Yes but the elements I wanted to emphasize were:


1. "CP: Has the media played a role in transforming citizens into spectators of this process?

Vidal: Well, they have been transformed, by design, by corporate America, aided by the media, which belongs to corporate America. They are no longer citizens. They are hardly voters. They are consumers, and they consume those things which are advertised on television. They are made to sound like happy consumers. Listen to TV advertising: This one says, "I had this terrible pain, but when I put on Kool-Aid, I found relief overnight. You must try it too." All we do is hear about little cures for little pains. Nothing important gets said. There used to be all those talk shows back in the '50s and '60s, when I was on television a great deal. People would talk about many important things, and you had some very good talkers. They're not allowed on now. Or they're set loose in the Fox Zoo, in which you have a number of people who pretend to be journalists but are really like animals. Each one has his own noise--there's the donkey who brays, there's the pig who squeals. Each one is a different animal in a zoo, making a characteristic noise. The result is chaos, which is what is intended. They don't want the people to know anything, and the people don't."

And:

2. "CP: You wrote at the end of a 2002 essay that so-called inalienable rights, once alienated, are often lost forever. Can you describe what's changed about America during the Bush years that represent permanent, or at least long-term, legacies that will survive Bush?

Vidal: Well, the Congress has ceded--which it cannot do--but it has ceded its power to declare war. That is written in the Constitution. It's the most important thing in the Constitution, ultimately. And having ceded that to the Executive Branch, he can declare war whenever he finds terrorism. Now, terrorism is a wonderful invention because it doesn't mean anything. It's an abstract noun. You can't have a war against an abstract noun; it's like having a war against dandruff. It's meaningless.

But you can terrify people. The art of government now, the art of control as practiced by the current junta, is: Keep the people frightened. It's exactly what Adolf Hitler and his gang did. Keep them frightened: The Russians are coming. The Poles are killing Germans who live within the borders of Poland. The Czechs are doing the same thing in the Sudetenland. These are evil people. We must go after them. We must save our kin.

Keep everybody frightened, tell them lies--and the bigger the lie, the more they'll believe it. There's nothing the average American now believes (because he's been told it 10,000 times a day) that is true. Now how do you undo so much disinformation? Well, you have to have truth squads at work 24 hours a day every day. And we don't have them."

Well, there is us, jeffmoskin, and maybe that is where it has to start!

BUT .....

UP HERE, in the corrupt EMPIRE STATE, with its now judicially-approved PSYCHIATRIC TAKE-DOWNS and state-sponsored GULAGS for those who would serve as "TRUTH SQUADS", maybe it has already ended, and so ......

PEOPLE UP HERE ARE DEFINITELY FRIGHTENED, BY THAT!

AND ...

That is by design!

AND WITH INTENT!

TO CRUSH DISSENT!

SO!

That leaves you, jeffmoskin, and the KAH-lee-FAH-neeans, as OUR only remaining hope!

SO!

Keep those temples covered, jeffmoskin!

And if you hear a rapid CRAAACKwhiiine, that means they are aiming at you, but just missed ....

With that shot, anyway!

SO!

DUCK, jeffmoskin, for we need you around for yet another day!

And here is a very important message FOR ALL AMERICANS to read and heed, from Senator John Kerry!

If you can, please give him and this VITAL CAUSE for OUR REPUBLIC, and OUR DEMOCRACY, all the support that you can!

AND ...

Thank you from a grateful nation, or one of its citizens, anyway!

Dear Livyjr,

Last week, thanks to you, Republicans in Congress heard first hand how Americans will not stand by quietly and let their voices be silenced.

Tomorrow morning, we will take the next step, when a vitally important johnkerry.com ad appears in USA Today.

I will send a copy to every one of my Republican colleagues in the Senate.

When I do, I want to tell them that the number of people standing behind the ad's powerful message now stands at over 200,000.

Help us get there.

See the ad - and count yourself among those personally supporting its message.

http://www.johnkerry.com/usatoday

Tens of thousands of you have already called your Republican Senators opposing GOP leaders' efforts to invoke the so-called "nuclear option" on the confirmation of federal judges.

We are acting in response to a disturbing pattern in which a handful of Republican leaders seek the ability to do whatever they want, whenever they want, without regard to principle.

We have to act because America can't afford to go where they're trying to take us.

http://www.johnkerry.com/usatoday

The Republican drive to silence your voice in Washington is in high gear.

House Leader Tom DeLay has led a no-holds-barred drive to silence all opposing voices in the Congress.

He also engineered a highly partisan effort to force the redrawing of congressional districts in Texas - funded by heavy-handed tactics that led to the indictment of three close DeLay associates.

And last week, DeLay issued an ominous threat that federal judges (appointed by both Democrats and Republicans) who dared to defy his wishes in the Terry Schiavo case will have to "answer for their behavior."

Making President Bush's judicial nominations immune to a Senate filibuster is the next step in the GOP's out-of-control grab for power.

If Senator Frist, the Senate Majority Leader, can convince enough Republican Senators to go along, the nomination and confirmation of judges will become a tightly-controlled, one-party affair.

We're calling on Republican Senators to persuade their party's leaders not to pursue this reckless course.

If you haven't done so already, please contact your Republican Senator's office.

Politely let him or her know that, as a constituent, you are deeply opposed to Senator Frist's "nuclear option" plan.

Then take another step.

Add your name to the list of those personally supporting our call for an end to the wide-ranging Republican assault on constitutional principles.

Thanks for helping with this vital and time-sensitive effort.

Sincerely,

John Kerry

P.S. When I send our USA Today ad to my Republican colleagues tomorrow morning, I want to tell them that its message has been personally backed by over 200,000 people.

You can help us reach that goal.

Please sign now - and, after you do, please forward this e-mail to your friends, neighbors, and family.

And when did my ENVIRONMENTAL AWARENESS and subsequent activism on behalf of the environment and public health really begin?

Whoever really knows, but maybe here would be a good place to start:

"Radioactive rain sheds light on value of science - Infamous day for Capital Region give students new appreciation of chemistry"

By RICK KARLIN, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union
First published: Sunday, April 3, 2005

CAMBRIDGE -- Chemistry isn't ordinarily a hot topic, but Judy Gerardi is making it so.

For Regents chemistry, the Cambridge Senior High School teacher had her kids read a "A Good Day Has No Rain."

Written by former Times Union reporter Bill Heller, the book documents a little-known 1953 incident when nuclear fallout blanketed the Capital Region, thanks to a freakishly heavy thunderstorm that brought down a massive radioactive cloud the jet stream had carried east from an atom bomb test in the Nevada desert.

At the time, local scientists measured a spike in radioactivity levels across the greater Capital Region, which Gerardi used as a jumping off point for a segment on nuclear chemistry.

While high school students frequently ask why courses like chemistry, or math, or physics are relevant, there were no such questions last month after they met with Heller.

Following a freewheeling hour-long discussion, the approximately 75 students from Gerardi's chemistry class and Steve Butz's AP environmental science class were painfully aware of the relevance.

A few went away wondering if their parents, neighbors or loved ones may have gotten cancer from the fallout.

"It shows how chemistry does effect you," said Brittany Griffin, 16, one of Gerardi's students.

"It just kind of scares me," added classmate Ellen Kapitan, also 16.

Like many students in the Cambridge area, Kapitan has relatives who live on dairy farms, and knows how quickly milk can travel from the cow to your local supermarket.

Following the fallout, there was concern that kids may have been exposed to thyroid-damaging radioactive iodine that landed on grazing fields and was consumed by milking cows (there's no longer any danger from that; unlike other radioactive isotopes, iodine quickly fades from the environment).

Learning about iodine, as well as cesium or strontium, was part of the book assignment, said Gerardi, who noted that the Regents chemistry exams now include questions relating to current events.

Along with questions about neutrons and electrons, valences, and moles, recent exams have had questions about Yucca Mountain, which is designated as a nuclear waste site.

Butz agreed, noting that the AP tests typically have segments on Chernobyl as well as the role of weather patterns in creation of acid rain.

"Living in New York and facing those issues, it's really relevant," said Butz.

end quotes

It's relevant, alright, most especially when you are living in a county in the Capital District with a corrupt County health Department!

And speaking of "coincidence", or is it "synchronicity"?

Top Stories - The Christian Science Monitor

"Judicial aftershocks from the Schiavo case"

Mon Apr 4, 4:00 AM ET

Perceptions of how the courts handled the case could have ramifications for Bush's judicial nominees.

By Warren Richey, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

WASHINGTON - In the end, as Terri Schiavo clung to life in her Florida hospice after nearly two weeks without food or water, 12 years of legal battles came down to one final appeal.

In a 15-page emergency brief, lawyers asked the US Supreme Court to vindicate Ms. Schiavo's constitutional right to life.

The high court's answer came Wednesday around 11 p.m.

Application denied.

Ten hours later, Schiavo passed away.

In the emotional moments after the announcement, pro-life and disability-rights supporters lashed out at a judicial system that they said was being run by activist judges who favor death over life.

House majority leader Tom DeLay went one step further.

"The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior," he said Thursday.

He called upon the Judiciary Committee to launch an investigation of what he says is "an arrogant, out-of-control, unaccountable judiciary that thumbed their nose at Congress and the president."

But was the Schiavo case influenced by so-called "activist" judges who allowed their ideological convictions and policy preferences to overshadow the law and influence the outcome of the case?

Legal analysts are divided on the issue.

Perceptions of how the Schiavo case was handled are important - for one, because they could play a key role in looming battles in the US Senate over President Bush's judicial nominees, and a potential Supreme Court vacancy.

Those battles may begin as early as this week, with the conservative camp somewhat split over the propriety of congressional intervention in the Schiavo case.

Religious conservatives are angry and primed for a fight.

But many other conservatives were alarmed at what they saw as federal intervention into a private family matter that has historically been entrusted to state courts and state judges.

Many legal analysts say that for the most part, judges performed their duties as neutral, dispassionate arbiters of the law.

"An enormous spotlight and an enormous amount of pressure have been placed upon the judiciary, and yet they have behaved in a lawlike fashion," says Charles Baron, a Boston College law professor and expert in right-to-die issues.

"These judges, if you look at their record, are not people who have records as being right-to-diers or left-wing activist judges."

"These are people who wrote opinions that track the law."

But others say that some judges appear to have avoided confronting serious, substantive legal issues by relying on formalistic devotion to legal process.

"The judiciary, both state and federal, have failed miserably in the Schiavo case," says Virginia Armstrong, national chairman of the Eagle Forum's Court Watch.

"It is one of the poorest performances we have ever seen in American justice."

Supporters of the judiciary's performance in the Schiavo case note the large number of state and federal judges involved.

They say familiar conservative-liberal distinctions do not seem to have played a major role in the outcome, particularly at the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals, where seven of the 12 judges were appointed by Republican presidents.

"It is not like the judges appointed by one kind of president are voting one way and judges appointed by a different kind of president are voting a different way," says Vikram Amar, a constitutional law professor at San Francisco's Hastings College of the Law.

Perhaps the biggest irony of the case was the extent to which conservative, pro-life lawyers acting on behalf of Schiavo's parents sought to persuade federal judges and justices to embrace an expansive constitutional right to life that would mandate affirmative steps to protect Schiavo's life.

According to some analysts, it would have necessitated the same kind of liberal reading of the Constitution that upheld a right to abortion in Roe v. Wade - a constitutional holding denounced by conservatives as the epitome of judicial activism.

In a 1990 right-to-die case, Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote for the five-justice majority:

"It cannot be disputed that the Due Process Clause [of the Constitution's 14th Amendment] protects an interest in life as well as an interest in refusing life-sustaining medical treatment."

But while the high court has established a constitutional right to refuse medical treatment and a right to abortion, it has never spelled out the contours of a constitutional right to life.

The Schiavo case was seen by some as a possible battleground to do just that, perhaps to the detriment of abortion rights.

But the courts refused to get involved.

"What is driving this case is not the constitutionality of the federal [Schiavo] statute, or the intrusion on federalism," says John Eastman, a constitutional law professor at Chapman University School of Law in Orange, Calif.

"The underlying connection with abortion is driving this."

But Professor Eastman says a pro-life ruling in the federal courts would not amount to a conservative version of judicial activism.

Rather, he says a right-to-die, pro-abortion approach to constitutional law has inverted the principles of the Founding Fathers.

"It turns what is supposed to be a government devoted to protecting rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness [into a government that enforces] a court-crafted right to die," he says.

But even if the courts declined to read a broad, substantive right to life into the Constitution, some legal analysts say the Schiavo case was strong enough to justify more judicial review than was received.

One issue: whether the Florida court acted in violation of federal due process rights.

Florida law requires that Schiavo's wish to have her feeding tube disconnected be proved by "clear and convincing" evidence.

Lawyers for Schiavo's parents argued that hearsay testimony of husband Michael Schiavo and others about statements that they say Ms. Schiavo made in the late 1980s does not rise to the evidentiary level necessary to pass constitutional muster.

They also argued that a federal judge in Tampa had a sworn duty under the new federal law passed by Congress to conduct a new and full trial to examine for himself whether the evidence was clear and convincing.

Instead, US District Judge James Whittemore framed the entire federal case as an application for a temporary restraining order to reinsert the feeding tube.

He declined to order the tube reinserted after ruling that lawyers for Schiavo's parents had failed to raise any substantial claims.

Some analysts say that in bypassing the letter of the Schiavo law, Judge Whittemore's judicial inaction became a form of judicial activism.

"What we usually hear of judicial activism is a judge finding some right in the Constitution that isn't there."

"In this case, it was a statute that clearly was there but was being ignored," says Wendy Long, a former law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and counsel to the Judicial Confirmation Network, which supports Mr. Bush's judicial nominees.

"The court, in a sense, was making a policy decision that it didn't want to look at the issue that Congress and the president wanted it to look at."

Others praise Whittemore's approach.

"If one was looking for a model of a district court judge to have been given this assignment, I think we found one," says Douglas Kmiec, a constitutional law professor at Pepperdine University School of Law in Malibu, Calif.

"He understood that it was both an emotionally charged issue but also one that arose in the context of a preexisting constitutional structure and a preexisting body of law."

[quote=jeffmoskin,Apr 4 2005, 03:57 AM]
Gore Vidal was interviewed by City Pages:
The Undoing of America

Gore Vidal on war for oil, politics-free elections, and the late, great U.S. Constitution.

by Steve Perry

jeffmoskin ----- The Gore Vidal article is outstanding.

I sent it to a few others not connected with this thread.

It has been a long time since I have seen anything written by Gore Vidal.

Probably, I haven't been looking in the right places.

Good, good article.

A.B.

[quote=Abu Beacon,Apr 4 2005, 05:11 PM]
[quote=jeffmoskin,Apr 4 2005, 03:57 AM]
Gore Vidal was interviewed by City Pages:
The Undoing of America

Gore Vidal on war for oil, politics-free elections, and the late, great U.S. Constitution.

by Steve Perry

jeffmoskin ----- The Gore Vidal article is outstanding.

I sent it to a few others not connected with this thread.

It has been a long time since I have seen anything written by Gore Vidal.

Probably, I haven't been looking in the right places.

Good, good article.

A.B.

[/quote]

Glad you feel that way, too, Mr. A.B. I found a lot of truth in it. More truth than I really wanted to hear, in fact, but the truth has a way of biting you later if you ignore it now.

The truth is biting us right in the ***, now, and the teeth have only just begun to lightly touch the tender flesh, is how I see it, jeffmoskin!

We are in the day and age of the acquisitors and the ignorant, which is really one of the "phases" on the "birth to death" cycle of civilizations, in fact the last one, before civilizations historically fall!

It is a lot like what happens when a swarm of locusts goes through an area, and destroys all in their path!

Survival itself becomes difficult in their wake!

And when the locusts are swarming, all one can really do at the point is not be a stalk of grain, and hope for a flock of seagulls or some other kind of locust -eating bird to come, and barring that ........

Oh, well!

And keeping with our habit of looking all around ourselves here, to determine on a minute-by-minute and day-by-day basis what life in OUR America is really all about, let's go to the American CLIENT/PUPPET STATE of Iraq, first, to see how things fare over there, for us, and for ours:

Middle East - AP

"Four GIs Killed in Attacks Across Iraq"

1 hour, 1 minute ago

By ANTONIO CASTANEDA, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Four U.S. troops were killed in clashes and bombings across Iraq, the U.S. military said Tuesday, and videos posted on the Internet showed militants purportedly beheading an Iraqi soldier and killing a reported informer.

A joint U.S.-Iraqi attack on dozens of insurgents in eastern Diyala province on Monday left two American soldiers and one Iraqi soldier dead, U.S. military spokesman said.

Two U.S. soldiers were also wounded in the attack, which continued into Tuesday.

In Baghdad's southern Dora neighborhood, an abandoned taxi exploded on an expressway near a U.S. patrol on Tuesday, killing another U.S. soldier and wounding four others, said Sgt. 1st Class David Abrams, a spokesman for Task Force Baghdad.

Another explosion targeted a joint Iraqi-U.S. convoy in Baghdad's Amiriyah neighborhood, said al-Amil police captain Talib Thamir.

Abrams said a blast occurred but he did not have any details.

A U.S. Marine was also killed Monday by an explosion in the sprawling, western province of Anbar.

At least 1,537 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

Meanwhile, gunmen broke into a house and kidnapped a top Interior Ministry official, Brig. Gen. Jala Mohammed Saleh, U.S. and Iraqi officials said.

Saleh is involved in anti-insurgency operations in Iraq, but it was unclear why he was abducted.

Kidnappings are common, with some abductors seeking ransoms and others making political demands.

Babil police spokesman Capt. Muthana Khalid said 10 headless bodies were found by Iraqi police 30 miles south of Baghdad, but he didn't give any details on exactly where or how the bodies were located.

Seven of the victims were identified as Iraqi soldiers, and three others were police, according to Khalid and an Interior Ministry official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

There have been several reports of the discovery of headless corpses, usually believed to be Iraqi security forces, but none have been independently confirmed.

In a purported video posted Tuesday from Al-Qaida in Iraq, a text shown in the images identified the Iraqi soldier as Jassim Mohammed Hussein Mahdi, who appeared to be in his early 20s.

The video also showed the black banner of the group, which is headed by wanted Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

The video, posted on a militant Web site that carries most al-Qaida in Iraq statements, could not be immediately authenticated.

It showed an unidentified interrogator talking to the man, who said he had received orders from his superiors "to kill the mujahedeen anywhere and without hesitation."

The man was shown squatting on the ground in an empty room, wearing full military gear with his hands tied behind his back.

He said he was a member of the Iraqi National Guard's 4th Brigade, but did not say when or where he had been captured by militants.

Mahdi said he "regretted" working with the U.S.-allied Iraqi government and urged "all members of the police, National Guard and army to abandon this work, which is religiously prohibited."

"God's verdict against this renegade, who was tempted by dollars, has been carried out," said a statement shown on the video.

The video later showed Mahdi lying blindfolded on the ground before two masked men appeared.

One held Mahdi's legs while the other severed his head with a knife with shouts of "God is great!" heard from the background.

Al-Qaida in Iraq has claimed responsibility for beheading Western hostages and many members of the Iraqi security forces.

A second video posted on the same Web site by another group, Ansar al-Sunnah Army, showed a man who confessed to a militant interrogating him that he worked as an informer to the police in the northern city of Mosul.

The militant was speaking in the distinct Mosul accent of Iraqi Arabic.

The man, who identified himself as Hussein Taha Qassim and said he was born in 1968, told the interrogator that he informed the police about the hideouts of four "mujahedeen."

He said the police killed three of them and the fourth escaped.

In the next image, Qassim was shown lying face-down on the ground, and a masked gunman shot him with a volley of bullets from an automatic weapon.

The video's authenticity could not be verified.

In a day of stepped-up attacks, insurgents also targeted government and religious officials.

In Hillah, a member of the Babil provincial council, Salim Hilal, was gunned down en route to work, and two suspects were arrested, police spokesman Capt. Muthana Khalid said.

A Sunni cleric, Hilal Karim, was killed in a drive-by shooting as he was entering his mosque in the New Baghdad neighborhood of the capital, police Col. Ahmed Aboud said.

Karim served as the assistant to the mosque's imam.

In the northern city of Mosul, insurgents killed a Kurdistan Democratic Party official, Salim Ibrahim, according to KDP official Abdul-Ghani Botani.

In the central city of Baqouba, gunmen wounded a government translator and killed her father in a drive-by shooting, said Brig. Gen. Adil Molan of the Diyala provincial police department.

One policeman was killed and two others were injured when a roadside bomb hit their car in the southern city of Basra, police Col. Karim al-Zeidi said.

In London, a British parliamentary committee issued a report Tuesday saying excessive use of force by U.S. troops had antagonized Iraqis and made the process of rebuilding the country more difficult.

The House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, which scrutinizes Britain's foreign policy, also suggested that Iraq had replaced Afghanistan as a training ground for international terrorists.

Now, if I were a BBC "newsreader" coming across these above two statements, and especially the first one, or if I were a Peter Jennings, or one of those on FAUX NEWS who read the news, I would stop and say, "WHO IN THE HELL IS SURPRISED BY THIS?"

"AND THIS IS NOT NEWS!"

"THIS IS THE PLAN, THE DESIGN!"

Of course excessive force has been used, and of course that has made things more difficult!

THAT IS WHERE THE MONEY IS!

You think these security firms want to KILL THEIR GOLDEN GOOSE, and turn off the spigot from OUR treasury INTO THEIR POCKETS while there is still some money left in the treasury?

GET REAL, here, folks, GET REAL!

George W. Bush IS NOT the president of those who would have peace!

There's no ******* money in peace!

George W. Bush is the president FOR those who would have a lot of money in THEIR POCKETS in a never-ending supply, caused by never-ending turmoil and chaos in OUR world!

SO?

What's the issue with this use of excessive force that has made things more dificult in Iraq?

What am I missing?

I actually thought things were right on schedule, myself, with the continuing violence occurring over there in the CLIENT/PUPPET state, at least with respect to financial reports from the CACI's and others of that ilk!

And that certainly is not any kind of news at all!

IT IS REALITY!

PEACE, folks, just does not pay the bills, bullets do!

SO!

Get used to it!

And that is not news, either!

Just some more reality come here to bite us all, right on the ***!

And taking the HYPERSONIC JUMP here on the old, trustworthy MAGIC CARPET, let's float on over to JOLLY OLDE, and see what is going on over there, besides their House of Commons just waking up, apparently, to the fact that when George W. Bush says he is a "war president", he means exactly what he is saying, which is that he is a president OF WAR, and TURMOIL, and CHAOS!

No wonder these guys over there lost the American Revolution!

They can't see the nose on their faces, let alone fathom what is going on, even under their own feet!

What a bunch!

Which makes me glad that we won!

Can you imagine that crowd governing us?

And speaking of "governing", what's this with the GREAT APPEASOR, the "Neville Chamberlain" of OUR times, the inestimable "MR. SUAVE", the dapper Tony Blair:

World - Reuters

"Blair Calls May 5 UK Election as Lead Shrinks"

2 hours, 44 minutes ago

By Mike Peacock

LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister Tony Blair confirmed on Tuesday the worst-kept secret in British politics -- that an election will be held on May 5 -- as polls suggested a real contest for the first time since 1992.

With Iraq weighing heavily on his ratings, Blair put his government's economic credentials at the heart of the campaign.

Confirming the date after visiting Queen Elizabeth in traditional pre-election protocol, Blair vowed to build on eight years of growth to entrench future investment in public services -- which he says his Conservative opponents will slash.

"It's a big choice, it's a big decision."

"The British people are the boss and they are the ones that will make it," he told reporters outside his Downing Street office.

Blair had delayed the long-expected announcement by a day due to the death at the weekend of Pope John Paul.

Public anger over the Iraq war could slash Blair's parliamentary majority -- five new opinion polls showed his party has lost support to the main opposition Conservatives.

Embarrassingly, one of the ruling Labour party's candidates, Stephen Wilkinson, said on Tuesday he was defecting to the Liberal Democrats, the only major British party to oppose the Iraq war.

"Who would have thought a Labour government would become a lap dog to George Bush's right wing Republican administration," Wilkinson said.

Conservative leader Michael Howard focused on Blair's perceived Achilles Heel -- reduced public trust post-Iraq.

"The choice before voters on May 5 is very clear," he told party supporters.

"They can either reward Mr. Blair for eight years of broken promises ... or they can vote Conservative.

REAL CONTEST

Surveys in Tuesday's Guardian, Times and Independent newspapers gave Labour a lead of just 2 or 3 percentage points.

Separate surveys of voters who said they would definitely vote even gave the Conservatives a lead.

If those figures were replicated on polling day, analysts say, Blair would still win a third term but with a much looser grip on parliament.

At the previous two elections in 1997 and 2001, Blair easily won triple-digit majorities.

Britain's electoral map, which concentrates constituencies in Labour's urban strongholds, means the Conservatives must win a larger share of the vote than Labour to take power.

The Financial Times said the 5-point Conservative lead in its poll of definite voters would still return Blair to power but with a parliamentary majority slashed from 161 seats to just 27.

If he wins, Blair would make history by becoming the first Labour premier to clinch a third consecutive term, equaling the record of former Conservative leader Margaret Thatcher.

Blair came to power in 1997 after the 1992 vote, which Labour had been widely expected to win, swung to the Conservatives at the last minute.

If Blair's power is weakened this time, he could quickly become a lame duck as he has already stated he will not seek a fourth term.

The biggest fear of Labour strategists, mirroring the polling evidence, is that their core supporters do not bother to turn out.

Blair will visit a key marginal constituency later on Tuesday to ram home that point.

(Additional reporting by Madeline Chambers, Peter Graff)

Aaaahhhh, the DAPPER MAN is going to pin his re-election hopes in JOLLY OLDE on his "economic credentials"!

Ah, yes!

IT IS THE ECONOMY, STUPID!

Business - USATODAY.com

Sandra Block: Your Money

"Scary days could be ahead for adjustable-rate mortgages"

1 hour, 58 minutes ago

Sandra Block, USA TODAY

For millions of homeowners with adjustable-rate mortgages, it's gut-check time.

Short-term interest rates have been rising steadily since they dipped to record lows last spring.

The average initial rate for a one-year ARM is now 4.33%, up from 3.46% a year ago, according to mortgage giant Freddie Mac.

So if your one-year ARM is about to hit its first birthday, you're going to have to dig deeper to pay the monthly mortgage bill.

Most ARMs contain caps on how much their rates can increase each year.

But even with those limits, an adjustment can be painful.

Many borrowers who took out a one-year ARM at 3.5% last year will see their rate adjust to about 5.5%, says Keith Gumbinger, vice president of HSH Associates, a mortgage-consulting firm.

On a $250,000 mortgage, that works out to an additional $297 a month.

Borrowers who used short-term ARMs to buy homes they couldn't otherwise afford may find themselves unable to make the higher payments, says Barry Glassman, a financial planner with Cassaday & Co. in McLean, Va.

Despite the risks of a big upward adjustment, ARMs are more popular than ever.

More than 36% of mortgages had adjustable rates last week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

That's the highest since the trade group began tracking adjustable-rate mortgages in 1990.

Economists say rising rates for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages have stoked the popularity of ARMs.

The average rate for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage was 6.04% last week, the highest since June.

In addition, homeowners have become more sophisticated about mortgage products, says David Lewis, executive vice president of ING Direct.

"There are a lot more people questioning the prevailing wisdom" of traditional fixed-rate mortgages, Lewis says.

Many don't plan to stay in their homes for more than a few years and are unwilling to pay a premium for a 30-year fixed rate, he says.

How to cope

Whether you have an adjustable-rate mortgage or are considering one, new strategies are in order.

Tips for folks who have an ARM and are getting nervous:

•Work out the worst-case scenarios in advance.

Even if your ARM doesn't adjust for a few more months, it's not too soon to start planning.

There are lots of mortgage calculators on the Internet that let you calculate how a rate increase will affect your monthly payment.

Freddie Mac has several useful tools at http://www.freddiemac.com.

Use the calculators to figure out what will happen to your payments if your interest rate rises to 4%, 6% or even 7%, Glassman says.

•Pay attention to your caps.

In many cases, rate increases are limited to 2 percentage points a year and 6 percentage points over the life of the loan.

For example, if your initial rate was 2.75% and your lifetime cap is 6 percentage points, you'll never pay more than 8.75%, no matter how much rates rise.

The annual caps give you some breathing room, says David Herpers, director of consumer affairs for mortgage lender Amerisave.

If you took out an ARM when rates were low, the rate after your first adjustment will probably still be lower than the rate for a 30-year fixed mortgage, he says.

If you think you're going to move in a couple of years, you may be better off just sticking it out.

•If you don't plan to move for a while, consider refinancing to a hybrid ARM.

Hybrid ARMs offer a fixed rate for up to 10 years before adjusting.

You probably won't lower your rate, but you'll avoid another shock next year, Gumbinger says.

The average rate on a five-year hybrid ARM is now 5.66%, he says.

While that may be higher than the adjusted rate for your one-year ARM, "At least you can feel secure that you're not going to have worse pain coming," he says.

Risky business

If you're shopping for a mortgage, think hard about the potential risks of a one-year ARM.

To keep inflation in check, the Federal Reserve is expected to continue raising short-term interest rates through 2005.

For borrowers who can afford a longer-term mortgage but want to free up cash for other purposes, a one-year ARM might make sense, Lewis says.

But if a short-term ARM is the only way you can afford the payments, you can't afford the house, he says.

A five-year hybrid ARM carries a higher rate, but it's a "more reasonable gamble," Gumbinger says.

By the time it adjusts, there's a good chance that "you'll have either moved, or we may be on the downward side of an interest rate spiral."

Sandra Block covers personal finance for USA TODAY. Her Your Money column appears Tuesdays. Click here for an index of Your Money columns. E-mail her at: sblock@usatoday.com.

And I hope they at least COUNT THE G*D D*MN VOTES CORRECTLY. At least the Brits have a tradition of fairness.

More than I can say for the Bush Family and Turdblossom.

And actually, jeffmoskin, I don't mind the English all that much, myself!

And I'll tell you what, you want to see some real good "politics" in action, their Parliament is the place to go!

In fact, there may be a TV station somewhere that carries it live!

Some damn good fights there!

Hong Kong's too, but I think England's is really the better one, myself, and maybe what we common folk over here really do need is some ENGLISHMAN in OUR CONGRESS fighting for OUR rights!

A fight it would be!

And so ......

And I'm going to say as a trained United States Army infantryman who served in combat in Viet Nam, and who reached the rank equivalent to sargeant, and thus, enlisted-troop "management" level, that this next story troubles me, for its implications, TO US, the American people!

It is no secret at all that for some time now, I have been extremely critical of a POLICY of this Bush government that seems to be based on a CALLOUS DISREGARD for human life, which has OUR military troops, TO ME, wantonly killing people in Iraq with impunity!

Only recently in here did I post an article where some security consultant speaking FOR THE BUSH GOVERNMENT stated that you don't want the troops hesitating to open fire!

Well, I'll tell you what, a trained and DISCIPLINED infantryman DOES NOT DO what these troops are seeming to do, which is to shoot without knowing exactly where that bullet is going, AND WHY!

Even back in the Viet Nam times, as long ago as they were, there were mock villages with pop-up targets, and before firing at any target, the infantryman discerned the target and the nature of it!

IF IT WAS NOT A THREAT, IT WAS NOT ENGAGED!

NEVER!

And the Bush Co.'s appear to have reversed that, which starts to smack more and more of outright murder to me, AND I AM STANDING TALL IN HERE, ON THE RECORD, AS BEING AGAINST THAT POLICY!

And why am I saying this now?

Because of this next article here, where George W. Bush's people just shot someone else who was not any kind of threat at all to them, at all:

World - Reuters

"Cameraman for CBS Wounded by U.S. Troops in Iraq"

29 minutes ago

NEW YORK (Reuters) - An Iraqi freelance cameraman who works for CBS News was shot and wounded on Tuesday in northern Iraq by U.S. troops who mistook his camera for a weapon, the U.S. military and CBS News said.

The cameraman and reporter suffered minor injuries when he was shot while covering a firefight for CBS in Mosul, CBS News said.

It asked that the man's name not be reported for his protection.

The U.S. military said in a statement from Mosul released at the Pentagon that U.S. soldiers had been involved in an engagement with at least one suspected insurgent who was "waving an AK-47 (assault rifle) and inciting a crowd of civilians."

During the incident, "an individual that appeared to have a weapon who was standing near the insurgent was shot and injured."

"This individual turned out to be a reporter who was pointing a video camera," the military statement said.

"Regretfully, the reporter was injured during the complex and volatile situation," the military said, adding that the incident was under investigation.

The suspected insurgent was killed, the military said.

The man, who was from Mosul, was taken to a U.S. military hospital where he was treated for what the military said were minor wounds.

He was expected to make a full recovery.

end quotes

WE HAVE PEOPLE IN GEORGE W. BUSH'S VERSION OF AN ARMY THAT CANNOT TELL A MOVIE CAMERA FROM A WEAPON?

IS THAT FOR REAL?

WE HAVE PEOPLE IN GEORGE W. BUSH'S ARMY IN IRAQ WHO ARE SO POORLY TRAINED THAT THEY HAVE NO IDEA AT ALL WHAT A WEAPON LOOKS LIKE?

THAT IS INCREDIBLE!

WHAT GROSS INCOMPETENCE, FROM THE TOP RIGHT ON DOWN!

WHAT A BUNCH OF B** S***!

HOW VERY GEORGE BUSH!

And talk about BOONDOGGLES and a government that apparently thinks that the "family" that lies like a rug together, STICKS TOGETHER, or something like that, anyway, we have this following on YUCCA MOUNTAIN:

Politics - U. S. Congress

"Official: U.S. May Not Build Waste Dump"

Tue Apr 5, 4:29 PM ET

By ERICA WERNER, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - The planned nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain in Nevada won't be built unless the Energy Department is confident of the supporting science after investigating e-mails that showed workers discussing fabricating data, an official said Tuesday.

Under angry questioning from Nevada lawmakers, deputy director Theodore Garrish said the department was preparing to apply for a license to run the dump, but "we have not made a final decision yet as to when or whether to file those documents, and some of that will be based on this investigation."

"I can assure you we will not go forward unless we can have the feeling ourselves first that this repository will be safe," said Garrish.

Reassurances from Garrish and Charles Groat, the director of the U.S. Geological Survey, didn't satisfy the Nevadans.

They have seized on the e-mails, written by USGS employees, as the latest reason to kill the dump planned for 90 miles north of Las Vegas.

Officials from Gov. Kenny Guinn on down expressed outrage Tuesday during a House Government Reform subcommittee hearing.

"The fact that data may have been intentionally fabricated in service of shoring up predetermined and politically driven conclusions calls into question the very legitimacy of this entire program," Guinn said.

The Energy Department disclosed March 16 that e-mails written between 1998 and 2000, principally by two USGS scientists, suggested the workers might have falsified documents.

Porter's committee has released redacted versions of dozens of the e-mails that show workers discussing concocting facts and keeping two sets of figures, one for themselves and one to show quality assurance officers.

In one e-mail a USGS scientist wrote:

"I don't have a clue when these programs were installed."

"So I've made up the dates and names."

"... This is as good as it's going to get."

"If they need more proof, I will be happy to make up more stuff."

The workers were studying how water moved through the desert site where the government wants to store 77,000 tons of commercial and defense nuclear waste for at least 10,000 years.

The USGS validated Energy Department conclusions that water seepage was relatively slow, so radiation would be less likely to escape.

In written testimony, Garrish downplayed the significance of the e-mails.

"This appears to be a lapse in quality assurance protocol and, at this time, we have no evidence that the underlying science was affected," his written testimony said.

He seemed to soften his position when he addressed the subcommittee, suggesting more study was needed.

"The impact of this issue is yet to be determined, and yes, we are concerned about the integrity of the data, and what was done was inexcusable," Garrish said.

The inspectors general of the Energy and Interior departments are conducting criminal investigations with help from the FBI, and the Energy Department is studying the impact on the scientific underpinnings of the planned waste dump site.

But Nevada lawmakers called Tuesday for additional reviews.

Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., who chaired Tuesday's hearing, said he wanted an independent commission similar to the presidential commission that investigated the 1979 accident at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island.

Porter also said he was summoning the two main USGS workers who wrote the e-mails to testify at a hearing next week.

Their identities have not been released.

Groat said Tuesday they are no longer on the Yucca project but are still employed by USGS.

John Mitchell Jr., president and general manager of Bechtel SAIC, the Energy Department's managing contractor on the Yucca project, also testified Tuesday.

He said the e-mails were originally discovered by Bechtel workers in early December and were discussed by high-ranking company officials, but weren't turned over to the Energy Department until March.

Porter was the only member of the House Government Reform federal work force and agency organization subcommittee to attend Tuesday's panel.

He invited Nevada's other two House members, Republican Jim Gibbons and Democrat Shelley Berkley, to join him in questioning witnesses.

That turned the three-hour hearing into a face-off between Nevadans adamantly opposed to Yucca and government officials committed to it, and there was little budging on either side.

A planned completion date of 2010 for the Yucca project was recently abandoned by Energy Department officials.

A new date has not yet been set.
___

On the Net:

Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management: http://www.ymp.gov

Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects: http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste

Nuclear Regulatory Commission: http://www.nrc.gov

And I could have been one of these, actually, a GOVERNMENT EXPERT WHO LIES LIKE A RUG, ON DEMAND, FOR MONEY, OF COURSE, and so gets to stay on and then retire, SO LONG AS THE LIES KEEP COMING, of course, EXCEPT ......

In my case, I couldn't "pass" the lie detector test!

Yes, that is right, I couldn't pass the TEST, and so, I had to be "removed", and forcibly so in my case, as once it was definitively proven in my own case THAT I WOULD NOT LIE, then I was became like a "disease-bearer" to the LOCAL POWER, and I had to be "PUT DOWN" for the good of "society", as not only would I not tell the requisite lies, as these USGS "CERTIFIED SCIENTISTS" know how to do above here, BUT ....

In my case, I was going even further by using MY KNOWLEDGE and MY INTEGRITY to show others WHAT THE LIES REALLY LOOKED LIKE, and therefore, how to expose them, for all the candid world to see!

AND SO .....

BAAANG!

Down the HAMMER had to come!

THE TRUTH IS DANGEROUS!

DESTROY THE TRUTH, and you shall be FREE!

To see what I am talking about here, go back up to this Yucca Mountain article above here, and focus in on this one sentence that I have copied below here, and think on who is saying the words, and why:

"The fact that data may have been intentionally fabricated in service of shoring up predetermined and politically driven conclusions calls into question the very legitimacy of this entire program," Guinn said.

end quote

DATA MAY HAVE BEEN FABRICATED IN SERVICE OF ...........

And just fill in the blank after that, folks, FILL IN THE DAMN BLANK, because that is the game, if you know where the "bread" really is, and who has the "butter", and where that "butter" is going to land, IF you but play YOUR "cards" the right way, and so, "MAKE NICE" to the MAN with the money in his hand, BETTER THAN ANYONE ELSE CAN!

"EVERBODY DOES IT, LIVYJR, SO WHO IN THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE, HOLDING OUT HERE?"

"WE OWN YOU, WE OWN THAT LICENSE OF YOURS, SO GET OUT THERE ON THE STREET AND START PEDDLING YOUR *** LIKE WE ARE PAYING YOU TO DO!"

"OR ELSE!"

I'm surprised over the years at how many people have told me how crazy I was to not "go along", as these USGS SCIENTISTS appear to have done above, here, and I am also surprised by how few people have "applauded" my integrity for standing up to the lies, which, of course, then raises the rhetorical question of whether we should have integrity or not, based upon "public opinion polls", and who has the "money", and what THEY want that money to "buy" ........

And as soon as it gets to that thought of "TAKING A TURN, FOR THE MONEY" even forming in the mind of the licensed professional engineer who has a duty 24/7, whether anyone else is even looking or not, to protect and safeguard life, health and property, REGARDLESS, then in my simple view, WE ARE ALREADY IN TROUBLE, and it goes right downhill from there, TO ...

Well, here, with this Yucca Mountain debacle as a clear-cut example, of where GOVERNMENT SCIENTISTS without an apparent shred of integrity have been able to keep this BOONDOGGLE alive for so long, and to KEEP THE GOVERNMENT MONEY FLOWING, into their pockets, BASED ON NOTHING, apparently, but a pack of lies!

DUTY, and its concomitant, responsibility versus GEETUS, MOOLAH and MAMMON!

Duty!

And that is regardless of the consequences, or at least as I was taught, myself, by those who preceded me as licensed professional engineers in the State of New York FOR THAT PURPOSE, AND THAT PURPOSE, ALONE!

"You want to MAKE MONEY, sonny boy, DON'T BECOME A licensed engineer!"

"LICENSED ENGINEERS HAVE A DUTY", and that DUTY just gets right in the way of making money, so, make a choice!"

And I did!

And really, it was a simple one, for me, anyway!

Marry DUTY, and make the most of the marriage, for richer, for poorer, in sickness or in health!

But DUTY is really gone, is it not?

Isn't DUTY really what gets in the way of PROSPERITY, and power, of course?

IF DUTY is going to keep you from telling the GOVERNMENT REQUIRED LIES that bring in the BIG BUCKS today, and if living in CORPORATIA today REQUIRES a lot of money just to be poor, AND, all the others in YOUR PROFESSION are already making the BIG BUCKS by lying, FOR THE GOVERNMENT, in service of shoring up predetermined and politically-driven conclusions, then doesn't COMMON SENSE alone dictate going along?

After all, if it is the government itself that is promoting the lies, WHO CAN THEN FAULT YOU for being just one more liar in a whole stable full of them?

And there is where I am, myself, to be truthful, wondering about that "equation", and how it ever came to be!

Life in OUR America!

Hhhhmmmmm.

For how much longer will it be so?

The question for the moment, anyway!

LIVE!

LATE-BREAKING!

Developments as they occur!

Stay tuned!

Doesn't bother me a bit. A big waste of money. They should NEVER bury stuff they don't know anything about. Instead, they should keep it in water pools above ground until science figures things out.

Once you bury it, some scientist discovers that a particular isotope is poisonous, has a half life of 10 billion years, and is leaking into the ground water.

Then what?

If you're one of them GUMMINT science boys that can tell 35 to 40 lies a minute for those big bucks, then you never ask that question, and you know you don't have to worry about lying, because if anyone challenges you, they are crazy, BECAUSE THEY DID CHALLENGE YOU, for which they will be considered to be a DANGEROUS MENTAL PATIENT and they will then be swept off the street ON THE ORDERS OF A GUMMINT DOCTOR who has never seen them, and they will be put in a GULAG, or a state-sponsored mental institution, and that will be that!

WHAT PROBLEM?

WHO SAID THERE WAS A PROBLEM?

And little by little, as this next story attests, the IRON CURTAIN now rapidly descends on OUR America, which now appears from some points-of-view to be becoming as much or even more insular and paranoid than North Korea is supposed to be!

"Policy alters border travel - Americans returning from Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean would need passports under plan to tighten security

By LARA JAKES JORDAN, Associated Press
First published: Wednesday, April 6, 2005

WASHINGTON -- Americans traveling to Canada and Mexico would need passports to come home to the United States under guidelines proposed Tuesday in the latest effort to deter terrorists from entering the country.

The new rules, which would be phased in by 2008, apply to Americans traveling from Canada, Mexico, Bermuda, the Caribbean and Panama.

They also apply to citizens from those countries who want to enter the United States -- prompting Canadian officials to announce that they might reciprocate.

The regulations mark a dramatic shift from a policy that allows Americans to return home from neighboring countries without a passport.

An estimated 60 million Americans -- about 20 percent of the national population --have passports.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said U.S. officials have been working with their international counterparts for some time to shore up security measures without crimping the flow of commerce across borders.

The new rules were called for in intelligence legislation Congress passed last year.

"There's a very strong awareness that these are tremendous commercial borders and that you don't want to hinder the commercial activity," Rice said in an interview with The Associated Press.

"But at the same time, you've got to have some controls that help you prevent people who are trying to come in and hurt us."

She added:

"It's part of the recognition that in 2001, when Sept. 11 happened -- and frankly before that, when you think about the millennium plot in 1999 -- these were borders that I think no one could call secure."

Canada was deeply embarrassed by the millennium terrorist plot, when U.S. customs caught a man with explosives trying to enter Washington state from Canada in December 1999.

Canadian Public Safety Minister Anne McLellan said American citizens may need passports to cross the northern border if the U.S. follows through with its regulations.

"Our system has really always worked on the basis of reciprocity," McLellan told reporters outside the House of Commons in Ottawa.

"And therefore we will review our requirements for American citizens and we're going to do that in collaboration with the United States."

"There's no point in either of us going off in a direction without working together to determine how best we can facilitate the flow -- a free flow -- and movement of low-risk individuals," she said.

Canada is the United States' largest trading partner, with $1.2 billion worth of goods crossing the border every day.

Nearly 16 million Canadians entered the United States last year, generating an estimated $7.9 billion in travel-related revenues, according to data provided by the Travel Industry Association in Washington.

A spokesman for the Mexican Embassy in Washington said the regulations "won't affect the tourism flow or people who trade and do business between the three countries in North America."

The new requirements would take effect on Dec. 31, 2007, for travelers entering the United States from Mexico and Canada by land, and on Dec. 31, 2006, by air or sea.

The deadline is a year earlier -- Dec. 31, 2005 -- for travel from Bermuda, the Caribbean and Panama.

The proposed rules are scheduled to be completed this fall.

Until then, the government will solicit comments from the public.

Currently, Americans generally need to show a driver's license or other government-issued photo identification to cross the border from Canada.

Customs officials usually require more proof from Americans returning from the other countries affected by the new rules, including both government-issued photo IDs, like a driver's license, plus proof of citizenship, like a birth certificate.

On occasion, Americans returning from these countries are allowed back after only verbally declaring their citizenship, said Homeland Security Deputy Assistant Secretary Elaine K. Dezenski.

Once the new system takes effect, people entering the United States from Mexico will continue to be able to use a border crossing card, or SENTRI card, instead of passports.

These cards are obtained after background checks and other security measures.

On the northern border, the NEXUS card for preapproved, low-risk travelers; and the FAST card for commercial workers will be acceptable instead of a passport.

Ah, yes, good 'ole "TEXAS TOMMY" Delay!

What would be a day in OUR America with 'ole "TEXAS TOMMY" and his capers down there in Washington, D$C$, and the sunshine of his smile to brighten up our otherwise dreary non-republican lives for us, and so, make our dreary lives all that much more precious to us, for the comfort that "TEXAS TOMMY" does bring to us, yes, indeed!

In fact, let's just take a moment here to give "TEXAS TOMMY" all of OUR love, and a great big hug, to boot!

Ahhh, felt good, didn't it?

Yeah, right!

"House GOP backs DeLay amid ethics scandals"

By DAVID ESPO, Associated Press
Last updated: 2:06 p.m., Wednesday, April 6, 2005

WASHINGTON -- House Republicans expressed strong support for Majority Leader Tom DeLay on Wednesday, dismissing persistent Democratic criticism of the Texan as evidence of partisan politics.

"I don't see any wavering of the support for the leader."

"I think a lot of members think he's taking arrows for all of us," said Rep. Roy Blunt, third-ranking among GOP leaders.

Blunt and others spoke out on DeLay's behalf as Democrats leveled a new charge -- that the ethical controversy surrounding him was distracting from congressional efforts to tackle pressing problems.

"When politicians, the Republican majority, decides it is above the law, the American people are now seeing that they have a price to pay -- at the pump, for their pharmaceuticals, and in the absence of initiatives that would help grow our economy, and to feed our children, provide for the health of our people, protect our environment, and, indeed, even provide for the common defense," said Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California.

DeLay, R-Texas, was admonished three times last year by the House ethics committee, and fresh questions have been raised in recent weeks about his overseas travel over several years.

In addition, three associates are under indictment on state charges in Texas in connection with an effort to redraw the state's congressional districts.

Additionally, lobbyist Jack Abramoff, long close to DeLay, is under investigation by the Justice Department and the Senate Indian Affairs Committee for with work he did for Indian tribes.

DeLay has denied any wrongdoing, and has not been charged with violating any law.

"Nancy has two years to get the majority, she knows this is her only shot," said Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., speaking of Pelosi.

He said Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, chairman of the House Democratic campaign committee, "is her partner" in the attacks.

Pelosi said Congress had been distracted at the same moment Blunt and other GOP leaders held a news conference to trumpet their accomplishments so far and announce plans to pass several other bills by the end of next month.

They claimed credit for legislation to provide funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a bill to provide relief to victims of the Tsunami in Asia and a measure to limit the scope of class action lawsuits.

Among the priorities for the next eight weeks, they said, are a bill for permanent repeal of the estate tax as well as a measure making it harder for consumers to shed debts in bankruptcy court.

Energy and welfare legislation are also on the list.

Two Democratic-aligned groups made fresh low-budget attacks on DeLay during the day.

The Campaign For America's Future said it would run ads in The Washington Times, which is widely read by Republicans in Congress.

The ad says DeLay does not measure up to the ethical standards of former Presidents Reagan and Eisenhower or the late Sen. Barry Goldwater, the GOP presidential candidate in 1964.

Separately, the American Project Action Fund unveiled a Web site urging consumers to contact businesses that have donated to DeLay's Legal defense Fund.

"Let these corporations know that unless they stop supporting Tom DeLay, you'll stop supporting them," it says.

And here, I am just returning from the "JUDICIAL" part of the forum, where I have another thread going on what I am calling therein, "RAMPANT, CREEPING TOMMY-ISM", which is having the effect of stripping from us, at least where I am, OUR democratic processes of government!

And "TOMMY-ISM" can no more be separated from "TEXAS TOMMY", himself, than a dog can be separated from its fleas, er, tail!

The two just somehow seem to go together, regardless of how you take a look at the "picture"!

I have that thread going over there because it is more of an analytical thread looking at a very specific set of issues related to JUDGES and the law, and so, I did not want to place that discussion in here, where I like to try and take a "wider" view of LIFE in OUR America, as it occurs and develops on a daily basis, on a wide range of fronts, including the economy, and the environment, and of course, politics, and Iraq, which to me, really is just an extension of REPUBLICAN politics through violence on a peoples OUTSIDE the United States, so as to be able to steal their oil from them, so that some "FRIEND OF A REPUBLICAN" can have it instead!

"SPREADING THE WEALTH", the REPUBLICANS call that I think, and if I have it right, it is actually a part of their "RELIGIOUS BELIEF SYSTEM", but that is a discussion for over in Mr. A.B.'s "RELIGION and POLITICS" thread entitled "George W. Bush v. The Holy Bible", and so, I will take a moment to invite people over there as well, for some more specific discussion on that one subject, which is an interesting one, in and of itself!

In the meantime, we have these words of Nancy Pelosi above to consider in here, and that is DO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE REALLY HAVE A PRICE TO PAY when REPUBLICANS in fact, ARE ABOVE THE LAW, at least where I live in OUR America!

And if we do, in what form will it come, and how will we know?

SO!

Stay tuned for that set of answers!

LIVE!

Life in OUR America!

The other day, I happened to be out, and so, I figured I'd better get some gas, before it goes up again!

Mid-range (89 octane) was $2.40 per gallon.

We're expecting it to be well over $2.50 pretty soon, and God alone knows what it will be when summer hits, but more than I am going to pay, except for emergencies, is what I think, anyway, as do many others up here who are gearing up for life as it was back in the 1940's and '50's, except with some more modern equipment like a lighter, smaller chainsaw than was available back then.

As for me, I really am there now, pretty much, myself!

I do my own dishes, so I don't need to worry about running a dishwasher, and I don't watch TV, so I don't have to worry about one of them, either, and I don't drive that much anymore, and so ......

I guess it just works out that I am "on schedule", and the world is catching up with me!

SO!

How about that for "timing", will you?

Neither a foot behind, nor an inch too far ahead!

There with the grace of GOD go I!

And while I with the grace of God go my own way, what has happened here, in Afghanistan?

International News

"U.S. copter crash in Afghanistan kills 16 - Military hasn't released identities"

The Associated Press
Updated: 1:39 p.m. ET April 6, 2005

KABUL, Afghanistan - A U.S. military helicopter crashed in a dust storm in southeast Afghanistan on Wednesday, killing 16 people in the deadliest military crash since the U.S.-led offensive began in 2001.

“Eighteen people, including crew members and passengers, were listed on the flight manifest; two remain unaccounted for,” the U.S. military said in a statement.

An Afghan police official said all the dead, including the four crew, appeared to be American.

The U.S. military initially had reported nine deaths.

It did not explain the difference and had not released the identities of those killed.

One of two helicopters

Military spokeswoman Lt. Cindy Moore told The Associated Press that the helicopter was one of two Chinooks flying to the main American base at Bagram, north of Kabul, when controllers lost radio contact.

Abdul Rahman Sarjang, the chief of police in Ghazni, said the helicopter came down at about 2:30 p.m. near a brick factory 3 miles outside the city and burst into flames.

U.S. troops rushed to cordon the area to look for any survivors.

Sarjang said there was no sign that enemy fire brought it down.

According to U.S. Department of Defense statistics, at least 122 American soldiers had died before Wednesday’s incident in and around Afghanistan since Operation Enduring Freedom, the U.S.-led war on terrorism, began after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

Accidents have proven almost as deadly as attacks from Taliban-led insurgents, including a string of helicopter crashes and explosions caused by mines and munitions left over from the country’s long wars.

Other recent deaths

Most recently, four U.S. soldiers died when a land mine exploded under their vehicle south of Kabul on March 26.

Last November, six Americans — three civilian crew members and three U.S. soldiers — died when their plane crashed in the Hindu Kush mountains.

The military’s last fatal helicopter crash occurred a month earlier when a pilot was killed in the west of the country.

About 17,000 U.S. troops are in Afghanistan battling a stubborn Taliban-led insurgency focused on the south and east.

The top U.S. commander here, Lt. Gen. David Barno, told AP the size of the U.S. force would be reviewed after Afghan parliamentary elections in September.

"TO FIGHT, you must be brutal, and ruthless, and the SPIRIT of RUTHLESS BRUTALITY will enter into the very fibre of OUR national life, INFECTING Congress, the courts, the policeman on the beat, the man in the street ......"

- Woodrow Wilson

And while we are on the subject of casualties of war, INFECTED by the SPIRIT of RUTHLESS BRUTALITY that George W. Bush and HIS crowd have injected, or INFECTED OUR national life with ........

Here's one more of what is likely to be many, many more!

"Stress cited in abuse case - Soldier charged with injuring baby told police noise triggers 'something inside me'"

By BOB GARDINIER, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union
First published: Wednesday, April 6, 2005

TROY -- A 23-year-old soldier on leave from Iraq and charged with seriously injuring his infant son by shaking him and throwing him told police his patience was worn thin from his war experiences.

Brian J. Benoit of Troy Hills Apartments was released on $50,000 bail Tuesday morning while a grand jury investigates the felony abuse case involving brain trauma to his son Zachary.

Benoit's wife of one year, Jessica Benoit, 22, gave birth to Zachary last August while his father was in Iraq.

The baby, who is recovering at Albany Medical Center Hospital, suffered brain trauma, a broken rib, brain swelling, an injured wrist, an abrasion on his nose and a bruise below his eye and on one leg, officials said.

"I have been shot at and have had to shoot at the enemy," Benoit said in the statement he gave police March 30.

His son was admitted to Albany Med the day before.

"Loud bangs and screams tend to trigger something inside me."

"It has caused me to react differently to stressful situations."

Benoit and his lawyer Peter Lynch appeared Tuesday before Rensselaer County Judge Patrick McGrath, who set bail.

Benoit's father, Joseph Benoit, with the help of a bail bondsman, immediately put up a bond, and Benoit was released.

An active-duty soldier on 90-day leave from Iraq since February to spend time with his wife and child, Benoit was assigned to a U.S. Army Reserve transportation company based in Pittsfield, Mass.

He was arrested Thursday outside his parents' Cohoes home and charged with first- and second-degree assault and reckless endangerment, all felonies, and endangering the welfare of a child, a misdemeanor.

The child's injuries allegedly occurred in his Troy apartment around the middle of March.

Benoit pleaded not guilty Friday in Troy City Court.

He had been in the Rensselaer County Jail without bail until Tuesday.

In his statement, Benoit said his son cried often and his wife had spoiled him and turned him into a "momma's boy."

"I think he cries so much because he is not familiar with me," Benoit said in his statement.

"This bothers me a great deal."

Benoit said that at times, "I would shake him out of total frustration."

"There were also times where I would put him down hard and really fast in the bed causing the bed to bounce a little bit."

Jessica Benoit also gave a statement to police saying she was afraid of Benoit after he came back from Iraq.

She said they argued a lot about the baby and that she realized she really didn't know her husband that well.

She said the couple rushed to get married in February 2004 because they knew they were going to have a baby and Benoit was about to leave for Iraq.

"Brian thought that I was babying Zachary too much," Jessica Benoit said.

"We argued a lot about this."

"Brian even pinned me down on the bed and wouldn't let me go to Zachary."

"I remember numerous times Brian would shake the crib when Zachary was crying."

"He would shake the crib so hard that it would bang into the wall."

"I was always afraid and would yell at him to stop."

"Brian would stop only when Zachary stopped crying."

When setting bail, McGrath noted that Benoit had no prior run-ins with the law.

Troy Detective Sgt. John Cooney said the boy was expected to be released from intensive care but would remain at the hospital.

Rensselaer County Child Protective Services officials reviewed the case and took custody of the baby, removing him from the care of both parents pending a review of the case.

Cooney would not say whether further charges will be filed in the case.

Bob Gardinier can be reached at 454-5696 or by e-mail at bgardinier@timesunion.com.

end quotes

I think that Woodrow Wilson knew of what he was speaking about!

Too bad this dolt that we're stuck with don't have a clue!

"Energy prices prompt warning - Greenspan cites strain but hopes market forces will bring stability"

By JEANNINE AVERSA, Associated Press
First published: Wednesday, April 6, 2005

WASHINGTON -- High oil and natural gas prices have put energy markets under the greatest strain in a generation, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said Tuesday, but he warned against interfering with market forces he hoped would stabilize prices.

Greenspan expressed a hope that higher prices would spur conservation by businesses and consumers and greater energy exploration by energy companies.

That should help get prices under control, he said.

In remarks for an energy conference, he said policy-makers should avoid any action that would "distort or stifle the meaningful functioning of our markets."

Greenspan spoke via satellite to the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association meeting in San Antonio.

"We must remember that the same price signals that are so critical for balancing energy supply and demand in the short run also signal profit opportunities for long-term supply expansion," Greenspan said, in urging that market forces be allowed to take care of the problem.

The Bush administration has been pushing Congress to enact energy legislation.

Lawmakers in the House are working on a bill with the aim of promoting increased production of a broad range of energy sources -- from coal to natural gas.

The measure is not expected to have much impact on the price spikes seen in recent weeks, however.

Spring!

Glorious spring!

Makes one want to be outside, with one's hands deep in the earth, feeling that "sense of renewal" that comes from the earth at this time of the year, at least where I am on OUR America, which is a patch of woods in upstate New York where I have been for over fifty years now, from the time that I was but a small child, here in OUR America.

It is interesting, to me, anyway, to be an older person now on this same piece of land where I was ONCE a small child, because I still have many of the memories of being that small child looking into the woods where I now walk as an older "adult", whatever that word really is supposed to mean in this modern world of ours today.

Has life changed?

Or is it still the same?

To me, as one who is walking among a woods that has been here "forever" to me, no, things have not changed at all.

Trees that were there when I was young are still there, and the cycle of life that has always been there, remains, apparently undisturbed by what transpires out there in "CAESAR'S WORLD", which is everything beyond my property lines, or outside the bounds of my patch of woods, as I see it, anyway.

This morning, when I came outside, there was one bird in particular that was singing at the top of its lungs, and I stood there, and listened to that bird for a bit, thinking on what its message was to the world and to me, since I was obviously there to hear its song, and whatever message was contained in that song, which really is just joy at being alive, I think, anyway.

It always amazes me how tiny birds can live through the winters up here and survive to sing one more time in the spring, when it is a struggle for me, to be truthful, to do the same.

Sure does put some "teeth" into that saying somewhere in the Bible about the birds being favored of God!

Of course, I guess if you don't believe in any kind of "god", that would apparently strip your own birds of any kind of protection, and so, in your own place, maybe they don't survive the winter, but here, for me, where I leave "nature" to itself, somehow those tiny birds do survive, and from the way they sing on spring mornings like this, THEY SEEM TO BE THE FIRST ONES to know!

SO!

How about that?

Gas today was $2.43 per gallon, same grade of gas, same station!

God loves Dick Cheney, apparently, and HIS, as well, and so, is providing them with this bounty from right out of OUR pockets.

SO!

Let's everybody take a moment, and give Dick Cheney a great big hug, 'cause .....

God loves him so!

Business - Reuters

"Snow Warns Fannie, Freddie Pose Threat"

Thu Apr 7,10:43 AM ET

By Kristin Roberts

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could threaten the economy if Congress fails to curb their investment activities, U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow said on Thursday.

In a second day of hearings before the U.S. Senate Banking Committee on the hot political issue of how to rein in government-sponsored enterprises, Snow told Congress to limit the size of the companies' mortgage portfolios, saying they are not needed to fulfill the core mission of supporting housing.

What's more, their size and the interest rate risk they carry potentially threatens the financial system and the economy.

"The risks undertaken by the GSEs, if not properly managed, may pose a threat to their solvency, the stability of the other financial institutions and the strength of our economy," Snow said in comments that often echoed Wednesday's testimony from Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan.

Snow said Congress should phase in limits on the companies' portfolio activities in order to protect the markets.

He also said the lines of credit the companies enjoy as part of their charter, and which he said markets falsely see as a sign that the government backs GSEs' debt, would only be used if a GSE were in "significant financial distress."

"Congress may wish to consider reforms in this area as well," Snow said in his prepared testimony.

The Bush administration has twice in recent years torpedoed legislation aimed at beefing up oversight of the extensive companies on the grounds that the measures lacked teeth.

Some lawmakers have already indicated that curtailing GSEs' mortgage portfolios may be disruptive to markets.

The apparent disagreement between some lawmakers and the White House may set the stage for a protracted struggle over precisely how to impose controls over the huge mortgage lenders that most agree in principle are needed.

Earlier this week, a key House Republican, who was widely expected to propose the toughest measures and stiffest regulation of the companies, left out provisions to impose strict limits on portfolio activities.

His bill would give a new regulator power to order the companies to cut their portfolios, but not require it.

That countered advice from the Federal Reserve, which argued that limits were needed to reduce the risks the companies pose.

Snow also urged Congress not to overlook the advantages of placing a new regulator for the GSEs within the Treasury Department -- a tricky subject that policymakers continue to debate as they try to lessen the view on Wall Street that the companies are extensions of government.

Alphonso Jackson, secretary of the Housing and Urban Development Department, added his endorsement to that idea.

But, also in testimony before the Senate committee, Jackson said a core element of oversight should remain at his department to ensure that affordable housing objectives are met.

Well, here is where we are, isn't it?

I mean right above here, with these couple of stories on Fannie Mae, and the GUMMINT, and well, yes, us too, BECAUSE ....

Fannie is out there doing up the town ....

ON OUR CREDIT CARD!

"Strutting that stuff" for the boys on Wall Street, and they love it, BECAUSE ....

Because of those "lines of credit" that are TAPPED right into OUR national treasury, which leaves us on the hook for whatever!

When I think of Fannie Mae, of course, I have to think in the same breath about George W. Bush's "PLAN" to divert OUR social security money over into WALL STREET, and the Fannie Mae's of that world, and, of course, what WOULD happen to that money if and when the WALL STREET LOOTERS got their "filthy-to-me" hands on it, and as luck would have it, I happened to run into a friend today who is in that type of business, of investments, and so, I asked him what would happen if Fannie tanked, to those who had invested in that stock.

"Well, that is simple", he said.

"They would lose their money, just as was the case with Enron!"

And so, we chatted about that for a while, and my perspective on the matter of the ANTINOMIAN PRIME Bush Co.'s plan to turn more of OUR money over to these thieves and looters out there that support him and HIS in the REPUBLICAN PARTY remains as HARD as it was before.

Which is to say, I am dead set against it!

WALL STREET is a place, as far as I am concerned, where gamblers go, to do whatever it is that gamblers do, and god bless them for that, BUT NOT ME!

My old-fashioned conservative philosophy is that if you want to have money in your pocket, LEAVE IT THERE!

Conversely, if you want to get rich quick, be born a Rockefeller, and if you weren't, well, get over it, and go on with your life!

BUT .....

I'm not in charge, and those who are, like "TEXAS TOMMY" Delay, well, they just seem to have the "JONES" for more and more money, and so ......

And so, we have a problem in OUR America today that is based upon probably thirty years worth or so, now, of nothing but lies that has reached a proportion of where the GUMMINT can no longer have the truth be told, as it will cause the biggest financial crash in this country's history, and it also cannot let the lies continue, as that too will cause the biggest financial crash in this nation's history, AND .....

Is there a third option?

And speaking of that old devil, "TEXAS TOMMY", himself, what is going on here with him?

Could it be that his POWER is going to finally be challenged after all these years?

Let's look and see:

Politics - U. S. Congress

"Democrats Weigh 2006 Challenge to DeLay"

1 hour, 16 minutes ago

By WENDY BENJAMINSON, Associated Press Writer

HOUSTON - Democrats, who often ignored Rep. Tom DeLay's Republican-leaning district, see a political opening in 2006 now that the House Majority leader faces ethics questions and dismay over his intervention in the Terri Schiavo case.

Democratic activists in the suburban Houston district have been composing a wish list of possible candidates as the embattled DeLay answers questions about his record.

In past elections, the Republican who won his House seat in 1984 has coasted to victory, often with more than 60 percent of the vote.

Last November he won by 55-41 percent.

This week, a Houston Chronicle poll in the district found that 49 percent said they would vote for someone else.

That number has sparked the most interest in a Democratic primary in the district in years.

"Now that DeLay is being pushed ever closer to the political brink, everyone is realizing that any of these challengers on his worst day might be better than DeLay on his best day," said longtime Democratic strategist Kelly Fero.

Not so, said Shannon Flaherty, a spokeswoman for DeLay, who dismissed suggestions that the Republican is vulnerable on his home turf in 2006.

"While he never takes an election for granted, he consistently outperforms his opponents because the voters know when it comes to the issues they care about ... Tom DeLay delivers for the people of the 22nd District," Flaherty said.

Among the potential Democratic challengers:

_Richard Morrison, a lawyer from Sugar Land, Texas, captured 41 percent of the vote with only $630,000 against DeLay's $2.9 million in last November's election.

Morrison is favored by local Democratic activists who believe he deserves their loyalty for his strong showing.

_Houston City Councilman Gordon Quan, a Chinese-American immigration lawyer, could capitalize on the district's growing Asian and South Asian population.

_Former Rep. Nick Lampson, whose district was redrawn to favor the GOP and covered areas that DeLay now represents, including the NASA area and Galveston.

Lampson said he has been approached by several people but hasn't decided whether to run.

A nascent effort to draft former Rep. Chris Bell fizzled when Bell responded to e-mailers that he preferred to focus on his gubernatorial ambitions.

The House ethics committee admonished DeLay three times last year, and new questions have been raised in recent weeks about his overseas travel.

Three DeLay associates are under indictment on state charges in Austin in connection with an effort to redraw the state's congressional districts.

DeLay has denied any wrongdoing and has not been charged with violating any law.

The public also has questioned the role of Congress, led by DeLay, in trying to have Schiavo's feeding tube reinserted.

The courts consistently opposed the effort for the brain-damaged woman, who died last week.

"He's vulnerable, and he brought it on himself," Lampson said.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which recruits and helps House candidates, has talked to Morrison and Quan about the race.

Until Morrison's campaign in 2004, DeLay faced nominal Democratic nominees, usually local activists without much organization, and one or two third-party candidates.

"Absolutely, we're paying more attention than before," said DCCC spokesman Bill Burton.

"We're looking at it really hard."

Morrison, who initially offered to step aside out of party loyalty if Quan wanted to run, said he has changed his mind.

"I'm not going to be scared to spill Democratic blood," Morrison said.

"I'm a victim of my own success."

"Last time, the wisdom was, don't do it, he (DeLay) will stomp you into the ground."

"... And now it's a race."

And as a public health professional, on the environmental health side of that equation, I find this next story interesting for its predictability, which is to say that I'm surprised that it is considered "news", here in OUR America!

To me, it is simply "our future" finally catching up to us after a whole lot of years of outright negligence by the public health field, here in OUR America, and to be truthful, I'm surprised that anyone at all out there over the age of 25 or so, is surprised at any of this, what is happening in OUR world today vis-a-vis the pathogens and micro-organisms that are out there predating on us, because we are such an abundant and easy food source for them to predate upon!

Micro-organisms, after all, ARE the sabre-tooth tigers of the 21st Century, or didn't you know that?

Top Stories - Los Angeles Times

"Perilous Bug Is Creeping Onto the Streets"

Thu Apr 7, 7:55 AM ET

By Charles Piller Times Staff Writer

Drug-resistant staph infections, once largely confined to hospitals, are far more common in the general population than previously thought, according to a study published today in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The study examined more than 1,600 cases of the infection caused by a strain of Staphylococcus aureus in Baltimore, Atlanta and Minnesota.

Nearly one-fourth of those patients required hospitalization.

In recent years, the potentially deadly infection has been detected in jail inmates, sexually active gay men and professional athletes.

The latest study, conducted by researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and several other institutions, confirmed that the organism was now circulating widely in the general population.

The CDC research found that children younger than 2 were at higher risk, which could be because children get more cuts and scrapes.

Blacks in Atlanta were found to be at higher risk than whites, the researchers found.

"There was a remarkable association of a large number of cases, all caused by this drug- resistant strain," said Dr. Henry F. Chambers, a staph expert at San Francisco General Hospital who wrote an editorial accompanying the study.

Common staph is present on the skin or in the nostrils of about one in three people, typically without causing illness.

In previous research, the drug-resistant strain was found to cause painful skin lesions that resembled infected spider bites, a deadly lung disease known as necrotizing pneumonia, and toxic-shock syndrome — a type of blood poisoning that can be fatal.

But doctors outside of hospitals typically don't look for drug-resistant staph, and therefore don't order lab tests to verify the strain.

Instead, they routinely prescribe ineffective antibiotics, sometimes leading to more severe illnesses and even deaths.

In a separate article in the journal, researchers reported that they have linked drug-resistant staph infections to a rare, often-deadly disease known as necrotizing fasciitis, or more commonly, "flesh eating" syndrome.

"Necrotizing fasciitis is a terrible disease, but before now, Staph aureus was never the cause," said Dr. Robert Daum, a pediatrics professor at the University of Chicago and one of the first physicians to notice wider circulation of drug-resistant staph.

"Antibiotic resistance and virulence are converging," he said.

"It's really disturbing."

Researchers reported 14 Los Angeles cases of necrotizing fasciitis — a fast-spreading infection that kills skin, connective tissue and muscle.

The 14 patients were treated at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in 2003 and 2004, but had contracted the disease before being admitted to the hospital.

All survived, though several required reconstructive surgery.

The disease typically kills one-third of its victims.

Most of the patients had risk factors for necrotizing fasciitis, including a history of injected drug use or hepatitis C.

But in an unsettling finding, four victims had no apparent vulnerability.

The few antibiotics that kill the resistant staph strain are costly, and likely to wane in potency over time, said Dr. Loren G. Miller, a researcher at the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute, and lead author of the study.

"The problem is we are not developing new antibiotics as fast as we used to because there are very few monetary incentives for pharmaceutical companies to do that," Miller said.

"The bugs are about two steps ahead of us."

"Mr. DeLay's pique - He goes too far in threatening retribution against judges in the Terri Schiavo case"

Albany, New York Times Union
First published: Wednesday, April 6, 2005

By now, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay ought to be a distant figure, having slinked out of the sight of a prosecutor back home in Texas who may yet indict him, and Republican colleagues who should be roundly embarrassed by him.

But no.

Mr. DeLay is as visible as ever and as obnoxious as ever.

Last week he was threatening the federal judges who had so carefully followed the law in upholding the wishes of Terri Schiavo, as expressed by her husband, Michael Schiavo, not to be kept alive through artificial means.

As Ms. Schiavo died last week, freed at last from the center of a political rumble, most of Mr. DeLay's allies were wise enough and decent enough to tone down the rhetoric a bit.

Not the man known as The Hammer, though.

The following words from Mr. DeLay are just offensive and revealing enough to be committed to memory:

"This loss happened because our legal system did not protect the people who need protection most, and that will change."

"The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior, but not today."

Get it, everyone?

Now, Mr. DeLay is by no means the only person in Washington or in American politics who brings what once was the art of political oratory to such offensive extremes.

That much is all too common -- on the political right, with Mr. DeLay and company, but on the left as well.

But political speech is almost always protected speech.

The lasting problem with what Mr. DeLay had to say is that it may well exceed the seemingly limitless boundaries of free speech.

Threatening judges is a crime, remember.

Democrats have been quick to take note of that, of course, as they condemn Mr. DeLay.

But what about the Republicans?

Silence is nonetheless revealing.

So what if Mr. DeLay has been admonished three times by the House Ethics Committee for such heavy-handed political tactics as trying to pressure a House member to support a Medicare prescription drug law in exchange for helping the man's son in a congressional primary election?

And who cares if Mr. DeLay is still under investigation for allegations that he improperly funneled contributions from a political action committee to the Republican National Committee?

Or that three of his aides have been indicted in the matter?

Most Republicans will stand by Mr. DeLay for this reason above all: His hard-line agenda is their agenda.

His willingness to upend the rule of law and inject his own views into the issue of the treatment of Ms. Schiavo is reflective of their own thinking.

In that narrow, rigid world, Mr. DeLay can say whatever he wants.

Everyone else should at least be forewarned.

"Party on edge gets warning from within"

First published: Thursday, April 7, 2005

WASHINGTON -- Before, Republicans just scared other people.

Now, they're starting to scare themselves.

When Dick Cheney tells you you've gone too far, you know you're way over the edge.

Last week, the vice president told The New York Post's editorial board that House Majority Leader Tom DeLay should not have jumped ugly on the judges who refused to order that Terri Schiavo's feeding tube be reinserted.

He said he would "have problems" with the DeLay plan to get revenge on the judges:

"I don't think that's appropriate."

Usually, the White House loves bullies.

It embraces John Bolton, nominated as U.N. ambassador, even though, as The New York Times reports today, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is reviewing allegations that Bolton misused intelligence and bullied subordinates to help buttress WMD hokum when he was at the State Department.

But there's some skittishness in the party leadership about the Passion of the Tom, the fiery battle of the born-again Texan to show that he's being persecuted on ethics by a vast left-wing conspiracy.

Some Republicans are wondering whether they need to pull a Trent Lott on Tom DeLay before he turns into Newt Gingrich, who led his party to the promised land but then had to be discarded when he became the petulant "definer" and "arouser" of civilization.

Do they want DeLay careering around in Queeg style as they go into 2006?

On Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist joined Cheney in rejecting DeLay's call to punish and possibly impeach judges -- who are already an endangered species these days, with so much violence leveled against them.

"I believe we have a fair and independent judiciary today," Frist said.

"I respect that."

Of course, Frist and the White House still want to pack the federal courts with right-wing judges, but they don't want it to look as if they're doing it because Tom DeLay told them to or because of unhappiness at the Schiavo case.

No matter how much Democrats may be caviling over the House Republicans' attempts to squelch the Ethics Committee before it goes after DeLay (the former exterminator who pushed to impeach Bill Clinton), privately they're rooting for DeLay to thrive.

They're hoping to do in 2006 what the Republicans did in 1994, when Gingrich and his acolytes used Democratic arrogance and ethical lapses to seize the House.

DeLay is seeking sanctuary in Rome at the Pope's funeral, and he will hang on to the bitter end.

He got thunderous applause from his House colleagues on Wednesday morning, showing once more that DeLay has a strong hold on the loyalty of those who have benefited from the largesse of his fat-cat friends and from his shrewdness in keeping them in the majority.

"I think a lot of members think he's taking arrows for all of us," Rep. Roy Blunt told the press Wednesday, backing up DeLay's martyr complex.

DeLay lashed out at the latest article questioning his ethics, calling it "just another seedy attempt by the liberal media to embarrass me."

Philip Shenon reported in The New York Times that DeLay's wife and daughter have been paid more than half a million dollars since 2001 by the DeLay political action and campaign committees.

Republican family values.

The political action committee said in a statement that the DeLay family members provided valuable services:

"Mrs. DeLay provides big picture, long-term strategic guidance and helps with personnel decisions."

Political wives are renowned for injecting themselves into the middle of their husbands' office politics at no charge; a lot of members would pay them to go away.

The Washington Post also splashed DeLay on the front page with an article about a third DeLay trip under scrutiny: a six-day trip to Moscow in 1997 by DeLay was "underwritten by business interests lobbying in support of the Russian government, according to four people with firsthand knowledge of the trip arrangements."

All the divisions that President Bush was able to bridge in 2004 are now bursting forth as different wings of his party joust.

John Danforth, the former Republican senator and U.N. ambassador, wrote an Op-Ed piece in The New York Times last week saying that, on issues from stem cell research to Terri Schiavo, his party "has gone so far in adopting a sectarian agenda that it has become the political extension of a religious movement."

When the Rev. Danforth, an Episcopal minister who prayed with Clarence Thomas when he was under attack by Anita Hill, says the party has gone too far, it's way over the edge.

"A 3rd DeLay Trip Under Scrutiny - 1997 Russia Visit Reportedly Backed by Business Interests"

By R. Jeffrey Smith and James V. Grimaldi
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, April 6, 2005; Page A01

A six-day trip to Moscow in 1997 by then-House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) was underwritten by business interests lobbying in support of the Russian government, according to four people with firsthand knowledge of the trip arrangements.

DeLay reported that the trip was sponsored by a Washington-based nonprofit organization.

But interviews with those involved in planning DeLay's trip say the expenses were covered by a mysterious company registered in the Bahamas that also paid for an intensive $440,000 lobbying campaign.

Lobbyist Julius "Jay" Kaplan, second from left, reportedly met with Rep. Tom DeLay in Moscow.

He is pictured with Former Secretary of State Alexander Haig, Naftasib's Marina Nevskaya, Alexander Koulakovsky and Dr. Robert Spiro. (Gregg Hilton -- American Foreign Policy Council)

It is unclear precisely how the money was transferred from the Bahamian-registered company to the nonprofit.

The expense-paid trip by DeLay and four of his staff members cost $57,238, according to records filed by his office.

During his six days in Moscow, he played golf, met with Russian church leaders and talked to Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, a friend of Russian oil and gas executives associated with the lobbying effort.

DeLay also dined with the Russian executives and two Washington-based registered lobbyists for the Bahamian-registered company, sources say.

One of those lobbyists was Jack Abramoff, who is now at the center of a federal influence-peddling and corruption probe related to his representation of Indian tribes.

House members bear some responsibility to ensure that the sponsors for their travel are not masquerading for registered lobbyists or foreign government interests, legal experts say.

House ethics rules bar the acceptance of travel reimbursement from registered lobbyists and foreign agents.

In this case, travel funds did not come directly from lobbyists; the money came from a firm, Chelsea Commercial Enterprises Ltd., that funded the lobbying campaign, according to the sources.

Chelsea was coordinating the effort with a Russian oil and gas company -- Naftasib -- that has business ties with Russian security institutions, the sources said.

Aides to DeLay, who is now the House majority leader, said that despite the presence during the trip of the two registered lobbyists, DeLay thought the nonprofit organization -- the National Center for Public Policy Research -- was funding the trip on its own.

Suggestions to the contrary have come to light in media reports only in the past few weeks, an aide said.

"The trip was initiated by the National Center," spokesman Dan Allen said, "and they were the ones who organized it, planned it and paid for it."

Sources connected to the trip say, however, that Abramoff, acting at the behest of his Russian-connected client, Chelsea, brought the idea to the center.

Questions on Three Trips

The 1997 Moscow trip is the third foreign trip by DeLay to be scrutinized in recent weeks because of new statements by those involved that his travel was directly or indirectly financed by registered lobbyists or a foreign agent.

Media attention focused on DeLay's travel last month after The Washington Post reported on DeLay's participation in a $70,000 expense-paid trip to London and Scotland in 2000 that sources said was indirectly financed in part by an Indian tribe and a gambling services company.

A few days earlier, media attention had focused on a $106,921 trip DeLay took to South Korea in 2001 that was financed by a tax-exempt group created by a lobbyist on behalf of a Korean businessman.

DeLay on March 18 portrayed criticism of his trips and close ties to lobbyists as the product of a conspiracy to "destroy the conservative movement" by attacking its leaders, such as himself.

"This is a huge, nationwide, concerted effort to destroy everything we believe in," DeLay told supporters at the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian group.

The three foreign trips at issue share common elements.

The sponsor of the Moscow trip, the Capitol Hill-based National Center for Public Policy Research, also sponsored the later London trip.

The center is a conservative group that solicits corporate, foundation and individual donations.

Also, Abramoff not only joined DeLay in Moscow but also helped organize DeLay's subsequent London trip.

Abramoff also filed expense reports indicating he paid for some of DeLay's hotel bill in London, according to a copy obtained by The Post.

Edwin A. Buckham, who was DeLay's chief of staff in 1997 and then became a Washington lobbyist for major corporations, participated in two of the three trips.

In 1997, he visited Moscow twice -- once with DeLay -- and on one of these trips he returned via Paris aboard a Concorde jet with a ticket he told the Associated Press in 1998 had been financed by the National Center.

Buckham also joined DeLay on the Korea trip.

Buckham did not respond to messages left by The Post.

Untangling the origin of the Moscow trip's financing is complicated by questions about the ownership and origins of Chelsea, the obscure Bahamian-registered company that financed the lobbying effort in favor of the Russian government that targeted Republicans in Washington in 1997 and 1998.

Those involved in this effort also prepared and coordinated the DeLay visit, individuals with direct knowledge about it said.

In that period, prominent Russian businessmen, as well as the Russian government, depended heavily on a flow of billions of dollars in annual Western aid and so had good reason to build bridges to Congress.

House Republicans were becoming increasingly critical of U.S. and international lending institutions, such as the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) and the International Monetary Fund, which were then investing heavily in Russia's fragile economy.

Unlike some House conservatives who scorn such support as "corporate welfare," DeLay proved to be a "yes" vote for institutions bolstering Russia in this period.

For example, DeLay voted for a bill that included the replenishment of billions of dollars in IMF funds used to bail out the Russian economy in 1998.

A DeLay aide said he tried to reform these institutions through the legislative process.

DeLay voted to fund these agencies because their financing was usually included in appropriation bills that he generally supported, the aide said.

They also noted that OPIC had the strong backing of the energy industry, including companies from Texas that received OPIC financing.

Meetings in Moscow

The Russian campaign is detailed in disclosures filed with the House by lobbyists.

Those records state that Chelsea, with an address listed variously as a post office box on the British island of Jersey -- a tax haven off the French coast -- or a law firm in the Bahamas, paid at least $440,000 to fund lobbying aimed at building "support for policies of the Russian government for progressive market reforms and trade with the United States," according to lobbying registration documents.

The Washington offices of two lobbying and law firms collected the fees.

Preston Gates Ellis and Rouvelas Meeds LLP -- where Abramoff then worked -- received $260,000 in 1997 and less than $10,000 in 1998; Cadwalader Wickersham and Taft LLP was paid $180,000 in 1997 and less than $10,000 annually for the next three years, according to the registrations.

Their listed lobbying targets included members of the House and Senate and officials of the State Department and the Agency for International Development.

"One of the functions of the lobbying effort was to encourage U.S. policymakers to visit Russia and to learn more about Russia," Ellen S. Levinson, a lobbyist then working on the Chelsea account at Cadwalader, said in an e-mailed response to questions.

She said Preston Gates used its "contacts with policy institutes and congressional offices" to arrange these trips.

Preston Gates said in a written statement that it does not comment on its work for clients.

In a Cadwalader memo dated May 6, 1997, and obtained by The Post from another source, Levinson depicted the DeLay trip as one of six organized that year as part of the lobbying effort.

Others included an "advance team" that visited Moscow later that month and a visit by "think tank" experts in June.

A copy of the memo was sent to Abramoff.

A total of six members of the two lobbying firms participated in these trips, according to those involved.

Levinson and two Preston Gates lobbyists were members of the "advance team."

During the third visit, Cadwalader lobbyist Julius "Jay" Kaplan joined DeLay and Abramoff at a "fancy dinner" in Moscow, according to one of those present -- a circumstance first reported last month in an article about the trip in National Journal's Congress Daily.

Breaking with traditional practice for congressmen traveling overseas, DeLay did not contact the State Department in advance or meet with officials at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow regarding his meeting with Chernomyrdin, according to a department spokeswoman who said she checked with 10 people at the embassy then or responsible for facilitating congressional trips.

Allen, DeLay's spokesman, said the State Department was not contacted because "the National Center was responsible for the arrangements on the trip, including setting up the meetings."

"Beyond that, members of Congress aren't required to have the State Department present at meetings with leaders from other countries."

Last month, Amy Ridenour, director of the National Center, posted a statement on her organization's Web site in response to questions about DeLay's trip to Russia stating that the center itself had "sponsored and paid" for all the expenses associated with it.

Ridenour and her husband also took part in the visit.

But a person familiar with planning for the trip said Abramoff -- who has long been close to DeLay -- approached the National Center with the idea for the trip on behalf of Kaplan and his client, Chelsea.

That person said the expenses by the center were in turn replenished by "an American trust account affiliated with a law firm" that the person declined to name.

Kaplan declined to be quoted for this article, citing what he called "lawyer-client privilege."

But another person with direct knowledge about the trip arrangements said that it was Chelsea -- which had the registered Washington lobbyists in its employ -- that "gave the money to NCPPR to pay for the trip."

This person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect his business interests, added:

"I didn't see anything wrong there."

"All these foundations get money from somewhere, and they give it out."

Moreover, the source said, "this was the Russians' way of doing business then -- moving money from one firm to another."

Who Financed Travel?

The question is: Who stood behind Chelsea, and thus ultimately financed the trip?

A regular office for the firm could not be located by The Post, in Moscow or at its two listed addresses; its Bahamian registration ended in 2000, officials there said.

Efforts by The Post to find the three men -- one Belgian, one British, one Russian --named in lobbying registrations as Chelsea investors or owners in lobbying disclosures were unsuccessful.

A spokeswoman for Cadwalader, Paula Zirinsky, said the firm had no contact information for anyone from Chelsea, because "persons that worked on that matter have not been with the firm since 1997."

Jonathan Blank, managing partner of the Washington office for Preston Gates, similarly said his firm had no current contact information for Chelsea.

In interviews, however, five individuals with direct knowledge of the lobbying effort separately described executives of a diversified Russian energy firm known as Naftasib as being intimately involved in the lobbying.

Naftasib, which oversees interests in mining, oil and gas, construction and other enterprises from a four-story unmarked building in downtown Moscow, says it is a separate company from Chelsea but acknowledges seeking to cultivate friends in Washington in 1997.

In a written statement issued Friday in response to questions from The Post, Marina Nevskaya, Naftasib's deputy general manager, explained that her firm "wanted to foster better understanding between our country and the United States, and felt that if these trips were successful they would foster a better overall climate that could ultimately benefit Naftasib as well as other Russian enterprises."

Nevskaya said her company "did not finance in any manner" the DeLay trip or the others described in Levinson's memo.

But she said Naftasib "did host and pay for some dinners for participants in some of the trips, organized a few other special events . . . and may have provided minor courtesies, such as some auto pickups and dropoffs for some visitors during one or more of the trips."

She also acknowledged providing "advice about trip logistics" before they occurred and meeting trip participants.

Nevskaya did not offer details, but those involved in organizing DeLay's trip said he met with Nevskaya and was escorted around Moscow by the general manager of Naftasib, Alexander Koulakovsky.

DeLay has also met with Nevskaya and Koulakovsky in Washington since then, according to several sources with direct knowledge of the contact.

During the June 1997 trip to Moscow by "think tank" experts -- one of the scheduled visits listed in Levinson's memo -- several participants said they got the impression that Preston Gates was the organizer, Naftasib was the ultimate financier and that the trip was a dry run for DeLay's visit.

"It was done through or under the auspices of NCPPR," said Bart Adams, a North Carolina journalist who joined the expense-paid trip.

But he said he recalls hearing that "the money was coming from a Russian oil company."

David Lowe, an official at the National Endowment for Democracy, said he was recruited to join the trip by the Preston Gates firm; former Senate aide James P. Lucier, who also was on the trip, said Naftasib's executives played such a large role that they "seemed to be the clients of Preston Gates," a claim the firm denies.

"Some American investment or tie was the end goal," said a third participant, "and the plan was to bring over some congressmen" later.

A publicist who works for Abramoff attorney Abbe David Lowell said Abramoff did lobby for Chelsea but not for Naftasib.

The publicist said Abramoff thought "bringing a greater understanding of Russia to American decision makers was and is good for America."

The efforts by Naftasib's executives to curry favor among Republicans -- including DeLay -- sowed controversy at the time among conservatives.

A journal published by a Washington think tank, the American Foreign Policy Council, claimed within a few days after DeLay's trip ended that it was actually "sponsored" by Naftasib.

The journal -- the Russian Reform Monitor -- also highlighted what it characterized as Naftasib's tight connections to the Russian security establishment.

The journal quoted promotional literature for Naftasib that described the firm as a major shareholder in Gazprom, the state-controlled oil and gas giant.

The literature also said Natfasib's largest clients were the ministries of defense and internal affairs.

The literature also states that Nevskaya was an instructor at a school for Russian military intelligence officers.

She declined to address those claims in response to questions from The Post.

Steve Biegun, who was then a senior Russia expert for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and later served as executive secretary to the National Security Council during President Bush's first term, said he deliberately blocked a meeting that Nevskaya sought with Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), then the committee chairman.

"They were a client of the lobbying firm Preston Gates," said Biegun, who is now a Ford Motor Co. vice president for international governmental affairs.

"I made some calls . . . and got enough warning signs" to ensure that Helms avoided dealing with the firm.

Biegun said the information he obtained from his sources was "nothing that would stand up in court" but he worried that in this period, "a lot of unsavory figures from Russia were buying their way into meetings and getting their pictures taken, to put on the wall back in Moscow."

"I just had my doubts, and nobody did anything to allay them," Biegun said.

"I did not know who either of them really were."

Asked to comment, Blank, Preston Gates's Washington managing partner, said in a written statement:

"Chelsea was our only client."

"Naftasib was not our client."

"We did work with Naftasib representatives when their interests coincided with our client's."

Blank added that "we are confident that the individuals still with the firm who were involved at the time acted ethically, appropriately, and in service of the client."

Abramoff left Preston Gates at the end of 2000.

Staff writer Susan Schmidt, research editor Lucy Shackelford, and researchers Alice Crites and Madonna Lebling contributed to this report.

Top Stories - Knight Ridder Newspapers

"Judiciary has 'run amok', DeLay says"

Thu Apr 7, 8:09 PM ET

By James Kuhnhenn, Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, stepped up his attack on federal judges Thursday, telling a gathering of religious conservatives that the judiciary has "run amok" and demanding that Congress assert authority over the courts.

His remarks, delivered by videotape, broadened the criticism he voiced last week after the death of Terri Schiavo, a severely brain-damaged woman in Florida, after judges refused to order her feeding tube reinserted.

DeLay's address came as he strives to shore up his base amid a storm over his ethics.

Liberal groups have launched ads attacking his connections to lobbyists and former associates now under investigation.

Prominent news reports have raised questions about his use of campaign cash, and last year the House ethics committee rebuked him three times in one week.

Many lawmakers think DeLay can weather the storm as long as he's perceived as a leader of the conservative movement.

"The judiciary branch of our government has overstepped its authority on countless occasions, overturning and in some cases just ignoring the legitimate will of the people," DeLay said.

"But I also believe the executive and legislative branches have neglected the proper checks and balances on this behavior ... Our next step, whatever it is, must be more than rhetoric."

Criticism of the courts by religious conservatives has mounted since the Schiavo case.

At issue is extraordinary legislation that Congress passed and President Bush signed late last month that ordered federal courts to review the case, in which Schiavo's husband and parents disputed what her wishes would be.

A federal judge in Florida refused to overturn a state court's decision and the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld his ruling.

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal.

After Schiavo died last week, DeLay said federal judges "thumbed their nose at Congress and the president."

"The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior."

Congress could inject itself into the judiciary by simply calling on judges to testify before Congress, a move that could be interpreted as intimidation.

It also could intervene more dramatically, by initiating impeachment procedures, passing legislation limiting judges' terms in office or redefining the jurisdiction of federal courts in certain types of cases.

Intervention by the Congress, however, does not sit well with some conservatives.

John J. Pitney Jr., a political scientist at Claremont McKenna College and a former Republican congressional aide, said:

"A lot of conservatives may strongly disapprove of what the courts are doing but don't think it's proper to punish judges for the decisions."

"They regard that as a breach of separation of powers."

Even Congress' attempt to influence the Schiavo case prompted a strong rebuke by one of the judges deciding the matter.

Circuit Judge Stanley F. Birch Jr., appointed to the court by President Bush's father, said, "Congress chose to overstep constitutional boundaries into the province of the judiciary."

"Such an act cannot be countenanced."

Republican lawmakers too are splintered over whether to take on the judicial branch of government.

On Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., distanced himself from DeLay, saying he thought the judges in the Schiavo case had given her case a "fair and independent look."

"I believe we have a fair and independent judiciary today," Frist added.

DeLay had been scheduled as the keynote speaker before the Judeo-Christian Council for Constitutional Restoration, but sent in taped remarks because the conference conflicted with his trip to Rome for Pope John Paul II's funeral.

"Our judiciary has banned prayer in schools and evicted Christmas displays from town halls," DeLay said.

He complained that judges were ignoring legislatures and "following the dictates of foreign opinion," a reference to a recent Supreme Court decision on the death penalty.

"These are not the examples of a mature society, but of a judiciary run amok," DeLay said.

His stand-in at the conference was Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, a DeLay ally who chairs a courts subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee.

"Judges continue to substitute their own political views for the law, and we must push back," Smith said.

Asked whether he would take steps to retaliate against judges in the Schiavo case, Smith said:

"I would certainly be a part of any effort that Tom DeLay was."

"If that's the direction that the leaders want to go, I would be happy to go that direction as well."

"Hill Takes a Back Seat on Social Security - Administration, Republican National Committee Lead Drive to Add Private Accounts"

By Mike Allen and Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, April 6, 2005; Page A04

The e-mail to her constituents had billed the gathering as a "town hall meeting on Social Security," but the purported host -- Rep. Sue Myrick (R-N.C.) -- was sitting by herself in the fourth row of a darkened theater of a prep school in Charlotte.

Standing in the cone of a spotlight over the podium last week was a White House official who had flown in just for the evening.

It was Keith Hennessey, deputy director of the National Economic Council, who was using colorful graphs and bullet points to make the case that President Bush's plan to add individual accounts to Social Security would not hurt current retirees.

When Myrick got her precious 30 seconds on the 11 o'clock news that night, she was much more vague.

She simply said that Congress is anxious to take on the problem and that she would take ideas back to Washington.

Stung by a spate of rowdy, critic-packed town hall meetings about Social Security over the Presidents' Day break in February, Republicans shied away from such open forums during the two-week Easter recess.

Instead, they stuck mainly to workshops in which administration officials did most of the talking and lawmakers stepped up to answer a few questions after lengthy presentations from Bush appointees.

The lawmakers' reluctance to take center stage is emblematic of the back seat that members of Congress have chosen to take in the debate over Social Security.

With the year one-fourth over, lawmakers have so far served largely as bystanders in a campaign for a retirement-system restructuring that is being driven by the White House, the Treasury Department and the Republican National Committee -- along with business allies that have spent more than $10 million on the effort.

The administration used great fanfare to announce a "60 Stops in 60 Days" tour at the beginning of March.

Bush's aides far exceeded that target, holding 108 events in the first 30 days, which ended Friday.

Of those, 52 were town hall meetings with members of Congress such as Myrick.

The guest hosts have included Vice President Cheney, Treasury Secretary John W. Snow and Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez.

Treasury Department spokesman Rob Nichols even flew to Bellevue, Wash., to give a speech for freshman Rep. David G. Reichert (R-Wash.).

Progress for America, a private group that is allied with the White House and has spent about $9 million on the campaign, is sponsoring traffic reports in 25 cities so that commuters will continually hear its messages.

"There's a crisis in Social Security -- and it's coming sooner than you think," says one script.

Nevertheless, polls do not show momentum, Democrats remain united against key elements of Bush's plan, and Republicans have yet to unite around a specific solution.

Bush, speaking in West Virginia yesterday, appeared to be growing irked that Capitol Hill has not responded to his calls to sit down and negotiate a Social Security package.

"Now is the time for people in Congress to stop playing politics with the issue and come to the table with how they think it ought to be fixed," he said.

For the day, Bush abandoned his usual format of rehearsed panel discussions and spoke at a podium at West Virginia University at Parkersburg.

He also visited the nearby Bureau of Public Debt to make the symbolic point that Social Security is not a trust fund with money set aside for recipients, but a pay-as-you-go system facing huge shortfalls in the future.

GOP lawmakers contend they are making progress but acknowledge that it is slow.

"My view now is that if we don't happen to get this done in 2005 . . . this will be a political issue in 2006 -- talking about the problem," said House Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), who will be responsible for lining up votes for a Social Security bill.

"We're learning to talk about this; the president's driving the issue."

"I think we're a long way from out on this particular deal."

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) pronounced the effort so far a failure and said the message has been "too complex and Washington-centered."

He said Bush and the Hill need to start over with "a narrowly focused, very directed, very specific campaign" aimed at people under 40.

"I recommend they take a deep breath, step back, launch a new campaign in which the urgency is the fact that every day that you fail to pass it, every young person in America loses the interest for the rest of their lifetime on that day's savings," Gingrich said.

"It's going to take them at least a year to dig out of this and get to a point where they have something that's passable."

Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said he knows of no defections from the Democrats' united stand against Bush's plan to divert payroll taxes from Social Security.

He said that, although his members are free agents, they have concluded that "the best thing to do for the caucus, them individually and the country is just to hang together."

He said Democrats are willing to work with Republicans on some type of individual account that would be added to Social Security, but he noted that the Senate is "running out of time to do much" this year.

Despite signs that the Social-Security train is stalled, the campaign by the administration and its private-sector allies is escalating, and liberals and Democrats are matching or even surpassing it.

Two labor-backed groups created to fight Bush's plan announced this week that they plan to raise as much as $35 million for television advertising and grass-roots organizing, on top of the more than $15 million that has been spent by AARP on print, television and radio advertising since Jan. 4.

Today, the Treasury Department is holding "Social Security Radio Day" at its headquarters from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., with Cabinet members and other presidential appointees lining up to chat with talk-show hosts such as West Virginia's Hoppy Kercheval and Seattle's Kirby Wilbur.

Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman started a contest --"National March Madness: Preserve Social Security Champion," complete with a spinning basketball on the Web -- to encourage college students to collect signatures for the party's Social Security petition.

Lawmakers said they plan to step up their activities.

The two parties held a formal debate in the Senate last night, the Senate Finance Committee plans hearings in the coming weeks, and House Republicans are meeting today to pare down their Social Security message points.

Baker reported from West Virginia.

As I continue to ponder life in OUR America from my perspective as a now-older person, here in OUR America, I find this following statement from this above article on Social Security to be quite ILLUMINATING, actually:

It was Keith Hennessey, deputy director of the National Economic Council, who was using colorful graphs and bullet points to make the case that President Bush's plan to add individual accounts to Social Security would not hurt current retirees.

end quotes

George W. Bush's "PLAN" won't HURT us older folks, here in OUR America, so, GO HOME!

"WE WON'T HURT YOU, YOU ARE NOT OUR INTENDED VICTIMS HERE, YOUR CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN ARE, SO IF YOU ARE SMART, YOU WILL TAKE OUR DEAL, FOR YOU, BECAUSE YOU CAN'T DO ANYTHING AT ALL, TO SAVE THEM!"

At least that is what I hear the Fabulous Bush Co.'s saying here, to me, and what I am saying in return is "NO DEAL"!

I'm not stepping aside and acting irresponsibly by selling out the generations coming after I am gone to the Bush Co.'s and their $10 MILLION BUSINESS ALLIES, just so I can "get a bone" from the Bush Co. crowd, and I am frankly surprised that they think any of us OLDER AMERICANS will "TAKE THE DEAL"!

SO?

I wonder how many actually will, sell out the younger generations, that is, IF THEY ARE TOLD TO DO SO, by their LEADERSHIP!

Any guesses?

As a permanently disabled person with rocket-grenade fragments lodged in my neck, near my spine, from combat wounds suffered in Viet Nam in 1969, I have now had many, many years to ponder this thing called "life", and the concept of "being alive", as was debated in the Terry Schiavo case, and FROM MY PERSPECTIVE, if that had been me, IT WOULD HAVE BEEN A RELIEF to have had that feeding tube finally pulled out of me, so that I could then leave this shattered body, and finally get some peace in my life, and I am very serious about that.

And so, when someone sent me this "LIVING WILL" form over the internet, I thought it a good idea to share the "FORMAT" of it with all of you out there in OUR America, and in the candid world as well, just in case George W. Bush and "TEXAS TOMMY" Delay should invade and conquer your country too, before you are dead, and so try to have you too hooked up to some obscene machine that will keep you artificially "alive" until every last cent your family has ever had has been sucked from their pockets, to feed the Bush Co.'s and theirs.

"LIVING WILL FORM"

I, _________________________ (fill in the blank), being of sound mind and body, DO NOT wish to be kept alive indefinitely by artificial means.

Under no circumstances should my fate be put in the hands of peckerwood politicians who couldn't pass ninth-grade biology if their lives depended on it.

If a reasonable amount of time passes and I fail to sit up and ask for a scotch, it should be presumed that I won't do so ever again.

When such a determination is reached, I hereby instruct my spouse, children and attending physicians to pull the plug, reel in the tubes and call it a day.

Under no circumstances shall the members of the Legislature enact a special law to keep me on life-support machinery.

It is my wish that these A******S mind their own damn business, and pay attention instead to the health, education and future of the millions of Americans who AREN'T in a permanent coma and who nonetheless may be in need of nourishment.

Under no circumstances shall any politicians butt into this case.

I don't care how many fundamentalist votes they're trying to scrounge for their run for the presidency in 2008, it is my wish that they play politics with someone else's life and leave me alone to die in peace.

I couldn't care less if a hundred religious zealots send e-mails to legislators in which they pretend to care about me.

I don't know these people, and I certainly haven't authorized them to preach and/or crusade on my behalf.

They should mind their own damn business, too.

If any of my family goes against my wishes and turns my case into a political cause, I hereby promise to come back from the grave and make his or her existence a living hell.

And perhaps that "answer" can be found in the following, from a friend on the internet:

While looking at a house, my brother asked the real estate agent which direction was north because, he explained, he didn't want the sun waking him up every morning.

She asked, "Does the sun rise in the North?"

When my brother explained that the sun rises in the east, (and has for sometime), she shook her head and said, "Oh, I don't keep up with that stuff."

She also votes!

I used to work in technical support for a 24x7 call center.

One day I got a call from an individual who asked what hours the call center was open.

I told him, "The number you dialed is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week."

He responded, "Is that Eastern or Pacific time?"

Wanting to end the call quickly, I said, "Uh, Pacific."

He also votes!

So my colleague and I were eating our lunch in our cafeteria, when we overheard one of the admin. assistants talking about the sunburn she got on her weekend drive to the shore.

She drove down in a convertible, with the top down, but "didn't think she'd get sunburned because the car was moving."

She also votes!

My sister has a lifesaving tool in her car.

It's designed to cut through a seatbelt if she gets trapped.

She keeps it in the trunk.

My sister also votes!

My friends and I were on a beer run and noticed that the cases were discounted 10%.

Since it was a big party, we bought 2 cases.

The cashier multiplied 2 times 10% and gave us a 20% discount.

He also votes!

I was hanging out with a friend when we saw a woman with a nose ring attached to an earring by a chain.

My friend said, "Wouldn't the chain rip out every time she turned her head?"

I explained that a person's nose and ear remain the same distance apart no matter which way the head is turned.

My friend also votes!

end quotes

Hhhhmmm!

No wonder both George W. Bush and "TEXAS TOMMY" Delay are in such positions of authority that they are in, in OUR America today!

I knew somebody had to vote for them, and I knew it wasn't me, and so .....

And ....

Hmmmm.

About this "sun rising" thing, here .....

Way back in 1777, before any of us were born, so far as I know, anyway, "Gentleman Johnny" Burgoyne, or "Jackie Brag", as he was affectionately known by the American colonists of the time up here in what is now New York State, where I am now sitting, 'ole "Jackie Brag" came "south" out of Canada, on what could be called an "epic journey" in and of itself, considering the terrain he had to come across, on his "journey" to split the then-American colonies, and so, "win" the war against the "American rabble" for HIS King, that being George III of England, or "Fat George", as American history knows him today.

And just a literal hand-ful of miles short of his objective of what is now Albany, New York, 'ole "Jackie Brag" and his 8,000-some strong British army ran into "some trouble" at a place called "Stillwaters-of-the-Hudson", near present day Bemis Heights in modern-day New York State, and for "Jackie Brag" and his army, that was the END OF THEIR ROAD!

For us, the modern-day Americans who are in here on this site talking about LIBERTY, that battle was in many ways, OUR BEGINNING, for that loss there at what is improperly called Saratoga turned the tide for the formerly unbeatable British, and out of their loss was born OUR freedom today, and OUR REPUBLIC of America, as well!

And so, I include this following story in here on that battlefield, for whatever it is worth to us today, here in OUR America, as we ponder in here where we actually are in terms of OUR present-day LIBERTIES, and where we might be going tomarrow, under this despotic George II that WE have in power over us in OUR America of today:

"Battlefield park aims for feel of history - Management plan calls for new ways to link various historic sites"

By KENNETH C. CROWE II, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union
First published: Friday, April 8, 2005

STILLWATER -- From re-establishing the historic views atop Bemis Heights to emphasizing the importance of Victory Woods in the nearby village of Victory, the plans for the Saratoga National Historical Park envision giving visitors the feel of the battlefield in 1777.

Linking the various sites associated with the two Battles of Saratoga on Sept. 19 and Oct. 7, 1777, and the surrender of the British Army on Oct. 17, 1777, in Schuylerville is the challenge the National Park Service staff at the battlefield faces.

The park's new general management plan provides the blue print for doing that.

"We're trying to broaden the park."

"We would like to see something that ties the sites together," said Park Superintendent Frank Dean.

"We're trying to get Victory Woods opened up for the first time."

"The viewshed (at tour stop 3 at Bemis Heights) is essentially from 230 years ago."

"That's something we would like to see stay," Dean said.

The park service is aware that development pressures are strong in Saratoga County with open land being gobbled up as builders push east from the Northway toward the park.

Unlike other parks such as Gettysburg and Civil War battlefields in Virginia, Saratoga is not overwhelmed by development.

The "Turning Point of the American Revolution" maintains the essential landscape and feel that existed in 1777.

"Development happens."

"I'm happy you don't see any change at all here," Dean said.

"This park is in good shape."

"It's a real treasure we should try to protect."

The obstacle the park has is uniting its sites at the battlefield in Stillwater, Victory Woods and the Saratoga Monument in Victory and the General Philip Schuyler House in Schuylerville.

The battlefield is about 10 miles south of the sites in Victory and Schuylerville.

"The concept for the plan focuses on improving the visitor's understanding of the events that led to the 1777 British surrender by providing a more complete and logical depiction of these events," the document states.

"For a comprehensive understanding of the military events, visitors will follow a tour sequence that unfolds in a logical fashion and that follows the progression of the battles, siege and surrender from Bemis Heights to Old Saratoga," the document continues.

The management plan for the park calls for spending $18.54 million to $22.66 million over 20 years to update the park and hiring an additional 18.5 people.

The park employs 20 people currently year-round and expands to 27 during the summer months.

The park's visitors center is undergoing redevelopment to make better use of the facilities in telling the story of the battles.

The battlefield guide handed out to visitors will be rewritten and redesigned to add to the story that visitors come in search of when they arrive.

The park service also is committed to working with the local governments to tell the region's story.

A visitors center planned in Schuylerville has the support of the park service, which will work with its neighbors, Dean said.

"We can't do it all alone."

"We have to work with other partners."

"The result is we're working more closely with the community," Dean said.

The major move this year is opening Victory Woods to the public.

This is where the British Army was entrenched after its retreat from the battlefield.

Surrounded by the American Army, the British held out until they surrendered at what is now Fort Hardy Park in Schuylerville.

"It's a great site."

"We want to get it opened," Dean said.

Using $600,000 obtained by U.S. Rep. John Sweeney, R-Clifton Park, the park service will build trails and put up signs to tell the story of the days before the surrender.

It will take two years to complete this project.

The park service also is working with the state Department of Transportation to secure acreage behind the Schuyler House on Route 4.

DOT has a garage there.

The site has been identified as having historic significance as part of the Schuyler estate.

Dean said if a new site just north of Schuylerville can be acquired for the garage, the current site would be added to the national park.

Kenneth C. Crowe II can be reached at 581-8438 or by e-mail at kcrowe@timesunion.com.

"Bush indifferent over falling poll numbers"

By WILL LESTER, Associated Press
Last updated: 7:07 p.m., Friday, April 8, 2005

WASHINGTON -- The public's dissatisfaction with President Bush and the Republican-led Congress is growing, with ratings dropping amid record high gas prices, war in Iraq, the Social Security debate and the emotional Terri Schiavo case.

The Republican president's job approval is at 44 percent, with 54 percent disapproving.

Only 37 percent have a favorable opinion of the work being done by Congress, according to an AP-Ipsos poll.

Bush's job approval was at 49 percent in January, the same month in which he was sworn in for a second term, while Congress' was at 41 percent.

The president was asked Friday about his falling ratings in some polls, and he claimed indifference.

"Some of them were going up the other day," he responded as he flew back from Rome on Air Force One.

"You can find them going up and you can find them going down."

"You can pretty much find out what you want in polls is my point."

Asked about Bush's decline with the public, Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio pointed to uphill efforts to change Social Security, the Schiavo case and "economic jitters" heightened by rising oil prices.

Republicans in Congress and the president moved quickly during the Easter recess to approve legislation intended to prolong the life of Schiavo, the brain-damaged Florida woman who died after her feeding tube was disconnected.

Democrats, whose public standing is pretty close to the Republicans these days, are pondering how to capitalize on the general dissatisfaction among the American people toward Washington.

"I think the Democrats have to be clearer about offering alternatives, not just the critique," said Democratic pollster Celinda Lake.

"People already know what the problems are, they want to know the solutions."

Thomas Johnston, a Democratic retiree from Mooresville, N.C., often doesn't agree with the positions taken by national Democrats.

But he thinks being overly cautious hurts them.

"I think they're trying to ride the fence and that doesn't work," Johnston said.

"Say what you believe and stick with it."

The number supporting Bush's handling of some domestic issues dipped between March and April, to 42 percent for the economy and 38 percent for issues such as education and health care, according to the poll conducted for The Associated Press by Ipsos-Public Affairs.

Support for the president's approach to his top domestic priority, Social Security, remained at 36 percent, while 58 percent oppose it.

"The public hasn't bought into the idea of private accounts and the necessity of them," said Charles Franklin, a political scientist who studies public opinion at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Republicans argue that young adults are supposed to benefit the most from Bush's Social Security proposal, but a majority of that group, 54 percent, opposes the president on that issue.

Denise Brown, a 41-year-old Republican from Prattville, Ala., is among those Bush has yet to convince.

"I'm not sold on it," she said.

"Maybe there haven't been any alternatives put out there."

"Something definitely needs to be done, but there are probably other ways to do it that may be better."

While Democrats firmly disapprove of Bush's job performance and independents lean toward disapproval, Republicans remain firmly behind him.

"I don't know that the exit strategy in Iraq is completely thought out."

"And I don't know that all the Social Security options have been explored," said Scott Lindsey, a Republican who lives around Memphis, Tenn.

"But I think President Bush is doing a good job."

The president's poll standing has been in the mid-40s to low-50s for the past two years, said Matthew Dowd, who was a strategist and pollster for Bush in the 2004 presidential campaign.

During the first three months of the year, Congress has spent much of its time discussing the budget and Social Security, and passing legislation toughening laws on bankruptcy.

Congress interrupted its Easter break last month to pass the legislation on Schiavo.

"This is a pretty sour spring," said Karlyn Bowman, a public opinion analyst at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute.

"People are not very impressed by what Bush is doing or by what Congress is doing -- Democrats or Republicans."

The AP-Ipsos poll of 1,001 adults was taken April 4-6 and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

------

On the Net:

Ipsos-Public Affairs -- http://www.ap-ipsosresults.com

"Deaths drive call for cure - Ex-lieutenant governor leads group urging cleaner practices at hospitals to fight germs"

By MATT PACENZA, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union
First published: Friday, April 8, 2005

ALBANY -- Pat Moore's 28-year-old son, Brad, went into an Orange County hospital with a head injury after he was mugged nearly three years ago.

Three weeks later, he died.

The culprit was not his head wound but an infection from staphylococcus aureus, a common bacteria that can be deadly if it enters the body at a vulnerable point -- like near the incision doctors made when they inserted a tube to help Brad Moore breathe.

His mother cried Thursday as she talked about the infection that claimed her son's life, during a news conference held to encourage hospitals to disclose how many of their patients become ill or die because of bacterial infections caught while in their care.

"I don't want to see another mother lose her child," she said.

Joining her was former Lt. Gov. Betsy McCaughey, a health policy researcher who recently formed the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths.

The committee is pushing the state's hospitals to improve their hygiene to save lives.

Two million Americans get infections in hospitals each year, and about 103,000 die, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Of particular concern is MRSA, strains of staphylococcus aureus that have proved to be resistant to nearly all antibiotic treatments.

There is no mystery as to how to combat hospital infections from regular staph or from MRSA, according to RID.

Improving staff hand-washing, systematically disinfecting furniture and equipment, and requiring doctors and nurses to wear disposable aprons can cut rates substantially.

McCaughey pointed to hospitals that have experienced rapid improvements.

The Latter Day Saints Hospital in Salt Lake City cut its infection rate in half by focusing on pre-surgical hygiene, while Bloomfield Hospital in England established policies that cut the infection rate in its orthopedic unit by two-thirds in just one year.

Bloomfield urged hand-washing and equipment cleaning, banned nurses from wearing jewelry, began using disposable aprons, forbade visitors from sitting on beds, and tested patients for bacteria several days before surgery so they could use special soap to kill the germs before patients entered the hospital.

The best way to push New York's hospitals to take those steps, according to the committee, is to publish infection rates at each hospital.

That would help consumers decide where to go for surgery and would shame the lowest-performing hospitals into cleaning up their act.

That report-card approach works, McCaughey said, pointing to the experience of coronary bypass surgery death rates, first released by the state in 1991.

As they became public, hospitals scrambled to boost survival rates.

"And New York became the state with the lowest mortality rates in the nation," she said.

Assemblyman Richard Gottfried agrees.

"Public disclosure will encourage hospitals to do more to control infections," said the Manhattan Democrat, who chairs the Assembly Health Committee.

Gottfried plans to revise a bill he had previously introduced so that it focuses more specifically on mandating infection rates.

Several other bills in the state Legislature would mandate hospital reporting, as Florida, Missouri, Pennsylvania and Illinois did recently.

The involvement of McCaughey, a vibrant and outspoken woman who ruffled feathers while in Albany during Gov. George Pataki's first term, gives those bills hope, said Blair Horner, legislative director of the New York Public Interest Research Group.

"The fact that she is focused on this will probably raise these issues up for discussion, " Horner said.

Hospital trade associations say that while the group's mission is noble, it ignores the work that hospitals are already doing.

Many hospitals are participating in a six-year, state-funded project organized by the Iroquois Healthcare Association that is intended to cut MRSA rates.

"Hand-washing is critical," said Carole Van Antwerpen, Iroquois' infection control project director.

Most hospitals have waterless antibacterial soaps available at dispensers at each room door, which weren't there just a couple of years ago.

The hospitals joining the Iroquois effort -- including Albany Memorial, Ellis, Samaritan, Saratoga, St. Clare's and St. Mary's -- began putting the program's recommendations in place on March 1.

"We're doing a tremendous amount already," said Kathleen Ciccone, vice president for quality and research for the Healthcare Association of New York State.

Ciccone said that while the association backs a hospital report card for infections, it is difficult to publish data that can be compared between hospitals, so that a hospital wouldn't be penalized for treating patients with conditions like AIDS that leave them vulnerable.

"It's not that people are hiding data," Ciccone said.

"It's that it is simply not available in a form that would be useful today."

A state Department of Health spokesman called its infection surveillance system one of the strongest in the nation and said the department is reviewing legislative proposals that would make infection information public.

McCaughey is skeptical about the practices that hospitals claim are already in place, pointing out that more intensive measures in nations like Denmark and Holland have nearly eliminated MRSA infections while U.S. rates continue to climb.

McCaughey, who gained public attention in 1994 when she was writing for the Manhattan Institute in criticism of the Clinton administration's health care proposals, said she decided to found her committee after looking at childhood photos of Brad Moore at his mother's Orange County home.

"Enough with the research," McCaughey said she thought at the time.

"I've got to do something about this."

McCaughey is angriest at hospital officials who told her that "it's hard to change the culture in the hospital" when she urged them to make cleanliness and hygiene priorities.

"Do you know what's really hard?" she asked.

"Talking to a mother who just buried a 28-year-old son for no good reason."

Matt Pacenza can be reached at 454-5533 or by e-mail at mpacenza@timesunion.com.

Boy oh Boy -----

Reading that this morning gets my day off to a great start.

Everybody needs a good laugh early in the day.

It sort of sets the tone for the rest of the day.

The sad part is that there are so many people just like the ones in the stories.

A.B.

Good morning, Mr. A.B.!

Yes, we do need laughs in life, regardless of what age we are, and so .....

By the way, have you seen our friend jeffmoskin in your travels.

His wit is missed in here these days, and I trust all is well with him out there in sunny KAH-lee-faw-nia!

Well, I guess you can, at that!

How about this one, then, George?

Middle East - AP

"Thousands Protest on Baghdad Anniversary"

24 minutes ago

By ANTONIO CASTANEDA, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Tens of thousands of Shiites marked the anniversary of the fall of Baghdad with a protest against the American military presence at the square where Iraqis and U.S. troops toppled a statue of Saddam Hussein two years ago.

The protesters back Muqtada al-Sadr, a radical Shiite cleric whose militia led uprisings against U.S. troops last year, and their large numbers reflected frustration both with the U.S. government and anger toward the Sunni Arab-led insurgency.

"This huge gathering shows that the Iraqi people have the strength and faith to protect their country and liberate it from the occupiers," said Ahmed Abed, a 26-year-old who sells spare car parts.

U.S. officials, who are slowly handing security to Iraqi forces, have refused to set a timetable for withdrawal, saying the troops will stay until Iraqi forces are able to secure the country.

The protesters filled Firdos Square and spilled onto nearby avenues, waving Iraqi flags.

Mimicking the famous images of U.S. soldiers and Iraqis pulling down a statue of Saddam as Baghdad fell, protesters toppled effigies of President Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Saddam — all dressed like Iraqi prisoners in red jumpsuits.

Other effigies of Bush and Saddam were burned.

"Force the occupation to leave from our country," one banner read in English.

The Shiite protesters also called for the now-jailed Saddam to face justice, and they held up framed photos of al-Sadr's father, a prominent cleric executed by Saddam.

Mahdi Army militiamen searched people entering the demonstration area as Iraqi policemen stood to the side.

Al-Sadr officials said the cleric did not attend the protest because of security concerns.

He has largely stayed close to his home in the holy city of Najaf since a U.S.-led assault on his militia in the city in August 2004.

Al-Sadr has wide support among impoverished and young Shiites but overall fewer followers than Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most revered Shiite cleric in the country.

Shiites make up 60 percent of Iraq's 26 million people, and thousands killed by Iraqi forces under Saddam.

Demonstrators swung from a statue said to represent freedom and constructed on the pedestal where Saddam's statue once stood.

They also acted out examples of prison abuse widely reported after photos were released showing U.S. soldiers piling naked inmates in a pyramid at Abu Ghraib prison.

Robed and turbaned Shiite clerics were seen among the crowd.

No violence was reported, although late Friday a senior al-Sadr official who had arrived from Karbala to take part in the protest was gunned down in the New Baghdad neighborhood.

Fadhil al-Shawky died in the attack on his car.

Two others were wounded.

U.S. and Iraqi security forces kept a close eye on the march, with U.S. soldiers standing behind blast walls topped with barbed wire and armed soldiers watching from rooftops.

The protest was held in the shadow of the Sheraton and Palestine hotels, both of which have been home to foreign journalists and contractors.

Al-Sadr had stayed out of the limelight since leading failed uprisings last year in the southern city of Najaf and in Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood.

But he has stepped up criticism of the United States in recent weeks, mainly by organizing Saturday's protest, which fell far short of the 1 million people he hoped would assemble.

Officials organized the demonstration with the Iraqi Interior Ministry's promise of protection.

A group of protesters and police spent all night securing the square.

Roads in central Baghdad were closed to traffic as streets filled with people.

Sunni Muslim clerics also called on their followers to protest on the two year anniversary of the fall of Baghdad, but officials in the influential Association of Muslim Scholars refused to say Saturday where or when the protests would take place.

Iraq's Sunni minority was dominant under Saddam and is believed to make up the backbone of the country's insurgency.

Jalil al-Shemari, a senior al-Sadr official, said the Sunnis would not be joining in the Shiite rally at Firdos Square.

During his Friday morning sermon in the capital, the head of an influential Sunni group accused coalition forces of "killing the Iraqi people daily."

"We demand that the occupation troops withdraw from Iraq."

"We don't want them to do it immediately, but we want them to set a timetable for their withdrawal," said Sheik Harith al-Dahri, whose Association of Muslim Scholars is believed to have ties to Iraq's insurgents.

Other marches were held across the country to demand that the United States set a timetable for its withdrawal.

In the central city of Ramadi, thousands of protestors demonstrated in the al-Sufayaa neighborhood and at Anbar University, demanding that U.S.-led coalition forces set a withdrawal date.

Also Saturday, in the troubled northern city of Mosul, a car bomb detonated near a police patrol, killing at least two policemen and injuring 13 civilians, Dr. Baha al-Deen al-Bakry of the Jumhouri hospital said.

Brig. Gen. Watheq Ali, deputy police chief of the Nineveh province, said the blast was an assassination attempt against him, although he was unhurt.

He said a suicide car bomber rammed a car into the rear vehicle in his seven-car police convoy as it was stopped at a traffic light.
_____

Associated Press reporters Qasim Abdul-Zahra and Sameer Yacoub contributed to this report from Baghdad.

I have been wondering about jeffmoskin.

It seems as though he has left the house.

Hopefully, he has not been ill and will be returning soon.

We need his crisp and accurate remarks.


A.B.

jeffmoskin, call home!

AND THERE, America, right up there in this little "view window" right above me here, IS THE ISSUE that is presently under discussion over in my other thread "BUSH CONSERVATIVE DEALS DEATH-BLOW TO RIGHT TO DISSENT IN NEW YORK STATE", in the JUDICIAL part of the Forum, which has to do with what I am calling a "DEATH BLOW" struck to MY rights as citizen of the State of New York under Sections 1 and 9 of the New York State Constitution "peaceably to assemble and petition the government, or any department thereof", by a newly-appointed BUSH CONSERVATIVE JUDGE in the Northern District of New York, in accordance with this alleged BUSH/Delay-ISM above here, which IDEOLOGY holds that federal judges are the exclusive "property" of the REPUBLICAN PARTY, and so are in reality nothing more than REPUBLICAN MOUTHPIECES, and therefore, ARE NOT JUDGES AT ALL, since they are already biased by being REPUBLICAN MOUTHPIECES!

In that thread, Mr. A.B. raised an important question about a "piece" of the puzzle in that matter which was also posted here, in Volume I of Life in OUR America, and so, what I want to do is post in here as well my response to Mr. A.B. in that thread, as the "question", and "response" are directly relevant in here, where we talk about similar issues in the context of LIFE in OUR America, where OUR America is on the world stage, and EACH OF US therefore has a "ROLE" to play in that on-going DRAMA, that this "broader content" thread covers, which is "current events" in OUR America, and OUR world, that affect the health and well-being of OUR REPUBLIC of America on a day-to-day basis!

This post in response to Mr. A.B.'s QUESTION in the JUDICIAL FORUM is especially relevant in here BECAUSE .....

Eliot Spitzer is alleged to be running for GOVERNOR of the State of New York, RIGHT EXACTLY NOW, while we are having this discussion in here about Eliot Spitzer and HIS CAMPAIGN to take the Office of New York State Governor AWAY FROM REPUBLICAN INCUMBENT GEORGE PATAKI, and while allegedly actively campaigning FOR THAT OFFICE, Eliot Spitzer is also alleged to be MAKING DEALS in connection with that campaigning, that allegedly interfere with, and compromise, his duties as ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK!

AND SO .........

Thank you for the question, Mr. A.B.!

And thanks for serving as my "INTERROGATOR", in here, as well!

That's a very important "citizen advocacy role" that has to be played, AND PLAYED WELL, in getting these type of "citizen" matters clearly out in the open, for all to plainly see, and you are doing it admirably, and concisely, and that is the most beneficial element of all, here, the "non-involved" layperson's point-of-view that you are now playing here in this role of questioner that you have so capably taken on here.

SIMPLY STATED:

This "post" Mr. A.B. refers to above here from the "MODERATORS" IS a COPY of a post that I received from the Moderators of the NOW-DEFUNCT John Kerry site, JUST PRIOR TO the Democratic National Convention, TELLING ME THAT MY PLEA TO THE JOHN KERRY FORUM, to keep Eliot Spitzer OFF THE PODIUM, at the then-upcoming Democratic National Convention, HAD BEEN HEARD, loud and clear, BY JOHN KERRY, and was therefore being taken quite seriously!

AND THEN .......

Eliot Spitzer never got to speak at the Democratic National Convention!

And so ......

I can live with that, for now, to be truthful!

It is a form of justice to me, and it was immediate, AND OBVIOUS, as well, which is as it should be with JUSTICE, for it to actually be justice, and so!

TO ME ...

John Kerry was true to a fellow veteran, while Eliot Spitzer was treating the same one as a piece of human garbage!

SO!

To ME:

JOHN KERRY IS A HERO!

Eliot Spitzer?

I honestly don't want my mother to even think that I would know of such words, and so, I will say no more on that!

"Spitzer campaign calls AIG ad link a mistake - Critics question attorney general's political motives; spokesman blames use on a "low-level" employee"

By MARC HUMBERT, Associated Press
First published: Friday, April 8, 2005

ALBANY -- State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has taken down a "sponsored link" to his gubernatorial campaign committee that popped up when users of the Google search engine typed in "AIG."

The initials are an acronym for the American International Group, an insurance giant that Spitzer has been investigating.

Spitzer spokesman Darren Dopp said Thursday that the placement of the paid ad for the campaign committee was "a mistake" and that it had been up for only one day.

"It was inappropriate to be done for AIG, which is an ongoing matter," Dopp said.

"As soon as Mr. Spitzer found out about it, he had it corrected."

"The guy who did it is a low-level guy , a wonderful computer geek who just didn't know what he was doing," Dopp added.

The sponsored link was removed late Wednesday afternoon after Dopp received a call about it from a New York Post reporter.

State GOP Chairman Stephen Minarik jumped on the issue, saying Thursday that it "raises some serious questions about the ethics of Eliot Spitzer."

"What are his motives for investigating these companies?"

"Is it to stuff his campaign coffers, and promote his political aspirations?" Minarik said in a statement to The Associated Press.

"The so-called 'Crusader of the Year' has some serious explaining to do."

"Google the words 'shameless self-promotion' and do you come up with the name Eliot Spitzer?" Minarik said.

Independent polls have shown Spitzer with a big lead over Republican Gov. George Pataki in a possible matchup for the office in 2006.

Pataki has not said whether he will seek a fourth term.

Spitzer has gained an international reputation for his investigations of America's financial institutions, including Wall Street investment houses, mutual fund managers and the insurance industry.