Bernie Ward Fan Forum

Ger Bernie Ward back on the Air

2008-01-28T12:11:00.000-08:00

Contact information to get Bernie ward back on the air

ABC Network Information
Write us:
444 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10022
Call us: 212-735-1700
Fax us: 212-735-1799

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/27/BALBUMNOA.DTL

Radio waves: Bernie Ward, the self-described "Lion of the Left" who lost his late-night slot at KGO radio last month after being indicted by the feds on child pornography charges, has sent out an SOS to his supporters urging them to fax and call the station's New York corporate ownership to demand that he be returned to the airwaves.

"This is an 'all hands on deck' call," Ward wrote in an e-mail circulated last week. "I need you to help convince the corporate bosses that our San Francisco/West Coast community really wants me back on the air and deserves the factual information I can provide."

Ward tells his fans that KGO station manager Mickey Luckoff wants to put him back on the air but that the suits in New York are resisting. Luckoff did not return calls seeking comment.

"They need to hear that the feds don't always win, that I'm innocent until proven guilty, and that it's imperative for me to be back on the air now as the primaries are at a crucial stage, and my voice is something you miss and want to hear," Ward wrote.

The feds have charged Ward, 56, with two counts of possessing and distributing child pornography using the Internet. The former Roman Catholic priest insists he is innocent, saying he simply downloaded a handful of images as part of a book he was researching on right-wing hypocrisy.

"Can you do it? Will you do it?" Ward implores. "Will you light up their phones and fill up their faxes and voice mails? This is the last shot we have to get me back on the air, and I need your help."

Well, someone is listening.

"We have gotten a 4-inch stack of faxes, and yesterday we were getting three calls a minute," an assistant to Citadel Broadcasting Co.'s chief operating officer told us Friday. "To tell the truth, it's quite annoying."

No word yet on whether they'll budge.

Hang in there Bernie!

2008-01-02T08:49:00.000-08:00

Ok, I like many was in shock for a long time over this whole Bernie Ward indictment. I mean come on, Bernie has help shape my political views for the past 20 years and a lot of who I am today reflects on a lot of what Bernie taught me. Not only about politics, but about being a person and a father. With that being said, I refuse to bail on Bernie so quickly. If it comes out, without a doubt, that Bernie accesses and distributes child porn, for anything other than real research, then I will be the first to condemn him and move on. However, it just doesn’t fit. Bernie has always said to be skeptical of the government and that’s what I intend to do in regards to this case. They need to prove it and I also need to hear from Bernie before I throw him under the us

Anyone who comes across this post and feels like they need to express themselves, please post here. Put the word out to all Bernie listeners that they have a place to talk. That has been the hardest part, not being able to talk this out with the group I have enjoyed listening and talking to (via Bernie’s show) for so long.

and to Bernie Ward, hang in there. We all needed a little time to take all this in. Unfortunately you had to spend the holidays feeling left behind by all your listeners. We are here for you now and will continue to be until someone can prove to us bad intentions.

Hang in there

Alternative Minium Tax

2007-12-05T15:23:00.000-08:00

I am going to see if Bernie will discuss the AMT topic on his show:

Here is a letter I sent to Harry Ried.
November 27, 2007

Dear Senator
I’m writing you tonight to express my extreme concern about potentially having to pay AMT. I just completed my 2007 estimated tax return, which I believe to be 98% accurate at this time. My calculations found with the current AMT exemption of ~45K, my husband and I would be required to a pay an alternative minimum tax bill in April of over $ 3,500.00

The thought of incurring this extra unexpected expenditure made me sick to my stomach. My husband and I are hard working, financially responsible individuals. We live in California and 5 years ago upon purchasing our home ignored others advice about taking out a “high risk” loan allowing us to move into a larger home. Instead, we took the responsible route and bought a small, very old home in a city that has a fairly high poverty and crime rate. I tell you this fact to highlight how this tax will impact a family that works hard to ensure we live within our means you’ll be able to imagine the larger impact to those Californians who are barely making it.

The impact of this tax to our family and spending would be huge. First, we’d not only owe the 3,500 but we’d also have to pay a penalty to the IRS of an unknown amount. As we don’t have that kind of cash lying around in the drawer, or the bank, we’ll have to pay it with credit causing us to minimally have a $300.00/month bill throughout all of 2008. Next, we’d have to adjust our withholdings for 2008 by $300.00/month.

These actions will effectively reduce our discretionary income by over $ 600.00/month or $ 7,200.00/year. I say more because the increased tax bill will cause both my husband and I to effectively negate any raises we receive in 2008 by increasing our 401(k) withholdings. Thus, we will have no additional income this year to help with the inflation and the huge increases we’ve been observing in gas, food, and clothing price.

If you actual take the time to read this letter and truly care, you WILL work with Congress to insure that my and the other millions of families do not fall victim to this tax. We as a family and we as a country can not afford this unexpected and sudden increase. Please remember that although this tax will hit my family and our spending hard, we are lucky in that we are not already in financial trouble with regards to our home. Millions of others I’m sad to say will not, and this tax will be the straw that breaks their and maybe the economies back.

Please act quickly to save my family and our country!!!

Best Regards,

PS:
For anyone wanted to hear Bernie you can listen live from 10-1 PT or listen to the acrhives at the following location:

http://www.kgoam810.com//Article.asp?id=503007

Verizon's response to my complaint email regarding NSA

2006-05-15T12:22:00.000-07:00

Dear M. Morrison,

Thank you for contacting the Verizon eCenter. My name is Wendy, and I will be handling your request today.

This message is in response to your email dated May 11, 2006. You inquired about the NSA article. I understand this is important to you. I will be happy to assist you.

We appreciate that the USA Today article and other reports about the possibility that the NSA is able to analyze local call data records is causing concern. Please be assured that Verizon places the highest value on protecting the privacy of our customers.

Anything to do with the NSA is of course highly classified, so we can not comment on whether or not the news article causing concern is even accurate. But we can say that, to the extent that we cooperate with government authorities, we are confident that we are complying with all applicable statutes. We appreciate the continuing opportunity to provide you with service.

It has been my goal to resolve your reason for contacting us. I hope I have succeeded in meeting that goal. If you have additional questions or if we may be of assistance to you in the future, please let us know. We look forward to serving you.

Thank you for using Verizon. We appreciate your business.

Sincerely,
Wendy
Verizon eCenter

Cheney's "Quailgate" Leaves Unanswered Questions

2006-02-15T12:18:00.000-08:00

Retrieve Feb 15th, 2006 from: http://www.emagazine.com/view/?3096
By Jim Motavalli with Erin Coughlin

Many unanswered questions remain about Cheney's hunting adventure, which seems to have been conducted mere steps away from the comfort of luxury SUVs. Were these quail on the Armstrong Ranch wild or pen-raised captives, which are reportedly much easier to hit? Pen-raised birds, according to some veteran Texas quail hunters, are essentially "sitting ducks" that don't have enough native sense to fly to cover when flushed. They fly off in all directions instead of maintaining discipline and seeking group shelter.

The Armstrong Ranch denies that it uses pen-raised quail, but some observers have taken note of Cheney's light 28-gauge shotgun, which would more likely have been effective for domesticated fowl. It's considered a good choice for "small framed" and young shooters because it doesn't recoil much, but it's hardly the type of weapon the macho Cheney would seem to favor.

In any case, Cheney is no stranger to canned hunts. In December of 2003, he went (via Humvee) to a pheasant shooting party in Pennsylvania at the Rolling Rock Club. Gamekeepers there released some 500 pen-raised pheasants from nets, and Cheney's party, which included former Dallas Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach and U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) as well as several influential Republican fundraisers, shot 417 of them. Cheney himself got at least 70. Apparently that wasn't enough slaughter, because after lunch the group went after pen-raised mallard ducks.

Cornyn had the audacity to claim later that the birds had a sporting chance, though he conceded that the hunt was so easy that at times it seemed "kind of like how Tyson's and Pilgrim's Pride and other people do it. I must tell you that people don't necessarily hunt the same way in Texas that they hunt in Ligonier, Pennsylvania, but it was enjoyable."

In 2004, Cheney got into trouble for going duck hunting with Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia in Louisiana while he had business before the court. It's not hard to see why the Vice President might favor guaranteed canned hunts because the shooting in Louisiana was poor. "The duck hunting was lousy," Scalia remarked. "Our host [owner of an oil services company] said that in 35 years of duck hunting on this lease, he had never seen so few ducks." But it ended well. "I did come back with a few ducks, which tasted swell," Scalia added.

Outdoor writer Ted Williams estimates there are approximately 3,000 canned hunting operators in the U.S., many of which offer the "sport" of releasing birds right in the path of waiting shotguns. This kind of hunting is banned (for at least one species) in California, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Wisconsin and, yes, Texas, where the practice nonetheless amounts to big business. In a typical operation, the animals are fed at specific times and locations, and learn to anticipate the sounds of approaching humans. So they're more likely to move toward the hunters than away from them.

"Cheney has a real history of questionable hunting behavior," says Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society of the U.S. (HSUS). "He is apparently obsessed with hunting and is a regular patron of canned hunts. We don't like to see the Vice President of the U.S. providing pretty explicit endorsement of this practice, because canned hunting violates all the rhetoric that hunters use to justify themselves. Hunting is supposed to involve a fair chase with the animal having an opportunity to evade the hunter. But this eliminates the possibility of failure."

Some of the canned hunting ranches offer the chance to shoot endangered species, which typically consist of zoo-bred animals that outgrew their cuteness and were sold in exotic animal auctions. At the Renegade Ranch in Michigan, one price list charged $350 to shoot a Corsican ram, $450 for a Russian boar, $750 for a blackbuck antelope and $5,500 for a trophy elk. Among the zoos participating in such programs, according to a Humane Society of the U.S. investigation, are Buffalo Zoological Gardens, Busch Gardens in Florida, Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey, the Houston Zoo, the Kansas City Zoo and even the National Zoo in Washington, D.C.

The Connecticut-based Friends of Animals has filed a lawsuit aimed at keeping three species of endangered antelope out of the canned-hunt trade. "This is a lazy person's idea of hunting," says Priscilla Feral, the group's president. "They drive right up to the animal."

The first George Bush celebrated his 1988 election victory with a canned quail hunt at the Lazy F Ranch near Beeville, Texas. And he apparently didn't "get it" any more than Cheney does. "These aren't animals, these are wild quail," he reportedly responded to criticism. President Clinton also hunted in shooting preserves during his Presidency. In 1993, he shot a captive-bred mallard at a Maryland preserve owned by a lobbyist who ran DUCPAC, a pro-hunting political action committee that gave out $35,000 in campaign contributions.

In addition to asking Cheney to explain the nearly 24-hour gap between the hunting accident and public notification, reporters are wondering how the Vice President could have broken a cardinal hunting rule. According to Time, "An eyewitness account reported by the Associated Press suggests that Cheney may have, in the heat of the moment, violated the number one rule of hunting by failing to keep track of his hunting buddies at all times….For the shooter, hunting safety dictates that focusing on the target should never be more important than keeping in mind what's behind it."

Vice President Cheney, adept at shifting the blame for Iraq and disastrous energy policies, also chose to blame the victim in the hunting incident. Whittington, a 78-year-old lawyer and Republican Party functionary, apparently failed to announce himself when he came up behind "Deadeye Dick."

Columnist Molly Ivins summed up this Bush administration's tendency to avoid any and all responsibility for the messes it creates: "I was offended by the never-our-fault White House spin team," she wrote. "Cheney adviser Mary Matalin said of her boss, 'He was not careless or incautious (and did not) violate any of the (rules). He didn't do anything he wasn't supposed to do.' Of course he did, Ms. Matalin, he shot Harry Whittington.

"Which brings us to one of the many paradoxes of the Bush administration, which claims to be creating 'the responsibility society.' It's hard to think of a crowd less likely to take responsibility for anything they have done or not done than this bunch. They're certainly good at preaching responsibility to others—and blaming other people for everything that goes wrong on their watch," wrote Ivins.

PNAC still moving forward

2006-02-09T12:30:00.000-08:00

Robert Dreyfuss is the author of Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam (Henry Holt/Metropolitan Books, 2005). Dreyfuss is a contributing editor at The Nation, a contributing writer at Mother Jones, a senior correspondent for The American Prospect, and a frequent contributor to Rolling Stone.He can be reached through his website: www.robertdreyfuss.com.

The Pentagon’s latest Quadrennial Defense Review, the fancy name for the Defense Department’s “big think” strategy that is supposed to come out every four years, has to be seen as the Bush administration’s ultimate Plan for Empire. It lays out a Thirty Years' War-type battle plan for an expanding U.S. military presence worldwide, to fight a war against an enemy which is, at most, a few hundred strong.

Officially, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld calls it “The Long War,” a propaganda term designed to echo “the Cold War,” and the Pentagon intends to brainwash Americans into supporting a generation-long struggle that will lay the groundwork for an American hegemony in the 21st century. It is, indeed, the Project for a New American Century.

According to The New York Times, alongside the QDR, the Pentagon has developed its own (classified) counterterrorism strategy. It is this mission, designed to combat an enemy that the Bush administration describes as equal in magnitude to the threat posed by German Nazism or Soviet communism, which is driving both the QDR and the huge expansion of the budget for the Defense Department and the U.S. intelligence community over the next few years. The QDR is the neoconservatives’ mythical World War IV, in line-item form.

Of course, it ignores the fact that the blunt instrument of the U.S. military is precisely the wrong tool to use against radical right Islamist forces. As the war in Iraq has proved to everyone but the most hard-core neoconservative, ham-handed U.S. military attacks in Muslim countries create more terrorists than they kill. The Times , in reporting the Pentagon’s counterterrorism plan, quotes a Defense Department official involved in writing it who points out:

...the American military’s effort to aid tsunami victims in southeast Asia and to assist victims of Pakistan’s earthquake did more to counter terrorist ideology than any attack mission.

Does that mean that the Pentagon will recommend a multinational Marshall Plan-style effort to provide economic security, housing and health care for the impoverished in Asia, the Middle East and Africa? Hardly—although such a program wouldn’t cost more than the $1 trillion Iraq-Afghanistan war effort, and would unquestionably do far more to calm passions, soothe anti-Americanism and dry up Al Qaeda’s recruitment pool. No, the Pentagon is proposing a vast, multi-year campaign of wars, commando raids, air strikes, military bases, naval expansion, covert actions and other military operations whose sum can only be seen as an imperial expansion of the U.S. presence around the globe.

According to the Los Angeles Times , a core element of the Long War is an increase in the size and strength of the elite U.S. military forces, including “secret Delta Force operatives skilled in counterterrorism,” Army Special Forces battalions, Navy SEAL teams, “the creation of a new SOF [Special Operations Forces] squadron of unmanned aerial vehicles to ‘locate and target enemy capabilities’ in countries where access is difficult,” “civil affairs and psychological operations units,” and “a 2,600-strong Special Operations force for training foreign militaries, conducting reconnaissance and carrying out strikes.”

These forces, says the Los Angeles Times , “will have the capacity to operate in dozens of countries simultaneously.” The QDR says: “The long war against terrorist networks extends far beyond the borders of Afghanistan and Iraq and includes many operations characterized by irregular warfare.” It outlines expanded U.S. military operations in Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti and the Horn of Africa; in the trans-Sahara region and Niger to “combat emerging terrorist extremist threats”; the “Plan Colombia” anti-drug counterinsurgency; etc. And it concludes: “Long-duration, complex operations involving the U.S. military … will be waged simultaneously in multiple countries around the world, relying on a combination of direct (visible) and indirect (clandestine) approaches.”

The QDR, says the Pentagon, is specifically designed as a 20-year battle plan. It is generational in scope. “The Defense Department unveiled the Quadrennial Defense Review today, charting the way ahead for the next 20 years as it confronts current and future challenges and continues its transformation for the 21st century,” according to the official unveiling:

Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, our nation has fought a global war against violent extremists who use terrorism as their weapon of choice, and who seek to destroy our free way of life. Our enemies seek weapons of mass destruction and, if they are successful, will likely attempt to use them in their conflict with free people everywhere. Currently, the struggle is centered in Iraq and Afghanistan, but we will need to be prepared and arranged to successfully defend our nation and its interests around the globe for years to come.

So once again, President Bush is trying to scare us about the threat of terrorists with WMD, just as he did before the war in Iraq, even though not a single terrorist in history has ever come close to possessing WMD and even though the Bush administration has not documented a single instance of a serious effort by terrorists to acquire weaponized chemical or biological agents—never mind a nuclear device.

A hapless Ryan Henry, the Defense Department’s deputy undersecretary for policy, sounded befuddled as he tried to rationalize the Long War. It was, he said, “fuzzy”:

U.S. forces in all probability will be engaged somewhere in the world in the next decade where they're not currently engaged. But I can tell you with no resolution at all where that might be, when that might be or how that might be. Things get very fuzzy past the five-year point.

Fuzzy.

And the fuzzy math used to calculate how much all this will cost sees the Pentagon’s bloated budget soaring toward half a trillion dollars per year, not counting perhaps a $100 billion surcharge for the ongoing fiascos in Iraq and Afghanistan. While the Bush budget slashes non-defense spending, Pentagon spending—already huge after successive post-9/11 increases—will rise another 7 percent to $439 billion, not including Iraq, and not including a ballooning budget for the CIA and the Department of Homeland Security. It’s a shocking misallocation of resources, one that makes a mockery of the fact that the Cold War is long over and that the world is mostly at peace. At peace, that is, except for wars of America’s own making.

http:\\tompaine.com

Libby Trial to Start after Midterms, Hmmm, go figure!

2006-02-03T08:42:00.000-08:00

Hmmm, go figure! The judge wanted to start the trial of Lewis Libby in September but low and behold, one of Libby's laywers just happens to be tied up.

How convenient

By Toni Locy

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON – A federal judge on today set former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's trial date in the CIA leak case for January 2007, two months after the midterm congressional elections.

The trial for Libby, who faces perjury and obstruction of justice charges, will begin with jury selection Jan. 8, said U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton. Walton said he had hoped to start the trial in September but one of Libby's lawyers had a scheduling conflict that made an earlier date impractical.

Walton said he does not like "to have a case linger" but had no choice because Libby attorney Ted Wells will be tied up for 10 weeks in another case.

Drudge say Clinton protester was also escorted out! Only one problem ..

2006-02-01T10:03:00.000-08:00

Cindy Sheehan, the anti-war activist who was removed from the House gallery last night before the State of the Union address for wearing a t-shirt with a political message, is not the first person to be tossed from a Congressional gallery at a high-profile event for wearing a political t-shirt.

In the early days of the Senate's impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton in January 1999, a Pennsylvania man named Dave Delp was removed by the Capitol police from the Senate gallery for wearing a t-shirt that said, "Clinton doesn't inhale, he sucks."

The Pennsylvania school teacher was yanked out of a VIP Senate gallery and briefly detained during the impeachment trial for wearing a T-shirt with graphic language dissing President Clinton.

Delp, 42, of Carlisle, Pa., and a friend had just settled into their seats when four Capitol security guards approached them. Delp said at the time that he was ordered to button his coat and follow the guards. Outside the chamber, he was told "several people felt threatened by your shirt."

Even after establishing that Delp was a guest of Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), the guards wouldn't let him back in and escorted him to a basement security area, where they questioned and photographed him.

After being given one of the photos as a souvenir, Delp said he was banned from the Capitol for the rest of the day. "They were polite and professional," Delp added, "but they really did scare me. I think I should have been given the chance to cover up."

Here are the differences between what happened to Sheehan and what happened to Dave Delp

1: Cindy Sheehan was at the State of the Union Address. Dave Delp was at the Impeachment trail. Now I am not a lawyer but I do know there is a difference between a trail and the State of the Union Address.

2. Cindy Sheehan was arrested. Dave delp was escorted upstairs, asked a few questions, then released. He was banned from coming back for the rest of the day. He even got souvenir photo's given to him

Now I don't agree with how they handled Dave Delps situation but let one thing be very clear, it is very different from what happen to Cindy Sheehan and what is happening to hundreds of people across the U.S. whenever the y tried to protest this president.

Specter letter. Big problem for Bush!

2006-01-27T12:19:00.000-08:00

Bernie talked about the DOD report last night and how they tried to get FISA ammended (kgo.com 10pm to 1am m-f). I found the following at Http:\\digitaldivide.
You know the Bush has problems when his own party ask questions like these.

From the digitaldivide website:
"(1) In interpreting whether Congress intended to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) by the September 14, 2001 Resolution (Resolution), would it be relevant on the issue of Congressional intent that the Administration did not specifically ask for an expansion for Executive powers under FISA? Was it because you thought you couldn’t get such an expansion as when you said: “That was not something that we could likely get?”

Specter is asking President Bush, through Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, if he a) circumvented the intent of congress and b) if he understands that legislative intent (one of the criteria used by judges when interpreting and applying a law).

(2) If Congress had intended to amend FISA by the Resolution, wouldn’t Congress have specifically acted to as Congress did in passing the Patriot Act giving the Executive expanded powers and greater flexibility in using “roving” wiretaps?

Here Chairman Specter is asking a question many of us have been asking ourselves: Where does the SPECIFIC authority for the no-warrant surveillance and wiretapping exist in the statutes and resolutions passed by congress? Specter is an experienced member of congress and lawyer. He understands the provision of the Tenth Amendment of the Bill of Rights that reserves powers, rights and authority not specifically delineated by the Constitution to the states and the people. Specter knows that Constitutional authority to act is ordinarily required to be SPECIFIC and narrowly constructed

(3) In interpreting statutory construction on whether Congress intended to amend FISA by the Resolution, what is the impact of the rule of statutory construction that repeals or changes by implication are disfavored?

Again, the specific issue of narrow construction, interpretation and application of a law or resolution is being questioned. The principle of “stare decisis” (literally, “let the decision stand”), which is the principle that requires courts to rely upon precedents set by case law, requires that laws be narrowly defined and applied. In fact, laws that are not narrowly defined and constructed are often determined to be unconstitutional because they are overly broad, vague and unclear.

(4) In interpreting statutory construction on whether Congress intended to amend FISA by the Resolution, what would be the impact of the rule of statutory construction that specific statutory language, like that in FISA, trumps or takes precedence over more general pronouncements like those of the Resolution?

Specter is asking why the Bush administration has chosen to ignore the specific language of FISA in order to circumvent the specific limits delineated in FISA by broadly interpreting and applying a theory of legislative intent that is incongruous with established law and precedent. Indeed, this very same rule of statutory construction would apply to other pieces of legislation, including the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 (ECPA), 18 USC Section 119, §2515, 18 USC Section 119, §2516, and at least a dozen other laws.

(5) Why did the Executive not ask for the authority to conduct electronic surveillance when Congress passed the Patriot Act and was predisposed, to the maximum extent likely, to grant the Executive additional powers which the Executive thought necessary?

This question is actually an allegation that the Bush administration has made an unwarranted grab for powers and authority specifically granted to the Legislative Branch (Congress) by the Constitution. It is congress that has the authority to declare, fund and authorize military and intelligence actions under the provisions of the Constitution. The Executive Branch has the authority to command the military and set into motion specific military and intelligence operations (operational control), but like a Board of Directors for a corporation, congress is the only governmental body that can authorize such action. Congress is the civilian authority to which all military operations must answer to in all matters.

Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution states:
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;….

- To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;
- To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;
- To provide and maintain a navy;
- To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;
- To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;
- To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress; …
- To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.

This is part of the system of “checks and balances” that is essential to keeping us a “nation of laws, not of men.”

(6) Wasn’t President Carter’s signature on FISA in 1978, together with his signing statement, an explicit renunciation of any claim to inherent Executive authority under Article II of the Constitution to conduct warrantless domestic surveillance when the Act provided the exclusive procedures for such surveillance?

Mindful of the history of the Watergate scandal during the Nixon administration, congress specifically put restrictions on wiretapping and other forms of electronic surveillance (given the technology of the time). President Carter’s signing FISA into law was an overt recognition of the fundamental constitutional principle that the Executive Branch must answer to the Legislative Branch, and an admission that domestic spying was inherently a breach of constitutional rights. FISA set forth a precedent. Under US jurisprudence (the practice and application of law), precedents cannot ordinarily be overruled without a) an overwhelming compelling interest and b) due process. Specter is making the case that the Bush administration has violated the Fifth Amendment, which guarantees due process as a right.

(7) Why didn’t the President seek a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court authorizing in advance the electronic surveillance in issue? (The FISA Court has the experience and authority to issue such a warrant. The FISA Court has a record of establishing its reliability for non-disclosure or leaking contrasted with concerns that disclosures to many members of Congress involved a high risk of disclosure or leaking. The FISA Court is at least reliable, if not more so, than the Executive Branch on avoiding disclosure or leaks.)

The FISA Court operates with discretion to consider matters of national security in secret and has a 27 year record of serving national security interests without compromising due process, civil liberties or acting in a slow fashion that would put the nation at risk. It has given wide latitude and discretion to law enforcement and cooperating intelligence agencies on matters of national security. Sen. Specter is asking why this court and process were insufficient and why this administration chose to ignore long-standing precedent, a successful record of effectiveness, due process and the law. He is also calling attention to the fact that the FISA Court has proven more reliable and trustworthy than any administration or member, committee or house of congress in matters of keeping national security secrets.

(8) Why did the Executive Branch not seek after-the-fact authorization from the FISA Court within the 72 hours as provided by the Act? At a minimum, shouldn’t the Executive have sought authorization from the FISA Court for law enforcement individuals to listen to a reduced number of conversations which were selected out from a larger number of conversations from the mechanical surveillance?

FISA has an emergency provision that allows law enforcement (not military or intelligence agencies) to conduct a limited amount of surveillance—up to 72 hours—and then seek a warrant after the fact. While we may not agree with this before-the-fact use of electronic surveillance, it does point out a significant flaw in the Bush administrations arguments in support of warrantless electronic surveillance. Given that there is such a before-the-fact authority to conduct a limit amount of surveillance under emergent conditions, how can the administration justify the end-run around the constitutional and statutory prohibitions against domestic surveillance, the use of military as law enforcement, and violation of rights and due process?

Specter also questions why the administration did not even seek to pay MINIMAL attention to the legal and logistical issues involved.

Mechanical surveillance, referenced by Specter, is the use of cameras, video equipment, mirrors, and other physical means of observing and recording events, conversations and documentation. We now live in a society where such surveillance is rampant and usually installed in public places or in private business establishments, all of which is readily available to law enforcement by permission or subpeona. A review of some of the legal issues can be found at http://www.zetetics.com/mac/partisan/021200.htm.

The Electronic Freedom Foundation (www.eff.org), the Electronic Privacy Information Center (www.epic.org), the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School (http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/home/) and the Stanford Law School (www.law.stanford.edu) all have pertinent information on the legal, moral economic and social issues involved in electronic surveillance.

(9) Was consideration given to the dichotomy between conversations by mechanical surveillance from conversations listened to by law enforcement personnel with the contention that the former was non-invasive and only the latter was invasive? Would this distinction have made it practical to obtain Court approval before the conversations were subject to human surveillance or after-the-fact approval within 72 hours?

Basically, Specter is continuing to ask how the administration arrived at the decision to bypass law, due process and the issues of technology and go forward without consulting the courts. Specter also hammers away again at the issue of the 72 hour window.

(10) Would you consider seeking approval from the FISA Court at this time for the ongoing surveillance program at issue?

Specter is asking if President Bush and his administration are willing to come back into compliance with the law and the Constitution.

(11) How can the Executive justify disclosure to only the so-called “Gang of Eight” instead of the full intelligence committees when Title V of the National Security Act of 1947 provides:

SEC.501.[50 U.S.C. 413] (a)(1) The President shall ensure that the congressional intelligence COMMITTEES are kept fully and currently informed of the intelligence activities of the United States, including any significant anticipated intelligence activity as required by this title. (Emphasis added)

(2)(e) Nothing in this Act shall be construed as authority to withhold information from the congressional intelligence COMMITTEES on the grounds that providing the information to the conressional intelligence committees would constitute the unauthorized disclosure of classified information or information relating to intelligence sources and methods. (Emphasis added)

The “Gang of Eight” is the leaders of the House and Senate as well as the heads of the intelligence panels of both houses of congress. Specter rightly calls the administration to task for not fully disclosing to each of the intelligence committees in full as required by law, pointing out that nothing in any subsequent law explicity or implicitly relieves the Executive Branch from such requirements. In fact, as Specter notes in the letter, the administration doesn’t even have the authority not to disclose on the basis of classification, secrecy or national security.

(12) To the extent that it can be disclosed in a public hearing (or to be provided in a closed executive session, what are the facts upon which the Executive relies to assert Article II wartime authority over Congress’ Article I authority to establish public policy on these issues especially where legislation is approved by the President as contrasted to being enacted over a Presidential veto as was the case with the War Powers Act?

The War Powers Act (War Powers Resolution: Public Law 93-148, 1973) specifically requires “the collective judgement of both the Congress and the President” is required before any military action or resource can be utilized, that the powers of Congress are rightly reserved to Congress itself. It re-asserts the provisions of Articles I and II of the Constitution of the United States, assuring the separation of legislative and executive powers, authority and functions.

Specter also makes the point that this was a bill signed into law with the consent, and acknowledgement of its legitimacy, of the then sitting president, without the need for a veto override. The specific meaning of this issue is that the War Powers Act was a mutually agreed upon law that reaffirmed the separation of authority and functions of the Executive and Legislative Branches and confirmed the structure provided by the US Constitution. Specter is asking for a full and fair explanation of how this law—and the Constitution—can be violated by Executive authority alone.

(13) What case law does the Executive rely upon in asserting Article II powers to conduct the electronic surveillance at issue?

As a well-practiced lawyer and member of congress, Specter knows that the case precedents in federal District, Appellate and Supreme Court levels have consistently ruled against the Executive Branch in matters where past presidents have usurped powers that are exclusively held by the Legislative or Judicial Branches. The most renowned of these precedents is Youngstown Sheet and Tube Co. v. Sawyer (1952), in which the Supreme Court ruled against the federal takeover and nationalization of the steel industry ordered by President Truman through his Secretary of Commerce, Charles Sawyer.

But the precedent also exists in Marbury v. Madison (1803). In this landmark case the Supreme Court asserted the principle that the Judicial Branch has the authority, power and duty to determine what is the law (according to the actual text, legislative intent and legislative history) and not the province of the Executive Branch.

"It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is. Those who apply the rule to particular cases, must of necessity expound and interpret that rule. If two laws conflict with each other, the courts must decide on the operation of each." – Chief Justice John Marshall

(14) What academic or expert opinions does the Executive rely upon in asserting Article II powers to conduct the electronic surveillance at issue?

While this is a straight forward question regarding the legal scholarship involved in the Bush decision to conduct domestic spying, it also slaps the administration in the face because Specter obviously knows that any legal opinion that cannot satisfactorily answer all of the above questions is faulty, false and flawed.

(15) When foreign calls (whether between the caller and the recipient both being on foreign soil and the other in the U.S.) were routed through switches which were physically located on U.S. soil, would that constitute a violation of law or regulation restricting the NSA from conducting surveillance inside the United States, absent a claim of unconstitutionality encroaching on Executive powers under Article II?

Specter is asking how the Bush administration can legally spy on US citizens when there are specific legal prohibitions upon the NSA (as well as military and other intelligence agencies) using any of its personnel or resources for domestic surveillance. He is making the case that once those electronic signals passed through a switch located anywhere in US jurisdiction, the laws of the United States applied and were applicable to the Executive Branch."

What Scott really meant.

2006-01-25T08:49:00.000-08:00

The Question:
· I have two questions that can be dismissed with a yes or no. One, is the President going to seek any legal -- more legal permission from Congress to spy on Americans without a warrant? And two, does he think, does he believe that his new designation of the spy program, terrorist surveillance, will tarnish people who are spied on and are guilty or not guilty?

What Scott said.
· Let me take the first part of your question, and I think it's important to give a clearer picture of where things are with the American people, and so I want to make a few comments about it.

What Scott really meant:
· Ok, let me start by rambling off a bunch of talking points. As you are well aware, I will just keep talking for a while and will never actually get to answering your question.

The Question:
· I want to know where you stand --

What Scott said:
· And I'm going to do that. I've already previously answered this question with reporters and stated our view; the Attorney General stated it earlier today in some interviews. This is an important tool that helps to save lives by preventing attacks. It is a limited, targeted program aimed at al Qaeda communications, as the President pointed out yesterday. This program is focused only on communications in which one person is reasonably suspected of links to al Qaeda or affiliated terrorist organizations. And it involves international communications. I reject your characterization to suggest it's domestic spying. That's like saying someone making a phone call from inside the United States to another country is a domestic call. It is billed the international rate and it is labeled --

What Scott really meant:
· And I’m going to do that. I’ve already previously answered this question with reporters and stated our view; the Attorney General stated it earlier today in some interviews. Actually, there are many of people who have been instructed to state these views over and over again. Are view is that we Save lives, prevent terrorist attacts. Al Qaeda, bad, boogeyman! Gonna get ya. BOO!

The Question:
· The law says he has to seek a court warrant.

What Scott said?
· it is labeled an international call

What Scott really meant:
· If you are calling to someone outside of the United States, you better believe we are going to track your call. It is labeled a Boogeyman call.

The Question:
· Why doesn't he seek a warrant? What's the big problem?

What Scott said.
· Well, actually, we've walked through this repeatedly over the last few days. It's important for the American people to understand what the facts are. There is a lot of misinformation about -- this program. And we do use the FISA tool, as well. That's an important tool, as well. But we have briefed members of Congress more than a dozen times on this. We continue to brief members of Congress in an appropriate manner. This is a highly classified program and it is a vital program to our nation's security. The 9/11 Commission criticized us for not connecting the dots

What Scott really meant:
· Well, actually, we’ve tried to muddy the water as much as possible the last few days.. It’s important to make the American people as confused and uninformed as possible. If they knew the facts, that we did not get a warrant because no court in the world would approve it, they would never support it. And we do use the FISA tool as well. That is an important tool as well, but under the FISA law, we are not allowed to keep tracks certain peace groups or political groups. This is a highly classified program, and is vital to ensure the republican rule. Oh yhea, one more thing, 9/11 was Clintons fault

The Question:
· Why can't he seek a warrant? He doesn't have a blank check

What Scott said.
· And we talked with members of Congress about whether or not there needed to be legislation that reflects what the President's authority already is, and the congressional leaders felt that by doing so it could compromise this program. This is a vital program and it's important that we don't show the enemy our playbook. And talking about it --

What Scott really meant:
· Well we told a bunch of old fossils in the senate. We made sure it was double double super secret, and of course use language that even the must knowledgeable lawyers would have trouble understanding. This is a vital program and it's important that we don't show the enemy our president’s coloring book.

Clinton's actions compared to Bush's

2006-01-23T09:31:00.000-08:00

The following is from Fox news Sunday. Durbin Rocks!

WALLACE: Senator, let's talk about the NSA wiretap program, though. We all saw that Usama bin Laden tape that came out late this week. If someone from Al Qaeda in Pakistan is calling someone here in the U.S., don't you want to know what they're talking about?

DURBIN: Absolutely. And that's why we created the FISA court. And basically, 20,000 times the president and other administrations have gone before this court and said we want to listen in on that conversation, and they've been given permission in all but about five instances. So they have a legal way to approach it.

Let me read to you what the president said on April 20, 2004 about wiretaps. He said "A wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so." President Bush, April 20, 2004.

This president, every president, has a mechanism, a procedure to follow, to wiretap terrorists and wannabe terrorists. I want them to follow that legal procedure, and when they do, they'll make America safer.

WALLACE: Let me ask you, because there are a lot of national security experts who believe that the FISA court and the law as it was passed, in fact, would not handle the kind of situation we're talking about here of mass surveillance. And let me pick up on what Senator McCain said. If the president were to go in and say look, we need some adjustments, would you -- would the Democratic leadership in the Senate say look, this is too important, national security, we'll give you what you need to live within the law and protect America?

DURBIN: Certainly. That's what happened with the Patriot Act. One of the elements of the Patriot Act...

WALLACE: I know, but now you're fighting the Patriot Act, Senator.

DURBIN: No, no, Chris, don't take this further than it goes. We overwhelmingly support the Patriot Act. There are three or four sections with modifications which passed the Senate, incidentally, on a bipartisan basis, unanimously - three or four sections that we're talking about, and they can be modified and it wouldn't compromise our security.

But we modified FISA under the Patriot Act. The administration came and said we need new tools - just as Senator McCain said earlier, with Blackberries and cell telephones. And we said we'll give you the tools. We want to keep America safe. But what we're saying here, on both sides of the aisle, with Senator Specter calling for hearings and the Democrats standing behind him, we want this president and every president to follow the law. No president is above the law.

WALLACE: But again, specifically, if he came in and asked for reforms, you're saying that the Democratic leadership would give him the power to do what he's doing now?

DURBIN: Well, I don't know what he's doing now because, frankly, it's been reported in many newspapers, but I've never been briefed on it. But if the president came to us and said there are changes in technology, changes in the threat to America, we need to change and modify the law, you bet he would have a Congress ready to work with him. That's exactly the way he should have done this and should have handled it long ago.

WALLACE: Senator, when the Clinton administration authorized the search of Aldrich Ames, the Soviet spy's home and office back in the 1990s, they said the president has the inherent constitutional authority to do so. No Democratic leaders that we could find squawked at that point about what President Clinton was doing.

DURBIN: Well, remember, at that moment in time, the FISA law did not cover physical searches. It only dealt with wiretaps. So what the president did was not violating the FISA law.

WALLACE: No, but he was violating other laws, wasn't he? I mean, here he was authorizing a search without -- a physical search of somebody's home without any court order.

DURBIN: Let me finish, if I might. President Clinton then came to Congress and asked to amend FISA to cover physical searches. In other words, the president was willing to step forward and say let's create a legal standard that will apply to me and every other president so that our administration will follow a law and have court approval even before physical searches.

So the intent and the actions of the Clinton administration are in sharp contrast to what we face with this administration. If the president came forward and said there's a real threat, we need to change the law so that I have the power to deal with it, you can bet Congress would work overtime to get that done.

Matthew's compare Osama to Moore!

2006-01-20T09:40:00.000-08:00

On Bernie’s Jan 79th show he said:

· "Matthews compare Osama Bin Laden to Michael Moore. Now I know that Matthews is a right wing catholic, I know that he’s on the air to be more right wing then anything else or he won’t be on the air. But all I ask you to do is insert President Bush, Insert Vice President Cheeny, insert Condolisa Rice, or insert Limbaugh, or Oreilly, or Hannity and what would happen to Matthews. If Matthews had said today, to Biden, “Gee, this tape today from Bin Laden sounds like an over the top Rush Limbaugh” What do you think would be happening to him tomorrow. What do you think the right wing Echo machine would do to Matthews if he were comparing Limbaugh to Osama Bin Laden? What do you think is going to happen to him for comparing Michael Moore to Osama Bin Laden? You might want to think about emailing Mr. Matthews, …, it would be nice if Mr. Matthews received some email raising questions about what is the comparison between Michael Moore and Osama Bin Laden"

So here is Chris Matthew’s email: hardball@msnbc.com

Lets compare:

· Uses Force to resolve issues: ---------------- Makes Movies to resolve issues
Ø Bush, Cheney, Bin laden -------------- Michael Moore

Please post with your additional comparisons:

2006-01-19T12:40:00.000-08:00

Can’t wait to get Bernie’s Wards input (kgo.com 10pm – 1am) on the new Bin laden tape. Here is my two cents

We can all remember the following from the March 2004 Kerry-Bush debate:
Q (March 13, 2002): Mr. President, in your speeches now you rarely talk or mention Osama bin Laden. Why is that? . . .

Bush: So I don't know where he is. You know, I just don't spend that much time on him , Kelly, to be honest with you. . . .

Q: But don't you believe that the threat that bin Laden posed won't truly be eliminated until he is found either dead or alive?
Bush: Well, as I say, we haven't heard much from him. And I wouldn't necessarily say he's at the center of any command structure. And, again, I don't know where he is. I -- I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him

Now Bin Laden come out and says:
"The new operations of Al Qaeda has not happened, not because we could not penetrate the security measures. It is being prepared and you'll see it in your homeland very soon."

As far as I’m concerned, I sure wish Bust would have been a little more concerned and spent A LOT more time on “him” I can see it now, the white house will use this to explain why it’s so important that we give up some of our civil liberties during times of war. As Bernie Ward points out, there is a major flaw in this, since the war on terror will be going on long past our lifetimes. Just think about it, have we won the war on drugs?

Get ready for the broken records that are the Republican\fox talking point. We will be seeing them all over the nightly news.

Listen to Bernie Ward at KGO.com from 10pm – 1:00 am M-F. Can also go to archives and listen to the previous nights show.

Even a Repulican admits it's a GOP scandal

2006-01-18T15:09:00.000-08:00

Found the following:

By RICH LOWRY

Republicans are looking for “their” John McCain. The popular Arizona maverick is already a Republican, of course. But the GOP needs a McCain in the “Keating Five” sense. Back in 1990, Senate Democrats roped McCain into the scandal over savings and loan kingpin Charles Keating on tenuous grounds, just so not all the senators involved would be Democrats.

The GOP now craves such bipartisan cover in the Jack Abramoff scandal. Republicans trumpet every Democratic connection to Abramoff in the hope that something resonates. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., took more than $60,000 from Abramoff clients! North Dakota Democratic Sen. Byron Dorgan used Abramoff’s skybox! It is true that any Washington influence-peddler is going to spread cash and favors as widely as possible, and 210 members of Congress have received Abramoff-connected dollars. But this is, in its essence, a Republican scandal, and any attempt to portray it otherwise is a misdirection.

Abramoff is a Republican who worked closely with two of the country’s most prominent conservative activists, Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed. Top aides to the most important Republican in Congress, Tom DeLay, R-Texas, were party to his sleazy schemes. The only people referred to directly in Abramoff’s recent plea agreement are a Republican congressmen and two former Republican congressional aides. The GOP members can make a case that the scandal reflects more the way Washington works than the unique perfidy of their party, but even this is self-defeating, since Republicans run Washington.

Republicans must take the scandal seriously and work to clean up in its wake. The first step was the permanent ouster of Tom DeLay as House Republican majority leader, a recognition that he is unfit to lead as long as he is underneath the Abramoff cloud. The behavior of the right in this matter contrasts sharply with the left’s lickspittle loyalty to Bill Clinton, whose maintenance of power many liberals put above any of their principles. Next, Republicans will have to show they can again embrace the spirit of reform that swept them to power in 1994.

To this end, GOP lawmakers are rushing to introduce lobbying reform. Anything that increases transparency is welcome. But lobbying reform’s animating pretense is that lawmakers are all upstanding — until they come under the corruptive spell of lobbyists. In every transaction, however, there has to be a willing buyer and seller.

There are two deeply rooted sources of corruption in Washington. One is that many members of Congress believe that they would be making much more than their $160,000-a-year salaries if they were in some other line of work. This sense is compounded when they watch their former 30-year-old aides go to work on K Street for $300,000 a year. This is how someone like Tom DeLay — otherwise a conviction politician — justifies playing the best golf courses in the world on someone else’s dime and getting special interests to funnel easy money to his wife.

It will be a sign that Congress has learned something if it bans all privately funded travel. If a trip is truly educational and necessary, the public should fund it; if, on the other hand, a member of Congress wants to enjoy fine resorts, he should quit, practice law (or whatever) and earn the income to support his desired lifestyle.

The other problem is that Washington makes obscure decisions that enrich small groups of people. Most everyone in Washington supports making these decisions because it increases his or her power. But if Congress really wants to lessen the malign influence of lobbyists, it should reform the inherently corruptible process whereby the Interior Department recognizes new Native American tribes so they can mint money by opening casinos, and end the practice of “earmarking” federal dollars for local and special-interest projects. It’s no accident that Abramoff saw the business potential in both of these processes.

Of course, making these sort of changes would be painful. That’s why it is tempting for Republicans to look for a John McCain instead.

Rich Lowry is editor of The National Review and can be reached via e-mail: comments.lowry@nationalreview.com.

Bernie Ward on Catholic Supreme Court nominees.

2006-01-11T09:25:00.000-08:00

From Bernie’s Jan 10th Show (and Bernie is a Catholic)

…And I’m tired of Catholics getting appointed. I’m just so tired of Catholics, and I’m tired of the fact that nobody on that panel will ask them about the Catholicism. I would say to him “Judge Alito, What’s the churches position on Abortion? What the churches position on pro choice? Judge Alito, Do you believe in Heaven and Hell? Do you believe if you commit a motal sin, and you die with that on your soul, that you go to Hell? Judge Alito, Doesn’t that mean that you could never cast a vote that would uphold Abortion because you would be condemning yourself to Hell. You mean you want this job so badly that your willing to condemn yourself to damnation?

*****************************************************************

And then there is the following:

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Roman Catholics would be the majority on the U.S. Supreme Court for the first time if Samuel Alito is confirmed -- a historically remarkable prospect in a country where "papists" were once taught in state schools that their faith was a lie.

But so far the development has passed for little more than a curiosity, reflecting how politics trumps religion when it comes to appointments to America's highest court, experts say.

Alito and the Catholics already on the court -- John Roberts, Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas -- appear to share many conservative views held by evangelical Protestants, a group historically suspicious of Rome and its hierarchical church.

The prospect of a Catholic court majority "is a credit to the evolution of America," said Julie Fenster, co-author of "Parish Priest," a book recently published by William Morrow about the Catholic priest who founded the Knights of Columbus.

"I don't think Catholics here realise how much their antecedents had to take on the chin in terms of job discrimination, public jeering -- in some towns it was hard to walk down the street without being shouted at," she said.

"And in the (public) schools you had to accept that your children would be taught from textbooks that said Catholicism was wrong," Fenster said.

CONSTITUTION OR POPE?

Historically, many Americans questioned whether Roman Catholics could uphold the U.S. constitution, or whether they were obligated to follow the dictates of the Pope while in office. There has been only one Roman Catholic U.S. president, John F. Kennedy, elected in 1960.

But evangelical Protestants seem so far to be embracing Alito, unlike President George W. Bush's last court nominee, Harriet Miers.

"Look at how the evangelical right responded to one of its own when it came to Harriet Miers," said Brent Walker, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty.

Bush nominated Miers, a fellow conservative Christian, last year but she withdrew under fierce attack from conservatives who questioned her credentials and commitment to conservative ideology.

"It just shows you how it's mostly about ideology and not about religion," added Walker, whose Washington-based coalition of 14 Baptist bodies works for religious liberty causes.

"I think it's good that not a lot is being made of it. Generally religion is not a very good predictor of how one will decide cases," he added, noting that former justice William Brennan, also a Catholic, was a liberal.

Of the remaining justices, Stephen Breyer and Ruth Ginsburg are Jewish, David Souter is Episcopalian and John Paul Stevens is Protestant.

"During much of 20th Century there was a Catholic seat and a Jewish seat (on the court). Anything but one Catholic would have created a lot of consternation among Protestants and evangelicals," said Martin Flaherty, a Fordham Law School professor who once clerked for former Supreme Court Justice Byron White.

REPRESENT THE COUNTRY

Alito and the others appear to have far more things in common than differences, he said.

"On some level the court should be very roughly representative of the country. If you have not just a majority but (one) from a certain wing of a denomination you wonder if the court does represent the country," he added.

About one in four Americans say they are Roman Catholic, making the church by far the largest single U.S. denomination. There is no monolithic political philosophy marking the faith, despite the church's strong official opposition to abortion, a position widely shared by conservative evangelical Christians.

About 52 percent of Americans say they are Protestants, although mainline churches are losing members as the evangelical movement grows. Less than 2 percent of the U.S. population is Jewish.

One anomaly is that 20 percent of U.S. Catholics are Hispanic, yet none of the five who would be on the court is, noted Tom Smith, director of the General Social Survey at the National Opinion Research Centre in Chicago.

Religion "has pretty much become passe" as an issue, he suggested, except to the degree that it becomes a hot potato in nearly every U.S. presidential campaign when candidates define their stand on abortion.

Opposition to Alito has come from groups worried that the court would eliminate the right to abortion. Legal Momentum, a woman's legal rights group, said it feared putting Alito on the court would be "adversarial to a woman's right to choose."

http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/swissinfo.html?siteSect=143&sid=6376049&cKey=1137002730000

Risen's book backs up Downing Street Memo

2006-01-09T14:30:00.000-08:00

From State of War by James Risen, p. 112-114:

As the invasion of Iraq drew closer, an attitude took hold among many senior CIA officials that war was inevitable—and so the quality of the intelligence on weapons of mass destruction didn't really matter. This attitude led CIA management to cut corners and accept shoddy intelligence, other CIA officials believe...This acceptance of weak intelligence among senior CIA officials appears to be the backstory to the famous so-called Downing Street Memo.

According to a former senior CIA official, the memo—the leaked British government document from July 2002 that provided a British assessment of the Bush administration's plans for Iraq—was written immediately after a secret conference in Washington between top officials of the CIA and British intelligence. The memo, dated July 23, reported that "there was a perceptible shift in attitude" in Washington about Iraq. The memo went on to say that "military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

The memo reflected an assessment of the prevailing attitude inside the Bush administration offered to Prime Minister Tony Blair by Sir Richard Dearlove, the head of MI6, the British intelligence service. Just days before, Dearlove and other top MI6 officials had attended a CIA-MI6 summit meeting held at CIA headquarters, in which the two sides had candid talks about both counterterrorism and Iraq. According to a former senior CIA officer, the summit meeting was held at the urgent request of the British.

The American and British intelligence services are so close that under normal circumstances, they hold an annual summit to discuss a wide range of issues in a relaxed setting. The year before it had been held in Bermuda. But after 9/11, Tenet had told other CIA officials he was too busy to be bothered with another conference with the British, particularly one held in a remote location. The British were very insistent, however, and kept pushing for the meeting, the former CIA official said. The MI6 officials made it very clear to their CIA counterparts that they had to sit down and talk immediately.

CIA officials believe that Prime Minister Blair had ordered Dearlove to go to Washington to find out what the Bush administration was really thinking about Iraq. While Blair was in constant communication with President Bush, he apparently wanted his intelligence chief to scout out the thinking of other senior officials in Washington, to give him a reality check on what he was hearing from the White House.

"I think in hindsight that it is clear that Dearlove was insistent on having the summit because Blair wanted him to find out what was going on," said the former CIA official.

Tenet finally agreed to the conference as long as it could be held at CIA headquarters, rather than out of town. The session was scheduled for Saturday, July 20, 2002.

The two sides ended up spending most of that Saturday together. One of Tenet's great attributes was his ability to develop warm relationships with the chiefs of allied intelligence services, and Tenet had an especially good personal relationship with Dearlove. He was usually very candid with his British counterpart.

During the Saturday summmit, Tenet and Dearlove left the larger meeting and went off by themselves for about an hour and a half, according the a former senior CIA official who attended the summit. It is unclear what Tenet and Dearlove discussed during their one-on-one session. Yet Dearlove's overall assessment was reflected in the Downing Street Memo: the CIA chief and other CIA officials didn't believe that the WMD intelligence mattered, because was was coming one way or another.

"I doubt that Tenet would have said that Bush was fixed the intelligence," said a former CIA official. "But I think Dearlove was a very smart intelligence officer who could figure out what was going on. Plus, the MI6 station chief in Washington was in CIA headquarters all the time, with just about complete access to everything, and I am sure he was talking to a lot of people."

From: http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/6558

How the senators voted on impeachment

2006-01-05T13:10:00.000-08:00

Link to senators phone numbers:
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

How they voted:

*********************** Perjury - Obstruction of justice
Spencer Abraham(R-Michigan) GUILTY GUILTY
Daniel K. Akaka(D-Hawaii) NOT GUILTY NOT GUILTY
Wayne Allard(R-Colorado) GUILTY GUILTY
John Ashcroft(R-Missouri) GUILTY GUILTY
Max Baucus(D-Montana) NOT GUILTY NOT GUILTY
Evan Bayh(D-Indiana) NOT GUILTY NOT GUILTY
Robert F. Bennett(R-Utah) GUILTY GUILTY
Joseph R. Biden Jr.(D-Delaware) NOT GUILTY NOT GUILTY
Jeff Bingaman(D-New Mexico) NOT GUILTY NOT GUILTY
Christopher S. Bond(R-Missouri) GUILTY GUILTY
Barbara Boxer(D-California) NOT GUILTY NOT GUILTY
John B. Breaux(D-Louisiana) NOT GUILTY NOT GUILTY
Sam Brownback(R-Kansas) GUILTY GUILTY
Richard H. Bryan(D-Nevada) NOT GUILTY NOT GUILTY
Jim Bunning(R-Kentucky) GUILTY GUILTY
Conrad R. Burns(R-Montana) GUILTY GUILTY
Robert C. Byrd(D-West Virginia) NOT GUILTY NOT GUILTY
Ben Nighthorse Campbell(R-Colorado) GUILTY GUILTY
John H. Chafee(R-Rhode Island) NOT GUILTY NOT GUILTY
Max Cleland(D-Georgia) NOT GUILTY NOT GUILTY
Thad Cochran(R-Mississippi) GUILTY GUILTY
Susan Collins(R-Maine) NOT GUILTY NOT GUILTY
Kent Conrad(D-North Dakota) NOT GUILTY NOT GUILTY
Paul Coverdell(R-Georgia) GUILTY GUILTY
Larry E. Craig(R-Idaho) GUILTY GUILTY
Michael D. Crapo(R-Idaho) GUILTY GUILTY
Thomas A. Daschle(D-South Dakota) NOT GUILTY NOT GUILTY
Mike DeWine(R-Ohio) GUILTY GUILTY
Christopher J. Dodd(D-Connecticut) NOT GUILTY NOT GUILTY
Pete V. Domenici(R-New Mexico) GUILTY GUILTY
Byron L. Dorgan(D-North Dakota) NOT GUILTY NOT GUILTY
Richard Durbin(D-Illinois) NOT GUILTY NOT GUILTY
John Edwards(D-North Carolina) NOT GUILTY NOT GUILTY
Mike Enzi(R-Wyoming) GUILTY GUILTY
Russell D. Feingold(D-Wisconsin) NOT GUILTY NOT GUILTY
Dianne Feinstein(D-California) NOT GUILTY NOT GUILTY
Peter G. Fitzgerald(R-Illinois) GUILTY GUILTY
William H. Frist(R-Tennessee) GUILTY GUILTY
Slade Gorton(R-Washington) NOT GUILTY GUILTY
Bob Graham(D-Florida) NOT GUILTY NOT GUILTY
Phil Gramm(R-Texas) GUILTY GUILTY
Rod Grams(R-Minnesota) GUILTY GUILTY
Charles Grassley(R-Iowa) GUILTY GUILTY
Judd Gregg(R-New Hampshire) GUILTY GUILTY
Chuck Hagel(R-Nebraska) GUILTY GUILTY
Tom Harkin(D-Iowa) NOT GUILTY NOT GUILTY
Orrin G. Hatch(R-Utah) GUILTY GUILTY
Jesse Helms(R-North Carolina) GUILTY GUILTY
Ernest F. Hollings(D-South Carolina) NOT GUILTY NOT GUILTY
Tim Hutchinson(R-Arkansas) GUILTY GUILTY
Kay Bailey Hutchison(R-Texas) GUILTY GUILTY
James M. Inhofe(R-Oklahoma) GUILTY GUILTY
Daniel K. Inouye(D-Hawaii) NOT GUILTY NOT GUILTY
James M. Jeffords(R-Vermont) NOT GUILTY NOT GUILTY
Tim Johnson(D-South Dakota) NOT GUILTY NOT GUILTY
Edward M. Kennedy(D-Massachusetts) NOT GUILTY NOT GUILTY
J. Robert Kerrey(D-Nebraska) NOT GUILTY NOT GUILTY
John F. Kerry(D-Massachusetts) NOT GUILTY NOT GUILTY
Herb Kohl(D-Wisconsin) NOT GUILTY NOT GUILTY
Jon Kyl(R-Arizona) GUILTY GUILTY
Mary Landrieu(D-Louisiana) NOT GUILTY NOT GUILTY
Frank R. Lautenberg(D-New Jersey) NOT GUILTY NOT GUILTY
Patrick J. Leahy(D-Vermont) NOT GUILTY NOT GUILTY
Carl Levin(D-Michigan) NOT GUILTY NOT GUILTY
Joseph I. Lieberman(D-Connecticut) NOT GUILTY NOT GUILTY
Blanche Lambert Lincoln(D-Arkansas) NOT GUILTY NOT GUILTY
Trent Lott(R-Mississippi) GUILTY GUILTY
Richard G. Lugar(R-Indiana) GUILTY GUILTY
Connie Mack(R-Florida) UILTY GUILTY
John McCain(R-Arizona) GUILTY GUILTY
Mitch McConnell(R-Kentucky) GUILTY GUILTY
Barbara A. Mikulski(D-Maryland) NOT GUILTY NOT GUILTY
Daniel Patrick Moynihan(D-New York) NOT GUILTY NOT GUILTY
Frank H. Murkowski(R-Alaska) GUILTY GUILTY
Patty Murray(D-Washington) NOT GUILTY NOT GUILTY
Don Nickles(R-Oklahoma) GUILTY GUILTY
Jack Reed(D-Rhode Island) NOT GUILTY NOT GUILTY
Harry Reid(D-Nevada) NOT GUILTY NOT GUILTY
Charles S. Robb(D-Virginia) NOT GUILTY NOT GUILTY
Pat Roberts(R-Kansas) GUILTY GUILTY
John D. Rockefeller IV(D-West Virginia) NOT GUILTY NOT GUILTY
William V. Roth Jr.(R-Delaware) GUILTY GUILTY
Rick Santorum(R-Pennsylvania) GUILTY GUILTY
Paul S. Sarbanes(D-Maryland) NOT GUILTY NOT GUILTY
Charles E. Schumer(D-New York) NOT GUILTY NOT GUILTY
Jeff Sessions(R-Alabama) GUILTY GUILTY
Richard C. Shelby(R-Alabama) NOT GUILTY GUILTY
Bob Smith(R-New Hampshire) GUILTY GUILTY
Gordon Smith(R-Oregon) GUILTY GUILTY
Olympia J. Snowe(R-Maine) NOT GUILTY NOT GUILTY
Arlen Specter(R-Pennsylvania) NOT GUILTY NOT GUILTY
Ted Stevens(R-Alaska) NOT GUILTY GUILTY
Craig Thomas(R-Wyoming) GUILTY GUILTY
Fred Thompson(R-Tennessee) NOT GUILTY GUILTY
Strom Thurmond(R-South Carolina) GUILTY GUILTY
Robert Torricelli(D-New Jersey) NOT GUILTY NOT GUILTY
George V. Voinovich(R-Ohio) GUILTY GUILTY
John W. Warner(R-Virginia) NOT GUILTY GUILTY
Paul D. Wellstone(D-Minnesota) NOT GUILTY NOT GUILTY
Ron Wyden(D-Oregon) NOT GUILTY NOT GUILTY

PNAC members

2005-11-09T15:42:00.000-08:00

What do all these people have in common?

1. They are all on Bernie's Fitzmas list!

What else do they have in common?

Bernie Ward Thoughts.

2005-07-21T13:00:00.000-07:00

Bush only sent 14,000 troops into Afganistan to get Bin Laden, but for Iraq he had sent in 200,000.

Bernie reminds us that leading up to the war Bush told the American people the war was about getting weapons of mass destruction. If he had told the American people that the reason to go to war was liberation, no one would have supported him. The RNC was all about rewriting history. Today, the justification to go into Iraq was to liberate 50 million people.

Governator blunder
Even Swartzenegger rewrote history in his speech. Arnold recalled how he saw Soviet tanks rolling all over his country, and that his country was stagnant under socialism. The next day, historians had to correct him on both points. Arnold's Austria was under British rule, he could not have seen Soviet tanks. The ruler was not a socialist neither. Afganistan Bernie calls Afganistan a catastrophic disaster. Children there are being hunted for organ donations. Women are treated as bad or worse now in the north of the country. No money is being spent there, Afganistan is not much of an oil interest.

Vietnam
Bernie also made the point that 56,000 Americans died in Vietnam. The point of the war was to stop the domino effect - the idea that if Vietnam fell to Communism, next would be its neighbour, and so on and so on. Well, as Bernie goes on, Vietnam did fall to the Communists. Communism never did spread to places like Thailand. The domino theory was wrong. The 56,000 Americans died for no reason. We should not forget this. War should never be made unless for self defense. Clearly Vietnam was not for self defense, and neither is Iraq.