Journalism vs. Advocacy; RFK's Ridiculous Article.

The difference between journalism and advocacy.

• A good journalist gathers the facts, interviews the principals, explains the seeming anomalies and then presents it in an understandable way.

• Advocates only present the facts that support their point of view, ignore the ones that don't, read people's minds and pack it all up into a conspiracy that doesn't really exist.


The later is exactly what Robert F. Kennedy Jr did writing for Rolling Stone Magazine in the June 15th edition entitled DID BUSH STEAL THE 2004 ELECTION? How 350,000 Votes Disappeared in Ohio"

Like many Americans, I spent the evening of the 2004 election watching the returns on television and wondering how the exit polls, which predicted an overwhelming victory for John Kerry, had gotten it so wrong. By midnight, the official tallies showed a decisive lead for George Bush -- and the next day, lacking enough legal evidence to contest the results, Kerry conceded. Republicans derided anyone who expressed doubts about Bush's victory as nut cases in ''tinfoil hats,'' while the national media, with few exceptions, did little to question the validity of the election. The Washington Post immediately dismissed allegations of fraud as ''conspiracy theories,''(1) and The New York Times declared that ''there is no evidence of vote theft or errors on a large scale.''(2)

But despite the media blackout, indications continued to emerge that something deeply troubling had taken place in 2004. Nearly half of the 6 million American voters living abroad(3) never received their ballots -- or received them too late to vote(4) -- after the Pentagon unaccountably shut down a state-of-the-art Web site used to file overseas registrations.(5) A consulting firm called Sproul & Associates, which was hired by the Republican National Committee to register voters in six battleground states,(6) was discovered shredding Democratic registrations.(7) In New Mexico, which was decided by 5,988 votes,(8) malfunctioning machines mysteriously failed to properly register a presidential vote on more than 20,000 ballots.(9) Nationwide, according to the federal commission charged with implementing election reforms, as many as 1 million ballots were spoiled by faulty voting equipment -- roughly one for every 100 cast.(10)
-Numbers depict footnote references of which this article is loaded.-

There's plenty more drivel where that came from but for respect for space and your sanity I'll leave it at that. You may read the article at your leisure.

So to make the very long drawn out story of his short the answer given is "Yes He Did" The early exit polls that showed John Kerry winning the election; the stories of lost, delayed and denied voter registration cards; the long lines and other problems at many polling places; and the presence of Secretary of State Ken Blackwell as an overarching malevolent Republican presence all led Kennedy to conclude that a vast and wide-ranging series of conspiracies resulted in Kerry losing an election that the majority of Ohio voters wanted him to win. Salon.com has posted a great rebuttal called Was the 2004 election stolen? No.

There was no shortage of mistakes made in vote counting. There were voters who should have been registered but weren't, polling places with lines that were too long and without enough voting machines, and decisions from Blackwell that appeared to be partisan.

All these mistakes and misjudgments took votes from both candidates, but probably more from Kerry. But they didn't add up to nearly enough votes to swing Ohio from Bush to Kerry.

The mistakes were often a result of lack of foresight and bad judgment, but they were bipartisan in nature and not a result of Republican Deception.
Here are some examples how RFK exhibited the traits of an advocate over that of a good journalist:

- Kennedy offers the exit polls as proof that the election was flawed by saying, (A) Election Day exit polls are always right, and (B) the 2004 exit polls had Kerry winning the election; therefore (C) the election must have been stolen.

That's nonsense - exit polls are often wrong.

- He cited an example from the 2004 Florida exit poll that was partially based on the pollsters' expectation that 18- to 29-year-old voters, a group that leaned heavily toward Kerry, would account for 17 percent of the vote there.

The exit poll was weighted accordingly for that age group, but it turned out that the age group actually accounted for only 13 percent of the vote, which skewed the poll inaccurately toward Kerry.

-In his online footnotes, Kennedy refers no less than a half-dozen times to a five-month-long post-election investigation commissioned by the Democratic National Committee called, "Democracy at Risk."

But never quotes the DNC investigative team's conclusion that "The statistical study of precinct-level data does not suggest the occurrence of widespread fraud that systematically misallocated votes from Kerry to Bush."

- Kennedy saw conspiracy in a Franklin County foul-up that resulted in far too few voting machines at a polling place in a heavily black area that would presumably vote mainly for Kerry.

But he didn't tell his readers that the chairman of the Franklin County elections board, who oversaw the county's voting machine allocation, was a black man who also chairs the county Democratic Party. Not a likely candidate to steal votes for Bush.


Kennedy finished the piece by charging that Ohio's press has turned a blind eye to the stolen election, refused to investigate all these charges, and simply accepted the result as valid.

This is just pure nonsense any reporter who could actually verify a story proving that a vast right wing conspiracy cost John Kerry the presidency would become the darling of the left and would probably win a Pulitzer Prize and a first class all expenses paid trip to Hollywood. Personal politics aside, name a reporter who wouldn't jump at that opportunity?

And it looks like the center left blogs even distanced themselves from this. Has vote-fraud become taboo for the left? The Dogs That Didn't Bark!
The farther away from Ohio you are, the more inclined you may be to find merit or believe in that Rolling Stone piece. I'm sure it didn't take you long to figure out, though, that the piece not only reports "No New News" but that it's complete Nonsense!

The Chasm Between Muslims & Westerners

Many people in the West see Muslims as fanatical, violent and intolerant. Muslims, tend to view the West as selfish, immoral, and greedy as well as fanatical and violent. Says a new study by the Pew Global Attitudes Project who surveyed 14,000 people in 13 countries, including the United States, five European countries, five Muslim countries, Nigeria and India during April and May.

According to the study the Muslim public feels more "embittered" toward the West and its people than vice versa. Muslim opinions about the West and its people have worsened over the past year and by overwhelming margins, Muslims blame Westerners for the strained relationship between the two sides. But there are some positive indicators as well, including the fact that in most Muslim countries surveyed showed a decline in support for terrorism.

The fact remains Muslims and Westerners blame each other for deteriorating relations. Muslim people "have an aggrieved view of the West" and are "much more likely than Americans or Western Europeans to blame Western policies for their own lack of prosperity"

The west says Muslims are held back by "government corruption, lack of education and Islamic fundamentalism" Despite the divide, attitudes are not uniformly negative.

Solid majorities in France, the US and Britain retain overall favorable opinions of Muslims, while positive views of Muslims have declined sharply in Spain (from 46% to 29%), the survey notes.

It says about eight in 10 people in both Spain and Germany associate Islam with fanaticism - a view that is less prevalent in France (50%), Britain (48%) and the US (43%).

Likewise, Muslim opinion is far from uniform, with Muslim minorities in Europe often attributing positive attributes to Westerners - including tolerance, generosity, and respect for women.

On the other hand, in Muslim countries in the Middle East and Asia large majorities describe the West as "selfish", "arrogant", and "violent".

This I found very interesting:

DID ARABS CARRY OUT 9/11?
British Muslims: 56% No
French Muslims: 46% No
Indonesia: 65% No
Egypt: 59% No
Turkey: 59% No
Jordan: 53% No

Nothing highlights the divide between Muslims and the West more clearly than their responses to the uproar this past winter over cartoon depictions of Muhammad. Most people in Jordan, Egypt, Indonesia and Turkey blame the controversy on Western nations disrespect for the Islamic religion. The majority of Americans and Western Europeans who have heard of the controversy say Muslims intolerance to different points of view is more to blame.

The chasm between Muslims and the West is also seen in judgments about how the other civilization treats women. Westerners by lopsided margins do not think of Muslims as "respectful of women." But half or more in four of the five Muslim countries populous surveyed say the same thing about people in the West.

Yet despite the deep divide in attitudes between Westerners and Muslims, this poll/survey also finds that the views of each toward the other are far from uniformly negative. Even in the wake of the events of the past year, solid majorities in France, Great Britain and the U.S. retain overall favorable opinions of Muslims. But positive opinions of Muslims have declined sharply in Spain over the past year (from 46% to 29%), as well as in Great Britain (from 72% to 63%)
Some other findings:

• Concerns over Islamic extremism are widely shared in Western publics and Muslim publics alike. But an exception is China, where 59% express little or no concern over Islamic extremism.

• Muslims differ over whether there is a struggle in their country between Islamic fundamentalists and groups wanting to modernize society. But solid majorities of those who perceive such a struggle side with the modernizers.

• Fully 41% of the general public in Spain says most or many Muslims in their country support Islamic extremists. But just 12% of Spain's Muslims say most or many of the country's Muslims support extremists like al Qaeda.

• Nearly four-in-ten Germans (37%), and 29% of Americans, say there is a natural conflict between being a devout Christian and living in a modern society.
The Pew Global Attitudes Project study site has a complete rundown and great graphics & charts I would post here if I had the power ;-) that I urge you all to check out!

This is not exactly an epiphany but very interesting poll into the way people think!

500 shells

Originally posted at Redstate.com Jun 22nd, 2006: 10:57:00

By now I'm sure you're all aware of this Report: Hundreds of WMDs Found in Iraq

The United States has found 500 chemical weapons in Iraq since 2003, and more weapons of mass destruction are likely to be uncovered, two Republican lawmakers said Wednesday.

"We have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, chemical weapons," Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., said in a quickly called press conference late Wednesday afternoon.

Reading from a declassified portion of a report by the National Ground Intelligence Center, a Defense Department intelligence unit, Santorum said: "Since 2003, coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent. Despite many efforts to locate and destroy Iraq's pre-Gulf War chemical munitions, filled and unfilled pre-Gulf War chemical munitions are assessed to still exist."

And if I could sound the alarm for those who respect Senator Santorum Get ready for an all out attack from the left accusing him of using this as a campaign stunt this of course is completely ridicules but you know it's coming if it hasn't started already!


Yesterday's announcement reminds me of this story from May 17, 2004 Sarin, Mustard Gas Discovered Separately in Iraq

A roadside bomb containing sarin nerve agent (search) recently exploded near a U.S. military convoy, the U.S. military said Monday.
Bush administration officials told Fox News that mustard gas (search) was also recently discovered.

Two people were treated for "minor exposure" after the sarin incident but no serious injuries were reported. Soldiers transporting the shell for inspection suffered symptoms consistent with low-level chemical exposure, which is what led to the discovery, a U.S. official told Fox News.

"The Iraqi Survey Group confirmed today that a 155-millimeter artillery round containing sarin nerve agent had been found," Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt (search), the chief military spokesman in Iraq, told reporters in Baghdad. "The round had been rigged as an IED (improvised explosive device) which was discovered by a U.S. force convoy."

The round detonated before it would be rendered inoperable, Kimmitt said, which caused a "very small dispersal of agent."

--snip--

Two weeks ago, U.S. military units discovered mustard gas that was used as part of an IED. Tests conducted by the Iraqi Survey Group (search) -- a U.S. organization searching for weapons of mass destruction -- and others concluded the mustard gas was "stored improperly," which made the gas "ineffective."

They believe the mustard gas shell may have been one of 550 projectiles for which former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein failed to account when he made his weapons declaration shortly before Operation Iraqi Freedom began last year. Iraq also failed to then account for 450 aerial bombs with mustard gas. That, combined with the shells, totaled about 80 tons of unaccounted for mustard gas.

As far as shelf life for these weapons or their ineffectiveness according to the CIA, Iraq has tried to overcome the problem of sarin's short shelf life by Developing binary chemical weapons, where the two precursor chemicals are stored separately in the same shell, and mixed to form the agent immediately before or when the shell is in flight. This approach has the dual benefit of making the issue of shelf life irrelevant and greatly increasing the safety of sarin munitions So lets put the "these weapons are old and no threat" arguments to rest!

The fact that these shells predated the 1st Iraq war has absolutly no barring on the fact that the finding proves Saddam was hiding these weapons. UN resolution 1441 as well as the pervious 15 or so resolutions demanded that Saddam account for ALL such wepons. No matter how much the lunitic left wants to dismiss this finding, the fact remains, along with a litany of reasons to go to war the WMD section/reason was valid.

I have a very strong felling that this is just a small portion of what was and will be found. As a military anylist said last night on Fox news (sorry can't remember his rank or name I think it was Thomas McInerery but don't hold me to that) the reason why this administration may not want to come forward with more is the possible exposure of counties who were complicit in providing said weapons such as Russia, China, and France.

It's important to not lose track of whats going on here. Is this the smoking gun, No, not that that would satisfy the left. We could find 20 nuclear missles there and the left would find some way to spinn out of saying they were wrong. Its important to sistimaticly show the American people that what they are being told in the MSM is not the be-all end-all gosple truth they'd like everybody to believe!

"Illegal immigrants are destroying the city"

"I don't want them here, period." said Mayor Lou Barletta of Hazleton PA. and apparently he's actually going to do something about it. According to MICHAEL RUBINKAM's AP piece City to crackdown on illegal immigration

"With tensions rising and its police department and municipal budget stretched thin, this small northeastern Pennsylvania city is about to begin what the mayor calls one of the toughest crackdowns on illegal immigrants in the United States"

Last week Barletta introduced, and the City Council tentatively approved, a measure that would revoke the business licenses of companies that employ illegal immigrants; impose $1,000 fines on landlords who rent to illegal immigrants; and make English the city's official language.

Barletta acted after two illegal immigrants from the Dominican Republic were charged with shooting and killing a man and the arrest of a 14-year-old boy for firing a gun at a playground.

Barletta, said "People are afraid to walk the streets. There's going to be law and order back in Hazleton and I'm going to use every tool I possibly can." I don't blame him one bit.

Barletta is following the Illegal Immigration Relief Act'' proposed by the Southern California city of San Bernardino rallied for in large part by activist Joseph Turner.

Both Turner's initiative and Hazleton's ordinance would punish those who rent housing to illegal immigrants by fining them at least $1,000, punish those who hire or do business with illegal immigrants by denying permits and contracts, and require city communications be conducted in English.

Turner's proposal would ban city-funded day labor centers. btw I view these city-funded day labor centers as a complete slap in the face to ALL American citizens.
Of course the detractors and open borders people are working hard to defeat such measures. Flavia Jimenez, an immigrant policy analyst at the National Council of La Raza, predicted the Hazleton crackdown would prompt a civil rights lawsuits. And Armando Navarro, a UC Riverside professor and coordinator of the National Alliance for Human Rights, is helping plan a political and legal strategy to defeat the San Bernardino proposal. A meeting is set for 9 a.m. today. The San Bernardino Democratic Luncheon Club on Friday voted to strongly oppose the measure as well.
And it now looks like the court will have to settle this:

Turner collected more than 3,000 signatures in favor of it earlier this year, forcing the city to consider adopting it.

By a 4-3 vote at a May 15 meeting, the City Council declined to adopt it itself and sent the question to the voters. At a subsequent meeting, the council was scheduled to set the election, but opted against doing so after facing a legal challenge on whether Turner had collected enough signatures.

The city charter requires that signatures equal to 30 percent of the voters who voted in the last election in which a mayor was elected be collected to force a vote on an initiative.

After the city filed with the courts for so-called declaratory relief, a Superior Court judge will decide whether Turner should have used the city's November 2002 election as a benchmark or its February 2006 election, for which turnout was relatively high.

While the federal government continues to debate this issue or more likly look for a non-solution; solution. These cities out of frustration, lack of patients, or a feeling of hesitance to pass good illegal immigration reform. Have decided to (for a lack of a better term) opt for the do-it-yourself remady.

No doubt the actions of the these cities will fuel a hole host of heated debate on a myriad of issues including jurisdiction, who's reasonability it is, as well as the cost to the cities tax-payers.

I believe the best testimony comes from the citizens themselves.
"It's about time," said Francis X. Tucci, 57, who was born and raised in Hazleton and owns a hair salon with tiny American flags in the window in the heart of the Hispanic business district. "We were a nice community. You find bad everywhere, I understand that, but we're talking about here and now."

Some Hispanics approve, saying they are fed up with crime and graffiti. "If I was mayor, I wouldn't let anyone in who had a criminal record," said Rafael Rovira, 69, a naturalized American citizen from the Dominican Republic

June 2006 Primary Election, CA.

Today is Californias primary election 2006. the following is a compiling of the overall primary races save the many legislative races which were too combersome to make this post for more info please visit Elections & Voter Information


Proposition 82: Preschool Education. Tax on Incomes Over $400,000 for Individuals; $800,000 for Couples. Initiative Constitutional Amendment and Statute.
SummaryEstablishes voluntary preschool education for all four-year olds. Funded by 1.7% tax on individual income over $400,000; couples' income over $800,000. Fiscal Impact: Increased annual revenues of $2.1 billion in 2007-08, growing with the economy in future years. All revenues would be spent on the new preschool program.

Follow the MoneyDetailed information about all contributors for and against Prop. 82 is available through Cal-Access, the Secretary of State's campaign finance website. To view the most recent contributions, select a committee and click "Late and $5000+ Contributions Received".

Major contributors supporting Prop. 82 as of May 14, 2006 include: California Teachers Association Issues PAC; California State Council of Service Employees Issue PAC; Rob Reiner and Michelle Singer Reiner, Producer, Castle Rock Entertainment, and Homemaker, Beverly Hills; Pat A. Stryker, Philanthropist, Fort Collins, CO; Carl Reiner, Entertainer, Beverly Hills; American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees; and Action Against Crime & Violence Fund, Washington, DC. In addition, a large number of smaller contributions have come from venture capitalists and individuals in the entertainment industry.

Major contributors opposing Prop. 82 as of May 14, 2006 include: Baron Real Estate, Inc., Redondo Beach; William K. Bowes, Founding Partner, U.S. Venture Partners, Menlo Park; Cypress Management Company, Inc., Los Angeles; California Business PAC; Charles B Johnson, Chairman, Franklin Resources, Inc., San Mateo; Franklin P. Johnson, General Partner, Asset Management Partners, Palo Alto; and Ameriquest Capital Corporation, Orange. In addition, a large number of smaller contributions have come from a variety of California businesses and business executives, including venture capitalists and investors.


Proposition 81: California Reading and Literacy Improvement and Public Library Construction and Renovation Bond Act of 2006.

SummaryThis act provides for a bond issue in a amount not to exceed a total of six hundred million dollars ($600,000,000) to provide funds for the construction and renovation of public library facilities in order to expand access to reading and literacy programs in California's public education system and to expand access to public library services for all residents of California. Fiscal Impact: State cost of about $1.2 billion over 30 years to pay off both the principal ($600 million) and interest ($570 million) costs of the bonds. One-time local costs (statewide) of about $320 million for local matching contributions.

Follow the MoneyDetailed information about all contributors for and against Prop. 81 is available through Cal-Access, the Secretary of State's campaign finance website. To view the most recent contributions, select a committee and click "Late and $5000+ Contributions Received".
Major contributors supporting Prop. 81 as of May 14, 2006 include: California State Council of Service Employees Issues Committee; California Teachers Association Issues PAC; California Library Association; Friends of the San Francisco Public Library; American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees CA Issues; and Carl Corporation of Inwood, WV. In addition, a large number of smaller contributions have come from librarians and public library "Friends" associations.

There has been no money raised to oppose Prop. 81 as of 5/14/06.

Governor

Job Description As the state's chief executive officer, oversees most state departments and agencies and appoints judges; Proposes new laws and approves or vetoes legislation; Prepares and submits the annual state budget; and Mobilizes and directs state resources during
emergencies.

Democratic

Phil Angelides
Barbara Becnel
Joe Brouillette
Jerald Robert Gerst
Vibert Greene
Frank A. Macaluso, Jr.
Michael Strimling
Steve Westly
Republican
Jeffrey R. Burns
Bill Chambers
Robert C. Newman II
Arnold Schwarzenegger

American Independent
Edward C. Noonan

Green
Peter Camejo

Libertarian
Art Olivier

Peace and Freedom
Janice Jordan

Lieutenant Governor

Job Description Assumes the office and duties of Governor in the case of impeachment, death, resignation, removal from office, or absence from the state;Serves as President of and presides over the State Senate and has a tie-breaking vote;Chairs the Economic Development Commission, is a member of the State Lands Commission, and sits on the boards of the California university systems; and Serves as an ex-officio member of the California State World Trade Commission.

Democratic

Liz Figueroa
John Garamendi
Jackie Speier

Republican

Tony Farmer
Tom McClintock
American Independent
James D. King
Green- Donna J. Warren

Libertarian
Lynnette Marie Shaw

Peace and Freedom
Stewart A. Alexander


Secretary of State

Job Description As the state's chief elections officer, administers and enforces election laws and keeps records of all campaign and lobbyist disclosure statements required under the Political Reform Act; Files official documents relating to corporations, trademarks, the Uniform Commercial Code, notaries public, and limited partnerships; Collects and preserves historically valuable papers and artifacts in the California State Archives; and Serves as an ex-officio member of the California State World Trade Commission.

Democratic

Debra Bowen
Deborah Ortiz

Republican
Bruce McPherson

Green
Forrest Hill

Libertarian
Gail Lightfoot

Peace and Freedom
Margie Akin


Controller

Job Description As the state's chief fiscal officer, acts as the state's accountant and bookkeeper of all public funds; Administers the state payroll system and unclaimed property laws; Serves on numerous boards and commissions including the Board of Equalization and the Board of Control; andConducts audits and reviews of state operations.

Democratic

John Chiangwww.chiangforcalifornia.comMember, State Board of Equalization 8221 De Longpre Ave., #25, C/O Norman Chramoff, West Hollywood, CA 90046(323) 497-2600 or nchramoff@yahoo.com

Joe Dunnwww.joedunn.orgState Senator P.O. Box 10451, Santa Ana, CA 92711(714) 621-0829 or joe@joedunn2006.com

Republican

Bret DavisBusinessman 704 Bounty Dr, #401, Foster City, CA 94404David Lawrence HarrisBusinessman 4780 Discovery Pt., Discovery Bay, CA 94514(925) 634-5691 or dhdisbay@comcast.net

Abel Maldonadowww.electabel.com Business Controller/Auditor P.O. Box 948, San Luis Obispo, CA 93902(805) 545-0600 or Info@electabel.com

Jim Stieringerwww.stieringer.comCity Treasurer 8174 Pasadena Ave., La Mesa, CA 91941(619) 466-0793 or stieringer@cox.net

Tony Stricklandwww.tonystrickland.comTaxpayer Organization President P.O. Box 1371, Thousand Oaks, CA 91358(805) 297-4529 or Info@TonyStrickland.com

American Independent

Warren M. CampbellMinister P.O. Box 75, Kaweah, CA 93237 (559) 561-4860
Green

Laura Wells www.laurawells.orgFinancial Systems Consultant P.O. Box 16025, Oakland, CA 94610(510) 986-0879 or info@laurawells.org

Libertarian

Donna TelloTax Accountant 13446 Poway Rd, #202, Poway, CA 92064(858) 486-2352 or donnatello4cacontoller@yahoo.com

Peace and Freedom

Elizabeth C. Barronwww.peaceandfreedom2006.org/candidates/ebarron/ Retired Teacher 640 S. 13th St., San Jose, CA 95112(408) 287-0101


Treasurer

Job Description As the state's banker, manages the state's investments; Administers the sale of state bonds and notes and is the investment officer for most state funds; Chairs or serves on several commissions, most of which relate to the marketing of bonds; and Pays out state funds when spent by the Controller and other state agencies.

Democratic

Bill Lockyerwww.lockyerfortreasurer.comCalifornia Attorney General 1230 H Street, Sacramento, CA 95814(916) 444-1755 or info@lockyerfortreasurer.com

Republican

Claude ParrishMember, State Board of Equalization P.O. Box 2427, Palos Verdes, CA 90274(562) 983-7855

Keith S. Richman www.keithrichman.comBusiness Owner/Assemblymember P.O. Box 4704, Chatsworth, CA 91313(888) 322-0055 or RichmanforTreasurer@KeithRichman.com

American Independent

E. Justin NoonanComputer Technician 1561 N. Beale Rd., Marysville, CA 95901(530) 743-6878 or ejnoonan@4xtreme.org

Green

Mehul M. Thakkerwww.votethakker.comInvestment Advisor 815 Washington St., #52, Oakland, CA 94607(415) 305-3916 or info@votethakker.com

Libertarian

Marian SmithsonCity Treasurer/CPA 1677 Aspen Village Way, West Covina, CA 91791(626) 915-7666 or mariansway@earthlink.net

Peace and Freedom

Gerald Sanderswww.peaceandfreedom2006.org/candidates/gsanders/P.O. Box 24764, Oakland, CA 94623(510) 845-4360 or sanders@peaceandfreedom.org

Attorney General

Job Description As the state's chief law officer, ensures that the laws of the state are uniformly and adequately enforced; Heads the Department of Justice, which is responsible for providing state legal services and support for local law enforcement; Acts as the chief counsel in state litigation; and Oversees law enforcement agencies, including District Attorneys and Sheriffs.

Democratic

Jerry Brownwww.jerrybrown.orgOakland Mayor/Attorney 2633 Telegraph Ave., #302, Oakland, CA 94612(510) 628-0202 or info@jerrybrown.org

Rocky Delgadillowww.rocky2006.com Prosecutor/City Attorney 4144 N Lankershim Blvd., #201, North Hollywood, CA 91602(818) 766-0165 or Info@Rocky2006.com

Republican

Chuck Poochigianwww.pooch4ag.comCalifornia Senator/Attorney P.O. Box 8446, Fresno, CA. 93747(559) 255-1699 or campaign@poochigian.com

Green

Michael Sutton Wymanwww.votewyman.orgAttorney-At-LawP.O. Box 9380, San Rafael, CA 94912(415) 785-3448

Libertarian

Kenneth A. Weissmanwww.electkenweissman.comAttorney-At-Law 8484 Wilshire Blvd., Ste. 850, Beverly Hills, CA. 90211(323) 655-4529 or CalAG2006@yahoo.com

Peace and Freedom

Jack Harrisonwww.peaceandfreedom2006.org/candidates/jharrison/ Attorney/Rent Commissioner 1312 Cornell Ave., Berkeley, CA 94702(510) 333-7832


Insurance Commissioner

Job Description Oversees and directs all functions of the Department of Insurance; Licenses, regulates, and examines insurance companies; Answers public questions and complaints regarding the insurance industry; and Enforces the laws of the California Insurance Code and adopts regulations to implement the laws.

Democratic

Cruz BustamanteCalifornia Lt. Governor1114 State Capitol, Sacramento, CA 95814(916) 441-1175 or tagostino4cmb@aol.com

John Kraftwww.ic-johnkraft.com Insurance Healthcare Consultant 1441 Huntington Dr., Ste. 209. South Pasadena, CA 91030 (626) 284-2813 or jhkraft@pacbell.net

Republican

Steve Poiznerwww.joinsteve.comBusinessman/Entrepreneur P.O. Box 508, Los Altos, CA 94023(650) 962-0189 or info@joinsteve.com

American Independent

Jay Earl BurdenStudent 1210 E. 22nd St., Marysville, CA 95901(530) 713-1393 or JayDawg1981@yahoo.com

Green

Larry Cafierowww.votecafiero.comNewspaper Editor P.O. Box 203, Ben Lomond, CA 95005-0203(831) 438-1401 or larry4inscomm@earthlink.net

Libertarian

Dale F. Ogdenwww.dalefogden.orgActuary/Insurance Consultant 3620 Almeria St., San Pedro, CA 90731(310) 547-1595 or dfo@dalefogden.org

Peace and Freedom

Tom Conditwww.tomcondit.orgWriter 2124 Kittredge St., #174, Berkeley, CA 94704(510) 845-4360 or condit@peaceandfreedom.org

U.S. Senate Race

Democratic

Martin Luther Churchwww.churchforsenate.comRetired Program Manager 6697 E. Woodbridge Rd., Acampo, CA 95220(209) 369-7381

Dianne Feinstein www.dianne2006.comUnited States Senator P.O. Box 67457, Los Angeles, CA 91502(310) 556-8683 or info@dianne2006.com

Colleen FernaldMother/Artist/Entreprenuer P.O. Box 30, Sebastopol, CA 95473(707) 876-9610 or colleenfernald@earthlink.net

Republican

Richard "Dick" Mountjoy www.mountjoyforsenate.comImmigration Control Consultant P.O. Box 877, Monrovia, CA 91017(626) 357-8237 or info@mountjoyforsenate.com

American Independent

Don Grundmannwww.truthusa.org Doctor of Chiropractic 425 E. Merle Ct., San Leandro, CA 94577(510) 433-7000 or stoptheirs@aol.com

Green

Todd Chretienwww.todd4senate.orgWriter 1710 Broadway, #1214, Sacramento, CA 95818(510) 590-6073 or toddchretien@mac.com

Tian Harterwww.tianharter.orgCommunity Volunteer P. O. Box 391854, Mountain View CA 94039-1854(650) 964-6481

Kent P. Mesplaywww.mesplay.orgInspector, A.P.C.D.8556 Lynx Rd., San Diego, CA 92126-1827(858) 586-2686 or kmesplay@msn.com

Libertarian

Michael S. Mettiwww.mettiforsenate.comParent/Educator/Businessman1072 Nugent Ct., El Cajon, CA 92020 (619) 277-7127 or metti2@cox.net

Peace and Freedom

Marsha Feinlandwww.feinlandforsenate.orgRetired Teacher 2124 Kittredge St., #174, Berkeley, CA 94703(510) 845-4360 or feinland@peaceandfreedom.org

My picks are:


Arnold Schwarzenegger GOVERNOR
Tom McClintock LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR
Bruce Mc Pherson SECRETARY OF STATE
Keith Richman TREASURER
Chuck Poochigian ATTORNEY GENERAL
Steve Poizner INSURANCE COMMISSIONER
Tony Strickland CONTROLLER
Ed Royce District 40


If you're a registered voter in California please take a few minutes to consider the candidates, then GET OUT AND VOTE!

Unsung Heroes

There will undoubtedly be many diaries here offering tribute to the fallen warriors as well there should be. But I hope you’ll permit me to sing the praises of another group of unsung hero’s?

As a former Marine and a life long patriot I know what this day means to me, my family, and every fallen Americans loved ones across the sands of time. There is no greater sacrifice than giving your life for principles and ideas that are greater than yourself, and that’s just what the good men and women of the armed forces and their civilian contractors are doing in the ongoing war on terror.

Which brings me to the point of this pontification and the subject of this tribute: The American Contractor

These brave men and women put their life on the line everyday supplying our mighty military with the necessities needed to conduct daily operations. These necessities include, but are not limited to, fuel, water, ice, meals and the Mail. The largest contractor is KBR which has 700 trucks rolling across Iraqi on any given day and drive more than 3.3 million miles a month in order to transport fuel and supplies for the U.S. Army.

Civilian contractors work alongside the troops in dangerous conditions, but Halliburton/KBR employees have also had to endure political derision from home and I believe every civilian working in Iraq needs and deserves support from Americans!

Here’s an excerpt from a story titled The Trucker’s War: On the Road in Iraq

Private contractors are America’s shadow army in Iraq; essential, but often forgotten. Among the most vulnerable: Civilian truck drivers who navigate the most dangerous roads in the world, delivering everything from meals to mail to bullets to portable toilets.

The truckers face ambushes unarmed. At least 63 of them have died. Twenty-four were Americans, the rest were third-country nationals.

And it goes on to tell about a day in the life:

Imagine yourself in the cab of a truck bouncing along a highway in Iraq. Palm trees and dun-colored houses whiz past. Children run out to beg. Men in white dishdashas and red headscarves with hostile faces watch you pass.

You swerve to miss a donkey carcass; it could be booby-trapped. Suddenly, a familiar sound: the pop, pop, pop of machine-gun fire. You hope the soldiers in the Humvees escorting your convoy shoot back.

You pray the flak vest you’re wearing stops an AK round, because the truck you’re driving is not armored.

Above all, you tell yourself, “Don’t stop.” There are bad guys out there who want to pull you out and cut your head off.

Then suddenly there’s a sharp concussion, black smoke, chaos. An IED on the left side of the road. You say a quick prayer and you move on.

It’s another day on the job of a truck driver for Operation Iraqi Freedom.

“It’s such an unusual type of job,” says driver Scott Hodges. “For the people who do it and are successful at it, there’s a real kinship, there’s a real brotherhood there.”

Michael Vick says young Iraqi rock throwers “can hit inside your cab while you’re moving at 50 miles an hour.”

While the civilian death toll is relatively low compared to the military the sacrifice is no less meaningful. Like most of you who have served this great nation, a piece of me/you dies every time you hear of a military death, as well as the deaths of those civilian contractors who work so closely with us to insure victory.

So I would respectfully ask all of you while you’re at your BBQ’s, picnics, parties, and celebrations to take a moment to remember these brave Americans who’ve given their lives for the noblest of causes… FREEDOM ! ! !

Socialism; The Southern Front

The United States, in the midst of the war on terror, has got to keep it's eye on the growing socialist movement in Latin America. With this Sunday's surprising victory of Michelle Bachelet, a self described leftist, Chile becomes the next country in a growing list of socialist or socialist leaning countries in South America.

Here's a list of countries in the Pro-Castro Axis
1) Cuba
2) Brazil
3) Venezuela
4) Bolivia
5) Uruguay
6) Ecuador

And the list of targeted countries
1) Argentina
2) Peru
3) Columbia
4) Paraguay
5) Nicaragua
6) Honduras
7) El Salvador
8) Guatemala


Chile

"Michelle Bachelet , a socialist doctor and former political prisoner was elected Sunday as the country's first female president, defeating a conservative multimillionaire opponent in a race that reflected Latin America's increasingly leftward tilt.

She has bescribed herself as: "I was a woman, separated, a socialist, an agnostic ... all possible sins together," Chile's next president Michelle Bachelet will be joining the ranks of Latin American leaders including leftists such as Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and newly elected Evo Morales of Bolivia.

Bachelet indicated she would work with all the region's leaders. "We shouldn't take Latin America back to the Cold War. Chavez, Morales, they are presidents elected by their peoples. Chile must have relationships with all of them."

Uruguay

Until recently, Uruguay could be counted upon as one of Washington's staunchest friends in the hemisphere. But then Mr. Vazquez, an oncologist and former mayor of Montevideo, broke the traditional two-party mold of Uruguayan politics by leading the Frente Amplio (Broad Front) leftist coalition to an overwhelming election victory.

Venezuela

From the WSJ and MARY ANASTASIA O'GRADY

"with Iranian nuclear aspirations gaining notice, it's worth directing attention to the growing relationship between Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez. The Reagan administration repulsed Soviet efforts to set up camp in Central America. Iranian designs on Venezuela perhaps deserve similar U.S. attention.

The warmth and moral support between Ahmadinejad and Chávez is very public. The two tyrants are a lot more than just pen pals. Venezuela has made it clear that it backs Iran's nuclear ambitions and embraces the mullahs' hateful anti-Semitism. What remains more speculative is just how far along Iran is in putting down roots in Venezuela.

In September, when the International Atomic Energy Agency offered a resolution condemning Iran for its "many failures and breaches of its obligations to comply" with its treaty commitments, Venezuela was the only country that voted "no." Ahmadinejad congratulated the Venezuelan government, calling the vote "brave and judicious."

Three months later, in a Christmas Eve TV broadcast, Chávez declared that "minorities, the descendants of those who crucified Christ, have taken over the riches of the world." That ugly anti-Semitic swipe was of a piece with an insidious assault over the past several years on the country's Jewish community. In 2004, heavily armed Chávez commandos raided a Caracas Jewish school, terrifying children and parents. The government's claim that it had reason to believe that the school was storing arms was never supported. A more reasonable explanation is that the raid was part of the Chávez political strategy of fomenting class hatred--an agenda that finds a vulnerable target in the country's Jewish minority--and as a way to show Tehran that Venezuela is on board. Ahmadinejad rivals Hitler in his hatred for the Jewish people."

From Humberto Fontova

"Basically this "master plan" involved massive loans, financial aid and shipments of free oil to Castro from Venezuela so he could carry out his anti-American jihad without fear of economic strangulation from the "Gringos." Betancourt balked and no sooner had Castro returned home empty handed than he was planning subversion in Venezuela, including assassination attempts against Betancourt and sneaking in guerrilla bands. These guerrillas were trained primarily by Che Guevara, so naturally they were completely routed and stomped out in short order.

It took Hugo Chavez to finally enlist with Castro's plan. In 2004 Cuba got 1.3 billion in essentially free oil from Venezuela. By mid 2005, 160,000 barrels of oil were flowing from Venezuela to Cuba daily. This is much more oil than Cuba's refineries can process, because most of this oil is resold to Central American nations by Cuba, which pockets the handsome profit. Here's the second half of the "master plan against the gringo's" that Castro had originally proposed to Romulo Betancourt.

The mainstream media naturally ignored this, but just last month the Ecuadoran government captured a group of rebels who admitted they were trained and equipped in Venezuela. Colombian president Alvaro Uribe has to be painstakingly circumspect in his public pronouncements, but he knows good and well who is arming, supplying and providing safe haven for Colombia's FARC guerrillas. "Thanks to Castro" boasted Colombia's FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia) commander "Tiro-Fijo" in a 2001 interview, "we are now a powerful army, not a hit and run band." The conduit for this type of aid and sanctuary is, of course, Venezuela."

From Steve Johnson

"Despite his need for surrogates and seclusion, Fidel is still in control. Thousands of his advisers form a shadow government in Caracas to ensure that Chavez doesn't flub his chance at dictatorship the way Nicaragua's Sandinista comandantes or El Salvador's guerrillas once did. Fortunately for him, U.S.-backed democratic and market reforms in the region have barely gone beyond elections and free trade, disappointing those who hoped they would deliver greater prosperity. And at a time when the United States is preoccupied in the Middle East, few U.S. policymakers are interested in advancing these reforms in Latin America--although more comprehensive ties and greater restructuring is needed and wanted.

Democracy is unraveling in Bolivia and Ecuador, and is under assault in Nicaragua and Mexico where the Venezuelan government has sent activist ambassadors to aid the campaigns of leftist politicians. Meanwhile, renewed turmoil in the region will cost the United States in lost trade, security woes, rising drug and arms trafficking, and floodtides of migrants fleeing closed societies patterned on the ramblings of an island-bound sociopath."

From Philip Peters

"From the perspective of U.S. policy and strategy, I think it's important to examine the void into which Cuba and Venezuela are rushing in so many Latin American countries. This void is real and durable, and while it may not threaten the survival of democratic governance, it is almost guaranteed to shape it in ways we do not like.

1.There is a big opening for Cuba and Venezuela to provide doctors, teachers, oil, and other forms of aid, financed mainly by Venezuelan oil revenues - and as in any aid program, there will be political benefits for the donor. This aid will also highlight ways in which many Latin Americans do not see eye to eye with many Americans. First, they have few qualms about the collaboration. Uribe in Colombia, for example, has welcomed thousands of Cuban teachers, last week thanked Cuba for hosting peace talks between his government and Colombian guerrillas, and recently signed a long-term energy pact with Venezuela that includes big investment projects. Second, people in countries with poor systems of delivery of social services are likely to admire Cuba´s health care system because of its universal reach. They could care less about its deficiencies. They are happy to have a Cuban doctor in a place where no doctor has been before.

2.We are in for a period (already underway) in which there is an opening for left-of-center politicians (including many with mainstream ideas, not Evo Morales´ brand of populist extremism) to gain ground in Latin America; they will move away from the last decade´s "Washington consensus" economic policies and they will be critical of U.S. foreign policy.

3.If we don´t like #1 and #2, the only antidote is to engage in the serious long-term work of making democratic capitalism work in Latin America. That is, we have to close the void. If we are serious, we would expect results in generations, not years. And we will have to ruffle the feathers of many Latin American elites"

From Jaime Suchlicki

"The US has an interest in preventing and reversing political conditions that could a) generate hostility toward the US and its economic and political interests; b) divide the region into antagonistic groups c) give rise to violence and armed conflict; and d) work to the detriment of the US or the Hemisphere.

What's to be done? For starters:

1.Develop policies and strategies to focus sustained attention on the problems of Latin America.

2.Redirect foreign aid programs to the region to deal with grassroot development, social and economic issues.

3.Direct public diplomacy programs to the region.

4.Support electoral candidates favorable to US interests.

5.Establish a major center in the US to train and support democratic candidates in the region.

6.Open offices in select countries to train future political leaders.

7.Strengthen covert intelligence capabilities. Covert actions should be used when critical to the security of the US, when significant chances and success exist, and when diplomatic, propaganda, or other efforts have little prospect of success.

8.The quality, motivation, and language capabilities of US diplomats and other personnel being sent to Latin America should be improved.

9.Cultural and exchange programs should be strengthened and expanded.

10.Consideration should be given to the establishment in the US or Puerto Rico of "the University of the Americas," a specialized technical, business, and diplomatic school to train Latin Americans."

We have got to focus our attention on South America and develop a clear plan to deal with this growing tide of socialism. We have to apply the same type of foreign policy, as it relates to dictators and their atrocities, as we do to the Middle East.

I believe if we apply the right kind of pressure and point out the failures of this ideology to the Latin American people combined with the reality their economic situation we may be able to turn the tide.

This situation may ultimately play itself out in our favor just like communism is Europe did, but I think you'll agree this is a situation we need to monitor very closely.

Anti-death penalty crowd dealt a blow

On the heels of the infamous Tooki Williams case comes another blow for the anti-death penalty crowd. Today DNA testing proved "there was almost no conceivable doubt that Coleman was the source of the sperm found in the victim."

Some background:
this is from death penalty information center

"Virginia Governor Mark Warner has ordered DNA evidence retested to determine whether Roger Keith Coleman, who was executed in 1992, was actually innocent. Warner said he ordered the tests because of technological advances that could prove a level of certainty that was not available at the time of Coleman's execution.

Since his execution, Coleman's case has generated a great deal of national and international attention. After the Virginia Supreme Court denied a request for new DNA testing made in 2002 by four newspapers and Centurian Ministries, a New Jersey-based group that investigates claims of innocence, a number of requests for new DNA tests were directed to Governor Warner. If the testing shows Coleman did not commit the crime for which he was executed, it would be the first time in the United States that a person was exonerated by scientific testing after his execution."

And this from FOXNEWS today:
DNA Tests Confirm Guilt of Executed Man

"The case had been closely watched by both sides in the death penalty debate because no executed convict in the United States has ever been exonerated by scientific testing.
The tests, ordered by the governor last month, prove Roger Keith Coleman was guilty of the 1981 rape and murder of his sister-in-law, Gov. Mark R. Warner's spokeswoman Ellen Qualls said.

The report from the Centre of Forensic Sciences in Toronto concluded there was almost no conceivable doubt that Coleman was the source of the sperm found in the victim.

"The probability that a randomly selected individual unrelated to Roger Coleman would coincidentally share the observed DNA profile is estimated to be 1 in 19 million," the report said."

It went on to say:

"A finding of innocence would have been explosive news and almost certainly would have had a powerful effect on the public's attitude toward capital punishment. Death penalty opponents have argued for years that the risk of a grave and irreversible mistake by the criminal justice system is too great to allow capital punishment.

"We have sought the truth using DNA technology not available at the time the commonwealth carried out the ultimate criminal sanction," Warner said in a statement. "The confirmation that Roger Coleman's DNA was present reaffirms the verdict and the sanction. Again, my prayers are with the family of Wanda McCoy at this time."

I realize this was to be the "See I Told You So" moment for the anti-death penalty folks but I'm personally happy with this outcome. It shows that the system, as flawed as it may be, works!

And to think TIME Magazine put this slime on its cover.

Boo-Hoo Economics and Media Bias

With all the talk of Media bias of late and some people asking for specific links to polls and how the MSM repots on the economy I thought I'd combine the two and share some articles I've read recently.


The first is an article by Dan Gainor from the Washington Times

"The Christmas shopping season culminated a strong year for the U.S. economy. But instead of ringing out the old year and toasting the success, 43 percent of Americans think we're in a recession. And that's a crying shame"
According to the American Research Group, the public is split over the notion we're in a recession. It's no wonder almost half of the public thinks things are bad, because most people only know what they're told. For 43 percent of the population to believe something so wrongheaded, there can be only one culprit -- the major media.

Journalists describe the economy as "strong, but with serious weaknesses" when they are being positive or focus on the "housing bubble" bursting instead of dwelling on the 55 percent gains home prices have made since 2000. They've even discussed a possible recession.

This happens all the time one of our more left leaning papers or news broadcasts will headline a story like this: the GNP is up but you never know with the U.S. economy while another will say, about the same story, something like this: The GNP is up to 4.3% and expectations are high both headlines, while not exact quotes are what I remember hearing about a month ago on TV.

Dan went on to site:

"On Oct. 14, CNN's Lou Dobbs -- the network's own Howard Beale -- discussed the September CPI report, warning: "Tonight middle-class Americans and those who aspire to the middle class face a growing cost-of-living crisis. Inflation last month up at the fastest pace in 25 years, while wages are falling."
But when the Labor Department released numbers last week showing inflation declined by the greatest percentage in 56 years, Lou was nowhere to be found.

Now you know the true origin of the word "de-pressed" -- to have the media lament news about the economy. Only this isn't just the media version of the little boy who cried wolf. This is an ongoing, consistent attempt to depict a successful economy as a failure. It's time we put away our hankies, got mad and demanded the media do a better job.

Pouting Pundits of Pessimism is another great article for this kind of bias BRIAN S. WESBURY writes:

"It is amazing. Everything is negative. When bond yields rise, it is considered bad for the housing market and the consumer. But if bond yields fall and the yield curve narrows toward inversion, that is bad too, because an inverted yield curve could signal a recession.

If housing data weaken, as they did on Monday when existing home sales fell, well that is a sign of a bursting housing bubble. If housing data strengthen, as they did on Tuesday when new home sales rose, that is negative because the Fed may raise rates further. If foreigners buy our bonds, we are not saving for ourselves.

If foreigners do not buy our bonds, interest rates could rise. If wages go up, inflation is coming. If wages go down, the economy is in trouble.

This clearly shows how the presentation and choice of words or phrases slant or move people in a certain direction. Unfortunately most people listen or read the headline and first paragraph of a news story and then go on to the next one or tune out the meat or true facts of that story.

As truth tellers our journalists must be held to a certain code of conduct and self governing! Unfortunately this is not the case of late.

Walter Haut Dies

from The Associated Press
December 19, 2005

ROSWELL — A U.S. Army lieutenant who issued a now-famous news release that sparked decades of speculation about whether aliens really crash-landed here in 1947 has died.

Walter Haut, a former spokesman for the now-defunct Roswell Army Air Field, died of natural causes Thursday in Roswell, his daughter Julie Shuster said Sunday. He was 83.

Haut listened closely on July 8, 1947, as base commander Col. William Blanchard dictated information about a recovered flying saucer and ordered Haut to issue it.

The Roswell Daily Record ran a bold headline July 9, 1947: “RAAF Captures Flying Saucer on Ranch in Roswell Region.” The same day, an Army statement was released saying the recovered wreckage was only a weather balloon. “I guess they changed their mind,” Haut told The Associated Press in 1997. Haut said he never was told where the flying disc reported in his news release was found. Though he never saw a UFO, he remained a believer. “There must have been something in the skies at that time,” he said in 1997. “There’s just too much evidence.” In 1991, Haut and two other men founded The International UFO Museum where he was president until 1996.

More than 2 1 /2 million people have visited the museum since it opened in 1992, Shuster said.

It wasn’t until the late 1980s that Shuster said she and her sister learned about the Roswell incident. But they didn’t hear it from their father; they read about it in a book.

“It was not a topic of conversation at the dinner table for anybody involved,” she said.

Haut, born June 3, 1922, in Chicago, is survived by his two daughters, Shuster and Marabeth Fields of Roswell, three grandchildren and four great-grandchildren .

A viewing is scheduled Monday in Roswell at the LaGrone Funeral Home. A funeral service is set for 11 a.m. Tuesday at Trinity United Methodist in Roswell.

Costa Mesa Retaliates against Illegal Immigration

Costa Mesa Retaliates against Illegal Immigration
By: Steven Foley cross-posted @ RedState.org

In a vote by the city council late Tuesday night Costa Mesa became the first city in America to enact a controversial program that would train Costa Mesa police officers to enforce federal immigration law.

The plan would mirror the one currently being devised to give immigration training to sheriff's officers. Sheriff Mike Carona's plan
This program is allowed under a 1996 federal immigration law

142. Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of September 30, 1996 (110 Statutes-at-Large 3009)
Provisions:
A. Established measures to control U.S. borders, protect legal workers through worksite enforcement, and remove criminal and other deportable aliens:

Increased border personnel, equipment, and technology as well as enforcement personnel at land and air ports of entry;

Authorized improvements in barriers along the Southwest border;

Increased anti-smuggling authority and penalties for alien smuggling;

Increased penalties for illegal entry, passport and visa fraud, and failure to depart;

Increased INS investigators for worksite enforcement, alien smuggling, and visa overstayers;

Established three voluntary pilot programs to confirm the employment eligibility of workers and reduced the number and types of documents that may be presented to employers for identity and eligibility to work;

Broadly reformed exclusion and deportation procedures, including consolidation into a single removal process as well as the institution of expedited removal to speed deportation and alien exclusion through more stringent grounds of admissibility;

Increased detention space for criminal and other deportable aliens;

Instituted 3- and 10-year bars to admissibility for aliens seeking to reenter after having been unlawfully present in the United States;

Barred re-entry of individuals who renounced their U.S. citizenship in order to avoid U.S. tax obligations.

B. Placed added restrictions on benefits for aliens:

Provided for a pilot program on limiting issuance of driver's licenses to illegal aliens;

Declared aliens not lawfully present ineligible for Social Security benefits;

Established procedures for requiring proof of citizenship for Federal public benefits;

Established limitations on eligibility for preferential treatment of aliens not lawfully present on the basis of residence for higher education benefits;

Provided for verification of immigration status for purposes of Social Security and higher educational assistance;

Tightened the requirement for an affidavit of support for sponsored immigrants, making the affidavit a legally binding contract to provide financial support;

provided authority of States and political subdivisions of States to limit assistance to aliens in providing general cash public assistance;

Increased maximum criminal penalties for forging or counterfeiting the seal of a Federal department or agency to facilitate benefit fraud by an unlawful alien.

C. Miscellaneous provisions:

Recodified existing INS regulations regarding asylum;

Provided that the Attorney General's parole authority may be exercised only on a case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public health.

Created new limits on the ability of F-1 students to attend public schools without reimbursing those institutions;

Established new mandates for educational institutions to collect information on foreign students' status and nationality and provide it to INS;

Tightened restrictions regarding foreign physicians' ability to work in the United States;

Added new consular processing provisions and revised the visa waiver program.

According to the Daily Pilot

The council voted, 3-2, to pursue a two-pronged plan to have some city police employees trained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Councilwomen Linda Dixon and Katrina Foley [no relation] voted against the plan. Mayor Allan Mansoor and Councilmen Eric Bever and Gary Monahan voted in favor.

supporters said this in the OC Register

Some supporters of the program echoed Mayor Allan Mansoor, who said: "Ultimately it's going to make the community safer for all of us, even those who are in the country illegally and are otherwise law-abiding."
Under another plan being considered, patrol officers could question and detain illegal immigrants first stopped on suspicion of another offense, such as speeding or soliciting a day- labor job. Police would not be allowed to conduct sweeps for undocumented immigrants.

The opposition said: (Note the age of the two people questioned)

To pass a law such as this would create negative energy and negative tension and endanger the shaky bond between Latinos and the police force," Kristin Hoeffler, 20, of Costa Mesa, said before the discussion began. "There are illegal immigrants and children of illegal immigrants, and what will happen to those children if their parents are sent away?"
"I feel like (the council) never looks at what Latinos add to the community. They only look at the negative," said Mike Burns, 20, of Costa Mesa.

The city most in need of this kind of immigration reform is Los Angeles. With SPECIAL ORDER 40 tying the hands of police men and women and turning the city into a "sanctuary city" something has got to give..

Just the mere mention of illegal immigration often leads to statistics so here we go; the current estimate is 2- to 3-million illegal immigrants in California; at a cost of $10 billion they may cost the state annually, according to a study by the Federation for American Immigration Reform is way out of control our health care costs are through the roof, our schools are bursting at the seems, and you'd be lucky to buy a two bedroom house with a floor heater in Van Nuys for $900,000.00 (obvious exaggeration but you get the point)

I think this is a great first step locally. We always here (from local officials) it's a federal issue when it comes to immigration. Obviously the people of Costa Mesa felt differently. They spoke and their local officials listened. Hopefully other cities will take notice and follow Costa Mesa's lead.

The Strange Death of James Forrestal

This story has always puzzled me:

the following is taken from an article by PETER ROBBINS:

James Forrestal was a man whose influence, policies and presence dominated the news from 1940 until 1949. But ask the average American who he was, and they will draw a blank. Excluding a handful of exceptions, this former Secretary of the Navy, former Secretary of Defense, and key architect of America’s defense establishment has effectively been written out of the history books and our national consciousness, an Orwellian bit of historical revisionism.

How and why did this quiet purge occur, and how does it relate to the classified, UFO-related history of postwar America? Did the man who created our modern Department of Defense take his own life, or was it taken from him?


The official answer is suicide. Forrestal’s death, it is said, came from a sixteenth story fall from a window at the Bethesda Naval Hospital early on the morning of May 22, 1949, where he was being treated for depression. But this account does not hold up under study of the evidence at hand which, while circumstantial, points toward murder.


Forrestal’s death was precipitated by a nervous breakdown brought on by a combination of factors. He was a complex, driven individual who assumed tremendous responsibilities in his public life while his private life suffered. The central factor in his emotional collapse, however, was related to the unique gravity of the situation he inherited when he was sworn in as America’s first Secretary of Defense on September 17, 1947.


Forrestal’s career path was essentially Princeton, the Navy, and Wall Street. In 1940, he became Under Secretary of the Navy; then in 1944 Secretary of the Navy. He superbly directed the manufacture and flow of all the Navy’s war needs, even placing himself in harm’s way more than once.


After the war, Truman asked the Army and Navy to submit plans for unification of the armed forces. This was still under way when, on June 24, 1947, Kenneth Arnold’s UFO sighting became the subject of international press coverage. The modern age of UFOs began. Then, on or about the fourth of July, something, or things, crashed in the plains of New Mexico less than eighty miles from Roswell, home of the world’s only atomic bomb wing. Forty-eight hours later the story was international news.


The National Security Act was passed by Congress on July 26, and the President named Forrestal Secretary of Defense. Besides uniting the Army, Navy, and (newly independent) Air Force under a single office, the Act also created the National Security Council, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Central Intelligence Agency, and Research and Development Board.



Secretary of Defense


On September 17, 1947, en route from a state visit to Brazil, President Truman sent a message instructing that Forrestal be sworn in immediately. Why?


General Twining’s “Air Material Command Opinion Concerning Flying Discs,” is dated only six days later and stated “the phenomenon reported is something real and not visionary or fictitious.” That same day, September 23, Forrestal arrived at his new offices in the Pentagon.


The Eisenhower Briefing Document of November 18, 1952 is one of the controversial “MJ-12” documents, describing a crash of an alien vehicle at Roswell and an extraterrestrial presence on Earth. According to the document, the MJ-12 control group was created on September 24, 1947 as “a Top Secret Research and Development Intelligence operation responsible directly and only to the President of the United States.” James Forrestal is listed as number three of the twelve men named to this group. The Briefing Document came with a one page attachment that authorized the new Defense Secretary to proceed “with all due speed and caution upon your undertaking.”


During 1947 and 1948, there were several compelling UFO cases reported by the U.S. military. On January 7, 1948 Captain Thomas Mantell and two other Kentucky Air National Guard pilots were scrambled after a UFO “of tremendous size” was reported in the skies near Fort Knox. Mantell was killed when his plane exploded in an uncontrolled descent. During the summer of 1948, U.S. and Canadian military personnel faced a classified crisis in the form of a remarkable UFO encounter over Goose Bay, Labrador.


On December 10, 1948, a Top Secret “Analysis of Flying Object Incidents in the United States” was completed by Air Material Command. While the analysis stopped short of declaring the unknowns to be of unearthly origin, it did state that “the origin of the devices is not ascertainable.” Clearly, the U.S. military was talking about UFOs in a serious manner, at least at the classified level.


Meanwhile, throughout 1948, victory seemed all but assured for the Republican Presidential candidate, Thomas E. Dewey. By mid-October, Forrestal confided to a friend that he was deeply concerned that “since Dewey might be elected President, his representatives should be briefed in preparation for the possibility.” His proposal drew the resentment of Administration officials who equated it with disloyalty to the President. By late November, James Forrestal’s star was in decline at the White House.


Forrestal tendered his resignation on March 3 and met with Truman on the 10th. At that time the Secretary requested that White House personnel take possession of his multi-thousand page diary, given the amount of classified material it contained.


The Breakdown


On March 28, the day of his retirement, Forrestal joined Defense Department employees assembled to see his replacement sworn in. President Truman presented the retiring Secretary with the Distinguished Service Metal, the highest civilian decoration authorized by Congress. Unable to respond to the President’s words of praise, he was led speechless from the room.


Following the ceremonies, Air Force Secretary Stuart Symington, who had regularly challenged Forrestal’s authority, spoke with him privately. It is unknown what Symington said, but the effect on Forrestal was deeply upsetting. He was found at his desk several hours later, staring at the wall and repeating the phrase, “you are a loyal fellow.”


He was driven back to his Georgetown home where his friend Ferdinand Eberstadt soon arrived. Eberstadt was distressed by his old friend’s manner. Forrestal told him he was a total failure and was considering suicide. He was also convinced that certain persons in the White House had formed a conspiracy to “get him,” and had finally succeeded.


On April 2, Forrestal and Eberstadt flew to Florida, where their friend Robert Lovett had an estate. Over the next three days Forrestal is said to have attempted to take his life several times. The Navy sent Captain George M. Raines, Chief of Neuro Psychiatry at the Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland, to see him. But an examination had to wait. Forrestal’s family had asked Dr. William C. Menninger to be psychiatrist of record, and as such Raines was duty-bound to wait until Menninger arrived the next day.


Bethesda


The following afternoon the doctors examined the patient. They concluded the best course of action was confinement at Bethesda. Menninger, then flew back to his clinic and, while regularly briefed, never saw his patient again.


Raines accompanied Forrestal from Florida to Maryland. On the drive from the airfield to the hospital Forrestal had to be restrained from throwing himself out of the moving car. Once admitted and secured in a room on the sixteenth floor, a twenty-four hour Marine guard was put on his door. For much of the first month he was kept heavily sedated.


A week passed with no mention of Forrestal’s breakdown or hospitalization in the press or on the radio. The New York Times first ran the story on April 8 and noted that doctors were “very much encouraged by the former Defense Secretary’s response to care.”


One of the first people Forrestal called when he was allowed phone privileges was Monsignor Maurice J. Sheehy, a highly regarded prelate at the Catholic University in Washington. Forrestal asked the Monsignor to help him return to the church. Sheehy agreed and planned a visit to Bethesda.


Forrestal also phoned the White House, insisting that someone be sent over to check for a listening device in the wall of his room. The White House sent Sidney Souers, the first Secretary of the National Security Council and a former Director of the Central Intelligence Group (the direct precurser of the CIA). Admiral Souers was one of the Harry Truman’s closest friends.


Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson visited Forrestal on April 27. He reported that his predecessor looked fine and “should be out of the hospital in two to three weeks.” Also on April 27, the Air Force distributed copies of “Project Saucer” to the press, its sanitized civilian version of Project Sign.


On May 17, the New York Times reported that Forrestal had gained twelve pounds since being confined on April 2. Visitors and hospital personnel agreed that the Secretary’s condition was improving.


But Monsignor Sheehy could not get to see Forrestal. By mid-May, he had tried six times, each time being told that Forrestal was unable to see him. Frustrated, Sheehy met with Secretary of Navy John Sullivan on May 20. Sullivan contacted Bethesda and was assured that Sheehy would be able to see the patient in time. Not enough time as it turned out: James Forrestal had two days left to live.


Henry Forrestal was also concerned about his brother. He telephoned hospital administrators on May 20, telling them that he would be taking custody of his brother on Sunday, May 22, to enable him to complete his recovery privately in the countryside. He never got to see his brother, either.


Official accounts of James Forrestal’s death vary slightly, but follow this basic scenario:


At 1:45 a.m. on May 22, staff psychiatrist, Commander R. R. Deen, was asleep in the room next to Forrestal’s. An attendant, hospital apprentice R.W. Harrison, looked in on the Secretary, finding the patient awake and copying a Sophocles poem from a poetry anthology. Harrison asked Forrestal if he would like a sleeping pill. Forrestal said no. Harrison reported to Commander Deen’s room (though according to another account he reported to the hospital security station on another floor) and updated the officer on the patient’s condition. Harrison allegedly forgot to lock Forrestal’s door behind him. When he checked the room again at 1:50, it was empty and a search began.


The seventh floor duty nurse then reported hearing a loud sound from her window. This was the sound of Forrestal’s body hitting the third floor roof. Hospital authorities surmised that the patient, finding his door unlocked, walked across the hall to the efficiency kitchen, pushed open the unsecured screen window, knotted his bathrobe sash tightly around his neck, tied the free end to the radiator below the window, lowered himself out of the window, and was killed when the knot at the radiator end of the sash slipped its mooring.


Newspapers worldwide headlined the tragedy on May 23. Two days later Josephine Forrestal returned to Washington from Paris where she had been for the duration of her husband’s illness. Her first public act was to absolve everyone of blame in her husband’s death, without benefit of even a cursory investigation. That afternoon, with six thousand in attendance, James Forrestal was buried at Arlington Cemetery with full military honors, including a nineteen Howitzer salute. He was fifty seven years old.


A special naval investigating board inquired into Forrestal’s death on May 23, and concluded a week later. Despite promises by Navy and National Military Establishment press sections to release the report, none was forthcoming. On July 19, the New York Times reported that “considerable mystery surrounds a delay in releasing the report.”


On September 23, the New York Times first reported the existence of Forrestal’s diary, and that it was being held at the White House. It was described as filling an entire filing cabinet, “accompanied by many documents that still are stamped top secret.” Interestingly, two years later, a massively edited version of the diaries was published by the Viking Press, which stated that its 581 pages were drawn from the over 2,800 pages alleged to be the full extent of Forrestal’s writings. This does not square with the facts reported in the New York Times article. After all, it takes a lot more than 2,800 pages to fill a standard four or five drawer filing cabinet -- 15,000 to 20,000 pages would be a more realistic estimate.


On October 11, 1949, the Navy finally released the investigating board’s report. The report said that Forrestal died of injuries sustained in the fall, that his behavior prior to death “was indicative of a mental depression,” and “that the treatment and precautions in the conduct of the case were in agreement with accepted psychiatric practice and commensurate with the evident status of the patient at all times.”


The report also absolved “all” of any blame in Forrestal’s death: “the death was not caused in any manner by the intent, fault, negligence or inefficiency of any person or persons in the naval service or connected therewith.”


Such language suggests the Navy was more concerned with protecting itself than pursuing the matter actually under investigation.


The Death: Murder or Suicide?


New York Times features reporter Walter H. Waggoner was the lead journalist assigned to the story immediately following the tragedy. Within hours of Forrestal’s plunge, Waggoner established the following:


1. “The sash of his dressing-gown was still knotted and wrapped tightly around his neck when he was found, but hospital officials would not speculate as to its purpose.”


2. “Mr. Forrestal had copied most of the Sophocles poem from the book, but he had apparently been interrupted in his efforts. His copying stopped after he had written night of the word nightingale.”


3. “…reports from his doctors and hospital authorities had indicated steady progress toward his recovery.”


4. “It had been accepted that continued treatment would have brought Mr. Forrestal to complete recovery in a matter of months.”


5. “On the window sill from which Mr. Forrestal jumped were marks suggesting he might have changed his mind and tried to climb back in the window.”


Why was hospital apprentice R.W. Harrison, who had never had any previous contact with Forrestal, assigned to him on this particular night? One account has it that the regularly assigned attendant did not appear for his shift due to drunkenness, something which had never happened before.


Then there is the matter of Monsignor Sheehy. Forrestal had expressed a desire to return to the Church, and by implication the sanctity of the confessional. From the point of view of anyone who considered Forrestal a security risk or potential security risk, Father Sheehy would have been the last person the Secretary should have been allowed to speak with. And in six attempts to see him, the Monsignor never got beyond the reception area.


Henry Forrestal, who never did get his brother out of the hospital, became convinced that his brother had been murdered. He wasn’t alone in this belief.


Arnold A. Rogow’s book, James Forrestal: A Study of Personality, Politics and Policy is a scholarly work for which the author interviewed many who were closest to Forrestal, including Dean Acheson, Clark Clfford, Louis Johnson, Robert Lovett, Arthur Krock, Henry Forrestal, Dr. William Menninger, Dr. George Raines, and Harry Truman. Rogow was anything but a conspiracist, but did write, “among those close to him, there are even a few that are certain he was murdered, or if not murdered, that his death was very much desired by individuals and groups who in 1949 held great power in the United States.”


Aftermath


Fifty-four years ago a dedicated public servant broke under the strain of combined factors, not the least of which was his first-hand knowledge that the most powerful nation on Earth was powerless in the face of an unknown threat. He died seven weeks after suffering a nervous breakdown, was buried, eulogized, and then essentially forgotten.


I think many of us imagine that for the sufferer, an emotional breakdown is marked by internal confusion and clouded thinking. In fact, the central experience of such a dysfunction may be a terrible sense of clarity, real or imagined, about the causal circumstances of one’s undoing.


I am convinced that once James Forrestal broke under the strain, he saw the writing on the wall and knew that if he did not ‘do the right thing’ -- that is, kill himself -- that others would certainly do it for him. But once his darkest days began to fall away, and the prescribed therapy actually began to produce results, the patient on the sixteenth floor grew stronger. He began to recover his sense of self, and his will to live. This turn of events seems to have sealed his fate.


To the select group who held power in the U.S. in the mid-twentieth century, James Forrestal’s mental collapse had to be treated as a priority national security matter: the man knew everything and might say anything. The decision to force him out of that window was in no way personal. The murder of James Forrestal was simply the only way to guarantee the resolution of what this group had come to perceive as a potential security risk of the first magnitude.


But history has shown James Forrestal to have been a true patriot in word and deed, and when he was interred at Arlington National Cemetery, more than his body was laid to rest. UFO secrecy-related matters aside, his work in the Roosevelt Administration to help counter the effects of the Great Depression, his remarkable accomplishments as Secretary of the Navy and Secretary of Defense, not to mention the story of an extraordinary American life, are now all but unknown to most of us, and that is something that needs to be changed.

Clinton lied, people died!?!

Question: If Bush "lied," did former President Clinton "lie" about Kosovo?

In the past week or so the white house has begun to reply to the “Bush lied people died” accusation coming from the usual suspects. I feel the best question fro those who think President Bush lied our way into war is: If Bush lied, did Clinton lie about Kosovo?



Here are some facts about the former president and Kosovo:

In his Oval Office broadcast March 24th 1999

We act to prevent a wider war, to defuse a powder keg at the heart of Europe, that has exploded twice before in this century with catastrophic results ... By acting now, we are upholding our values, protecting our interests and advancing the cause of peace ... Ending this tragedy is a moral imperative. It is also important to America's national interests ... Do our interests in Kosovo justify the dangers to our armed forces?

I am convinced that the dangers of acting are far outweighed by the dangers of not acting – dangerous to defenseless people and to our national interests ... I have a responsibility as president to deal with problems such as this before they do permanent harm to our national interests. America has a responsibility to stand with our allies when they are trying to save innocent lives and preserve peace, freedom and stability in Europe. That is what we are doing in Kosovo.

Sound familiar? According to the New York Times April 19th 1999:

In San Francisco on Thursday, President Clinton said that the Serbs had displaced 'over a million Kosovars' and had killed and raped 'thousands upon thousands of them.' From interviews that journalists and relief workers have conducted with scores of refugees from Kosovo, there is no reason to doubt him. But at this point it is also impossible to prove that he is correct.

and the administration there were over a “million” Kosovars displaced according to USA Today July 1,1999:

Many of the figures used by the Clinton administration and NATO to describe the wartime plight of Albanians in Kosovo now appear greatly exaggerated as allied forces take control of the province ... Instead of 100,000 ethnic Albanian men feared murdered by rampaging Serbs, officials now estimate that about 10,000 were killed.

but is the 10,000 number accurate? The orange county Register in the Nov 22, 1999 edition, editorial said:

Months after the bombing has ceased, United Nations and European Union investigations have bolstered what critics had argued: NATO's estimates of Serbian genocide against the Kosovars were greatly overblown. Many observers now think the inflated numbers simply were part of the U.S.-led propaganda effort to build support for the war.

The latest evidence suggests that fewer than 3,000 Kosovars were murdered – horrifying, yes, but not many more than the number of Serbs who were killed by NATO bombing attacks on Yugoslavia, roughly estimated between 3,000 and 5,000 soldiers and civilians.

This to me says Clinton lied, people died! The intelligence turned out to be extremely wrong! I don’t remember a huge outcry for a serious investigation of intelligence failures.

The decision to go to war is a Herculean task I wouldn’t wish on anybody. Mistakes are going to be made, intelligence is not going to be 100%; 100% of the time, and inevitably someone will always look back and say I would have done it better.

I urge the left to drop the “Bush Lied” tag line. it’s simply ridiculous!

The Impending Death of STANLEY “TOOKIE” WILLIAMS

The U.S. Supreme Court, on October 11, 2005, ruled against Tookie on his final appeal and set his execution date for December 13.Stanley "Tookie" Williams, former head and co-founder of the LA Crips gang, has been on Death Row in San Quentin for more than 20 years and is scheduled for execution by lethal injection.

Here are the facts of the case:

"Stanley Tookie Williams and 3 companions began searching for a business to rob after finding themselves short of cash while driving to Pomona. They first entered an all-night market, but when one of the conspirators lost his nerve, the plan was abandoned. Williams then selected another target, the 7-11 on Whittier Blvd., where the night-clerk, Albert Lewis Owens, MW/26, was ordered into the cold box by Williams who was armed with a 12 gage shotgun. While Williams’ companions were helping themselves to the contents of the cash register (Approximately $60), Owens was heard begging for his life. Williams was shot twice in the back by Williams, who then fired a third shot into the video surveillance system. Owens’ body was found by customers who entered the store some time after the shooting.
Stanley Tookie Williams and 1 companion entered the motel, a small family-run business, and forced their way into the living quarters of Tsai-Shen Yang, FO/63, her husband Yen-Yi Yang, MO/63, and their daughter Ye-Chen Lin, FO/43. Armed with a 12 gage shotgun, Williams shot Tsai once in the upper body, and once in the base of her spine, killing her instantly. Yen-Yi was shot twice in the upper body, and Ye-Chin was shot once in the head. Both father and daughter died within hours at local hospitals. Williams and his companion took what cash they could find (Estimated at $50-$100) before fleeing.

Sheriff’s Homicide Detectives Jack Fueglein and Barry Jones were assigned the case in Pico Rivera, and Sergeant Gene Hetzel and Detective James Solar were assigned the triple-murder at the motel. The fact that Williams had killed 4 innocent people in 12 days apparently shocked even associates of the killer as numerous tips were received from the community. The shotgun was recovered and was matched ballistically to both murders. The detectives utilized their inter-personal skills to obtain information and cooperation from witnesses, including some of Williams’ co-conspirators, who stated that Williams told them that he never permitted robbery victims to live to become witnesses against him. Williams, who is the co-founder of the Crips Street Gang, was found guilty of the four murders, and lesser included offenses, and was given the death penalty. He is now in his early 50's, and resides on Death Row in San Quentin State Prison.

In the 26 years that have passed since Williams was sentenced to death, he has attained some fame as the author of a series of children’s books in which he advises against gangster-life. He authored an autobiography that has been made into a motion picture, and he has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.Tookie has become a “poster-boy” of sorts for activists who are opposed to the death penalty, and others who maintain that he has changed and is rehabilitated. On his webpage, Tookie offers apologies to the families of those who have followed the street-gang lifestyle, that he pioneered, and who have suffered the consequences. He does not apologize to the families of those who he slaughtered in February and March 1979, and he maintains that he had no involvement in their deaths. In early 2005, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, upheld his convictions and sentence. He has made further appeals to the United States Supreme Court."

The arguments over the impending death of Tookie are reaching a fever pitch.
The anti-death penalty crowd is making the case that this man has paid for his crimes and the work he’s done for kids and peace since he’s been incarcerated should trump said crimes. The point to his many children’s books telling kids not to join gangs and his nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize.

The other side sees a monster that brutally murdered four people and destroyed thousands of lives through his co-founding the crips gang and the more than 250 offshoot gangs. They also note that Tookie has never admitted his guilt or showed any kind of remorse for the murders.

We here in California have the death penalty for a reason. When put to a vote the citizens at the time thought it worked effectively as a deterrent to high crime. Now that point can be debated until the end of time but the fact remains in California if you murder you may face this punishment. Call me a an insensitive Neanderthal with a heart of stone but I for one don’t feel a bit sorry for you!

Djing In England

Looks like I will be going to England to Dj on Dec. 15 this will be my first time playing outside the US. Needless to say I'm very excited.... it's going to be a blast……

Al Qaeda in CYA mode

Looks like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Al Qaeda are in cover you’re a** mode today with the release of an audiotape The tape said suicide bombers did not intend to bomb a Jordanian wedding party at an Amman hotel last week, it also had a warning for the King of Jordan-

Foxnews.com has the story here

“Your star is fading. You will not escape your fate, you descendant of traitors. We will be able to reach your head and chop it off," al-Zarqawi said, referring to the king.
Al-Zarqawi told Jordanians to stay away from bases used by U.S. forces in Jordan, hotels and tourist sites in Amman, the Dead Sea and the southern resort of Aqaba and embassies of governments participating in the war in Iraq, saying they would be targeted.
He underlined that Al Qaeda in Iraq is not targeting fellow Muslims. "We want to assure you that ... you are more beloved to us than ourselves," he said, addressing Jordanians.
The authenticity of the audiotape, posted on an Islamic militant Web forum, could not be confirmed independently, but the voice resembled that of al-Zarqawi on previous tapes.”

Now is the time to take advantage of this mistake (not so sure that’s what it was) and use it to rally support from people who are ethically or religiously connected to our enemy.
We cannot afford to waiver on this war! The cut-and-run crowd cannot be allowed to sway/move/nudge our support and determination to win the war against these islamo-fascists. Pulling out now is simply ridiculous!

The question I have to ask our liberal friends is “if we pull our troops from Iraq and move our attention to Iran, Syria, or North Korea that will be ok with you’? Because the war on terror or as I’d rather call it the war on islamo-fascists doesn’t end with Iraq we can expect your support, right?

Bob Woodward and the Libby case

For those that haven’t heard!

The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward was told Valerie Flame’s (Plame) name in mid June 2003 by an undisclosed Whitehouse official. Read more here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/15/AR2005111501857.html

How is it that apparently Bob Woodward, Andrea Mitchell, and a few others in the media knew this highly top secret supper undercover spy’s real name before it was disclosed? Seems like there just might be more than meets the eye in this case?....;0)

From the Washington Post:

"Washington Post Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward testified under oath Monday in the CIA leak case that a senior administration official told him about CIA operative Valerie Plame and her position at the agency nearly a month before her identity was disclosed.

In a more than two-hour deposition, Woodward told Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald that the official casually told him in mid-June 2003 that Plame worked as a CIA analyst on weapons of mass destruction, and that he did not believe the information to be classified or sensitive, according to a statement Woodward released yesterday.

Fitzgerald interviewed Woodward about the previously undisclosed conversation after the official alerted the prosecutor to it on Nov. 3 -- one week after Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was indicted in the investigation."

This indictment will prove to be exactly what the accusation proved to be in the first place… Ridiculous!

Wavering on the War

President Clinton the other day was extremely upset when a historian in the audience, where he was speaking, had the audacity to question him on his agreeing with the bush administration about the need to remove Saddam and his support for the war.

Together with a list of dems that have now “flip-flopped” on the war, our former prez and our current list of wobbly leaders need to be held to what they said and not be allowed to embolden our enemy with this spineless wavering!