KINKY FRIEDMAN PRESS RELEASE: Immigration policy

PRESS RELEASE: Immigration policy
Kinky Friedman today said he supports the legislation passed Monday by the Senate Judiciary Committee, which includes the legalization of the country’s 11 million illegal immigrants who hold jobs, pass background checks, and pay fines and taxes.

Friedman also supports the expansion of the guest worker program, which would allow approximately 400,000 new guest workers per year. Friedman has been calling for a Bracero-sized program since he first announced his candidacy for governor in February 2005.

Friedman also supports a portion of the House bill, which calls for the construction of 700 miles of security fence along the U.S.-Mexico border and which would make illegal immigration a felony.

“I’ve been urging action on the border for over a year,” Friedman said. “I’m pleased that Congress is finally debating an issue I’ve been talking about since I announced my candidacy – the re-introduction of a guest worker program that allows immigrants to legally enter our country and seek opportunities. I hope this puts an end to the countless lives that have been lost on the backs of cargo container trucks on U.S. soil at the hands of coyotes who take advantage of those seeking a better life.”

Friedman urges Gov. Rick Perry to put partisan politics aside and meet with Govs. Bill Richardson and Janet Napolitano to develop a coordinated state plan which would supplement the federal efforts to stem the tide of illegal immigration.

source: http://www.kinkyfriedman.com/2006/03/press_release_immigration_poli.html

..... and in Brownwood ?

Gallup: In Shift, More Americans Now Call Themselves Democrats

By E&P Staff

Published: March 29, 2006 12:15 PM ET
NEW YORK In a (perhaps) historic shift, more Americans now consider themselves Democrats than Republicans, the Gallup organization revealed today.
Republicans had gained the upper hand in recent years, but 33% of Americans, in the latest Gallup poll, now call themselves Democrats, with those favoring the GOP one point behind. But Gallup says this widens a bit more "once the leanings of Independents are taken into account."
Independents now make up 34% of the population. When asked if they lean in a certain direction, their answers pushed the Democrat numbers to 49% with Republicans at 42%. One year ago, the parties were dead even at 46% each.
This shift indicates, Gallup says, why its polls show Democrats leading in this year's congressional races.
The latest poll was taken from January to March 2006, with a national sample of about 1,000 adults.

E&P Staff (letters@editorandpublisher.com)
source: http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002273782

Do the Brownwood R's know that they've been "played" by Delay and his cohorts ?

Dallas Morning News Editorial

Breaking the Faith: Whom is DeLay calling 'enemies of virtue' ?

07:14 AM CST on Thursday, March 30, 2006
In an astoundingly cynical performance at a "War on Christians" conference in Washington this week, Rep. Tom DeLay urged religious conservatives to stay on the attack against hostile forces out to get Christians like, well, Tom DeLay.
"We have been chosen to live as Christians at a time when our culture is being poisoned and our world is being threatened," Mr. DeLay told the crowd. "The enemies of virtue may be on the march, but they have not won." The Texas evangelist who organized the conference likened Mr. DeLay's legal and ethical woes to – wait for it – the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
But lest the faithful prematurely canonize Mr. DeLay as a martyr for the faith, they should consider how Team DeLay, with its paladins of public piety, has specifically manipulated sincere Christians for personal gain.
Take Edwin Buckham, a Washington lobbyist who once served as Mr. DeLay's chief of staff and personal pastor. The Washington Post reported this week that Mr. Buckham received more than a third of all the money collected by the U.S. Family Network, a nonprofit organization he set up as a DeLay staffer. Mr. DeLay promoted the organization as a national grass-roots group engaged in pro-family activism on Capitol Hill. In fact, records indicate that USFN was a front that took in millions, mostly from clients of felonious lobbyist Jack Abramoff, and lavished the largesse heavily on Mr. Buckham and his wife.
Or take former top DeLay aide Michael Scanlon, who pleaded guilty to corruption charges in the Abramoff scandal. In an e-mail released by a Senate committee, Mr. Scanlon discusses how his clients can use the gullibility of Christians to their own advantage: "The wackos get their information through the Christian right, Christian radio, mail, the Internet and telephone trees. ... Simply put, we want to bring out the wackos to vote against something and make sure the rest of the public lets the whole thing slip past them."
St. Paul writes about the wisdom of becoming a fool for Christ. It's one thing to be a fool for Christ, but it's quite another to be a patsy.
source: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/editorials/stories/DN-delay_30edi.ART.State.Edition1.2591e5e.html

So did the 4 Burgers ($4,300.00) activate the US Patriot Act Operation TIPS ?

Posted on Tue, Mar. 28, 2006

Man is charged $4,300 for four burgers
Associated Press
PALMDALE, Calif. - Four burgers at his neighborhood Burger King cost George Beane a whopping $4,334.33.
Beane ordered two Whopper Jr.s and two Rodeo cheeseburgers when he pulled up to the drive-through window last Tuesday. The cashier, however, forgot that she'd entered the $4.33 charge on his debit card and punched in the numbers again without erasing the original ones - thus creating a four-figure bill.
The electronic charge went through to George and Pat Beane's Bank of America checking account and left the couple penniless. Their mortgage payment was due and they worried checks they had written would bounce, Pat Beane said.
"We were thinking, 'No, not now!'" she said of the overcharge.
Terri Woody, the restaurant manager, said Burger King officials tried to get the charge refunded. But the bank said the funds were on a three-day hold and could not be released, Pat Beane said.
The hold is designed to prevent customers from spending money that no longer is available in their accounts and to let the bank confirm a transaction is legitimate before transferring funds, said Bank of America supervisor Joel Solorio.
Burger King did not charge the Beanes for their meal, and the couple got their $4,334.33 back on Friday.
"For those three days, those were the most expensive value burgers in history," Pat Beane said.

source: http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/14204571.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp
-------------------

No. 10: In the wake of Operation TIPS came something even worse: Total Information Awareness. TIA is a program of the Defense Department that when fully operational will link commercial and government databases so that the DOD can immediately put its finger on any piece of information about you that it wants. New York Times columnist William Safire writes: "Every purchase you make with a credit card, every magazine subscription you buy and medical prescription you fill, every Web site you visit and e-mail you send or receive, every academic grade you receive, every bank deposit you make, every trip you book and every event you attend all these transactions and communications will go into what the Defense Department describes as a virtual, centralized grand database." And that's not all. Who did our president appoint to head the TIA? Who gets to be Big Brother himself? Why it's none other than John Poindexter, a man convicted in 1990 on five counts of lying to Congress, destroying official documents, and obstructing congressional inquiries into the Iran-contra affair. Another Hermann Goering, if there ever was one.
source: http://www.furnitureforthepeople.com/actpat.htm

and the Brownwood Republicans "DO NOT" want to talk about this ! ( Just like PTSD: Avoid & Deny )

CHICAGO SUN-TIMES
Stop This Senseless Bombing
BY JUAN ANDRADE
June 24, 2001
Copyright © 2001 CHICAGO SUN-TIMES. All Rights Reserved.

When I was a little boy growing up in the small town of Brownwood, located deep in the heart of Texas, kids usually made toys to play with or searched for things that looked like toys with which to play. In retrospect I would say we were extremely creative. Not everything worked. One day my oldest brother Daniel got the bright idea to build a wooden boat. We weighed it down so much we could hardly carry it. As soon as the boat hit the water it sank so fast we jumped in just to ride it down to the bottom.

One day we learned a hard lesson that not everything we found was a toy. A friend of mine, Robert Gill, found an object that somehow had ended up in his backyard. The object appeared to be a metal canister, and little Robert took a hammer and tried to take it apart by pounding just below the tip. He never got to see what was inside. A blow from the hammer struck the canister in just the right spot and Robert's body was blown to bits. He had been playing with a bomb.

How could this happen? The answer was Camp Bowie, located just outside our city limits and home to an armored division during World War II. Central Texas was ideal for tank and other heavy armored equipment training. The area is sparsely populated and the nearest towns were 40 to 50 miles away. For nearly 50 years I've often wondered if anyone thought about how the countless number of unexploded bombs could endanger the lives and safety of innocent civilians later, especially little ones like Robert.

As far as I'm concerned, Vieques Island is today's Camp Bowie, only worse. Puerto Ricans who live on the island say that the island is littered with thousands of unexploded bombs dropped on them from Navy planes. The U.S. Navy has been using Vieques, population 9,300, as a practice bombing range for 60 years. The statistics are staggering. According to Village Voice reporter Lenora Todaro, the Navy dropped 20,000 pounds of live explosives, including napalm, on Vieques in 1994. The Navy has admitted that in 1998 it dropped 273 radioactive depleted uranium shells on Vieques and accidentally dropped 263 more in 1999. They are believed to contribute to the development of cancer and leukemia, and only 56 were retrieved. The Navy has also admitted to discharging environmental pollutants at a percentage well above the legal limit: arsenic, 6.6 percent; lead, 105 percent, and cadmium, 240 percent. The incidence of cancer, scleroderma, lupus, thyroid deficiencies, and asthma is far higher on Vieques than on the Puerto Rican mainland. What is even more distressing is that there is not a single hospital on Vieques.

The continued bombing of Vieques is senseless and should be stopped immediately. The Clinton administration agreed to accept the results of a vote by Viequenses on whether or not to allow the bombing to continue in November 2003. That was dumb. Of course they are going to vote to stop the bombing. But not being one to be out-dumbed, now President Bush has unilaterally decided to order the Navy to stop bombing Vieques, also in November 2003.

What's with 2003 anyway? The speculation is that Bush is afraid that Vieques will turn Puerto Rican voters against his brother, who is seeking re-election as governor of Florida next year. The experts are also saying that Bush (the president) must improve on his 35 percent share of the Latino vote. Good luck. Next to African Americans, Puerto Ricans are the most loyal Democrats of all ethnic or racial minority groups in America. Trust me: It is no coincidence that 57 African American and Hispanic members of Congress, led by Illinois Rep. Luis Gutierrez, have called on the president to stop the bombing now.

One last thing. What was even more incredible was Bush's reasoning for ordering the bombing to cease in 2003. ''These people are our friends and neighbors, and they don't want us there,'' he said. Friends and neighbors? Good God, Puerto Ricans are citizens of the United States! We have occupied their land for 101 years. We made them U.S. citizens in 1917. But never in 100 years have we treated Puerto Ricans with the dignity and respect they deserve. The status of Puerto Rico can be decided later, but protracted colonialism should not be an option. For starters, we should stop the bombing immediately if not sooner.

Juan Andrade is president of the U.S. Hispanic Leadership Institute, a national organization based in Chicago.
source: http://www.puertorico-herald.org/issues/2001/vol5n26/StopSenselessBomb-en.shtml

QUOTE

"“Military men are just dumb stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy." ~ - Republican Henry Kissinger, quoted in “Kiss the Boys Goodbye: How the United States Betrayed Its Own POW’s in Vietnam

And how do the Brownwood Republicans on KXYL try and discredit the Tillmans ? They compare them to Sheehan ! Nice try Brownwood Bob, It didn't work

( below article from the conserative publication American Spectator )

The Nation's Pulse
Two Families, One Country
By Paul Beston
Published 3/27/2006 12:09:56 AM
Over two thousand American parents are grieving their losses from the war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan, but sometimes it only seems like one: Cindy Sheehan, who is never shy, rarely dignified, barely rational, and always present. She was at the U.N. recently, getting arrested and exposing her middle-aged midriff; she was in Venezuela in January, praising the dictator Hugo Chavez and calling President Bush the greatest terrorist in the world; she wrote an unhinged letter to the President's mother in November; in September, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, she declared New Orleans "occupied" territory when the rest of us were wondering why it wasn't occupied sooner.
As most Americans know at this point, Ms. Sheehan's antiwar activism is inspired by the death of her son, Army Specialist Casey Sheehan, who died in Iraq in April 2004. Some great moral crusades get started from the wells of personal loss, but it became apparent quickly that Ms. Sheehan's wouldn't be among them. For one thing, opinion on the war was divided; for another, her own personal collapse was so evident that it always obscured whatever merits her cause may have had.
Ms. Sheehan is a cringe-inducing hysteric, perhaps never more so than when she posed for Vanity Fair on her son's grave, a grave that (as others have noted) still lacks a headstone, while Ms. Sheehan has a new car. In one of her blog entries she informed millions of strangers that her son was probably a virgin when he went to Iraq. Each day she dishonors his memory, and her profoundly weak and shallow response to loss has been celebrated in all of the expected quarters. Now word comes that Susan Sarandon will play her in a feature film. Well, naturally.
Ms. Sheehan's now ex-husband prefers to keep silent while she demands restitution from a world that has always had wars and always will. Her son's death is tragic but not mysterious, or if it is mysterious the only being that can explain it is the one that Ms. Sheehan, a Catholic renunciate, has renounced. Instead she looks for answers from politicians, and for solace from celebrity. She gets neither, because of course what she wants is her son back. It should be understood that she is fighting God, not George Bush, but she has a better chance of getting a meeting with the President than an answer from the Almighty, who has never been much on explanations.
MEANWHILE, ONE OF MS. SHEEHAN'S fellow Californians also grieves a lost son. Patrick K. Tillman has been largely quiet in the two years since his son's death, putting his trust in the military personnel who pledged to him that they would get to the bottom of what happened on April 22, 2004. Corporal Pat Tillman, former free safety and free spirit for the Arizona Cardinals, left professional football to become a soldier after September 11th. He and his brother Kevin first served in Iraq, then in Afghanistan, where Pat was killed a few weeks after Casey Sheehan died in Iraq. For over a month afterwards, Tillman was said to have died in combat, presumably against Taliban forces. Only later did the truth come out, that he had been killed by friendly fire in a terrible accident that seems to have been avoidable. Having been told a lie at the outset, and having heard changing stories since, Mr. Tillman no longer has confidence that the Army's explanations are reliable.
Participants' versions of the incident have changed over time; evidence has been destroyed; and the Tillmans haven't even managed to retrieve their son's diary. Earlier this month, the Army's Criminal Investigation Command announced a new inquiry into the incident, which may include the possibility of a cover-up. For most of the two years since his son's death Mr. Tillman has been a quiet, grieving parent, like the vast majority of other parents of fallen American troops. Patience has its limits.
"There is so much nonstandard conduct, both before and after Pat was killed, that you have to start to wonder," Mr. Tillman told the New York Times recently. "How much effort would you put into hiding an accident? Why do you need to hide an accident?"
Pat Tillman became the noble athlete of this generation the moment he took off his football uniform and put on a military one. If his actions didn't say enough, testimony from those who knew him speak of an independent, courageous man who seemed to exemplify the American spirit and that old-fashioned word, heroism.
Tillman's parents have made some blistering criticisms of the Army ("they blew up their poster boy," his father said last year), but their statements have generally been specific to the incident and focused on those who have responsibility for what happened. They are making one reasonable request of the Army: Tell us, to the best that you are able, what happened to our son. The military's refusal or inability to do so, at least so far, is a cruelty that Ms. Sheehan has not had to experience. Of course, you'd think Ms. Sheehan was the only mother who ever lost a child in a war.
Pat Tillman's mother has no such illusions. "This is how they treat a family of a high-profile individual," she said, speaking of the military's handling of the incident. "How are they treating others?"
Then, Ms. Tillman says, with terrible economy, "I am beyond tears. It is killing me."
Imagine what walls Pat Tillman would have kicked in to spare his mother this. And imagine what rocks Casey Sheehan might hide under if he could see the way his mother carries on.


Paul Beston is a writer in New York.
source: http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=9582

Did your Republican Party leave you too Brownwood ?

Mar 28, 9:32 AM EST
White House Chief of Staff Card Resigns

By TERENCE HUNT
AP White House Correspondent

WASHINGTON (AP) -- White House chief of staff Andy Card has resigned and will be replaced by budget director Joshua Bolten, President Bush announced Tuesday amid growing calls for a White House shakeup and Republican concern about Bush's tumbling poll ratings.
Bush announced the changes in an nationally broadcast appearance in the Oval Office.
"I have relied on Andy's wise counsel, his calm in crisis, his absolute integrity and his tireless commitment to public service," Bush said. "The next three years will demand much of those who serve our country. We have a global war to fight and win."
Card, 58, stood stoically with his hands by his sides as Bush lauded his years of service through the Sept. 11 attacks, war and legislative and economic challenges. Gripping the podium, Card said in his farewell: "You're a good man, Mr. President." Card's eyes were watery. Card said he looks forward to just being Bush's friend. Bush then gave him five quick slaps on the back and the two walked out of the Oval Office together.
The president called Bolten, 51, a man with broad experience, both on Wall Street and in Washington, including the last three years as director of the Office of Management and Budget.
"Josh is a creative policy thinker," Bush said. "He is an expert on the budget and our economy. He is a man of candor and humor and directness. No person is better prepared for this important position."
"I'm deeply honored now by the opportunity to succeed Andy Card as White House chief of staff," Bolten responded. "I said, 'Succeed Andy Card, not replace him,' because he cannot be replaced."
The move cames as Bush is buffeted by increasing criticism of the drawn-out war in Iraq and as fellow Republicans have suggested pointedly that the president bring in new aides with fresh ideas and new energy.
Card came to Bush recently and suggested that he should step down from the job that he has held from the first day of Bush's presidency, said an administration official earlier.
Bush decided during a weekend stay at Camp David, Md., to accept Card's resignation and to name Bolten as his replacement, said the source who spoke on condition of anonymity because he did not want to pre-empt the president.
Bolten is widely experienced in Washington, both on Capitol Hill as well as at the White House, where he was deputy chief of staff before becoming director of the Office of Management and Budget.
At a White House news conference last week, Bush was asked about rumors that a shake up in the White House staff was in the works. Bush said he was "satisfied with the people I've surrounded myself with."
"I've got a staff of people that have, first of all, placed their country above their self-interests," he said at the time. "These are good, hard- working, decent people. And we've dealt with a lot. We've dealt with a lot. We've dealt with war. We've dealt with recession. We've dealt with scandal. We've dealt with Katrina.
"I mean, they've had a lot on their plate. And I appreciate their performance and their hard work and they've got my confidence," he said.
Bush said, "I'm satisfied with the people I've surrounded myself with. We've been a remarkably stable administration, and I think that's good for the country."
A veteran of the administrations of both President Ronald Reagan and the first President Bush, Card was widely respected by his colleagues in the Bush White House. They fondly called him "chief."
He usually arrived at work in the West Wing by around 5:30 a.m. and frequently did not leave until 9 or 10 p.m.
Card plans to stay on the job until April 14, when the switch with Bolten takes place.
Associates said that Card, who was secretary of Transportation and deputy chief of staff, had wanted to establish himself as the longest serving White House chief of staff. James Steelman, who was President Harry S. Truman's chief of staff, had served for six years and Card's tenure will have gone not much longer than five years.
A recent AP-Ipsos Poll found that Bush's job approval has dipped to 37 percent, his lowest rating in that poll. Nearly 70 percent of people say the U.S. is on the wrong track, a six-point jump since February. Bush's job approval among Republicans plummeted from 82 percent in February to 74 percent, a troubling sign for the White House in an election year.

source: http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/B/BUSH_SHAKEUP?SITE=JRC&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2006-03-28-08-04-55
-------------------------

Lawrence Wilkerson: "They" Have Stolen My Party and I Want it Back

Lawrence Wilkerson, former Chief of Staff at the State Department and 16-year aide and friend to Colin Powell, was interviewed yesterday on Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Lateline.
Wilkerson's October 19th speech to the New America Foundation was one of the most important foreign policy commentaries in the last 12 months and will be a fundamental part of any future assessments of Bush foreign policy.
A TWN loyal reader in Australia caught this poignant segment about Wilkerson's political party loyalties:
Question: Now, you were, I believe, a Republican for many years, you worked with the Republican administration and the Republican secretary of state. Do you think the Republicans and the Republican President will end up paying the price, the political price, for this war?
Wilkerson: Yes and I'm very concerned about that as a citizen. My mum wrote me a letter the other day and she said, "Son," -- she's 86 years old -- she said, "Son, please don't become a Democrat".
And I told my mum, I called her and I said: "Mum, you know what? I want my party back. I don't want to become a Democrat. I want my party back."

The Republican Party that I knew, that I grew up in, a moderate party, a party that believed in fiscal discipline, a party that believed in small government, a party that had genuine conservative values. This is not a conservative leadership. This is radical leadership. I called them neo-Jacobins. They are radical. They're not conservative. They've stolen my party and I would like my party back.

The political health of the country depends on the restoration of healty competition between the parties. But for that to occur, both parties have to restore their internal health. Dems need to sort out their agenda and probably need a few internal civil wars in order to move a coherent policy framework forward.

Republicans need to restore their pragmatic, moderate center.

More later.
-- Steve Clemons
Ed Note: Thanks to TS for sending this clip.
source: http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/

Politics on the Square in Brownwood ( Indepentents were there too ! )

Sunday March 26, 2006

News
Democrats name state convention’s delegates
By Curtis Elliott — Brownwood Bulletin

Seven Brown County delegates were chosen Saturday morning for the Democratic Party’s state convention in Fort Worth on June 8-10.
Selected during the county convention were John Lee Blagg, A.J. Dickerson, David Bullion, Eva Stewart, Richard Ivy, Geraldine Boyd and Sheila Richardson.
Among resolutions adopted by the Democratic Party in Brown County was one calling for the impeachment of President George W. Bush.
Based on the war in Iraq, Bush was accused of crimes against the environment, use of illegal force, war crimes and obstructionism, and claimed that “illegal spying was done and wiretapping of citizens was done.”
The Democratic Party urged in the resolution that a full investigation be launched.
“Action must be taken. All violations of the law must be accountable,” the resolution states, “especially by those that are responsible for upholding the law. The Bush administration must be impeached, with Dick Cheney, and the House of Representatives.”
Veterans rights and services were also addressed in a resolution to fight legislatively and publicly for the following:
VA funding with current service requirements.
A moratorium on closing VA facilities until all service requirements arising from Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts and the aging veteran population can be independently and professionally evaluated.
Mandatory testing for contamination by Depleted Uranium for all service personnel within 48 hours of return to United States from Iraq or Afghanistan.
Emergency funding to establish an aggressive outreach program to identify and begin treatment of veterans suffering mental health disorders, particularly for those from Iraq or Afghanistan.
County Democrats also approved a resolution designed to make national candidates view Texas as more relevant to their campaigns. It calls for the separation of the delegate apportionment conventions from the general primary, and that the delegate apportionment conventions be set very early in the process so that the competition for Texas support will be essential and the outcome significant.
Other resolutions passed would:
Make it mandatory to record all the votes on every issue in the Texas legislature.
Support the selection of independent committees for the redistricting of Texas with four Democrats, four Republicans and a nonpartisan on the committee.
Create a public forum between Republican and Democratic candidates.
Form a committee to try to recruit people under 30 to join the Democratic party.

source: http://www.brownwoodbulletin.com/articles/2006/03/26/news/news05.txt
---------------
Sunday March 26, 2006
News
County GOP picks delegates to convention
By Curtis Elliott — Brownwood Bulletin

Brown County Republicans named 22 delegates Saturday to represent them at the Texas Republican Convention in San Antonio on June 2-3.
Delegates chosen at the county convention are David Hefner, David Carroll, Brad Locker, Steve Adams, Carl McMillan, Carol Wells, Shirley Keyes, Dorothy Burwick, Jennifer Vickers, Nell Holland, Bett Weedon, Marie Bowman, Margaret Wood, Linda Daugherty, LaJuana Marshall, Sharon Dick, Dallas Kennedy, Chuck Boland, Fred Hallford, Danny Brian, Ann Krpoun and Morey Mast.
Alternates for the convention include Valerie Adams, Mildred McMillan, Grace Hefner, Judy Mast, Mary Louise Brian, Cotton Wood, George Dick, Barbara Wisecup, Patricia Boland, Ginger Locker and Brenda Carroll.
Actions approved were announced by Brown County Chairman Brad Locker and Wanda Furgason.
A resolution was passed at the county convention calling for severe punishment of sex offenders. Second offense sex offenders would be given a mandatory life sentence penalty without parole.
Legislation requiring all county judges be attorneys-at-law in counties with 25,000 or more people was also supported. The resolution pointed out that judicial errors have occurred in the past with serious consequences when legally trained and qualified judges are not serving.
A resolution on insurance coverage was approved. The measure would force those selling insurance policies in Texas to cover individuals for injuries received in any lawful activity, regardless of whether it’s work-related or not.
The county delegates also resolved to support a constitutional amendment requiring all legislative votes, except local and consent issues, be by recorded vote and made accessible to the general public in an easy-to-understand format. Voters would then be able to determine if legislators are doing what they had originally promised in their campaigns.
Another resolution approved supports legislation to reduce class action lawsuits.

source: http://www.brownwoodbulletin.com/articles/2006/03/26/news/news04.txt
--------------
Note from Steve, The Independent Thinkers of Brownwood and surrounding areas met on the Brownwood Square (In front of the Brown County Museum - photo coming soon) and gathered signatures for Kinky Friedman to be put on the Texas Ballot for Governor. The numbers of signatures being gathered may surprise some on the Right and the Left !

What's being Written.......

Letters: The debate over war in Iraq

11:39 AM CST on Sunday, March 26, 2006

I've lost part of my son

President Bush says we will be in Iraq beyond his presidency. He tells us we will be there until victory is achieved but cannot tell us what victory is.
My son is home on leave for the first time in 18 months. He has been to Afghanistan once and Iraq twice. He is 21 and has the empty, soulless eyes of someone who has seen too much. He talks vaguely of killing. He tells of recovering tanks and Humvees still drenched with his buddies' blood. When he did guard duty, he told me, "Don't worry, Mom, we aim low with the kids."
Nine in his unit have been medically discharged with post-traumatic stress syndrome – and these are mechanics.
If you still believe in this president and this war, choose which of your children will be the next to go.
I lost a part of my son over there. That's all you get, America.

Elizabeth Dawson, Red Oak

source: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/letters/stories/DN-3piraq_0326edi.ART.State.Edition1.3e50ba1.html

...and Perry's Robert Black, Sounds like ya'll are "The Pot calling the Kettle Black" !

Strayhorn stops payments, sues Williams Perry team says comptroller playing politics.
By Tara Copp, Jason Embry
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Saturday, March 25, 2006

Early Friday afternoon, Carole Keeton Strayhorn the gubernatorial candidate sued the state's top elections officer, saying the Gov. Rick Perry-appointee was making it too hard for her to get on the ballot.
Late Friday afternoon, Carole Keeton Strayhorn the comptroller stopped state payments to a second controversial Washington lobbying firm whose hiring was approved by the Perry administration.
Robert Black, a Perry campaign spokesman, said Strayhorn was playing politics.
Strayhorn filed a federal lawsuit against Secretary of State Roger Williams to speed up her effort to get on the November ballot as an independent candidate. She is trying to collect 45,540 signatures by May 11 to make an independent run — a hurdle she is expected to clear.
Williams, who is responsible for verifying an independent candidate's signatures, has estimated that it will take up to two months to check them.
Strayhorn's lawsuit asks the court to force Williams to review the signatures more quickly by using statistical sampling, which it claims that state law allows.
The campaign also wants to turn in signatures as they come in, instead of waiting until May 11.
"This guy has gone overboard in throwing up partisan roadblocks," said Brad McClellan, Strayhorn's son and campaign manager.
Williams' office plans to individually review the signatures.
"Given the fact there are multiple individuals vying for a spot on the ballot as an independent, verifying every signature is the surest way to protect the integrity of our elections and confirm the validity of a candidate's name on the ballot," Williams spokesman Scott Haywood said.
Writer and musician Kinky Friedman also is gathering signatures to run as an independent.
Friedman campaign officials will review the lawsuit and then announce whether Friedman will join her as a plaintiff.
Also Friday, the Perry and Strayhorn camps sniped back and forth over private Washington lobbying firms hired by the state.
Earlier this week, Strayhorn, whose office oversees state payments, stopped payments to Cas- sidy & Associates. By Thursday, Strayhorn also said she was stopping payments to another firm, the Federalist Group.
Both the Federalist Group and Cassidy & Associates are paid $15,000 a month to lobby Congress, federal agencies and the White House for Texas, even though the state has seven full-time employees in Washington to do the same thing.
The private firms have come under fire because of ties to indicted U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land, and controversial lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
On Friday, Strayhorn's office said it had discovered that the Federalist Group last fall had directed that payment for some of its 2005 work go to Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide instead. Strayhorn challenged the arrangement, saying that Ogilvy "does not have a contract" with the state, although she acknowledged that the Federalist Group had been acquired by Ogilvy in September 2005.
Perry spokeswoman Kathy Walt said Strayhorn's statements suggested a lack of understanding of the issues.
Walt also questioned whether Strayhorn had actually stopped payments, saying the Federalist Group was paid $10,000 on Thursday. "Her work is so shoddy and incompetent, she didn't even know how to track payments," Walt said.
Will Holford, a spokesman for Strayhorn, fired back, saying flatly, "That is wrong."
"Comptroller Strayhorn stopped that payment March 24 before it was directly deposited into Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide's account," he said.
The day's events drew fire from the Perry camp. "It is clear that Carole Strayhorn has absolutely nothing positive to offer the voters of Texas," Black said.

tcopp@statesman.com; 202-887-8329;
jembry@statesman.com; 445-3654
source: http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/03/25strayhorn.html

Amen, Amen, Amen Mazell Stafford....

Letter to the Editor Waco Tribune Herald

VA benefits necessary

Congress keeps wanting to cut VA benefits. Yet Washington sends more troops to Iraq and other dangerous areas.
That means more combat veterans and more services needed.
If Congress and the president want to cut services and balance the budget, why don't they take a cut in pay, medical coverage and their other perks?
Let a roadside bomb in Iraq cripple them, and then tell them their services are cut.

Mazell Stafford
Waco

source: http://www.wacotrib.com/opin/content/news/opinion/stories/2006/03/24/20060324wacletters24.html

Republican Perry a NO-SHOW: Maybe he was tied up with his " Sugar Daddy ", Dr. James Leininger !

Perry's challengers blast tollway plan at meeting
By The Associated Press
March 24, 2006

SEATON, Texas- Gov. Rick Perry's challengers in the November election took turns Friday attacking his vision for the Trans Texas Corridor, a $184 billion plan to build megahighways around the state.
Appealing to a crowd of mostly rural residents concerned about losing land to the project, Democratic gubernatorial nominee Chris Bell was joined by independent candidates Carole Keeton Strayhorn and Kinky Friedman as he asked the crowd to "fire Rick Perry."
More than 700 residents attended the meeting in Seaton, a town just east of Temple where the first leg of the corridor will likely be built within a few miles.
"Gov. Rick Perry and his land-grabbing highway henchmen want to cram toll roads down Texans' throats," Strayhorn said in Saturday's edition of the Austin American-Statesman.
"In a Strayhorn administration, (the corridor) is going to be blasted off the bureaucratic books."
The proposed first phase of the project, a 300-mile stretch of tollway from San Antonio to the Oklahoma border, would run parallel to Interstate 35.
Texas farmers are worried they'll lose large chunks of land and be inconvenienced if a large highway splits their property. If the corridor is 1,200 feet wide in some areas as planned, a farmer could lose as much as 146 acres per mile, according to the Texas Farm Bureau.
"We need roads, we all know that," said Bell, a former congressman. "What we don't need is to have our land taken away to benefit private business."
The panel was organized by the Blackland Coalition, which formed last year to rally opponents of the plan. To the right of Strayhorn on the stage was a placard and seat for Perry, the Republican incumbent, who was invited but didn't attend.
A board member of the coalition, Inez Cobb, said the area around Seaton went Republican in the mid-1990s but "they better watch their step or it might not be for long."
Perry's spokesman, Robert Black, didn't think opposition to the corridor plan would hurt the governor in November.
"The governor believes that the vast majority of Texans, including rural Texans, understand that with a population expected to double in the next 40 years, the current Texas infrastructure can't handle that increase," Black said. "Something has to happen."
Friedman, the author and entertainer, saved his strongest remarks for the decision to let the Spanish consortium Cintra-Zachary build and run the project.
"It's like having Dubai run the ports of America," he said. "It means we'll be paying tolls to a cowardly Spanish company for 70 years."
Outside the building, volunteers for Friedman and Strayhorn gathered petition signatures to get on the November ballot. Independent candidates for governor must collect 45,540 signatures from registered voters who did not cast ballots in either the Republican or Democratic primaries March 7.
source: http://www.reporternews.com/abil/nw_state/article/0,1874,ABIL_7974_4570054,00.html
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Political trio hits the road – and the governor, too

By Mike Anderson Tribune-Herald staff writer
Saturday, March 25, 2006

SEATON, Texas – Three gubernatorial candidates Friday night raised their voices in a chorus of opposition to the proposed Trans-Texas Corridor and the Republican governor who crafted it.
About a thousand people gathered at Seaton Star Hall, near Temple, to hear speeches by Democratic candidate Chris Bell and independent candidates Carole Keeton Strayhorn and Kinky Friedman focusing on the increasingly controversial transportation plan.
Gov. Rick Perry, who proposed the corridor in 2002 as a way to accommodate the state's projected trade and population growth, didn't attend Friday's event.
The proposed corridor would bisect Texas from the Mexican border to Oklahoma and bring together highways, rail and utility infrastructure in a 1,200-foot-wide tollway. The corridor is expected to parallel Interstate 35 and pass through McLennan County. State highway officials could announce the 10-mile-wide environmental impact study area for the corridor in the next few weeks.
Friday's program was hosted by the Bell County group Blackland Coalition, formed in April 2005 to oppose the corridor plan. Coalition chairman Chris Hammel said the group opposes the proposal in part because it would use eminent domain to acquire private property for the corridor when existing right of way is already available along I-35.
The group also objects to the possibility that a portion of the corridor passing through Central Texas could be operated as a toll road by a Spanish company, Cintra.
Rather than engage in debate, each of the gubernatorial candidates walked to the podium, discussed his or her opposition to Perry's corridor plan, then launched into other issues ranging from crime to school finance before quitting the hall.
Calling Perry's proposal "the Trans-Texas Catastrophe" and "the biggest land grab" in Texas history, state Comptroller Strayhorn said she was adamantly against the tollway project.
"Texas property belongs to Texans, not foreign companies," she said. "You cannot ask Texans to give up their land, then expect them to pay toll to drive their tractors across." Instead, she said, Interstate 35 should be expanded.
Peppering his comments with the humorous one-liners that have characterized his campaign, country-western musician and mystery novelist Kinky Friedman also expressed reservations about the tollway, including its operation by a Spanish firm.
"Folks, this is a bad idea," he said. "It's like having Dubai run the ports of America. I have an idea. Instead of the Trans-Texas Corridor, take four highways across Texas, name them after Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Bob Wills and Buddy Holly, none of them toll roads."
Friedman then talked about biodiesel fuel, an alternative fuel touted widely by Nelson.
Like Strayhorn, Bell criticized Perry for going to court to withhold details of the state contract with Cintra. He said Perry's handling of the corridor proposal has led many Texans to distrust their state government. He suggested the plan ought to be put on hold and taken to the Legislature to rework.
"I think the Trans-Texas Corridor is a product of the culture of corruption," Bell said. "Rick Perry's toll road boondoggle doesn't make any sense except for the road builders who've poured money into his campaign coffers."
Falls County resident Calvin Whatley said he was afraid the proposed corridor would cut through the farm that has been in his family 145 years.
"The main thing we are after is anything that will prevent this damnable highway," he said, adding that this included supporting anyone who could defeat Perry in the November election.
Milam County resident Stanley Glaser echoed Whatley's sentiments but said he also feared Friday night's trio of candidates will split the vote and ensure Perry's victory.
Hammel said the coalition invited Perry to speak at the event but never received a response from his campaign. Hammel said he believes Perry might have been afraid he would be ambushed by three candidates and a room full of people who oppose a project he proposed.
"If the governor came and wanted to defend the Trans-Texas Corridor, it would be our responsibility as hosts to make sure he got an open opportunity to share his views," Hammel said. "You get 1,000 people in a room, you can't guarantee someone won't give a catcall or something, but we would try to make sure that didn't happen."
Perry campaign manager Robert Black said Perry's absence was driven by pressing duties in the public school funding crisis rather than any fear of being ganged up on by corridor opponents and gubernatorial rivals.
"It's more of a situation that we are a few weeks from a special session and that is where his focus is right now," Black said. "However, this group does tend to be particularly hostile towards finding solutions to the transportation needs of Texas."
Hammel said the coalition has formed a political action committee and plans to again invite each of the four candidates to speak on separate occasions as the governor's race progresses. Based on their comments, the group will then pick one to endorse and will contribute campaign funds, he said.
Sixty-two corridor opponents contributed money to the PAC Friday night, Hammel said.

manderson@wacotrib.com
757-5741
source: http://www.wacotrib.com/news/content/news/stories/2006/03/25/20060325wactranstexas.html
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Perry's Sugar Daddy Too ?

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What does a "Sugar Daddy" Look Like ?

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Perry's trip is a fond memory — for his foes
2 years after Bahamas powwow, school finance still on a slow boat.
By W. Gardner Selby
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Friday, February 17, 2006

Two years ago this week, Gov. Rick Perry flew by private jet to the Bahamas to relax and chat with advisers about politics and school finance.
"The governor is a very serious scuba diver," Grover Norquist, a Washington tax cut advocate who joined Perry at Elbow Cay, said this week. "I managed not to drown."
Norquist, like others there, insisted there was ample substance to the gathering.
Perry's trip, costing taxpayers nothing except $4,000 for security, preceded by two months a failed special legislative session called by the Republican governor. The session amounted to one in a series of stalled tries by GOP leaders to reduce school property taxes and tie increases in spending to better school management and gains in student achievement.
And the trip lingers as at least a potential campaign thorn, though Perry last month dismissed an opponent's charge that the four-day retreat — with Perry's travel, lodging and meals paid for by two long-time supporters — exemplified an unholy allegiance to moneyed interests.
On Thursday, independent gubernatorial candidate Carole Keeton Strayhorn's campaign issued a press release underscoring the anniversary of the "mid-winter trip to the tropics."
In December, Democratic challenger Bob Gammage kicked off his campaign by showing a photograph of a boat he called similar to the craft employed by Perry's party. "We don't need a state government run from yachts," Gammage said. "I will make policy in the state Capitol, not in the Bahamas."
Gammage, a former Texas Supreme Court justice, is pitted in the March 7 Democratic primary against former U.S. Rep. Chris Bell and Rashad Jafer, a sales manager.
Perry later called Gammage's tack "a huge mistake. If he doesn't have any other vision for the state of Texas than to complain about somewhere I have gone, as totally and absolutely ethical and legal as it was, I think he's going be an absolute bomb as a candidate."
Perry, who's expected to call a special session on school finance after the primaries, has lately been preparing by huddling on taxes with clutches of legislators in Houston, Austin, San Antonio, Lubbock and Abilene, with more to come.
John Sharp, named by Perry to lead the Texas Tax Reform Commission, said Perry hunts advice and consensus. "We don't want to show up on the first day of the session and surprise anyone," Sharp said.
Rep. Jim Keffer, R-Eastland, chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, welcomes the outreach, saying: "They are not going to try to force anything down anyone's throat. That was the problem in the past, going in and breaking arms and rolling over people."
In the 2004 session, House members joined Keffer in unanimously rejecting Perry's tax proposal, portions of which were likely mulled in the Bahamas.
Perry's plan would have lowered school property taxes by raising the cigarette tax, tightening corporate franchise and auto sales tax collections, legalizing video lottery terminals at horse and dog tracks and imposing a $5 entry fee at topless clubs.
Performance carrot
The Bahamas trip, which came to light in The Dallas Morning News, involved lengthy discussions and chances for Perry to scuba dive. Norquist said he personally plunged 100 feet down, spotting sharks, barracuda and underwater caves.
Judicial Watch, a watchdog group, complained to the Texas Ethics Commission, which found that Perry didn't spend campaign funds for personal use, which would have been a violation of state law.
Perry told the panel: "I made a decision that in order to best facilitate my office's development of politically viable educational policy I would need to get together with a select group of political and technical advisors in a setting removed from daily distractions."
Along on the trip were James Leininger of San Antonio, a proponent of government vouchers enabling public school students to attend private schools, and Brooke Rollins, president and CEO of the anti-tax Texas Public Policy Foundation.
Rollins recently called the locale "unusual," but said the gathering was productive. "I'll jump at any opportunity to have that kind of conversation."
Norquist, who heads Americans for Tax Reform, which champions state and federal tax cuts, said Perry came out of the trip comfortable with ideas that remain worthy of becoming law — including the view that school spending increases shouldn't happen without gains in educational accountability. Perry, he said, "took a lot of barbs and arrows from people who wanted to talk about half of it — money (for schools) without reforms. He became stronger politically because he hung tough with a good idea."
Proposals presented by Perry that year included $511 million a year for initiatives to elevate student achievement. Perry also proposed $5,000 stipends for teachers bolstering students in struggling schools.
Airing the issues
The ethics commission judged Perry's activities on the Bahamas trip — conversations touching on taxes, education, presidential politics and congressional activity — "clearly related" to his duties as a candidate and officeholder.
In retrospect, a Judicial Watchcq spokesman said, Perry still should have sidestepped letting campaign donors subsidize the trip. Russell Verney, director of the group's Dallas office, said: "There weren't enough Texans vacationing in the Bahamas at that time to justify a campaign trip. It was a personal trip, it should have been (entirely) paid for personally."
Conceding there's been no public outcry to date, Verney added: "Elections are to air issues like this and let the public be the judge."
Perry's chief political consultant, Dave Carney, suggested that the Bahamas' trip retains only two political implications. It gives Gammage "something to say," he said "and it gives the cranks something to attack, criticize and talk about without having to actually come up with a plan or an idea of their own. Negativity has never won an election."
State business better in the Bahamas?
Gov. Rick Perry and his wife, Anita, went with supporters and aides to the Bahamas for Presidents' Day Weekend in February 2004. Perry's gubernatorial challengers have derided the trip.
What it cost
•Air travel donated by John Nau III: $2,435
•Meals, lodging donated by James Leininger: $2,968
•State-funded expenses filed by security retinue (six troopers): $4,200, including:
Rental of golf carts : $180
Rental of scuba diving equipment: $226
Cell phone/phone card rental : $666
Some of those who went
•Gov. Rick Perry
•Anita Perry, first lady of Texas
•Grover Norquist, Washington tax cut champion
•James Leininger, San Antonio proponent of enabling disadvantaged public school students to attend private schools with government money
•Brooke Rollins, president and CEO of the pro-small government Texas Public Policy Foundation
•John Nau III, Houston beer distributor
•Mike Toomey, then Perry's chief of staff
•Deirdre Delisi, then governor's deputy chief of staff
•Mike Morrissey, governor's budget and planning director
•Dave Carney, Perry's chief campaign consultant

Sources: Interviews, published accounts and expense reports of Department of Public Safety troopers
source: http://www.statesman.com/search/content/news/stories/local/02/17bahamas.html

Happy Birthday Anita Bryant. You & I share the same Birthday, Love Steve Harris

Today in History - March 25
By The Associated Press
The Associated Press
Friday, March 24, 2006; 7:01 PM

Today is Saturday, March 25, the 84th day of 2006. There are 281 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History:
On March 25, 1965, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. led 25,000 marchers to the state capitol in Montgomery, Ala., to protest the denial of voting rights to blacks.
On this date:
In 1634, Maryland was founded by English colonists sent by the second Lord Baltimore.
In 1865, during the Civil War, Confederate forces captured Fort Stedman in Virginia.
In 1894, Jacob S. Coxey began leading an "army" of unemployed from Massillon, Ohio, to Washington to demand help from the federal government.
In 1911, 146 immigrant workers were killed when fire broke out at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company in New York.
In 1913, the home of vaudeville, the Palace Theatre, opened in New York City.
In 1918, French composer Claude Debussy died in Paris.
In 1947, a coal mine explosion in Centralia, Ill., claimed 111 lives.
In 1957, the Treaty of Rome established the European Economic Community.
In 1975, King Faisal of Saudi Arabia was shot to death by a nephew with a history of mental illness. (The nephew was beheaded in June 1975.)
In 1990, 87 people, most of them Honduran and Dominican immigrants, were killed when fire raced through an illegal social club in New York City.
Ten years ago: An 81-day standoff by the anti-government Freemen began at a ranch near Jordan, Mont. "Braveheart" won Academy Awards for best picture and best director Mel Gibson; Nicolas Cage won best actor for "Leaving Las Vegas," Susan Sarandon won best actress for "Dead Man Walking." The redesigned $100 bill went into circulation.
Five years ago: At the 73rd Academy Awards, "Gladiator" won best picture; its star, Russell Crowe, won best actor; Julia Roberts won best actress for "Erin Brockovich"; Steven Soderbergh won best director for "Traffic."
One year ago: Losing still more legal appeals, Terri Schiavo's father, Bob Schindler, said his severely brain-damaged daughter was "down to her last hours" as she entered her second week without the feeding tube that had sustained her life for 15 years. An ailing, silent Pope John Paul appeared to the faithful via video for Good Friday services at the Vatican.
Today's Birthdays: Modeling agency founder Eileen Ford is 84. Former astronaut James Lovell is 78. Movie reviewer Gene Shalit is 74. Feminist activist and author Gloria Steinem is 72. Singer Anita Bryant is 66. Singer Aretha Franklin is 64. Actor Paul Michael Glaser is 63. Singer Elton John is 59. Actress Bonnie Bedelia is 58. Singer Nick Lowe is 57. Actress-comedian Mary Gross is 53. Actor James McDaniel is 48. Rock musician Steve Norman (Spandau Ballet) is 46. Actress Brenda Strong is 46. Actor-writer-director John Stockwell is 45. Actress Marcia Cross is 44. Actress Lisa Gay Hamilton is 42. Actress Sarah Jessica Parker is 41. Singer-musician Jeff Healey is 40. Olympic bronze medal figure skater Debi Thomas is 39. Singer Melanie Blatt (All Saints) is 31. Auto racer Danica Patrick is 24.
Thought for Today: "Believe those who are seeking the truth; doubt those who find it." _ Andre Gide, French author and critic (1869-1951).

source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/24/AR2006032401579.html
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Note from Steve, Anita Bryant would be welcome at our table any time and yes we would be serving fresh Pineapple !

We Support The Pat Tillman Foundation & The Tillman Family

The Tillman Foundation Values

Passion
We undertake this work in memory of Pat Tillman. We believe in the vision Pat held for his future and we are dedicated to ensuring the continuation of his legacy.

Respect
We value equality, dignity and fairness. We take responsibility for our own successes and failures and want to earn the trust of others. We will treat other equitably and fairly, respecting the diversity of our communities and the dignity of each individual.

Integrity
We act ethically and honorably. We believe in being open and honest in all dealings with donors, employees, board members and the community at large. We want to be held accountable to the highest standards of professionalism and reliability in all that we do.

Commitment
We are dedicated to ensuring that individuals striving to improve their lives and the lives of those around them have the freedom in which to do so.

Excellence
We work to identify superior partnerships and collaborations and operate in an efficient and cost-effective manner.

Visit the Foundation's site here

QUOTE

"During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." ~George Orwell

QUOTE

"The first casualty when war comes is truth." ~ Hiram Johnson

Pat Tillman Editorial from the Conservative Palm Beach Post

More Tillman coverup ?

Palm Beach Post Editorial
Tuesday, March 07, 2006

Pat Tillman's mother says: "The military has had every opportunity to do the right thing, and they haven't. They knew all along that something was seriously wrong, and they just wanted to cover it up." Mary Tillman's assessment is harsh — and accurate.
Her son, who became a recruiting icon when he left the National Football League to join the Army after 9/11, died two years ago next month during a firefight in Afghanistan. The Army never has provided a satisfactory account of his death by friendly fire. Just as bad, the Pentagon never has provided a satisfactory account of how officials tried to conceal the way Cpl. Tillman died.
The Army on Saturday announced that it will open a new investigation to see whether members of his unit were guilty of criminal negligence when they opened fire without verifying that they were shooting at the enemy.
But there would be limited satisfaction in bringing criminal charges against combat soldiers. The Army should be equally concerned with providing full details about the coverup.
In the most egregious abuse, the Army already knew that Cpl. Tillman had died from friendly fire when it turned a nationally televised memorial service that painted him as the victim of an enemy ambush into an exercise in propaganda. Too much about what has happened in Afghanistan and Iraq never has been adequately explained. Cpl. Tillman's family deserve answers. So does the rest of the country.

source: http://www.palmbeachpost.com/opinion/content/opinion/epaper/2006/03/07/m12a_tillman_edit_0307_1.html

Can Brownwoodians Handle the Truth as it relates to Pat Tillman ?

Are steroid mess, Tillman's death truths too tough for us to handle ?

UNION-TRIBUNE
March 24, 2006

In two distinct but equally disturbing roles, Jack Nicholson has told us we can't handle the truth and that women are like men except for reason and accountability.
Wrong on both counts.
Current events keep reminding us that the truth is often more easily fathomed than it is found; that sweeping scandal and terrible tragedy can be digested, even forgiven, but that men are still prone to avoid accountability as if it were diaper duty.
Baseball's slow-breaking response to its steroid problems and the government's egregious boot-dragging concerning the 2004 death of Pat Tillman provide vivid illustrations of how clumsiness is exacerbated by conspiracy; how mistakes become something more sinister when camouflaged by a cover-up.
With “Game of Shadows” now in bookstores, the depth and breadth of baseball's steroid problem finds the industry and the implicated still unable to confront the facts.
Barry Bonds is talking baseball and baseball only. Gary Sheffield has announced he has “moved on.” No wonder. Were either man to confirm the steroid allegations contained in this book, it would be tantamount to admitting they perjured themselves before a grand jury.
Improbably, but predictably, Griffey can't seem to remember the conversation. He and Bonds are friends – second-generation ballplayers who have each surpassed their famous fathers – and there's little to be gained from squealing.
Furthermore, Griffey has continually resisted efforts to emphasize his own example of nature-based slugging. Though juiced sluggers eroded his eminence in the 1990s, and though some of his associates were quick to repeat incriminating hearsay about Bonds, Junior has sought to stay above the fray. He was doing pretty well at it, too, until the long-leaked dinner story found its way into print.
Last week, at a World Baseball Classic workout in Fullerton, Griffey reiterated that role-modeling is a place for parents, not ballplayers, and said baseball lost interest in him as a spokesman after his performance was undermined by injuries.
Griffey has chosen to stay silent on the subject of steroids rather than risk being seen as sanctimonious. He held his tongue as McGwire, Sosa and Bonds erased home run records that might have been his had he stayed healthy.
If Griffey has missed an opportunity to serve the greater good by speaking out, there is a certain nobility to his stoic stance. Pat Tillman, too, preferred to be judged by his deeds rather than his words. When he renounced a $3.6 million pro football contract to take up the search for Osama Bin Laden as an Army Ranger, Tillman resisted all efforts to celebrate his patriotism.
He gave no interviews. He promoted no products. He heard a call to arms in the aftermath of 9/11, and he steadfastly refused to be singled out for serving his country.
The tragic circumstances of Tillman's death – by the friendly fire of his fellow Rangers – in no way diminishes his sacrifice, his selflessness, his courage or his inspiration. But the ideals Tillman embodied were dishonored by the early, duplicitous reports of his death. The truth got trampled.
Earlier this month, the Army announced a fourth investigation into Tillman's death, this one designed to assess the possibility of “criminal negligence” and to ascertain the responsibility and rationale for the fictional press release and Silver Star commendation that were fed to the American public.
At least several days preceding Tillman's May 3, 2004, memorial service, the details of his demise were known at high levels of the chain of command, including Gen. John P. Abizaid, head of the U.S. central command. Yet Tillman's parents were not informed that their son had been a victim of fratricide for more than a month.
Critical evidence – Tillman's bloody uniform and body armor – was burned, ostensibly because it posed a “biohazard.” The parents now believe their son was used for propaganda purposes; that his example proved useful to an administration reeling from hard tidings on the war front.
Seven soldiers have been reprimanded for their role in Tillman's death, for failing to provide “adequate command control,” or “failure to exercise sound judgment and fire discipline.” But the blame for embellishing the story certainly goes higher than the grunts on the ground. Most likely, it goes much higher.
“After it happened, all the people in positions of authority went out of their way to script this,” Tillman's father, Patrick, told The Washington Post. “They purposely interfered with the investigation, they covered it up. I think they thought they could control it, and they realized that their recruiting efforts were going to go to hell in a handbasket if the truth about his death got out. They blew up their poster boy.”
Some truths are hard to handle. But they're still better than lies.

Tim Sullivan: (619) 293-1033; tim.sullivan@uniontrib.com
source: http://www.signonsandiego.com/sports/sullivan/20060324-9999-1s24sullivan.html
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Sunday, March 12, 2006

Get Pat Tillman's story right

MARGARET CARLSON
BLOOMBERG NEWS

How many investigations does it take to get to the bottom of the sad story of Pat Tillman, the Army Ranger and former star football player for the Arizona Cardinals who died in Afghanistan in 2004?
As many as it takes to get it right. Under pressure, the Army has held three so far and said last week it was embarking upon two more. One is a review of previous investigations that have the smell of a cover-up. The second is a criminal probe into possible charges of negligent homicide.
Tillman's body was riddled with so many bullets, it raises the question of whether someone was "firing a weapon when they should not have been," Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said March 5 on "Meet the Press."
What we know so far is that the Bush administration approached Tillman's death the way it deals with most information that doesn't make it look good -- with secrecy, deceit and delay. The president's crew thought the tactics used on most people, including members of Congress, would work with grieving parents of a famous recruit.
The Army initially put out an account of a firefight that had Tillman dying at the hands of a fierce enemy along the mountainous Pakistani border. It awarded him a Silver Star and Purple Heart posthumously. The public was riveted by the heartbreaking story of a young man who gave up a multimillion-dollar pro football contract to go fight for his country after 9/11 and was cut down at age 27.
It still is heartbreaking but not the story as told. It took five weeks for the military to quietly issue a statement that Tillman had "probably" died from friendly fire. By then, the Army had staged the show it wanted. Tillman's flag-draped coffin was saluted by hundreds of mourners in a nationally televised ceremony. President Bush called his loss tragic and Tillman "an inspiration on and off the football field."
You can see the Army's motive in "erring" in its first account. In a war that's losing public support, the military searches for heroes wherever it can find them. It's why they built Army Priv. Jessica Lynch into a female Terminator with guns blazing until she recovered enough to eventually tell the less dramatic version of her wounding in Iraq.
She's a hero, nonetheless, like the thousands of kids in harm's way. The truth just wasn't good enough for the military.
Tillman, who would have insisted on telling the truth, wasn't around to do so, so the Army brass kept its secret as long as it could. Maybe they always knew it was a short-term fix, or maybe they didn't count on his parents and Sen. John McCain, who spoke at the memorial service and had been duped as well, demanding an accounting.
Many grieving parents don't. Imagine what the parents of non-celebrities have to do to get attention from the government.
While the record is still incomplete, the events of April 22, 2004, pieced together from witness statements obtained by The Washington Post, bear little relation to that first report by the Army.
Tillman's death was indeed dramatic: He probably knew it was coming, and could do nothing to stop it.
The fatal error occurred when Tillman's commander split his platoon in two, separating them by a canyon across which cell phones didn't work. It was dusk and hard to see who was part of a group of ambushing Afghans and who wasn't.
Tillman's platoon ended up getting shot at by the half left behind. Although he repeatedly screamed "cease fire," waved his arms and sent off a flare to identify his group as friendly, his efforts were interpreted by some as hostile acts and went unnoticed by others. Hundreds of rounds of machine-gun fire hit Tillman's group. Three Americans were wounded. Tillman was killed.
Although Bush, whose policy is to hide returning coffins from public sight, broke his silence to extol Tillman, he has yet to acknowledge that the military publicized a tale that wasn't true about a tragedy that was.
This is of a piece with the sophisticated and massive Bush propaganda operation, which, according to a partial review by the non-partisan Government Accountability Office, has spent an astounding $1.6 billion in the last 30 months on spinning and weaving events, including paying journalists to write laudatory op-ed pieces and filming fake newscasts. Of that amount, the Pentagon spent $1.1 billion.
Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the story was how reflexively the Pentagon chose dishonesty, and for how little reason. This wasn't a lie told to confuse the enemy or protect the troops or honor Tillman, who doesn't need fakery or flackery to make him a hero.
It makes you wonder whether government deception has taken such root and flourishes so readily that no specific instructions are needed. Are there standing orders to invent and then defend a lie to burnish the commander-in-chief, or did a bunch of officials get together and think this one up? Does anyone any longer know that there are things about which you absolutely must tell the truth, so help you God, with no resort to your PR machine?
If a soldier is taught he can't lie to his superiors but they can lie to the public to protect those higher up, what kind of citizens does our Army send home to us? War is hell, whether a patriot like Tillman dies at the hands of the enemy or because of a mistake. Not even a billion dollars can cover that up.

Margaret Carlson is a columnist for Bloomberg News; mcarlson3@bloomberg.net
source: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/262582_carlson12.html
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News

No One’s Martyr
A new probe spawns debate over the mysterious

By David McRaney
March 21, 2006

In the dead of night on April 22, 2004, deep in the mine-pocked desert of Afghanistan, a group of United States Army Rangers stood silent around a bonfire.
We will never know what went through their minds as the blaze licked the air between them. We can imagine the flames illuminated their stoic faces as they avoided eye contact. We can assume they stood with their rifles slung low, shifting their body weight and scratching to spend nervous energy. We can almost see them now, alone out there on the sands with one shared purpose for the night - destroying the evidence.
It wasn’t Pat Tillman’s body in the fire; it was his armor and later his uniform, the result of panic within his unit. Two of his fellow Rangers were wounded, a member of the Afghan militia was dead. The blood of a great football hero, the famous patriot, was on all their hands. But for weeks, only a handful of people would know how and why he was killed.
The U.S. Department of Defense announced March 4 they had reopened the case by launching a new criminal investigation into Tillman’s death. This, now the fourth inquiry into the matter, will focus on the cover-up that began before the body was cold.
EVERYONE’S CAUSE
Tillman, born in San Jose Calif., started his college career as a linebacker for Arizona State University in 1994. Proving to be an extraordinary athlete, breaking records and standing out from the crowd, he was drafted by the Arizona Cardinals in 1998. In May 2002, eight months after the 9/11 attacks, he turned down multi-million dollar signing deal and left a promising NFL career to join the U.S. Army.
Failure came swift for most who attempted to advance their cause through Tillman’s death.
Journalists who called him a "dumb jock" and wrote columns about how he was a "macho man" brainwashed by the Bush regime were forced to apologize when they learned he had a 3.8 GPA, majored in accounting and was fond of both Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. He had even arranged after his tour of duty to meet with Noam Chomsky, an often-quoted MIT professor who remains a key figure among the left wing of American politics.
Those who sought to build a hero and wrote of Tillman as an example of what constitutes true patriotism suffered the same fate. Bush referred to him as an "inspiration" at Tillman’s televised memorial. His fellow soldiers remember him campaigning for John Kerry and speaking out against the war. His brother said Tillman was not with God because he was not a religious man.
Then, with both sides circling his story for meaning, the military admitted he did not die in a prolonged firefight with the enemy as his family had been told weeks earlier; instead, he had been shot in the head by his own men after repeatedly screaming out his name and pleading for them to cease fire.
It was a killing blow for the campaign to canonize his image. His family soon spoke out about how they were deceived by the military, their anguish turning into rage.
STRUGGLE TO UNDERSTAND
"If you feel you are being lied to, you can never put it to rest," Tillman’s mother, Mary, explained to the Washington Post. "It makes you feel like you are losing your mind."
The recent decision to reopen the case may be result of the Tillman family’s relentless effort to inform the public about how his death was used as a propaganda tool in an official story based on intentional lies.
"It has been a cover-up from the start," said Tillman’s mother. "The military has had every opportunity to do the right thing and they haven't."
The family and their supporters, including Sen. John McCain, believe the truth was covered up on purpose. They believe someone in the Bush administration allowed the Tillman memorial service to continue, all the while knowing he had been snuffed out by American bullets.
Tillman’s father still believes the Army wished only to protect their image. He told the Washington Post, "After it happened, all the people in positions of authority went out of their way to script this.
"They purposely interfered with the investigation. They thought they could control it, and they realized their recruiting efforts were going to hell in a hand basket if the truth about his death got out," he said. "They blew up their poster boy."
In their initial inquiry in May 2004, Brig. Gen. Gary M. Jones revealed Army investigators were aware of the nature of Tillman’s death days after the incident, yet senior officials still approved the awarding of the Silver Star, the Purple Heart and a posthumous promotion from Specialist to Corporal. The citation report accompanying these awards said Tillman was killed by enemy forces and contained a detailed description of a battle Army leadership knew had never taken place.
After pressure from the family and Sen. McCain, an inquiry launched in May 2005 concluded there had been no "official reluctance" to report the truth.
A RELUCTANT HERO
Tillman’s skills had been lauded in the press long before he became a national news story.
Sports Illustrated, among many others, took notice of the tenacious young athlete who seemed to defy convention by writing, "Most football players fit into a box. They're big, fast and strong… they submit to authority without resistance…Then there is Arizona State senior linebacker Pat Tillman, who not only doesn't fit into the box but also would have to consult a travel agent to find it."
In high school, he often defied his coach, running unapproved plays and improvising on the field. At 5-feet-11-inches and 195 pounds, it was likely he would be passed over by most college coaches anyway.
According to Sports Illustrated, Tillman was once asked by Sun Devils coach Bruce Snyder what he thought of the recruiting process. "It stinks," Tillman said. "Nobody tells the truth."
The following August, he told Snyder he wouldn’t take part in redshirting, the tradition of training an incoming freshman for one year before putting them into play. Tillman told Snyder he had things to do with his life adding, "You can do whatever you want with me, but in four years, I'm gone."
At Arizona State, Tillman progressed from special-teams madman as a freshman to situational sub as a sophomore to defensive standout as a junior. He had the second-most tackles and most interceptions, pass deflections and fumble recoveries on the team
By the time Tillman had grown his close-cropped hair into a flowing, golden mane, Sports Illustrated was referring to him as the best player in the country who didn’t have his own award campaign.
After being named the league's defensive player of the year, he told the magazine, "Dude, I'm proud of the things I've done, my schoolwork - because I'm not smart; I just worked hard."
Tillman added, "But it doesn't do me any good to be proud. It's better to just force myself to be naive about things, because otherwise I'll start being happy with myself, and then I'll stand still, and then I'm old news."
Tillman looked like a surfer but was fond of jumping through the forest from treetop to treetop like Tarzan minus a rope. He played football like an insatiable beast, but he majored in marketing. He wasn’t religious, but he often circled passages of the Bible, Torah and other such texts, sending them to friends so they could discuss the implications.
After being drafted by Arizona State, Tillman was arrested and charged as a juvenile for felony assault. He had defended a friend in front of a Pizza Hut at 17, reducing the 20-year-old attacker to a pulp. In the summer of '94, he served 30 days in a juvenile detention facility. His conviction was reduced to a misdemeanor upon his release – two weeks before his first college football practice.
"I'm proud of that chapter in my life," Tillman said. "I'm not proud of what happened, but I'm proud that I learned more from that one bad decision than all the good decisions I've ever made. I'm proud that nobody found out, because I didn't want to come to Arizona State with people thinking that I was a hoodlum, because I'm not. It made me realize that stuff you do has repercussions. You can lose everything."
In 2001, Tillman turned down a $9 million, five-year offer from the Super Bowl champion St. Louis Rams to remain with the Arizona Cardinals. The next year, he turned down a three-year, $3.6 million contract with the Cardinals to enlist in the Army. Most assumed he had been moved in the wake of 9/11.
"My great grandfather was at Pearl Harbor," he told NBC News soon after the attack on the towers. "I really haven’t done a damn thing as far as laying myself on the line like that."
Tillman had played four seasons with the Cardinals before he enlisted for a three-year stint in the Army with his younger brother Kevin. He told Sports Illustrated he would return to the NFL after his service.
Both denied requests for media coverage of their basic training and deployments. Officials said the two wanted no special treatment or attention – they wanted to be considered soldiers doing their duty.
THE BATTLE
A number of accounts have surfaced after three inquiries into Tillman’s death. This much is clear, something went terribly wrong on the battlefield.
According to testimony, on April 22, 2004, a Humvee in the 30-member A Company, 2nd battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment led by Lieutenant David Uthlaut, broke down as the unit drove towards Manah, south of Kabul.
The patrol halted and took up defensive positions while attempting to repair the vehicle.
After failing to revive the Humvee, the patrol split in two. The forward unit moved ahead while the rear unit followed towing the disabled jeep with a truck. The rear group was about 15 minutes behind in a deep ravine, out of visual and radio contact, when they believed they were ambushed.
Tillman left the forward group and headed back with another Ranger and an Afghan militiaman. He set up on the side of the ravine opposite where enemy fire was supposedly coming from. The Afghan and Tillman rose from cover to shoot at the enemy’s position. His fire drew the attention of the rear group in the ravine, and they answered with every weapon they had.
The Afghan was killed instantly. Tillman, fellow soldiers testified, waved his arms, yelled "cease fire" and set off a smoke grenade to signal he was not an enemy.
A soldier in the ravine called for a cease fire. When the firing stopped, Tillman and his colleague stood up. Then, for reasons still unclear, the shooting resumed. Tillman’s body armor was riddled with "numerous" hits.
One soldier testified, "I could hear the pain in his voice as he called out, 'Cease fire, friendlies! I'm Pat f----ing Tillman, dammit.' He said this repeatedly until he fell, hit by three bullets in the forehead."
Later, they would burn his bloody, bullet-punched body armor and uniform.
A CONFUSING MEMORIAL
Despite knowing much of the particulars of Tillman’s death, officials pressed forward with his televised, emotionally-charged, patriotism-soaked memorial service. But already something stirred among those who knew Tillman best.
Maria Schriver, wife of California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, read from a letter written by her husband, "I was told he admired me but it's the reverse. Pat's journey, that's the American dream, and he sacrificed that. That to me is a real hero."
Shriver went on to quote John F. Kennedy.
"My uncle once said, 'Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.' You, Pat, have lived those words," she said.
"It was an honor to coach Pat," former Cardinals assistant coach Larry Marmie said. "I learned a lot from him. Players often look for the respect from their coaches. I found myself trying to earn Pat's respect."
His brother-in-law and close friend, Alex Garwood, came to the ceremony dressed as a woman. "We had two godfathers, no godmother,'' Garwood explained.
His brother Rich attended in a plain white shirt and blue jeans. When he reached the podium he cursed and ranted in an unprepared speech telling the audience, "Thank you for your thoughts, but he’s f----ing dead."
The ceremony at the San Jose Municipal Garden concluded with an excerpt from one of Tillman’s favorite Emerson quotes, "It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great person is one who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.''
It wasn’t long before detractors, sickened by the iconography, spoke out.
The Portland, Ore., chapter of Indymedia.org posted the news of Tillman's death accompanied by a headline reading, "Dumb Jock Killed in Afghanistan." Comments on the website suggested alternate titles for the piece, like "Privileged Millionaire, Blinded by Nationalist Mythology, Pisses Away the Good Life," and "Capitalist Chooses to Kill Innocents Instead of Cashing Check." The Urbana-Champaign, Ill., chapter ran an article about Tillman with a headline reading, "Pat Tillman is gone good riddance." A commenter wrote, "I saw the Post this morning, on the front page. It was sickening. They built this guy up like he was Audie Murphy or something, publishing this foto of him in his Ranger getup, all tough-looking and stony-jawed, like a god----' recruiting ad ... Puke-o-rama. Cold as it may sound, 'Dumb Jock Dies for Pipeline in Afghanistan' pretty much sums it up."
Most of the websites and news organizations have since apologized publicly for their ignorance after statements from Tillman like one calling the war in Iraq "so f----ing illegal" surfaced. In the initial inquiry it was revealed Tillman joined the Army specifically to fight Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, but was sent to participate in the invasion of Iraq against his wishes.
As before, Tillman defied those who would jump to conclusions about his motives.
THE NEW INQUIRY
Now Tillman is once again being studied.
His family, who refuses to give in, want to know what did Donald Rumsfeld know about Tillman's death and when did he know it? They suggest if Army Ranger commanders and the Army Secretary knew Tillman was killed in a fratricide, Rumsfeld must have known too.
When Tillman first joined the Army, Rumsfeld personally commended him with a signed letter. If Rumsfeld knew the nature of Tillman's killing in April, 2004, some believe he directed the obfuscation of the truth.
"There have been so many discrepancies so far that it’s hard to know what to believe," Mary Tillman told the San Francisco Chronicle. "There are too many murky details." The files the family received from the Army about Tillman’s death are heavily censored, with blacked-out sections and deleted names on almost every page.
"I want to know what kind of criminal intent there was," Mary Tillman told the Chronicle.
Tillman’s father added, "In Washington, I don’t think any of them want it investigated. They (politicians and Army officials) just don’t want to see it ended with them, landing on their desk so they get blamed for the cover-up."
THE MAN, THE METAPHOR
Russell Baer who served with Tillman told sfgate.com Tillman encouraged him in his ambitions as an amateur poet. "I would read him my poems, and we would talk about them," Baer said. "He helped me grow as an individual."
Other soldiers remember Tillman created a makeshift base library of classic novels so his platoon mates would have literature to read in their down time.
Baer also told sfgate.com Tillman was popular among his fellow soldiers recalling, "The guys who killed Pat were his biggest fans."
The Cardinals retired Tillman’s No. 40 and named the plaza surrounding the new stadium under construction in suburban Glendale the "Pat Tillman Freedom Plaza."
Arizona State retired Tillman’s No. 42 jersey and placed his name on the honor ring at Sun Devil Stadium.
A highway bypass around the Hoover Dam will have a bridge bearing Tillman's name. When completed in 2008, it will span the Colorado River between Nevada and Arizona.
Pat Tillman's high school in San Jose, Calif., renamed its football field after him.
His family remains hopeful this new investigation will prove the U.S. government lied about his death for one reason; they created a hero, and then they killed him.
Tillman's former roommate, Zack Walz, took a newspaper clipping to the podium at the memorial and read about how his teammates made up faux dog tags for themselves years ago, declaring their unit a band of warriors.
"Soldiers, battlers, lay it on the line,'' Walz said, weeping. "What the hell did we know? Listen to the words. Listen to the metaphors. How hollow they ring."
source: http://www.studentprintz.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2006/03/21/441f8e689e4e4

What really happened to Pat Tillman ? Why would you "Not" hear about this on the Brownwood airwaves ?

What really happened to Pat Tillman ?
By CHARLES LAURENCE
19mar06

PRIVATE Pat Tillman, 27 and all-American hero to the soles of his boots, died in a lonely ravine in Afghanistan -- killed by his own men.

Like so many others, Tillman's patrol was ambushed by Taliban and al-Qaida fighters as it approached Manah village in the south of the country.
Tillman died in a hail of bullets, his family and country were told, bravely fighting their common enemy. His death galvanised America in the President Bush's so-called War Against Terror. As he had lived, so he had died -- the hero featured in news dispatches at home.
But the truth was that, in a confused and terrified state during the ambush, his men had turned their guns on him.
He was a victim of "friendly fire". Or was he murdered?
Strikingly good-looking Tillman had been a professional football player on a multi-million dollar contract. When he joined the elite Army Rangers he was hailed as an example of all that was good in American men: he had turned his back on a millionaire lifestyle to fight those responsible for the terrorist attacks on the US on September 11, 2001.
The truth of his death emerged only when Tillman's regiment, the 75th Rangers, was due to return to the US and commanders feared the real story would get out.
There have been three military inquiries into the tragedy, but last week a fourth probe was announced, this time by the army's criminal investigations division. Disturbingly, it will ask whether Tillman was murdered.
The sequence of events that led to Tillman's death on April 22, 2004, began with the breakdown of a Humvee military vehicle as the 30-strong A Company, 2nd battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, led by Lieutenant David Uthlaut, made its way towards Manah, south of Kabul.
The patrol halted and took up defensive positions while efforts were made to repair the vehicle.
When that proved impossible, headquarters ordered the patrol to split in two, with the forward unit going on in daylight and the rear -- with the broken Humvee on a truck -- following.
The rear group was about 15 minutes behind in a deep ravine, out of visual and radio contact with colleagues, when they were ambushed.
TILLMAN headed back to the scene from the front group and climbed a hill with another Ranger and an Afghan militiaman.
As he ran up the mountainside, he drew level with the rear group's position, who were about 65 yards away in the ravine. The enemy fire was coming from the other side of the ravine and the Afghan with Tillman rose from cover to shoot at their position.
But his fire drew the attention of the group under attack and -- as US soldiers are taught to do, the rear section answered that muzzle-flash with every weapon they had.
The Afghan was killed instantly. Tillman, surviving soldiers testify, waved his arms, yelled "cease fire" and let off a smoke grenade as a signal that they were "friendlies".
A soldier in the group under attack recognised them and called for his guns to cease fire. There was a lull in the firing and Tillman and his colleague stood up. But -- inexplicably -- the shooting started again. Tillman was hit in the wrist with shrapnel, and his body armour absorbed "numerous" rounds.
His colleague testified to an inquiry: "I could hear the pain in his voice as he called out: 'Cease fire, friendlies! I'm Pat f------ Tillman, dammit'. He said this repeatedly until he fell, hit by three bullets in the forehead."
The inquiry stated: "Some soldiers lost situational awareness to the point they had no idea where they were."
But, in the immediate aftermath, that wasn't the story the Pentagon told Tillman's family or the rest of the US. He had been killed by the enemy, they were told.
At a televised memorial service, President Bush declared Tillman an "inspiration" in the war on terror.
Only towards the end of May did the truth come out -- and the grief of Tillman's family turned into fury.
"If you feel you are being lied to, you can never put it to rest," his mother, Mary, explains.
"It makes you feel like you are losing your mind."
The Tillman family and a growing number of Americans believe that Tillman was ruthlessly used as a propaganda tool in an official story based on conscious lying.
Indeed, Tillman's death is a huge issue that challenges the credibility of President Bush's White House and of Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's Pentagon.
'IT has been a cover-up from the start,' says Mrs Tillman. 'The military has had every opportunity to do the right thing and they haven't.'
The family and the growing squadron of critics backing them, led by potential Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain, see the details of how Tillman died as the secondary issue. They know he was a victim of friendly fire and have no interest in any soldier facing charges.
They want to know why the truth was concealed and by whom.
It is not the soldiers in the heat of war they want brought to justice, but the officials who covered up and who, they suspect, used a dead man to their advantage.
As an editorial in one newspaper, the conservative Palm Beach Post in Florida, put it after the latest inquiry was announced: "In the most egregious abuse, the Army already knew that Cpl Tillman (he was promoted posthumously) had died from friendly fire when it turned a nationally televised memorial service that painted him as the victim of an enemy ambush into an exercise in propaganda.
"Too much of what has happened in Afghanistan and Iraq never has been adequately explained. Cpl Tillman's family deserve answers. So does the rest of the country."
Patrick Tillman, the soldier's father, is a lawyer in California and it was his persistence and faith in his suspicions that prompted the series of military investigations and their -- censored -- reports.
Mr Tillman says: "After it happened, all the people in positions of authority went out of their way to script this.
"They purposely interfered with the investigation. They thought they could control it and they realised that their recruiting efforts were going to hell in a handbasket if the truth about his death got out.
"They blew up their poster boy."
The third and main inquiry report last May, in response to pressure from the family and Senator McCain, concluded there had been no "official reluctance" to report the truth.
DAILY MAIL
source: http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,18510954%255E663,00.html
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December 10, 2004

Tillman's True Tragedy

Although I had some thoughts at the time, I thought it would be churlish to question the decision of Pat Tillman, in his fourth year as a linebacker for the NFL Arizona Cardinals, with a $3.6 million contract, to give up professional sports and enlist in the Army Rangers after the 9/11 attacks. Although he had made a decision I would not have made, even if I were his age, I presumed he had his reasons, and as the owner of his own life he certainly had the right to put it at risk.
As somebody who played football in high school and college – at least through my freshman year, after which the coaches advised me (trying to make it as a 165-pound lineman) of something I already knew, that I was unlikely to be a successful varsity player and it might be prudent to concentrate on academics and beer – and a huge fan of the game still, I don't have the disdain for athletes that some do. My own experience suggests that there aren't a lot of deep thinkers out there on the gridiron. However, I also know that mastering a playbook requires a certain degree of raw intelligence, and staying at it (especially when most of the other players are bigger, stronger, and more athletic than you, but also even when you have athletic gifts) takes some combination of foolhardiness and grit that is not entirely unadmirable. No matter how good you are, you can't play football without experiencing some pain or embarrassment at making mistakes or boneheaded plays. Continuing in the face of even minor adversity takes something.
Whatever his reasons, however thoughtfully he had approached the decision, Pat Tillman made his own decision. After he made the decision, he purposely kept a low profile, resisting the impulse some in the media and many among the superficially patriotic had to turn him into a hero and a role model to be lauded and lionized. This increased my respect for him. As it turns out, he does seem to have been an unusual and, on balance, admirable young man.
Sports Illustrated writer Tim Layden, who interviewed him at length while he was in college and the Pac-10 defensive player of the year, wrote that he was unusually honest and "the type of football player who performed fully without regard for his body. He played at 100 percent of his speed, power and passion 100 percent of the time. That quality is indescribably rare. He was also able to use his brain as effectively as his body. Coaches who told him something had to do so only once."
Death in Afghanistan
When Pat Tillman was killed in a firefight in Afghanistan last April, while his decision to put himself in Uncle Sam's service seemed to me sadly tragic, even wasteful, he made his decision and he paid the ultimate price for it. Though I felt no temptation to lionize or idealize him, it seemed best to let him and his memory rest in peace. It also turned out, as people found during his memorial services in San Jose, that he hardly fit the stereotype of a gung-ho patriotic jock. As Gwen Knapp noted in a piece in the San Francisco Chronicle, he read widely, thought about what he read, and was eager to engage others in discussions about serious matters. He asked his coach at Arizona State if he would coach gays, and was pleased to hear that he would and did. At the memorial, his youngest brother Rich "asked mourners to hold their spiritual bromides":
"Pat isn't with God. He's f––ing dead. He wasn't religious. So thank you for your thoughts, but he's f—ing dead."
It seemed all the more tragic. This sounded like a person you would like to hoist a few brews with.
The curt acknowledgment on May 29, by Lt. Gen. Philip R. Kensinger, Jr., at Fort Bragg, N.C., that Tillman was "probably" killed by "friendly fire" – one of those astoundingly presumptuous military euphemisms that means killed by people on one's own side – didn't make me want to lament Tillman in public either. People are killed in all kinds of ways in war. It used to be that disease killed more soldiers than enemies did, and accidental killings by one's own side have been part of war for millennia. It made the death a little sadder, however.
Probable Pentagon Cover-Up
This week, however, more information has come out about just how Cpl. Tillman died and how the Army responded, and it does seem appropriate to comment. The Washington Post ran a piece Sunday that explained a great deal more than we had known before.
"Dozens of witness statements, e-mails, investigation findings, logbooks, maps, and photographs obtained by The Washington Post show that Tillman died unnecessarily," wrote the Post's Steve Coll, "after botched communications, a mistaken decision to split his platoon over the objections of its leader, and negligent shooting by pumped-up young Rangers – some in their first firefight – who failed to identify their targets as they blasted their way out of a frightening ambush. The records show Tillman fought bravely and honorably until his last breath. They also show that his superiors exaggerated his actions and invented details as they burnished his legend in public, at the same time suppressing details that might tarnish Tillman's commanders."
Briefly, after a Humvee broke down, the platoon was ordered to split up, with Tillman's half going on ahead to put "boots on the ground" in the little town of Manah. The other half of the platoon followed on the same road, which was not the original plan. Because of the terrain, they lost radio contact. When an explosion went off, they figured they were under attack by Taliban insurgents and fired back. It turned out the two halves of the platoon were firing at one another. Tillman was killed. The Army knew this almost immediately, but didn't tell the family and didn't release the information publicly (and then curtly, with no questions answered) until more than a month later.
As a Post story Monday related, the Army preferred "a distorted and incomplete narrative." The public release "made no mention of friendly fire, even though at the time it was issued, investigators in Afghanistan had already taken at least 14 sworn statements from Tillman's platoon members that made clear the true causes of his death. The statements included a searing account from the Ranger nearest Tillman during the firefight, who quoted him as shouting 'Cease fire! Friendlies!' with his last breath."
In the documents the Post was able to obtain, the names of lower-ranking Rangers who made mistakes were listed, and some seem to have been disciplined. The names of higher-ups were redacted. We don't know who the higher-up was who gave the order – from a distance and by radio, perhaps not appreciating the situation on the ground – to split the platoon up.
Angry Family
The plot thickened further with a Los Angeles Times story Monday suggesting, based on interviews with Afghan witnesses, that there weren't even Afghan insurgents around – that there was an explosion (perhaps set off by insurgents), but no enemy gunfire. The two halves of the platoon, by these accounts, started firing at one another, each half thinking the other was the enemy.
Perhaps most unsettling in the Times story was the way the Pentagon treated the Tillman family. "Tillman's parents say the military has deceived them and stonewalled their attempts to find out how their son died. Although the Tillmans believe the Rangers who shot their son had been fired on by insurgents, they also say the Pentagon has tried to cover up deadly mistakes and negligence that night."
"'I'm disgusted by things that have happened with the Pentagon since my son's death. I don't trust them one bit,' Mary Tillman said in a telephone interview last week from her home in San Jose." Mary Tillman thinks the military burned her son's uniform to cover up the circumstances of his death. The family didn't learn that friendly fire was even suspected until weeks later. Patrick's' father "has been frustrated by what he described as deception and inconsistent statements by the Pentagon."
Honor Where Due
None of the information that has come out – and surely we are quite a bit short of knowing the whole story – seems to deprecate Pat Tillman's personal courage and sense of honor and duty. One wonders, however, whether the story will resonate with others who might be thinking of making similar decisions. The desire to fight back against terrorism, even to serve one's country in time of dire need is commendable. But those who think of volunteering should be mindful that their sacrifices might well be used by cynical or fearful higher-ups who will consider the good of the Army more important than the bravery of the soldier or the truth that should be owed to the bereaved.
As Ambivablog, who has chronicled this story admirably, put it, "[W]ar is ugly and messy, and we desperately need to believe it is noble and glorious. Without the mortician's makeup job, would any democratic public support any war?"
Pat Tillman's story illustrates once again that, to a great extent, war is about old men sending gallant and brave young men to die, often for causes that are less than noble or even well-thought-out.
source: http://www.antiwar.com/bock/?articleid=4143

Pat Tillman/Walter Jones and Republican "Owned and Controlled" Propoganda: It's all Local !

Not from Steve, It appears that local Watts Communications "Talking Heads" do not want to talk about this issue (Patt Tillman and Republican Congressman "Freedom Fries" Walter Jones) even though they played a major role in propagating this Republican led propoganda over the Brownwood airwaves for weeks on end. Wonder when JR Williams ( KXYL Talking Head ) will have the Tillmans on his afternoon show ? The below information is posted as a courtsey to JR and his listeners at KXYL 96.9 FM after my phone call to the show Wednesday afternoon where I mentioned the Pat Tillman story and the Walter Jones Story.
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Here's one of the first stories by FOX news which is/has "often" been used by KXYL callers (& hosts) as the foundation for their " talking points " :

" NFL player Pat Tillman is turning down $3.6 million, and the glamour of professional football, to try out for a new job: Army Ranger, which pays $18,000 per year. (Last year, he turned down a $9 million, five-year offer from the Super Bowl champion St. Louis Rams so he could stay with the perennially losing Cardinals for less money.) Perhaps best of all, Tillman has rejected all media requests for an interview about his decision to quit football to try to make the elite special forces unit."

The Fox News Story
source: http://www.positivepress.com/news/news.php3?cat=6
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ESPN was all over it too !

Thursday, April 17
Updated: April 23, 11:03 AM ET

The Pat Tillman (little) effect
By Greg Garber
ESPN.com

Editor's Note: This column was originally posted on April 17, 2003.

While Pat Tillman's former Arizona Cardinals teammates sweat and grimace their way through an off-season conditioning program -- a heavy rotation of weight lifting and aerobic exercises -- Tillman faces the prospect of the ultimate sacrifice.
A soldier from the 75th Ranger Regiment, possibly Pat Tillman, forges the way for U.S. ground troops to follow in southern Iraq.
A member of the elite Army Rangers, Tillman presumably is on the ground somewhere in the splintered country of Iraq. Deployed in early March along with the rest of the 75th Ranger Regiment, he and his comrades are working to liberate Iraq from the grip of Saddam Hussein's regime.
Tillman, at 26 years old, left a three-year, $3.6 million contract on the table to enlist in the Army with his brother Kevin after the 2001 season. Tillman will make no more than $17,000 this year. He is believed to be the first NFL regular to leave the game for military service since World War II, when 1,000 players served and 23 were killed.
Tillman's commitment has inspired shock and, quite frankly, awe.
"It touches you pretty deep," Cardinals head coach Dave McGinnis said at the recent NFL meetings. "Pat Tillman is a guy that is full of fiber, full of fabric, everything that he does goes right to the core of what is good and sound in our country."
John McCain, the U.S. Senator from Arizona who was a prisoner of war for more than five years in Vietnam, lauded Tillman as "the quintessential definition of a patriot."
The Rangers are the Army's finest light infantry unit, whose standard weaponry are machine guns, mortars and grenade launchers. It was the Rangers who conducted a daylight raid in Somalia, an event upon which Ridley Scott based his 2001 film, "Black Hawk Down."
"They strike quickly, with great precision and lethality," said Carol Darby, the news media chief for the Army Special Operations command at North Carolina's Fort Bragg. "They break things open so other people can come in behind them."
After Tillman made his ground-breaking decision to serve his country in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, some wondered if others in the athletic arena -- in many minds, a parallel universe to the crucible of war -- would come in behind him.
And while there has been an outpouring of support for the U.S. troops from athletes in all sports, no other high-profile professional athlete has followed Tillman's selfless example. In fact, former Cardinals teammate Simeon Rice, now a member of the Super Bowl champion-Tampa Bay Buccaneers, disparaged Tillman in an interview on Jim Rome's radio show last month.
Pat Tillman has been alone among today's professional athletes at the highest level, giving up his career to serve his country.
"He really wasn't that good, not really," Rice said. "He was good enough to play in Arizona, [but] that's just like the XFL."
After several more promptings from Rome, Rice allowed, "I think it's very admirable, actually. You've got to give kudos to a guy like that because he did it for his own reasons. Maybe it's the Rambo movies, maybe it's Sylvester Stallone, Rocky, whatever compels him."
More likely, it was Tillman's love for America, not to mention his brother, who also enlisted. In the aftermath of the interview, Rice's remarks were seen as symptomatic of today's privileged, self-centered professional athletes who have been enabled from their earliest playing days.
"A professional athlete's career is self-indulgent almost by definition," said Alan Klein, professor of sociology and anthropology at Northeastern University. "Risking your career and your life is not an easy decision. They're content to wear a patch on the uniform for solidarity, but that's the easy way out. Really, we're all taking the easy way out.
"My parents were in [Nazi concentration camp] Auschwitz. All my life, I've heard about the acts of bravery and sacrifice. We would all like to think of ourselves as people who would do the right thing. But, deep down, how many of us would give up everything we have? Certainly, it's not a lock."
From Michael Moore -- the director of the Oscar-winning documentary "Bowling for Columbine" who admonished the president ("Shame on you, Mr. Bush.") when he accepted his Academy Award -- to Martin Sheen, Susan Sarandon and Janeane Garofalo to the Dixie Chicks and Fred Durst ("I just really hope we all are in agreeance that this war should go away."), Hollywood has been critical of U.S. involvement in Iraq. Why hasn't the elite athletic community -- kindred spirits in the context of entertainment -- produced any notable conscientious objectors along the lines of Muhammad Ali, who faced a five-year prison sentence for refusing to enlist?
Klein, whose book on globalization and baseball, "Growing the Game," will be published in 2004, said the two cultures are, generally speaking, at opposite ends of the spectrum.
"Once you get past that thin veneer of deviant -- by that I mean guys like Dennis Rodman, Bill Walton and Bill Lee -- athletics has a rock-solid core of conservatism," Klein said. "The institution weeds out so-called deviants, people that don't fit mainstream views. In sports, there are a rule-bound set of behaviors. With coaching, it's very autocratic. In sports, you have an institution that socializes above and beyond what any church or family does."
King Kaufman, writing last month for Salon.com, pointed out that Toni Smith, a Division III women's basketball player who refused to face the flag during the national anthem, made the grandest anti-war statement in all of sports.
"The shocking thing," Kaufman wrote, "the real story here, is that an athlete, somewhere in America, has spoken out about politics, however innocuously. Athletes don't talk about things like this, even way down at Division III."
Dallas Mavericks guard Steve Nash wore a T-shirt with the slogan "No War, Shoot for Peace" at the NBA All-Star Game, but he is one of the few who have dared speak out. Ultimately, it's not really surprising, Klein said, that athletes aren't criticizing the war -- or running off to join it, either.
"Every impulse says to be self-centered and take care of yourself," Klein said. "Because they've always been taken care of. Their lives are good. Why throw it all away?"
A higher calling
Ted Williams, on the other hand, was willing to throw it all away. Twice.
Ted Williams put his baseball career on hold to serve in World War II and the Korean War.
The Boston Red Sox outfielder was one of the best hitters ever and, some argue, one of the best damn fighter pilots, too. Like more than 500 of his major-league peers, he enlisted in the military during World War II. Capt. Ted Williams flew Marine jets, usually the old F9F Panthers, for three years and then came back for another two-year tour in the Korean War.
Astronaut John Glenn, who flew with Williams for half of his 39 missions as part of the BMF-311 Squadron, said at his memorial service last year that he never heard Williams complain about his time away from baseball. According to Glenn, the three favorite songs of the best wingman he ever flew with were "The Star Spangled Banner," "The Marine Corps Hymn" and "Take Me Out to the Ballgame."
Cleveland Indians pitcher Bob Feller was another future Hall of Famer -- one of 64 in all -- who joined the war effort. Two days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Feller became the first major leaguer to enlist. This despite winning 24, 27 and 25 games the previous three seasons -- all American League-leading totals.
Fifty years after Williams crash-landed his plane during a bombing run over North Korea, the United States is a very different place. The jingoistic flames fanned by dictators like Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini don't burn as hot today -- even in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks. The draft is no longer in use, though men who become of age must register for it; the 1960s cynicism of Vietnam lingers. Enlistments, which surged after the World Trade Center buildings fell, have begun to plateau. As a people, Americans are more comfortable than they were back then. It is easy to watch the war in Iraq on television with a detached fascination, knowing that the rationing of food and resources is unlikely. Sacrifice, both the word and the act, seems to be a foreign concept.
San Antonio Spurs center David Robinson, who attended the U.S. Naval Academy and served a two-year military commitment before joining the NBA, is the exception today, not the rule.
David Robinson has been a critic of athletes who have spoken out against the U.S. war in Iraq.
Although Williams was handsomely compensated by the standards of the day for playing a child's game, today's professional athletes -- relatively speaking -- make far more money and, therefore, have more to lose than their predecessors. Economics, these days, is a major factor in the choice of many military enlistees. Minorities comprise 38 percent of the military, a figure well above their proportion in the general population. It is the non-elite athletes who find themselves joining, especially in a sluggish economy, as a way to complete their education and extend their athletic lifespan.
Jesse Thorpe and Gary Freeman are two such athletes. Members of the Division III football team at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Va., they are both on active duty with the Army Reserves. Freeman, an outside linebacker and Army Specialist in the Charlie Battery 111th Field Artillery has been assigned to the Air Force National Guard Station in Sandstone, Va., where he is part of the Homeland Security anti-terrorism detail. Thorpe, a defensive tackle and sergeant in the Bravo Company 5th 159th Aviation Regiment, left last Thursday for Iraq.
"He walked into the office last month and said, 'Coach, I've been told I can get a call any time,' " explained head coach Matt Kelchner. "He was very subdued, almost worried. A couple of our guys talked to him before he left. I think the kid is scared to death."
For many athletes, according to Kelchner, the Army Reserve is the only way to stay in school.
"I don't know that they wanted to put their lives on the line," Kelchner said. "When they enlisted, there was no thought or indication that, 'Hey, this could get down to serious business.' They're there to help their country, but -- whooo -- that's when it really hits you."
The prospects for Freeman are not quite as grim. He is a mechanic who works on helicopters, including the Black Hawk.
"Gary's going to a job," Kelchner said. "He's only an hour away so we'll see him on the weekends he's off. Jesse, you're not going to see. He's going to war.
"People talk about football being war ... Hey, this ain't war, this is a game."
Ed Reynolds, who has lived in both worlds, is surprised more athletes don't make the transition into the military.
"More athletes should take a look at it," said Reynolds, the NFL's assistant director of football operations. "So many of the skills are the same. You have to be physically and mentally tough and there's the team concept, the buddy system. If you don't function as a team, as evidenced in the disarray of the Iraqis, you're not going to win."
Reynolds, who describes himself as a Thomas Jefferson Democrat, is old school. He was a military brat, the son of an Army combat engineer, born in Stuttgart, Germany. He played linebacker for the New England Patriots and New York Giants from 1983-92 and served for 14 years in the Army Reserve, 2174 Headquarters, detachment 80th Division, where he was a weapons expert who trained recruits in the use of M-16 rifles. He believes in old-fashioned values like respect and discipline. He thinks the draft still should be in place. He likes his uniforms pristine and shoes polished.
“Military training prepared me for football. There was live fire, bayonet assault courses, you dropped down a 250-foot slide, undressed yourself under water ... If you make a mistake, you're dead. The worst you can do in football is get hurt. That's the difference between playing in a fantasy world and the real world. ”
— Ed Reynolds, NFL assistant director of football operations
In his NFL job, appropriately, he is responsible for enforcing the league's uniform policy.
"I grew up dreaming of being a military officer," Reynolds said. "Football just happened to win out."
Reynolds, who is also NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue's liaison to the military, was put on alert twice in the mid-1990s but never got the call to go to Bosnia.
"When my Colonel took me off the list, I was upset," Reynolds said. "It was like I was practicing but not playing. I missed my opportunity.
"Military training prepared me for football. There was live fire, bayonet assault courses, you dropped down a 250-foot slide, undressed yourself under water ... If you make a mistake, you're dead. The worst you can do in football is get hurt. That's the difference between playing in a fantasy world and the real world."
Like Reynolds, Dennis Mannion has seen both sides. He is the associate head football coach at Choate Rosemary Hall, a prep school in Wallingford, Conn., and a former player at Notre Dame. He also won two Purple Hearts with the U.S. Marines for his heroic work in the 1967-68 Siege of Khe Sanh, in South Vietnam. Sixty of Mannion's fellow Marines died in that extended battle.
"The one major difference between football and war is that 99.9 percent of the time, everybody comes home," Mannion said. "The difference between the military today and yesterday is we're not drafting people. How many of those athletes were going to get drafted anyway? Everybody in the Middle East today is there because they want to be there. No one forced them to enter the Army. Maybe that's why you don't see the athletes."
The speed with which the U.S. forces have taken Baghdad, Mannion said, seems to have increased public sentiment for the war.
"I think there was such a backlash to those Hollywood a-- h----," Mannion said. "I mean, it took us three weeks to get it done over there and it takes, what, nine weeks to pick an 'American Idol' or vote somebody off the island? Maybe more people, athletes included, will decide to do their part.
"Saddam has been a tyrant, and we're the only people willing to deal with him. If Sean Penn loves him so much, let Saddam go live at his house."
A call to arms
The idea for "Jocks-to-GIs Direct" first crept into John Papanek's head in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.
Shaquille O'Neal wins most of his battles on the court, but he's found time to share his stories with real war heroes.
"The immediate thought was, how do we respond? What do we do?" said Papanek, editor-in-chief of ESPN The Magazine. "It was a call to arms, which means young American males and, for the most part, young American males means sports fans. I got to thinking how other magazines went to war in the past: Life Magazine during World War II, Sports Illustrated during Vietnam. People might not realize that The Sporting News took off at the beginning of the century when it was distributed to the troops going off to fight World War I."
Eventually, thousands of free copies of the magazine went to the troops in Afghanistan but a second idea, an e-mail link between high-profile athletes and military personnel, languished -- a victim of too many obstacles of protocol and logistics -- until the drums of war started beating again this past winter.
"This time, I found there was a lot more focus and an instantaneous, positive response from the Defense Department," Papanek said. "In fact, what surprised me was their lack of oversight requirements. These guys were basically on their own."
That mission accomplished, Papanek then turned to convincing some big-time athletes to trade e-mails with the servicemen. He went straight to the top of the A List. Shaquille O'Neal, a self-described Army brat, was the first one to sign on.
Next, Papanek contacted Mark Steinberg of International Management Group, the agent for Tiger Woods. Within 24 hours, Steinberg -- who rejects far more requests than he approves -- called back.
"He said, 'I really want Tiger to do this,' " Papanek said. "And then I waited for the 'but ...' And after a pause, Mark said, 'Tell me what he has to do.' I never got the 'but ...' I was expecting."
Not a single athlete who was approached said no. The package was launched on April 1 on ESPN.com with commitments from Yankees pitcher Roger Clemens, Giants defensive end Michael Strahan, cyclist Lance Armstrong, NASCAR driver Jeff Burton and basketball star Chamique Holdsclaw, among others. There are 30 jock-GI relationships in all, each facilitated by an individual editor.
“I felt so alive, so proud of my crewmates, so confident in my abilities, but all that was tempered with a certain degree of personal contempt for the massive loss of life; and for what? Because of a diabolical megalomaniac. ”
— Lee Yarbrough, Air Force airborne intelligence technician, in his e-mail to golfer Brad Faxon
Last Friday, a harrowing e-mail from Lee Yarbrough, a 39-year-old Air Force airborne intelligence technician, to golfer Brad Faxon was posted. In it, Yarbrough described a five-hour air battle with an armored Iraqi battalion. Yarbrough described the result as "total carnage."
"I felt so alive, so proud of my crewmates, so confident in my abilities, but all that was tempered with a certain degree of personal contempt for the massive loss of life; and for what?" Yarbrough wrote. "Because of a diabolical megalomaniac."
When Yarbrough closed by saying he would monitor an E-ticker for Faxon's Masters scores, the most cherished of golf's Grand Slams almost seemed irrelevant.
Free agent Antonio Freeman has a brother named Clarence, a Marine Staff Sergeant, presumably engaged in Iraq. Detroit Shock guard Swin Cash has a brother, Steven Menifee, with the Army in Iraq. The cousin of Texas Rangers catcher Todd Green's wife, Army officer Ron Young, was taken prisoner when the Iraqis shot down his Apache helicopter.
These athletes are acutely aware of the dangers. Mark Bartelstein, of Priority Sports and Entertainment, who represents professional athletes such as Kurt Warner, Brian Grant, P.J. Brown and Kevin Mawae, said even athletes without such a stake in the war are paying attention.
"My clients and I have talked about it -- almost every conversation," Bartelstein said from his Chicago office. "They sit in their hotel rooms and watch CNN, but they've still got to do their job. They aren't doing anything different than anyone else. What's their choice, to boycott the games?"
Andy Lundbohm, a center with the Laredo Bucks of the Central Hockey League, plays on like everybody else. He wonders when his call will come. He was born and raised in Roseau, Minn., only 10 miles from the Canadian border -- you can hear the proximity in his accent -- but he is a member of the Minnesota National Guard, with the 137th Infantry, stationed in Brainerd, Minn.
Earlier this season, when he was playing for the Austin Ice Bats, members of the 4th Infantry Division, stationed at nearby Fort Hood, came to see a fellow infantryman play.
"They were supposed to ship out to Turkey a few days later," Lundbohm said last week, after the Bucks lost in double-overtime in the fourth game of the Southern Conference finals. "They all reassured me they knew their jobs and they'd be OK. It was pretty tough."
Andy Lundbohm
Is he disappointed he hasn't joined them?
There is a long pause.
"I feel more guilty than disappointed," Lundbohm said.
Lundbohm played for three years in the San Jose Sharks organization and is now under contract to the Florida Panthers. He has seen time this season in San Antonio, Austin and Laredo. At 25, the NHL may be beyond his grasp.
"It's always a dream -- it's every kid's dream," Lundbohm said. "I'm just working to win a championship here in Laredo. It's a dream, too."
Through eight games, Lundbohm was leading Laredo with four goals -- three of them game-winners. Every day, almost every hour, thoughts of the conflict in Iraq race through his mind. When President Bush announced plans for war, Lundbohm called his commander.
"He said, 'We're close,' " Lundbohm said. "But we never got called.
"We're still ready to go -- as soon as the call comes."
Greg Garber is a senior writer for ESPN.com
source: http://espn.go.com/nfl/s/2003/0415/1539258.html
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Pat Tillman Case: How the Press Was Spun

The killing of the former pro football star in Afghanistan is back in the news, as the military probes possible criminal charges. But the military officials who lied for so long to the press, to the public--and, even worse, to Tillman's family--continue to escape penalty.
By Greg Mitchell
(March 04, 2006) -- The Pat Tillman case is back in the news, with the Army’s belated announcement that it is launching a criminal probe into the “friendly fire” killing of the former pro football star in Afghanistan in April 2004. It’s a long way, indeed, since those days immediately after the tragic incident when Tillman's death was promoted by the Pentagon as a symbol of American goodness in the war on terrorists.
While the criminal matter takes center stage, we should not forget that the military not only lied to Tillman’s friends and family about the episode, but also--in the tradition of the Jessica Lynch affair—to the press. Eventually, the media played a key role in helping to get the truth out. As far as anyone knows, none of the Army officials who misled the world have been punished.
Tillman's mother, Mary, told The Washington Post on Saturday that she believes evidence of a crime has existed all along, and that the family's repeated calls for a criminal investigation were ignored until now. Her husband,
Patrick Tillman Sr., commented, "if you send investigators to reinvestigate an investigation that was falsified in the first place, what do you think you're going to get?"
The Tillman tragedy was last in the news in a major way last May, thanks to an account in The Washington Post, which has taken the lead on this story from the beginning.
The Post's Josh White reported in May that Tillman's parents were now ripping the Army, saying that the military's investigations into their son's 2004 "friendly fire" death in Afghanistan was a sham based on "lies" and that the Army cover-up made it harder for them to deal with their loss. They were speaking out because they have finally had a chance to look at the full records of the military probe.
"Tillman's mother and father said in interviews that they believe the military and the government created a heroic tale about how their son died to foster a patriotic response across the country," White reported.
While military officials' lying to the parents gained wide publicity then, hardly anyone mentioned that the press had dutifully carried one report after another based on the Pentagon's spin.
Tillman was killed in a barrage of gunfire from his own men, mistaken for the enemy on a hillside near the Pakistan border—perhaps, we will soon learn, criminally. "Immediately," the Post reported, "the Army kept the soldiers on the ground quiet and told Tillman's family and the public that he was killed by enemy fire while storming a hill, barking orders to his fellow Rangers." Tillman posthumously received the Silver Star for his "actions."
The military investigation, exposed by the Post, "showed that soldiers in Afghanistan knew almost immediately that they had killed Tillman by mistake in what they believed was a firefight with enemies on a tight canyon road. The investigation also revealed that soldiers later burned Tillman's uniform and body armor."
Tillman's father said he blamed high-ranking Army officers for presenting "outright lies" to the family and to the press. "After it happened, all the people in positions of authority went out of their way to script this," he told the Post. "They purposely interfered with the investigation, they covered it up. I think they thought they could control it, and they realized that their recruiting efforts were going to go to hell in a handbasket if the truth about his death got out. They blew up their poster boy.”
Mary, the mother, complained to the Post that the government used her son for weeks after his death. She said she was particularly offended when President Bush offered a taped memorial message to Tillman at a Cardinals football game shortly before the presidential election last fall.
It is worth recalling that Steve Coll, then with the Washington Post, in December 2004 described the early weeks of the Pentagon spin on Tillman, before his paper helped reveal the truth.
"Just days after Pat Tillman died from friendly fire on a desolate ridge in southeastern Afghanistan," Coll wrote, "the U.S. Army Special Operations Command released a brief account of his last moments. The April 30, 2004, statement awarded Tillman a posthumous Silver Star for combat valor and described how a section of his Ranger platoon came under attack….
"It was a stirring tale and fitting eulogy for the Army's most famous volunteer in the war on terrorism, a charismatic former pro football star whose reticence, courage and handsome beret-draped face captured for many Americans the best aspects of the country's post-Sept. 11 character.
"It was also a distorted and incomplete narrative, according to dozens of internal Army documents obtained by The Washington Post that describe Tillman's death by fratricide after a chain of botched communications, a misguided order to divide his platoon over the objection of its leader and undisciplined firing by fellow Rangers.
"The Army's public release made no mention of friendly fire, even though at the time it was issued, investigators in Afghanistan had already taken at least 14 sworn statements from Tillman's platoon members that made clear the true causes of his death.
"But the Army's published account not only withheld all evidence of fratricide, but also exaggerated Tillman's role and stripped his actions of their context. ... The Army's April 30 news release was just one episode in a broader Army effort to manage the uncomfortable facts of Pat Tillman's death, according to internal records and interviews."
Now the Army is going after soldiers who presumably pulled the triggers at the scene. There is no evidence that it is looking at its own high-level cover-up.
"Maybe lying's not a big deal anymore," Tillman’s father told the Post last year. "Pat's dead, and this isn't going to bring him back. But these guys should have been held up to scrutiny, right up the chain of command, and no one has."
Greg Mitchell (gmitchell@editorandpubllisher.com) is editor of E&P.
source: http://editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/pressingissues_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002116210&imw=Y
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April 29, 2004

A Pawn in Their Game

The Utterly Un-Lonesome Death of Pat Tillman

By DAVE ZIRIN

When Pat Tillman walked away from the NFL to join the Army Rangers, rivulets of saliva flowed from the White House to the Defense Department. Here was the Arizona Cardinals' record setting safety turning his back on a $3.5 million contract to "fight the war on terror." Immediately Madison Avenue PR firms, hired by the Defense Department with our tax dollars, began churning out releases exalting "The American Athlete At War" replete with stories of Ted Williams's flying missions over the Pacific. The confederate confines of talk radio spoke of Tillman as "The "Real American Hero making "The Ultimate Sacrifice." One wonders if James Earl Jones had already been contracted to bleat, "Pat Tillman: An Army of One."
There was just one problem. Tillman wouldn't play their game. He turned down "hundreds if not thousands" of interviews and photo ops. He refused to be in any recruitment videos or on a single poster. Soon the story of "NFL player Pat Tillman in the Army Rangers" faded into the next news cycle. A year went by without a mention. No one tracked the day when his shoulder length hair was shaved to the scalp. No one snapped shots of his time in the "Army Ranger Indoctrination Program". No one knew about his first tour in Iraq. But last Friday in Afghanistan when Tillman was killed, the gears of the machine started to turn.
As Tillman’s family and football fans grieved, the Bush War Machine and their cronies sprang into action. In death, a compliant Tillman could prove far more useful to the Masters of War than in life.
In "Dead Tillman", the Washington Establishment finally gets a dead soldier they can cozy up to.
"Where do we get such men as these? Where to we find these people willing to stand up for America?" asked Republican Rep. J.D. Hayworth, as he dived in front of the nearest camera. "He chose action rather than words. He was a remarkable person. He lived the American dream, and he fought to preserve the American dream and our way of life."
Sen. George Allen of Virginia, the son of the late Hall of Fame coach sent a letter to NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue asking the league to dedicate the season to Tillman and other U.S. soldiers ``serving in the war on terrorism.''
And of course Former Texas Rangers Owner George W. Bush jumped into the fray commenting that "Pat Tillman was an inspiration both on and off the football field".
At a time when the US's "coalition of the willing" is ditching Bush like he has plague and the Iraqi resistance mushrooms, "Dead Tillman" has been treated at 1600 Pennsylvania like Christmas in April. The former 7th round draft pick will be their symbol, as the White House commented, of "all we are fighting for."
Yet Pat Tillman is in no way the typical face of the dead U.S. soldier. In fact, like so much of Bush's global conquest, this is a bloody lie. The face of the dead U.S. soldier is not a 27 year old man walking away from millions of dollars to make "the ultimate sacrifice" The dead soldier is far more likely to be in Iraq or Afghanistan beyond their tour of duty. The dead soldier, chances are, was suffering from depression and crushingly low morale in the days before their death. The dead soldier was making $18,000 dollar a year and possibly living on food stamps. There is a 35% chance the dead soldier is black or Latino. While one NFL millionaire served in "Operation Enduring Occupation" there are 37,000 non-citizens occupying Iraq alone to benefit from a new program that allows immigrants to apply for citizenship immediately and not wait the usual 5 years. Maybe the dead soldier was recruited in the US Army's new number one recruitment spot: Tijuana, Mexico.
The true face of the dead US soldier, and the growing anger of their families, is why Commander in Chief Bush has boycotted all of their funerals. It is why photos of flag-draped coffins had to be smuggled out. It is why the workers who took those photos have been fired.
With Tillman, Bush is hoping to do what his train wreck of a press conference failed to do: shore up support for his Middle Eastern slaughter. But not everyone is taking the bait. In fact by "humanizing" the death of a popular ex-football player Bush could be running right into some hardcore necessary roughness.
Sports fans and scribes aren't the mindless patriots that the White House, and much of the left, believes. The public parade of “Dead Tillman” can breed a variety of reactions. Nationally renowned - and ceaselessly apolitical - sports columnist Mike Lupica wrote, "Pat Tillman got to live out his professional dreams for a little while. What about all the ones dying over there who didn't?" The ESPN show the Sports Reporters show commented, "The White House has no right to say anything about the death of Tillman since it doesn't want to show pictures of the dead. They can't have it both ways."
In fact, on what is possibly the most frat boy drenched Sports Radio show, "The Jungle With Jim Rome" one caller identified himself as an ex-soldier from Arizona and said, "The President needs to take a long look in the mirror and try to figure out if this is worth it." He then paused and said, "War to no one. Fight for peace."
Pat Tillman played football with a relentless intensity. Wait for the look on Bush's face when the folks who cheered for Pat, fight with that same intensity against the war that took his life.
Dave Zirin is the News Editor of the Prince George’s Post in Prince George’s County, Maryland. His sports writing can be read at www.edgeofsports.com. He can be reached at editor@pgpost.com.
source: http://www.counterpunch.org/zirin04292004.html
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Read here what the Brownwood "Talking Heads" are not talking about ! http://www.alternet.org/story/22281/

"Pro-active" Perry !

Perry issues executive order on hurricane evacuations
Contraflow plans to be developed
By Liz Austin
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Gov. Rick Perry issued an executive order Tuesday requiring state officials to develop more detailed hurricane evacuation plans, including a plan for opening major highways to one-way outbound traffic as storms bear down on the Texas coast.
The changes are meant to prevent another chaotic evacuation such as the one prompted in September by Hurricane Rita, when about 60 people, including 23 nursing home patients, died along the state's traffic-clogged highways.
"Our goal is to learn from the lessons that Hurricane Rita taught us and make Texans safer in future mass evacuations," Perry said in a statement. "These directives focus on saving lives and reducing the vulnerability of Texans — particularly those least able to fend for themselves."
The executive order includes most of the recommendations made by a task force Perry charged with figuring out what went wrong in September and how to handle evacuations more efficiently.
In addition to directing state officials to devise a plan for one-way traffic, or contraflow, the order asks the Texas Department of Transportation to find a way to provide fuel for evacuees. That was a major problem in September, as gasoline stations ran dry and stranded motorists lined highway shoulders waiting for help.
Additionally, the order directs the state's emergency management division to create a computer database of people with special needs so officials will know who needs help evacuating and where they live. The division also must work with school districts and universities to find buses to use in evacuations.
But the order does not include the panel's top suggestion — that the governor be put in charge of ordering hurricane evacuations. To do that, the Legislature would have to change a state law that leaves evacuation decisions up to county judges.
Leaders along Texas' 367-mile coast complained that their residents, who are the most vulnerable to hurri- canes, couldn't make it inland because larger cities such as Houston called for evacuations before coastal residents were able to leave.
The problem was compounded because 3 million Texans fled their homes, more than twice as many as state officials said needed to leave the projected strike zone.
Some drivers were trapped in gridlock for up to 24 hours before the first contraflow lanes opened along Interstate 45. The Texas Department of Transportation ultimately converted 487 miles of highway to one-way traffic in what it called the largest use of contraflow in the state's history.
Of the 60 people that died during the evacuation, many succumbed to heat exhaustion and heart attacks after spending long hours in their cars without water or air conditioning.
The task force said an unknown number evacuees — possibly thousands — turned around and went home. That could have had catastrophic consequences if the hurricane had hit Houston as meteorologists first predicted. Rita ultimately made landfall in a less densely populated area near the Texas/Louisiana border.
"While we will not be able to eliminate traffic when a major urban area is evacuated, we can take steps to improve the flow of traffic in future evacuations," Perry said.
source: http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/03/22EVACUATE.html
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Note from Steve, Perry's the Politician who I will always remember on TV being interviewed telling the host, and us viewers, how well everything was going in Texas with the evacuations. Unfortunately for Perry, the TV screen ( split screen highway cameras ) was showing total gridlock and chaos on the Highways. To me, Perry represents a certain breed of Republican Politician who tries desperately to convince you that "all is well" when you can see for yourself that all is not well ! Prediction, Texans will re-elect Perry to another term as Texas Governor !

Brownwood Candlelight Worship Service

Community Candlelight Worship Service To Pray For Our Military & Their Families

Thursday, March 30, 2006
6:30 pm
Depot Plaza – Brownwood TX

If you would like to sing in the Community Choir please arrive at 6:00 p.m.

Bring your candle and lawn chair

Military & Family Support Group has partnered with various local Pastors
to coordinate the service. We need your help in promoting the service.
Our Military and their families need our prayers and support.

If you have any questions please call 325-784-5014

Students cheer Friedman's off-beat message

Students cheer Friedman's off-beat message
By PATRICK McGEE
STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER
ARLINGTON — Texas’ counterculture-musician-turned-politician Kinky Friedman tried to get young people on his drive for the governor’s mansion Tuesday at the University of Texas at Arlington.
"When we get on the ballot, the soul of Texas is going to be riding on this campaign," Friedman said as some of his supporters circled through the crowd of about 200 gathering signatures to put the 61-year-old on the ballot as an independent.
Friedman wore a black coat and cowboy hat and had his trademark cigar and wit.
"My goal is to get the politicians out of politics," he said. "I have no experience whatsoever. None. I have a lot of human experience."
Students in attendance cheered and said they liked his off-beat message.
"He’s the only candidate for prayer in schools and gay marriage. I think that was pretty groundbreaking," Cody McCafferty, 21, a junior.
Jesse Porter, 21, also a junior, showed up at the outdoor speech with a sign that read, "Let’s get Kinky."
"I saw him on the news, and I just knew he’d be something new and different. He seemed really genuine," Porter said.
McCafferty, Porter and Elizabeth Beck-Johnson, 23, a sophomore, said they signed the petition to put Friedman on the ballot.
"I think he’s a refreshing change for Texas," Beck-Johnson said. "I think he’s got growing support."
Friedman pledged to do away with state testing of schoolchildren and put more power in the hands of teachers. He said people of many vocations should be brought into the schools to show students different career options they have and inspire them to pursue their dreams.
He said gambling should be legalized so property taxes could be cut and the Lone Star State could make money off its namesake poker game, Texas Hold ’em.
Friedman also said he would shun lobbyists and only appoint competent people.
source: http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/14152456.htm

Lake Brownwood State Park: All Politics is Local !

EDITORIAL-Don't mess with Texas, except for its parks ?
EDITORIAL BOARD
Wednesday, March 22, 2006

It is deeply frustrating that a state that ostensibly reveres its history and purports to have an abiding love of the outdoors does so poorly by its parks and historic sites.
For years, the parks division of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department has been slighted by the state Legislature. A sales tax was passed to keep the parks and historic sites in good order, but it was capped, and now less than a third of the money goes to the parks division.
Although the statewide sales tax on sporting goods generates about $105 million annually, the parks division's portion of that is limited to $32 million. And in recent years, the division has not received that full amount as legislators grab the tax money for other expenses.
As an article this week by American-Statesman staff writer Mike Leggett showed, the results of this penurious policy are there for all to see. Parks are poorly maintained, camping is restricted and, in some cases, eliminated altogether. And some historic sites, in a state so enamored of its history and traditions, are open only a few days of the week.
Texas should do better. With one of the lowest percentages of parkland in the country, Texas has precious little open space for the public as it is. State leaders ought to insist upon a policy of keeping our precious parks in good condition and adding more parkland on a regular basis.
Parks are not just for today's enjoyment, they are an investment in the future. Land for parks will only become more expensive as time goes by, historic sites will only become more historic and the demand for outdoor space to enjoy will only grow.
Why the lawmakers continue to punish the state's parks with poverty is a mystery. The tax is there, paid for by people who hunt, fish, camp, bike, hike and otherwise enjoy nature. Limiting that money from the agency that maintains Texas' outdoor treasures is truly short-sighted.
When the Parks and Wildlife Department considered selling 46,000 acres of the Big Bend Ranch State Park to an adjoining landowner last year, it wasn't just an insider deal. It was a way for the department to earn money to spend on upkeep and acquiring new park land.
It's sad that the department had to resort to selling its own property for income, but it's good that the proposal caused an uproar. Maybe that desperate move will get the attention of a Legislature that seems oblivious to the needs of the state park system.
At the least, an effort by state Rep. Harvey Hilderbran, R-Kerrville, to grant parks $85 million of the money generated by the sales tax on sporting goods should get serious consideration. The parks division needs a champion at the Capitol, a guardian angel to watch over the state parks and historic sites and see that they are properly funded, well-maintained and expanding.
source: http://www.statesman.com/opinion/content/editorial/stories/03/22parks_edit.html

Big Country Issues: ''You go from protecting your country to receiving food stamps just to get by,''

A Battle for Benefits

Airman forced to retire for health reasons loses home, cars and savings as he waits for VA pay; At 28, Jeremiah Cottle has lived in nearly constant pain the last three years

By Sidney Levesque / levesques@reporternews.com
March 19, 2006

MORAN - Retired Staff Sgt. Jeremiah Cottle, 28, has lived in nearly constant pain the last three years from debilitating brain swelling he first experienced while serving in the Air Force.
After he was medically retired in 2005, it took the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs nearly a year to begin sending his benefits. It took a phone call from the Reporter-News to get the VA to send thousands of dollars in back pay, Cottle said.
The delay cost the Cottle family their home, vehicles, savings and pride. They now live with his grandparents on their ranch in Moran, a small Shackelford County community 42 miles northeast of Abilene.
The anguish has been so great, Cottle said, he believes his wife and two sons would have been better off if he had died because survivor benefits are immediate.
''You go from protecting your country to receiving food stamps just to get by,'' he said.
Surprisingly, Cottle's situation is not rare.
Injured soldiers routinely are retired into a bureaucratic limbo waiting for VA benefits.
''It's a terrible, terrible situation,'' said Vicky Field, who works for the U.S. Department of Defense, raising community money to help severely wounded Texas troops. Last year, Texas had about 1,500 badly injured troops. That number has increased this year, said Field, whose own son was wounded in Iraq.
Medically retired troops receive retirement pay until their VA benefits start. But if their medical problems render them unable to work, they can become financially drained waiting for their benefits, said Field, who is trying to drum up local support for the Cottles.
With the war on terrorism ongoing, Field said, she doesn't see the situation letting up.
''The VA is so overrun with the veterans themselves, and then there's the wounded and the family members eligible for VA benefits,'' said Field, who lives in Granbury.
The war on terrorism is not causing a backlog of claims, said VA spokesman Jose Llamas. He said a number of factors keep the VA busy, including veterans who are better educated about their benefits and aging baby boomers.
The military has started partnering with the VA more to get soldiers' medical records turned over before they are discharged to speed up the VA enrollment process. Unfortunately, this effort only started about six months ago, too late for the Cottle family.
Pain
Cottle's troubles started in August 2003, when he developed a high fever while working as a computer programmer in Germany during the war in Iraq. He began sweating profusely, suffered head pain and couldn't lie on his back without blacking out.
''I felt like somebody was crushing the back of my skull,'' Cottle said.
Days later, German doctors examined him and found swelling in the left hemisphere of his brain. They concluded he had meningitis/encephalitis.
Meningitis is an infection of the membranes surrounding the brain and spinal cord. Encephalitis is inflammation of the brain, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. Both are usually caused by viruses or bacteria.
Cottle returned to the United States, still in severe pain. After waiting months for the military to acknowledge his pain was real and not imagined, he had two surgeries to reduce his brain swelling. Neither was successful.
By then, Cottle could no longer drive. He suffered from severe cranial pain, light sensitivity, memory problems, drowsiness, nausea and vomiting from heat exposure.
During the last week of February 2005, Cottle said a medical evaluation board told him because he was unable to work and probably couldn't be rehabilitated within a year, he needed to medically retire.
The Defense Department requires military personnel to leave 40 or so days later, said Col. Johnnie Seward, the Air Force's physical disabilities division chief. Troops with extraordinary hardships can stay in another 30 days, but those cases are rare, Seward said.
Cottle was advised to apply for VA benefits immediately, and he was retired March 22, 2005.
His income fell from about $3,200 a month, which he had received while on active duty, to $850 as a military retiree. It was not enough for Cottle to support his wife and two young boys.
His wife, Lora, 32, was completing a master's degree and working part time, but she stopped to care for her children and ailing husband. Leaving him at home required hiring a sitter.
Financial drain
The family exhausted their savings waiting for VA benefits to start. They received some help from the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the American Legion.
The family applied for food stamps and sold their two vehicles, some of their furniture and their San Antonio home. They moved to his grandparents' ranch in Moran, where Cottle had graduated from high school.
The VA told him the move further delayed his paperwork. Frustrated, the Cottles began writing legislators begging them to intervene with the VA, including the office of U.S. Rep. Randy Neugebauer, R-Lubbock.
Cottle said none was successful in getting his claim processed quickly.
His paperwork was further delayed because he did not report for physical exams necessary for the VA to process his claim, according to information provided by Tom Morley, a spokesman for the Waco VA Regional Office.
The Cottles said they weren't notified about one appointment. Others were made at the wrong VA hospitals, a confusion attributed to the family's move.
In September 2005, Cottle received his first Social Security disability check, which he had applied for four months earlier. The next month, the VA rated him 100 percent disabled.
His first VA check was issued Dec. 30 for $2,979. Cottle is receiving extra pay based on the severity of his disabilities and because he is homebound and cannot work.
It took the VA about 10 months to process Cottle's claim.
''I was baffled by how much red tape and crap you have to go through,'' he said.
The VA said the length of time it took to process Cottle's claim was rare. The VA's Web site said the national average time it takes to process a claim is 5.4 months.
But the Taylor County Veterans Service Office, which serves as a liaison between vets and the VA, has cases that have taken a year or longer. The VA isn't funded to handle its workload, said Jim DeFoor, who heads the local veterans office.
''I do not like the way they do it,'' DeFoor said. ''I think it's horrendous to put a young man and his family in that position.''
'Light at the end of the tunnel'
By mid-February, the Cottles had started receiving the VA benefits, but thousands of dollars in back pay from nearly a year of waiting on the VA was nowhere in sight.
The family was distraught when a VA caseworker told them there may be no back pay. They were counting on the money to repay a loan from his grandparents.
Days after the Reporter-News spoke to the VA about Cottle's case, the family received a phone call from Morley, the VA spokesman. Morley delivered good news - the back pay was processed March 2 and the family would receive it within a week.
''I was crying,'' Lora Cottle said. ''I was saying, 'Thank you, Lord.'''
The family is still facing the possibility of bankruptcy for money they owe on a house they had started building in San Antonio before Jeremiah Cottle became sick.
Cottle said his family's financial nightmare could have been avoided if the Air Force had delayed his retirement until the VA was ready to issue his benefits. Instead, his family lost everything. The Cottles said it may take five years for them to get back on their feet.
They know other young veterans are in the same position.
''We're struggling to get back what we lost, but there is light at the end of the tunnel,'' Lora Cottle said. ''Our issue is there are so many people coming back (from the war on terror) right now who are going to have to deal with this.''
Cottle still suffers from agonizing pain and is homebound most of the time. He has a box full of pills and other medicine to help him get through the day. He can't even roughhouse with his sons, ages 8 and 5.
To this day, Cottle doesn't know how he contracted meningitis/encephalitis.
Military doctors told him to accept the pain and learn to live with it. But now that he is receiving all of his benefits, his wife said they can afford to take him to nonmilitary specialists.
''We haven't given up hope that somebody out there can do something so his life isn't like this forever.''

Timeline
August 2003
Air Force Staff Sgt. Jeremiah Cottle becomes ill overseas with what doctors said could be meningitis/ encephalitis.
August 2004
The military performs two surgeries to reduce swelling in the brain. Neither is successful.
February 2005
A medical evaluation board informs Cottle he will be medically retired. He applies for Veterans Administration benefits. The paperwork is sent to Houston.
March 22, 2005
Cottle retires. His military pay was $3,200 a month. His retirement pay is $850 a month.
April 19, 2005
Rerouted VA paperwork arrives at the Waco VA Regional Office.
June 2005
Unable to work or live on $850 a month, Cottle and his family put their San Antonio home up for sale. They move in with his grandparents in Moran.
September 2005
Cottle begins receiving monthly Social Security disability payments of $1,500 in addition to his retirement pay.
October 2005
VA rates Cottle 100 percent disabled.
January 2006
Cottle receives first VA benefits check for $2,979. Military retirement pay ends.
March 2, 2006
VA processes his back pay. VA enrollment was a 10-month journey.

source: http://www.reporternews.com/abil/nw_military/article/0,1874,ABIL_7960_4553185,00.html

As it relates to Brownwood PTSD and "Military Support" !

Some troops headed back to Iraq are mentally ill
By Rick Rogers
STAFF WRITER

March 19, 2006

Besides bringing antibiotics and painkillers, military personnel nationwide are heading back to Iraq with a cache of antidepressant and anti-anxiety medications.
The psychotropic drugs are a bow to a little-discussed truth fraught with implications: Mentally ill service mem-bers are being returned to combat.
The redeployments are legal, and the service members are often eager to go. But veterans groups, lawmakers and mental-health professionals fear that the practice lacks adequate civilian oversight. They also worry that such redeployments are becoming more frequent as multiple combat tours become the norm and traumatized service members are retained out of loyalty or wartime pressures to maintain troop numbers.
Sen. Barbara Boxer hopes to address the controversy through the Department of Defense Task Force on Mental Health, which is expected to start work next month. The California Democrat wrote the legislation that created the panel. She wants the task force to examine deployment policies and the quality and availability of mental-health care for the military.
“We've also heard reports that doctors are being encouraged not to identify mental-health illness in our troops. I am asking for a lot of answers,” Boxer said during a March 8 telephone interview. “If people are suffering from mental-health problems, they should not be sent on the battlefield.”
Stress reduces a person's chances of functioning well in combat, said Frank M. Ochberg, a psychiatrist for 40 years and a founding member of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies.
“I have not seen anything that says this is a good thing to use these drugs in high-stress situations. But if you are going to be going (into combat) anyway, you are better off on the meds,” said Ochberg, a former consultant to the Secret Service and the National Security Council. “I would hope that those with major depression would not be sent.”
About 25,000 Marines and sailors based in San Diego County are undergoing a major combat rotation that began in January. Their deployments are expected to last seven months.
Officials from the Defense Department and Camp Pendleton, where some units have been to Iraq three times, said they don't track personnel deployed while taking mental-health medication or the number diagnosed with mental illness.
But medical officers for the Army and Marine Corps acknowledge that medicated service members – and those suffering combat-induced psychological problems – are returning to war. And anecdotal evidence, bolstered by the government's own studies, suggest that the number could be significant.
A 2004 Army report found that up to 17 percent of combat-seasoned infantrymen experienced major depression, anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder after one combat tour to Iraq. Less than 40 percent of them had sought mental-health care.
A Pentagon survey released last month found that 35 percent of the troops returning from Iraq had received psychological counseling during their first year home.
That survey echoed statistics collected by the San Diego Veterans Affairs Healthcare System. The system has found that about 33 percent of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans suffer from schizophrenia, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.
The various studies apparently didn't consider the effects of multiple combat tours, though psychiatrists agree that the greater people's exposure to combat, generally the higher their risk of suffering mental illness.
More than 435,000 U.S. personnel have served in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. It is unclear how many have served in that region more than once.
Joe Costello, a mental-health counselor at the Vista Veterans Center, said emotionally scarred troops are routinely redeployed and that most want to go back to the war zone.
“I see it every day,” said Costello, who mainly treats reservists.
Buttressing the idea that large numbers of service members are medicated, more than 200,000 prescriptions for the most common types of antidepressants were written in the past 14 months for service members and their families, said Sydney Hickey, a spokeswoman for the National Military Family Association.
Hicks said a Defense Department official gave her the information during a December briefing. She said the official did not distinguish between prescriptions for the troops and those for their family members.
In addition, the Defense Department has not provided prescription totals for such antidepressants from before and after the United States invaded Iraq in 2003.
The prescriptions were for selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, commonly called SSRIs. These drugs are used to treat depression, anxiety disorders, some personality disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder. They include brand names such as Paxil, Cymbalta and Wellbutrin.
The antidepressants work by elevating the level of the neurotransmitter serotonin. Researchers believe that low serotonin levels in the brain could be a biological cause of depression and certain anxiety disorders.
Mental-health care for service members and the Defense Department's efforts to keep the mentally ill in uniform are becoming national issues, said Steve Robinson, director of the National Gulf War Resource Center in Silver Spring, Md.
Robinson said three Army doctors have told him about being pressured by their commanders not to identify mental conditions that would prevent personnel from being deployed.
“They are being told to diagnose combat-stress reaction instead of PTSD,” he said. “That does two things: It keeps the troops deployable and it makes it hard for them to collect disability claims once they get out of the military.”
Robinson contends that the Pentagon is trying to control its spending on mental-health disabilities.
Between 1999 and 2004, disability payments to veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder rose to $4.3 billion from $1.7 billion nationwide, according to a report by the Department of Veterans Affairs' inspector general.
Overall, service members' mental health is a hot-button subject because it goes to the cost of the war in dollars and lives, said Joy Ilem, an assistant national legislative director for the organization Disabled American Veterans.
“The (Department of Veterans Affairs) is very worried about the political implications of PTSD and other mental issues arising from the war,” Ilem said. “They are talking about early outreach and treatment, but they are really trying to tamp down the discussion.”
Cmdr. Paul S. Hammer deals with such issues daily.
Hammer, a psychiatrist, is responsible for the Marine Corps' mental-health programs during this deployment rotation. He confirmed that Marines with post-traumatic stress disorder and combat stress are returning to Iraq, though he would not say how many.
Hammer said deciding who is deployed is often anguishing.
Sometimes he has to tell Marine commanders that personnel they had counted on will not be deploying. In other instances, he said, “We'll hold some guy's feet to the fire and say, 'This is what you signed up for, and you have to go.' ”
Marines are “amazingly resilient,” Hammer added. “You've got people exposed to incredible violence, but they do entirely well.”
It's the tough calls that worry Adrian Atizado, a legislative director for Disabled American Veterans.
“Currently, the services will deploy a service member if the person is medically stable and it is determined that the deployment won't aggravate (his) condition,” Atizado said. “How does one gauge that?
“This a gray area; this is asking a medical provider to make a decision based on the future. The medical providers are human beings. I have no doubt that they are looking out for the best interest of the service members, but they are under pressure to check off on their deployment.”
Ultimately, much is unknown about the rates of post-traumatic stress disorder among Iraq veterans, especially those who have been through more than one combat tour, said Matt Friedman, executive director of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs National Center for PTSD in White River Junction, Vt.
Friedman said that with time, “one of the things we are going to find out is how well people function who might have been on medication (during combat). This is a very important question and has all kinds of implications.
“But remember, they are all volunteers. This isn't Vietnam, where people were drafted and sent to fight. Think of the ethical questions that would arise from sending draftees back to war on medications.”

Rick Rogers: (760) 476-8212; rick.rogers@uniontrib.com
source: The San Diego Union Tribune
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Ailing vets overwhelm system
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BY CRAIG GORDON
Newsday Washington Bureau

March 20, 2006

WASHINGTON -- At Ground Zero in lower Manhattan, Larry Provost said, he spent a week digging through the still-smoldering pile for survivors who weren't there.

His Army Reserve unit touched down in Afghanistan a year to the day after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. Then it was onto Iraq a year later, where every trip off base could be deadly, and Provost knew three fellow soldiers who died in a Baghdad roadside bomb attack.

It's why back home, he swerves to avoid a piece of trash in the road, or tries to avoid large crowds -- things that would have been danger signs in Iraq, a hiding place for a bomb, or a bomber. Some experiences, he just can't forget, no matter how hard he tries.

But when he sought counseling at a Veterans Affairs hospital near his home in Virginia Beach, Va., he said he felt like the message was, "Take a number." He said he's been waiting several weeks for a counseling appointment and was told by one doctor it could be two months before getting in.

"I say to them, 'Why?' And they say back to me that 'Unfortunately, it's because of all you guys coming back, and we just can't handle you. It's nothing personal. It's just the way it is,'" Provost, 27, recalled.

Provost's story illustrates the worst fears of military advocates and even some in the sprawling federal Department of Veterans Affairs itself -- that a health-care system already stretched to the limit in some key areas will be swamped by an influx of veterans straight off the plane from Iraq and Afghanistan.

One internal committee of VA experts on post-traumatic stress disorder raised the alarm last year, warning of several years of shrinking capacity and saying the system isn't big enough to deal with today's patients and make room for new ones.

"We can't do both jobs at once," the report said.

Nearly 150,000 Iraq and Afghanistan vets have shown up on the doorsteps of VA health centers since 2001 -- and about one third, 46,000, have been seen for mental health issues, the agency says. Veterans' advocates say those figures point to cost increases ahead, with two wars in progress.

VA officials and the White House insist they are ready to deal with this ongoing human cost of war, marked not by fatalities alone but also by those who survive.

They say President George W. Bush's budget proposal next year would mark a 69 percent increase in veterans health-care spending since he took office, to $34.3 billion. About $300 million in new spending in the past two years has shortened waiting times for care and largely erased the problems outlined by its post-traumatic stress disorder committee, the VA insists.

But many veterans groups -- from newcomers like the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America to mainline stalwarts like the American Legion -- say Bush's spending still shortchanges the needs of veterans and leaves the VA ill-prepared to deal with what's still to come.

They point to proposed fee increases that would bump 200,000 higher-income veterans off the rolls, projections of $1 billion in management efficiencies that Congressional auditors call dubious and spending hikes they say fall short of what's needed to cut down wait times for specialty appointments, spotty care in rural areas and other problems.

"The White House is playing Enron games with the numbers," said Paul Rieckhoff, an Iraq war vet who runs Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. "These guys are not projecting the true cost. It should have been part of the original Iraq war planning but now there's no excuse."

Pentagon officials fret that a doubling of costs in its retiree health-care program is eating into money they'd rather be spending on wars today, already costing $1 out of every $12 in defense spending. They've proposed a fee hike critics say will push 600,000 retirees out of the program.

Working the numbers

Even the VA is trying to make its numbers look good by building in fee increases likely to be rolled back in Congress and projecting a decrease in medical-services spending in 2008 -- something even Bush budget officials admit isn't realistic.

For one thing, more soldiers are surviving wounds that once might have killed them, thanks to improvements in soldier protection and battlefield medicine. Of the 17,000 wounded in Iraq, for instance, more than 380 are amputees -- saved by body armor that protected their torsos even as it left limbs exposed.

Also, the nature of combat in Iraq -- urban and up-close, with dangers approaching from any side, at any time -- seems a fertile breeding ground for the mental health disorders now showing up in its veterans, particularly post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. Once commonly known as "shell shock," it is marked by symptoms such as anxiety, irritability, sleeplessness and "hyper-vigilance," being ever alert for danger even outside the war zone.

Today, it is the fastest-growing disability condition among VA clients, with cases up 80 percent in five years, to 215,871 in 2004, at a cost of $4.3 billion in benefits. Those numbers don't account for Iraq and Afghanistan but are mostly Vietnam veterans seeking treatment.

Mental health help sought

Of the 46,000 veterans of current wars seen for mental disorders, 20,638 of those veterans have received a possible diagnosis of PTSD that requires follow-up monitoring, the VA said.

On Long Island, about 1,000 Iraq veterans have sought services at the Northport Veterans Affairs Medical Center since the conflict began, said chief psychiatrist Charlene Thomesen. Of them, 255 have been treated for various mental disorders, including about 100 who have been diagnosed with PTSD.

She said although Northport has not had to turn anyone away so far, her staff case loads are full. And because PTSD often does not show its symptoms for months or years, doctors at Northport said caseloads there could grow even more.

Thomesen said Northport will receive an additional $800,000 this year to hire another psychiatrist, three more psychologists, two social workers and an addiction therapist. The additions would bring the staff totals to eight psychiatrists, five psychologists and four social workers.

Still, some advocates are accusing the VA of seeking to publicly downplay the prevalence of PTSD out of worries over making an already unpopular war in Iraq seem even more harmful.

"It seems to be such a political hot potato right now," said Joy Ilem, a national legislative director of Disabled American Veterans. "We want to make sure people don't fall through the cracks."

The VA staunchly denies any political motives but is quick to point out shortcomings in a recent study showing that one-third of war-on-terror vets sought mental-health services upon returning home. Dr. Matthew Friedman, the head of the VA's National Center for PTSD, suggested that by asking the questions so soon after deployment ends, researchers might have skewed the numbers higher.

"If I hurt my knee in Iraq, and there's a question about knee problems, it might not have occurred to me to report a problem if someone hadn't asked," Friedman said.

And the agency's top leaders have drawn fire from an internal committee studying PTSD care, which reported that the system was struggling to keep up even before the Iraq war -- with fewer visits per patient every year. One in five centers reported in a survey that they couldn't handle any new patients.

Dr. Antonette Zeiss, deputy chief of VA mental health services, said the infusion of cash -- plus another $339 million proposed for next year -- is eliminating those issues. She also cautioned that the early possible diagnosis among some patients doesn't mean they ultimately will be diagnosed with mental-health disorders but that the VA is committed to spending what it takes to confront the issue.

"We feel like there's been a real recognition of those needs and real funding," Zeiss said.

And to some extent, even Provost doesn't disagree.

Provost was receiving VA counseling while living in Syracuse and was surprised to find difficulties getting it in a timely way when he moved to Virginia Beach, where the Hampton VA hospital serves an area more populated with veterans.

Hampton VA officials said they couldn't discuss any individual cases, due to patient privacy laws, but questioned why anyone would tell Provost of a possible two-month delay, when they are striving to see high-priority Iraq veterans within a week.

Provost, who speaks occasionally at IAVA college forums, admits that he has found his readjustment to life in the States difficult at times. After months of being on constant alert, it's hard to turn off those instincts.

"You're very much on guard while you're driving, you're very much on guard while you're walking in public place, you're looking around, you don't let people get too close to you," he said.

"I've obviously trained my mind to realize there is a difference between overseas and back home, and that's where the difficulty lies" for many veterans, Provost said. "It's very difficult for them to make that adjustment, and what if they can't? That's something we have an obligation to take care of."

Staff writer Martin C. Evans contributed to this story.

Copyright (c) 2006, Newsday, Inc.

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

This article originally appeared at:
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-usvets0320,0,2166439.story

... and this is joking material for the Talking Heads at KXYL (Brownwood Hate Radio) !

Tuesday March 14, 2006
News

Man injured after jumping from pickup on overpass
By Steve Nash — Brownwood Bulletin

A 23-year-old passenger was injured when he jumped or climbed out of a pickup as it was driven across the Truman Harlow Overpass early Sunday morning, police said.
Samuel Juarez Jr. was taken to the Brownwood Regional Medical Center emergency room after the incident, which happened shortly after 1 a.m., police said. Juarez was not listed as a patient as of Monday.
Officer Brandon Arnold was dispatched to the 1500 block of Main at 1:16 a.m., and arrived less than a minute later to find Juarez lying in the road with a head injury, Arnold’s report states.
The driver of the pickup told Arnold he and Juarez had been drinking at a club and were on their way to the driver’s house when Juarez unbuckled his seat belt, started laughing and began climbing out the window, Arnold’s report states.
The driver told police he did not slow down but tried to talk Juarez back in, looked away for a moment, and looked back to see that Juarez was gone, the report states.
The driver “freaked out” and did not stop, but was driven back to the scene later, where he spoke with police, according to the report.
There was considerable commotion as distraught friends and family members arrived, Arnold’s report states.
Juarez’s mother told police her son returned from Iraq in December and has post traumatic stress disorder, the report states. His mother said a social worker had set him up with an appointment at the veterans hospital in Temple.
source: http://www.brownwoodbulletin.com/articles/2006/03/14/news/news04.txt
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Note from Steve Harris:

The above story is bad enough but what makes it even more personal is the " joking & sarcastic " commentary from Brownwood's talking heads ( Jessee Jones and JC Mclain ) on Brownwood "Hate" Radio (KXYL) this morning. Example of comments made on this mornings show by the morning show host(s) :

" He can't blame this on "PTSD" , maybe " PT "Jim Beam" ! ,
" He must not be too bad, he's not listed as a patient at the hospital ."
" Note from Griff " and something about checking the morgue !
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FYI - ( I've been told Sam was transferred by Helicopter to San Angelo's Shannon Hospital and is in critical condition in the ICU Unit ! ) I suggest folks call the station and request them to play their recorded comments back. There's more than I've listed ! Why am I not surprised that this would be coming from the bowels of Watts Communications via their employees/mics/transmitters and "our" airwaves !

"Th' homosex'shals is comin'! Th' homosex'shals is comin'!"

COMMENTARY
Pitts: Don't use the holy Bible to support your bigotry
Leonard Pitts, MIAMI HERALD
Monday, March 13, 2006

An open letter to Donna Reddick: I'm writing this for Desiree. She's a student at Miami Sunset Senior High, where you teach business technology. A few days ago, she sent me an e-mail recounting an incident that happened on campus last week.
It seems that on three successive days, the morning announcements, which are televised throughout the school, featured student-produced segments on the subject of gay rights. On the first day came comments from students who took the pro position. On the second day came remarks from a counselor who spoke of the need for students to respect one another. On the third day came you.
You and a few students, actually. One told classmates homosexuality was "unacceptable in the eyesight of God." Another said gays were "unrighteous." The coup de grace, though, was you, invoking Sodom and Gomorrah and telling students homosexuality was "wrong according to the Bible" because God ordered humanity to multiply, which gay couples cannot do.
Desiree was, to put it mildly, upset. In the e-mail, she accused you of bigotry and wondered how a gay student could ever again feel assured of fair treatment in your class. I tend to agree. She also suggested that you crossed the line between church and state, an accusation about which I'm more conflicted. It seems to me there's a difference between proselytizing for a religion and explaining how one's faith has influenced one's opinion. You're entitled to think what you think, no matter how stupid it might be.
But I'll leave those questions for others to parse. My biggest frustration lies elsewhere. Put simply, I've had it up to here with the moral hypocrisy and intellectual constipation of Bible literalists.
By which I mean people like you, who dress their homophobia up in Scripture, insisting with sanctimonious sincerity that it's not homophobia at all, but just a pious determination to live according to what the Bible says.
And never mind that the Bible also says it is "disgraceful" for a woman to speak out in church (1 Corinthians 14:34-36) and that if she has any questions, she should wait till she gets home and ask her husband. Never mind that the Bible says the penalty for going to work on Sunday (Exodus 35:1-3) is death. Never mind that the Bible says the man who rapes a virgin should buy her from her father (Deuteronomy 22:28-29) and marry her.
I'm going to speculate that you don't observe or support those commands. Which says to me that yours is a literalism of convenience, a literalism that is literal only so long as it allows you to condemn what you'd be condemning anyway and takes no skin off your personal backside. As such, your claim that God sanctions your homophobia is the moral equivalent of Flip Wilson's old claim that the devil made him do it.
You resemble many of your and my co-religionists, whose faith so often expresses itself in an obsessive focus on one or two hot-button issues — and seemingly nowhere else. They're so panicked at the thought that somebody might accidentally treat gay people like people. They run around Chicken Little-like, screaming, "Th' homosex'shals is comin'! Th' homosex'shals is comin'!" Meantime, people are ignorant in Appalachia, strung out in Miami, starving in Niger, sex slaves in India, mass murdered in Darfur. Where is the Christian outrage about that?
Just once, I'd like to read a headline that said a Christian group was boycotting to feed the hungry. Or marching to house the homeless. Or pushing Congress to provide the poor with health care worthy of the name.
Instead, they fixate on keeping the gay in their place. Which makes me question their priorities. And their compassion. And their faith.
If you love me, feed my sheep.
For the record, Ms. Reddick, the Bible says that, too.

Pitts can be reached at lpitts@herald.com.
source: http://www.statesman.com/opinion/content/editorial/stories/03/13pitts_edit.html

Perry & Leininger in Bed Together ! What will that do for you ?

William McKenzie:
GOP's school advocates take lead, while Democrats barely register
08:14 AM CST on Tuesday, March 14, 2006
What did we learn from last week's primary races in Texas? Yes, only 9 percent of the eligible voters turned out, but the tallies still give us a good idea of what's going on in the Republican and Democratic parties:
The GOP civil war takes a turn: The good guys are starting to win the raging battle within the Texas Republican Party over how the Legislature should fund schools. The best example comes from Arlington, where GOP voters pulled a stunner and turned out longtime Rep. Kent Grusendorf in favor of educator Diane Patrick.
Mr. Grusendorf chaired the House Public Education Committee during Austin's four recent sessions on school finance. But he and GOP House Speaker Tom Craddick didn't come up with a solution that gives schools extra money. Out went Mr. Grusendorf.
Mind you, this was Arlington, no left-wing bastion. When voters there rise up and throw out a top Republican, you know they are angry. They sent a clear message – "Come up with enough money for schools, or else" – to a party in which some leaders see advocates for schools as whiners.
Fort Worth voters sent their own signal, as did Republicans in Lubbock and Longview. They stood by their GOP reps, despite voucher advocate James Leininger pouring in tons of money to defeat incumbents. Despite Dr. Leininger's blitzkrieg in Fort Worth, Lubbock and Longview, Reps. Charlie Geren, Delwin Jones and Tommy Merritt won their respective primaries.
Yes, the San Antonio physician and businessman knocked out a GOP incumbent in Nacogdoches and perhaps another in New Braunfels, where the tally is still being finalized. But Dr. Leininger reportedly invested $2.4 million in five legislative races and failed to win most of them. That's a defeat, pure and simple.
Gov. Rick Perry should heed it, too. Republicans back home are starting to call the shots. And they mirror the recent Texas Poll that shows 52 percent of Texans will pay higher taxes to fund schools.
You'll never hear that from Dr. Leininger and the other conservatives with whom Mr. Perry is so thick. He may want to find himself new friends. If he scratches below the surface of Texas politics, he'll find plenty of Republicans who want their schools to have enough money for foreign language classes and the other elements needed for excellence. And they are willing to battle for them.
source: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/viewpoints/stories/DN-mckenzie_0314edi.ART.State.Edition1.e38f9c4.html

''They are punishing him for mistakes that they made - I don't mean the Army, I mean the leadership at Fort Hood,''

AWOL soldier serves time in Belton jail
Father in Brownwood blames stress in Iraq

By Celinda Emison / emisonc@reporternews.com
March 11, 2006
The young soldier from Brownwood who was AWOL for 10 months is serving a 30-day sentence in the Bell County Jail in Belton.
Officials at the Bell County Jail confirmed that Pfc. Jacob Hounshell, 20, was in custody there on charges of absence without leave.
Hounshell was sentenced to 30 days in jail following a hearing on Wednesday, according to his father, Larry Hounshell, who is unhappy about the turn of events.
''They are punishing him for mistakes that they made - I don't mean the Army, I mean the leadership at Fort Hood,'' the elder Hounshell said.
A spokesperson at Bell County Jail said the jail handles inmates from Fort Hood in Killeen, where Hounshell is stationed.
Hounshell returned to his unit in the 1st Cavalry Division on Feb. 9 because he had learned a federal warrant was about to be issued for him.
Lt. Col. Scott Bleichwehl, a division spokesperson, said Hounshell's mother, Bobbie, dropped him off at the gate Feb. 9, where he was met by military police officers and escorted to his command.
At the time, Bleichwehl said Hounshell was not under arrest at the base and was able to move freely while there.
Bleichwehl could not be reached for comment Friday.
Larry Hounshell was unclear about whether his son will be given a dishonorable discharge or not.
''We just know that he will be released without medical benefits,'' the elder Hounshell said. ''He not only suffers mentally, but he has physical injuries that he received in Iraq that he will have to be treated for for the rest of his life.''
Jacob Hounshell was sent to Iraq June of 2004, where he served his first tour of duty. Hounshell served as a driver and a scout in the first platoon of the 9th Cavalry Division of the First Cavalry.
He earned a commendation for finding makeshift bombs in a vehicle and arresting two insurgents during a routine checkpoint stop. His story was published in the military newspaper Stars and Stripes.
When Hounshell returned home, he was suffering from symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder and was suicidal. According to his family, he threatened to drive his truck into an 18-wheeler.
Hounshell will turn 21 on April 12.
''I hope he's out of jail by then,'' his father said.

source: http://reporter-news.com/abil/nw_military/article/0,1874,ABIL_7960_4532937,00.html
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Wednesday March 15, 2006 The Brownwood Bulletin
Op Ed: Letters To The Editor

Parents love their child unconditionally

To the editor:

I would like to say a few things about the controversy over our military. I am not opposed to our soldiers; I have the utmost respect for those who serve. What I don’t agree with is the way our soldiers are treated when they get back from being overseas, especially Baghdad. Our society has become very critical and judgmental. We like to criticize and judge before we have heard all sides of an experience. That is one of our freedoms that our soldiers fight for. I just wish that we as a society didn’t take it for granted or abuse it.

Yes, I am the mother of a soldier. His name is Jacob Hounshell. I am very proud to be his mother. A lot of people do not understand what or why he did the things he did by not going back to Fort Hood. As his mother, I supported him and stand beside him now. No one will understand what we did and how we came to our decisions until they have walked in our shoes. I’m not saying that we were right or that we were wrong. It is a decision based on love and emotion. We had tried all avenues to get Jake help and had doors slammed shut. The military met their minimum requirements, but my son needed more than the minimum, as do other soldiers who came back home. It was not and is not an easy journey or part of our life as a family. I have sat and held him for hours during a thunderstorm while he was in fear of being mortared and attacked. I have watched him patrol the house at night because he felt he was being surrounded by the enemy. I have watched him change temperament from happy to very angry in a matter of seconds for no reason.

So, as a parent, I did what I felt I needed to do to protect my child and keep him alive. The day he was to go back to Fort Hood, he left me a suicide letter, saying he couldn’t stand himself, the torment he was going through and the torment he was putting on his family. He felt his only choice was to die. After he spent 18 months in Baghdad, I was not going to let that happen here, no matter what I had to do to save him. I believe that is part of being a mother — you protect your child and love your child unconditionally. We as a family have done that and continue to do so. All I ask is that before our society judges one another, we think of all sides and of all who are affected. That is what our soldiers fight for — to give us that right. Also, I would like to say thanks to all those who give us support.

Thank you.

Bobbie Hounshell
Brownwood

source: http://www.brownwoodbulletin.com/articles/2006/03/15/op_ed/letters%20to%20the%20editor/letter01.txt
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March 21, 2006

2 Years After Soldier's Death, Family's Battle Is With Army

By MONICA DAVEY and ERIC SCHMITT
SAN JOSE, Calif. — Patrick K. Tillman stood outside his law office here, staring intently at a yellow house across the street, just over 70 yards away. That, he recalled, is how far away his eldest son, Pat, who gave up a successful N.F.L. career to become an Army Ranger, was standing from his fellow Rangers when they shot him dead in Afghanistan almost two years ago.
"I could hit that house with a rock," Mr. Tillman said. "You can see every last detail on that place, everything, and you're telling me they couldn't see Pat?"
Mr. Tillman, 51, is a grieving father who has refused to give up on his son. While fiercely shunning the public spotlight that has followed Cpl. Pat Tillman's death, Mr. Tillman has spent untold hours considering the Army's measurements, like the 70 yards.
He has drafted long, sometimes raw, letters to military leaders, demanding answers about the shooting. And he has studied — and challenged — Army PowerPoint presentations meant to explain how his son, who had called out his own name and waved his arms, wound up dead anyway, shot three times in the head by his own unit, which said it had mistaken him for the enemy.
"All I asked for is what happened to my son, and it has been lie after lie after lie," said Mr. Tillman, explaining that he believed the matter should remain "between me and the military" but that he had grown too troubled to keep silent.
As the second anniversary of the death of Corporal Tillman, once a popular safety for the Arizona Cardinals, approaches, Mr. Tillman, his former wife, Mary, and other family members remain frustrated by the Army's handling of the killing but for the first time may be close to getting some of the answers they so desperately seek.
After repeated complaints from the Tillmans and members of Congress contacted by them, the Army is immersed in a highly unusual criminal investigation of the killing, and the Defense Department's inspector general, which called for the criminal investigation this month, is looking separately into the Army's conduct in its aftermath.
Senior military officials said Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld had expressed outrage to top aides that the Army was having to conduct yet another inquiry into the shooting, prolonging the family's anguish and underscoring the failure of the Army's investigative processes to bring resolution.
Gary Comerford, a spokesman for the inspector general, said the Army Criminal Investigation Command was "dealing with events leading up to the death, and we're looking at anything after that." Though Mr. Comerford did not say so, that could include the possibility of a cover-up, the Tillmans said they had been told by the inspector general's office.
No one wants answers more than the Tillmans. But by now, they said, they have lost patience and faith that any Army entity, even the Criminal Investigation Command, can be trusted to find the truth.
"I am sitting here on my own, going over and over and over this for two years," Ms. Tillman, 50, said in a telephone interview. "The whole thing is such a debacle. I am beyond tears. It's killing me."
Like her former husband, she has spent days reading the files, researching the episode, calling members of Congress, even trying to contact some of the soldiers involved. She criticized the military, as well as the news media, for failing to get to the bottom of what occurred, leaving her family, in essence, to figure it out themselves.
All of it, her former husband said, has even left him suspicious of the military's central finding in their son's case so far: that the killing was a terrible but unintentional accident.
"There is so much nonstandard conduct, both before and after Pat was killed, that you have to start to wonder," Mr. Tillman said. "How much effort would you put into hiding an accident? Why do you need to hide an accident?"
An examination by The New York Times of more than 2,000 pages of documents from three previous Army administrative reviews reveals shifting testimony, the destruction of obvious evidence in the case and a series of contradictions about the distances, the lighting conditions and other details surrounding the shooting.
Seven Rangers have received administrative disciplines — a pay cut, a loss of rank or a return to the rank-and-file Army — but the criminal inquiry is for the first time examining whether the soldiers broke military law when they failed to identify their targets before firing on Corporal Tillman's position. The earlier reviews found that a chain of circumstances and errors had led to the deaths of Corporal Tillman and an Afghan soldier fighting alongside the Americans.
A senior Pentagon official briefed on the criminal investigation, who was granted anonymity because he was not permitted to speak publicly while the new investigation was under way, said it would delve into highly sensitive areas.
"The balance that investigators now have to wrestle with is how much of a crime-scene approach they can take — nearly two years after the fact — into the fog of war, where soldiers were making decisions in milliseconds," the Pentagon official said.
Mr. Tillman spoke bluntly and angrily one afternoon here as he waded once more through the Army reports, the charts, even the details in his son's autopsy. He knows the smallest of details by heart — where his son was supposed to be standing, which way the sun was setting, what the Ranger ducking beside his son heard him call out last — and ticked them off unemotionally as he flipped through the worn reports.
Mr. Tillman's small office, though, belies his hardened shell. His trash can, pasted with orange and green paper, was a grade school project of Pat Tillman. So was the wooden pencil holder nearby, shakily carved with the letters N.F.L. A blurry photograph in a frame showed Pat Tillman at age 2, marching off toward a lake with his signature confident stride.
"At this point I don't believe that the facts of this case are going to come out without the serious threat of jail time hanging over some folks," Mr. Tillman said.
The Tillman family's first glimmers of distrust began in the month after Corporal Tillman was killed, at the age of 27, on April 22, 2004.
Within hours, military officers came to the family home here, the same house where Corporal Tillman had grown up. No one mentioned, though, that the shooting had been at the hands of his colleagues. Even Corporal Tillman's younger brother Kevin, who served in the same Ranger unit and was in a vehicle far behind the shooting and did not see what had happened, did not learn the truth for more than a month.
Instead, eight days after Corporal Tillman's death, Army officials awarded a Silver Star and issued a news release that seemed to suggest that he had been killed by enemy fire during an ambush.
At the end of May, as the rest of Corporal Tillman's unit was returning to the United States, the Army notified the family of what it believed really happened. In the months that followed, in private briefings for the family, the Army assured the Tillmans that a thorough investigation would be made and that those responsible would be disciplined.
"They said they'd take care of it, and I believed them," Mr. Tillman said.
Corporal Tillman's platoon of the Second Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, began the day that he died dealing with a minor annoyance in the southeastern part of Afghanistan where the soldiers were conducting sweeps, the Army records show: one vehicle would not start.
The platoon split into two parts so that half the team, including Corporal Tillman, could go on to the next town for sweeps while the second half could tow the disabled vehicle to a drop-off spot.
But both groups ended up in the same twisting canyon, along the same road, without radio communication. And after the sounds of an enemy ambush, three Rangers in the second group wound up firing at members of the first group — at an Afghan soldier who was fighting alongside Corporal Tillman, and then at Corporal Tillman.
The Army's administrative reviews that followed, parts of which have been described previously in other newspapers, including The Washington Post and The San Francisco Chronicle, have left the Tillman family with more questions than answers, they say. Some of those involved in the shooting have provided shifting accounts of what happened, the records show.
The decision to split the unit into two convoys, for example, was a crucial, and perhaps fatal, one. Brig. Gen. Gary M. Jones, who led the most recent of the three Army reviews, concluded that the decision was a result of "miscommunication" among several officers.
But at least one Army officer, the records show, changed his sworn statements about which supervisor had actually ordered the split and what conversations had occurred before the order was given.
Even the soldier who conducted the military's first review of Corporal Tillman's death — in the hours and days immediately afterward — expressed concern about the changes in the accounts.
That soldier, whose name, like many others, was redacted from the Army files provided to The Times by Mr. Tillman, said he believed Rangers had changed their versions of what happened and were not receiving the "due just punishment" for what he concluded was "gross negligence."
The stories, he said in a sworn statement as part of General Jones's subsequent review, "have changed to, I think, help some individuals."
"The other difficult thing, though, was watching some of these guys getting off with what I thought was a lesser of a punishment than what they should've received," the soldier who conducted the first inquiry said.
Among a number of conflicts in the descriptions of what happened, some Rangers said that in the dusk they could see nothing more than "shapes" and "muzzle flashes" even as Corporal Tillman tried to tell his colleagues who he was, waving his arms, setting off a smoke grenade signal and calling out. Others said they had seen and aimed for the Afghan fighter, his "dark face" and his AK-47.
After the shooting, the Rangers destroyed evidence that would be considered critical in any criminal case, the records show. They burned Corporal Tillman's uniform and his body armor.
Months later, the Rangers involved said they did not intend to destroy evidence. "It was a hygiene issue," one soldier wrote. "They were starting to stink."
Another soldier involved offered a slightly different take, saying "the uniform and equipment had blood on them and it would stir emotion" that needed to be suppressed until the Rangers finished their work overseas.
"How could they do that?" Mr. Tillman said. "That makes no sense."
The family still wants to know, he said, what became of Corporal Tillman's diary. It was never returned to the family, he said.
Ms. Tillman said her family could not rest until they knew what really happened. All of it, Ms. Tillman said, has left her wondering what other families who have lost service members in Iraq and Afghanistan may really know about the circumstances. In addition to Corporal Tillman, at least 16 service members have died in Afghanistan and Iraq as a result of shootings or bombings by fellow Americans, and none of the deaths, so far, have led to criminal convictions.
"This is how they treat a family of a high-profile individual," she said. "How are they treating others?"
Col. Joseph Curtin, an Army spokesman, said the Tillmans deserved answers.
"We deeply regret their loss," Colonel Curtin said, "and will continue to answer their questions in a truthful and forthright manner."
Monica Davey reported from San Jose for this article, and Eric Schmitt from Washington. David S. Cloud contributed reporting from Washington.

source: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/21/politics/21tillman.html?_r=1&ei=5094&en=afa52cbd1ddda78b&hp=&ex=1142917200&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin

Why are Republicans shoving NAIS down our throats ?

Consumers looking for organic, healthy foods but the GOP doesn't get it
by Chris in Paris - 3/10/2006 04:25:00 PM

Isn't it funny how the GOP Congress can ignore consumer direction like this? The GOP is so owned by the big food (really, Big Chemical) industry that they overlook the realities of the market. They GOP has no idea any more what the market actually wants because they are so interested in protecting the status quo of the market. I try to purchase organic food when I can and one of my favorite little wines is a great Anjou red from an organic winery in the Loire. The price gap over here in Europe has been declining but it's still not cheap to go organic but the demand is clearly there. Who wants to feed themselves of their families steroids, pesticides and other strange chemicals in their every day meals if they can find something that is more natural?
The GOP doesn't get it but at least consumers do.
source : http://americablog.blogspot.com/
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Here's what the Dirt Doctor, Howard Garrett, thinks of the NAIS Legislation.

National Animal Identification System (NAIS)

Letters, General Information and Articles on NAIS
Howard's Letter
RE: NAIS (National Animal Identification System)

The NAIS program should be cancelled. It is an insane invasion of private property and will do nothing to protect anyone from anything.

Just a few of my objections are as follows:

1) NAIS is a new form of taxation we don’t need.
2) Its rules are a gross invasion of personal property and
freedom
3) Tracking animals that are not in the food chain such as horses,
llamas, is a complete waste of time and money.
4) NAIS will have no effect on preventing illnesses mad cow
disease.
5) It will hurt the consumers who deal with small farmers
6) NAIS will put small farmers out of business.
7) Giant producers like the idea – that’s reason enough to
abandon the program.

For more information about this bureaucratic boondoggle, check out the information we have at DirtDoctor.com.

Sincerely,
Howard Garrett

The "Dirt Doctor's Website

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National Animal Identification System (NAIS) Q&A-The Hard Questions

1. What is the NAIS? A scheme hatched by the federal government and corporate agribusiness to tag every animal in the US with an identity number and to track every animal through processing. The excuse for it is the discovery of two cases of mad cow disease (BSE or bovine spongiform encephalopathy).

2. What does it require? It requires every farm in the country to register as a “premises.” Each registered premises will then have to register & tag every alpaca, bison, cow, emu, goat, horse, llama, sheep, swine, and all poultry. (As far as we know right now, catfish and goldfish are exempted.) It provides no exemptions. If you have as much as one chicken, you must register.

3. What does it mean? This is not about controlling disease, it’s about controlling farmers. When social security was first introduced, the government promised the people that the number would never be used for “identification purposes.” But today you can’t get health care, insurance, a bank account, an apartment, a job, or your tooth pulled without giving a social security number.

4. Isn’t it voluntary? Only for now. The present USDA “Draft Strategic Plan” calls for making it mandatory by January 2008. “Mandatory” means that they will fine, arrest, or jail you if you refuse to comply. For the system to work, the government obviously must force every farm and every farmer to register every animal, and no one will be able to seek veterinary care, transport, sell, or process animals without registry. In other words, the freedom to farm that has belonged to mankind since Creation will be abolished.

5. Who and what is behind the NAIS? According to the USDA National Animal Identification System (NAIS) Draft Strategic Plan 2005 to 2009, page 3, paragraph 1, at http://animalagriculture.org/aboutNIAA/members/memberdirectory.asp, “In 2002, the National Institute of Animal Agriculture (NIAA) initiated meetings that led to the development of the U.S. Animal Identification Plan (USAIP).” “Driving force – The strongest driving force for developing the NAIS is the risk of an outbreak of a foreign animal disease (FAD). There is broad support for NAIS among government, industry, and public stakeholders.” (“Stakeholders are defined as those individuals and groups in the public and private sectors who are interested in and/or affected by the Department's activities and decisions.” http://www.ci.doe.gov/cigapol.htm.)

6. Who is the National Institute of Animal Agriculture? NIAA website states, “The mission of the National Institute for Animal Agriculture is to provide a forum for building consensus and advancing solutions for animal agriculture and to provide continuing education and communication linkages to animal agriculture professionals.” http://animalagriculture.org/aboutNIAA/facts/factsheet.asp. In fact, the NIAA is a national agribusiness organization whose purpose appears to be lobbying government for laws and policies that favour agribusiness. A brief glance at the board of directors seems to confirm that, since all are drawn from agribusiness companies, industry groups, or schools of agriculture (which notoriously favour corporate agribusiness over small farmers and sustainable agriculture). http://animalagriculture.org/aboutNIAA/leadersstaff/BOD.asp. A list of members leads to the same conclusion. http://animalagriculture.org/aboutNIAA/members/memberdirectory.asp.

7. Who will bear the burden of NAIS? Small farmers, and especially those engaged in the New Agriculture (“permaculture” or “sustainable agriculture”). First, they will be forced to pay for NAIS, at least in part. Second, they will be forced to work for NAIS. In the words of the NAIS Draft Strategic Plan, page 14, paragraph 3, “All groups will need to provide labour.” NAIS will add yet another cost disadvantage to small farmers and the New Agriculture, and will make local agriculture less competitive with agribusiness. http://animalagriculture.org/aboutNIAA/members/memberdirectory.asp.

8. Won’t NAIS help prevent and control disease? No, NAIS isn’t about preventing or controlling disease, it’s about marketing. When a case of mad cow disease (or any other disease) surfaces, NAIS aims to protect meat producers’ markets by tracking animals through processing to “prove” that only a few animals are affected and so prevent a public revulsion against their meat. The most effective way to control disease is to produce meat and milk for local instead of national markets and “closed herd” techniques.
source: http://www.freetennessee.org/NAIS_Q&A.html
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WHAT COLOR IS YOUR STEAK ?

Time for another "Gooberhead Award" [Beanie-cap breakdown], presented periodically to someone in the news who has their tongue running 100 miles per hour ... but forgot to put their brain in gear.
Today we have three Goobers, all trying to convince us consumers that there's nothing devious or dangerous about the politically powerful meat industry using "modified atmosphere packaging."

Tyson, Wal-Mart, and other food giants have been gassing their precut packaged meats with carbon monoxide, which turns steak puckishly pink. This makes weeks-old meat appear to be as fresh as the day it was cut. But, wait – we've been taught that the clearest indicator of freshness is the meat's color: Pink, good. Brown, bad. It's raw consumer deception to let industry pass off old meat as pink and fresh.

Yet, the FDA has allowed just that, without even holding public hearings or requiring that gassed meat be labeled. Oh, says Laura Tarantino, FDA's head of additive safety, "If we had evidence that consumers would be misled [by the color alteration] ... we'd be concerned." Hello, Gooberhead, before you okayed this deception, you were given three separate studies showing that, indeed, meat shoppers do rely on color.

Then there's Ann Boeckman, a Washington lobbyist for one of the meat gassers. This Goober gaily proclaims that perpetually pink meat won't cover up spoilage because bad meat will have "slime formations and a bulging package." Gosh, Ann, I'd really rather have a clue before the meat turns totally rotten, wouldn't you?

John Catsimatidis is Goober No. 3. Honcho of a grocery store chain selling the pink stuff, John has no patience with those who're balking at the trick meat: "This is what's going to happen in the meat business," he says flatly.

If you consumers would like to have something to say about that, call STOP (Safe Table Our Priority) at 802/863-0555.

source: http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/dispatch/2006-03-10/pols_hightower.html
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here's some NAIS background

What are Faith Hill and Tim McGraw Saying ?

Faith Hill, Tim McGraw Blast 'Humiliating' Katrina Cleanup
Country Stars Lash Out in Anger Over Conditions in Storm-Ravaged States

March 8, 2006 — - Faith Hill and Tim McGraw -- two stars who usually stay out of politics -- blasted the Hurricane Katrina cleanup effort, with Hill calling the slow progress in Louisiana and Mississippi "embarrassing" and "humiliating."
The country music artists -- who are natives of the storm-ravaged states -- were at times close to tears, and clearly angry when the subject of Katrina came up during a news conference today. They had met with reporters in Nashville to promote their upcoming Soul2Soul II Tour, but when asked about the hurricane cleanup, the stars pulled no punches.
"To me, there's a lot of politics being played and a lot of people trying to put people in bad positions in order to further their agendas," McGraw, a 38-year-old native of Delhi, La., said after ABC News Radio's Dan Gordon asked about Katrina.
"When you have people dying because they're poor and black or poor and white, or because of whatever they are -- if that's a number on a political scale -- then that is the most wrong thing. That erases everything that's great about our country."
McGraw specifically criticized President Bush. "There's no reason why someone can't go down there who's supposed to be the leader of the free world … and say, 'I'm giving you a job to do and I'm not leaving here until it's done. And you're held accountable, and you're held accountable, and you're held accountable.
"'This is what I've given you to do, and if it's not done by the time I get back on my plane, then you're fired and someone else will be in your place. '"
Hill: 'I Fear for Our Country'
The president had actually spent the day in New Orleans, getting a close-up look at boarded-up buildings and mountains of debris, noting that the city still suffers "pain and agony."
Along the president's route, some frustrated residents held up signs in protest, one asking "Where's my government?" and another telling the president to "cut the red tape and help us."
Hill, who grew up in Jackson, Miss., echoed those sentiments. So overwhelmed, she uncharacteristically unleashed an epithet, calling the situation, "Bull- - - -"
"It is a huge, huge problem and it's embarrassing," she said.
"I fear for our country if we can't handle our people [during] a natural disaster. And I can't stand to see it. It doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out point A to point B. . . . And they can't even skip from point A to point B.
"It's just screwed up."
Earlier in the day, McGraw and Hill had reason to celebrate. Their duet, "WLike We Never Loved At All," was nominated by the Country Music Association as the Vocal Event of the Year.
The couple rarely voice political opinions, though they've been active in raising money for Katrina victims.
McGraw is a member of the American Red Cross National Celebrity Cabinet, and in the days after the hurricane, he and Hill joined a mission to take supplies to Gulfport, Miss. At the Sept. 2 "Concert for Hurricane Relief," he appealed to fans to reach out with donations.
But under most circumstances, McGraw relies on easy charm when dealing with the media. In 2004, he actually told Time magazine, however lightheartedly, that he was thinking of going into politics. "I want to run for the Senate from Tennessee … Not now, but when I'm 50, when the music dies down."
"Wouldn't Faith make a great senator's wife?" he joked.
Then again, maybe he wasn't joking.

Reported by ABC News Radio's Dan Gordon in Nashville, and written by ABCNEWS.com's Buck Wolf in New York.
source: http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/print?id=1702714

I don't believe you're hearing this on Brownwood Talk Radio ! Why is that ?

NeoCon allies desert Bush over Iraq

These are the right-wing intellectuals who demanded George Bush invade Iraq. Now they admit they got it wrong. Are you listening, Mr President ?

Published: 09 March 2006

William Buckley Jnr
INFLUENTIAL CONSERVATIVE COLUMNIST AND TV PUNDIT

'One can't doubt the objective in Iraq has failed ... Iraqi animosities have proved uncontainable by an army of 130,000 Americans. Different plans have to be made. And the kernel here is the acknowledgement of defeat.'
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Francis Fukuyama
AUTHOR AND LONG-TERM ADVOCATE OF TOPPLING SADDAM

'By invading Iraq, the Bush administration created a self-fulfilling prophecy: Iraq has now replaced Afghanistan as a magnet, a training ground and an operational base for jihadists, with plenty of American targets to shoot at.'
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Richard Perle
ARCH-WARMONGER AND PIVOTAL REPUBLICAN HAWK

'The military campaign and its political aftermath were both passionately debated within the Bush administration. It got the war right and the aftermath wrong We should have understood that we needed Iraqi partners.'
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Andrew Sullivan
PROMINENT COMMENTATOR AND INFLUENTIAL BLOGGER

'The world has learnt a tough lesson, and it has been a lot tougher for those tens of thousands of dead, innocent Iraqis ... than for a few humiliated pundits. The correct response is not more spin but a sense of shame and sorrow.'
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George Will
RIGHT-WING COLUMNIST ON 'THE WASHINGTON POST' AND TV PUNDIT

'Almost three years after the invasion, it is still not certain whether, or in what sense, Iraq is a nation. And after two elections and a referendum on the constitution, Iraq barely has a government.'

source: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article350092.ece

"Gettin KINKY" on the Ballot in Brownwood !

Friday March 10, 2006
News - The Brownwood Bulletin

Friedman petitions circulated in Brown, Coleman counties
By Gene Deason — Brownwood Bulletin

Supporters of the independent gubernatorial campaign of singer, songwriter and novelist Kinky Friedman are seeking signatures in Brown and Coleman counties.
A petition to place Friedman on the ballot in November’s general election in Texas is available at Steves’ Market and Deli in downtown Brownwood, and other locations for petitions are being sought, according to George Buckley of Bangs, Brown County coordinator.
“I’ve teamed with Judy Meister of Santa Anna, who is the Coleman County coordinator,” Buckley said Thursday. “We’re trying to get people to sign the petition.”
Buckley said supporters will be at the Wal-Mart parking lot Saturday to accept signatures and answer questions.
“We hear there’s a lot of support, but people don’t know what to do or how to get the information,” Buckley added.
Friedman’s campaign workers have 60 days from Wednesday to obtain at least 45,540 signatures from registered voters who did not participate in Tuesday’s primary elections.
“We certainly don’t expect to get that many signatures from Brown County, but we can do our part,” Buckley said.
Meister said she plans to place petitions at locations in Coleman County in the near future.
“The concerns of the people here are agriculture, of course, and we also have a lot of teachers concerned about the situation in Austin,” Meister said. “We’re hoping that a lot of them who want to see some changes chip in and help by signing the petition.”
Meister said she and Buckley teamed up because they decided “if we pull our forces together, we could do more than if we stand alone. We’re trying to make it a team effort.” She plans to help the campaign in Brown County while Brown County supporters help her.
“Right now, I’m pretty much the lone soldier for the Kinkster in Coleman County,” Meister said.
People who want to sign a petition should have their voter registrations cards with them, which will show whether they voted in the primaries. Interested persons who are not registered to vote or do not have a card — even if they believe they are registered — should first check with the Brown County Elections Administrator’s office at the Coliseum Annex. Signatures of citizens who sign before becoming registered cannot be counted.
Buckley said he initially inquired about the Friedman campaign through its Web site because he believes the two parties “have both let us down.”
“My energy at first wasn’t for Kinky Friedman,” he said. “My energy was for a change. This country has become pretty stagnant. Just because there’s an independent candidate or a third party doesn’t mean we will be able to make a change, but we’d like to contribute to the process. We just don’t want to go on as usual.”
He said after his e-mail inquiry, he was contacted by campaign staff about his interest in serving as a county coordinator, and agreed to assume the title.
Buckley, who is a city councilman in Bangs, said in all politics there’s a certain amount of trust and disbelief. “But Kinky Friedman comes across as No. 1 on my belief list.”
Friedman is not the only high-profile independent candidate whose supporters are circulating petitions to gain a spot on the November ballot. Texas Comptroller Carol Keeton Strayhorn, who won that office as a Republican, is planning a run for governor as well.
At least one other independent candidate — Larry W. Camp — is seeking support through the media in Brown County.
Friedman campaign meetings are planned in Brown County on Wednesdays at locations to be announced, Buckley said. Information is available from him at 642-8306 or from Meister at 348-3702.
source: http://www.brownwoodbulletin.com/articles/2006/03/10/news/news02.txt

You'll know KINKY FRIEDMAN by his WALK !

Just look at the number of Restaurants and " Mom and Pops" who are involved in getting KINKY on the Ballot

here ya go

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Take a peak below at who's working to get Kinky on the Ballot.......

Waxahachie

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Fredericksburg

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San Angelo

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Blanco

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Brookshire

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Boerne

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Dallas

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Dallas

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Dallas

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Fort Worth

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Fort Worth

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Canyon Lake

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New Braunfels

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Based on the excerpt below from one of Kinky Friedmans Texas Monhly Columns, it makes sense that Restaurant owners across the state would be supporting Kinky's "Common Sense" campaign of treating " everyone" equally !

From Texas Monthly Magazine

Keep Gomorrah Weird

The rest of Texas vilifies Austin as a breeding ground for long-haired hell-raisers. To me, it’s an open-minded, open-hearted, magical little town—and always will be.
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" In my bright college days we pretty much took for granted that Austin was far more progressive than the outlying provinces. Looking back, I’m not so sure that was entirely true. In the early sixties there was a place called the Plantation Restaurant at the corner of the Drag and what was then Nineteenth Street. It was open 24 hours, many of which were spent by me and my friends drinking endless cups of blue coffee and solving the problems of the world as we knew it—and I think that, at times, we very possibly knew the world better then than we know it now. One thing that didn’t really seem to register at the ol’ Plantation, however, was that, among the bikers, fraternity boys, and square-dance clubs, there were no black patrons. It took me awhile, but as a card-carrying member of Students for a Democratic Society, I finally lamped upon this inequity. With my fellow SDSers, we picketed night after night, at last forcing the restaurant to change its policies. Today the Plantation, which I both loved and protested against, is gone, and the street where it used to be is no longer known as Nineteenth Street. It is now called Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. In a world of shopping malls and glass towers, that, my friends, is real progress."

to read his columns in their entirity please visit http://www.texasmonthly.com/mag/issues/authors/kinkyfriedman.php
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You'll know them (him) by their fruit !

compassion

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understanding through food

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in your tank !

Brownwood & Big Country Independents to sign Kinky Petition

For voters, it's decision time
They can cast ballots in Tuesday's primaries or wait to sign petitions
08:52 AM CST on Tuesday, March 7, 2006
By GROMER JEFFERS JR. / Staff Writer
Pablo Pascal considered Kinky Friedman a joke, until he heard him speak recently at Richland Community College.
"I thought he was running for governor just for the publicity," said Mr. Pascal, an academic adviser at the college. "But he was even-tempered and had a lot of good ideas. I was impressed with him."
So Mr. Pascal, a Dallas resident who describes himself as an independent, and millions of voters like him face a tough decision in Tuesday's party primaries.
They can exercise their right to vote and support the party faithful, or skip the primaries to be eligible to sign the petitions of independent gubernatorial hopefuls Carole Keeton Strayhorn, Mr. Friedman and more than a dozen other assorted nonaffiliated candidates who could line the statewide ballot.
Their decisions could have significant political ramifications. If they skip the primaries, they can't participate in several races down the ballot that could be close, such as the Dallas County clash for district attorney and statehouse races where education is a big issue, such as the Kent Grusendorf-Diane Patrick tilt in Arlington.
But voting in the primary would mean not being able to help the independents get on the ballot, as state election laws dictate that they must gather 45,540 signatures from registered voters who skipped the primaries in 60 days in order to be considered in the November general election. If there is a runoff, the signatures must be gathered in 30 days.

CHERYL DIAZ MEYER / DMN
Pablo Pascal, an academic adviser at Richland Community College, will sit out Tuesday's primaries and sign the petition to put Kinky Friedman on the ballot for governor.
Mr. Pascal said he had been planning to vote in the Republican primary because of the district attorney's race. But the lure of Mr. Friedman's quirky campaign was too strong.
"I'm kind of upset there are no other options that would allow us to vote and sign a petition," Mr. Pascal said. "I'm upset that I don't have more of a choice."
Make or break
Individual decisions such as the one Mr. Pascal faces could make or break the independents' campaigns. Turnout is expected to be low in the two party primaries, leaving millions of registered voters eligible to sign petitions. But finding those people could be a challenge, so the campaigns prize motivated voters who typically cast ballots in primaries.
The campaigns are planning accordingly. Mrs. Strayhorn's team will track supporters through an expansive database.
"It's going to be such a low turnout statewide that we want people to exercise their rights even though it hurts us to some extent," said Strayhorn campaign manager Brad McClellan.
Even some strong supporters, lured by the more competitive races elsewhere on the ballot, have taken themselves out of the running for signing petitions.
"I've already voted," said Dallas County Commissioner Ken Mayfield, a Strayhorn supporter who wanted to vote for former Criminal Court Judge Dan Wyde in the race for district attorney. "She [Mrs. Strayhorn] knew there would be people who needed to vote in the primaries, and she doesn't want them to skip it."
Democrats theorize that Mrs. Strayhorn's run could help their party's nominee pull a shocker in the governor's race by splitting the Republican vote against Gov. Rick Perry. But one party stalwart, former Dallas mayor Ron Kirk, said he never considered not voting.
Mr. Kirk, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate four years ago, supports former congressman Chris Bell over former Texas Supreme Court Justice Bob Gammage.
"It would be the biggest slap in the face to all the people who worked hard for me in 2002," he said of not voting in a primary.
Party politics in other races could drive voters to the polls. In heavily Republican Tarrant County, voters in Mr. Grusendorf's district have arguably the most interesting and important state House primary in Texas to consider.
"There won't be a lot of folks sitting home waiting to sign petitions," said Tarrant County Republican Party Chairwoman Stephanie Klick.
Ms. Klick said she expects turnout in her county to nearly double over 2002, when more than 30,000 people voted in the GOP primary.
But that total won't include Alton Roberts, a 59-year-old retired salesman from Fort Worth who said he's fed up with local and state government.
"I want to shake things up," he said. "If that means sitting this one out and signing a Strayhorn petition, I'll do it."
Independent thinking
For some, the candidates themselves are the deciding factor. Fort Worth street preacher Lucious Green said he distrusts Mrs. Strayhorn's reasons for running as an independent and isn't inclined to help her.
"It seems to me that Mrs. Strayhorn is in the race for revenge. That's not a good reason to ignore everybody else and sign a petition," said Mr. Green, 50.
Other voters will stay home today not because they want to help Mrs. Strayhorn or Mr. Friedman, but because they don't think the campaign is addressing what they care about – no matter how many candidates are involved.
"None of them are talking about my issues," said Ann Harrison, a 49-year-old Arlington resident who says she was hurt in a workplace accident. "None of them are talking about the workers and workers compensation. If I do anything, I'll vote for a Democrat."
E-mail gjeffers@dallasnews.com

PETITION SIGNING
A look at the rules for signing a petition to put an independent candidate on the ballot:
When does it start?
As soon as the Democratic and Republican primaries are over. That means Wednesday, unless one of the parties has a runoff in the governor's race. Then, the independents have to wait until April 12, the day after the runoff.
Who can sign?
Only registered voters who did not cast a ballot in the Democratic or Republican primaries.
Do I have to skip all primary races or just the governor's race?
All of them – statewide, congressional, legislative and local races.
Can I sign for both Kinky Friedman and Carole Keeton Strayhorn?
No. Petitions are dated, and if a voter signs both, only the first one signed will count.
How long do I have?
Candidates must gather all signatures by May 11.
When is the deadline to register to vote?
Right up until the petition drive ends May 11.
Can I register and sign the same day?
Yes. Once the registration is on record with a voter's home county, he or she may sign a petition. If a voter has registered in person, he or she can sign a petition the same day.
How can I reach the candidates if I want to sign a petition?
Mrs. Strayhorn's petition will be available online at www.carolestrayhorn.com or by calling 512-469-9393. Information about Mr. Friedman's petition is available at www.kinkyfriedman.com or by calling 512-326-5465.
From Staff Reports
source: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/030706dntexvoteornot.d0d1c39.html
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Tom Green County
Signing Stations

Petition Kick-Off
Thursday, March 8, 2006
12:01 am
Blaines Pub
10 W. Harris
San Angelo, TX 76901

Thursday, March 8, 2006
4:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Wholesome Foods
412 W. Washington
San Angelo, TX 76901

Saturday, March 11th
The Original Henry's Mexican Food Restaurant
3015 Sherwood Way
San Angelo, TX 76901

For more information on this event and for other volunteer opportunities in Tom Green County, please contact Brenda James at toobie03@yahoo.com or (325) 224-4643.
source: http://www.kinkyfriedman.com/klocal/Hill_Country_North/

Brownwood and Brown County Texas: All "Food Politics" are Local !

From the Austin Chronicle
HOME: MARCH 3, 2006: FOOD: FOOD-O-FILE

Food-o-File

BY VIRGINIA B. WOOD
The Politics of Food

For years, one of the major topics of this column has been coverage of local farms and food producers, usually good news about products, farmers, sustainable agriculture, farmstands, markets, and events. Recently, however, the weekly "Friends of the Farm" e-mail newsletter from Boggy Creek Farm (3414 Lyons Rd., www.boggycreekfarm.com) alerted me to a political issue that is likely to have a serious impact on small farmers, ranchers, horse owners, and backyard livestock hobbyists around the state, and the nation, for that matter. Farmers Carol Ann Sayle and Larry Butler operate a five-acre organic farm on historic property in East Austin where they have a small flock of chickens and sell all the farm-fresh eggs they can produce at their twice-weekly farmstand. They are justifiably concerned about new premises and animal registration regulations (the National Animal Identification System) about to be imposed by the Texas Animal Health Commission. So concerned, in fact, that they joined more than 300 people who showed up at a TAHC meeting on Feb. 16 to demand clarification of the interpretation of the new regulations and to protest mandatory compliance by small producers. Among the speakers at that meeting was Austin attorney Judith McGeary, the operator of a small farm in Southeast Travis county who is also working on an advanced degree in natural resources management at UT. McGeary represents the interests of the Texas Organic Farmers & Gardeners Association regarding this issue in negotiations with the TAHC, and she hopes to reach a compromise wherein small operations can comply voluntarily or be exempted altogether. After a discussion with McGeary and the Boggy Creek folks, it's apparent that this issue is too complex to address in only one column, so a feature about the NAIS is in the works. For the time being, what I would suggest is that if you value the availability of locally produced eggs, dairy products, poultry, and beef raised humanely on small farms and ranches, talk to your purveyors at their farmstand or farmers' market booth and ask them how the NAIS would affect their operation. If you share their concerns, contact your legislators and speak out against the NAIS on their behalf. There is also a wealth of information about the NAIS and its potential ramifications on the TOFGA Web site (www.tofga.org), including links to the TAHC and addresses for the appropriate legislators concerned citizens may want to contact. These new regulations are scheduled to become law on May 4, so time is of the essence.
source: http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/dispatch/2006-03-03/food_foodofile.html
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Boggy Creek Farm

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TOFGA

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Stop Texas Republican Governor Rick Perry and his RFID's ! Are you buying this BS ?

you think it will end with the animals ?

* One more example of why I vote Independent !

* ''Both parties have pursued policies of division, and there is this gaping whole in the middle where I think most Americans reside,"

read the entire article here:
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/us_house/articles/2005/11/27/veterans_take_on_new_battle_run_for_office?mode=PF

Who's signing for Texas Independents in Brownwood and Brown County Texas ?

Dallas Morning News Letter To The Editor

Research and stay home

Tuesday is primary election day, and I urge registered voters to spend the weekend researching the critical issues facing every Texan. By not voting, you will have an opportunity to sign a petition for an independent seeking the governor's office in November.
Let's get behind putting an independent on the ballot. We need greater turnout at the polls, and this will occur when we are given a choice. I will be signing Kinky Friedman's petition Wednesday.
Stephanie Ritchie, Dallas

source: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/letters/stories/DN-satletters_0304edi.ART.State.Edition1.22da53ff.html

All "Color of Law" Violations are Local ! But are they all reported ?

Police chief, officer arrested after drug evidence inquiry
Crime lab says E. Texas department hasn't sent samples for five years
12:00 AM CST on Saturday, March 4, 2006
By LEE HANCOCK / The Dallas Morning News
TYLER – The longtime police chief of Troup and one of his officers were arrested early Friday in the southeast Smith County town after a six-week investigation into theft of drugs and evidence.
Chief Chester Kennedy was charged with evidence tampering, and Officer Mark Turner was charged with evidence tampering and delivery of marijuana.
"There have been rumors and a cloud of suspicion involving that department for quite some time," said Maj. Mike Lusk, head of criminal investigations for the Smith County Sheriff's Department.
Sheriff's investigators began the inquiry and called in the FBI after receiving complaints "both outside and in the department" about problems with drug cases and other investigations in the town, where Chief Kennedy has led the force for more than a decade, Maj. Lusk said.
Troup city officials did not return repeated phone calls for comment. Smith County deputies were handling patrol assignments to protect the town of 1,949 Friday, authorities said.
FBI Special Agent Jeff Millslagle, resident agent in charge of the bureau's Tyler office, said his agents are continuing in the investigation, along with sheriff's investigators, the Smith County district attorney's office and the Texas Department of Public Safety.
Investigators said checks with the Texas Department of Public Safety, where the crime lab processes drug evidence for local police departments statewide, determined that Troup officers hadn't sent in any evidence for testing in more than five years.
And local prosecutors "very infrequently" saw any cases from the department, said Smith County District Attorney Matt Bingham.
Investigators said they zeroed in on cases involving four people who were arrested and then had case evidence disappear – including one in which police had confiscated "an eight-ball," or more than 3 ½ ounces of methamphetamine; another involving several 2-foot marijuana plants; and a third involving a gallon-size plastic bag of marijuana.
A search of the department's evidence locker turned up some drugs that had not been tagged, some lying in open bags and some evidence bags that were empty. Those were scattered with other evidence that had been properly bagged and tagged, investigators said.
Chief Kennedy, 59, admitted under questioning that he had given some alcohol to an officer that should have been held for a pending bootlegging case, investigators said. Asked about the missing drugs, he told investigators that "he knew it was going on. He claims he was trying to handle it, but it wasn't going too good," said an official familiar with the case, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Officer Turner, 47, delivered a small quantity of marijuana to an undercover investigator "as a good-faith gesture" and admitted having more in his home after his arrest, officials say. Authorities found a small quantity in his home, investigators said.
Chief Kennedy became chief in Troup after being tried and acquitted in 1993 in neighboring Wood County on charges of indecency with a child. He had worked prior to that as a Wood County sheriff's deputy but left the county after his trial, said Wood County Criminal District Attorney Marcus Taylor.
Chief Kennedy also ran into controversy with the Smith County Sheriff's Department after his son violated parole. Chief Kennedy denied knowing where his son was, but deputies were tipped off by an informant that he was hiding in Chief Kennedy's home and caught the younger man there when he came outside to get a newspaper, said Smith County Sheriff J.B. Smith.
Mr. Taylor remained jailed Friday in lieu of bond totaling $500,000, and Mr. Kennedy was released after making a $400,000 bond, authorities said.
E-mail lhancock@dallasnews.com
source:http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/texassouthwest/stories/DN-troup_04tex.ART.State.Edition1.22dc138c.html
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Reporter files complaint against officer
News writer says he was threatened with gun on assignment in E. Texas
12:00 AM CST on Saturday, March 4, 2006
From Staff Reports
A Dallas Morning News reporter filed a complaint Friday that accused an off-duty East Texas lawman of bumping his car, detaining him and threatening him with a shotgun.
Reporter Dave Michaels filed his complaint with the Upshur County sheriff's office about Gladewater police Officer Bryan T. Naismith.
Mr. Michaels was in Upshur County on Thursday to report on a fatal shooting last summer by Mr. Naismith.
Reached at his home in Gilmer on Friday, the officer declined to answer questions about the confrontation with Mr. Michaels.
According to his complaint, Mr. Michaels twice went to Officer Naismith's neighborhood. The first time, about 6:30 p.m., he knocked on Officer Naismith's front door and spoke with the officer's wife. According to the complaint, she invited Mr. Michaels to return in a half-hour, when the officer was expected back.
About 9 p.m., the reporter said, he drove back into Officer Naismith's neighborhood and noticed a vehicle make a U-turn and approach his car from the rear. The vehicle then bumped Mr. Michaels' car from behind, the complaint said.
A man dressed in civilian clothes and carrying a shotgun got out and yelled at the reporter, demanding to know his identity. Mr. Michaels said that he identified himself and that the man then pointed the shotgun through his open car window, toward his chest, and ordered him out of the car.
The man, still pointing the weapon toward Mr. Michaels, acknowledged he was Officer Naismith and continued to yell, saying he had people wanting to kill him.
According to the complaint, the officer lowered the gun and allowed the reporter to leave after cursing at him: "I'm letting you know who the [expletive] I am. Get the [expletive] out of here."
During a traffic stop that involved several officers minutes later, Mr. Michaels reported the incident to Gladewater Police Chief Jimmy Davis, the complaint said. Mr. Michaels said the chief and another officer told him he had provoked Officer Naismith by driving into his neighborhood. Chief Davis did not return a call for comment Friday.
Upshur County Sheriff's Lt. David Dickerson said the complaint would be referred on Monday to the Texas Rangers. In January, a grand jury declined to indict Officer Naismith in the June shooting death of Jonathan King. The officer fired several shots at Mr. King and later said Mr. King had tried to run over him with his car.
source: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/texassouthwest/stories/DN-complaint_04tex.ART.State.Edition1.22cf77a3.html

Who's having " a hard time buying the Bush administration's line " ?

Posted on Fri, Mar. 03, 2006
HURRICANE KATRINA
A heckuva job by 'Brownie' after all ?
Experts now say that former FEMA Director Michael Brown was less to blame than his boss for bungling the response to Hurricane Katrina.
By SETH BORENSTEIN
sborenstein@krwashington.com
WASHINGTON - For months now, former FEMA Director Michael Brown has been the butt of late-night TV jokes and a punching bag on Capitol Hill for his handling of the Hurricane Katrina catastrophe.
Surprisingly, redemption seems at hand.
Bolstered by Wednesday's release of a videotape and transcripts of federal disaster response sessions in the days just before and after Katrina, Brown and his team are seen as sounding the alarm of an impending disaster. In contrast, President Bush and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff appear impassive the day before Katrina struck as officials predicted that the levees around New Orleans could fail. The president asked no questions.
Now the Bush administration is stepping up the attacks on the former Federal Emergency Management Agency director for sidestepping the chain of command, and the same disaster experts who excoriated Brown, some even joking about his previous experience with the International Arabian Horse Association, are coming to his side.
On Thursday, Knight Ridder interviewed 12 experienced disaster experts, and most believe Brown should not be the scapegoat.
All but one of them -- which included Republicans and Democrats, two former Federal Emergency Management Agency directors, former state and local disaster chiefs and academics who collectively have more than a century's experience -- said Thursday that they had a hard time buying the Bush administration's line.
Seven of them said they were inclined to believe Brown's version of events. Four said both Brown and Chertoff were at fault and President Bush was especially culpable for hiring them. Only one said he faulted Brown more.
`I BELIEVE BROWN'
Nearly all of them chided the Bush administration for merging FEMA into the new and massive Department of Homeland Security in 2003.
''I believe Brown,'' said James Lee Witt, the FEMA director during the Clinton administration. ``Look what he tried to warn them of, and nobody listened.''
Former Reagan FEMA chief Gen. Julius Becton, like others, dismissed the White House's claim that Brown's principal failing was his decision to sidestep Chertoff and deal directly with the president and his staff. In an interview Wednesday night, Brown said he made his move to cut through the ''fog of bureaucracy'' in an effort to speed relief to the Gulf Coast.
''At least Brown has been in the business for a couple of years,'' Becton said. ``When the chain of command is incompetent or you perceive the chain of command is not in the best interest of the agency, you're duty-bound to go around that chain of command.''
The experts were critical of much of the government's efforts in the Katrina catastrophe.
''Brown apparently screwed up, Chertoff screwed up and both of them were hired by Bush,'' said Michael Lindell, the director of the Natural Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center at Texas A&M University. ``If you put somebody in charge of the Department of Homeland Security who is riveted with terror attacks and chopping up FEMA . . . it was inevitable.''
''The problem was from the very bottom -- from the city to the state to FEMA to DHS to Bush,'' Lindell said.
CHERTOFF'S ROLE
The harsh critique was prompted in part by the videotape and transcripts of a series of federal disaster briefings that were made public Wednesday as part of Brown's counterattack. Brown resigned as FEMA chief less than a month after Katrina struck amid mounting criticism of the federal response.
Penn State University professor Beverly Cigler, co-chairwoman of a Katrina task force for public administration academics, said Chertoff's behavior in the crisis made her doubt that he knew of the existence of a 426-page National Response Plan, which put him in charge. If he did, she said, ``he didn't know what was in it or how to use it.''
Shirley Laska, the director of the Center for Hazards Assessment Response and Technology at the University of New Orleans, said she was surprised that Chertoff hadn't been forced to resign yet.
`INSUBORDINATE'
Less than a minute after criticizing Brown for being ''willfully insubordinate,'' Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke brushed aside questions about what the experts said: ``We don't have the time to waste to get into a he-said-she-said-sandbox-name-throwing battle.''
''We've got a lot of work to do,'' Knocke said. ''June 1'' -- the beginning of hurricane season -- ``is coming fast.''
The experts' support for Brown now is a far cry from the days after Katrina, when ''Brownie,'' as the president called him once on television, became a national butt of jokes, especially given his pre-2001 job running the International Arabian Horse Association. At the time, Brown was accused of being a crony who exaggerated what little experience he had on his résumé. For example, Kate Hale, a former Miami emergency-management chief who ridiculed Brown's horse experience in September, said Thursday: ``I've been impressed with the things I've heard him say.''
source: http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/front/14005213.htm

GOP Growing Increasingly Angry, Frightened by Bush's Missteps (..... and in Brownwood ?)

Published on Friday, March 3, 2006 by Knight Ridder

GOP Growing Increasingly Angry, Frightened by Bush's Missteps
by Steven Thomma and James Kuhnhenn

WASHINGTON - President Bush, once the seemingly invincible vanguard of a new Republican majority, could be endangering his party's hold on power as the GOP heads into this year's midterm congressional elections.
A series of political missteps has raised questions about the Bush administration's candor, competence and credibility and left the White House off-balance, off-message and unable to command either the nation's policy agenda or its politics the way the president did during his first term.
This week, newly released video of Bush listening passively to warnings about the dire threat posed by Hurricane Katrina and a report that intelligence analysts warned for more than two years that the insurgency in Iraq could swell into a civil war provided fresh fodder for charges that the president ignores unwelcome alarms.
His attacks on those who questioned his administration's approval of a seaports deal with the United Arab Emirates and his ill-fated nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court have angered some conservatives and Republican members of Congress.
And even some Bush supporters remain anxious about the economy, the federal deficit, the war in Iraq and the extent of the administration's warrantless wiretapping.
"The White House has been taking it on the chin lately, and the reverberations are being felt throughout the GOP," Republican blogger Bobby Eberle wrote this week. "From the Harriet Miers nomination to the Dubai Ports and more, the folks in charge of message strategy appear to be asleep at the wheel."
Said Republican pollster Ed Goeas: "If this environment holds, you have to assume it's going to tip for the Democrats."
That's not to say that second-term blues are unique to Bush, the environment will hold or that Republicans will lose control of the House of Representatives or the Senate in November. Polls show that Republicans still have the edge on the crucial question of which party is more trusted to defend the country against terrorists, for example.
But eight months before the election, Democrats are growing bolder, and many Republicans are getting nervous about the president's stewardship and his ability to regain the upper hand.
Bush's approval ratings remain stuck between 38 percent and 46 percent in four new polls released Thursday. The only one that found nearly as great a drop as a CBS poll earlier this week was a survey by Fox News. The Fox poll put Bush's approval rating at 39 percent, down from 44 percent in early February; the CBS poll put it at 34 percent, down from 42 percent in January.
Growing doubts about the administration's case for and conduct of the war in Iraq have kept the president from reversing his slide, and now his administration's missteps are making it even harder for him to regain his footing.
When conservatives challenged the ports deal, for example, Bush threatened to veto any legislation blocking it, then all but accused his critics of racism for opposing an Arab company.
"I've been helpful out here on the campaign trail, backing the president on eavesdropping, defending them on Iraq and Social Security, and then you have this thrown on your lap without any consideration," said Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla. "Then the threat of a veto, that really took my breath away."
"I didn't think his choice of words there was really good," said Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss. "And I thought his veto threat was untimely and inappropriate."
"It certainly is the perfect storm of aggravating or provoking congressional egos and the president getting his back up and saying the least diplomatic thing he could have said," said Michael Franc, a former Republican aide in Congress who's now a scholar at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative research center in Washington.
Moreover, Bush's remarks reminded conservatives of the fact that the White House accused them of sexism when they challenged the Miers nomination. They didn't like that, either.
The president still has Republican support. The Battleground Poll found that 86 percent of Republicans approve of the way he's doing his job. It found that he's still supported by voters in the South, Central Plains and Mountain West, by men, married voters with children, conservatives and white conservative Christians. (The poll was conducted by Goeas and Democrat Celinda Lake.)
Yet Republican enthusiasm has waned, a potentially troubling trend that could hamper GOP turnout this fall.
Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg found that the ranks of Republicans who say they strongly approve of Bush's job performance had dropped by 15 percentage points. Similarly, strong approval from conservatives dropped by 14 points, and approval from white married men dropped by 14 points.
"Our analysis," Greenberg said, "shows a sharp slippage among white rural voters and blue-collar men as well as the best educated and upscale married men, even before the last controversies around port security and the Iraq `civil war.'"
---
The CBS News poll this week that showed President Bush's approval rating dropping sharply to 34 percent was widely criticized and quickly contradicted by two other polls.
The Democracy Corps, a Democratic group, released a poll on Thursday showing Bush's approval rating at 42 percent. The Battleground Poll, a bipartisan survey sponsored by George Washington University, released a poll Thursday showing it at 46 percent.
However, a Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll, also released on Thursday, put Bush's approval rating at 39 percent, and a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll released the same day put it at 38 percent.
Why did the results vary so widely?
Critics said that CBS' pollsters talked to too many Democrats, skewing the results against Bush. Their first sample had 40 percent Democrats and 27 percent Republicans. Then they applied a mathematical formula, called "weighting," to make it more representative. Then it was 37 percent Democrats, 28 percent Republicans. Critics said that was still off.
Kellyanne Conway, a Republican pollster, said that even if it were weighted again to give equal weight to Democratic, Republican and independent voices, it would have shown a Bush approval rating of 37 percent - well within the margins of error of the Fox and CNN\USA Today\Gallup polls.
The bottom line: Polls sometimes are wrong. To feel more confident about public opinion, it's better to look at more than one of them.
For more on the Battleground Poll, go to www.gwnewscenter.org
For more on the Democracy Corps poll, go to www.democracycorps.org
For more on the Fox News poll, go to http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/poll(underscore)030206.pdf
For more on the CBS News poll, go to
http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/poll(underscore)bush(underscore)022706.pdf
For more on the CNN\USA Today\Gallup poll, go to http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2006/images/03/02/rel7a.pdf
---
(The Battleground poll of 1,000 likely voters was conducted Feb. 12-15 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
The Democracy Corps poll of 1,135 likely voters was conducted Feb. 23-27 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.
The Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll of 900 registered voters was conducted Feb. 28-March 1 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
The CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll of 1,020 adults was conducted Feb. 28-March 1 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
The CBS News poll of a nationwide random sample of 1,018 adults was conducted Feb. 22-26 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.)

source: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0303-05.htm

Are Brownwood's Corporate Tax Breaks Illegal ?

Are Corporate Tax Breaks Illegal ?
By Aaron Bernstein
Thu Mar 2, 9:38 AM ET

Every year, U.S. companies collect billions of dollars worth of tax breaks from states and cities anxious to lure jobs and investment to their regions. Now a good chunk of this largesse may be threatened by a
U.S. Supreme Court case coming up for a hearing on Mar. 1. The suit involves investment tax credits Ohio granted Chrysler (now DaimlerChrysler) (NYSE:DCX - News) in 1998 to build a Jeep plant in Toledo, Ohio. The state's taxpayers sued, and in 2004 the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the deal violates the U.S. Constitution's Commerce Clause because it puts up a protectionist barrier to interstate commerce.
The Supreme Court won't rule until later this year, but a victory for the Ohio taxpayers would put a major dent in states' ability to offer such tax breaks. States wouldn't be required to recapture tax breaks already granted, but they would have to kill those now on the books and not offer more in the future.
CLIMATE CONTROL. "We need to stop the race to the bottom that subsidizes the largest businesses at the expense of small companies and taxpayers," said Robert Orr, the head of the North Carolina Institute for Constitutional Law. He spoke at an unusual Feb. 24 briefing at the right-wing Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., that included other conservatives as well as left-leaning groups such as Good Jobs First and the Center on Budget & Policy Priorities. This strange-bedfellows coalition decries companies playing states against each other to extract tax breaks that allegedly have nominal impact on actual investment decisions.
Corporate groups and some Ohio politicians counter that states and cities have every right to create a business climate conducive to investment. They also argue that the 6th Circuit's decision is so sweeping that it would invalidate a broad range of economic-development policies practiced by nearly every state.
"The ruling puts states at a disadvantage and means that they can no longer control this element of their financial future," says Diann Smith, the general counsel of the Council on State Taxation. The Washington lobbying group includes DaimlerChrysler, the other Detroit auto makers, and some 500 other large companies from various industries.
LONG-TERM DAMAGE? The case, DaimlerChrysler v. Charlotte Cuno (she's one of the Ohio taxpayers), strikes at the nerve of an increasingly contentious debate about local investment subsidies. Ohio's tax credit was part of a $280 million package the state and city of Toledo coughed up in a bidding war with neighboring Michigan to snare 4,000 high-paying unionized jobs at the Jeep factory.
Critics on the right and the left say that such bidding wars, which have become standard practice across the U.S., are simply give-aways to companies that drag on the national economy. Because any economic gain is offset by losses to other states, they argue, local tax breaks are largely a zero-sum game that distort business locations decisions. Such subsidies, say Orr and others, actually wreak long-term damage on local business climates by undercutting the tax base that supports good schools, roads, and other infrastructure.
In fact, 96% of state and local investment tax breaks go to companies that locate their new facilities right where they had chosen in the first place, according to studies by Peter S. Fisher, a professor of urban planning at the University of Iowa. The implication: States are doling out millions to influence a minute number of job shifts. "I think of it as using dynamite to catch fish," wrote Greg LeRoy is a 2005 book The Great American Jobs Scam. LeRoy, executive director of Good Jobs First, also attended the Heritage session.
KEEPING IT LEGAL. Defenders such as Smith say even if that is true, such tax breaks aren't illegal. The "Commerce Clause prohibits barriers (to interstate commerce), not welcome mats," states the Ohio brief to the Supreme Court. "Tax breaks are incentives, not economic coercion like tariffs and other barriers the law is aimed at," says DaimlerChrysler's brief, written by a team headed by former Solicitor General Theodore B. Olson, now in private practice at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.
While the Court ponders the matter, a group of politicians headed by Ohio Senator George Voinovich hopes to head it off at the pass. They've sponsored legislation, The Economic Development Act of 2005, that would explicitly safeguard many tax incentives from Commerce Clause challenges. The bill is sponsored by every senator from both parties in all four states in the 6th Circuit: Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky, and Tennessee, as well as the National Governors Assn. and the National Conference of Mayors.
A victory for Cuno and the other plaintiffs wouldn't stop investment subsidies altogether. LeRoy's book found some 30 different kinds of methods states and cities use to lure jobs, and not all would be affected by a Supreme Court ruling. But the largesse would be much harder to come by.

source: http://www.rawstory.org/

Should teacher Jay Bennish be fired for comments he made about President Bush ?

Top News Mar 3, 2006 6:13 am US/Mountain

Bennish Plans Federal Lawsuit To Go Back To Work
Poll: Should teacher Jay Bennish be fired for comments he made about President Bush?

Katherine Blake Reporting

(CBS4) AURORA, Colo. The high school geography teacher placed on paid leave for comments he made during a class lecture about President Bush plans to file a lawsuit Friday to get back to work. Jay Bennish's comments were recorded by a student who said he tapes lectures to help with notes.
"Now I'm not saying that Bush and Hitler are exactly the same, obviously they're not, OK," Jay Bennish was heard saying on a recording of his class lecture on the day after Bush's State of the Union Address. "But there are eerie similarities to the tones that they use."
Bennish's lawyer said the teacher's goal is to provoke students to think for themselves. The attorney said Bennish sees himself as a patriotic American and just wants to get back to teaching.
"He's terribly upset about the fact that he can't teach right now," David Lane, Bennish's attorney said Thursday night. "He's so upset that I am now his lawyer and we are going to Federal court tomorrow."
Lane argued that the Cherry Creek School District has no right to place Bennish on paid administrative leave from Overland High School
"No action should be taken against someone who is exercising their rights under the First Amendment," Lane said.
Sean Allen, the student who recorded the lecture, brought Bennish's comments to the attention of an online columnist and radio talk show hosts.
"He is not teacher geography," Allen said during a radio talk show on Wednesday evening. "About 80 percent of the time, he's teaching his biased political opinions and giving them to our class as a fact."
Allen didn't attend class Thursday after getting negative feedback to his actions from fellow students. At the school Thursday, dozens of students walked out in support of Bennish. Other students said they thought Allen did the right thing and that Bennish should "teach, not preach."
The Cherry Creek School District has said it is investigating Bennish's comments and hoped to have a final decision by late next week.
source: http://cbs4denver.com/topstories/local_story_062081133.html
----------

Listen to taped comments here

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as it relates to the above story

Republican comments on Bush here

--------------
Note from Steve: Here's an interesting link that was sent to me regarding the above post

You can decide for yourself !

Bush's Republican Homeland Security or Police State ?

Pay too much and you could raise the alarm

By BOB KERR
The Providence Journal
28-FEB-06

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Walter Soehnge is a retired Texas schoolteacher who traveled north with his wife, Deana, saw summer change to fall in Rhode Island and decided this was a place to stay for a while.
So the Soehnges live in Scituate now and Walter sometimes has breakfast at the Gentleman Farmer in Scituate Village, where he has passed the test and become a regular despite an accent that is definitely not local.
And it was there, at his usual table last week, that he told me that he was "madder than a panther with kerosene on his tail."
He says things like that. Texas does leave its mark on a man.
What got him so upset might seem trivial to some people who have learned to accept small infringements on their freedom as just part of the way things are in this age of terror-fed paranoia. It's that "everything changed after 9/11" thing.
But not Walter.
"We're a product of the '60s," he said. "We believe government should be way away from us in that regard."
He was referring to the recent decision by him and his wife to be responsible, to do the kind of thing that just about anyone would say makes good, solid financial sense.
They paid down some debt. The balance on their JCPenney Platinum MasterCard had gotten to an unhealthy level. So they sent in a large payment, a check for $6,522.
And an alarm went off. A red flag went up. The Soehnges' behavior was found questionable.
And all they did was pay down their debt. They didn't call a suspected terrorist on their cell phone. They didn't try to sneak a machine gun through customs.
They just paid a hefty chunk of their credit card balance. And they learned how frighteningly wide the net of suspicion has been cast.
After sending in the check, they checked online to see if their account had been duly credited. They learned that the check had arrived, but the amount available for credit on their account hadn't changed.
So Deana Soehnge called the credit-card company. Then Walter called.
"When you mess with my money, I want to know why," he said.
They both learned the same astounding piece of information about the little things that can set the threat sensors to beeping and blinking.
They were told, as they moved up the managerial ladder at the call center, that the amount they had sent in was much larger than their normal monthly payment. And if the increase hits a certain percentage higher than that normal payment, Homeland Security has to be notified. And the money doesn't move until the threat alert is lifted.
Walter called television stations, the American Civil Liberties Union and me. And he went on the Internet to see what he could learn. He learned about changes in something called the Bank Privacy Act.
"The more I'm on, the scarier it gets," he said. "It's scary how easily someone in Homeland Security can get permission to spy."
Eventually, his and his wife's money was freed up. The Soehnges were apparently found not to be promoting global terrorism under the guise of paying a credit-card bill. They never did learn how a large credit card payment can pose a security threat.
But the experience has been a reminder that a small piece of privacy has been surrendered. Walter Soehnge, who says he holds solid, middle-of-the-road American beliefs, worries about rights being lost.
"If it can happen to me, it can happen to others," he said.
(Bob Kerr is a columnist for The Providence Journal. E-mail bkerr@projo.com.)

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.shns.com.)
source: http://www.shns.com/shns/g_index2.cfm?action=detail&pk=RAISEALARM-02-28-06

Texans at War: Brownwood and the Big Country Included in Texas Monthly Special Edition !

Casualty Of War

MASTER SERGEANT JAMES COONS, OF CONROE, WAS A DECORATED SOLDIER WHO SERVED HIS COUNTRY FOR SEVENTEEN YEARS. BUT WHEN THE HORRORS OF BATTLE TOOK THEIR TOLL, THE ARMY HE LOVED SO DEARLY LEFT HIM ALL ALONE TO FIGHT HIS DEMONS.
by Skip Hollandsworth

MASTER SERGEANT JAMES COONS was alone in his trailer at Camp Doha, in Kuwait, standing in front of the bathroom sink, when he saw the face. It appeared in the mirrora young soldiers face, most of it ripped away, the bones exposed and the skin blistered with burns.
For several seconds, Coons stared at the mirror. He turned away, waited for a moment, and looked back. The face was still there, hovering like an apparition. The one remaining eye was open, unblinking, staring right back at him.
It was the spring of 2003. Coons, who was 35 years old, was about to receive a Bronze Star and a U.S. Army Meritorious Service Medal for his work installing combat communications systems during the invasion of Iraq. He was, by all accounts, a soldiers soldier: six feet two, two hundred pounds, with a flattop, a perfectly chiseled jawline, and biceps the size of baseballs. A real-life G. I. Joe, one sergeant said about him. Our Rock of Gibraltar, added a lieutenant colonel. In just a couple of months, Coons was scheduled to return to Texas to attend an academy at Fort Bliss, in El Paso, so that he could become a sergeant major, the highest rank an enlisted soldier in the Army can achieve.
But Coons never made it to Fort Bliss. He never fulfilled his dream of leading a large battalion of soldiers and passing on to them what he described as the joys of Army life.
Instead, Master Sergeant Coons would soon find himself alone, stuck in a little room in a little building at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, in Washington, D.C. No one came by to check on him. No one stopped to ask about the face of the soldier that he had seen in the mirror.
And what happened next became a tragedy that, to this day, no one has been able to explain.
IT WAS CALLED SOLDIERS HEART during the Civil War, shell shock during World War I, and battle fatigue during World War II and Korea. Since the Vietnam War, it has had a sophisticated medical namepost-traumatic stress disorderand as doctors now know, it can cause psychic wounds in soldiers that are just as devastating as the physical wounds that come from a bullet. In many cases, it slowly worms its way into soldiers lives months or even years after they have returned home. But it has also been known to afflict soldiers almost overnight, plunging them inexplicably into the depths of despair. According to psychologists and neurologists, the stress of war literally changes the brain chemistry of those soldiers, causing them to fall apart emotionally and plaguing them with nightmarish flashbacks, searing panic attacks, and constant, overwhelming anxiety.
Coons hardly seemed like a candidate for such a disorder. He was not a raw, young recruit. He was one of the Armys more experienced soldiers, a seventeen-year veteran who told everyone that he wanted to remain a soldier for an additional twenty years. He was willing to do anything for the Army, says his mother, Carol Coons, a gentle-looking woman with highlighted hair. Sitting next to her husband, Richard, at the kitchen table in their home in Katy, outside Houston, she digs through a large cardboard box that is filled with letters, e-mails, photos, certificates, and government reports documenting Jamess life. Look, here is one of his commendations for marksmanship, she says. And here is his commendation he received when he completed Air Assault School. She leafs through more papers. And heres something when he completed a military scuba diving course. Scuba diving! Good Lord, he would try anything.
Maybe this will help you understand how he thought, says Richard, the owner of a small grass-seeding company. He flips through the file and finds a copy of an e-mail his son had sent from Kuwait just before the war began. This is my life, James wrote. I would not change anything. There is not another place on the face of the planet earth that I would want to be right now. What I do now is not about me. Its about the American Flag.
Richard stares at the e-mail. You would not think that this would be a soldier that the Army would be able to forget, he says.
As a young boy growing up in Katy, James was so in love with military life that he would go to the Army surplus store on Saturdays to buy MREs (meals ready to eat), which he would then take to school and devour during lunch period. On one trip to the store, he bought a parachute and a harness, which he wore while jumping out of a backyard tree. At school, he wore his hair short, and he stood at attention during the Pledge of Allegiance. His father, who had served with the Air Force during Vietnam, told him that if he went to college, he could become an officer. But James said he wanted to be one of the grunts, and in 1986, when he was a high school senior, he signed a letter of intent to enlist in the Army so that he could report to basic training almost immediately after graduation.
He was shipped to Fort Hood, where he became a field artillery expert. After receiving his parachuting wings, an Army Good Conduct Medal, and an Army Achievement Medal for his work in special weapons, he was moved into the Signal Corps, where he learned to install communications systems and computer networks for troops in the midst of battle. He then served for a few years at an Army base in Okinawa, Japan, where he was promoted to sergeant in 1993 and received another Army Good Conduct Medal. While there, he married an Okinawan woman, who gave birth to his first child, a daughter. Every Saturday hed drive thirty miles to a barbershop to get his hair cut from an older Okinawan woman who knew how to do flattops, says Bryan Randall, a retired command sergeant major who served with him. He was such a perfect soldier that if he got dirty while working, hed race back to his home and put on another uniform.
To round out his r鳵m頩n hopes of becoming a sergeant major, Coons returned to the United States and spent a few years working as a recruiter in Conroe, north of Houston. By then, he was divorced but had custody of his daughter. He met and married Robin Martin in 1999, a beautiful, young blonde who worked at a preschool. Robin adopted Jamess child, and she soon gave birth to another girl. He was always joking with the girls, ordering them to stand at parade rest and then at ease, Robin says, sitting at her dining room table in her home north of Conroe. Hed tell them to scrub their grills, which is Army for brushing your teeth, and if they were talking too much, hed say, Okay, girls, shut your pie holes. Then, while they were giggling, hed give them a big formal salute that looked like a karate chop gesture. We called it the hand.
He was soon transferred to the U.S. Army War College, in Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, where he served as the noncommissioned officer in charge of the bases computer network systems. In the words of Patrick Kasse, another sergeant stationed at Carlisle, Coons was determined to make his way to the top. Around Carlisle, he became known as Big Daddy, not only because of his height but also because of his love of mentoring recruits.
He did not hesitate to walk right up to a young soldier hed see on base and say, Soldier, you need to address your uniform. You need to address your hair, says Robin. And the young soldiers loved it. He was so respected that other soldiers sometimes would meet with him to ask for help with their careers or even with personal things, like how to improve their marriages.
His next assignment was supposed to be at a base in Korea, after which he would be sent to the Sergeants Major Academy at Fort Bliss. But in the wake of the September 11 attacks, he volunteered to go to Kuwait to prepare for the invasion of Iraq. He brought Robin and the girls back to Conroe, where they leased a townhome, and handed Robin a gray folder that contained everything she would need in case something happened to him: copies of their life insurance policy, the familys financial information, and even some notes about what he wanted to take place at his funeral. Then, in July 2002, he said good-bye.
THIS PROBABLY WAS NOT HIS FIRST trip to the Persian Gulf; Coons reportedly made a couple of classified visits during Operation Desert Storm, in the early nineties. But this time around, he was responsible for all the enlisted soldiers and civilian contractors who were setting up the computer networks for the Armys Central Command. And once the war began, he was part of the team responsible for implementing the communications systems between officers and field commanders.
Im truly amazed to see my lifes work in action, he exultantly wrote to his father just after the war began. These young kids are kicking some serious ass. I trained them and now Im proud to lead them. He regularly called Robin via satellite phone to tell her that he was doing just fine. Meticulous as always, he once called to remind her that their daughters had an appointment that afternoon with the dentist. He also sent his daughters postcards. Girls, he wrote on the back of one that showed a camel standing in the desert, this is my pet. He lives outside my tent. Haha. Love, Daddy.
According to one written commendation of Coonss work, his actions ensured complete dominance and victory on the battlefield. His company commander, Captain Michael Singleton, not only described Coonss job performance as stellar but also noted that Coons took it upon himself to set up a computer system for the morgue at Camp Doha so that the remains of fallen U.S. soldiers could be quickly identified and returned home for burial. While he was at the morgue, Coons would stand at attention in front of the bodies, paying his respects.
Then, one afternoon in April 2003, when he was talking to Robin, he seemed subdued. She asked him if anything had happened. Oh, its nothing, he quickly said. I havent been sleeping all that well.
During another phone call a couple of days later, he said, I just want to get home and have a good nights sleep.
Robin realized her husband was speaking more slowly than usual. Honey, are you sure you are okay? she asked.
Ill explain everything when I see you, he replied. Some things happened that I didnt expect.
COONSS FELLOW SOLDIERS noticed that he showed some signs of exhaustion that spring, but none of them sensed that he was in any way troubled. He continued to work eighteen-hour days, and in his spare time, he played basketball and went on long-distance runs around the base. Dressed in his uniform, his back ramrod straight and his flattop perfectly trimmed, he also continued to visit the morgue to honor the latest fallen soldiers. Captain Singleton would later say that he believed Coons was handling the stress of war better than he was. Another soldier at the camp would say that Coons maintained a remarkable ability to make sure there was a smile on everyones face when they were feeling down. One afternoon, Coons and some of the members of his company made a videotape for students at an elementary school back in the United States that had been sending letters to Camp Doha. Coons grinned at the camera and barked, Little people, I want to deliver this message to you. Understand: Take your vitamins, say your prayers, and mind your teachers. If you dont mind your teachers, then were going to give you some rawhide! Take care, and have a good day!
But that May he called his mother and told her that he missed her. Carol heard the strain in his voice and asked him if he was sleeping.
A long silence followed. One or two hours a night, he said.
Jimmy, said Carol, if theres something bothering you, why dont you tell me?
There was another silence. Mama, these soldiers who are dying over here are just babies, he said. Just babies. Ive seen them in the morgue.
He told her that on one of his visits, he had seen the body of a soldier whose face had been mutilated by a bomb blast. It was hard to stop thinking about that face, he said. It was especially hard to stop thinking about the face at night, when he was lying alone in his bed.
Now, Jimmy, Carol told him, youre going to be home in about thirty days. Thirty days! When you get here, youll have your girls and Robin. Youll have us. Well give you different things to think about. Well give you different memories.
Im so tired, Coons said. Im so tired.

1 of 3 Next >

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Small Towns - Small Minds !

Suit: W.Va. Police Chief Denied Gay Man CPR
By ALLISON BARKER, Associated Press Writer Thu Mar 2, 4:29 PM ET
CHARLESTON, W.Va. - A small-town police chief was accused in a federal lawsuit Thursday of stopping a would-be rescuer from performing CPR on a gay heart attack victim because he assumed the ailing man had HIV and posed a health risk.
Claude Green, 43, died June 21 after being stricken yards from City Hall in Welch, a community of about 2,400.
The American Civil Liberties Union sued on behalf of his mother.
Police Chief Bobby Bowman called the allegations "a boldface lie." He said that he called an ambulance and that Green was taken to the hospital in "no more than nine minutes."
"No one refused him CPR as his sister and mom are saying. They can do what they want, but if they're saying I refused him CPR, that is no way true," Bowman said.
The lawsuit accuses Bowman of pulling off Green's friend Billy Snead as Snead was performing chest compressions on the man. Snead was a passenger in Green's pickup truck when Green collapsed; Snead had managed to pull over the vehicle.
Green was pronounced dead at the hospital after about 30 minutes of attempts to revive him.
Rose Saxe, a lawyer with the ACLU's AIDS Project, said Bowman's alleged actions contributed to Green's death and violated the Americans with Disabilities Act, equal protection laws and due process rights.
Saxe said Green's death was "tragically senseless" because he did not have the AIDS virus, but added that he should have received lifesaving care even if he was HIV-positive.
"He was simply a gay man in Welch, West Virginia. And because of that we can only assume that Chief Bowman assumed he had HIV and it was unsafe to even touch him," Saxe said.
When asked if he knew if Green was gay, Bowman would not answer and referred questions to McDowell County Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Danny Barie, who also represents the City of Welch.
Barie said Thursday he had received a copy of the complaint but could not comment because he had not reviewed it or discussed it with Bowman.
source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060302/ap_on_re_us/cpr_lawsuit_2

Why is that ?

Getting on ballot takes a lot of 'work'
Independent candidates have tough time in Texas

By Kelley Shannon / Associated Press
March 2, 2006

AUSTIN - Independent candidates run for governor from time to time in other states, but not often in Texas.

That's in large part because of the state law for independents - requirements that gubernatorial hopefuls Kinky Friedman and Carole Keeton Strayhorn are loudly criticizing as they try to unseat Republican Gov. Rick Perry.
While Perry and other major party candidates await the results of Tuesday's primary election, Strayhorn and Friedman are preparing to collect the 45,540 voter signatures they each need to get on the November ballot.
It's a hurdle higher than independents face in some other big states. Strayhorn and Friedman, along with four lesser-known candidates, are hoping to become the first independent governor since Sam Houston in the 1850s.
''They have some work to do to get on the ballot,'' Perry said as he launched his re-election campaign in January. ''There's probably a reason there haven't been a lot of independent candidates in 150 years.''
The state law requiring independents to gather signatures took effect in 1905 and has remained essentially the same since, according to the Texas Legislative Reference Library.
By contrast, California independent candidates for governor must not have been affiliated with a political party for at least 11 months before the election and must pay a $3,500 filing fee or collect signatures from 10,000 registered voters.
In Florida, an independent can get on the ballot just as any other candidate by paying the required filing fee, totaling 3 percent of the annual salary for the elected office, according to the Florida secretary of state's office. For governor, that's $3,871.
When former pro wrestler Jesse Ventura scored his surprise victory as governor of Minnesota in 1998, he ran with the Reform Party and benefited from its major-party status at the time. Had he run as an independent, he would have had to collect 2,000 signatures from eligible voters to make the ballot.
Consumer advocate Ralph Nader sued over Texas' ballot access rules when he failed to make the ballot as an independent for president in 2004. Nader's campaign called Texas' law the toughest in the nation. He lost the court fight.
Texas independents for governor have until May 11 to collect their signatures. The names have to be from registered voters who didn't participate in the Republican or Democratic party primaries.
Voters can sign only one of the petitions. If there's a Democratic or Republican primary runoff for governor, it would be held in April and would shrink by 30 days the petition time period for independents.
The Texas secretary of state's office has said it could take up to two months after the petitions are turned in to determine whether enough signatures are valid.
That time frame doesn't sit well with Strayhorn and Friedman, whose campaign officials say waiting until July to learn whether they're on the November ballot is an unnecessary delay.
Strayhorn, the state comptroller who ran for that post as a Republican, is considering a lawsuit over the way the Secretary of State's Office is enforcing independent requirements.
''This administration seems to be doing everything it can to deny the people their right to vote for a real change and shake things up in November,'' said Strayhorn's son and campaign manager, Brad McClellan.
McClellan also is questioning why Secretary of State Roger Williams - a Perry appointee - won't allow independent campaigns to begin circulating petitions immediately after the polls close Tuesday night, instead of waiting until the following day.
And, McClellan wants Strayhorn to be able to turn in petition signatures then supplement that list with additional signatures later on, before the deadline. Williams said no.
Williams provided McClellan with a lengthy written response, in which he said the language of the Texas election code is ''clear and direct.''
Meanwhile, Friedman's campaign spokeswoman, Laura Stromberg, criticized the part of the Texas law preventing people who voted in a primary from signing a petition. Few other states have that ban, she said.
''Obviously we think that the bar is too high. We'd like to eliminate this type of requirement,'' she said, ''and when Kinky's in office that's our plan.''

source: http://www.reporter-news.com/abil/nw_political/article/0,1874,ABIL_7971_4507573,00.html
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Vote for Kinky
March 2, 2006

I believe we need to vote for Kinky Friedman. It's time one of us was elected governor. I think it's time someone stood up for our children, teachers and the common folk of Texas.
He believes in the working man, teaching our children to learn, protecting the environment and finding ways to help us financially. Here is how to vote for Kinky Friedman:
Stay away from the March 7 primary. If you vote in the primary, you won't be able to sign Kinky's petition to get on the ballot. Save yourself for Kinky! Texas law favors major party candidates and makes it nearly impossible for an independent to get on the ballot.
Kinky must collect nearly 46,000 signatures from registered Texas voters who did not vote in the Republican or Democratic primaries.
He has 62 days to collect those signatures and cannot begin collecting until the day after the primaries. Texas is the only state with such unfair requirements.
Texas hasn't had an independent governor since Sam Houston, 147 years ago. The two-party system isn't working, and the time has come for Texas' next independent governor.
Visit www.kinkyfriedman.com. Through the ''County Groups'' section of the site, anyone can sign up to collect signatures or offer their services as a notary public. Finally, to sign the petition, look for a ''signing station'' in your area so you can sign the petition between March 8 and May 11. These will be posted on the campaign Web site in the ''County Groups'' section.

Kimberly Corley
Abilene

source: http://www.reporter-news.com/abil/op_letters_editor/article/0,1874,ABIL_7984_4507078,00.html

So now critics of the ports deal are the bad guys ?

From The Dallas Morning News

Mark Davis:
So now critics of the ports deal are the bad guys ?
No way, and no amount of spin will make me change my mind
05:18 AM CST on Wednesday, March 1, 2006

Welcome to 45 days of positioning on both sides of the Dubai Ports World controversy. Since the issue heated up last week, those of us who have chosen to stand up for port security have been rewarded with a wide variety of insults.
We are racists, as if only hatred of Arabs could spur opposition to Islamic control at U.S. ports;
We are isolationists, as if such opposition means we have no tolerance for foreign investment in America:
We are panicky nervous Nellies, as if strong negative reaction can only be born of paranoia and prejudice;
And, my favorite, we are idiots, as if we have not grasped all the comforting spin proponents have been offering up. But a lot of their arguments have been peppered with irrelevancies.
They seem driven to tell us the United Arab Emirates will not run security. Anyone paying attention knows that. The problem is not that the UAE will take over security, but that its involvement makes security harder.
We are constantly reminded that the ruling emirs of the UAE have been an ally in the war, as if that means we have nothing to fear from their general population. I am filled with gratitude for the intelligence they have shared, which I'm sure has helped nab more than a few terrorists. As Muslim nations go, they have been virtual Boy Scouts. But we simply must find a way to express our thanks that falls somewhere short of giving them the keys to our ports.
Maybe that will snuff out the most insipid of the arguments offered up for this deal – the notion that it is a proper reward for being such good friends.
Have we noticed what our buddies among the citizenry from Dubai to Abu Dhabi have been saying about America as opinion polls revealed our hesitancy? Reporters sought reaction from the coffee shops and street corners of the UAE, and the general sense is that they feel betrayed by American racism and Islamophobia.
With friends like that, who needs the French?
We are warned that if we thwart the Dubai Ports World acquisition, all that swell cooperation will grind to a halt. If that's true, these pals of ours are about as two-faced as our other chums, the Saudis, who talk a good game about fighting terror while their schools and media promote it.
We should have made clear to the UAE that while its dicey terror history makes the ports deal impossible, we value its continued journey toward moderation and look forward to additional cooperation. That's called diplomacy.
So what happens now instead? The White House has to figure out how much political capital it wants to squander. President Bush's previously unblemished record of post-9/11 cautiousness and tenacity now bears a stain, allowing countless hypocritical (but nonetheless correct) Democrats to position themselves as more alert to national security than he is. Great timing there, in an election year.
But that timing is also an arrow in his quiver. The president can certainly call countless Republican members of Congress who are critical of the deal and express how much he would love to make a campaign visit this fall in return for a change of heart this spring.
How many will buckle? How many Bush supporters will wither under the strain of disagreeing with their man?
I'll tell you, it's not fun. Throw in Rush Limbaugh's willingness to swallow the port deal, and even Jimmy Carter's approval of it loses its fatal sting. In our short attention span nation, a month and a half is plenty of time to lose sight of the security threat this acquisition would present.
I confess to curiosity as to how those who so ardently want this deal will spend this time. What new material can they come up with? How much lipstick can be put on this pig?
Meanwhile, I can only hope the critics will stay focused and try to keep America on the post-9/11 footing Mr. Bush so wisely instilled in us what seems like so long ago.
The Mark Davis Show is heard weekdays on News/Talk 820 WBAP and nationwide on the ABC Radio Network. WBAP airtime is 9 a.m. to noon. His column regularly appears Wednesdays on Viewpoints, and his e-mail address is mdavis@wbap.com.
source: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/columnists/all/stories/DN-markdavis_01edi.ART.State.Edition1.135e56fe.html
-------------------
Senators question Dubai firm's stance on Israel boycott
Carl Hulse, New York Times
Wednesday, March 1, 2006
Washington -- Lawmakers raised new objections on Tuesday to the proposed takeover of some terminal operations at six U.S. ports by a Dubai company, demonstrating that the administration-backed plan still faces significant obstacles despite an agreement for a more extensive review of any security risks posed by the change in control.

Senate Democrats seized on a report that the parent company of state-owned Dubai Ports World honors an Arab boycott of Israel, saying the United States should not be rewarding companies tied to discrimination against a major ally.

"This boycott not only violates at least the spirit of U.S. law," said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., "it is inconsistent with everything we believe in as Americans."
-------------
On Capitol Hill, administration officials said they are confident that they have weighed the possibility of a security breach and found no cause for alarm.

"We assessed the threat to U.S. national security posed by DP World to be low," John Negroponte, the director of national intelligence, told the Senate Armed Services Committee. "In other words, we didn't see any red flags come up during the course of our inquiry."

source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/03/01/MNG9PHGED91.DTL

---------------------------
Wednesday, March 01, 2006

Cong. King says Bush admin. did NOT investigate UAE company's ties to Al Qaeda
by Joe in DC - 3/01/2006 04:21:00 PM


In an interview at the start of the "Situation Room" with CNN's Ed Henry, Congressman Peter King, who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, said that the Bush administration did not investigate whether the UAE company had ties to terror. King said there was "no investigation into terror whatsovever." According to Henry, King maintained that he had asked officials at Treasury and Homeland Security whether they had checked out whether the company had ties to Al Qaeda. The response was to King was "You don't understand. We don't conduct a thorough investigation."

I had to watch this piece a couple times...and made John watch it, too. This is insane. The President is determined to enact this port security deal but we don't even know if there are Al Qaeda ties.

The Bush administration is on the verge of turning over port security to a foreign country which is bad enough. It is downright criminal that the Bush team did not check out if that company had Al Qaeda ties...especially given UAE's history with Al Qaeda.

source: http://americablog.blogspot.com/

Bush's "Port Deal" in the Big Country

Letter to the Editor Abilene Reporter News

A slam dunk
March 1, 2006

Reference the port operations takeover by the United Arab Emirates.

This administration said trust us: Saddam was instigator of the 9/11 attack. Saddam has weapons of mass destruction. Saddam is in partnership with bin Laden. If we don't remove Saddam, then next may be a mushroom cloud over one of our cities. We will be welcomed with roses. Iraq oil will pay for the cost. Mission accomplished. All of this based on excellent advice.

''You're doing a heck of a job, Brownie.'' Now we are being told: ''If there was any chance that this transaction would jeopardize the security of the United States, it would not go forward,''

''They ought to listen to what I have to say about this.''

''The agreement includes provisions intended to enhance port security.''

''Trust me,'' the port operations take over is a good, safe thing for opening our commerce to a worldwide trade improvement. All of the proper segments of the government have approved this action and have assured me this is a sound action. (Read a slam dunk?)

Draw your own conclusions.

John C Darby, JR., Col. USAF (Retired)
Stephenville

source: http://reporter-news.com/abil/op_letters_editor/article/0,1874,ABIL_7984_4504196,00.html

Bush Policies Weakening Guard, Governors Say

By ROBERT PEAR
Published: February 27, 2006
WASHINGTON, Feb. 26 — Governors of both parties said Sunday that Bush administration policies were stripping the National Guard of equipment and personnel needed to respond to hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, forest fires and other emergencies.
Tens of thousands of National Guard members have been sent to Iraq, along with much of the equipment needed to deal with natural disasters and terrorist threats in the United States, the governors said here at the winter meeting of the National Governors Association.
The National Guard, which traces its roots to the colonial militia, has a dual federal-state role. Governors normally command the Guard in their states, but Guard members deployed overseas in support of a federal mission are under the control of the president.
The governors said they would present their concerns to President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Monday. In a preview of their message, all 50 governors signed a letter to the president opposing any cuts in the size of the National Guard.
"Unfortunately," the letter said, "when our National Guard men and women return from being deployed in foreign theaters, much of their equipment remains behind." The governors said the White House must immediately re-equip Guard units "to carry out their homeland security and domestic disaster duties."
Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, a Republican and chairman of the governors association, said: "The National Guard plays an incredibly valuable role in the states. What we are concerned about, as governors, is that when our troops are deployed for long periods of time, and their equipment goes with them but does not come back, the troops are very strained, and they no longer have the equipment they were trained to use."
Nearly one-third of the American ground forces in Iraq are members of the Army National Guard.
This month the Pentagon backed away from a budget proposal to reduce the authorized strength of the National Guard to 330,000 soldiers, from 350,000.
"We have no intention of cutting the number of Guard or Reserve brigades, reducing the number of Guard or Reserve soldiers, or cutting the level of Guard or Reserve funding," said the Army chief of staff, Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker.
Gov. Dirk Kempthorne of Idaho, a Republican, said Sunday that he was still "very concerned." The administration may have set aside the proposal on authorized strength, but it has not restored money to the budget to pay for 350,000 Guard members, he said.
In a recent report, the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress, said that "extensive use of the Guard's equipment overseas has significantly reduced the amount of equipment available to governors for domestic needs."
Since 2003, the report said, the Army National Guard has left more than 64,000 pieces of equipment, valued at more than $1.2 billion, in Iraq. The Army has not kept track of most of this equipment and has no firm plans to replace it, the report said.
Governor Kempthorne said the National Guard was bearing "a totally disproportionate share" of proposed cuts in the growth of the Army's budget over the next five years, even as the Guard's responsibilities at home were increasing.
Governors of both parties said a Pentagon plan to reorganize the Army National Guard would significantly weaken its ability to save lives and property at home.
After Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, more than 40,000 Guard members helped evacuate storm victims, distributed food and water, provided emergency medical care, repaired homes and restored power.
Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco of Louisiana, a Democrat, said: "The Guard played an awesome role. We should be increasing the number of National Guard combat brigades, not reducing it."
Two other Democrats, Govs. Tom Vilsack of Iowa and Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas, said the strength and resources of Guard units in their states were being depleted.
"We are not only missing National Guard personnel," Ms. Sebelius said. "We are also missing a lot of the equipment that's used to deal with situations at home, day in and day out."
Despite assurances from top administration officials, Mr. Vilsack said, "many of us are very concerned about what we're hearing, that the Pentagon, the administration, might reduce the resources for the National Guard so they can redirect resources to pay for more boots on the ground, more full-time military."
David M. Walker, the comptroller general of the United States, who heads the Government Accountability Office, said the governors had some basis for their concerns.
"The Army cannot account for over half the equipment that Army National Guard units have left overseas," Mr. Walker said. "And it has not developed replacement plans for the equipment, as Defense Department policy requires."

More Articles in Washington >
source: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/27/politics/27govs.html?hp&ex=1141016400&en=242a634368d8b1a1&ei=5094&partner=homepage