Halliburton Subsidiary Gets Contract to Add Temporary Immigration Detention Centers
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By RACHEL L. SWARNS
Published: February 4, 2006
WASHINGTON, Feb. 3 — The Army Corps of Engineers has awarded a contract worth up to $385 million for building temporary immigration detention centers to Kellogg Brown & Root, the Halliburton subsidiary that has been criticized for overcharging the Pentagon for its work in Iraq.
KBR would build the centers for the Homeland Security Department for an unexpected influx of immigrants, to house people in the event of a natural disaster or for new programs that require additional detention space, company executives said. KBR, which announced the contract last month, had a similar contract with immigration agencies from 2000 to last year.
The contract with the Corps of Engineers runs one year, with four optional one-year extensions. Officials of the corps said that they had solicited bids and that KBR was the lone responder.
A spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Jamie Zuieback, said KBR would build the centers only in an emergency like the one when thousands of Cubans floated on rafts to the United States. She emphasized that the centers might never be built if such an emergency did not arise.
"It's the type of contract that could be used in some kind of mass migration," Ms. Zuieback said.
A spokesman for the corps, Clayton Church, said that the centers could be at unused military sites or temporary structures and that each one would hold up to 5,000 people.
"When there's a large influx of people into the United States, how are we going to feed, house and protect them?" Mr. Church asked. "That's why these kinds of contracts are there."
Mr. Church said that KBR did not end up creating immigration centers under its previous contract, but that it did build temporary shelters for Hurricane Katrina evacuees.
Federal auditors rebuked the company for unsubstantiated billing in its Iraq reconstruction contracts, and it has been criticized because of accusations that Halliburton, led by Dick Cheney before he became vice president, was aided by connections in obtaining contracts. Halliburton executives denied that they charged excessively for the work in Iraq.
Mr. Church said concerns about the Iraq contracts did not affect the awarding of the new contract.
Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, who has monitored the company, called the contract worrisome.
"With Halliburton's ever expanding track record of overcharging, it's hard to believe that the administration has decided to entrust Halliburton with even more taxpayer dollars," Mr. Waxman said. "With each new contract, the need for real oversight grows."
In recent months, the Homeland Security Department has promised to increase bed space in its detention centers to hold thousands of illegal immigrants awaiting deportation. In the first quarter of the 2006 fiscal year, nearly 60 percent of the illegal immigrants apprehended from countries other than Mexico were released on their own recognizance.
Domestic security officials have promised to end the releases by increasing the number of detention beds. Last week, domestic security officials announced that they would expand detaining and swiftly deporting illegal immigrants to include those seized near the Canadian border.
Advocates for immigrants said they feared that the new contract was another indication that the government planned to expand the detention of illegal immigrants, including those seeking asylum.
"It's pretty obvious that the intent of the government is to detain more and more people and to expedite their removal," said Cheryl Little, executive director of the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center in Miami.
Ms. Zuieback said the KBR contract was not intended for that.
"It's not part of any day-to-day enforcement," she said.
She added that she could not provide additional information about the company's statement that the contract was also meant to support the rapid development of new programs.
Halliburton executives, who announced the contract last week, said they were pleased.
"We are especially gratified to be awarded this contract," an executive vice president, Bruce Stanski, said in a statement, "because it builds on our extremely strong track record in the arena of emergency management support."
DJHJD
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
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PCM $ 1,790
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Monday, February 06, 2006
Monday Monday
Monday, Monday – ver. 671.01
Okay, so I started strong today and have run out of steam. I amended four tax returns (which was very complex) and did a bunch of clean-up and mail-out. I suppose that I could recover myself and get more done, but one of those tasks is going to be copying the materials for tomorrow night’s class and binding them. Urk.
“As the insider Nelson Report pointed out recently: Since 2001, in current dollars, the Pentagon budget has experienced "a 41% increase, exclusive of the supplemental allocations for Iraq, Afghanistan, and the [Global War on Terror].")”
And, just so we keep everyone on the boil:
“Club Homeland Detention: Halliburton, the first corporation into Iraq, contractually speaking, and the biggest financial winner in the "reconstruction" sweepstakes for that deconstructed country, fortuitously also found itself perched right atop the list of post-Katrina New Orleans reconstruction contractors. Now, through its subsidiary KBR, known for building military bases to last, as well as Guantanamo's infamous "cages," Halliburton gets a shot at the real American thing - actual emergency detention centers for "immigrants" - or, hey, in a crisis, for whomever. The Army Corps of Engineers awarded it a contract last month - though the story only oozed out this week - worth up to $385 million (not including the near-obligatory overcharges) for, according to the New York Times, "an unexpected influx of immigrants, to house people in the event of a natural disaster or for new programs that require additional detention space." It's those "new programs" that give special pause.”
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/020606M.shtml
So, back at Shrub’s inauguration, when I was in tears and said (snapped, actually) to the husband of my employer’s general manager that “no one’s going to shove me into an oven” – I may not have been far off the mark?
Private contractors – among the largest corporations in Germany – built the concentration camps and the ovens. And, the German Volk neatly ignored the information – just as we will here.
For six years, people have been telling me that the Holocaust couldn’t happen here. However, I’m seeing the signs – GW in his SotU address had two boogey men – gay marriage and genetically engineering human/animal combinations. So, which do you think the concentration camps are for? As with the Nazis, they’re for:
What if there were no more general elections? If the Bushies can ignore the Constitution vis a vis warrantless searches – why should they concern themselves with elections?
Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Note that FISA dispenses with this important element of our constitution – the place to be searched and the things to be seized are NOT required for a FISA warrant. Probably cause is also dispensed with – and, yet – the current administration has determined that FISA is too burdensome and that they don’t have to follow it.
Let’s look at another area that the Bushies have abrogated the Constitution without a comment from the peanut gallery:
Amendment V
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger;
Section. 8.
The Congress shall have Power
To declare War
There has been no declaration of war. Congress has given Bush extraordinary emergency powers to fight the “war” against terrorism, and the Bushies are actively and aggressively promoting their expansion of powers and using the language of treason to attack anyone who objects to the “war.” The administration has utilized “war powers” to hold prisoners incognito, to “render” “enemies” – they have circumvented the fifth amendment in any way that they could structure. Yet, those who question this behavior are called out for being unpatriotic. We are distracted with gay marriage and with moral arguments; the fundamentalists beating the drums of dissonance for the administration while they disassemble the Constitution and any rights guaranteed us.
Six years ago, my arch-conservative friends told me that they wouldn’t ever let happen to me what happened to the Jews in Germany.
Three months ago, every single one of them voted in favor of writing discrimination against gays into the Constitution of Texas.
Recently, I watched “Kindertransport,” a movie about the few hundreds of Jewish children who were shipped to England in the year before the attack on Poland. In this movie, one of the most disturbing moments was one woman’s recollection that, the morning after the Anschluss (she lived in Vienna, which was unified into Greater Germany by military threat and manipulated elections on March 12, 1938) ALL of her friends turned on her. Spat on her.
March 11, 1938 – she’s a popular girl in school. March 13, 1938 – she’s reviled like a homeless dog in the street.
So, if in a few months, the Federal government orders that all identifiable gay people have to report to camps – how many of them are going to shrug off and go? How many of the gay people who voted Republican these last six election cycles are going to slink off and obey orders because “they know what they’re doing?”
If the Democrats can’t whip up a decent response to Alito’s nomination, how will they respond if the Federal Government unilaterally siezes all the funds of gay people using electronic means? If they order us to report to camps based on some public health risk? Do you think for a moment that Joseph Liebermann is going to object? Do you think that John Kerry will do anything more than send out a mass email asking for contributions to the Democratic party?
The NSA and the government has ALREADY been demanding the cell phone records and internet access histories for unnamed persons.
What if they just tweaked this campaign slightly, and nailed EVERYONE who visited gay websites? Identified them through the compliant agreement of the major telecomm companies, and then shut down their ability to run or exist?
How much warning will we have that it’s too late? The “liberal bias media” is already wont to leaving out anything that could actually validate the screed that they are, in fact, liberal. None of the information about these camps is being disseminated broadly by the media. They’re not giving out an ongoing critique of the winnowing of our constitutional rights. In fact, aside from reporting things that are so blantant and “in your face” that they cannot be ignored, the mass media is far more concerned with the breakup of hollywood stars and Amber Alerts than they are telling us what our government is doing.
How much attention did my conservative friends and the “liberal bias media” pay to Clinton’s penis as compared to the Bush administrations’ stripping us of our Constitution?
If Clinton’s penile behavior was worth spending some 100 times the money that we spent on investigating the 9/11 terror attacks, what happened to the prosecution? If it was a crime while he was president, then why did it no longer become an offense once he was out of office? Why is it reasonable to have invested so much time, money and energy into Clinton’s blowjob – but, no one can even discuss that we’ve circumvented about 1/3 of the Bill of Rights in five years without being called unpatriotic and, now, treasonous?
I think that in this case, one in my shoes may be much safer observing from within the borders of a country that won’t ever give up its freedoms. This isn’t the place anymore.
Okay, so I started strong today and have run out of steam. I amended four tax returns (which was very complex) and did a bunch of clean-up and mail-out. I suppose that I could recover myself and get more done, but one of those tasks is going to be copying the materials for tomorrow night’s class and binding them. Urk.
“As the insider Nelson Report pointed out recently: Since 2001, in current dollars, the Pentagon budget has experienced "a 41% increase, exclusive of the supplemental allocations for Iraq, Afghanistan, and the [Global War on Terror].")”
And, just so we keep everyone on the boil:
“Club Homeland Detention: Halliburton, the first corporation into Iraq, contractually speaking, and the biggest financial winner in the "reconstruction" sweepstakes for that deconstructed country, fortuitously also found itself perched right atop the list of post-Katrina New Orleans reconstruction contractors. Now, through its subsidiary KBR, known for building military bases to last, as well as Guantanamo's infamous "cages," Halliburton gets a shot at the real American thing - actual emergency detention centers for "immigrants" - or, hey, in a crisis, for whomever. The Army Corps of Engineers awarded it a contract last month - though the story only oozed out this week - worth up to $385 million (not including the near-obligatory overcharges) for, according to the New York Times, "an unexpected influx of immigrants, to house people in the event of a natural disaster or for new programs that require additional detention space." It's those "new programs" that give special pause.”
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/020606M.shtml
So, back at Shrub’s inauguration, when I was in tears and said (snapped, actually) to the husband of my employer’s general manager that “no one’s going to shove me into an oven” – I may not have been far off the mark?
Private contractors – among the largest corporations in Germany – built the concentration camps and the ovens. And, the German Volk neatly ignored the information – just as we will here.
For six years, people have been telling me that the Holocaust couldn’t happen here. However, I’m seeing the signs – GW in his SotU address had two boogey men – gay marriage and genetically engineering human/animal combinations. So, which do you think the concentration camps are for? As with the Nazis, they’re for:
- The global gay conspiracy (replacing World Jewry)
- Immigrants (replacing Gypsies)
- Liberals (replacing .. well, liberals)
- People who generally get in our way (ibid.)
What if there were no more general elections? If the Bushies can ignore the Constitution vis a vis warrantless searches – why should they concern themselves with elections?
Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Note that FISA dispenses with this important element of our constitution – the place to be searched and the things to be seized are NOT required for a FISA warrant. Probably cause is also dispensed with – and, yet – the current administration has determined that FISA is too burdensome and that they don’t have to follow it.
Let’s look at another area that the Bushies have abrogated the Constitution without a comment from the peanut gallery:
Amendment V
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger;
Section. 8.
The Congress shall have Power
To declare War
There has been no declaration of war. Congress has given Bush extraordinary emergency powers to fight the “war” against terrorism, and the Bushies are actively and aggressively promoting their expansion of powers and using the language of treason to attack anyone who objects to the “war.” The administration has utilized “war powers” to hold prisoners incognito, to “render” “enemies” – they have circumvented the fifth amendment in any way that they could structure. Yet, those who question this behavior are called out for being unpatriotic. We are distracted with gay marriage and with moral arguments; the fundamentalists beating the drums of dissonance for the administration while they disassemble the Constitution and any rights guaranteed us.
Six years ago, my arch-conservative friends told me that they wouldn’t ever let happen to me what happened to the Jews in Germany.
Three months ago, every single one of them voted in favor of writing discrimination against gays into the Constitution of Texas.
Recently, I watched “Kindertransport,” a movie about the few hundreds of Jewish children who were shipped to England in the year before the attack on Poland. In this movie, one of the most disturbing moments was one woman’s recollection that, the morning after the Anschluss (she lived in Vienna, which was unified into Greater Germany by military threat and manipulated elections on March 12, 1938) ALL of her friends turned on her. Spat on her.
March 11, 1938 – she’s a popular girl in school. March 13, 1938 – she’s reviled like a homeless dog in the street.
So, if in a few months, the Federal government orders that all identifiable gay people have to report to camps – how many of them are going to shrug off and go? How many of the gay people who voted Republican these last six election cycles are going to slink off and obey orders because “they know what they’re doing?”
If the Democrats can’t whip up a decent response to Alito’s nomination, how will they respond if the Federal Government unilaterally siezes all the funds of gay people using electronic means? If they order us to report to camps based on some public health risk? Do you think for a moment that Joseph Liebermann is going to object? Do you think that John Kerry will do anything more than send out a mass email asking for contributions to the Democratic party?
The NSA and the government has ALREADY been demanding the cell phone records and internet access histories for unnamed persons.
What if they just tweaked this campaign slightly, and nailed EVERYONE who visited gay websites? Identified them through the compliant agreement of the major telecomm companies, and then shut down their ability to run or exist?
How much warning will we have that it’s too late? The “liberal bias media” is already wont to leaving out anything that could actually validate the screed that they are, in fact, liberal. None of the information about these camps is being disseminated broadly by the media. They’re not giving out an ongoing critique of the winnowing of our constitutional rights. In fact, aside from reporting things that are so blantant and “in your face” that they cannot be ignored, the mass media is far more concerned with the breakup of hollywood stars and Amber Alerts than they are telling us what our government is doing.
How much attention did my conservative friends and the “liberal bias media” pay to Clinton’s penis as compared to the Bush administrations’ stripping us of our Constitution?
If Clinton’s penile behavior was worth spending some 100 times the money that we spent on investigating the 9/11 terror attacks, what happened to the prosecution? If it was a crime while he was president, then why did it no longer become an offense once he was out of office? Why is it reasonable to have invested so much time, money and energy into Clinton’s blowjob – but, no one can even discuss that we’ve circumvented about 1/3 of the Bill of Rights in five years without being called unpatriotic and, now, treasonous?
I think that in this case, one in my shoes may be much safer observing from within the borders of a country that won’t ever give up its freedoms. This isn’t the place anymore.
Sunday, February 05, 2006
Watch the balloon burst
Settle in, this is going to be a long one. At the very end, I’ve thrown in a question that should give one great pause – IF you read this whole diatribe. It’s huge, but it’s something that people should be aware of -
Sometimes, an email that is received provokes a need to respond with great depth – it challenges the soul and calls forth the truth, rather than just an unwitting “me too.” That was my reaction this morning, when I received an email from a friend which was, I can only assume, meant with all good intentions to continue and ongoing, friendly debate about government.
In essence, this email purported to represent that the United States is a nation founded and built on the principles of the Christian (not Catholic) faith. The salient elements of the email are:
The steps to the Supreme Court, and the doors to the main courtroom of the Supreme Court building have Moses and the Ten Commandments emblazoned on them; inside the courtroom, Moses overlooks the bench at which the Justices of the Supreme Court sit; there are bible verses all over government buildings in Washington (but, no detail about which buildings and which verses,) a “quote” from James Madison that this country was founded on the principles of the Ten Commandments, that Patrick Henry stated that these United States were founded on the Gospel of Jesus Christ, that fifty-two of the fifty-five “founders” (which is a typo; they are called “framers,”) of the Constitution were “members of established orthodox churches,” that Thomas Jefferson was afraid that the courts would begin making law instead of interpreting law, that the first Supreme Court Justice John Jay said that “Americans should select and prefer Christians as their rules”
The point of this email is that the United States is a nation founded on Christian (not to say Catholic) principles, and that any effort to turn away from those principles is to turn against the United States itself. With a little dig on activist judges thrown in. The entire email was presented with “agree or delete” as the subject line, as if one was to state that one is a patriot or anti-American based on the content of the email.
I just love emails that have some negative hook in them; I normally hit “reply all,” and send back a torrent of facts and history that utterly disproves such nonsense, except in the cases of some “angel” coming to visit me in an email that will pester me with bad luck and even more hair in my ears if I don’t IMMEDIATELY send it to the next 643 people in my address book WITHIN THE NEXT TWO MINUTES.
I digress. And, I am made crazy by people who choose not to think.
With respect to the inclusion of Moses and the Ten Commandments on the Supreme Court building of the United States, and with deep appreciation for snopes.com:
Weinman's training emphasized a correlation between the sculptural subject and the function of the building and, because of this, [architect Cass] Gilbert relied on him to choose the subjects and figures that best reflected the function of the Supreme Court building. Faithful to classical sources, Weinman designed for the Courtroom friezes a procession of "great lawgivers of history," from many civilizations, to portray the development of secular law.
Thus, Moses’ appearance in the structure of the building is part of a THEME of great lawgivers, which includes CHINESE people, and GREEK people. This entire line of reasoning fails utterly.
Next point - James Madison, the fourth president, known as "The Father of Our Constitution" made the following statement "We have staked the whole of all our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government, upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God."
So, we get to the dead LAST assertion of this long email of made-up nonsense before we get to a single point that has a shred of validity. Not that it’s true, nor that it supports the argument advanced, just that it has a modicum of truth to it. It’s just taken out of context. And people say that the liberal “bias” media is a new thing.
While we’re here, let’s take up a few more favorites in the “hit parade” that is the lunacy asserting assailment against God and Christianity in this country.
The pledge of allegiance contains the phrase “under God,” which was a late add-on to a school statement written in celebration of the 400th of the discovery of America by Columbus. On Flag Day June 14, 1954, the words “under God” were added. This to assuage the McCarthyists, who were running rampant over our nation’s Bill of Rights. Read the original words of the pledge, and its three recorded changes here:
http://www.flagday.org/Pages/StoryofPledge.html
How about “In God We Trust” on our coin and currency? From the US Mint’s website:
From Treasury Department records it appears that the first suggestion that God be recognized on U.S. coinage can be traced to a letter addressed to the Secretary of Treasury from a minister in 1861. An Act of Congress, approved on April 11, 1864, authorized the coinage of two-cent coins upon which the motto first appeared.
The motto was omitted from the new gold coins issued in 1907, causing a storm of public criticism. As a result, legislation passed in May 1908 made "In God We Trust" mandatory on all coins on which it had previously appeared.
Legislation approved July 11, 1955, made the appearance of "In God We Trust" mandatory on all coins and paper currency of the United States. By Act of July 30, 1956, "In God We Trust" became the national motto of the United States.
Several years ago, the appearance of "In God We Trust" on our money was challenged in the federal courts. The challenge was rejected by the lower federal courts, and the Supreme Court of the United States declined to review the case.
Thus, it’s only been since (gasps) the MCCARTHY time that “In God We Trust” appeared on currency, and on coins the face of which had not been previously marred by a violation of the establishment clause. One Hundred Seventy-One years of observance of the United States Constitution, followed by Fifty-One years of its violation in response to an unfounded scare tactic deployed by an otherwise irrelevant and unaccomplished bully who never once proved that a single Communist occupied a position of authority or power in Washington. Can you say “Al-Qaeda?”
There is no mention of God or Jesus Christ in the United States Constitution. There is but one mention of “God” in the Declaration of Independence. The Founding Fathers were quite openly Deists, not traditional Christians. The United States was founded on principles that were intended and designed to prevent the religious persecutions that had been so recently experienced in England and France. The whole line of reasoning is utter nonsense (I felt like using a much stronger word here, but knowing that a lot of people are going to read this caused me to temper my typing.)
Now, I’m going to REALLY spin you.
These Ten Commandments – how confident are you IN them? The Bible itself, and the various VERSIONS of the bible are inconsistent with what the Commandments are, and in which order they appear. If they were the word of God, then, shouldn’t we be using the word of God delivered to his Servant closest in time to the actual telling? Not the modified versions presented by the later interpreters of God’s word? What if what we think of as the Ten Commandments aren’t really the Ten Commandments at all?
Which Ten Commandments?
Positive Atheism Magazine www.PositiveAtheism.org
The Second Tables
of Stone (Ex. 34)
(“the words that were on the first”)
1. Thou shalt worship no other god (For the Lord is a jealous god).
2. Thou shalt make thee no
molten gods.
3. The feast of unleavened
bread shalt thou keep in the
month when the ear is on the
corn.
4. All the first-born are mine.
5. Six days shalt thou work,
but on the seventh thou shalt
rest.
6. Thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, even of the first fruits of the wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year’s end.
7. Thou shalt not offer the
blood of my sacrifice with
leavened bread.
8. The fat of my feast shall not remain all night until the
morning.
9. The first of the first fruits of thy ground thou shalt bring
unto the house of the Lord thy God.
10. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother’s milk.
K. Budde, History of Ancient Hebrew Literature
The First Tables
of Stone (Ex. 20)
(later smashed by Moses)
1. I am the Lord your God,
who brought you out of the
land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me.
2. You shall not make for
yourself a graven image. You
shall not bow down to them or serve them.
3. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.
4. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
5. Honor your father and your
mother.
6. You shall not kill.
7. You shall not commit
adultery.
8. You shall not steal.
9. You shall not bear false
witness against your neighbor.
10. You shall not covet.
Adapted from Microsoft Bookshelf 98
Ten Punishments
1. He that sacrificeth
unto any god, save unto the
Lord only, he shall be utterly
destroyed.
2. And he that blasphemeth
the name of the Lord,
he shall surely be put to death.
3. Whosoever doeth
any work in the Sabbath day,
he shall surely be put to death.
4. He that smiteth his
father, or his mother, shall be
surely put to death.
5. He that curseth his
father or his mother, shall surely be put to death.
6. Whosoever lieth
with a beast shall surely be put to death.
7. If a man lie with
mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death.
8. And the man that
committeth adultery with another man’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death.
9. He that believeth
not, shall be damned.
10. And now, O ye
priests, this commandment is
for you. If you will not hear,
and if ye will not lay it to heart to give glory to my name,...behold, I will corrupt your seed, and spread dung upon your faces.
Jyoti Shankar, Bubbles Online Magazine
So, which is it? None of these look too familiar – especially since none of them represent the Bill of Rights as it’s honored in our Supreme Court building. (sorry, I just couldn’t HELP myself.)
Let’s talk for a moment about the Founding Fathers.
The United States of America should have a foundation free from the influence of clergy."-George Washington
"The founders of our nation were nearly all Infidels."-The Rev. Bird Wilson, an Episcopal minister and historian (lamented in an 1831 sermon)
So, if Rev. Bird Wilson, so close in time to our Founding Fathers, spoke of them as Infidels (meaning, that they were without God,) how can we NOW be parroting their virtue as good Christians, who intended that we all of us pray in schools, at government meetings and be good little believers in the Ten Commandments? It’s inconsistent.
Following are a number of quotes from the most famous “Founders” of our Constitution
(I just can’t help myself – if someone’s going to get all worked up and write this crap, can they at least use the correct terminology?)
Read ‘em and weep, Commandment Slaves –
George Washington
George Washington to Tench Tilghman, (March 24, 1784):"I am a good deal in want of a House Joiner and Bricklayer, (who really understand their profession) and you would do me a favor by purchasing one of each, for me. I would not confine you to Palatines. If they are good workmen, they may be of Asia, Africa, or Europe. They may be Mahometans, Jews or Christian of an Sect, or they may be Atheists."
John Adams
From a letter to Charles Cushing (October 19, 1756):“Twenty times in the course of my late reading, have I been upon the point of breaking out, ‘this would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.’”
A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, 1787–88:“The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature; and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history. … It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service [forming the U.S. government] had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses. …Thirteen governments [of the original states] thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery… are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind”
Treaty of Tripoli, Article 11: Written during the Administration of George Washington and signed into law by John Adams.
“The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.”
John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, (July 16, 1814):"Cabalistic Christianity, which is Catholic Christianity, and which has prevailed for 1,500 years, has received a mortal wound, of which the monster must finally die. Yet so strong is his constitution, that he may endure for centuries before he expires."
Thomas Jefferson
Letter to his nephew, Peter Carr, August 10, 1787"Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear."
Thomas Jefferson to Jeremiah Moore, August 14, 1800"The clergy, by getting themselves established by law, & ingrafted into the machine of government, have been a very formidable engine against the civil and religious rights of man. They are still so in many countries & even in some of these United States. Even in 1783, we doubted the stability of our recent measures for reducing them to the footing of other useful callings. It now appears that our means were effectual."
Letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush, September 23, 1800“[The clergy] believe that any portion of power confided to me, will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly: for I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man”
Thomas Jefferson, March 4, 1801, First Inaugural Address"And let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions."
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Edward Dowse, April 19, 1803"I will never, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance, or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others."
Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, January 19, 1810"But a short time elapsed after the death of the great reformer of the Jewish religion, before his principles were departed from by those who professed to be his special servants, and perverted into an engine for enslaving mankind, and aggrandizing their oppressors in Church and State."
Letter to Alexander von Humboldt, December 6, 1813"History I believe furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance, of which their political as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purpose."
Letter to Horatio G. Spafford, March 17, 1814“In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own”
Thomas Jefferson to Horatio G. Spafford, January 10, 1816"You judge truly that I am not afraid of the priests. They have tried upon me all their various batteries, of pious whining, hypocritical canting, lying & slandering, without being able to give me one moment of pain. I have contemplated their order from the Magi of the East to the Saints of the West, and I have found no difference of character, but of more or less caution, in proportion to their information or ignorance of those on whom their interested duperies were to be plaid off. Their sway in New England is indeed formidable. No mind beyond mediocrity dares there to develope itself. If it does, they excite against it the public opinion which they command, & by little, but incessant and teasing persecutions, drive it from among them. Their present emigrations to the Western country are real flights from persecution, religious & political, but the abandonment of the country by those who wish to enjoy freedom of opinion leaves the despotism over the residue more intense, more oppressive. They are now looking to the flesh pots of the South and aiming at foothold there by their missionary teachers. They have lately come forward boldly with their plan to establish " a qualified religious instructor over every thousand souls in the US." And they seem to consider none as qualified but their own sect."
Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, May 5, 1817"I had believed that [Connecticut was] the last retreat of monkish darkness, bigotry, and abhorrence of those advances of the mind which had carried the other States a century ahead of them. ... I join you, therefore, in sincere congratulations that this den of the priesthood is at length broken up, and that a Protestant Popedom is no longer to disgrace the American history and character. If by religion we are to understand sectarian dogmas, in which no two of them agree, then your exclamation on that hypothesis is just, 'that this would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.'
Letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823"One day the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in the United States will tear down the artificial scaffolding of Christianity. And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as His father, in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter."
Jefferson's Autobiography“[A]n amendment was proposed by inserting ‘Jesus Christ,’ so that [the preamble] should read ‘A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion’; the insertion was rejected by a great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination”
James Madison
Letter to William Bradford, April 1, 1774:"Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise"
Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments, Section 7, 1785:“During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in laity; in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution.”
Ibid, Section 8:“What influence in fact have ecclesiastical establishments had on Civil Society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the Civil authority; in many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny: in no instance have they been seen as the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wished to subvert the public liberty, may have found an established Clergy convenient auxiliaries”
James Madison, introducing the Bill of Rights at the First Federal Congress, Congressional Register, June 8, 1789:"[The] civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner or on any pretext infringed."
James Madison, Detached Memoranda, believed to have been written circa 1817."The establishment of the chaplainship to Congress is a palpable violation of equal rights, as well as of Constitutional principles: The tenets of the chaplains elected [by the majority] shut the door of worship against the members whose creeds and consciences forbid a participation in that of the majority. To say nothing of other sects, this is the case with that of Roman Catholics and Quakers who have always had members in one or both of the Legislative branches. Could a Catholic clergyman ever hope to be appointed a Chaplain? To say that his religious principles are obnoxious or that his sect is small, is to lift the evil at once and exhibit in its naked deformity the doctrine that religious truth is to be tested by numbers. or that the major sects have a right to govern the minor."
James Madison, letter to Robert Walsh, March 2, 1819"The Civil Government, though bereft of everything like an associated hierarchy, possesses the requisite stability and performs its functions with complete success, whilst the number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the Church from the State."
James Madison, letter to Edward Livingston, July 10, 1822:"I observe with particular pleasure the view you have taken of the immunity of Religion from civil jurisdiction, in every case where it does not trespass on private rights or the public peace. This has always been a favorite principle with me; and it was not with my approbation, that the deviation from it took place in Cong[ress], when they appointed Chaplains, to be paid from the Nat[ional] Treasury. It would have been a much better proof to their Constituents of their pious feeling if the members had contributed for the purpose, a pittance from their own pockets. As the precedent is not likely to be rescinded, the best that can now be done, may be to apply to the Const[itution] the maxim of the law, de minimis non curat."
Benjamin Franklin
From Franklin’s autobiography:“Scarcely was I arrived at fifteen years of age, when, after having doubted in turn of different tenets, according as I found them combated in the different books that I read, I began to doubt of Revelation itself ”
“...Some books against Deism fell into my hands....It happened that they wrought an effect on me quite contrary to what was intended by them; for the arguments of the Deists, which were quote to be refuted, appeared to me much stronger than the refutations, in short, I soon became a thorough Deist.”
Benjamin Franklin, The Writings of Benjamin Franklin: London, 1757 - 1775"If we look back into history for the character of present sects in Christianity, we shall find few that have not in their turns been persecutors, and complainers of persecution. The primitive Christians thought persecution extremely wrong in the Pagans, but practised it on one another. The first Protestants of the Church of England, blamed persecution in the Roman church, but practised it against the Puritans: these found it wrong in the Bishops, but fell into the same practice themselves both here and in New England."
Ethan Allen
From Religion of the American Enlightenment:“Denominated a Deist, the reality of which I have never disputed, being conscious that I am no Christian.”
From "Reason: The Only Oracle of Man""Though 'none by searching can find out God, or the Almighty to perfection,' yet I am persuaded, that if mankind would dare to exercise their reason as freely on those divine topics as they do in the common concerns of life, they would, in a great measure, rid themselves of their blindness and superstition, gain more exalted ideas of God and their obligations to him and one another, and be proportionally delighted and blessed with the views of his moral government, make better members of society, and acquire, manly powerful incentives to the practice of morality, which is the last and greatest perfection that human nature is capable of."
Thomas Paine
Excerpts from The Age of Reason:
"My own mind is my own church. All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit."
"Whenever we read the obscene stores (of the Bible), the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we call it the word of a demon than the Word of God."
"...when I see throughout the greater part of this book (the Bible) scarcely anything but a history of the grossest vices and a collection of the most paltry and contemptible tales, I cannot dishonor my Creator by calling it by His name."
"(The Christian) despises the choicest gift of God to man, the Gift of Reason; and having endeavored to force upon himself the belief of a system against which reason revolts, he ungratefully calls if 'human reason' as if man could give reason to himself."
“Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is no more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory in itself than this thing called Christianity”
Thomas Paine, Answers to Friends regarding The Age of Reason, Paris, May 12, 1797
"As I have now given you my reasons for believing that the Bible is not the Word of God, that it is a falsehood, I have a right to ask you your reasons for believing the contrary; but I know you can give me none, except that you were educated to believe the Bible; and as the Turks give the same reason for believing the Koran, it is evident that education makes all the difference, and that reason and truth have nothing to do in the case. You believe in the Bible from the accident of birth, and the Turks believe in the Koran from the same accident, and each calls the other infidel. But leaving the prejudice of education out of the case, the unprejudiced truth is, that all are infidels who believe falsely of God, whether they draw their creed from the Bible, or from the Koran, from the Old Testament, or from the New."
"It is often said in the Bible that God spake unto Moses, but how do you know that God spake unto Moses? Because, you will say, the Bible says so. The Koran says, that God spake unto Mahomet, do you believe that too? No. Why not? Because, you will say, you do not believe it; and so because you do, and because you don't is all the reason you can give for believing or disbelieving except that you will say that Mahomet was an impostor. And how do you know Moses was not an impostor?"
If you’re read this far – I applaud your interest in expanding your knowledge. And, I have a question for you:
If the Founding Fathers of our Country felt that Christianity was a dangerous thing that MUST be kept out of government, then, aren’t the “Strict Constructionist” judges like Scalia, Alito, and Thomas who are trying to force this crap down our throats the “Activist Judges” that Jefferson warned us about?
Sometimes, an email that is received provokes a need to respond with great depth – it challenges the soul and calls forth the truth, rather than just an unwitting “me too.” That was my reaction this morning, when I received an email from a friend which was, I can only assume, meant with all good intentions to continue and ongoing, friendly debate about government.
In essence, this email purported to represent that the United States is a nation founded and built on the principles of the Christian (not Catholic) faith. The salient elements of the email are:
The steps to the Supreme Court, and the doors to the main courtroom of the Supreme Court building have Moses and the Ten Commandments emblazoned on them; inside the courtroom, Moses overlooks the bench at which the Justices of the Supreme Court sit; there are bible verses all over government buildings in Washington (but, no detail about which buildings and which verses,) a “quote” from James Madison that this country was founded on the principles of the Ten Commandments, that Patrick Henry stated that these United States were founded on the Gospel of Jesus Christ, that fifty-two of the fifty-five “founders” (which is a typo; they are called “framers,”) of the Constitution were “members of established orthodox churches,” that Thomas Jefferson was afraid that the courts would begin making law instead of interpreting law, that the first Supreme Court Justice John Jay said that “Americans should select and prefer Christians as their rules”
The point of this email is that the United States is a nation founded on Christian (not to say Catholic) principles, and that any effort to turn away from those principles is to turn against the United States itself. With a little dig on activist judges thrown in. The entire email was presented with “agree or delete” as the subject line, as if one was to state that one is a patriot or anti-American based on the content of the email.
I just love emails that have some negative hook in them; I normally hit “reply all,” and send back a torrent of facts and history that utterly disproves such nonsense, except in the cases of some “angel” coming to visit me in an email that will pester me with bad luck and even more hair in my ears if I don’t IMMEDIATELY send it to the next 643 people in my address book WITHIN THE NEXT TWO MINUTES.
I digress. And, I am made crazy by people who choose not to think.
With respect to the inclusion of Moses and the Ten Commandments on the Supreme Court building of the United States, and with deep appreciation for snopes.com:
- The United States Capitol does not house the Supreme Court of the United States. The Supreme Court has met in its own building since 1935.
- The Supreme Court building was constructed in 1932 through 1935; more than 151 years after the “founders” (sorry, I just couldn’t help myself) of the Consititution wrote that learned document. http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/travel/wash/dc78.htm
- Thinking that the predecessor building may have also contained such religious icons lionizing Moses and the Commandments? Think again: Since no provision had been made for a Supreme Court building, Congress lent the Court space in the new Capitol building. The Court convened for a short period in a private home after the British had used Supreme Court documents to set fire to the Capitol during the War of 1812. Following this episode, the Court returned to the Capitol and met from 1819 to 1860 in a chamber that has been restored as the Old Supreme Court Chamber. Then from 1860 to 1935, the Court sat in what is now known as the Old Senate Chamber.
- Capping the entrance is the pediment filled with a sculpture group by Robert Aitken, representing Liberty Enthroned Guarded by Order and Authority. NOT Moses.
- Cast in bronze, the west entrance doors sculpted by John Donnelly, Jr., depict historic scenes in the development of the law. NOT Moses.
- The doors of the Supreme Court courtroom don't literally have the "Ten Commandments engraved on each lower portion" — the lower portions of the two doors are engraved with a symbolic depiction, two tablets bearing only the Roman numerals I through V and VI through X. As discussed in the next item, these symbols can represent something other than the Ten Commandments.
Weinman's training emphasized a correlation between the sculptural subject and the function of the building and, because of this, [architect Cass] Gilbert relied on him to choose the subjects and figures that best reflected the function of the Supreme Court building. Faithful to classical sources, Weinman designed for the Courtroom friezes a procession of "great lawgivers of history," from many civilizations, to portray the development of secular law.
- Note that Moses is not given any special emphasis in this depiction: his figure is not larger than the others, nor does it appear in a dominant position. Also, the writing on the tablet carried by Moses in this frieze includes portions of commandments 6 through 10 (in Hebrew), specifically chosen because they are not inherently religious. (Commandments 6 through 10 proscribe murder, adultery, theft, perjury, and covetousness.)
- The wall "right above where the Supreme Court judges sit" is the east wall, on which is displayed a frieze designed by sculptor Adolph A. Weinman. The frieze features two male figures who represent the Majesty of Law and the Power of Government, flanked on the left side by a group of figures representing Wisdom, and on the right side by a group of figures representing Justice. According to Weinman, the designer of this frieze, the tablet visible between the two central male figures, engraved with the Roman numerals I through X, represents not the Ten Commandments but the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution, collectively known as the Bill of Rights.
Thus, Moses’ appearance in the structure of the building is part of a THEME of great lawgivers, which includes CHINESE people, and GREEK people. This entire line of reasoning fails utterly.
Next point - James Madison, the fourth president, known as "The Father of Our Constitution" made the following statement "We have staked the whole of all our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government, upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God."
- Actually, this statement appears nowhere in the writings or recorded utterances of James Madison and is completely contradictory to his character as a strong proponent of the separation of church and state.
- Another spurious quotation. These words appear nowhere in the writings or recorded utterances of Patrick Henry.
- Congress has indeed retained paid (Christian) chaplains since 1789 (not 1777) to open sessions with prayer and to provide spiritual guidance to members and their staffs upon request. This practice was strongly opposed by James Madison at its inception.
- The constitutional propriety of Congressional chaplains has been challenged in an August 2002 lawsuit filed in federal district court by Michael A. Newdow (the California man who won a federal appellate court decision against the use of the phrase "under God" in public school-led recitations of the Pledge of Allegiance). The case is still pending.
- The diverse beliefs and religiosity of America's founding fathers is a complex subject, one which cannot be so neatly encapsulated by an (inadequately substantiated) statement such as the one quoted above. (See, for example, this critique of the above-quoted statement and similar material.)
- Yes, Thomas Jefferson was concerned about courts overstepping their authority and making (rather than interpreting) law, as was James Madison, who said: "As the courts are generally the last in making the decision, it results to them, by refusing or not refusing to execute a law, to stamp it with its final character. This makes the Judiciary department paramount in fact to the Legislature, which was never intended, and can never be proper." However, this issue really has nothing to do with the subject at hand (the endorsement of Judeo-Christian tradition by the federal government), other than in the tangential sense that some people feel one of the areas in which U.S. courts have overstepped their bounds is the body of decisions prohibiting the use or display of religious symbols and references in state-operated institutions.
- John Jay, one of the framers of the Constitution, was appointed by George Washington in 1789 to be the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (and later served two terms as governor of New York). He wrote, in a private letter (1797) to clergyman Jedidiah Morse:
So, we get to the dead LAST assertion of this long email of made-up nonsense before we get to a single point that has a shred of validity. Not that it’s true, nor that it supports the argument advanced, just that it has a modicum of truth to it. It’s just taken out of context. And people say that the liberal “bias” media is a new thing.
While we’re here, let’s take up a few more favorites in the “hit parade” that is the lunacy asserting assailment against God and Christianity in this country.
The pledge of allegiance contains the phrase “under God,” which was a late add-on to a school statement written in celebration of the 400th of the discovery of America by Columbus. On Flag Day June 14, 1954, the words “under God” were added. This to assuage the McCarthyists, who were running rampant over our nation’s Bill of Rights. Read the original words of the pledge, and its three recorded changes here:
http://www.flagday.org/Pages/StoryofPledge.html
How about “In God We Trust” on our coin and currency? From the US Mint’s website:
From Treasury Department records it appears that the first suggestion that God be recognized on U.S. coinage can be traced to a letter addressed to the Secretary of Treasury from a minister in 1861. An Act of Congress, approved on April 11, 1864, authorized the coinage of two-cent coins upon which the motto first appeared.
The motto was omitted from the new gold coins issued in 1907, causing a storm of public criticism. As a result, legislation passed in May 1908 made "In God We Trust" mandatory on all coins on which it had previously appeared.
Legislation approved July 11, 1955, made the appearance of "In God We Trust" mandatory on all coins and paper currency of the United States. By Act of July 30, 1956, "In God We Trust" became the national motto of the United States.
Several years ago, the appearance of "In God We Trust" on our money was challenged in the federal courts. The challenge was rejected by the lower federal courts, and the Supreme Court of the United States declined to review the case.
Thus, it’s only been since (gasps) the MCCARTHY time that “In God We Trust” appeared on currency, and on coins the face of which had not been previously marred by a violation of the establishment clause. One Hundred Seventy-One years of observance of the United States Constitution, followed by Fifty-One years of its violation in response to an unfounded scare tactic deployed by an otherwise irrelevant and unaccomplished bully who never once proved that a single Communist occupied a position of authority or power in Washington. Can you say “Al-Qaeda?”
There is no mention of God or Jesus Christ in the United States Constitution. There is but one mention of “God” in the Declaration of Independence. The Founding Fathers were quite openly Deists, not traditional Christians. The United States was founded on principles that were intended and designed to prevent the religious persecutions that had been so recently experienced in England and France. The whole line of reasoning is utter nonsense (I felt like using a much stronger word here, but knowing that a lot of people are going to read this caused me to temper my typing.)
Now, I’m going to REALLY spin you.
These Ten Commandments – how confident are you IN them? The Bible itself, and the various VERSIONS of the bible are inconsistent with what the Commandments are, and in which order they appear. If they were the word of God, then, shouldn’t we be using the word of God delivered to his Servant closest in time to the actual telling? Not the modified versions presented by the later interpreters of God’s word? What if what we think of as the Ten Commandments aren’t really the Ten Commandments at all?
Which Ten Commandments?
Positive Atheism Magazine www.PositiveAtheism.org
The Second Tables
of Stone (Ex. 34)
(“the words that were on the first”)
1. Thou shalt worship no other god (For the Lord is a jealous god).
2. Thou shalt make thee no
molten gods.
3. The feast of unleavened
bread shalt thou keep in the
month when the ear is on the
corn.
4. All the first-born are mine.
5. Six days shalt thou work,
but on the seventh thou shalt
rest.
6. Thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, even of the first fruits of the wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year’s end.
7. Thou shalt not offer the
blood of my sacrifice with
leavened bread.
8. The fat of my feast shall not remain all night until the
morning.
9. The first of the first fruits of thy ground thou shalt bring
unto the house of the Lord thy God.
10. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother’s milk.
K. Budde, History of Ancient Hebrew Literature
The First Tables
of Stone (Ex. 20)
(later smashed by Moses)
1. I am the Lord your God,
who brought you out of the
land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me.
2. You shall not make for
yourself a graven image. You
shall not bow down to them or serve them.
3. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.
4. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
5. Honor your father and your
mother.
6. You shall not kill.
7. You shall not commit
adultery.
8. You shall not steal.
9. You shall not bear false
witness against your neighbor.
10. You shall not covet.
Adapted from Microsoft Bookshelf 98
Ten Punishments
1. He that sacrificeth
unto any god, save unto the
Lord only, he shall be utterly
destroyed.
2. And he that blasphemeth
the name of the Lord,
he shall surely be put to death.
3. Whosoever doeth
any work in the Sabbath day,
he shall surely be put to death.
4. He that smiteth his
father, or his mother, shall be
surely put to death.
5. He that curseth his
father or his mother, shall surely be put to death.
6. Whosoever lieth
with a beast shall surely be put to death.
7. If a man lie with
mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death.
8. And the man that
committeth adultery with another man’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death.
9. He that believeth
not, shall be damned.
10. And now, O ye
priests, this commandment is
for you. If you will not hear,
and if ye will not lay it to heart to give glory to my name,...behold, I will corrupt your seed, and spread dung upon your faces.
Jyoti Shankar, Bubbles Online Magazine
So, which is it? None of these look too familiar – especially since none of them represent the Bill of Rights as it’s honored in our Supreme Court building. (sorry, I just couldn’t HELP myself.)
Let’s talk for a moment about the Founding Fathers.
The United States of America should have a foundation free from the influence of clergy."-George Washington
"The founders of our nation were nearly all Infidels."-The Rev. Bird Wilson, an Episcopal minister and historian (lamented in an 1831 sermon)
So, if Rev. Bird Wilson, so close in time to our Founding Fathers, spoke of them as Infidels (meaning, that they were without God,) how can we NOW be parroting their virtue as good Christians, who intended that we all of us pray in schools, at government meetings and be good little believers in the Ten Commandments? It’s inconsistent.
Following are a number of quotes from the most famous “Founders” of our Constitution
(I just can’t help myself – if someone’s going to get all worked up and write this crap, can they at least use the correct terminology?)
Read ‘em and weep, Commandment Slaves –
George Washington
George Washington to Tench Tilghman, (March 24, 1784):"I am a good deal in want of a House Joiner and Bricklayer, (who really understand their profession) and you would do me a favor by purchasing one of each, for me. I would not confine you to Palatines. If they are good workmen, they may be of Asia, Africa, or Europe. They may be Mahometans, Jews or Christian of an Sect, or they may be Atheists."
John Adams
From a letter to Charles Cushing (October 19, 1756):“Twenty times in the course of my late reading, have I been upon the point of breaking out, ‘this would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.’”
A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, 1787–88:“The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature; and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history. … It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service [forming the U.S. government] had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses. …Thirteen governments [of the original states] thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery… are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind”
Treaty of Tripoli, Article 11: Written during the Administration of George Washington and signed into law by John Adams.
“The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.”
John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, (July 16, 1814):"Cabalistic Christianity, which is Catholic Christianity, and which has prevailed for 1,500 years, has received a mortal wound, of which the monster must finally die. Yet so strong is his constitution, that he may endure for centuries before he expires."
Thomas Jefferson
Letter to his nephew, Peter Carr, August 10, 1787"Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear."
Thomas Jefferson to Jeremiah Moore, August 14, 1800"The clergy, by getting themselves established by law, & ingrafted into the machine of government, have been a very formidable engine against the civil and religious rights of man. They are still so in many countries & even in some of these United States. Even in 1783, we doubted the stability of our recent measures for reducing them to the footing of other useful callings. It now appears that our means were effectual."
Letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush, September 23, 1800“[The clergy] believe that any portion of power confided to me, will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly: for I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man”
Thomas Jefferson, March 4, 1801, First Inaugural Address"And let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions."
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Edward Dowse, April 19, 1803"I will never, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance, or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others."
Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, January 19, 1810"But a short time elapsed after the death of the great reformer of the Jewish religion, before his principles were departed from by those who professed to be his special servants, and perverted into an engine for enslaving mankind, and aggrandizing their oppressors in Church and State."
Letter to Alexander von Humboldt, December 6, 1813"History I believe furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance, of which their political as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purpose."
Letter to Horatio G. Spafford, March 17, 1814“In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own”
Thomas Jefferson to Horatio G. Spafford, January 10, 1816"You judge truly that I am not afraid of the priests. They have tried upon me all their various batteries, of pious whining, hypocritical canting, lying & slandering, without being able to give me one moment of pain. I have contemplated their order from the Magi of the East to the Saints of the West, and I have found no difference of character, but of more or less caution, in proportion to their information or ignorance of those on whom their interested duperies were to be plaid off. Their sway in New England is indeed formidable. No mind beyond mediocrity dares there to develope itself. If it does, they excite against it the public opinion which they command, & by little, but incessant and teasing persecutions, drive it from among them. Their present emigrations to the Western country are real flights from persecution, religious & political, but the abandonment of the country by those who wish to enjoy freedom of opinion leaves the despotism over the residue more intense, more oppressive. They are now looking to the flesh pots of the South and aiming at foothold there by their missionary teachers. They have lately come forward boldly with their plan to establish " a qualified religious instructor over every thousand souls in the US." And they seem to consider none as qualified but their own sect."
Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, May 5, 1817"I had believed that [Connecticut was] the last retreat of monkish darkness, bigotry, and abhorrence of those advances of the mind which had carried the other States a century ahead of them. ... I join you, therefore, in sincere congratulations that this den of the priesthood is at length broken up, and that a Protestant Popedom is no longer to disgrace the American history and character. If by religion we are to understand sectarian dogmas, in which no two of them agree, then your exclamation on that hypothesis is just, 'that this would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.'
Letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823"One day the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in the United States will tear down the artificial scaffolding of Christianity. And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as His father, in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter."
Jefferson's Autobiography“[A]n amendment was proposed by inserting ‘Jesus Christ,’ so that [the preamble] should read ‘A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion’; the insertion was rejected by a great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination”
James Madison
Letter to William Bradford, April 1, 1774:"Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise"
Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments, Section 7, 1785:“During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in laity; in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution.”
Ibid, Section 8:“What influence in fact have ecclesiastical establishments had on Civil Society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the Civil authority; in many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny: in no instance have they been seen as the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wished to subvert the public liberty, may have found an established Clergy convenient auxiliaries”
James Madison, introducing the Bill of Rights at the First Federal Congress, Congressional Register, June 8, 1789:"[The] civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner or on any pretext infringed."
James Madison, Detached Memoranda, believed to have been written circa 1817."The establishment of the chaplainship to Congress is a palpable violation of equal rights, as well as of Constitutional principles: The tenets of the chaplains elected [by the majority] shut the door of worship against the members whose creeds and consciences forbid a participation in that of the majority. To say nothing of other sects, this is the case with that of Roman Catholics and Quakers who have always had members in one or both of the Legislative branches. Could a Catholic clergyman ever hope to be appointed a Chaplain? To say that his religious principles are obnoxious or that his sect is small, is to lift the evil at once and exhibit in its naked deformity the doctrine that religious truth is to be tested by numbers. or that the major sects have a right to govern the minor."
James Madison, letter to Robert Walsh, March 2, 1819"The Civil Government, though bereft of everything like an associated hierarchy, possesses the requisite stability and performs its functions with complete success, whilst the number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the Church from the State."
James Madison, letter to Edward Livingston, July 10, 1822:"I observe with particular pleasure the view you have taken of the immunity of Religion from civil jurisdiction, in every case where it does not trespass on private rights or the public peace. This has always been a favorite principle with me; and it was not with my approbation, that the deviation from it took place in Cong[ress], when they appointed Chaplains, to be paid from the Nat[ional] Treasury. It would have been a much better proof to their Constituents of their pious feeling if the members had contributed for the purpose, a pittance from their own pockets. As the precedent is not likely to be rescinded, the best that can now be done, may be to apply to the Const[itution] the maxim of the law, de minimis non curat."
Benjamin Franklin
From Franklin’s autobiography:“Scarcely was I arrived at fifteen years of age, when, after having doubted in turn of different tenets, according as I found them combated in the different books that I read, I began to doubt of Revelation itself ”
“...Some books against Deism fell into my hands....It happened that they wrought an effect on me quite contrary to what was intended by them; for the arguments of the Deists, which were quote to be refuted, appeared to me much stronger than the refutations, in short, I soon became a thorough Deist.”
Benjamin Franklin, The Writings of Benjamin Franklin: London, 1757 - 1775"If we look back into history for the character of present sects in Christianity, we shall find few that have not in their turns been persecutors, and complainers of persecution. The primitive Christians thought persecution extremely wrong in the Pagans, but practised it on one another. The first Protestants of the Church of England, blamed persecution in the Roman church, but practised it against the Puritans: these found it wrong in the Bishops, but fell into the same practice themselves both here and in New England."
Ethan Allen
From Religion of the American Enlightenment:“Denominated a Deist, the reality of which I have never disputed, being conscious that I am no Christian.”
From "Reason: The Only Oracle of Man""Though 'none by searching can find out God, or the Almighty to perfection,' yet I am persuaded, that if mankind would dare to exercise their reason as freely on those divine topics as they do in the common concerns of life, they would, in a great measure, rid themselves of their blindness and superstition, gain more exalted ideas of God and their obligations to him and one another, and be proportionally delighted and blessed with the views of his moral government, make better members of society, and acquire, manly powerful incentives to the practice of morality, which is the last and greatest perfection that human nature is capable of."
Thomas Paine
Excerpts from The Age of Reason:
"My own mind is my own church. All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit."
"Whenever we read the obscene stores (of the Bible), the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we call it the word of a demon than the Word of God."
"...when I see throughout the greater part of this book (the Bible) scarcely anything but a history of the grossest vices and a collection of the most paltry and contemptible tales, I cannot dishonor my Creator by calling it by His name."
"(The Christian) despises the choicest gift of God to man, the Gift of Reason; and having endeavored to force upon himself the belief of a system against which reason revolts, he ungratefully calls if 'human reason' as if man could give reason to himself."
“Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is no more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory in itself than this thing called Christianity”
Thomas Paine, Answers to Friends regarding The Age of Reason, Paris, May 12, 1797
"As I have now given you my reasons for believing that the Bible is not the Word of God, that it is a falsehood, I have a right to ask you your reasons for believing the contrary; but I know you can give me none, except that you were educated to believe the Bible; and as the Turks give the same reason for believing the Koran, it is evident that education makes all the difference, and that reason and truth have nothing to do in the case. You believe in the Bible from the accident of birth, and the Turks believe in the Koran from the same accident, and each calls the other infidel. But leaving the prejudice of education out of the case, the unprejudiced truth is, that all are infidels who believe falsely of God, whether they draw their creed from the Bible, or from the Koran, from the Old Testament, or from the New."
"It is often said in the Bible that God spake unto Moses, but how do you know that God spake unto Moses? Because, you will say, the Bible says so. The Koran says, that God spake unto Mahomet, do you believe that too? No. Why not? Because, you will say, you do not believe it; and so because you do, and because you don't is all the reason you can give for believing or disbelieving except that you will say that Mahomet was an impostor. And how do you know Moses was not an impostor?"
If you’re read this far – I applaud your interest in expanding your knowledge. And, I have a question for you:
If the Founding Fathers of our Country felt that Christianity was a dangerous thing that MUST be kept out of government, then, aren’t the “Strict Constructionist” judges like Scalia, Alito, and Thomas who are trying to force this crap down our throats the “Activist Judges” that Jefferson warned us about?
How can we have respect for Islam when we are too fearful to criticise it?
Muriel Gray on the fury over the Muhammed cartoons
(from the London Times)
One of the biggest misunderstandings of the crisis caused by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten printing cartoons of Muhammed is that the paper was merely satirising Islam and hadn’t realised that any image of the prophet, insulting or respectful, is utterly taboo to Muslims. This is quite wrong.
The incident arose from the fact that an author of a children’s book about the life of Muhammed wanted it illustrated but couldn’t find any artist brave enough to risk offending those who currently express their offence by murdering the offender. Hence in a deliberate test of freedom of speech, the newspaper, not Muslim and therefore not bound by this taboo, sought artists willing to draw Muhammed. The mild satire on the state of Islamic jihad was incidental.
So yes, it was a deliberate provocation, a massive shove in the playground, but they didn’t start the fight. The initial provocation came from Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989 when he pronounced a death sentence on the author Salman Rushdie for having a written a novel that contained another Islamic taboo, that of disrespecting the Koran. This was a stroke of genius. Whereas critics of repugnant ideologies were only in peril when they acted openly in the country guilty of the tyranny, and were free to express their disgust from the safety of a civilised country, Khomeini came up with the brilliant Mafia-like scheme of recruiting his foot soldiers everywhere.
Knowing that there are now Muslims in almost every country in the world, he removed that safety net once offered to people such as critics of the USSR or Idi Amin, so that even in safe, tolerant Britain, nobody would ever again dare write, paint, broadcast, film or lecture on anti-Islamic views for fear of their lives. Of course most Muslims, being sane, peaceful human beings, simply ignored the psychotic Khomeini. But tragically the subsequent brutal murder of Theo Van Gogh, the deadly riots sparked by journalist Isioma Daniel’s article about Miss World in Nigeria, and the threats to people like author Irshadi Manji for writing a witty book about reforming Islam, have had such an effect that they have bought Islam immunity from criticism, not through respect, but through fear.
This was what Jyllands-Posten was testing, and the result, as we can see, is that it has proved its point spectacularly. The other European papers which published the cartoons were, with a couple of exceptions, not trying to further provoke Muslims, but were engaging in an “I am Spartacus” moment, showing solidarity for Denmark and trying to gain enough similar support throughout Europe that it would make it harder for the extremists. What if everyone publishes? Going to kill everyone? Going to boycott goods from every European country? If only the Czech Republic would publish the cartoons then Hamas would have to boycott Semtex.
This may seem a storm in a teacup, but it is in fact a profoundly serious moment in our history. Fundamentalism, utterly at odds with the Western values so vigorously and courageously fought for over two bloody world wars, has successfully undermined the very linchpin of our freedom. Our culture falls way short of being perfect, but it is a work in progress. We are our own self-critics, the majority of us just as appalled by the trademarks of Western excesses like pornography, yob culture and rampant, wasteful consumerism as any mullah would be.
But when the Twin Tower murderers spent their last night alive experiencing Western culture, did they go to The Guggenheim? Did they see an Arthur Miller play, listen to a recital of Mozart’s Requiem, take in a showing of a Hitchcock film or even drive a Ferrari? No. They went to a lap-dancing bar. So when hardline Islamists shout that we don’t understand their culture, the greater truth is that they clearly don’t understand ours. For instance, how, as a feminist, can I explain to an extremist that while the sight of 12-year-old girl with a thong cutting her half-exposed bare bottom in two is offensive to me, so too is the sight of a woman in a burka.
But what of moderate Islam? British Muslims are represented by the unelected Sir Iqbal Sacranie, a man at the forefront of the book-burning mob who threatened Rushdie’s life, when Sacranie declared: “Death, I think, is too easy for him.” For this part in incitement to murder, Sacranie was awarded not the stiff custodial sentence one might expect, but a knighthood. Now this hypocrite says that he “believes in freedom of speech”, although he was complicit in attempting to destroy it, and we must all “respect other people’s beliefs”. If that is so, then logically we must respect the beliefs of Nick Griffin and the BNP. But we do not. We despise them. What we respect is Griffin’s right to be despicable. Hardline Islamists want us to lose the right to criticise all that is contemptible about their beliefs, without understanding how hard we are all working to allow them that exact same freedom.
This paper’s belief in freedom of speech is paramount. The decision not to reprint the cartoons, not to declare ourselves another Spartacus in support of our European colleagues, was taken, at least partly, out of consideration for the safety of the staff, and the safety of Scottish people here and abroad, and I fully support it. But the extremists, who created the fear that made that decision a foregone conclusion, must understand that if they think the UK press have done this out of respect, they are so very wrong. They have undoubtedly won this battle hands down. Well done. We are afraid. But do they think people neutered and silenced by fear are going to work at embracing their culture, their religion or their values? Clearly, they don’t care. The danger of this backlashing on to our innocent Muslim fellow citizens is a distinct possibility and the thought makes me sick to the stomach. It looks as though those of us aching for the misery of all this hatred to end are in for a long wait.
05 February 2006
(from the London Times)
One of the biggest misunderstandings of the crisis caused by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten printing cartoons of Muhammed is that the paper was merely satirising Islam and hadn’t realised that any image of the prophet, insulting or respectful, is utterly taboo to Muslims. This is quite wrong.
The incident arose from the fact that an author of a children’s book about the life of Muhammed wanted it illustrated but couldn’t find any artist brave enough to risk offending those who currently express their offence by murdering the offender. Hence in a deliberate test of freedom of speech, the newspaper, not Muslim and therefore not bound by this taboo, sought artists willing to draw Muhammed. The mild satire on the state of Islamic jihad was incidental.
So yes, it was a deliberate provocation, a massive shove in the playground, but they didn’t start the fight. The initial provocation came from Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989 when he pronounced a death sentence on the author Salman Rushdie for having a written a novel that contained another Islamic taboo, that of disrespecting the Koran. This was a stroke of genius. Whereas critics of repugnant ideologies were only in peril when they acted openly in the country guilty of the tyranny, and were free to express their disgust from the safety of a civilised country, Khomeini came up with the brilliant Mafia-like scheme of recruiting his foot soldiers everywhere.
Knowing that there are now Muslims in almost every country in the world, he removed that safety net once offered to people such as critics of the USSR or Idi Amin, so that even in safe, tolerant Britain, nobody would ever again dare write, paint, broadcast, film or lecture on anti-Islamic views for fear of their lives. Of course most Muslims, being sane, peaceful human beings, simply ignored the psychotic Khomeini. But tragically the subsequent brutal murder of Theo Van Gogh, the deadly riots sparked by journalist Isioma Daniel’s article about Miss World in Nigeria, and the threats to people like author Irshadi Manji for writing a witty book about reforming Islam, have had such an effect that they have bought Islam immunity from criticism, not through respect, but through fear.
This was what Jyllands-Posten was testing, and the result, as we can see, is that it has proved its point spectacularly. The other European papers which published the cartoons were, with a couple of exceptions, not trying to further provoke Muslims, but were engaging in an “I am Spartacus” moment, showing solidarity for Denmark and trying to gain enough similar support throughout Europe that it would make it harder for the extremists. What if everyone publishes? Going to kill everyone? Going to boycott goods from every European country? If only the Czech Republic would publish the cartoons then Hamas would have to boycott Semtex.
This may seem a storm in a teacup, but it is in fact a profoundly serious moment in our history. Fundamentalism, utterly at odds with the Western values so vigorously and courageously fought for over two bloody world wars, has successfully undermined the very linchpin of our freedom. Our culture falls way short of being perfect, but it is a work in progress. We are our own self-critics, the majority of us just as appalled by the trademarks of Western excesses like pornography, yob culture and rampant, wasteful consumerism as any mullah would be.
But when the Twin Tower murderers spent their last night alive experiencing Western culture, did they go to The Guggenheim? Did they see an Arthur Miller play, listen to a recital of Mozart’s Requiem, take in a showing of a Hitchcock film or even drive a Ferrari? No. They went to a lap-dancing bar. So when hardline Islamists shout that we don’t understand their culture, the greater truth is that they clearly don’t understand ours. For instance, how, as a feminist, can I explain to an extremist that while the sight of 12-year-old girl with a thong cutting her half-exposed bare bottom in two is offensive to me, so too is the sight of a woman in a burka.
But what of moderate Islam? British Muslims are represented by the unelected Sir Iqbal Sacranie, a man at the forefront of the book-burning mob who threatened Rushdie’s life, when Sacranie declared: “Death, I think, is too easy for him.” For this part in incitement to murder, Sacranie was awarded not the stiff custodial sentence one might expect, but a knighthood. Now this hypocrite says that he “believes in freedom of speech”, although he was complicit in attempting to destroy it, and we must all “respect other people’s beliefs”. If that is so, then logically we must respect the beliefs of Nick Griffin and the BNP. But we do not. We despise them. What we respect is Griffin’s right to be despicable. Hardline Islamists want us to lose the right to criticise all that is contemptible about their beliefs, without understanding how hard we are all working to allow them that exact same freedom.
This paper’s belief in freedom of speech is paramount. The decision not to reprint the cartoons, not to declare ourselves another Spartacus in support of our European colleagues, was taken, at least partly, out of consideration for the safety of the staff, and the safety of Scottish people here and abroad, and I fully support it. But the extremists, who created the fear that made that decision a foregone conclusion, must understand that if they think the UK press have done this out of respect, they are so very wrong. They have undoubtedly won this battle hands down. Well done. We are afraid. But do they think people neutered and silenced by fear are going to work at embracing their culture, their religion or their values? Clearly, they don’t care. The danger of this backlashing on to our innocent Muslim fellow citizens is a distinct possibility and the thought makes me sick to the stomach. It looks as though those of us aching for the misery of all this hatred to end are in for a long wait.
05 February 2006
Saturday, February 04, 2006
So, what's up with that?
Nick got his 1099s yesterday - and went ballistic. I thought it was funny. He blew up my phone for hours, and then sent me text messages telling me that he figured I was afraid of him (fat chance,) that he insisted that I talk to him - which I decided to assign the same priority that he's always given me - and THEN, he called me a fat F(*#^. Oh, boo hoo.
Spent the afternoon yesterday with James from Denver, who was overnighting. We had some fun hanging out, but there was just no chemistry. Which is fine; one can't assume that there will be. Talked about the charter airline that he works for - seems that they have an aircraft or two that would be ideal for Fabulair's use.
While out, I had to make a stop at the bank, and opened up the Fabulair bank accounts. That was a rewarding experience. Next week, I'm opening another account for my consulting business. Also, looked at becoming a regiatered QuickBooks consultant. Just the software discount is worthwhile.
Went to the car show last night, and was just shocked at how awful the quality of US cars seems to be. The Acura RL is the most exquisite and reachable car on the market. VW is now VERY plasticy in the manner of GM cars with their new Jetta and Passat.
Then, I spent a bunch of time last night researching the costs of ownership for the Acrua RL, the Infiniti M35 and (my favorite choice) a used Phaeton. Found a lease assumption on a Phaeton - my cost would be a DOLLAR A MILE with insurance and gasoline. Amazing. Ruby's driver's door is now not working correctly, which is an annoyance, but .. when I add up the costs of keeping her and driving that .. it's a hands-down deal.
And I still want the Phaeton..
Started contemplating ways to generate more income from my consulting website today and yesterday. I think I can do it, but I need some help from some people with better web skills than I have.
Have church tomorrow morning, of course, and then more client work.
I had something relatively profound to talk about, but it's gone.
Spent the afternoon yesterday with James from Denver, who was overnighting. We had some fun hanging out, but there was just no chemistry. Which is fine; one can't assume that there will be. Talked about the charter airline that he works for - seems that they have an aircraft or two that would be ideal for Fabulair's use.
While out, I had to make a stop at the bank, and opened up the Fabulair bank accounts. That was a rewarding experience. Next week, I'm opening another account for my consulting business. Also, looked at becoming a regiatered QuickBooks consultant. Just the software discount is worthwhile.
Went to the car show last night, and was just shocked at how awful the quality of US cars seems to be. The Acura RL is the most exquisite and reachable car on the market. VW is now VERY plasticy in the manner of GM cars with their new Jetta and Passat.
Then, I spent a bunch of time last night researching the costs of ownership for the Acrua RL, the Infiniti M35 and (my favorite choice) a used Phaeton. Found a lease assumption on a Phaeton - my cost would be a DOLLAR A MILE with insurance and gasoline. Amazing. Ruby's driver's door is now not working correctly, which is an annoyance, but .. when I add up the costs of keeping her and driving that .. it's a hands-down deal.
And I still want the Phaeton..
Started contemplating ways to generate more income from my consulting website today and yesterday. I think I can do it, but I need some help from some people with better web skills than I have.
Have church tomorrow morning, of course, and then more client work.
I had something relatively profound to talk about, but it's gone.
Friday, February 03, 2006
Friday's the last day of the week, isn't it?
What a day I have lined up - hanging out with James from Denver, and trying to haul in the cabbage.
Going to the auto show tonight - that should be fun.
Going to the auto show tonight - that should be fun.
Thursday, February 02, 2006
It just keeps getting funnier
Administration: Nevermind what Bush said yesterday
By kos on George W. Bush
Why are we supposed to believe anything Bush said yesterday when his own administration claims it was all bullshit?
Administration backs off Bush's vow to reduce Mideast oil imports
By Kevin G. Hall
Knight Ridder Newspapers
WASHINGTON - One day after President Bush vowed to reduce America's dependence on Middle East oil by cutting imports from there 75 percent by 2025, his energy secretary and national economic adviser said Wednesday that the president didn't mean it literally.
Maybe the White House press corps can ask Scotty which parts of the speech Bush meant literally, and which parts were, um, not literal.
By kos on George W. Bush
Why are we supposed to believe anything Bush said yesterday when his own administration claims it was all bullshit?
Administration backs off Bush's vow to reduce Mideast oil imports
By Kevin G. Hall
Knight Ridder Newspapers
WASHINGTON - One day after President Bush vowed to reduce America's dependence on Middle East oil by cutting imports from there 75 percent by 2025, his energy secretary and national economic adviser said Wednesday that the president didn't mean it literally.
Maybe the White House press corps can ask Scotty which parts of the speech Bush meant literally, and which parts were, um, not literal.
Deju vu - Nixon and the White House tapes ver. 2.01
source article
Fitzgerald Reveals Someone's Been Tampering With Evidence?
by georgia10
Wed Feb 01, 2006 at 07:17:28 PM PDT
It's only February 1st, but Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is already having a bad month. First, he has Feingold breathing down his neck about his apparent perjury at his confirmation hearing. Then, Senator Leahy sends him a letter challenging him to explain why the Patriot Act should be reauthorized if the President claims he already has the authority to act unilaterally in the War on Terrorism. Then, Google still refuses to hand over Americans' porn data. And just when poor Alberto thought it couldn't get any worse, Patrick Fitzgerald resurfaces with a startling revelation: someone's been having fun with the delete button at the White House.
Scooter Libby's attorney has requested access to basically all of Fitzgerald's evidence. Mind you, this is an obstruction of justice charge. Yet Libby wants access to essentially all the transcripts and evidence so he can "prove" that he really did just forget about certain conversations. Well, in denying one of Libby's requests, Fitzgerald, in an oh-so-subtle manner, drops a bombshell:
"In an abundance of caution," he writes, "we advise you that we have learned that not all email of the Office of the Vice President and the Executive Office of the President for certain time periods in 2003 was preserved through the normal archiving process on the White House computer system."
How does Fitzgerald know of the existence of emails which have been deleted? Speculation leads us to conclude that either someone told him about the emails, or someone has copies of them. Notice Fitzgerald refers to multiple emails in both the Vice-President's and President's office. Were the emails communications between the two offices? It's also important to note that Fitzgerald states that no evidence "pertinent to the charges against the defendant" have been destroyed. This is a beautiful move by Fitzgerald, because remember, the charges against Libby are obstruction of justice and perjury.
So how does this make the sweat glisten on Gonzales' brow? We all know about the 12 hour gap, that twilight zone between the evening of September 23, 2003 (when Gonzales was informed of the order to preserve evidence) and September 24, 2003 (when Gonzales actually gave the order to retain evidence). But it's not just a 12 hour gap that provided a chance to tamper with the evidence. It's a two week gap. Recall that Gonzales and the rest of the White House lawyers screened every communication before handing it over to Fitzgerald. Democrats at the time cried foul:
Read their reaction on the flip...
* ::
*
"To allow the White House counsel to review records before the prosecutors would see them is just about unheard of in the way cases are always prosecuted," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., speaking on NBC's Today show. "And the possibility of mischief, or worse than mischief, is very, very large."
Administration officials said the White House counsel's office may need up to two weeks to organize documents that some 2,000 employees are required to submit by 5 p.m. Tuesday.
Gonzales testified about the Plame leak in June 2004. I guarantee Fitzgerald asked him about the destruction of evidence. How can I guarantee that? Well, remember that Fitzgerald wrote to then Acting Attorney General Comey to clarify the scope of his investigation. Comey replied to Fitzgerald as follows (PDF):
At your request, I am writing to clarify that my December 30, 2003, delegation to you of "all the authority of the Attorney General with respect to the Department's investigation into the alleged unauthorized disclosure of a CIA employee's identity" is plenary and includes the authority to investigate and prosecute violations of any federal criminal laws related to the underlying alleged unauthorized disclosure, as well as federal crimes committed in the course of, and with intent to interfere with, your investigation, such as perjury, obstruction of justice, destruction of evidence, and intimidation of witnesses...
I've always wondered why Fitzgerald requested the clarification. The request took place in early 2004. Around the same time, Fitzgerald subpoenaed the records of Air Force One. It is possible that Fitzgerald has known about the existence of deleted communications early on. Did Gonzales' explanation of why he waited 12 hours hold up at the grand jury? Does Fitzgerald indeed have proof that evidence was destroyed? If so, does Fitzgerald have evidence that the Department of Justice tipped the Administration to destroy that evidence?
Whatever the answers, this latest bombshell proves that the CIA leak scandal is still simmering--and administration officials are still squirming.
Fitzgerald Reveals Someone's Been Tampering With Evidence?
by georgia10
Wed Feb 01, 2006 at 07:17:28 PM PDT
It's only February 1st, but Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is already having a bad month. First, he has Feingold breathing down his neck about his apparent perjury at his confirmation hearing. Then, Senator Leahy sends him a letter challenging him to explain why the Patriot Act should be reauthorized if the President claims he already has the authority to act unilaterally in the War on Terrorism. Then, Google still refuses to hand over Americans' porn data. And just when poor Alberto thought it couldn't get any worse, Patrick Fitzgerald resurfaces with a startling revelation: someone's been having fun with the delete button at the White House.
Scooter Libby's attorney has requested access to basically all of Fitzgerald's evidence. Mind you, this is an obstruction of justice charge. Yet Libby wants access to essentially all the transcripts and evidence so he can "prove" that he really did just forget about certain conversations. Well, in denying one of Libby's requests, Fitzgerald, in an oh-so-subtle manner, drops a bombshell:
"In an abundance of caution," he writes, "we advise you that we have learned that not all email of the Office of the Vice President and the Executive Office of the President for certain time periods in 2003 was preserved through the normal archiving process on the White House computer system."
How does Fitzgerald know of the existence of emails which have been deleted? Speculation leads us to conclude that either someone told him about the emails, or someone has copies of them. Notice Fitzgerald refers to multiple emails in both the Vice-President's and President's office. Were the emails communications between the two offices? It's also important to note that Fitzgerald states that no evidence "pertinent to the charges against the defendant" have been destroyed. This is a beautiful move by Fitzgerald, because remember, the charges against Libby are obstruction of justice and perjury.
So how does this make the sweat glisten on Gonzales' brow? We all know about the 12 hour gap, that twilight zone between the evening of September 23, 2003 (when Gonzales was informed of the order to preserve evidence) and September 24, 2003 (when Gonzales actually gave the order to retain evidence). But it's not just a 12 hour gap that provided a chance to tamper with the evidence. It's a two week gap. Recall that Gonzales and the rest of the White House lawyers screened every communication before handing it over to Fitzgerald. Democrats at the time cried foul:
Read their reaction on the flip...
* ::
*
"To allow the White House counsel to review records before the prosecutors would see them is just about unheard of in the way cases are always prosecuted," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., speaking on NBC's Today show. "And the possibility of mischief, or worse than mischief, is very, very large."
Administration officials said the White House counsel's office may need up to two weeks to organize documents that some 2,000 employees are required to submit by 5 p.m. Tuesday.
Gonzales testified about the Plame leak in June 2004. I guarantee Fitzgerald asked him about the destruction of evidence. How can I guarantee that? Well, remember that Fitzgerald wrote to then Acting Attorney General Comey to clarify the scope of his investigation. Comey replied to Fitzgerald as follows (PDF):
At your request, I am writing to clarify that my December 30, 2003, delegation to you of "all the authority of the Attorney General with respect to the Department's investigation into the alleged unauthorized disclosure of a CIA employee's identity" is plenary and includes the authority to investigate and prosecute violations of any federal criminal laws related to the underlying alleged unauthorized disclosure, as well as federal crimes committed in the course of, and with intent to interfere with, your investigation, such as perjury, obstruction of justice, destruction of evidence, and intimidation of witnesses...
I've always wondered why Fitzgerald requested the clarification. The request took place in early 2004. Around the same time, Fitzgerald subpoenaed the records of Air Force One. It is possible that Fitzgerald has known about the existence of deleted communications early on. Did Gonzales' explanation of why he waited 12 hours hold up at the grand jury? Does Fitzgerald indeed have proof that evidence was destroyed? If so, does Fitzgerald have evidence that the Department of Justice tipped the Administration to destroy that evidence?
Whatever the answers, this latest bombshell proves that the CIA leak scandal is still simmering--and administration officials are still squirming.
So, here's why things is the way they is ..
source article
Abramoff and gaming Indians: Just the tip of the iceberg [Updated]
For a couple of weeks now, I've been writing about what I've come to view as the much bigger scandal involving everyone from Jack Abramoff to Gale Norton to Richard Pombo to Grover Norquist, and generally every major Republican in between. It too has to do with Indians, but not only those with gaming operations. In fact, the real actors in this drama are the poorest of Indians, mostly in the West and Plains.
This morning, I tried to summarize the issues in a comment thread at MyDD. It was the first time since starting my research that I've tried to put the "story" down in as few words as possible. Because the fact is, unless people can actually grasp the basics of this scandal, and how it effects not just a few hundred thousand Indians, but everyone in this country, I think it will never make it past a few interested links on Technorati.
So below the jump is my best try to do just that.
* mbw's diary :: ::
*
The story of Jack Abramoff's buying of influence goes well beyond a few Congressional players. While those relationships are key to the story, they're secondary to his cosy relationship with CREA director Italia Federici, her former boss, Sec. of the Interior, Gale Norton, and Deputy Sec. Steven Griles, and this seedy gang's take-over of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). This move, however, was not just to help a few gaming tribes expand their operations - remember, Abramoff dismissed his tribal clients as morons. He was using their money to screw not only tribes in direct competition for part of the gaming pie, but, probably unwittingly, to subvert justice for nearly half the Indians in the country.
The front-burner issue in the Interior Department during this Administration has been the foot-dragging, subverting and outright sabotaging of the largest class action case in US history, Cobell v. Norton. Norton was even slapped with a contempt charge by Judge Royce Lamberth for her part in the matter. Clinton Sec. Bruce Babbitt was also charged with contempt, but the plaintiffs in Cobell assert that while Clinton's people were just incompetent and trying to drag out the clock so they could hand off the problem, Norton has been downright hostile to settling the case, willing to use extreme measures to subvert the court ordered judgment.
Why? Colorado native Norton is of the James Watt school of pillage the environment (she entered the Reagan Administration to work for him) and her entire career has been to forward the interests of oil and gas, mining and forestry industries. And in the West, that means easy access to cheap federal land leases, hundreds of millions of acres of land rich with natural resources.
A large chunk of those federal lands are Indian Trust Fund lands, taken into trust in the late 1800s via the Dawes Act, and leased out to industries, ranchers and farmers at cut-rate prices. The money was then to be managed by Interior and paid out to native landowners. Of course, that didn't happen - hence Cobell v. Norton.
The courts have ordered a full accounting of the Trust. Problem is, many of the documents were destroyed, including a slew of them under Norton. So the plaintiffs decided a few years back that the only way to get a real accounting is to audit the industries' books. That's what makes everyone so nervous, as plaintiff experts, having done some sampling, estimate we're talking over $150 billion in underpayments and fraud, along with interest, of course. Yes, $150 BILLION. And the pressure would be huge for Congress to force a repayment by the guilty. If not, then it comes out of the taxpayers' pockets, as the courts have already ordered the accounts be properly audited and brought up to date. Hence, the concern of the oil/gas, mining, ranching, forestry and agriculture interests which use/abuse the land lease process.
So Norton did what she could to subvert the case, but as the heat was turned up, and the Administration losing appeal after appeal, she started pushing for Congressional Republicans to take the case and force a settlement. A settlement for a fraction of the potential amount, but one which would prevent an audit of industry accounts. Who is the chief supporter of a Congressional settlement? None other than the puppet of the oil, gas and mining industry, Richard Pombo. Twice Pombo has written legislation ordering a settlement (both times with no settlement figures, of course), but Delay intervened. Not because he likes Indians, but because he figures that it's safer to stall than to provide even the smallest chance the industry books will be audited. (Delay and most oilmen Congressmen voted against the original Indian Trust Accountability Act back in 1994 - only 36 Reps did.) So from 2002 to 2005, Delay ordered, despite a court order, that no accounting of the trust fund occur (or at least there'd be no funding for it, which, of course, means it doesn't happen.)
This is where Abramoff comes in. He was the slush fund operator. Indians thought they were paying Pombo and others on House Resources and Senate Indian Affairs, et al., for help with gaming issues, and Abramoff was in fact padding coffers necessary to protect the industry from auditing.
Think this is all too far-fetched? Just last week, the NYTimes posted an article on three months' of research into federal land leases (including Indian trust lands) and found rampant fraud and underpayment. In addition, numerous whistleblowers were fired, including Norton and Griles trustee for the BIA, who refused to testify before Congress that the Trust was fine. Accountants and fund managers were fired for doing a good job and finding fraud.
McCain and Pombo are once again pushing for a settlement, and in the increasingly hostile environment for Indians due to success in portraying Abramoff's tribal clients as villains, not victims, they'll most likely get it, at rock-bottom prices. And the industry books will remain safely closed.
That's it in a nutshell. There are a lot of details I left off (Griles' oil/gas/mining lobbying history, the industry's financial support for CREA, which Abramoff used to launder tribal money for anti-environmental causes, the Western Shoshone case, now in front of the UN, payments to key House Resources members just prior to Trust votes, Pombo's bill to sell off the West, etc.) But as I said, if one doesn't understand the underlying motivation, that these industries, which give millions, overwhelmingly to Republicans, are potentially liable for over a hundred billion in fraudulent underpayments, then Abramoff is nothing more than a guy who wanted to pocket some money from stupid Indians, not the slush fund manager in a much bigger game.
Most of the background and links can be found in articles over at Wampum.
[Update:] In case you weren't convinced this isn't a hot button issue for the Bushies, this story just came up on Indianz.com:
Bush punishes BIA budget to pay for Cobell
Thursday, February 2, 2006
The Bush administration has made an across-the-board cut to the Bureau of Indian Affairs budget, blaming the reduction on the Cobell trust fund lawsuit.
In an unprecedented letter to tribal leaders, associate Interior deputy secretary Jim Cason announced a $3 million cut to the BIA budget. He said the administration failed to plan for attorney's fees awarded as part of the Cobell case even though the request for fees was pending for more than a year.
As a result, Cason said the BIA forked over $2 million from an account used to "reimburse tribal attorney's fees" and an additional $1 million came from an across-the-board rescission of tribal programs.
This will be more fodder for Congress to "fix Interior's mess and save the Indians", all the while saving their corporate bankrollers.
Abramoff and gaming Indians: Just the tip of the iceberg [Updated]
For a couple of weeks now, I've been writing about what I've come to view as the much bigger scandal involving everyone from Jack Abramoff to Gale Norton to Richard Pombo to Grover Norquist, and generally every major Republican in between. It too has to do with Indians, but not only those with gaming operations. In fact, the real actors in this drama are the poorest of Indians, mostly in the West and Plains.
This morning, I tried to summarize the issues in a comment thread at MyDD. It was the first time since starting my research that I've tried to put the "story" down in as few words as possible. Because the fact is, unless people can actually grasp the basics of this scandal, and how it effects not just a few hundred thousand Indians, but everyone in this country, I think it will never make it past a few interested links on Technorati.
So below the jump is my best try to do just that.
* mbw's diary :: ::
*
The story of Jack Abramoff's buying of influence goes well beyond a few Congressional players. While those relationships are key to the story, they're secondary to his cosy relationship with CREA director Italia Federici, her former boss, Sec. of the Interior, Gale Norton, and Deputy Sec. Steven Griles, and this seedy gang's take-over of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). This move, however, was not just to help a few gaming tribes expand their operations - remember, Abramoff dismissed his tribal clients as morons. He was using their money to screw not only tribes in direct competition for part of the gaming pie, but, probably unwittingly, to subvert justice for nearly half the Indians in the country.
The front-burner issue in the Interior Department during this Administration has been the foot-dragging, subverting and outright sabotaging of the largest class action case in US history, Cobell v. Norton. Norton was even slapped with a contempt charge by Judge Royce Lamberth for her part in the matter. Clinton Sec. Bruce Babbitt was also charged with contempt, but the plaintiffs in Cobell assert that while Clinton's people were just incompetent and trying to drag out the clock so they could hand off the problem, Norton has been downright hostile to settling the case, willing to use extreme measures to subvert the court ordered judgment.
Why? Colorado native Norton is of the James Watt school of pillage the environment (she entered the Reagan Administration to work for him) and her entire career has been to forward the interests of oil and gas, mining and forestry industries. And in the West, that means easy access to cheap federal land leases, hundreds of millions of acres of land rich with natural resources.
A large chunk of those federal lands are Indian Trust Fund lands, taken into trust in the late 1800s via the Dawes Act, and leased out to industries, ranchers and farmers at cut-rate prices. The money was then to be managed by Interior and paid out to native landowners. Of course, that didn't happen - hence Cobell v. Norton.
The courts have ordered a full accounting of the Trust. Problem is, many of the documents were destroyed, including a slew of them under Norton. So the plaintiffs decided a few years back that the only way to get a real accounting is to audit the industries' books. That's what makes everyone so nervous, as plaintiff experts, having done some sampling, estimate we're talking over $150 billion in underpayments and fraud, along with interest, of course. Yes, $150 BILLION. And the pressure would be huge for Congress to force a repayment by the guilty. If not, then it comes out of the taxpayers' pockets, as the courts have already ordered the accounts be properly audited and brought up to date. Hence, the concern of the oil/gas, mining, ranching, forestry and agriculture interests which use/abuse the land lease process.
So Norton did what she could to subvert the case, but as the heat was turned up, and the Administration losing appeal after appeal, she started pushing for Congressional Republicans to take the case and force a settlement. A settlement for a fraction of the potential amount, but one which would prevent an audit of industry accounts. Who is the chief supporter of a Congressional settlement? None other than the puppet of the oil, gas and mining industry, Richard Pombo. Twice Pombo has written legislation ordering a settlement (both times with no settlement figures, of course), but Delay intervened. Not because he likes Indians, but because he figures that it's safer to stall than to provide even the smallest chance the industry books will be audited. (Delay and most oilmen Congressmen voted against the original Indian Trust Accountability Act back in 1994 - only 36 Reps did.) So from 2002 to 2005, Delay ordered, despite a court order, that no accounting of the trust fund occur (or at least there'd be no funding for it, which, of course, means it doesn't happen.)
This is where Abramoff comes in. He was the slush fund operator. Indians thought they were paying Pombo and others on House Resources and Senate Indian Affairs, et al., for help with gaming issues, and Abramoff was in fact padding coffers necessary to protect the industry from auditing.
Think this is all too far-fetched? Just last week, the NYTimes posted an article on three months' of research into federal land leases (including Indian trust lands) and found rampant fraud and underpayment. In addition, numerous whistleblowers were fired, including Norton and Griles trustee for the BIA, who refused to testify before Congress that the Trust was fine. Accountants and fund managers were fired for doing a good job and finding fraud.
McCain and Pombo are once again pushing for a settlement, and in the increasingly hostile environment for Indians due to success in portraying Abramoff's tribal clients as villains, not victims, they'll most likely get it, at rock-bottom prices. And the industry books will remain safely closed.
That's it in a nutshell. There are a lot of details I left off (Griles' oil/gas/mining lobbying history, the industry's financial support for CREA, which Abramoff used to launder tribal money for anti-environmental causes, the Western Shoshone case, now in front of the UN, payments to key House Resources members just prior to Trust votes, Pombo's bill to sell off the West, etc.) But as I said, if one doesn't understand the underlying motivation, that these industries, which give millions, overwhelmingly to Republicans, are potentially liable for over a hundred billion in fraudulent underpayments, then Abramoff is nothing more than a guy who wanted to pocket some money from stupid Indians, not the slush fund manager in a much bigger game.
Most of the background and links can be found in articles over at Wampum.
[Update:] In case you weren't convinced this isn't a hot button issue for the Bushies, this story just came up on Indianz.com:
Bush punishes BIA budget to pay for Cobell
Thursday, February 2, 2006
The Bush administration has made an across-the-board cut to the Bureau of Indian Affairs budget, blaming the reduction on the Cobell trust fund lawsuit.
In an unprecedented letter to tribal leaders, associate Interior deputy secretary Jim Cason announced a $3 million cut to the BIA budget. He said the administration failed to plan for attorney's fees awarded as part of the Cobell case even though the request for fees was pending for more than a year.
As a result, Cason said the BIA forked over $2 million from an account used to "reimburse tribal attorney's fees" and an additional $1 million came from an across-the-board rescission of tribal programs.
This will be more fodder for Congress to "fix Interior's mess and save the Indians", all the while saving their corporate bankrollers.
Thursday ..
Last night's New Vision board meeting went very well - longer than I had planned; I didn't get out of there until after 11:00 last night, which throws off my whole program for today. I have a ton of work to do that HAS to be done today, not the least of which is getting ready for tonight's class.
How about a quote from "Today's Papers," published by Slate Magazine - which reviews the major US newspapers each morning and prints a synopsis.
Aren't you proud to be a Republican NOW? How do you feel about fiscal responsibility in action?
It's pretty clear to me that we at New Vision have found ourselves a new space to hang our hats. I'm very excited about that. While we've committed to staying where we are through June, I think we also have to be clear about the fact that where we are is very unstable, and they have four months to get it together. If they haven't gotten it together in the last seven months, why should we move forward thinking that they'll get it together now?
We have new people coming in who are very excited and involved, which is a great feeling. And, I was greatly acknowledged by Jesse last Thursday for making things happen down in Clear Lake.
Which reminds me of ALL of the homework I have to do today, and the prep work to be ready for the class on Tuesday night AND the service on Sunday.
My broker approached me about setting up a processing center for all of his offices and running it. I'm weighing the choices.
And, I'm chosing, starting today, to not do work for people who haven't paid. I have been nursing clients along who haven't been paying, or have paid partially, and are still needing new work but paying with excuses.
How about a quote from "Today's Papers," published by Slate Magazine - which reviews the major US newspapers each morning and prints a synopsis.
The New York Times and Washington Post all lead with the House barely passing $40 billion in cuts, mostly to student loans, crop subsidies, and Medicaid. The Senate passed the bill in December, so now it goes to the White House for the president's signature. The Los Angeles Times also leads with the cuts, but focuses on the roughly $2 billion in aid California is expected to lose. USA Today leads with U.S. plan to rehab Iraq's healthcare system running into serious snafus. One hundred eighty clinics were supposed to have been built by December 2005. Number actually finished so far: four. Number that have opened: zero. USAT doesn't mention it, but it appears the administration will not ask for any more Iraq reconstruction money.
The budget bill, which passed by only two votes and got no Democratic support, was pitched by Republican leaders as a key part of a big push to rein in the deficit. It wasn't. As the Post notes, "The impact of the bill on the deficit is likely to be negligible, slicing less than one-half of 1 percent from the estimated $14.3 trillion in federal spending over the next five years." That bit of reality comes well-past-the-fold. Instead, higher up we're treated to that ever-informative practice of dueling quotes, including this fine bit of flab from a Republican rep., "American taxpayers, and anyone concerned with the nation's long-term fiscal stability, have won a great victory today."
The NYT plays up the politics of the close vote, then plays dumb: "The vote helped President Bush deliver on his promise to rein in federal spending." The LAT isn't so slow. It notes that not only were the cuts themselves "mild," Congress is about to pump up the deficit a bit. As the House was voting on the budget tweaking, "the Senate was debating a $56-billion tax cut that the House had already passed." The net result of the two measures would "add $16 billion to federal deficits."
Aren't you proud to be a Republican NOW? How do you feel about fiscal responsibility in action?
"Yesterday at a press conference President Bush said he had not seen 'Brokeback Mountain.' However, he did express an interest in drilling for oil there"
---David Letterman
It's pretty clear to me that we at New Vision have found ourselves a new space to hang our hats. I'm very excited about that. While we've committed to staying where we are through June, I think we also have to be clear about the fact that where we are is very unstable, and they have four months to get it together. If they haven't gotten it together in the last seven months, why should we move forward thinking that they'll get it together now?
We have new people coming in who are very excited and involved, which is a great feeling. And, I was greatly acknowledged by Jesse last Thursday for making things happen down in Clear Lake.
Which reminds me of ALL of the homework I have to do today, and the prep work to be ready for the class on Tuesday night AND the service on Sunday.
My broker approached me about setting up a processing center for all of his offices and running it. I'm weighing the choices.
And, I'm chosing, starting today, to not do work for people who haven't paid. I have been nursing clients along who haven't been paying, or have paid partially, and are still needing new work but paying with excuses.
"President Bush is urging all nations to cut off aid to Hamas, including $234 million dollars we were going to send them. In fact, to make sure the money doesn't get there, he's putting FEMA in charge of it."
---Jay Leno
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
Those pesky "old laws..."
source article
From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE...
"The FISA law was written in 1978. We're having this discussion in 2006. It's a different world. ... I said, look, is it possible to conduct this program under the old law? And people said, it doesn't work in order to be able to do the job we expect us to do."
---President Bush on January 27, 2006
C&J agrees wholeheartedly. What this country needs is a good scrubbing behind the ears. It's time to jettison any law that's not laser-etched on 21st Century titanium. If it's over 10 years old, toss it. And we can start with these old laws, since they're just gumming up the works:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
"Abracadabra! The fourth amendment was written in 1789. We're having this discussion in 2006. It's a different world."
The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislatures.
"Shazam! The seventeenth amendment was written in 1912. We're having this discussion in 2006. It's a different world."
No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of President more than once.
"Bada-boom Bada-bing! The twenty second amendment was written in 1951. We're having this discussion in 2006. It's a different world."
Wheee, that was fun! Go ahead and try it. Pick an old law (any old law will do), say the magic words, and watch it---Zzzzzzzing!!!---disappear! And don't forget---there are probably a bunch of city and state laws that are pretty old, too. I said the magic words and now I can shake down old ladies on the street for gas money. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna see what kind of "laws" govern open liquor containers---they must be gettin' pretty old by now too, right?
Cheers and Jeers starts in There's Moreville... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE...
"The FISA law was written in 1978. We're having this discussion in 2006. It's a different world. ... I said, look, is it possible to conduct this program under the old law? And people said, it doesn't work in order to be able to do the job we expect us to do."
---President Bush on January 27, 2006
C&J agrees wholeheartedly. What this country needs is a good scrubbing behind the ears. It's time to jettison any law that's not laser-etched on 21st Century titanium. If it's over 10 years old, toss it. And we can start with these old laws, since they're just gumming up the works:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
"Abracadabra! The fourth amendment was written in 1789. We're having this discussion in 2006. It's a different world."
The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislatures.
"Shazam! The seventeenth amendment was written in 1912. We're having this discussion in 2006. It's a different world."
No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of President more than once.
"Bada-boom Bada-bing! The twenty second amendment was written in 1951. We're having this discussion in 2006. It's a different world."
Wheee, that was fun! Go ahead and try it. Pick an old law (any old law will do), say the magic words, and watch it---Zzzzzzzing!!!---disappear! And don't forget---there are probably a bunch of city and state laws that are pretty old, too. I said the magic words and now I can shake down old ladies on the street for gas money. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna see what kind of "laws" govern open liquor containers---they must be gettin' pretty old by now too, right?
Cheers and Jeers starts in There's Moreville... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Let's nuke Iran!!!
source article
Last Friday, I, along with Ron Glick, the co-host of our KDVS 90.3 FM program, Speaking in Tongues, had the opportunity to interview Jorge Hirsch, a physicist at the University of California, San Diego. He discusses the Iranian nuclear energy program, the frightening relaxation of American policy in regard to the first use of nuclear weapons and the prospect that a preemptive war against Iran could result in the use of such weapons by the United States, subjects that he has written about extensively at antiwar.com. A profoundly troubling interview, as war hysteria intensifies.
Go here to listen or download the archived program. It will be available through this Friday, February 3rd, 5pm, Pacific time.
Or, I downloaded it and you can check with me.
Last Friday, I, along with Ron Glick, the co-host of our KDVS 90.3 FM program, Speaking in Tongues, had the opportunity to interview Jorge Hirsch, a physicist at the University of California, San Diego. He discusses the Iranian nuclear energy program, the frightening relaxation of American policy in regard to the first use of nuclear weapons and the prospect that a preemptive war against Iran could result in the use of such weapons by the United States, subjects that he has written about extensively at antiwar.com. A profoundly troubling interview, as war hysteria intensifies.
Go here to listen or download the archived program. It will be available through this Friday, February 3rd, 5pm, Pacific time.
Or, I downloaded it and you can check with me.
Human-animal hybrids?
source article
How many times can this guy give the same speech?
The call for an end to tyranny was straight from his second term inaugural address. The talking heads in the State of the Union postmortems seemed to be enchanted by Bush's distinction between the good war critics and the bad war critics; however, that whole line was boiler-plate from the nineteen thousand terrorists-rejectionists-and-Saddamists speeches he gave in the fall after his numbers dipped below forty. I guess the phrase "addiction to oil" was new, but then again two years ago -- I think it was two years ... it's all starting to blur together -- such sentiments led to an incredibly convincing call for hydrogen cars. Remember that? This year all we got were human-animal hybrids.
Truly a bold stand on that one, by the way. Who exactly is for human-animal hybrids? -- you know what, screw it: I, Joe of American Leftist, am hereby coming out in favor of human-animal hybrids... I think they're desperately important for the good of the human race. We need to focus our best and brightest on that age old goal of mankind: creating a sardonic talking monkey who smokes a pipe and sounds like James Mason.
Perhaps the bold new proposals that Bush didn't propose were of more interest than the rehashed tripe that he did. If you would have asked me three months ago to predict the centerpiece of this year's State of the Union I would have guessed that Bush was going to announce a phased withdrawal from Iraq -- which would have turned out not to be a withdrawal at all but would have coincidentally begun right around the 2006 elections. I bet Karl Rove would have made a similar prediction -- alas, the reality on the ground in Iraq has always had an anti-Bush bias.
UPDATE: The British are, apparently, pro-Human-animal hybrid ... my people, my people.
How many times can this guy give the same speech?
The call for an end to tyranny was straight from his second term inaugural address. The talking heads in the State of the Union postmortems seemed to be enchanted by Bush's distinction between the good war critics and the bad war critics; however, that whole line was boiler-plate from the nineteen thousand terrorists-rejectionists-and-Saddamists speeches he gave in the fall after his numbers dipped below forty. I guess the phrase "addiction to oil" was new, but then again two years ago -- I think it was two years ... it's all starting to blur together -- such sentiments led to an incredibly convincing call for hydrogen cars. Remember that? This year all we got were human-animal hybrids.
Truly a bold stand on that one, by the way. Who exactly is for human-animal hybrids? -- you know what, screw it: I, Joe of American Leftist, am hereby coming out in favor of human-animal hybrids... I think they're desperately important for the good of the human race. We need to focus our best and brightest on that age old goal of mankind: creating a sardonic talking monkey who smokes a pipe and sounds like James Mason.
Perhaps the bold new proposals that Bush didn't propose were of more interest than the rehashed tripe that he did. If you would have asked me three months ago to predict the centerpiece of this year's State of the Union I would have guessed that Bush was going to announce a phased withdrawal from Iraq -- which would have turned out not to be a withdrawal at all but would have coincidentally begun right around the 2006 elections. I bet Karl Rove would have made a similar prediction -- alas, the reality on the ground in Iraq has always had an anti-Bush bias.
UPDATE: The British are, apparently, pro-Human-animal hybrid ... my people, my people.
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
More Tuesday thoughts - it's SoU day!
Things that Remind Gore Vidal of his Favorite Roman Emperor
Waste Paper Basket has Gore Vidal's State of the Union Address. Here's an excerpt:
And now here we are planning new wars, ongoing wars in the Middle East. [...] This is what we call dictatorship. Dictatorship. Dictatorship. And it is time that we objected. [ ... ]
I think demonstrations across the country could be very useful on this famous Tuesday. Just say no. We've had enough of you. Go home to Crawford. We'll help you raise the money for a library, and you won't even ever have to read a book. We're not cruel. We just want to get rid of you and let you be an ex-president with his own library, which you can fill up with friends of yours who can neither read nor write, but they'll be well served and well paid, we hope, by corporate America, which will love you forever.
So I think it is really up to us to give some resonance to the State of the Union, which will be largely babble. He's not going really try to do anything about Social Security, we read in the papers. He has no major moves, other than going on and on about the legality of his illegal warrantless eavesdroppings and other breakings of the law.
I had a piece on the internet some of you may have seen a few days ago, and there's a story about Tiberius, who’s one of my favorite Roman emperors. He's had a very bad press, because the wrong people perhaps have written history. But when he became emperor, the Senate of Rome sent him congratulations with the comment, “Any law that you want us to pass, we shall do so automatically.” And he sent a message back. He said, “This is outrageous! Suppose I go mad. Suppose I don't know what I'm doing. Suppose I'm dead and somebody is pretending to be me. Never do that! Never accept something like preemptive war,” which luckily the Senate did not propose preemptive wars against places they didn't like. But Mr. Bush has done that.
Waste Paper Basket has Gore Vidal's State of the Union Address. Here's an excerpt:
And now here we are planning new wars, ongoing wars in the Middle East. [...] This is what we call dictatorship. Dictatorship. Dictatorship. And it is time that we objected. [ ... ]
I think demonstrations across the country could be very useful on this famous Tuesday. Just say no. We've had enough of you. Go home to Crawford. We'll help you raise the money for a library, and you won't even ever have to read a book. We're not cruel. We just want to get rid of you and let you be an ex-president with his own library, which you can fill up with friends of yours who can neither read nor write, but they'll be well served and well paid, we hope, by corporate America, which will love you forever.
So I think it is really up to us to give some resonance to the State of the Union, which will be largely babble. He's not going really try to do anything about Social Security, we read in the papers. He has no major moves, other than going on and on about the legality of his illegal warrantless eavesdroppings and other breakings of the law.
I had a piece on the internet some of you may have seen a few days ago, and there's a story about Tiberius, who’s one of my favorite Roman emperors. He's had a very bad press, because the wrong people perhaps have written history. But when he became emperor, the Senate of Rome sent him congratulations with the comment, “Any law that you want us to pass, we shall do so automatically.” And he sent a message back. He said, “This is outrageous! Suppose I go mad. Suppose I don't know what I'm doing. Suppose I'm dead and somebody is pretending to be me. Never do that! Never accept something like preemptive war,” which luckily the Senate did not propose preemptive wars against places they didn't like. But Mr. Bush has done that.
Tuesday developments
I wonder why Donna sent this to me .. (ulp!)
Cellphone Rudeness
By Michael Masterson
I was waiting in line at my neighborhood bookstore when I became aware of a struggle going on behind me.
"I thought I told you to turn that thing off," snapped a woman in gray slacks. She was scolding her son, whose cellphone was ringing. I hadn't even noticed the sound - a sad testament to how cellphones have become woven into the tapestry of everyday life.
The kid - high school age, scuffed sneakers and baggy jeans - started fumbling around in his backpack, trying to find the offending item.
"Out!" his mother commanded. "Go wait in the car." She practically threw her keys at the boy, who slunk out the door.
To my surprise, the woman turned to me and apologized. "I don't mean to yell. I'm just so fed up with cellphones!"
The woman - who introduced herself as Beth - explained that she teaches math at a local community college. And, she told me, she is constantly reprimanding her students for paying more attention to their cellphones than to their work. "This morning," she said, "one student actually answered her phone to tell the caller that she was in the middle of her calculus test! And even if they turn off the ringers, they still text-message one another."
The blatant use of cellphones, anywhere and any time, has become commonly accepted behavior. Perhaps that's why Beth's students seem to be unaware of what they are doing. And while I've never personally experienced such an egregious display of rudeness, I have noticed that most people have few to no manners when it comes to their mobile phones.
It's the damnedest thing. You are having a conversation with someone, their cellphone starts ringing, and - without even excusing themselves - they open it up and start talking to someone else. You stand there, feeling like a fool ... and wait.
Cellphone calls routinely disrupt personal conversations, business conversations, meetings, speeches, ceremonies, and even religious services. The only attempts made to curtail this modern menace are in theaters and concert halls - as if entertainment were the only thing more important than instant communication.
In the old days, we followed an informal set of rules. The first rule was universal: Except in dire emergencies, ongoing conversations should not be interrupted. If you wanted to say something, you would wait your turn. There was also a rule that related to the intensity of the conversation: The more serious it was, the stricter the prohibitions against butting in. And, finally, there was an acknowledged hierarchy: Children deferred to adults, students to teachers, employees to their bosses, and so on.
Call it respect ... call it courtesy ... all that is out the window. Any conversation, regardless of how important, intimate, or urgent, is now brought to a screeching halt the moment someone's phone goes off.
Of course, I am something of a hypocrite when it comes to most causes I advocate - and this one is no exception. Although I feel mistreated when someone I'm speaking with answers his cellphone, I have the strongest urge to answer mine whenever and wherever it rings.
Most of the time, I'm happy to say, I resist the temptation. My phone is set to vibrate silently before it starts ringing. So if it starts vibrating during a conversation, I reach into my pocket and cancel the call ... without my conversation partner even knowing that I got it. (On most cellphones, you can do this simply by pressing an external button.)
But few people have any sense of manners when it comes to their cellphones. Which is why I'd like to offer you six rules for polite cellphone use":
1. If you must be available to callers, put your phone on vibrate. Leave the room immediately if a call comes in.
2. Never talk on the phone while conducting business face to face with someone else.
3. If the lights are out, turn off your phone. Audiences in playhouses, theaters, cinemas, and observatories want to concentrate on what they're watching/listening to.
4. Keep your voice down. No need for everyone in the room to hear what you're saying.
5. Do not discuss private business or personal matters in the presence of other people. Put the caller on hold and move to an isolated area. Or reschedule the conversation.
6. Don't bring your cellphone to job interviews, weddings, funerals, church, business meetings, presentations, court, museums, or the library.
Follow these suggestions and your friends and colleagues will appreciate your full attention. Your fellow theater-goers will appreciate your silence. And you and your dinner companion will enjoy an uninterrupted meal.
[Ed. Note: We know of two laws banning the public use of cellphones - one in New York City performance venues (with a fine of $50) and one in Huntington Beach, California libraries (with a fine of up to $1,000). Good idea? Bad idea? Let us know what you think on Speak Out.]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Today's Action Plan
If you and your cellphone are joined at the hip (so to speak), try to reduce your dependence on it by leaving the thing at home once in a while. You may find that you relish the freedom from people who want "just a minute of your time" - at the worst possible times. And you may find that you'll enjoy that meeting/evening/event more fully without worrying that it will ring at an awkward moment or constantly checking for calls.
Cellphone Rudeness
By Michael Masterson
I was waiting in line at my neighborhood bookstore when I became aware of a struggle going on behind me.
"I thought I told you to turn that thing off," snapped a woman in gray slacks. She was scolding her son, whose cellphone was ringing. I hadn't even noticed the sound - a sad testament to how cellphones have become woven into the tapestry of everyday life.
The kid - high school age, scuffed sneakers and baggy jeans - started fumbling around in his backpack, trying to find the offending item.
"Out!" his mother commanded. "Go wait in the car." She practically threw her keys at the boy, who slunk out the door.
To my surprise, the woman turned to me and apologized. "I don't mean to yell. I'm just so fed up with cellphones!"
The woman - who introduced herself as Beth - explained that she teaches math at a local community college. And, she told me, she is constantly reprimanding her students for paying more attention to their cellphones than to their work. "This morning," she said, "one student actually answered her phone to tell the caller that she was in the middle of her calculus test! And even if they turn off the ringers, they still text-message one another."
The blatant use of cellphones, anywhere and any time, has become commonly accepted behavior. Perhaps that's why Beth's students seem to be unaware of what they are doing. And while I've never personally experienced such an egregious display of rudeness, I have noticed that most people have few to no manners when it comes to their mobile phones.
It's the damnedest thing. You are having a conversation with someone, their cellphone starts ringing, and - without even excusing themselves - they open it up and start talking to someone else. You stand there, feeling like a fool ... and wait.
Cellphone calls routinely disrupt personal conversations, business conversations, meetings, speeches, ceremonies, and even religious services. The only attempts made to curtail this modern menace are in theaters and concert halls - as if entertainment were the only thing more important than instant communication.
In the old days, we followed an informal set of rules. The first rule was universal: Except in dire emergencies, ongoing conversations should not be interrupted. If you wanted to say something, you would wait your turn. There was also a rule that related to the intensity of the conversation: The more serious it was, the stricter the prohibitions against butting in. And, finally, there was an acknowledged hierarchy: Children deferred to adults, students to teachers, employees to their bosses, and so on.
Call it respect ... call it courtesy ... all that is out the window. Any conversation, regardless of how important, intimate, or urgent, is now brought to a screeching halt the moment someone's phone goes off.
Of course, I am something of a hypocrite when it comes to most causes I advocate - and this one is no exception. Although I feel mistreated when someone I'm speaking with answers his cellphone, I have the strongest urge to answer mine whenever and wherever it rings.
Most of the time, I'm happy to say, I resist the temptation. My phone is set to vibrate silently before it starts ringing. So if it starts vibrating during a conversation, I reach into my pocket and cancel the call ... without my conversation partner even knowing that I got it. (On most cellphones, you can do this simply by pressing an external button.)
But few people have any sense of manners when it comes to their cellphones. Which is why I'd like to offer you six rules for polite cellphone use":
1. If you must be available to callers, put your phone on vibrate. Leave the room immediately if a call comes in.
2. Never talk on the phone while conducting business face to face with someone else.
3. If the lights are out, turn off your phone. Audiences in playhouses, theaters, cinemas, and observatories want to concentrate on what they're watching/listening to.
4. Keep your voice down. No need for everyone in the room to hear what you're saying.
5. Do not discuss private business or personal matters in the presence of other people. Put the caller on hold and move to an isolated area. Or reschedule the conversation.
6. Don't bring your cellphone to job interviews, weddings, funerals, church, business meetings, presentations, court, museums, or the library.
Follow these suggestions and your friends and colleagues will appreciate your full attention. Your fellow theater-goers will appreciate your silence. And you and your dinner companion will enjoy an uninterrupted meal.
[Ed. Note: We know of two laws banning the public use of cellphones - one in New York City performance venues (with a fine of $50) and one in Huntington Beach, California libraries (with a fine of up to $1,000). Good idea? Bad idea? Let us know what you think on Speak Out.]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Today's Action Plan
If you and your cellphone are joined at the hip (so to speak), try to reduce your dependence on it by leaving the thing at home once in a while. You may find that you relish the freedom from people who want "just a minute of your time" - at the worst possible times. And you may find that you'll enjoy that meeting/evening/event more fully without worrying that it will ring at an awkward moment or constantly checking for calls.
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