Join the Forces for Change….
Since Dennis Kucinich has quit his race for the White House, we are urging all Americans to join the forces for change and VOTE for Barack Obama for President. Unless you want four more years, like the last seven, then Obama is the only choice left.
VOTE for HOPE
The following is from Americans United web site. I agree with Bishop Jakes, God does not have a political party. The hijacking of American Politics by The Religious Right is nothing more than our version of the Taliban. Americans need to WAKE UP before it is TOO LATE.
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No Theocracy Here: T.D. Jakes Takes On Christian Nation Claim
May 15th 2007
The Religious Right cabal that promotes America as a Christian nation and claims the U.S. Constitution is ripped directly from the Bible has an irritant in T.D. Jakes, arguably one of the country’s most influential evangelical leaders.
In an interview with National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered,” Jakes, who heads a megachurch called Potter’s House in Dallas and has penned a slew of best-selling books, buttressed his contrarian reputation by taking the very anti-Religious Right tact of slamming the mixture of religion and politics.
“I don’t think that God should be assigned to a party,” Jakes told NPR yesterday during a segment that highlighted the pastor’s new book. “When the party goes bad, then the clergy are embarrassed, and I think that faith should transcend politics.”
NPR noted in its piece that not only does Jakes reach millions of Americans with the written word, but his church in Texas will typically pack in more than 100,000 followers. It’s an impressive reach that likely unnerves the blowhards of the Religious Right who have spent decades and lots of money trying to convince their followers that they need to take control of government to advance their agenda, which includes trashing the First Amendment and privacy rights.
The African-American pastor went on to slam clergy who would prod congregants to the voting booth on behalf of a specific candidate, saying that such actions are insulting to parishioners. They don’t need a pastor “to tell them how to vote,” maintained Jakes.
Finally Jakes chided the Religious Right’s demands that candidates, especially presidential contenders, be Christian.
“You have to be president of the United States,” Jakes said, “which incorporates atheists, agnostics and all brands of faith. And many, many Christians don’t understand that. They see this s a Christian nation. But I don’t see this as a theocracy. I see it as a democracy.”
This is not the first time Jakes, whom USA Today columnist DeWayne Wickham has described as having “super-pastor standing,” has challenged the Religious Right’s Christian nation rhetoric. In 2005, Jakes told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he didn’t buy the claim that the nation is a Christian one and that “I don’t think we were meant to be.”
Jakes’ challenges to the Religious Right’s Christian nation rhetoric are commendable.
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http://blog.au.org/2007/05/15/no-theocracy-here-td-jakes-takes-on-christian-nation-claim/
The Ithaca Journal - Ithaca, NY
By Monique Lewis
Gannett News Service
BINGHAMTON — U.S. Sen. Charles E. Schumer announced two proposed federal laws Monday aimed at eliminating Internet solicitation of children and youths for sexual acts.
Schumer, D-N.Y., stopped in Binghamton on Monday on a statewide campaign to promote the bills — the KIDS Act and SAFE Act, that combined via an enhanced Internet tracking system will thwart registered sex offenders and others from using the Web for transmitting child pornography and soliciting children.
The KIDS Act, or Keeping the Internet Devoid of Sexual-Predators Act, would require all levels of convicted sex offenders to provide their e-mail addresses, instant message screen-names and other Internet information to law enforcement for the National Sex Offender Registry. Violators will face significant jail time, Schumer said.
There are more than 900 registered sex offenders living in the Southern Tier, according to the New York State Department of Criminal Justice Services.
“That’s a lot,” Schumer said. “But that’s just the registered ones. There are some who don’t register and other (offenders) who come from out of state. The Internet is the method of choice with which they find their victims.”
Therefore, a second bill coined Securing Adolescents From Exploitation-Online Act (SAFE Act), would require Internet Service Providers to report any user who is engaging in online sexual activity aimed at locating children and youths to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Schumer said.
The legislation will give law enforcement another avenue to fight the problem, Broome County District Attorney Gerald Mollen said.
Even if an Internet user or convicted sex offender changed their e-mail address and name with an ISP, or switched ISPs, they can still be caught because the legislation would require ISPs to report all illegal sexual activity aimed at children, according to Schumer’s office.
However, James Little, of Endicott, suggested the federal government mandate computer manufacturers install products that prevent children from accessing inappropriate Web sites and require parents to setup a password.
“There’s just a huge exposure to kids on the Internet and it’s going to be difficult to control that,” Little said. “It’s the parents that are going to have to prevent the trouble that their kids are getting into.”
But the government can’t fully rely parental responsibility, especially given the social atmosphere in which parents can’t be at home all the time to monitor their child’s Internet activity, Schumer said.
“The Internet companies who don’t cooperate get the book slammed on them too,” Schumer added.
ISPs who don’t report such activity would be fined $50,000 per incident per person for the first violation, and the fines increase per violation, Schumer said. ISPs will be absolved from any potential lawsuits, he said.
There would be federal funding issued to local law enforcement agencies to implement the law, he said.
Schumer said he expects Congress to approve both bills in the summer and be implemented by the fall.
http://www.theithacajournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070410/NEWS01/704100338
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11 April, 2007
Dear Senator Schumer,
Again, we find politicians attempting to recover from falling approval ratings (Associated Press-Ipsos poll on public attitudes about Congress, conducted April 2-4; showed that 57% DISAPPROVE of the way Congress is handling its job) by playing the “tough on sex offender” card. Your proposed KIDS and SAFE Acts are nothing more than smoke and mirrors.
We believe you not only know this, you should apologize to your constituents. Like previous laws, this one is rooted in myths, and misconceptions in place of facts and truths. Americans, especially our children deserve better.
Chris Hansen of Dateline quotes “1 in 5 online teenagers are approached about sex.” However, he never tells you the truth. The survey, a DOJ study, he uses shows that in over 70% of the time, other teenagers, not adults trolling the internet for sex, are approaching each other.
Recently, an FBI report charged that reporters were distorting the facts with fear-driven stories about monsters preying on children. The FBI, in fact, insists that child abductions by strangers actually have declined. In the 1980s, the number of such child abductions averaged annually about 200 to 300, according to the FBI. In 2000, the number of cases dropped to 93 compared with 134 in 1999 and 115 in 1998, when the FBI first began tracking these statistics.
A report to the Unites States Senate Judiciary Committee by SOhopeful International stated, “It is because of these misunderstandings about the real nature of sex crimes, victims of sex crimes and sex offenders that Federal and some State governments are spending large sums for ineffective policies that do not increase public safety.” If registration is the answer, why do we see an eight percent increase in the registry each year? If safety zones (banishment) are the answer, why are children still being abused? These measures are only feel good legislation, which have proven ineffective, and are continued punishment, not regulation.
The public needs to be more concerned about high-risk sex offenders and absconders, not the low risk offenders who are working hard to comply with their probation and therapy guidelines or the former offenders who have finished their sentence and have remained offence free since. Additionally, hysteria created by media misinformation and political hyperbole has a devastating and demoralizing effect on the families of low-risk offenders, including the unintended practice of revealing the identity of victims of intra-familial abuse, traumatizing children a second time.
The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, 2007 Report of the Sex Offender Policy Task Force states, “The recent wave of sex offender legislation is based upon emotion and myths about sex offenders which are not supported by valid research or evidence. Legislation in this area should be based upon facts and valid evidence. The NACDL encourages criminal defense lawyers, prosecutors, and legislators to oppose legislation based upon myth and public emotion. In doing so we can ensure both public safety and due process.”
Why are we all in deep denial about this problem? As long as citizens rely on uninformed politicians, the misinformed media and myths about sex offenders, all children remain at risk. We need to come to terms with our denial and seek real solutions, and we need to do it today. How many more Christopher’s, Jessica’s, Dylan’s, Megan’s, Polly’s, and Jacob’s have to die before we WAKE UP?
If you really want to make children safer, then take the lead and call for a National Sex Offender Policy Forum. Forums should include mental health professionals, jurists, law enforcement and corrections personnel, victims and their families, offenders and their families. Then Federal, state and local governments can better formulate workable, cost effective laws that protect the rights of all citizens.
What’s right is right and what’s wrong is wrong, in lieu of fostering a fearful witch-hunt mentality for votes, our elected officials should step up to this societal challenge. They should strive to dispel the myths and create the environment for policy and subsequent legislation to succeed, creating a safe society for all.
At the end of the day, we are all responsible; we are all involved in the safety of our families and have an investment in the outcome of this discussion. Educate yourself, protect your children, please have a staffer visit http://www.sosnet.pbwiki.com and report to you with their findings.
Sincerely yours,
The Sex Offender Solutions Network
Alyssa Abkowitz, a reporter for Creative Loafing Atlanta has been keeping track of the machinations of the Republican (or should we say, Rethuglicans) controlled General Assembly. Not to be outdone by last years absurd laws, they are obviously using Georgia as a test laboratory to see just how much the American people will allow in their attempt to overthrow our democracy and install a theocracy.
With the help of Alyssa, here are some examples (in blue) with our reply (in red):
Make it easier to hand out a death sentence: One tenant of law is that it takes a unanimous jury to give a convicted killer the death sentence. A proposal by House Republicans would allow judges to impose the death penalty as long as 10 out of 12 jurors agree. “To choose the death penalty to lower the standard is absolutely absurd,” says Sara Totonchi, public policy director of the Southern Center for Human Rights. “It’s changing centuries of law and legal practice.”
Of course, it would be changing centuries of law and legal practice, that is what the Republicans did last year and the year before that and the year before that. They have worked overtime to strip away the separation of the three branches of government. They cannot stand an independent Judiciary. They do not want Jurists deciding cases on its merits and that is why they are such strong supporters of mandatory minimums, which have made African-Americans in Georgia twice more likely to be incarcerated than in any other state. According to the Georgia Department of Corrections own report, four out of ten young African-American men in Georgia will become involved with the Judicial system before they are 25. The national average is 2 out of 10. The Republicans in Georgia are doing nothing more than putting a new face on slavery.
Create “private” cities: Lobbyists are pushing hard to change state law to create “development districts,” or private cities. Essentially, these districts would let developers – not the government – charge homeowners for roads, golf courses and more in new communities. Sen. Emanuel Jones, D-Decatur, questioned the premise in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “Why are we giving private developers the power to tax people? I thought that was the role of the government.”
Not too much to add here, other than Senator Jones has hit a Grand Slam with his question, and it begs an answer from the Georgia Republicans. Our question is, why do Georgians continue to put up with a General Assembly that is out of control, and continuing to erode the rights, and liberties of Georgia’s citizens?
Privatize health care: “People need monetary incentives to stay healthy,” says state Sen. Judson Hill, R-Marietta, who has sponsored legislation for tax incentives for businesses that offer individual health savings plans to employees. The idea sprang from a Newt Gingrich think tank. “Someone making $200,000 a year can afford to save $5,000,” says Alan Essig, executive director of the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute. “[But] if you ask a family of four making $40,000 a year to save 10 percent of their income for health care expenses, they won’t be able to afford anything.”
As one who is 100% disabled, and one of the longest living survivors of a mid-1960’s open-heart procedure, in desperate need of life saving procedures, I fail to see how I NEED a “monetary incentive to stay healthy.” I don’t need an incentive to stay healthy; I need help getting procedures that will keep me alive. I say to Senator Hill, WAKE UP! As for Mr. Essig, can you explain to me, or the rest of Georgians, your math equation? How does $5,000 equal ten percent of $200,000? Isn’t that more like 2.5%. Evidently, Essig thinks Georgians are just plain stupid.
Nevertheless, you know, he might be right, because Georgians are eating up this plate of Rethuglican lies as if it was a meal from the Big Chicken. The bottom line is that Georgians had better do something about this test lab the Rethuglicans have set up down here.
It is plainly obvious to this writer that the Rethuglican party is attempting to overthrow this democracy and set up a theocracy. They have been hijacked by fundamentalist who are neither Christian nor American. They are betting the farm that Americans (substitute Georgians for now) are either just too stupid or too damn apathetic to care. You know, they might be right.
The truth is finally coming out of Iraq, or perhaps, we should start this out by saying, we now learn about more lies by the Bush Administration.
In a report today filed by Charles J. Hanley, Special Correspondent to the Associated Press, we find a high level Iraqi speaking out about the corruption, incompetence, and mismanagement in Baghdad, all because of the micromanagement of the Administration. We also lay blame at the feet of the mainstream media, for their wholesale willingness to spread the propaganda of lies and deceit.
In place of truth, the Administration continues to delude themselves and the American public; and the press is content to placate their corporate masters with half truths, and fairy tales of successes that just DOES NOT exist.
Here is the report by Mr. Hanley, you can judge for yourself:
Iraqi details ’shocking’ U.S. missteps
In a rueful reflection on what might have been, an Iraqi government insider details in 500 pages the U.S. occupation’s “shocking” mismanagement of his country — a performance so bad, he writes, that by 2007 Iraqis had “turned their backs on their would-be liberators.”
“The corroded and corrupt state of Saddam was replaced by the corroded, inefficient, incompetent and corrupt state of the new order,” Ali A. Allawi concludes in “The Occupation of Iraq,” newly published by Yale University Press.
Allawi writes with authority as a member of that “new order,” having served as Iraq’s trade, defense and finance minister at various times since 2003. As a former academic, at Oxford University before the U.S.-British invasion of Iraq, he also writes with unusual detachment.
The U.S.- and British-educated engineer and financier is the first senior Iraqi official to look back at book length on his country’s four-year ordeal. It’s an unsparing look at failures both American and Iraqi, an account in which the word “ignorance” crops up repeatedly.
First came the “monumental ignorance” of those in Washington pushing for war in 2002 without “the faintest idea” of Iraq’s realities. “More perceptive people knew instinctively that the invasion of Iraq would open up the great fissures in Iraqi society,” he writes.
What followed was the “rank amateurism and swaggering arrogance” of the occupation, under L. Paul Bremer’s Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), which took big steps with little consultation with Iraqis, steps Allawi and many others see as blunders:
• The Americans disbanded Iraq’s army, which Allawi said could have helped quell a rising insurgency in 2003. Instead, hundreds of thousands of demobilized, angry men became a recruiting pool for the resistance.
• Purging tens of thousands of members of toppled President Saddam Hussein’s Baath party — from government, school faculties and elsewhere — left Iraq short on experienced hands at a crucial time.
• An order consolidating decentralized bank accounts at the Finance Ministry bogged down operations of Iraq’s many state-owned enterprises.
• The CPA’s focus on private enterprise allowed the “commercial gangs” of Saddam’s day to monopolize business.
• Its free-trade policy allowed looted Iraqi capital equipment to be spirited away across borders.
• The CPA perpetuated Saddam’s fuel subsidies, selling gasoline at giveaway prices and draining the budget.
In his 2006 memoir of the occupation, Bremer wrote that senior U.S. generals wanted to recall elements of the old Iraqi army in 2003, but were rebuffed by the Bush administration. Bremer complained generally that his authority was undermined by Washington’s “micromanagement.”
Although Allawi, a cousin of Ayad Allawi, Iraq’s prime minister in 2004, is a member of a secularist Shiite Muslim political grouping, his well-researched book betrays little partisanship.
On U.S. reconstruction failures — in electricity, health care and other areas documented by Washington’s own auditors — Allawi writes that the Americans’ “insipid retelling of `success’ stories” merely hid “the huge black hole that lay underneath.”
For their part, U.S. officials have often largely blamed Iraq’s explosive violence for the failures of reconstruction and poor governance.
The author has been instrumental since 2005 in publicizing extensive corruption within Iraq’s “new order,” including an $800-million Defense Ministry scandal. Under Saddam, he writes, the secret police kept would-be plunderers in check better than the U.S. occupiers have done.
As 2007 began, Allawi concludes, “America’s only allies in Iraq were those who sought to manipulate the great power to their narrow advantage. It might have been otherwise.”
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A final thought, last November, the American people spoke in a loud and clear voice. However, it is apparent our elected representatives did not hear us. For the upcoming election in 2008, I hope all citizens who can vote will. I hope you will join those of us who want to reclaim our country from the corporate robber barons and the spineless Representatives and Senators who obviously represent them, not the citizens. Start now, speak up, and write your Representatives and Senators, demand they put an end to the madness started by Bush, Cheney and their minions. Demand they act now or face the wrath of the voters in November.
I leave you with these pictures, which speak louder than the empty words of our politicians……
The Bush policy is making a whole new generation of people that will hate America!
After much soul searching, research, and thinking about what has happened to this country over the past six years, I have to support Dennis Kucinich for President in the 2008 Elections, here is why:
First and foremost - he is an advocate for PEACE. Dennis Kucinich has advocated the creation of a cabinet-level Department of Peace, to make non-violence an organizing principle within our society. He believes that peace, not war, is inevitable, if we are willing to work for peace. He sees the world as being interconnected and interdependent. This vision always strives to find the commonalities, the points where unity can be formed. He believes the United States can best lead the way through full support of the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty, the Kyoto Climate Change Treaty, the Chemical Weapons Convention, the Biological Weapons Convention; joining the International Criminal Court, signing the Landmine Treaty and the Small Arms Treaty. He believes that as we rejoin the world in full support of principles of international law, we help build the cause of human unity.
Second, Kucinich has been a leader for the following policies:
(1) Universal Single Payer - Not for Profit - Health Care
(3) Fully-paid tuition at public colleges and universities
(4) Repeal of the Patriot Act
(5) Development of bio-fuels as alternative energy and sustainable development
(6) Restoration of America’s basic manufacturing and infrastructure
(7) He is currently leading an effort to support the role of NASA in the development of basic research for civil aeronautics.
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He is an outspoken advocate for global Human Rights
He is in favor of withdrawal from NAFTA and WTO, which will stop the bleeding of jobs overseas. As for corporate reform, he states, “We cannot stand by idly while powerful economic engines — virtually unregulated corporations — violate workers’ rights, human rights, and the environment, sweeping aside antitrust laws, eliminating competition.” He wants to restore government of the people, by the people and for the people; reversing what we have seen over the past six years and more, government of the profit, by the profit and for the profit. (Read more about this subject here.)
He is in favor of a fair and equitable tax policy, taxing the 1 percent of the wealthiest Americans and corporations at the same rate they were taxed during the Clinton Administration. By rolling back the lopsided tax breaks given by G.W. (Global Warming) Bush, we can solidify Social Security and ease the deficit in short order.
He is in favor of abolishing mandatory minimum sentences, giving jurists the ability to judge each defendant and case on its own merits. Mandatory minimum came from pandering politicians, not scientific or judicial facts. They have destroyed far too many lives and have led to wide scale prosecutorial misconduct, as evidenced by the Duke Lacrosse Team rape allegations. Unless we change the way our judicial system is working (which today, it is NOT WORKING see my posts under Criminal Justice) we will add 200,000 new prisoners by 2011. We must move toward a Restorative Justice model, or else we will become a nation of have – have not’s – and have nothing.
He supported the Pension Protection Act of 2005, and has worked tirelessly to ensure American workers have their pension plans protected from the greedy robber-barons in the Board of Directors offices. He is in favor of increasing the minimum wage to a livable level.
I can go on and on here, but I will cut this missive short with the Top Ten Reasons to Vote for Dennis Kucinich (these can be found on the Kucinich for President web site)
1. Bring the troops home immediately!
2. Fully-paid universal healthcare for all Americans!
3. Fully-paid college tuition for all Americans!
4. Cancel NAFTA/WTO and end the exportation of U.S. jobs!
5. Corporate and government accountability. Unlike the other candidates, Dennis is NOT a shill for Corporate America and special interest groups on Capitol Hill! Corporate America does NOT want Dennis Kucinich to become President!
6. Dennis is for repealing The Patriot Act
7. Marijuana decriminalization - try to get Barak H. Obama or Hillary to support that! Good luck!!
8. Reassess and cut the bloated Pentagon budget!!! There’s billions MISSING at the Pentagon!!!
9. Dennis Kucinich is the most reliable and steadfast of ALL the candidates - Republican or Democrat!
10. By voting for Dennis, you’re supporting your interests - not some foreign special interest group or corporate lobbyist! A vote for Dennis is a vote for You!
By the way, in case you have forgotten, we are embroiled in a civil war in Iraq, started by Bush for no reason. Based on lies and deceit, he talked us into a war against a country, or better said a regime that was restrained, for more than a decade, from aggressive action by a very successful No Fly Zone. In place of perusing Osama bin Laden and the terrorist who had been attacking our interest abroad and at home, we were duped into this quagmire of another Viet Nam. Join Dennis Kucinich in calling for the IMPEACHMENT of President Bush, Vice-President Cheney and holding them accountable for crimes against humanity. By doing this, we preserve our Democracy, we send a message to the next thug who will want to be President and we secure the foundation of our way of life for our children and grandchildren.
Join me in supporting Dennis Kucinich for President in 2008. Let’s take back our government, let’s return to a government of the people, by the people and for the people.
For more information call 877-41-DENNIS (877-413-3664) or visit his web site KUCINICH 2008
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