson were in Tarrant County Jail on Monday night facing retaliation charges. Bail for each was set at $250,000.
    Montrail Ferrell's trial was postponed.
    Details of what happened at Salvant's home could not be learned Monday. Neither Rangers nor Salvant returned phone calls.
    Hudson said Salvant was apparently "rattled" because last week a Chicago federal judge found her husband and mother slain in the basement of her home. Authorities are investigating whether their deaths are linked to white supremacist Matt Hale. The killings came a month before Hale was to be sentenced by another judge for trying to have Lefkow killed.

    Staff writer Mark Agee contributed to this report.
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  • Who's Les Davis ? Reporter News Editorials

    On a precipice
    October 6, 2004

    Now that the first presidential debate is over, we can quibble over style or substance, but I would much rather go to the facts. In 1995 Sen. Kerry voted to slash FBI funding by $80 million. Kerry proposed cutting $1 billion from the national intelligence program and tactical budgets. This is just a sample and is on the record.
    Can we trust someone who speaks out of both sides of his mouth just to get elected? The country is on a precipice. Whom will you trust, a slick talker or a man who lives his values every day and speaks from the conviction of his heart and makes tough decisions without looking at the polls?

    Les Davis
    Bangs
    source: http://www.reporter-news.com/abil/op_letters_editor/article/0,1874,ABIL_7984_3232648,00.html
    ---------------
    Our enemies

    Date: November 19, 2004
    Publication: Abilene Reporter-News (TX)

    The Nov. 14 Abilene Reporter-News editorial on the laws of war was more like bloviating than fact.

    First, this is the first time in our history that ''the enemy'' does not have a home base of operations, and there are more than 1.4 billion Muslims in the world. Are there problems? Sure. But one must understand the very nature of our enemy is that they know and use our laws to their advantage, coupled with activist judges nominated by President Clinton.

    The Geneva...
    ----------------
    Justified involvement
    Date: September 22, 2004
    Publication: Abilene Reporter-News (TX)

    This is in response to Bob Hanna's Sept. 19 paid advertisement in the Abilene Reporter-News: Without our financial aid, military equipment and American troops, the geographics would be quite different.

    The only reason we are hated around the world is because we as a people are the most industrious and ingenious in the world, bar none. Lest Hanna forgets, we were attacked by terrorists. Sure, we make mistakes, but no other nation in the world ever has contributed to the world as we have, ...
    -----------------------

    Brownwood: The Road to Austin & Our Elected Leaders

    Let the Sun Shine: A Resolution for Recorded Votes
    04:22 PM CST on Wednesday, January 26, 2005
    Resolution in support of
    Recorded Legislative Vote Reform
    Whereas open government and public disclosure of legislators' votes are key to our democratic-republic form of government;
    Whereas Texas legislators currently record their votes on but a fraction of the bills they pass each session, and fewer still amendments;
    Whereas Texas is one of fewer than 10 states that don't require routinely recorded legislative votes;
    Be it hereby resolved that our organization urges the Texas Legislature to reform its rules to require the public disclosure of each lawmaker's vote at key stages in the legislative process, including:
    * amendments;
    * second reading;
    * third reading, or final passage;
    * passage of any bill returned from the other house with changes;
    * conference committee reports;
    * joint resolutions that go to the voters as constitutional amendments.

    Texas Senate
    Box 12068
    Austin, TX 78711-2068
    Fax: 512-463-0326

    Texas House
    Box 2910
    Austin, TX 78768-2910
    Fax: 512-463-5896

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  • Let the Sun Shine In on Our Legislators Votes

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  • Sunday, March 06, 2005

    Here's another Connie Carmichael kinda thought process

    Please ignore the Chicago judge's dead family in the corner...
    by John in DC - 3/7/2005 05:24:00 PM
    From the religious right propaganda organ AgapePress:

    A conservative activist says if you're looking for radicals, the U.S. Supreme Court is the place to start. Author and political commentator Mark Levin says the Supreme Court is the last bastion of radicalism left in America today. The high court, he says, confers rights on terrorists, confers benefits on illegal immigrants, and seeks to eliminate all references to religion from the public square. "They want to deny you and me our free-speech rights before an election," he adds, "but they have no problem with upholding cyberspace child pornography as a constitutional right." Levin says the judicial activists on the high court believe they can do anything they want when, in reality, it is the people who decide the issues of the day -- not nine elevated lawyers.

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  • The Texas GOP ( Nice plane Tom ! )


    scan_3518223021_1
    Originally uploaded by photosteve.
    Is that Tom Delay Piloting the Enron/GOP plane ? Craddick as co-pilot ? Weddington as flight attendant ? D's being whisked to Iraq or back to Austin ? Is that an AWACS overhead which tracked the D's to Oklahoma ?
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  • The D.A. And Tom DeLay !

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  • Tom Delay & Ethics

    Posted on Fri, Mar. 11, 2005
    DeLay faces questions over fund-raising travel
    JAMES KUHNHENN
    Knight Ridder Newspapers

    WASHINGTON - House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who has received ethics reprimands in the past, is drawing fresh fire on Capitol Hill this week over his role in a Texas political-financing operation and reports of possible travel irregularities in violation of House of Representatives rules.
    House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi on Thursday renewed her call for the House ethics committee to determine whether DeLay's activities require further investigation. Some House Republicans worried that the revival of an ethics flap surrounding DeLay could distract him from pushing President Bush's second-term agenda.
    DeLay was treated Thursday at the Naval Medical Center in Bethesda for heart arrhythmia and wasn't available to comment. After tests, he was sent home to rest.
    While DeLay hasn't been charged with wrongdoing, questions are swirling over what he knew about three events involving fund-raising and travel:
    • Two DeLay associates are under indictment in Texas as part of a criminal investigation into a political action committee that DeLay helped create in 2001. The prosecutor, a Democrat, has said the committee was designed to direct corporate donations to Republican state candidates, a violation of Texas law.
    • In 2000, DeLay played golf in Scotland on a trip arranged by Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who's now under investigation by a federal grand jury and a Senate panel for selling access to members of Congress. National Journal, a magazine that covers Washington, reported last week that Abramoff paid for DeLay's hotel, which would violate House rules.
    • In 2001, DeLay took an expense-paid trip to South Korea under the auspices of the Korea-U.S. Exchange Council, an organization registered as a foreign agent. House rules prohibit members from accepting travel or other gratuities from registered foreign agents.

    source: http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/news/local/11105519.htm

    Enron's Ken Lay: I'm A Victim

    March 13, 2005
    Ken Lay says his name is synonymous with scandal — and for good reason. When his Houston-based energy company, Enron, collapsed in 2001, there had never been anything like it.
    Once the seventh-largest company in America, Enron was wiped out in what seemed like a matter of days. Employees were sent out on the street, and billions of dollars were gone. Now, Lay is under federal indictment, and his long-awaited trial is scheduled for January.
    When Lay was subpoenaed to testify before the Senate, he refused to answer their questions. But now, Lay sits down with Correspondent Scott Pelley to finally talk about the the lying, and the downright incompetence behind the rise and fall of Enron.
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------
    “You know what many people are thinking, rightly or wrongly, they see Ken Lay's face on the screen and they say to themselves, ‘There's the crook that ruined Enron,’” says Pelley to Lay.
    “I’m sure you're right. I'm sure most Americans are convinced that I at least in part caused Enron's collapse and all that pain and suffering that followed,” says Lay.
    The pain and suffering aren’t forgotten, even three years later. The failure of Lay’s company left 4,000 people without jobs, and wiped out savings and pensions. Enron went bust owing creditors $65 billion dollars. And Lay, once revered, was mocked in the Senate, lampooned in the press, and finally, last summer, charged with fraud by federal prosecutors.
    Lay faces a maximum statutory sentence for these charges of 175 years. How does he feel about having his name associated with scandal? “I don’t like it at all as you'd expect,” says Lay. “The last thing I would have ever expected to happen to me in my life would be that, in fact, I would be accused of doing something wrong and maybe even something criminal.”
    Lay admits there were criminals at Enron. But throughout the interview, he insisted he was a victim, not a villain.
    What responsibility does he take, as chief executive officer, for the failure of Enron?
    “I have to take responsibility for anything that happened within its businesses,” says Lay. “But I can't take responsibility for criminal conduct of somebody inside the company.”
    “This is what I call the Elmer Fudd defense -- that I went to work every day and was paid $6 million a year and had a Ph.D. in economics -- and somehow, despite all of this, I didn't know anything that was going on. It's laughable,” says Bill Lerach, a lawyer who sued to stop document shredding by Enron’s accountants. Now, he’s leading an investor lawsuit against the company, its bankers, its accountants and Lay.
    “What was he doing every day in his office? Reading comic books? This man was the CEO of the company," says Lerach. “He had an obligation to be informed about what was going on in that business every day in every way. And he utterly failed to do it.”
    Lay started life dirt poor on a Missouri farm, the son of a part-time preacher. In school, he worked his way up, earning a Ph.D. in economics.
    As a young man, he turned to the energy business, and in 1985 he merged two natural gas companies to create Enron. It was an old-fashioned pipeline network. But in the mid ‘90s, Enron executive Jeff Skilling transformed Lay’s company.
    Enron became more like a commodities exchange with traders buying and selling huge contracts to deliver gas and electricity. Enron moved from turning wrenches to spinning deals. Lay and Skilling were pictured as giants, and Enron was named the most innovative company in America for six years in a row.
    “There was this ultimate faith within Enron, that, ‘We're all geniuses. We know we're geniuses. We're on the covers of magazines, and they're telling us we're geniuses,’” says Kurt Eichenwald, who spent years covering Enron as a business correspondent for The New York Times. His new book, “Conspiracy of Fools,” portrays the company’s rise and fall.
    “Wall Street was saying how brilliant they were. Bankers were throwing money at them saying how brilliant they were and nobody was standing back and saying, ‘How are they making this money?’”
    Nobody was questioning the power merchant who’d become a power broker. Lay golfed with President Clinton and was particularly close to George and Barbara Bush. Years later, when their son became president, Lay flew the Bushes to the inauguration on an Enron plane. He had become Houston’s hometown hero. He spent $100 million to put Enron’s name on the new baseball stadium. And when he threw the first pitch, once again, the Bushes were his fans.
    Lay says he was “enjoying a lot of success.” And, a lot of wealth. Prosecutors say Lay made more than $217 million in four years from stock options, and another $19 million in salary and bonuses. But while executives in Enron’s tower were counting riches, some of the company’s businesses were bleeding cash.
    Under Lay and Skilling, Enron had aggressively pushed into new ventures -- municipal water systems, broadband Internet, overseas power plants. Eichenwald says Enron was growing too fast into businesses it didn’t understand.
    “They spent billions and billions and billions of dollars on businesses that didn't work,” says Eichenwald. “And when they didn't work, they'd say, ‘Let's spend more on another business.’”
    Ordinarily, that would alarm Wall Street, except you couldn’t find those losses on Enron’s balance sheet. Enron’s chief financial officer, Andrew Fastow, was manipulating the company’s public reports to mislead investors. In other words, he was cooking the books.
    Fastow’s already pleaded guilty to falsifying Enron’s balance sheet, and to conspiring with other employees to skim millions for themselves. Fastow wouldn’t talk to 60 Minutes, but he’s cooperating with prosecutors in return for a 10-year sentence. Lay blames Fastow, not just for stealing, but for mismanaging Enron’s finances and wrecking public confidence in the company.
    “I think the primary reason for Enron’s collapse was Andy Fastow and his little group of people and what they did,” says Lay.
    But how could a company be losing billions and the CEO not know it, even if the CFO is crooked?
    “We weren't losing billions, though,” says Lay. “I mean, our primary businesses in wholesale pipelines, utilities, retail, were all doing extremely well.”
    Lay insists that if the market hadn’t lost confidence in Enron, the company could have worked out its problems.
    “At the end of the day, you have a company with $30 billion in debt and no cash flow,” says Pelley.
    “But that is not true,” says Lay. “I mean, the company had a lot of strong cash flows when it went into bankruptcy.”
    “You just said that the company had a lot of strong cash flows when it went into bankruptcy," says Pelley. "You understand how strange that sounds? The company was deeply troubled. And the question is, ‘You’re chief executive officer. Shouldn’t you know that?’”
    “I did not know that,” says Lay. “Because Andy and his team were lying to me and the board and the senior executives.”
    Lay also told 60 Minutes he didn’t know about another scandal brewing in the company. In 2000, when California was suffering a power crisis, Enron traders were manipulating electricity flows to jack up profits. They were even taped boasting about it.
    “Those comments, and the other comments that I've seen are disgusting and despicable,” says Lay of the taped discussions.
    “These are your guys,” says Pelley.
    “Those are some of our guys,” says Lay. “But the most important thing is, Enron did not cause the California crisis.”
    “But Enron here is acting as a predator,” says Pelley. “California is wounded, and Enron moves in.”
    “Well, I would hope that if a supervisor would have seen that, heard that, or whatever, they'd been dismissed,” says Lay.
    But it was an Enron vice president and two other managers who pleaded guilty to the fraud in California. It was about this same time, back in Houston, that the giant began to stumble. Reporters questioned Enron’s immaculate balance sheet. Skilling abruptly resigned. There were news reports of Andy Fastow’s double dealing. Investors were spooked. And vital trading partners walked away.
    “The marketplace abandoned Enron. There were traders sitting in the trading room, you know, talking on the phones, screaming ‘Nobody will deal with me,’” says Eichenwald. “At the end of the day when you have a trading business where nobody will trade with you, you’re dead. You die immediately."
    And it did. The stock fell from a high of $90 to 26 cents. In December 2001, Enron was bankrupt. People like Angelina Lorio, who spent nearly 27 years on the job, were on the street.
    “These guys who did this to us,” says Lorio. “I don’t know how they can sleep at night. It’s the ultimate betrayal.”
    What does Lay say to her? “I’m sorry, I’m dreadfully sorry. If there’s any way at all that I could restore any or all of that, I'm sure I would,” says Lay. “But I fought as hard as I could with my almost-- last breath, prior to the time we-- Enron collapsed, doing everything we could to save it. But we just couldn't save it.”
    It took investigators two years, but now Enron’s top executives face trial on a variety of charges. Lay is accused primarily of lying about Enron’s health in the final months. Prosecutors say he broke the law when he said this to employees five weeks before failure: "Our liquidity is fine. As a matter of fact, it’s better than fine. It’s strong."
    “There were problems. There were losses,” says Pelley. “And you're telling secretaries, and low-level employees, buy the stock, it's a bargain. You must have known better.”
    “I didn't know better. And matter of fact, quite the contrary,” says Lay. “I had every reason to think that the underlying businesses, the fundamentals of the underlying businesses, were strong.”
    Lerach, who’s suing Lay, says he doesn’t buy it: “I will tell you this. Ken Lay was telling Andy Fastow, ‘We better make $0.76 a share this quarter. And I don't care what you have to do. You get it done and you make those numbers."
    “Were those your instructions, to Andy Fastow, ‘Every quarter, that balance sheet better look good. You handle the details,’” asks Pelley.
    “No, I, first of all, those were not my instructions,” says Lay. “But certainly I didn't know he was doing anything that was criminal.”
    Lay told us, at the top, he was worth $400 million -- most of it in Enron stock that he held onto until the end. Now, he’s down to $20 million, which he worries will be lost to lawyers and lawsuits.
    “I think ultimately he will be [ruined],” says Eichenwald.
    Is it Lay’s own fault? “Yes," says Eichenwald. "This debacle is no single person’s fault. But he was in charge. He was at the top of his company when everything went awry.”
    Ultimately, what was it that killed Enron?
    “Everyone thinks Enron was killed by crime. It wasn’t,” says Eichenwald. “Enron was killed by massive incompetence, massive mismanagement.”
    Lay doesn’t agree with that assessment and he doesn’t like the title of Eichenwald’s book, “Conspiracy of Fools.” But as he prepares for trial, Lay is trying to improve his image. And that is probably why he chose to talk to 60 Minutes.
    “The Department of Justice says you're a criminal,” says Pelley. “The title of the book suggests all of you were fools. Which is it?”
    “I don't think I'm a criminal, number one,” says Lay. “Am I a fool? I don't think I'm a fool. But I think I sure was fooled.”
    Lay will find out whether a jury agrees when his trial takes place next January.
    http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/03/11/60minutes/main679706.shtml

    What they don't want you to see !

    President Clinton Tells Some Useful Truths
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  • Politics: It's Local

    Credit Card Penalties, Fees Bury Debtors
    Senate Nears Action On Bankruptcy Curbs
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  • Saturday, March 05, 2005

    As it relates to cityofbrownwood.com ID Thief and Talk Radio

    "If a person expresses his view, his first and last names should appear. If ... not ... he either is afraid or wants to manipulate the journalist."
    Archbishop John Foley, Vatican spokesman, bemoaning the use of unnamed Vatican sources in news stories

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  • Grand Theft Auto firm faces 'murder training' lawsuit

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  • Down the Road !

    Police Suspended Over Disco Fire Messages
    AUSTIN, Texas — Five police officers and four dispatchers were suspended for sending computer messages after a nightclub caught fire joking about the blaze and quoting a line from the song "Disco Inferno" — "burn baby burn."
    Witnesses at the Midtown Live club saw the "burn baby burn" message on the computer screen inside an officer's patrol car during the Feb. 18 fire. Police Chief Stan Knee said a commander and corporal who responded to the scene worked to calm angry witnesses.
    The club has a mostly black clientele, and there were suggestions after the fire that the messages revealed racial bias in the department.
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  • "Gannongate": Where are you Brownwood Bulletin, KXYL & www.cityofbrownwood.com ?

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  • “Religious Right” coming for your Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue ?

    Look out Hootbaker at cityofbrownwood.com !

    “ The road to fascism and theocracy does not involve announcing that "tomorrow we shall become a one-party state and those who disagree will be put to death." It arrives, with all apologies to Carl Sandburg, like the fog, on little cat feet.”
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  • Won't Let Jesus In Either !

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  • Friday, March 04, 2005

    Insurance Rates, Money Trail, Talk Show Hosts/Owners & Political Contributions

    Group says insurers' year to be highly profitable
    09:07 PM CST on Wednesday, February 16, 2005
    Austin Bureau
    AUSTIN – Texas home insurers appear to be on the way to their most profitable year in 15 years, according to a leading consumer group that on Wednesday renewed its call for leading companies to lower their rates.
    Texas Watch said new figures on file at the Texas Department of Insurance indicate that the industry will have one of its best years ever if insurance loss ratios for the first three quarters of 2004 hold up through the last quarter.
    The figures indicate an average loss ratio of 35 percent from January through September last year, meaning that companies paid out 35 percent of the premiums they collected to cover property losses. That figure is well below the 58 percent loss ratio in 2003 – considered a good year – and the 100 percent-plus numbers in 2001 and 2002 when the market was in a crisis.
    "Apparently it is a very good time to be an insurance company in Texas and a bad time to be an insurance consumer," said Alex Winslow of Texas Watch.
    Terrence Stutz
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  • ----------------------------
    Home > News > National News > Nov 2004
    National News
    Republican Candidates Win 'Big Time' in Insurance Industry Political Giving in Federal Races
    November 2, 2004
    The late U.S. House Speaker Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill (D-Mass.) is famous for insisting, "All politics is local." Apparently, O'Neill wasn't counting the money. When it comes to money in Washington, the biggest players are those with national, not local, profiles and agendas — and large national insurance companies and insurance PACs are among the leaders every year.
    In fact, for an industry that is largely regulated at the state rather than federal level, the insurance industry pumps a substantial amount of money into national politics —consistently ranking within the top 10 in industries giving to federal races for president and Congress.
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    Follow the Money Honey !
    [PDF] In Stereo: Big Donors To Two Texas Speakers
    File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - View as HTML
    ... Top Donors To Associated Republicans of Texas PAC ... Insurance. Austin.
    $35450. $100 Kent Grusendorf. State representative. Arlington ...
    www.tpj.org/Lobby_Watch/ARTcourt.pdf - Similar pages

    Texas - campaign money
    ... Texas 1999-2000 Top Overall Contributors to State Party Committees ... Sort By:
    Top Democratic Donors Top Republicans Donors Top Overall Donors ...
    www.opensecrets.org/states/stsoft_topdonors. asp?state=TX&party=rep&cycle=2000&type=n - 39k - Cached - Similar pages

    The Rise of the Machine, 8/29/2003 - The Texas Observer
    ... For years, Texas Republicans struggled to displace the Democratic ... the right
    political allies in power, it was Texas insurance companies in 2002. ...
    www.texasobserver.org/showArticle. asp?ArticleFileName=030829_f1.htm - 67k - Mar 2, 2005 - Cached - Similar pages

    Biggest political donors
    ... While campaign spending was down in the Lone Star State, donors continued ...
    Stars Over Texas PAC, $597500, The sequel to Texans for a Republican ...
    www.news-journal.com/news/content/ shared/tx/legislature/stories/01/9donors.html - 28k - Cached - Similar pages

    Brownwood, KXYL & G. Gordon Liddy

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  • Brownwood Education: Rural Republicans & Urban Democrats

    Some rural Republicans object to education overhaul plan
    AUSTIN — A plan to overhaul education in Texas could founder this week if measures aren't taken to address the concerns of rural Republicans who say they can't vote for the proposal in its current form.
    The GOP-drawn plan to fund public schools in Texas has been slow to garner support from the large number of legislators who represent rural parts of Texas, both Republican and Democrat.
    Those who hail from small-town Texas, where communities often revolve around schools, say the plan does not give their schools enough money for transportation, cuts funding for gifted and talented programs and does not give teachers a pay raise that would encourage them to move to the country.
    "I haven't heard a lot of folks supporting it, other than the ones that wrote it," said Republican Rep. Scott Campbell, who represents a four-county district surrounding San Angelo. "It just breaks your heart because people have put in so much time and we still don't have anything."
    -------------
    "The only difference between (rural Republicans) and their urban Democrat counterparts is the population. We still have working families in modest homes, schools in need of more investment, we share those things in common," Martinez Fischer said.
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  • Propoganda: It reaches Brownwood !

    Propoganda: It’s Bipartisan Because it has to be !

    most propaganda is not designed to fool the critical thinker but only to give moral cowards an excuse not to think at all...

    Don't let KXYL's James Williamson pull the wool over your eyes: http://www.thelawparty.com/FranklinCover-up.htm
    -------------------------------------
    Under Bush, a New Age of Prepackaged Television News
    By David Barstow and Robin Stein
    The New York Times
    Sunday 13 March 2005
    It is the kind of TV news coverage every president covets.
    "Thank you, Bush. Thank you, U.S.A.," a jubilant Iraqi-American told a camera crew in Kansas City for a segment about reaction to the fall of Baghdad. A second report told of "another success" in the Bush administration's "drive to strengthen aviation security"; the reporter called it "one of the most remarkable campaigns in aviation history." A third segment, broadcast in January, described the administration's determination to open markets for American farmers.
    To a viewer, each report looked like any other 90-second segment on the local news. In fact, the federal government produced all three. The report from Kansas City was made by the State Department. The "reporter" covering airport safety was actually a public relations professional working under a false name for the Transportation Security Administration. The farming segment was done by the Agriculture Department's office of communications.
    Under the Bush administration, the federal government has aggressively used a well-established tool of public relations: the prepackaged, ready-to-serve news report that major corporations have long distributed to TV stations to pitch everything from headache remedies to auto insurance. In all, at least 20 federal agencies, including the Defense Department and the Census Bureau, have made and distributed hundreds of television news segments in the past four years, records and interviews show. Many were subsequently broadcast on local stations across the country without any acknowledgement of the government's role in their production.
    This winter, Washington has been roiled by revelations that a handful of columnists wrote in support of administration policies without disclosing they had accepted payments from the government. But the administration's efforts to generate positive news coverage have been considerably more pervasive than previously known. At the same time, records and interviews suggest widespread complicity or negligence by television stations, given industry ethics standards that discourage the broadcast of prepackaged news segments from any outside group without revealing the source.
    Federal agencies are forthright with broadcasters about the origin of the news segments they distribute. The reports themselves, though, are designed to fit seamlessly into the typical local news broadcast. In most cases, the "reporters" are careful not to state in the segment that they work for the government. Their reports generally avoid overt ideological appeals. Instead, the government's news-making apparatus has produced a quiet drumbeat of broadcasts describing a vigilant and compassionate administration.
    Some reports were produced to support the administration's most cherished policy objectives, like regime change in Iraq or Medicare reform. Others focused on less prominent matters, like the administration's efforts to offer free after-school tutoring, its campaign to curb childhood obesity, its initiatives to preserve forests and wetlands, its plans to fight computer viruses, even its attempts to fight holiday drunken driving. They often feature "interviews" with senior administration officials in which questions are scripted and answers rehearsed. Critics, though, are excluded, as are any hints of mismanagement, waste or controversy.
    Some of the segments were broadcast in some of nation's largest television markets, including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas and Atlanta.
    An examination of government-produced news reports offers a look inside a world where the traditional lines between public relations and journalism have become tangled, where local anchors introduce prepackaged segments with "suggested" lead-ins written by public relations experts. It is a world where government-produced reports disappear into a maze of satellite transmissions, Web portals, syndicated news programs and network feeds, only to emerge cleansed on the other side as "independent" journalism.
    It is also a world where all participants benefit.
    Local affiliates are spared the expense of digging up original material. Public relations firms secure government contracts worth millions of dollars. The major networks, which help distribute the releases, collect fees from the government agencies that produce segments and the affiliates that show them. The administration, meanwhile, gets out an unfiltered message, delivered in the guise of traditional reporting.
    The practice, which also occurred in the Clinton administration, is continuing despite President Bush's recent call for a clearer demarcation between journalism and government publicity efforts. "There needs to be a nice independent relationship between the White House and the press," Mr. Bush told reporters in January, explaining why his administration would no longer pay pundits to support his policies.
    In interviews, though, press officers for several federal agencies said the president's prohibition did not apply to government-made television news segments, also known as video news releases. They described the segments as factual, politically neutral and useful to viewers. They insisted that there was no similarity to the case of Armstrong Williams, a conservative columnist who promoted the administration's chief education initiative, the No Child Left Behind Act, without disclosing $240,000 in payments from the Education Department.
    What is more, these officials argued, it is the responsibility of television news directors to inform viewers that a segment about the government was in fact written by the government. "Talk to the television stations that ran it without attribution," said William A. Pierce, spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services. "This is not our problem. We can't be held responsible for their actions."
    http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/031305Z.shtml

    Brownwood & Honesty

    Americans need to be honest with themselves
    By Ruben Navarrette
    March 5, 2005
    Some people wonder whether Americans have the will to tackle the problem of illegal immigration. But the real question is whether they have the intellectual honesty to tackle it in a way that will do any good.
    It doesn't always seem as if they do. For starters, there's the way in which many Americans lazily fall back on that one word - illegal - in an attempt to short-circuit the debate. I see it in my e-mail. After I've written a column that anti-immigrant hard-liners think is soft on illegals, a reader will write in and ask, rhetorically: ''What part of 'illegal' don't you understand?''
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  • Great News for KXYL Talking Heads...More "Outsiders" to Bash

    Abilene Reporter News
    Hotel chain plans to buy Feather Bay golf resort
    By Celinda Emison / Reporter-News Staff Writer
    March 5, 2005

    BROWN COUNTY - Partners involved in a stalled project to build a golf resort at Lake Brownwood announced Friday that a division of a national hotel chain has issued a letter of intent to buy the Feather Bay Golf and Lake Resort.
    Hawthorn Suites Golf Resorts, a division of Hawthorn Suites hotel chain, has written a letter of intent to buy a nine-hole golf course and develop it into an 18-hole course with a hotel. Feather Bay is off Highway 279 about 7 miles northeast of Brownwood. ''This letter of intent to purchase by Hawthorn Suites Golf Resorts will finally bring about the completion of this long and very strenuous process of getting Feather Bay Golf Resort moving forward,'' said Jay Savage, of the Feather Bay Partners, Ltd. ''This will not only bring a top-quality resort property to Lake Brownwood, it will also have some very positive impact to the economy (and) tourism.''
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  • Brownwood Christians, Credit Card & Bankruptcy

    " Everything starts and ends up locally ! "

    Bill shows GOP morally bankrupt
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    Christian lawyers say bill, Bible don't mesh
    A national attorney group calls on church leaders to lobby against bankruptcy reform legislation.
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  • Can You Hear KXYL's James Williamson Evil Laugh ?

    Note to James: If this young man (below) dies from his injuries will you make sarcastic comments about his obituary like you are famous for on your show. Even in death you can't leave gay people alone ! You are, in my opinion, the Fred Phelps of Central Texas ! PS - I was surprised that you didn't make the same type of sarcastic comments of a recent infant obituary (Brownwood Bulletin) as it appeared the parents were not married ! God Bless all of those who are on the receiving end of your "Christian" love (ie: sarcasm).
    -----------------------
    Man beaten in gay bashing clings to life
    By JASON AUSLANDER
    The New Mexican
    March 3, 2005
    The 21-year-old Santa Fe man who police say was savagely beaten in a gay-bashing incident last weekend is clinging to life in critical condition, a family spokeswoman said Wednesday.
    “We’re not out of the woods yet,” Rachel Rosen said. “The doctors say he will be getting worse before he gets better.”
    At least four young Santa Fe men beat James Maestas early Sunday morning in a Cerrillos Road motel parking lot, police said.
    An Albuquerque man with Maestas suffered minor injuries during the assault, in which police say the attackers repeatedly called the two men “faggots.”

    Comments
     By David Lopez (Submitted: 03/04/2005 9:13 pm)
    Cristi, your statement about the pope sure got my attention. I had to look up this statement, attributed to the pope and found on this site:http://www.iidb.org
    "Gays are evil, gay marriage is evil and homosexuality is ideology of evil".I found this statement on one site, so I can't verify it, but...If the pope indeed published this statement in his latest book, this world has A LONG WAY TO GO!
     
     By Marc Paige (Submitted: 03/04/2005 8:06 pm)
    It is time for parents and siblings og gay people to also start fighting back. Conservative Republicans are out of control all over our great nation trying to make gay people the new Communists - representing all that is evil. It is no wonder that these ugly hate crimes are occuring. Gays can't do it alone - we need all Americans of good will to start saying no to bigotry and hate mongering.
     
    By Khalil Spencer (Submitted: 03/04/2005 4:22 pm)
    Some of this crap, Mr. Snider, is just good old fashioned street-thuggery. I'm not sure these sorts of violent antics reflect political thought as much as old-fashioned, deep-seated, All-American hate.
    Having said that, there are certainly those in politics who earn their paycheck by egging on division and prejudice but who then ask "who, me?" when it hits the fan. The Nixon "Southern Strategy" for example. The fact that there were so many virulently anti-gay amendments put on the ballot in key states this last Presidential election could have been a coincidence, I suppose.
     
    By Cristi Cave (Submitted: 03/04/2005 4:03 pm)
    And it is the ongoing push by the neo-cons against gays that has led to an increasing hatred toward gays. The Education Secretary removes funding from PBS because it dares to show lesbian mothers. Prominent politicians call gayness "sinful" and "hedonistic" without fear of repercussion, and rant about the completley fictional "gay agenda" and whole schools being overtaken by gay plagues. The comment below by Greg Miller about the "gay mafia" is just another example. The early political fight was never just about marriage: it was about hatred of gays, which America is now in the process of institutionalizing. Christians and Republicans need to take their share of responsibility for an upsurge in attacks on gays, because they have surely fostered it by the way they have voted and by the way they have refused to speak up against the hatred.Considering that even the Pope recently published his opinion that gays are evil, why shouldn't good Santa Fe boys try to kill them?
    ----------------
    Santa feans rethink gay-friendly population
    By ANNE CONSTABLE
    The New Mexican
    March 5, 2005

    “Homophobia is one of last safe bastions in our society where people can throw expletives around ... and not expect consequences,” Goldman said.
    “We all know homophobic behavior is learned — 100 percent. Education is the key,” she added.

    By Khalil Spencer (Submitted: 03/05/2005 7:34 am)
    As long as the Right continues to attack homosexuality as a slippery slope to bestiality, pedophilia, and the end of America as we know it, we will send mixed messages to kids in spite of those trying to teach tolerance.
    Heil Stupidity!

     
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  • Brownwood's KXYL Talk Show Host James Williamson & Barney Frank Discussion

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  • State Senator (R) Bill Ratliff comments on religious extremists tactics (see Brownwood & Abilene as examples)

    Sunday, October 10, 2004
    Brownwood Hate Radio Ads& Randy Neugebauer & Charlie Stenholm

    Letter To The Editor - Despicable tactics
    October 22, 2004
    I just heard U.S. Rep. Randy Neugebauer's ad on Brownwood talk radio and am appalled, but not surprised. The tactics the Lubbock Republican has employed in attacking U.S. Rep. Charlie Stenholm, D-Abilene, remind me of those used in 2002 against moderate Texas Republican legislators.
    Of such tactics, former Republican Lt. Gov. Bill Ratliff said: ''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 al-Qaida and the Taliban.''
    The Dallas Morning News weighed in with an editorial condemning the tactics as despicable: ''The Free Enterprise Political action committee's attempt to smear some Texas Republicans for supporting a needed hate crimes law deserves the comeuppance it received from acting Lt. Gov. Bill Ratliff and 22 senators.''
    So, let me get this straight. Neugebauer wants Central Texans to believe that Stenholm approves of flag burning, removing ''under God'' from the Pledge and is in support of gay marriage?
    What Neugebauer is doing is despicable.
    Steve Harris
    Brownwood
    Abilene Reporter News
    source: http://www.reporter-news.com/abil/op_letters_editor/article/0,1874,ABIL_7984_3272126,00.html

    note: local talk radio is KXYL 96.9. We refer to them as hate radio !

    posted by Steves' Market & Deli @ 9:07 AM  

    Brownwood & "Neo-con Nuking Republicans"

    Johnson: Nuke Syria? Just a joke
    Despite quip, country remains serious issue, congressman says
    10:48 PM CST on Thursday, March 3, 2005
    By TODD J. GILLMAN / The Dallas Morning News

    WASHINGTON – U.S.-Syrian relations are often tense. U.S. officials are demanding that Syria withdraw its troops from Lebanon, and suspicion lingers that Damascus helped Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein hide illicit weapons.
    Still, some of Rep. Sam Johnson's constituents apparently were surprised when the Plano Republican said he'd like to take care of the problem – by personally dropping a couple of nuclear bombs.
    "Syria is the problem," the former fighter pilot said at a pancake breakfast at Suncreek United Methodist Church in Allen. "Syria is where those weapons of mass destruction are, in my view. You know, I can fly an F-15, put two nukes on 'em, and I'll make one pass. We won't have to worry about Syria anymore."
    Someone was offended enough to play a recording of the Feb. 19 remarks for Roll Call, a Capitol Hill newspaper that first reported them this week.
    Mr. Johnson said he's "absolutely" surprised that anyone took it seriously, adding that he's never advocated a nuclear attack on Syria.
    "I was kind of joking. You know. We were talking between veterans," said Mr. Johnson, an Air Force fighter pilot in Korea and Vietnam, where he spent 7 1⁄2 years as a prisoner of war. "We were swapping sea stories – things that we'd done in the military."
    He told the folks in Allen that he had shared his plan with President Bush and Rep. Kay Granger, R-Fort Worth, during a recent White House visit.
    "President Bush knew I was joking," he said Thursday.
    Casual remarks can bite politicians. President Ronald Reagan caught grief when he quipped before a live microphone that he had outlawed Russia, and "we begin bombing in five minutes."
    "All right, I shouldn't have said it," Mr. Reagan would say later, though he blamed the news media for harping on a joke.
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  • ------------------------
    Note for KXYL's "Neo-Con Christian Nuking" Connie & Marion and Sam Johnson and their Syrian Bashing comments: “ The 'Syrian Christians' numbering about 5 million, spread across various denominations is the largest ethnic group among the Malankara (Kerala) Christians. ”
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  • --------------------
    March 2, 2005
    Welcome to the Bizarre World of Rep. Sam Johnson
    Texas Republican Congressman: "Nuke Syria"
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  • Brownwood Talk Radio Tactics ?

    Perry camp: Caller was Hutchison aide
    07:36 AM CST on Friday, March 4, 2005
    By GROMER JEFFERS JR. / The Dallas Morning News

    "Charlie from Flower Mound" seemed to like Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison a little too much.
    The man phoned a Dallas radio show this week to air complaints about host Mark Davis' newspaper column, which said Ms. Hutchison should not challenge Gov. Rick Perry next year. "Charlie" spent about five minutes criticizing the governor and extolling the senator.
    But what appeared to have been just another day in local talk radio has erupted into what may be the first public skirmish in a coming battle royal between two of Texas' top Republicans. It also offered a rare inside look at modern political gamesmanship.
    The practice of calling radio talk shows or writing letters to the editor has evolved into a key part of political playbooks. Campaign operatives commonly get a candidate's supporters to add their voices to the public fray.
    In his re-election bid, President Bush offered incentives such as signed campaign gear to volunteers who succeeded in getting through to radio and TV shows or who wrote the most letters to newspapers.
    After the final debate between John Kerry and Mr. Bush, Democrats flooded the airwaves and Internet with calls and letters. The use of bloggers is another evolution of the trend.
    But the people calling shows or posting opinions on Web sites are usually not high-level campaign aides. And, if high-level operatives want to call in, they normally say who they are.
    "People from campaigns often call and share their thoughts," Mr. Davis said. "Some don't use their real names. The only difference is that this gentleman got caught."

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  • ------------------
    Perry camp: Caller was Hutchison aide
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  • Thursday, March 03, 2005

    Karl Rove & " The Language of Bullies " ?

    Values lobbyists have White House's ear
    09:51 PM CST on Saturday, March 12, 2005
    By WAYNE SLATER / The Dallas Morning News
    NASHVILLE, Tenn. – From the studio where Richard Land hosts his weekly Christian radio show, he can almost see the red states. He can certainly hear them.
    On any given Saturday, the phone lines fill up with listeners who share his conservative views on gay marriage, abortion, school prayer and the selection of judges – and the 58-year-old Texas native frequently carries their messages to Washington.
    No longer outsiders, Mr. Land and a handful of other Christian leaders find themselves influential partners with a Republican Party in power.
    They played a pivotal role in the re-election of George W. Bush, one of the nation's most overtly religious presidents, and in boosting the number of social conservatives in Congress. Now, they're using tactics honed over years of campaigns – including threats to mobilize millions of followers – to put their stamp on federal policy.
    "The president didn't run a Ronald Reagan 'It's Morning in America' kind of campaign. He campaigned on pretty specific issues," said Mr. Land, who directs the political efforts of 16.3 million Southern Baptists. "And I fully expect him to keep his campaign promises."
    To that end, Mr. Land and fellow Christian Soldiers are pressing Mr. Bush on the most aggressive religious agenda in decades: a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage; the appointment of judges willing to overturn abortion rights; legislation to allow churches to endorse political candidates without jeopardizing their tax-exempt status; and allowing the display of religious symbols on public property and prayer in school.
    Critics warn that they want government to impose a narrow religious agenda that blurs the line between church and state.
    "All these guys will be lining up to promote this hard-right, extremist agenda that, in most cases, is not what the American people want," said Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State.
    "This is not the language of traditional spiritual values," he said. "This is the language of bullies."

    Wielding influence
    But who are the values lobbyists, and how have they been able to root themselves so deeply into national affairs?
    Some, like Colorado author and radio personality James Dobson, are nationally recognized figures. Others are less well-known but have strong ties to the Bush administration and the Republican leadership in Congress.
    Among them, the Rev. Lou Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition, an organization of 43,000 churches; the Rev. Ted Haggard of the National Association of Evangelicals; conservative Catholic leader Richard Doerflinger; and Texas Republican vice chairman David Barton, whose organization WallBuilders actively challenges the separation of church and state.
    Every week, the White House conducts regular conference calls with religious leaders. The conversations are led by Tim Goeglein, a top aide to Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove.
    In last year's election, the phone calls helped cultivate Christian leaders to boost turnout among evangelicals by at least 3.5 million voters. Evangelicals accounted for a quarter of Mr. Bush's vote in 2004 and helped provide the margin of victory in battleground states such as Ohio.
    Mr. Land's office, the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, distributed "I Vote Values" kits to thousands of pastors providing instruction for voter registration drives.
    The Republican National Committee hired Mr. Barton to travel to states with anti-gay marriage initiatives on the ballot to rally voters to the polls.
    Once Mr. Bush won re-election, Mr. Land, Mr. Dobson and others dubbed the Arlington Group flexed their political muscle in a letter to Mr. Rove. They threatened to withhold grass-roots support for the president's Social Security program unless the president champions the constitutional amendment against same-sex marriage.
    "A lot of us talked to the president and people around the president and said this is a huge issue," Mr. Land said. "The only way to stop the judiciary on this is a constitutional amendment."
    The White House scrambled to reassure doubters that the president remained committed on the issue. At a morning briefing with reporters, White House spokesman Scott McClellan declared that the anti-gay marriage amendment remained a priority. The specter of electoral punishment is a useful tool for applying that pressure. Mr. Dobson is threatening to unleash an army of Christian listeners to his daily radio broadcasts on the issue of the appointment of judges. In letters to 1.2 million supporters, Mr. Dobson warns of challenges to the re-election of Democratic senators in six "red" or "purple" states – those won by Mr. Bush or closely contested – in 2006 if they filibuster Mr. Bush's conservative nominees.
    Jim Wallis, a progressive evangelical leader and author of God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It, said the danger of the values lobby is that it emphasizes abortion and gay marriage to the exclusion of poverty, tax policy and health care as issues with a moral dimension.
    "The right is comfortable with the language of religion and faith and God and values. They sometimes act like they own God and they narrow everything to one or two issues," he said. "How could anybody suggest there are only two religious issues in public life?"

    Warning on ties


    Analysts warn that by aligning too closely with religious conservatives, the White House and the GOP risk appearing hard and intolerant, and thereby could lose support among independents and moderate Republicans. The rise of the values lobby reflects a new political alignment in which the divide is not between religious voters and nonreligious votes, but within religion itself, analysts say.
    "It's less important whether we're Roman Catholics or Baptists, as which side of that divide we're on – the traditional side or the post-modernist side," Mr. Land said.
    The result is an unprecedented coalition of traditional evangelicals, conservative Roman Catholics and orthodox Jews working together in Washington.
    "That's how I, a Southern Baptist, have more in common with Pope John Paul II than I do with [fellow Baptists] Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton," Mr. Land added.
    The power of the newly mixed lobby was evident when about 800 people gathered at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel for an inauguration-week reception hosted by the Traditional Values Coalition.
    Moving among evangelical powerbrokers were members of Congress and the administration. Ken Mehlman, chairman of the Republican National Committee, assured the faithful: "Promises made will be promises kept."
    Mr. Sheldon, the leader of the coalition, was ebullient, declaring that the "fusion of religion and morality and public policy has now come about."
    E-mail wslater@dallasnews.com
    EFFECTS ON VOTE

    How important was the values vote in the 2004 election?
    According to exit polls, "moral values" was the No. 1 issue cited by voters in determining their preference for president.
    But pollsters did not define what moral values meant. Gay marriage? A candidate's character? The war in Iraq?
    What is known is that white evangelicals who consider abortion and same-sex marriage priorities turned out in big numbers and voted overwhelmingly for President Bush.
    Professor John Green at the University of Akron says White House political adviser Karl Rove succeeded in boosting turnout among Christian evangelicals by at least 3.5 million voters over the 2000 election.
    Moreover, the president's opposition to gay marriage and abortion helped motivate a majority (52 percent) of Catholics to vote for him. Turnout was high on both sides, and studies suggest that evangelicals made up the same share of the electorate last year as they did in 2000.
    "My sense is the evangelical community expanded its turnout at about the same rate as the country as a whole," Mr. Green said.
    In other words, conservative values voters were no more important to the outcome of the presidential race than voters motivated primarily by the issues of terrorism, taxes or the environment. But without them, Mr. Bush would have lost.
    Wayne Slater
    WHO ARE THE VALUES LOBBYISTS?

    Richard Land
    President, Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention
    He's the face of the conservative Southern Baptist agenda in the corridors of power. With a booming voice and a high corona of dark hair, Mr. Land, 58, looks more like a Southern preacher than the Princeton- and Oxford-educated scholar of church history he is. Born in Houston, he met George W. Bush in 1988 when he was a professor at Criswell College in Dallas. He's known White House political wizard Karl Rove even longer.
    Mr. Land is a regular on the weekly White House teleconferences with other key evangelical leaders.
    James Dobson
    Founder, Focus on the Family
    A child psychologist by training and Christian broadcaster by trade, Mr. Dobson has one of the most influential evangelical voices in America.
    Mr. Dobson, 68, is an outspoken opponent of abortion and gay marriage – and he sees the appointment of conservative judges as crucial to curbing both.
    His claim that the cartoon figure SpongeBob SquarePants was gay prompted snickers in secular quarters, but in much of evangelical America, his word is gospel.
    David Barton
    Founder, WallBuilders
    When activists working to pass a gay-marriage ban in Ohio needed help, they called on David Barton. Mr. Barton, 51, vice chairman of the Texas GOP, traveled the country in the last campaign to cultivate Bush-friendly religious conservatives.
    His books and videotapes challenging the separation of church and state have become the evangelical canon on the subject. His Aledo-based WallBuilders publishing company remains a prolific source of materials highlighting the Christian heritage of the founding fathers.
    The Rev. Ted Haggard
    President, National Association of Evangelicals
    In the political arithmetic of Washington, Mr. Haggard, 48, represents some pretty big numbers: 30 million Christians from 45,000 churches across 52 denominations. As leader of the nation's largest association of conservative evangelicals, Mr. Haggard is an outspoken advocate on Capitol Hill and in the White House.
    He thought that a federal marriage amendment should have been at the center of the last presidential campaign. But his portfolio is broader – protecting the environment, promoting religious freedom abroad, fighting racism at home and helping the poor. And, he stresses, assisting the poor requires a commitment to global free markets.
    The Rev. Donald Wildmon
    Founder, American Family Association
    When the Mississippi Legislature required classrooms to display posters bearing the words "In God We Trust," it provided no money to pay for them. Enter Mr. Wildmon, 67, and the Tupelo-based American Family Association with 42,000 such posters.
    The Methodist pastor from Mississippi founded his anti-pornography group in 1977, but his clout lies in his string of Christian radio stations along with a large e-mail list.
    The Rev. Lou Sheldon
    Founder, Traditional Values Coalition
    For Mr. Sheldon, 71, President Bush's re-election was cause for a party – a big one inaugural week at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Washington. Hundreds attended the bash thrown by the Traditional Values Coalition – including evangelical luminaries Ralph Reed and Jerry Falwell and White House political chief Karl Rove.
    Mr. Sheldon's group, which represents 43,000 churches with offices in Anaheim, Calif., and Washington, has been particularly active in promoting a gay-marriage ban and changes in the tax code to allow churches to endorse political candidates.
    Richard Doerflinger
    Director of pro-life activities, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops
    When he was a child, Mr. Doerflinger's older brother was severely injured in a car wreck that left him in a coma. Doctors said he would never emerge, but a few months later, his brother woke up. The experience helped shape Mr. Doerflinger's thinking about life and death.
    Balding and bespectacled, Mr. Doerflinger, 52, is the Catholic Church's chief lobbyist on abortion, stem-cell research and euthanasia. Under his direction, the bishops distributed a voter's guide to 19,000 Catholic parishes with a hard line on moral issues. In November, 52 percent of Catholics voted for President Bush.
    Jim Wallis
    Editor, Sojourners magazine
    Democrats call Mr. Wallis "our evangelical." Mr. Wallis, whose magazine presents a progressive Christian philosophy, says moral values are about more than abortion and gay marriage. They're also about social justice, peace and the poor, he says.
    His best-selling book, God's Politics: How the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It, is required reading by Democrats stung by Republican victory in the values war. In closed-door meetings on Capitol Hill, Mr. Wallis, 56, has chided Democrats for failing to "speak the language of faith" on their terms.
    Wayne Slater

    Supply and Demand ? There would be no supply without demand !

    Afghanistan Now Nearly 'a Narcotics State'

    “ Colombia is the source of over 90 percent of the cocaine and 50 percent of the heroin entering the U.S. the report said. It is also a leading user of precursor chemicals and the focus of significant money laundering activity.”
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  • Republican media adviser found dead

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  • Death Penalty:Area religious leaders happy about ruling

    By Brian Bethel / Reporter-News Staff Writer
    March 5, 2005

    " Area religious leaders praised a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision not to allow juvenile offenders to be subjected to the death penalty - a move that many said was a vital correction."

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  • Brownwood: Texas State Senator (R) Bill Ratliff Award

    March 11, 2005, 12:29AM
    Former Texas senator to get Kennedy award
    Also chosen is Atlanta's first black woman mayor
    Associated Press
    BOSTON - A former Texas state senator who fought his own party's redistricting plan and Atlanta's first black woman mayor have been named 2005 recipients of the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award.
    Sen. Edward Kennedy and Caroline Kennedy, the late president's daughter, will present the awards to former Texas Sen. Bill Ratliff and Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin at the Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston May 16.
    Ratliff, also a former lieutenant governor, was the only Republican lawmaker who publicly objected to his party's controversial 2003 redistricting plan, which critics called divisive and partisan. Eleven Democrats fled the state to block a vote on the plan.
    His "calm and inclusive" leadership style helped him secure passage of other controversial measures, the foundation said, including a plan to redistribute property taxes from wealthier school districts to aid poorer schools.
    Franklin, who was facing an $82 million budget deficit when she took office in 2001, showed "courageous leadership" by raising taxes, cutting the city's payroll and imposing a strict code of ethics to eliminate the budget gap, the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation said.
    Franklin and Ratliff "are an inspiration to all who serve in government, and to all Americans, for their principled and bipartisan leadership, and their willingness to make the difficult and unpopular decisions," Caroline Kennedy said.
    source: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/3079476

    Brownwood's very own David Barton: James Williamson

    Democrat Meetup hears Williamson attacks
    Abilene, Feb. 25--The monthly gathering of the Democrat Meetup was held at Mezamiz on S. 7th in Abilene yesterday.  Coordinator Frank Sayre asked Sammi Ruth Fowler to present a tape of James Williamson, a right-wing broadcaster in Brownwood, attacking Democrats over the Feb. 21 picketing of David Barton in Abilene. Williamson's scathing attack said Democrats are opposed to the church, God and country.  They are off the page.  They are anti-Christian, counter-culture and extreme.  They are against our Christian heritage and for the separation of church & state.  They only want tokens of God, Williamson said.  They are weird & wacko.  They were protesting this fine Christian historian, David Barton, he said.  They are abominable.  They like high taxes and same-sex marriage.  They want to do away with our Christian heritage and eliminate the second amendment, Williamson claimed.  Democrats present reveled in the ridiculous abuse.
    source: http://www.Abi-Demian.info/

    Brownwood Civil Defense Sirens

    It's 10:15 am in Brownwood and the Sirens are wailing. I just called the Police Department and was told it is a "Tornado Drill". Turned the TV to channel 5 to see if they were participating and found nothing. Checked the Wednesday Brownwood Bulletin for advanced notice and found nothing.

    2not10


    2not10
    Originally uploaded by photosteve.

    Brownwood Rumor Mills ?

    "Glad there's no rumor mill in Brown County"
    Friday March 4, 2005
    Op Ed: Columnists - Steve Nash
    Media stampedes push limits on working relationships with lawmen -- Steve Nash

    Steve must not realize he is a participant of the rumor mill but he will call it sourcing !
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  • Wednesday, March 02, 2005

    " The Ten Commandments are not multiple choice."

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  • Brownwood & The Ten Commandments

    " The Ten Commandments survived Moses' breaking of the tablets, so their fate is not tied to any court's ruling. Meanwhile, it would be refreshing to see as many people trying to follow the Ten Commandments as want to display them."
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  • Bush's Social Security Plan: " Pig in Makeup " ?

    Bush's Social Security Mess
    By Joe Conason
    Salon.com
    Saturday 05 March 2005
    President Bush is smearing lipstick on his Social Security pig, but the public still isn't buying it. Now it's time for Democrats to step up with their own plan.
    The Bush administration's historic assault on Social Security is stalling, as voters learn more about the costs of the president's privatization proposal and the drastic benefit cuts that would inevitably accompany such a radical change. Republicans in the Senate and House are openly skeptical of passing any legislation that resembles the president's scheme, while Democrats have remained unusually united in opposition.
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  • Benjamin Franklin, 10 Commandments, Armadillos & Texas Justice

    Benjamin Franklin said: " If men are so wicked with religion, what would they be if without it ? "

    The Dallas Morning News recently editorilized: " The criminal justice system in Texas is so cracked it makes an armadillo look smooth.” Dallas Morning News Editorial, March 20, 2003.

    And these are the conditions (on Governors Bush's watch) that have existed with the display of the ten commandments across our State. If the size of the tablets is related to Texas Justice, maybe we should immediately commission a larger version like 50 stories or so !

    Maybe folks should concentrate on " with liberty and justice for all " instead of the majority concentrating on the stone
    replica of the Ten Commandments !
    ---------------------------
    Travesty in Tulia, Texas: Frame-up of 38 Innocent People Orchestrated by a County Sheriff, Prosecutor and Judge
    By Hans Sherrer
    Introduction
    On July 23, 1999, the small town of Tulia, Texas was rocked by the arrest of 43 people on drug charges. Thirty-eight of those men and women were convicted and given sentences of up to 434 years in prison. Stymied in efforts to get the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to take a serious look at irregularities in the cases, a defense attorney enlisted the aid of the media to publicize the lack of evidence any of the defendants were guilty. On April 1, 2003, a judge appointed to preside over a special evidentiary hearing announced he would recommend that the appeals court vacate the convictions. While that court was considering the cases, on July 30th the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole recommended that Governor Rick Perry pardon the 35 defendants eligible for executive clemency. On August 22, 2003 Governor Perry pardoned those 35 defendants.
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  • Moses Didn't Write The Constitution

    Two main arguments are being put forward these days about state-sponsored displays of the Ten Commandments. The first is that they are the basis of Anglo-Saxon law, leading to ancient British law, leading to American law. The second is that sometimes the displays of them are purely decorative, part of a larger display of other legal and/or religious symbols (as is seen in the Supreme Court chamber itself).
    The decorative/art argument is a reasonable one, and probably the one the Supreme Court will adopt with relation to the Texas display. As the nations' most competent word police, conservatives have apparently focus-group tested the word "museum" and found that it works best to frame this argument (expect to see more of that word soon) and in the real context of a real museum the argument would have legitimacy. Religion - which the Ten Commandments symbolize - is, after all, a very real part of the history of America, for better or worse (just ask the women hanged as witches for over a century in Massachusetts).
    But the real issue here is a "camel's nose under the tent" plan of religious conservatives and the new American Christian Taliban to convince the American people that the Ten Commandments are the very basis of American law, and thus should be both displayed in public places and taught in our schools.

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  • THE TEN COMMANDMENTS

    About the Ten Commandments:

    This section deals with the Ten Commandments (a.k.a. Decalogue)  from the Hebrew Scriptures. These have historically been accepted by Judaism, Christianity and Islam as a summary of the most important rules of behavior that God expects of humanity.
    There is considerable debate in the U.S. whether the Decalogue should be posted in public schools, public parks, government offices, etc. 
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  • ------------------
    Ten Commandments
    March 3, 2005
    Protestant version
    Based on the Book of Confessions (Presbyterian Church USA, 1991).

    1. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before Me.
    2. You shall not make yourself a graven image.
    3. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.
    4. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work.
    5. Honor your father and your mother.
    6. You shall not kill.
    7. You shall not commit adultery.
    8. You shall not steal.
    9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
    10. You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or ... anything that is your neighbor's.
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  • Tuesday, March 01, 2005

    " Careful With The Cross ! "


    "Careful With The Cross !"
    Originally uploaded by photosteve.

    The Christian Cross

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  • What the KXYL Bullies don't want to talk about !

    Bullying can push students over edge
    Despite anti-bully class for staff, Holly High didn't see problem with teen.
    By Joe Menard and Mike Martindale / The Detroit News
    How to avoid school violence
    The National Crime Prevention Council offers the following tips to students:
    • Refuse to bring weapons to school and refuse to keep silent about those who carry weapons.
    • Report any threats or crimes immediately to school authorities or police.
    • Report suspicious behavior or talk by other students to a teacher or counselor at your school. You may save someone's life.
    • Learn how to manage your own anger effectively. Find out ways to settle arguments by talking it out, working it out, or walking away rather than fighting.
    • Help others settle disputes peaceably. Start or join a peer mediation program, in which trained students help classmates find ways to settle arguments without fists or weapons.
    • Set up a teen court, in which youths serve as judge, prosecutor, jury and defense counsel. Courts can hear cases, make findings, and impose sentences, or they may establish sentences in cases where teens plead guilty. Teens feel more involved in the process than in an adult-run juvenile justice system.
    • Start a school crime watch. Consider including a student patrol that helps keep an eye on corridors, parking lots and groups, and a way for students to report concerns anonymously.
    • Become a peer counselor, working with classmates who need support and help with problems.
    • Create a welcoming environment for students. Get to know new students and those who are unfamiliar to you.
    Source: National Crime Prevention Council
    Previous reports
    Clarkston kids send message about bullying with DVDs
    Play teaches how to cope with bullies
    Parents use courts to battle bullies
    Female bullying is targeted
    Livonia aims to stop bullies
    Teach tactics that beat bullies
    Anti-bullying programs compete for funding
    Deb Price: Court orders schools to stop bullying of gays
    School tackles bullying
    School combats bullies
    Kids get help conquering bullies
    School bullies: Panel: ‘Everyone gets picked on at some point’
    Educator explodes myths about bullies
    Fewer bullies?
    Since 1999, many schools have conducted anti-bullying programs to head off acts of school violence. Do you think that children in your local schools are bullied less now?
    ------------
    HOLLY -- Anti-bullying programs in schools can be effective, but experts say they're fighting a tide of violent culture on television, in the movies and on video games.
    "A very substantial percentage of the population views bullying as a rite of passage," said Ted Feinberg, assistant executive director of the National Association of School Psychologists in Bethesda, Md. "It's going to take a while to change behavior."
    Just this week, a 14-year-old student at Holly High School was charged for threatening terrorism for compiling a "kill list" of 12 people, including his mother. Acquaintances said the youth had been bullied repeatedly. His arrest came one day before a previously scheduled refresher course for staff on handling the bully issue.
    The teasing and bullying went on despite the school's involvement in the School Violence Program of Oakland County, run by Oakland County Prosecutor David Gorcyca's office. It's the only one of its kind run by a prosecutor's office in Michigan and has helped coordinate efforts to address and head off such aggressive behavior and school violence. Gorcyca believes the program is responsible for a significant reduction in bullying incidents, based on a survey of county schools.
    Holly school officials, however, said they simply didn't know about bullying directed at the teen who was arrested.
    While bullying has existed longer than schools themselves, the practice has come under intense scrutiny in recent years and is blamed as a major contributor to school shootings such as Columbine, and more recently, this week's killing of seven students at a high school in Red Lake, Minn.
    "One of the common areas that binds all of the school shooters together is all of them were the victim of bullying. Their lives were made miserable," Feinberg said. "What we have also found is many of them felt there is no other recourse to stop this behavior other than going home and getting a weapon and taking care of the bullies in a dramatic and final way."
    Friends of the Holly High teen, who is from White Lake Township, say he was repeatedly teased and bullied at the school. "No one would leave him alone," said freshman Eddie Martin, 15.
    More than 2,500 educators have been trained at 161 schools, including 56 high schools, in Oakland County since April 2001 under the county prosecutor's program, said Dan Cojanu, the county's supervisor of victims' services. Holly High participated in the program.
    The program attempts to help educators identify and address potential bullying problems, but Holly High Principal Dave Nuss said he was not aware of bullying toward the charged teen.
    "We are not aware of any bullying or teasing type of behavior with this student," said Nuss, adding that bullying cases come up "maybe once or twice every couple of years."
    The school, which has about 1,400 students, deals with the cases by counseling the aggressor to show why their behavior is wrong, he said. If the behavior continues, the student's parents are called, and if it persists, the school takes disciplinary action, including suspension.
    "Usually it works," Nuss said of the process. "Those rarely end up in disciplinary action. It is usually cleared up with counseling measures."
    The county program, funded with the aid of a federal grant program, is in jeopardy after its funding was cut from the 2006 federal budget.
    "The president has cut juvenile justice grants, from which we received our funds for the program," Gorcyca said. "It's such an important program, we can't let it end. I don't have the funds in my own budget to handle it. It's possible we will have to look elsewhere to keep it going. I might go to the schools themselves. Then the Oakland County Board of Commissioners. Perhaps seek private funds, like corporate sponsorships to cover it.
    "But with some of the things that are happening in our schools, it's clear there is a great need for such programs."
    Feinberg stressed that the programs are beginning to make an impact and should be spared.
    "We know that kids are exposed to an enormous amount of violent stimuli on the Internet, television, movies and videos. There has been a desensitizing factor," he said. "Sometimes, the (bullying) victim finds a way to level the playing field. They see violence in the media and think that's how to deal with problems."
    Nuss said he had never had any discipline problems with the teen and was surprised by the "kill list." He questioned whether the teen intended to follow through on the threats.
    "Up until now, he's been almost perfect," said Nuss, who earlier this year visited the teen in a local hospital after he injured his neck playing football for the school. "It was a surprise to many of us."
    "I don't know what his intent was. That behavior seemed uncharacteristic," he said. "It is a very difficult time in society, and you can't make statements or write statements threatening the institution. There are no jokes in this regard. You can't use that kind of language. It's just a different type of world today."
    The teen is being held in Children's Village awaiting a March 30 pretrial hearing. Police searched his home, but found no weapons. If convicted, he may be held at Children's Village until he is 19. An adult would face up to 20 years in prison on the charge.
    "He's paying dearly for his mistake," Nuss said.
    Feinberg cautioned against a "knee-jerk" reaction and said the teen should be mentally evaluated before any judgment is made.
    "It needs to be looked at instead of summarily deciding this kid is the next school shooter," he said. "A lot of kids' lives are being ruined by this. We need to take a close look at whether it is a viable threat; otherwise, we'll have a lot of false positives.
    "Just simply punishing people runs the potential of creating a group of folks who use poor judgment and are incarcerated and learn what it really means to be a criminal."
    You can reach Joe Menard at (248) 647-7429 or jmenard@ detnews.com.
    http://www.detnews.com/2005/schools/0503/25/A01-128962.htm

    Wolf in Sheeps Clothing ? Ask KXYL's James Williamson !

    Boy Scouts official accused of exchanging child porn
    Colleyville man who led anti-molestation group expected to plead guilty
    09:07 PM CST on Tuesday, March 29, 2005
    By MICHAEL GRABELL and TANYA EISERER / The Dallas Morning News
    A top Boy Scouts of America official who was once in charge of a task force to prevent child molestation has resigned his post and is expected to plead guilty this morning to one count of receiving and distributing child pornography, said the U.S. Attorney's Office in Fort Worth.
    Investigators say Douglas Sovereign Smith Jr., 61, the former national director of programs for the Boy Scouts, traded several computer images of minors engaging in sexual acts and exposing themselves.
    "We're a little overwhelmed right now," Mr. Smith said when contacted at his Colleyville home.
    ------------
    Married with children
    Neighbors said Mr. Smith is married with adult-age children.
    "We think we're in a safe neighborhood. We go to church. We keep on top of who our children associate with and tell them not to talk to strangers," neighbor Sandy Jones said.
    "But this is on our own street."
    Lisa Mills is the mother of a Tiger Cub Scout who lives on the street. She said the case "does cause you to think twice about who your children are associating with. You would ... hope you could trust a Boy Scouts official."
    Area troop leaders said that they were saddened by the accusation and that it shouldn't reflect poorly on the scouts as a whole.
    "It saddens me because every leader that I know takes seriously youth protection," said Joe Alexander, a DeSoto troop leader. "We absolutely believe in the policy because it never allows us to be in a room with a youth by ourselves at any time."
    Mr. Shields, the Boy Scouts spokesman, said the organization has extensive programs for youth protection, requires training by volunteers and does criminal background checks on employees.
    Staff writer Gretel C. Kovach contributed to this report.
    E-mail mgrabell@dallasnews.com
    and teiserer@dallasnews.com
    http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/033005dnmetscouts.187522a17.html

    A Minor Setback ?

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  • Brownwood: "Religious Extremists" Under Attack !

    Why is it when " Hatefuls Christians " ( only by their own words and on-air observation - not in private ! ) like James Williamson are challenged they immediately go into the victim stance and cry out that they are under attack ? They call folks "Cockroaches" and then deny it when they are challenged on it ! Also, it's ok for them to criticize the Bush Administration, but they refer to other folks (Moderate Republicans, Independents, & Democrats) who criticize the very same administration and policies as "Liberals, Communists & Socialists" (Bill from Abilene and Dr Dunn from Brownwood love to employ this tactic !) There are all kinds of " Christians " just like there are all kinds of " Muslims ". Religious extremists (even in our own backyard !) should not be surprised when their hate, ideas and beliefs are challenged & exposed ! After all it took over 100 years to free blacks from slavery by "Religious Extremists" in the South and to pass civil rights legislation of which Bible quoting " Religious extremists " always had a justification for their behaviour ! Using the Bible to abuse people (usually the minority population) is not a new tactic (look at the current treatment of Iraqi Christians since our invasion).
    ---------------------------------
    Many Religious Right activists have attempted to rewrite history by asserting that the United States government derived from Christian foundations, that our Founding Fathers originally aimed for a Christian nation. This idea simply does not hold to the historical evidence.

    Of course many Americans did practice Christianity, but so also did many believe in deistic philosophy. Indeed, most of our influential Founding Fathers, although they respected the rights of other religionists, held to deism and Freemasonry tenets rather than to Christianity.
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  • Posted for KXYL's Connie Carmichael - Assassins and other killers

    For judges, prosecutors and witnesses, bringing criminals to justice can provoke reasonable fears and carry terrible costs. The people they help convict or sentence often are society's most ruthless. That's especially true in federal courts, where crimes of passion rarely surface. Federal cases tend to involve suspects whose alleged crimes are meticulously premeditated. These defendants often have two useful assets: smarts and treacherous allies.
    We can't, and won't, theorize on whether some deadly deployment of those assets led to the murders Monday of U.S. District Judge Joan H. Lefkow's mother and husband on Chicago's North Side. Our hope is spare and resolute: that investigators learn who did this, and why. Until that occurs, we're left to wonder whether these slayings were assassinations intended to intimidate, or retaliate against, Judge Lefkow for rulings she has made.
    Judges and prosecutors understand that their chosen profession puts them, and their loved ones, in harm's way. Ronald Allen, professor of criminal law at Northwestern University, says witnesses tend to be the most vulnerable; often they live on the same blocks as the people they're testifying against.
    For officers of the court, Allen says, three axioms can help calibrate the risk of retaliation:
    - Local judges and prosecutors typically deal with killers and other violent criminals who lack support networks of allies. In their criminal lives they're often loners without resources or mobility--and thus not often intimidating.
    - Organized crime figures--mobsters or gang members--usually know better than to harm federal officials. "They realize they're in an equilibrium with law enforcement," Allen says. "If they harm a judge, the government can choose to come down hard on their organization." That's the last thing a criminal who's trying to protect an ongoing business enterprise--think rackets or narcotics--would ever want.
    - Zealots and revolutionaries, by contrast, can be extraordinarily dangerous. They do have resources and mobility; many emerge from society's mainstream and would fit in anywhere. But because they don't have lucrative criminal enterprises they're desperate to protect, the government doesn't have as much leverage over them. Put short, they have less reason to pursue the civilized versions of cops and robbers.
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  • Brownwood & Women's History: All things are local !

    Scherry Johnson: To the heavy lifters in women's history:
    You won us the right to vote. To pursue education. To control our bodies and our money. Thank you.
    10:04 PM CST on Thursday, March 10, 2005
    By SCHERRY JOHNSON
    FEMINISM: 1. The theory of the political, economic and social equality of the sexes 2. Organized activity on behalf of women's rights and interests.
    Dear Pioneer Feminists,
    We are very late in sending this note; please forgive us. Our lives are so busy and full. As women in America, we all enjoy options that would never have been available to us without you radical, noisy women who stood up – instead of standing by – to push for basic rights for women in this country.
    Your work today is taken for granted by those of us who inherited your hard-won legacy. Women's History Month gives us an opportunity to make an amend and send a proper thank-you note to you courageous, persistent pioneers who were proud to call yourselves "feminists."
    Thank you for working diligently for more than 80 years so American women could vote. In the most recent presidential election, women represented 54 percent of the total vote. Both progressive and conservative women can take that privilege for granted.
    Although you did not envision that women might at times vote against their own best interests, you would be pleased that women fully participate in the political process. Although you would be disappointed by the proportional representation of women in elected office, you would be pleased that for the second time in our history, a woman is serving as secretary of state and talk of a female president in the future is not heresy.
    We remember that you, stalwart suffragettes, endured ridicule from tradition-bound women and men, stood up to nay-saying politicians, went to prison where you were tortured and starved – all the while holding fast to the belief that women must have the vote in order to be full citizens.
    Thank you for being pushy about opening education to women. It is a disservice to your memory that many of today's young women who train to become doctors, professors, lawyers and engineers are reluctant to be called "feminists" because the word has been so vilified by those who still fear the power of real gender equality.
    Thank you for holding firm in your belief that a woman's body is her own and not a property of the government or another person, even her spouse. Thank you for insisting that a woman's ability to conceive should not become her only defining role.
    We are so grateful that we have the means to limit our child-bearing. Without safe contraception, we might have been turned into baby factories like so many unfortunate women worldwide, and then our options for a fully developed life would be much more limited.
    Thank you for insisting that responsible women, just like responsible men, should control their own money and credit. It is unimaginable to young women that as recently as 30 years ago, a married woman could get only a department-store credit card issued in her husband's name.
    You also set a wonderful example for those today who are still struggling with deeply personal issues – things like religious diversity, abortion and sexual orientation. You were firm in your beliefs that doors should be open for individuals who did not share your personal beliefs.
    We apologize for letting you down in so many ways. For example, we have not yet figured out how to protect women and girls from predators. We have not banded together to stop sex slavery and the early death of millions of girls and women in that most heinous trap.
    Let us always remember that your example proves "well-behaved women seldom make history!" Thank you for taking unpopular and even dangerous actions on our behalf. I sincerely hope our granddaughters will be able to say the same for this generation.
    Sincerely,
    The All-American Woman, writing on behalf of all women who have benefited from the struggles of feminists

    Dr. Scherry F. Johnson is president of the Women's Issues Network and associate dean of general studies at the University of Texas at Dallas. Her e-mail address is sjohnson@ utdallas.edu.

    source: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/viewpoints/stories/031105dnedijohnson.27f2.html

    Brownwood: Supporting Our Troops

    Dear Operation Truth Supporter,
    You support the troops, but now you can show your strong support!
    Operation Truth is now offering dogtags that promote the first crucial step in really supporting our troops: listening to them!
    Wearing and sharing these tags is an easy way to show your support of the troops, and make a real difference by letting others know that the troops must be heard. While everyone appreciates the yellow ribbon stickers on the backs of cars and in windows, it will take united action from people like you to get the troops what they need. You can start by distributing these dogtags and helping us build an army of support. People are already starting to wear them, and with your help we can turn this into a powerful statement (just like the "LIVESTRONG" bracelets!).
    We are offering a pack of ten of these special dogtags for only $20. Get them now and wear them with pride! All net profits will go to support Operation Truth, America's first and largest Iraq veterans group.

    Thanks for your support!
    Warm Regards,

    Gov. Jesse Ventura
    U.S. Navy SEAL & Vietnam Veteran
    Board of Advisors, Operation Truth
    http://www.optruth.org

    KTAB Covering Brownwood

    KTAB was in Brownwood today (3.02.05) interviewing us for a story regarding the www.cityofbrownwood.com website and the post at that site that was made by an ID imposter (using my name fraudantly). With the help of the cityofbrownwood administratior we have traced the ID thief to the same computer (IP trace) that was used to post as newstalk969. This appears to be a publicity stunt by either watts communications or by the cityofbrownwood administrator, or both, in order to get a controversy started which equates to a more interested public. To see more on this topic visit our earlier postings in our archived section: Beware Brownwood ID thief

    note: the following is a post from the cityofbrownwood.com website. I've noticed that the fraud posting has never been mentioned by John Ivy (either on his site or when he spoke on the James Williamson and Dave Fair X-pose !) " Beware
    the wolves in sheeps clothing " !

    All Forums
     Local Political News Radio
     KXYL News Talk
     Printer Friendly Version  
      Author  Topic   
    admin
    admin
    337 Posts Posted - March 02 2005 :  20:23:47      
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------
    I just wanted to take a moment to thank James Williamson and Phil Watts for inviting me back down to interview with them and KTAB. I was actually expecting an ambush, or to be hit with lots of negative geared questions and comments. To my suprise it was just the opposite, Both men were very pleasant and nice to talk to. The KTAB reporter who I won't name was also a very proffesional and likeable guy. He was direct, honest and a pleasure to interview with.
    I had never met James in a capacity to actually engage in a conversation other than the infamous Radio Show with Dave Fair and even then we didn't get a chance to really talk. James comments about the site today were well founded and honest, I enjoyed listening to his thoughts on the site as well as how he fealt about other issues like anonymity. James my hats off to you. Phil thanks for the call and giving me the opportunity to fairly represent the site. Ktab and the nice reporter, thanks for taking interest in Brownwood it is nice to know we have a station like KTAB miles and miles away who will take the time to come and listen to our citizens and their concerns.
    John Ivy
    "Do Not Feed The Bears"

    Posted in Advance of KXYL's Connie & James and their Propoganda

    LOL WorldNetDaily runs article promoting anti-gay quack scientist who was debunked 20+ years ago
    by John in DC - 3/3/2005 02:51:00 PM
    Ok, this is actually funny. WorldNetDaily - you remember them? The site that wrote the article harshly critical of Gannon and the White House?
    Well, I suspect they got some pressure from the religious right to make amends. All I know is that today they came out with an article claiming that gays molest foster children. The thing they don't tell you is that the "scientist" who did the "study" has been SO debunked that EVEN THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT DOESN'T CITE HIS RESEARCH ANYMORE. I mean, the guy was debunked as a fraud 20 years ago!
    I am actually shocked that WingNutDaily printed this. I'm really not kidding. Cameron has been so debunked - he was kicked out of the lead scientific association decades ago for his bigoted and faulty research, and even admonished by a judge! - that it's just downright weird that they'd cite him. And after WND's wonderful little article last week about how what their Web site cares about is "the truth," no matter who it hurts. Well, guys, you just made total asses of yourselves.
    Thanks to fellow blogger Pam for spotting this.
    A few facts:
    Detailed Info about Paul Cameron
    http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/rainbow/html/facts_cameron_sheet.html
    http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/rainbow/html/facts_cameron.html
    Facts About Homosexuality and Child Molestation
    http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/rainbow/html/facts_molestation.html
    APA Debunking Pedophilia Myth (also, other good stuff on this page) - revised
    July 1998
    http://www.apa.org/pubinfo/answers.html#goodparents

    Brownwood/Reporters/Bloggers/

    Dino Ironbody - The New Reporter
     
  • rest of story...
  • Supreme Court Justices Background & Question Posed for Local Talk Show Hosts

    Bush appointed Clarence Thomas,
    Reagan appointed Antonin Scalia,
    Carter appointed Ruth Bader Ginsburg,
    Nixon appointed John Paul Stevens,
    Nixon appointed William H Rehnquist
    Bush appointed David H Souter,
    Reagan appointed Sandra Day O'conner,
    Ford appointed Anthony M Kennedy
    Carter appointed Stephen Beryer.

    Of the 9 Appointees 7 were appointed by Republican Presidents. My question, is this the supreme court that Connie & Maryann are complaining about? That it needs to be changed? the bench looks republican, so what do they propose that it should be changed to? just a thought.

    My answer: They would suggest an elimination of the "Liberals" on the court because the R's appointed are not extreme enough for their taste buds ( because they like the taste of blood driven by revenge ! ) See what some "Christian" leaders have to say:

    Death Penalty & Brownwoodians (on KXYL) say "Kill em" & call for "Civil War" to secede from the Union

    For Adults Only: Executions of juvenile offenders had to end
    10:08 PM CST on Tuesday, March 1, 2005
    By outlawing the execution of juvenile offenders yesterday, the Supreme Court wisely accepted a view formed of common sense and supported by science: Young people with undeveloped brains are not fully capable of adult reasoning.
    The American Medical Association has amassed conclusive scientific evidence showing that impulse control, regulation of emotions, risk assessment and moral reasoning are the last parts of the brain to reach maturity. On some level, science aside, every parent already knew this.
    And yet lawmakers have been inconsistent when it comes to dealing with children. Laws say juveniles are too immature to buy beer and cigarettes, to vote and to enlist in the armed forces. But, until yesterday, they could have been deemed mature enough to face the ultimate punishment for their crimes.
    Of course, the 29 men on death row in Texas for crimes they committed as juveniles should stay behind bars. They must be held responsible for their crimes. But the highest form of punishment should be reserved for those who have the highest level of brain development.
    That's the thinking of the rest of the world. Since 1990, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen are the only other nations to have executed juvenile offenders. The United States stands alone – even among these peers – as the only nation refusing to sign international treaties that would forbid the practice.
    Justice Sandra Day O'Connor was one of the four dissenting votes. She said she wants more evidence that society "truly has set its face against this practice." As tempting as it may be to answer her challenge with public opinion polls showing support for the death penalty in the 70 percent range and support for executing young offenders well below a majority, public opinion is not the most compelling reason to end this practice. Neither is the appearance of hypocrisy on the international human rights stage.
    The bottom line is that scientists have learned more about when young people are capable of adult reasoning, and that science must be our guide.
  • rest of story...

  • ------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Dr Williams comments heard on KXYL this morning 3.2.05 regarding the Supreme court decision on executing juveniles: "Those gutless, weeine , yankees" !
    -------------------------------------------
    " Standing near the glass windows of the Supreme Court building and staring in at the Ten Commandment shrine, is a group of the most 50 particularly out-to-lunch fanatics. Arms outstretched, they pray that the Lord will cause the Alabama Supreme Court to contract the flesh-eating virus.
    “I know that through you all things are possible,” said Rev. Deke Harrison, Mobile, AL. “Make them pay for their non-belief, I know that it is within your power to smite them down with a case of the flesh eating bacteria, please Lord, cause their skin to rot off and make them roll and knash from the pain.” "
  • rest of story...


  • -----------------------
    Praying For Supreme Court Shake Up
    NORFOLK, Virginia, July 15, 2003
    Court Watcher: Pat Robertson, unhappy with the Supreme Court's recent rulings, is hoping a higher power will remove three justices with opinions of which he does not approve. (Photo: AP)
    Robertson, a former presidential candidate, is also annoyed over President Bush's position in Liberia, which he says is "undermining a Christian, Baptist president to bring in Muslim rebels to take over the country."
    (CBS/AP) Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson urged his nationwide audience Monday to pray for God to remove three justices from the Supreme Court so they could be replaced by conservatives.
    "We ask for miracles in regard to the Supreme Court," Robertson said on the Christian Broadcasting Network's "The 700 Club."
    Robertson has launched a 21-day "prayer offensive" directed at the Supreme Court in the wake of its 6-3 June vote that decriminalized sodomy. Robertson said in a letter on the CBN Web site that the ruling "has opened the door to homosexual marriage, bigamy, legalized prostitution and even incest."
    The same letter targets three justices in particular: "One justice is 83-years-old, another has cancer and another has a heart condition. Would it not be possible for God to put it in the minds of these three judges that the time has come to retire?"
    Judging from the descriptions, Robertson was referring to Justice John Paul Stevens, who was born in 1920, and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who had colon cancer surgery in 1999. The identity of the third justice was unclear.
    Just last week, Robertson got on the soapbox on another issue: the Bush administration's demand that Liberian President Charles Taylor resign from office.
    "It's one thing to say, we will give you money if you step down and we will give you troops if you step down, but just to order him to step down? He doesn't work for us," the evangelist said last Monday, speaking on "The 700 Club."
    Robertson said he believes the State Department has "mismanaged the situation in nation after nation after nation" in Africa.
    "We're undermining a Christian, Baptist president to bring in Muslim rebels to take over the country," said an outraged Robertson, a Bush supporter who has financial interests in Liberia. "How dare the president of the United States say to the duly elected president of another country, 'You've got to step down.'"
    On Sunday, Taylor accepted an offer of asylum from Nigeria, but on condition that an international force is deployed in Liberia.
    A U.N.-backed tribunal indicted Taylor on June 4 for war crimes in neighboring Sierra Leone.
  • rest of story...

  • ----------------------
    The Rise Of Elitism And The Death Of American Democracy
    An essay in hypertext by Scott Bidstrup

    "Fascism - A system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with a belligerent nationalism."

    Fifth, the fundamentalist conservative religious elites and economic elites are conspiring to ensure that power is removed from democratic institutions and is maintained in their grasp. It would have been inconceivable to earlier generations that a deliberate effort would be made to subvert the "wall of separation" between church and state, but now, we have a situation where the fundamentalist Christians realize that they can never evangelize their way to power, so they see the only way open to them to evangelize America is to sieze power and maintain it by force, and evangelize America by codifying their religious beliefs into the law of the land. The propertarian elites realize that they're vulnerable to a revolt against their hegemony if their hegemony were wholly sectarian - without an obvious reason why they should be the rulers - their hubris and sense of self-entitlement would be naked and exposed to the view of the lower classes. That's why the unholy alliance between what has been called the "theofascists" and the "econofascists." By combining their influence, a synergism is formed that will be difficult, if not impossible to stop in a predominately religious nation such as America, short of a violent revolution.
  • rest of story...
  • The Texas Vote ?

    Kan. bans gay marriage, Conn. open to it
    April 7, 2005
    Kansans overwhelmingly voted to add a ban on gay marriage and civil unions to their state constitution, but both sides predicted court battles over the amendment.
    The ban reaffirms the state's long-standing policy of recognizing only marriages between one man and one woman. It also declares that only such unions are entitled to the ''rights and incidents'' of marriage, prohibiting the state from authorizing civil unions for gay couples.
    Meanwhile in Connecticut, lawmakers said Tuesday they believe they have enough votes to pass a bill that would make the state the first to recognize civil unions between same-sex couples without intervention from the courts.
    Some Kansas voters, like 24-year-old Eric Hetzel, saw the amendment as a way to protect the traditional definition of marriage, enshrined in Kansas law since 1867, from legal challenges.
    ''I am a Christian,'' Hetzel said. ''I believe in the Bible and what it says that marriage is between a man and a woman.''

    http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/mid-news-p4_kansas07.html

    All Politics are local !

    March 25, 2005
    GOP national chair avoids question about his sexuality
    by Eric Resnick
    Akron--“[You] have asked a question people shouldn’t have to answer,” said Republican National Committee chair Ken Mehlman to a reporter asking if he is gay.
    Mehlman was interviewed after he spoke to the Summit County Republican Party’s annual Lincoln Day dinner March 19 at Quaker Station.
    “I’m here to say thank you,” Mehlman told the gathering, “because Summit County increased its votes for George W. Bush from 2000 to 2004 more than any other county.”
    Mehlman managed the Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign and, according to the campaign’s Ohio co-chair, Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, directed Ohio anti-gay activists to mount the campaign to put the Issue 1 marriage ban amendment on the ballot.
    Internet bloggers have pointed out that if Mehlman, 38, unmarried and never with female companionship, is gay, he is a hypocrite.
    Activist and blogger John Arovosis says Mehlman should be outed if he is gay because “Mehlman has already said publicly that the gay issue is fair game for politics. If it is fair game, then the same rules apply to him.”
    Arovosis opines that in addition to Mehlman defending George W. Bush’s anti-gay policies, “the Republican National Committee makes no bones about using gaybashing to help Republican candidates.”
    “The GOP has made it perfectly clear that gays and lesbians and their relationships are a threat to the fabric of American society. As American citizens and voters, we have the right to know if Ken Mehlman’s so-far-undisclosed relationships are posing such a threat or not,” wrote Arovosis.
    As RNC chair, Mehlman organized a campaign to discredit Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada. Among the reasons he said Reid is unfit to hold the position is the senator’s longstanding positive relationship with the Human Rights Campaign and his 100 percent LGBT voting record. Also included was Reid’s opposition to a federal constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.
    Doesn’t think amendment is anti-gay
    During his Akron remarks, Mehlman put forth political and policy statements often viewed as anti-gay.
    “Republicans are for government that stands on the side of marriage,” he said, “and on the side of strong families.”
    After the dinner, he was asked by a reporter about the GOP’s support for the so-called Marriage Protection Amendment, introduced in the House last week by Rep. Dan Lundgren of California.
    Mehlman made it clear that he supports the amendment.
    “I don’t think it’s anti-gay,” said Mehlman. “I don’t think the intent is to be anti-anything.”
    Mehlman also promoted the “culture of life,” which is seen as code for anti-choice, anti-sex and reproductive privacy laws.
    “We have to appoint strict constructionists to the bench who know the difference between their job and [that of] legislators,” said Mehlman.
    “Strict constructionists” generally hold to the literal meaning of the Constitution at the time of its writing. They are not likely to rule favorably on the side of plaintiffs who bring civil rights actions.
    Mehlman told the party faithful that the way to achieve a “durable Republican majority” at all levels of government is “to make GOP stand for Grow Our Party.”
    To do so, Mehlman said, “We must get more African-Americans and Latinos.” Both groups have significant elements of social conservatism opposed to LGBT equality on religious grounds.
    “If you believe in government that respects your faith and your values, then our party is your party,” Mehlman said.
    Asked if growing the GOP means embracing LGBT equality and including gays and lesbians, Mehlman avoided the question again, saying, “The Republican Party is based on ideas. Anyone who shares those ideas is welcome.”
    Mehlman added that his sexual orientation, whatever it is, “changes nothing” as to how the party will operate under his leadership.
    Steve Schmidt, a senior official of the Bush campaign, is the only person near Mehlman to answer a question about his sexuality.
    “Ken Mehlman is not gay,” he flatly told reporter Jake Tapper for a story in this month’s GQ.
    Local party chair was outed
    The dinner’s sponsor, the Summit County Republican Party, is headed by Alex R. Arshinkoff, who was outed by the Cleveland weekly Scene in June, 2003.
    The paper reported accounts of Arshinkoff’s presence at Cleveland area gay bars, including the Leather Stallion and the Grid.
    Arshinkoff’s vanity license plate ARA-1 has been seen in Akron gay bar parking lots and cruising areas for years.
    According to a December 27, 2002 Akron police report, Arshinkoff picked up a 21-year-old male Kent State student who was stranded and needed to get home.
    The report says Arshinkoff asked the student if he was gay or bi, then began rubbing his thigh and grabbing his crotch, asking the young man if he wanted to make some money.
    An officer saw the student jump out of the car, but let Arshinkoff go and police never investigated further.

    A second incident concerned a sexual harassment complaint reported to a deputy clerk of the Summit County Board of Elections by a former Municipal Court employee, also male. No charges were filed.
    Arshinkoff, in addition to recruiting and promoting anti-gay candidates, some of them also believed to be closeted gays, authorized a letter to be sent on behalf of the Summit County Republican Party thanking voters who signed petitions to put Issue 1 on the ballot.
    “We need voters like you,” the letter said.
    Jim King, the owner of Angel Falls, a mostly gay coffee shop in Akron’s Highland Square neighborhood, said he sent a letter to Arshinkoff, who used to come in the store twice a day, asking if it was true that the party paid for that letter.
    “I just wanted to know the truth,” said King, “and I never heard from him again.”
    Arshnikoff, who is married, has never publicly come out.
    Another county GOP chair, Franklin County’s Doug Preisse, came out quietly last year in a September 12 Columbus Dispatch story on the city's openly lesbian councilmember Mary Jo Hudson.
    ‘He almost said it’
    Four members of the Cleveland Log Cabin Republican group attended the dinner to hear Mehlman.
    “He almost said it,” said Parker Bosley, in reference to what he wished would have been Mehlman’s full embrace of LGBT Republicans.
    “I think it was because he said reach out to everyone,” said Bosley. “But not including gays is not a reason not to join.”
    Bosley said conservative gays and lesbians who don’t want to be “the lap dog of Democrats” can contribute to the Republican Party “just like black people.”
    Fred Bachhuber said he expected not to hear a GLBT welcome from Mehlman.
    “He just can’t do it yet,” said Bachhuber, “but as long as he’s sleeping with men behind the scenes, that’s all I care about.”

    http://www.gaypeopleschronicle.com/stories05/march/0325054.htm

    Black & White Divide & Denial

    Sanchez: Black-and-white divide
    CARLOS SANCHEZ Editor

    Sunday, February 27, 2005
    Admittedly, I have barely begun reading a newly released 206-page book about Waco. But because of the importance of the topic, I am already prepared to endorse the book to everyone in this community.
    It's The First Waco Horror: The Lynching Of Jesse Washington And The Rise Of The NAACP and concerns a chapter in Waco history that continues to haunt this community.
    In 1916, a crowd of about 15,000 grabbed a 17-year-old black boy who had just been convicted of murdering and raping a white woman. He was snatched out of a McLennan County courtroom. The mob proceeded to beat him, hack off body parts, hang and burn him before dragging his charred body through the streets of Waco to Robinson.
    The book's Houston-based author, Patricia Bernstein, argues that one of the more troubling things about this – one of nearly 5,000 race-related lynchings in America between 1880 and 1930 – was the fact that it occurred in a community that the Houston Chronicle at that time called “the cultured, reputable City of Waco.”
    And unlike so many other lynchings that plagued the country for the better part of half a century, this one occurred on the front lawn of city hall with the mayor and police chief looking on from a second-story office.
    I became aware of the book last week when an angry caller heard it mentioned on ABC's "Nightline" and called us to complain that there is no good reason to resurrect this horrid incident.
    Yes, this book potentially could bring some bad publicity to this community – but only if we take the attitude of the angry caller.
  • rest of story...
  • KXYL's Connie Carmichael, Federal Judge, & Matt Hale

    Is this what KXYL's Connie Carmichael had in mind ? See our Post on 1/22/05.

    Federal Judge Finds Husband, Mother Dead In Home
    Judge Presided Over High-Profile Cases In Past
  • rest of story...
  • The Godfather In the Closet

    The Godfather In the Closet
    The Republican boss of Summit County revels in crushing his enemies. Now his private life might crush him.
    BY SARAH FENSKE
    Arshinkoff, 50, has run the county Republican Party for half his life. 
    Photo courtesy of Judge Mary Spicer
    Republican Judge Mary Spicer held onto her seat — despite opposition from the party boss's niece.  
    Walter Novak
    County Executive James McCarthy says people would be "all over" the report if it involved a young female hitchhiker.  
    It was past 2 a.m. when the kid left the bar and headed for home. Back from college for Christmas, he'd met up with his high school buddies at Annabell's, a neighborhood watering hole in Akron. Frustrated for reasons that no longer seem important, the 21-year-old Kent State student had been too annoyed to wait for a ride.
    It wasn't long before he wished he had. It had been a white Christmas. The ground was still blanketed, early that morning of December 27, 2002; the air, frigid. Maybe a stranger would give him a lift.
    As the kid would later explain in an interview with Scene, he tried to flag down the first car he spotted, a souped-up Mitsubishi, neon underbelly aglow. It didn't stop. But when the new Audi behind it did, the kid got in.
    The driver was a middle-aged white man. Dark hair, well dressed. He asked the kid how he was doing; the kid said OK, then offered a few dollars for gas. The man said not to worry.
    The kid told him to take a right at Main Street. But the man didn't. I'll get you home, don't worry about it, the kid remembers him saying. Then the man started rubbing his thigh. Are you gay? he asked. Are you bi? No? Are you sure?
    The kid was trying not to freak out. He saw a red light ahead and clicked open his seatbelt, bracing himself for the jump out. But the light flicked to green.
    What are you doing? The man asked. Are you nervous?
    The kid said no, he was just trying to get comfortable. The man was caressing his thigh, grabbing at his crotch. "I didn't want to piss him off," he says. "He could just hit the gas, and I'd be stuck."
    Do you want to make some money? The man asked. The kid laughed weakly and said he had plenty. He was watching the light ahead, willing it to stay red.
    The Audi pulled to a stop, and the kid saw his chance. He took off running. The Audi peeled off in a different direction.
    Then the kid heard a siren. An Akron patrolman had witnessed his desperate departure, according to the police report. The cop stopped the car and questioned the driver. The man told him he'd picked the kid up, but he was too drunk and had hopped out.
    But the kid, fearing trouble, doubled back to the cop car. Gasping for breath, he relayed his version. The man had tried to touch him, he said. He had to run. "You can arrest me for anything you want right now," he remembers saying.
    The cop took the driver's information and let him go. Then he told the kid to relax, something like "What are you doing getting into a stranger's car, anyway?" He offered to take the kid home.
    Then a second black-and-white pulled up. The officer gestured at the departing Audi with its ARA 1 vanity plate. "Do you know who that was?" the kid heard him ask. "That was Alex Arshinkoff. He's the chair of the county Republican Party."
    "My stomach just dropped," the kid says.
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------
    For years, Alex Arshinkoff topped the scale at more than 400 pounds. He was a man of giant appetites: for politics, for conversation, and of course, for food. A former dining companion says Arshinkoff would order one entrée, finish it, then order another. Sometimes he'd go for a third.
    Thanks to the Atkins diet, a personal trainer, and daily nine-mile walks, Arshinkoff has shed half of his girth. But he's still larger than life. Head of the Summit County GOP for 25 years, he seems to burnish a reputation as the county's Dark Lord, a man who consumes politics and plays to win. To many insiders, he is Don Corleone in the flesh, with a dose of Machiavelli's Prince thrown in for good measure.
    (Through his assistant, Arshinkoff declined Scene's interview request.)
    Since two failed runs for city council more than two decades ago, Arshinkoff has never been the guy on the ballot. He's not a politician, as he'll tell anyone willing to listen.
    He's far more powerful, and he knows it. He picks the candidates. He runs their campaigns. He tells them what to do. Who to hire. Who to fire. If they don't play ball, they're out. Just like that. He's done it to top Summit Republicans. He did it as a University of Akron trustee.
    He was on George W. Bush's campaign finance committee. Karl Rove is said to call him for advice. When the first President Bush visited Akron in 1990, he started his speech by thanking Alex Arshinkoff.
    "He's a master of the nuts and bolts of politics," says state Senator Kevin Coughlin (R-Cuyahoga Falls). "He is just one of these old-school political leaders."
    Arshinkoff lives for the job, calling up candidates at all hours of the night with advice and exhortations. When he's not being compared to Machiavelli, he gets Boss Tweed.
    "Even those who don't like him have to admit he's as shrewd as they come," says Republican County Councilman Mike Callahan.
    He's made himself wealthy. He's on Senator Mike DeWine's payroll as a consultant; he also began a lobbying business in 1997, harvesting the ties he developed as party chairman. He represents nine companies, from FirstEnergy to Playhouse Square, offering his advice and pushing their interests in Columbus. He has a $200,000 home in Hudson, an antique Chevy Bel Air, and two Corvettes -- in addition to the Audi paid for by the party.
    His family has done well too. One brother is a bailiff; so is a sister-in-law. One niece is Barberton's clerk of courts; another is the party's attorney; a third works for the county engineer. Until Republicans lost the judge's seat this January, his nephew-in-law worked for the Juvenile Court.
    In other counties, party chairs aren't so powerful, and there's little reason Summit County should be an exception. Akron has long been heavily Democratic. Despite suburban growth, the county retains a three-to-two Democratic edge.
    But you'd never know it, looking at a list of Summit County officeholders. Under Arshinkoff, Republicans have put practically every seat in play. They hold a majority of judgeships, the Probate Court, the sheriff's office, both Ohio House districts, and the state senate seat.
    "He has created the most effective county organization in the state," says Arshinkoff's Cuyahoga County counterpart, state Representative Jim Trakas. "Republicans in Summit County do better than they should. And state and national candidates do much better there than they should too."
    A relentless fund-raiser, Arshinkoff gets $100,000 checks from lawyers and $1 million donations from CEOs. He also collects from the little guys: A list of campaign contributions shows bailiffs, magistrates, low-level county flunkies and their spouses -- all chipping in their $100 or $1,000 when asked.
    He's a great motivator. "He has always kept the heat on, kept the pressure on," says state Representative Bryan Williams (R-Akron). "He keeps people prepared and primed and ready to go."
    In 2000, the county party raised more than $2.19 million and spent $200,000 on TV ads, $300,000 on the sheriff's campaign, and $700,000 in a failed bid for the county executive's office.
    The money doesn't just stay in Akron. In the last decade, the party gave $64,000 to Bob Taft, $46,500 to Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, and a whopping $339,000 to Ohio Auditor Betty Montgomery.
    To Arshinkoff, though, the local game is paramount. He's not so much interested in policy, though friends insist he's a true right-wing believer. For him it's the power, and power is in the money: the salaries, retirement benefits, and perks intrinsic in several hundred county jobs.
    "It all has to do with raising money, contracts, pay-to-play," says County Executive James McCarthy, a Democrat. "If you don't give money to his party, you're not going to get jobs from the county -- or state contracts."
    Democrats point to lawyer Deidre Hanlon. From 1996 to 2001, she earned $1.69 million from Attorney General Betty Montgomery's office. Most of the money came from an exclusive contract, allowing Hanlon to sell assets of deceased Summit County residents to pay off their Medicaid bills. As The Plain Dealer first reported, she was one of only two lawyers in the state to get such a contract.
    Her luck may have followed the money trail: From 1996 to 2001, Hanlon donated $121,000 to the county GOP. Meanwhile, under Arshinkoff, the Summit GOP gave Montgomery $244,400 during the same period.
    Democrats say it's a system where those who play ball are rewarded; the recalcitrant are punished.
    Consider Saundra Robinson. She beat a Democrat for a Juvenile Court judgeship in 1990 -- a surprising upset and a major victory for a party that counts its success by the jobs it controls.
    Arshinkoff was in heaven. But Robinson was no pushover. "He made suggestions," she says. "Some of them were good." She had no problem hiring loyal Republicans who were qualified, she says, but refused to hire those who weren't.
    That was her fatal mistake. When it came time for her reelection four years later, Arshinkoff ran another Republican in the primary -- with the party's full support. Robinson lost. "If I wanted to stay there, there were rules to play by. I didn't," she says. "I know I could have gone the other way and still be sitting there today."
    Kim Hoover, then a Cuyahoga Falls councilman, found himself in a similar position in 1994. The county prosecutor's seat opened up when its longtime holder was appointed a judge; Hoover was widely considered the Republican Party's top choice.
    But first Arshinkoff wanted to talk. The day before the appointment was to be announced, Arshinkoff informed him of the people to be fired his first day, Hoover says. One was Fred Zuch, chief of the criminal division, a widely respected bulldog who paid no mind to the orders of party bosses.
    Arshinkoff's reasons seemed nebulous at best, Hoover says. He refused.
    It didn't take long for Arshinkoff to find another candidate: Maureen O'Connor, then a common pleas judge. She took the job.
    O'Connor didn't have to fire Zuch; Hoover's plight was leaked to the newspapers, and even Arshinkoff wasn't bold enough to order Zuch's termination after that. But the opportunity Hoover missed is clear. Five years later, O'Connor was elected lieutenant governor. She now sits on the Ohio Supreme Court.
    Today Hoover is a Cuyahoga Falls Municipal Court judge. He hears traffic violations, DUIs, and minor drug busts.
    He has no regrets. "I know who and what I am," he says. "Alex can say to me, 'If you'd listened to me, you could be lieutenant governor, you could be a Supreme Court justice.' Well, I have no interest in those types of things. And he can't beat me here in my own town -- and that's a source of great frustration to him."
    Last election, Hoover faced a challenger in the Republican primary. He beat her handily. Soon after, Arshinkoff appointed her to an open Municipal Court seat. She'd done her job by challenging the rogue Republican; she'd earned it.
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    Get people talking about Arshinkoff, and soon enough they'll mention the incident involving the Kent State student. "You've heard about that report, right?" they'll ask. Feign ignorance, and they'll offer you a copy.
    In the six months since that night, the police report has been circulated among politicos, pushed at newspaper reporters, and whispered about wherever Democrats gather. The kid got a call from someone who works for Summit County and someone at The Plain Dealer. The first wanted to know if he thought Arshinkoff was dangerous; he didn't call the second back.
    The kid isn't exactly basking in the attention. He doesn't want his name used; he has no intention of filing suit. "It's water under the bridge to me," he says. But he can't help but wonder: "What is a public official going and picking up people like that?"
    Nothing official became of the report. The kid says the police never talked to him again. He didn't press the matter, either. Akron Deputy Police Chief Mike Madden says the cops generally don't investigate "field reports," which are generated by traffic stops rather than official complaints.
    "You've got a he said/she said situation, or in this case, he said/he said," Madden says. "There's no way for me to make a case off of that." Sure, if the kid is telling the truth, the incident could be a case of sexual imposition, Madden says. But who's to say? There are no witnesses, no physical evidence.
    "I don't know that anyone even took cognizance of this report when it came in," Madden says. "If it weren't that particular name on it, no one would even care."
    But it is that name. And people do care. For a Republican who touts "family values," there's a question of hypocrisy. There's also the antagonism factor: Arshinkoff has made so many enemies, they're practically a political party of their own. Even people who say positive things about him are glad to snark when they know it won't get back to him.
    Of course, every powerful man has enemies, but the hatred Arshinkoff engenders goes beyond that. Now, perhaps emboldened by the report, many people who've felt his lash are breaking their silence for the first time.
    Pete Kostoff, the mayor of suburban Fairlawn for 11 years, was a loyal party man who shared Arshinkoff's Macedonian heritage. Their fathers were friends, and they'd attended the same Eastern Orthodox church for years. Kostoff was considered one of Arshinkoff's top lieutenants.
    That meant little when Kostoff endorsed a Democrat in the Cuyahoga Falls mayoral race. It wasn't just any Democrat -- it was his law partner and close friend, Wayne Jones. Kostoff thought it would be OK, because Jones was taking on Don Robart, a Republican known to be on the outs with Arshinkoff.
    Indeed, Kostoff thought he had Arshinkoff's blessing. "He told me I'd have to sit out for a period of time, but then I'd be brought back to the party," Kostoff says. Like a good soldier, he agreed to step down from the party's central and executive committees, presuming it was temporary. Arshinkoff told him that he would also be supporting Jones, however quietly.
    But as the campaign heated up, it became apparent that Arshinkoff was doing no such thing. Robart's campaign literature was vintage Arshinkoff. It showed an aerial view of Jones's five-acre spread, calling him out for supporting low-income housing because he didn't have to live by it.
    After Jones lost and it came time for Kostoff's promised rehabilitation, he and Arshinkoff met for lunch. "You'll have to buy a little time," Kostoff remembers his friend saying.
    After six months, Kostoff could read the writing on the wall. "There are a lot of people pissed off at you," Arshinkoff told him.
    "I was hoping you'd help explain this to them," Kostoff protested.
    No such luck. "It became convenient for me to be expendable," Kostoff says.
    Within the next three years, Kostoff's uncle was fired from the Board of Elections -- just one year before he could retire with a decent pension, Kostoff says. His brother was fired from the engineer's office. His sister-in-law, the chief magistrate at Juvenile Court, returned from a week's vacation to find a letter tacked to her front door. She, too, had been sacked.
    "At the end of the day," Kostoff says, "people can say it's just politics, but I don't think you use politics to hurt people. He and his gang seem to enjoy inflicting hurt on people."
    Kostoff gives money to Republicans he thinks are independent. He considers himself part of the Republican Party. But he won't give it money, not as long as Arshinkoff is around. "Sooner or later, other people of conviction are going to stand up and tell him it's time to move on."
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    Common Pleas Judge Mary Spicer had always been a good Republican, though she was occasionally annoyed by Arshinkoff's directives. He'd summon the Republican judges to lunch at Tangier or the Portage Country Club, then tell them who to hire, she says. She resented it.
    Spicer was the court's point woman for Oriana House, a halfway house the county used as a sentencing alternative to hard time. Though Spicer did the nitty-gritty supervision work, all eight judges signed off on decisions and appointments. They were, technically, a "judicial corrections board," she says, though they didn't officially meet or take minutes.
    Such leadership may have seemed lackadaisical, but no one considered it a problem. The county was happy with Oriana, says County Executive McCarthy. So were the judges.
    Or so they thought.
    In February 2002, it was Spicer's task to get the other judges to sign off on appointments to Oriana's citizens' advisory board. Most were reappointments -- people involved with the issues at hand, such as vocational training and rehab programs.
    But that wasn't what her fellow Republican, John Adams, noticed when Spicer gave him the papers to sign.
    "These are all Democrats," he told her.
    Spicer was surprised. She'd never thought of party affiliation as an issue. Still, she agreed to let Adams take the appointment papers and think it over. She couldn't formalize the appointments until another judge returned from vacation anyway.
    (Adams says he "may have issue" with Spicer's recollections, but would prefer not to revisit "these things.")
    Then Spicer's phone rang. It was her cousin, Probate Court Judge Bill Spicer. He reminded her that the filing deadline for their reelection campaigns was a week away. He also asked her to hold off on the Oriana appointments. "These are our last bargaining chips," he said. (Bill Spicer declined comment for this story.)
    Mary Spicer knew that Adams, Arshinkoff, and her cousin were tight. She also knew that another Common Pleas judge, Democrat Jane Bond, was planning to challenge her cousin for his seat. The link was clear, she says: The GOP would approve the appointments only if Bond got out of the race.
    Spicer thought it ridiculous. Then she got a call from Arshinkoff.
    He was irate, Spicer says, and launched into a rant about Oriana House. "He said there was all this fraud and theft and corruption," she recalls, still amazed. But he offered no evidence, no specifics. Yelling, he said he was only telling her because he had to protect "his" judges.
    Spicer yelled back, finally shouting that she wasn't going to talk about it anymore. Then she hung up.
    In short order, she got a visit from her cousin and his bailiff, Chris Masich. They asked her to get Bond to drop out of the Probate Court race, she says. They told her she could promise Bond that she'd never face an opponent again.
    Spicer resisted. She saw the party boss's hand. "This is how Alex Arshinkoff works," Spicer says. "He sends other people with messages, so he can say, 'I never said that.'"
    Shortly thereafter, Masich sent Spicer a note telling her to forget the whole thing. Judge Adams started making a stink to the papers about problems with Oriana House's leadership, using buzzwords of "fraud" and "corruption."
    The only judge to second him was another Republican running for reelection; after that judge announced her concerns, her challenger, another Republican, decided not to run after all.
    Insiders believe Arshinkoff wanted control of the jobs at Oriana. If the organization could be proved corrupt, the county could take it over -- meaning direct oversight by Republican judges, meaning more jobs for the GOP to fill.
    "Alex likes any place that has people," McCarthy says, "because that becomes patronage, contributors, campaigners."
    Jim Lawrence, Oriana's executive director, would accuse Arshinkoff of "running a political operation out of Common Pleas Court." But it was effective: State Auditor Jim Petro agreed to do an audit.
    Then Adams -- despite only four years' experience as a Common Pleas judge -- was appointed to a federal judgeship. And Arshinkoff's niece, attorney Betty Konen, announced that she was running against Mary Spicer as an independent.
    Arshinkoff pushed an unprecedented amendment through the GOP's executive committee: From then on, the party could give support -- and cash -- to independents, even those challenging Republicans.
    Spicer won her reelection, despite not getting a penny from the party or use of its in-house communications firm. She was also barred from using the party's bulk-rate postage unless Arshinkoff first approved her mailers. (She declined.)
    Still, Arshinkoff had his own interpretation of Spicer's victory. He noted to a friend that Spicer had been forced to spend $70,000 of her own money on the campaign.
    Spicer isn't bitter. "I'm still here," she says. "And I have a new birth of freedom. I don't get calls summoning me to lunch." She doesn't get told who to hire, either. She just gets ignored.
    The Oriana House fallout continues. Montgomery, one of the largest recipients of Arshinkoff's largesse, took the auditor's position in January. A month later, she announced that the ongoing performance audit would be teamed with a more extensive "special audit."
    Due to Montgomery's ties to Arshinkoff, Oriana's attorney asked her for an independent, outside review. She refused.
    Four months later, she has yet to announce any major findings or problems, or complete the first audit. She's still looking.
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    With Arshinkoff, politics always comes first. Callahan, the county councilman, remembers Arshinkoff saying at a late-night poker game, "I've got a lot of friends in this business, but I'm in the business of getting people elected. That comes first. The job comes first." Good government can finish no better than a distant second.
    In 1999, two Common Pleas judges completed a study showing that the Court needed two more judges. The recommendation was approved by the county and the Ohio Supreme Court. The bill was written.
    And then it died.
    The reason? State Senator Roy Ray, an Akron Republican and Arshinkoff ally, lobbied fellow legislators to kill it. His official reason: The courthouse didn't have room for two more judges.
    But Judge Mary Spicer says word drifted back from Columbus that Arshinkoff had stopped it. After all, more judges meant more openings for Democrats, in years when Arshinkoff already had several expensive races to run.
    The same fate befell plans to add a second Juvenile Court judge. For years, court workers had pushed for another judge as well as building renovations.
    But talks between County Executive McCarthy, a Democrat, and Juvenile Court Judge Judy Hunter, a Republican, reached a stalemate in 2001. So Hunter asked Kostoff to run interference.
    The Kostoff plan, recorded in a letter signed by Hunter in February 2001, agreed to details of building expansion and signed off on adding a second judge once renovations were complete.
    One month later, McCarthy got a terse, one-paragraph letter from Hunter. She wrote that she "must and do hereby rescind" her previous statements. She gave no explanation.
    Kostoff says Arshinkoff caught wind of the plan and stopped it. He was afraid Democrats would win the second judgeship and wrest partial control of the Juvenile Court, which Republicans then held.
    Hunter denies this, although she offers no explanation. "There were a whole lot of dynamics at work with that whole scenario, including other issues beside court expansion," she says. As for Arshinkoff's involvement, "You would have to talk to him about that."
    Arshinkoff's goal might be protecting his party, but it's irritated his opponents to the point of open contempt. "I have no respect for him, for a lot of reasons," says Jones, now the county Democratic Party's finance chairman. "He's been in powerful positions, and he's used that position in no way to help the county. It's all for his personal gain."
    Arshinkoff's power plays extend beyond government. He sat on the University of Akron Board of Trustees for nine years and was its chairman from 1997 to 2001.
    Under his watch, the board drummed out university President Peggy Gordon Elliott, after commissioning a report from then-Attorney General Montgomery on Elliott's hiring practices. Montgomery's report finished with "no recommendations or ultimate conclusions," but it was enough for the trustees to send Elliott packing, settlement agreement in hand. The trustees who supported her ouster were Republicans; Democrats were irate, but outnumbered.
    John Wray was the university's treasurer when he drew Arshinkoff's ire. Wray says he's still not sure what happened, though he won't dispute that politics played a role. William Beyer, then the associate vice president of administrative support services and Wray's boss, is more outspoken.
    "John's work was outstanding," he says. "But you could see what was going on. There was talk for a couple years that they weren't happy with him, because he did a lot of work for [then-Democratic Congressman] Tom Sawyer. That's the way things were up there."
    Wray, whose contract wasn't renewed, headed off to Walsh University in Canton.
    It was hard to fight. Trustees are appointed by the governor, and for years, Ohio's governor has been Republican. Akron's board is stacked with big Republican contributors: Of the nine members currently serving, eight have contributed more than $7,000 to county party coffers in the last four years, according to records. As for the ninth, her husband provided the money.
    Arshinkoff may be gone from the university, but his relatives are still making money there. The university began using the firm Buckingham, Doolittle & Burroughs for substantial amounts of legal work in 1999. In 2001, the firm's workload dropped precipitously, and the university took on a new firm, Amer Cunningham Co., according to financial records.
    What happened? Konen, Arshinkoff's beloved niece, left Buckingham, Doolittle in August 2001. She landed at -- where else? -- Amer Cunningham.
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Hardball campaign ads have become Arshinkoff's signature. He uses TV extensively, even for judicial seats, though Summit County is dependent on costly Cleveland airtime. Every penny seems to bring torrents of mud.
    In one ad, Judge Bond -- who lost a tight Probate Court race last year - was accused of being under investigation by the Ohio Supreme Court because her husband did work for Oriana House, while she supposedly supervised it.
    Never mind that she hadn't actively supervised the program. Or that her husband earned a total of $2,000. Or that the Supreme Court had received a complaint from one of Arshinkoff's buddies, but wasn't necessarily investigating.
    Presumably, a man who plays this brand of hardball should know the ball will eventually be fired back.
    Michael Curry believes so. In the summer of 2001, Curry, who works for the Summit County Board of Elections, spotted Arshinkoff at the Leather Stallion, a gay bar on St. Clair. The Democrat made a point of greeting Arshinkoff "just to freak him out," he says.
    Thirty minutes later, Arshinkoff came over and asked him to stay quiet about seeing him there, Curry says. Curry replied that it wasn't his style to out people. "It's just not my belief system," he says.
    Arshinkoff seemed relieved. "If there's anything I can do for you, I'd be happy to do it," he said, according to Curry.
    Joking, Curry seized the gambit. He named two friends, both Democratic judges. "I want to see that the two of them never have any opponents," he said.
    "I can do that," Arshinkoff responded.
    "I was shocked at the transference of power," Curry says. He'd been joking, after all. But when he ran into Arshinkoff several months later, at a gay dance club called The Grid, Arshinkoff waved him over. "He said he'd live up to his end of the bargain," Curry recalls.
    Curry decided not to live up to his. "I've just decided he's a hypocrite about it," he says. "He's gone out and recruited candidates who are homophobic and anti-gay." Also, it's tempting to envision the fallout: "If he ever openly admitted he was gay, I think a lot of the money would dry up."
    The pyre is growing. The newest memo circulating among the anti-Arshinkoff crowd is a complaint phoned in to the board of elections. In the conversation, a former Municipal Court employee claims Arshinkoff sexually harassed him.
    It's public record, duly noted by a deputy clerk. Coupled with the police report, it's led to talk of an overthrow.
    But Democrats aren't sure how to play it. "We're a party that supports gay rights," says county Chairman Russ Pry. "We don't believe in outing people. But we don't believe in being hypocrites, either. We don't believe in condemning someone's lifestyle -- and then secretly living it."
    Adds McCarthy, "If this was an elected official who had picked up a young girl, I think people would have been all over that. And if Alex is a cruiser, if that's his M.O. . . . I'm sure there are people within his party that would be upset."
    Chris Bleuenstein, who recently quit the Republican central and executive committees, says he thinks the gay issue may be the straw that finally breaks Arshinkoff's back. "Most people are aware of it," he says. "Stupid him -- he just keeps getting caught."
    The party, Bleuenstein believes, is probably "not enlightened enough" to deal with a gay leader. "I would envision a coup," he says, adding, "He is not going to step down."
    Madden, the Akron police deputy, says the whole thing doesn't seem fair. Arshinkoff hasn't been charged with anything, and homosexual acts -- Rick Santorum's views aside -- are perfectly legal in Ohio. "There's crime, and then there's embarrassment," Madden says.
    But this is politics. And Alex Arshinkoff would be the first to explain: In politics, embarrassment is often enough.
    http://www.clevescene.com/issues/2003-06-11/news/feature.html