Germany released him, OUR state department up in arms
Posted By: rr on 2005-12-28
In Reply to: Bush releases Hijacker Sought by U.S. - PK
and protesting the release...what's the point. It only proves that the U.S. don't want this thugs released...
Complete Discussion Below:  marks the location of current message within thread
The messages you are viewing
are archived/old.
To view latest messages and participate in discussions, select
the boards given in left menu
Other related messages found in our database
We do have the right to bear arms in this
I said that because the poster made a comment and guns and ammo, so I told poster many people have that...what is the big deal? If you don't own firearms, that's your business but we do still have the right to have guns in our homes.
I am not up in arms. I feel no differently about him today....
than I did yesterday, and I shouldn't. In my opinion, it is up to him to change my mind. He said basically for those of you whose respect I have not as yet earned...I am one of those people. He can either solidify what I think about him, or he can change my mind. It is up to him. Being bashed and belittled by his followers does not help his case.
I am NOT an O fan, but WOW!!! I wish my bare arms looked that good. nm
nm
Got a whole lot more going in the substance department
his campaign jumping from one smear to the next, lurching around trying to find his trajectory, running from the issue of the economy ("is not my strong suit and if we talk about it, we'll lose), has yet to come up with a coherent campaign theme except the change slogan he highjacked fromm Obama and cannot articulate one single sentence on the subject of how he would handle his 90% self any differently than the shrub.
That's the job of the immigration department.
LAPD deals with robbery, rape, murder, drugs, domestic violence, car chases, etc., in other words actual crimes.
The immigration department deport illegal immigrants.
If an illegal immigrant commits a crime, LAPD is allowed to arrest them.
Personally, I find that most illegal immigrants are much harder workers than many of the lazy US citizens who think they are too good to put in a hard day's work.
Yeah, when does the Department of Free Stuff start, my house payment is due! nm
xx
Labor Department's report of 533,000 job losses in November — the biggest job loss in 34 years
Getting worse every day.
Obama Justice Department Decision Will Allow Non-Citizens to Register to Vote in Georgia
Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel issued the following statement following the U.S. Department of Justice’s denial of preclearance of Georgia’s voter verification process
Atlanta - “The decision by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to deny preclearance of Georgia’s already implemented citizenship verification process shows a shocking disregard for the integrity of our elections. With this decision, DOJ has now barred Georgia from continuing the citizenship verification program that DOJ lawyers helped to craft. DOJ’s decision also nullifies the orders of two federal courts directing Georgia to implement the procedure for the 2008 general election. The decision comes seven months after Georgia requested an expedited review of the preclearance submission.
“DOJ has thrown open the door for activist organizations such as ACORN to register non-citizens to vote in Georgia’s elections, and the state has no ability to verify an applicant’s citizenship status or whether the individual even exists. DOJ completely disregarded Georgia’s obvious and direct interest in preventing non-citizens from voting, instead siding with the ACLU and MALDEF. Clearly, politics took priority over common sense and good public policy.
“This process is critical to protecting the integrity of our elections. We have evidence that non-citizens have voted in past Georgia elections and that more than 2,100 individuals have attempted to register, yet still have questions regarding their citizenship. Further, the Inspector General’s office is investigating more than 30 cases of non-citizens casting ballots in Georgia elections, including the case of a Henry County non-citizen who registered to vote and cast ballots in 2004 and 2006.
“It is important to underscore that not a single person has come forward to say he or she could not vote because of the verification process. Further, while DOJ argues that the process is somehow discriminatory, the historic voter turnout among Hispanic and African-American voters in the 2008 general elections clearly says otherwise.
“This decision provides a specific example of the inherently illogical and unfair nature of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. It is a sad day for the rights of our state and for the integrity of our elections. I remain committed to continuing the fight for citizenship verification. In the coming days, I will consider every option available to the state, including the possibility of legal action.”
Background:
As required by law and ordered by federal courts in October 2008, the eligibility of new applicants to register and vote is checked against the Georgia Department of Driver Services (DDS) and Social Security Administration databases to ensure that individuals registering to vote report similar information. If information in these databases does not match information reported on the voter registration form, the applicant is asked to clarify the information. Additionally, if the applicant previously reported to DDS that he or she is not a U.S. citizen, that person is asked by a registrar to provide proof of citizenship.
Prior to the November 2008 General Election, Secretary Handel sent letters to 4,771 voter registration applicants whose records at DDS indicated they were not U.S. citizens, asking them to provide documentation of their citizenship. As of March 2009, 2,148 of these applicants still have chosen not to resolve the question about their U.S. citizenship.
In the November 2008 General Election, county election officials reported that 599 individuals cast a challenged ballot because the voter had previously indicated to DDS that he or she was not a United States citizen and had not resolved their status with county officials at the time of the election. Of those, 369 ballots were accepted because the voter provided documentation of their citizenship after the election; and 230 were rejected because the individual chose not to confirm his or her citizenship status.
On October 10, 2008, activist organizations including the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit to attempt to prevent Georgia from verifying the eligibility of applicants to register and vote in the November General Election, including whether those individuals were citizens of the United States.
On October 16, 2008, U.S. District Court Judge Jack Camp denied the motion by MALDEF and ACLU; directed the State to continue the verification process; and acknowledged the State’s requirements to verify information under the Help America Vote Act. In his order, Judge Camp stated:
HAVA requires that Defendant Handel match information in the statewide voter registration database with information from the Georgia DDS and the SSA databases “to the extent necessary to enable each such official to verify the accuracy of the information provided on the applications for voter registration.”
Judge Camp also stated: ...
Two Border State Governors Declare Illegal Immigration State of Emergency
Two Border State Governors Declare Illegal Immigration State of Emergency
SIGN THE PETITION!
CLICK HERE!
THANK YOU!
You can have our federal money along with a new state motto: "Michigan - The Slave State". n
NM
Germany is being used. sm
The people bringing these charges are 11 Iraqi and they chose Germany as their *world stage*. They are being helped by some bleeding heart liberal named Michael Ratner.
It may be time for the US to close its military bases in Germany and shift them to Poland and the new East European democracies. They are far better allies and understand the importance of freedom and liberty.
Take it to Germany. They liked 0. ;-) lol
nm
Wow....even Germany and canada want O....
now THERE is an endorsement.
The voting jews? Redneck fundamentalist? Geez...BIGOTED much??
Another graduate of the Saul Alinsky Marxist-socialist (DNC) school of thought. This is ugly, ugly, and yet another wonderful reason to NOT vote for the big O and give this kind of bigotry power.
I think I would prefer Germany,
Austria, Greece, or maybe even Moldova.
Germany didn't kill
The whole fricken country didn't kill jews - the leadership of that country did!!!!! Just like every Muslim is not a terrorist, every person who lives south of Maryland is not a red neck. I don't agree with prosecuting Rumsfeld for Murder, but let's keep the bigotry off the liberal board and take it back over to the conservative board where it is welcome.
Yeah, in Germany they were called....
Gestapo. In Iran they are called...the Republican Guard. If he even STARTS down that road he should be impeached. And who is the "we" that set the national security objectives and what are those objectives???
It HAS been released and cleared up!
Here's his birth certificate with the state seal, verified by the Hawaiian officials, and his birth announcement from the newspaper at the time: http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html
This is only an issue for Fox viewers & forwarded email believers, everyone else knows it's a non-issue that has been proven false.
That is old news. It was released in the
It's yet another non-starter.
Looks more like Germany wouldn't give 'em up to the US. nm
Would you prefer Obama's arena be less than it was in Germany?
The guy has a great audience and my only fear was he would take on the black agenda when our country if falling apart - There is so much to do.
Yeah, give the man a stage that at least is proportionate to foreign countries' stage given to an American politician. Geesh.
I didn't see crowds gather for anyone else. When a crowd that size gathers for a person, they can have any darn stage set they want. As they deserved it.
In response to the "take it to Germany" post.
Seems that theybarely have a grasp on DC politics, let alone US imperatives abroad and challenges that America faces outside its borders. They scoff at American traditions such as diplomacy, alliance, common interests and initiatives aimed at real solutions for fascist dictatorships, human rights abuse, global poverty and terrorism. BTW, though we may have our own garden of home-grown terrorists, most terrorists live abroad. The ethnocentric jingoism expressed in the "America, love it of leave it/hate it and leave it" crowd and the imperial aspirations of their party in its attempts to disregard cultural differences, bomb nations into democracy and turn countries of the world into pitstops for the Americans to make on their resource raping rampages is exactly the kind of behavior that empowers terrorist worldviews to attract followers, strengthens their resolve and emboldens them to carry out their terrorist acts of war.
We actually DO need to take it to Germany and to all UN/NATO countries, turn a new page on our approaches and come up with new solutions, plans well understood by Obama and brilliantly articulated in his plans for diplomacy and policies on the war on terror. Biden grocs these concepts. Mccain, same old same old. Palin doesn't do foreign policy. The party obvoiusly does not even recognize the need for it.
His campaign has released several statements
stating that she was vetted. Just go to cnn.com and you can read them all there.
Here is a partial article (also explains that this was a rumor...that she had not been vetted:
Nicolle Wallace, a senior McCain adviser, told ABC's "Good Morning America" on Tuesday that Palin disclosed her daughter's pregnancy during the vetting process, and that the McCain campaign had been forced to reveal the pregnancy publicly Monday because of "lewd and outrageously false rumors" spread by "Democratic-leaning blogs and a few in the mainstream" media. She did not identify them.
Since McCain publicly disclosed his running mate on Friday, the notion of a shoddy, rushed review has been stoked repeatedly.
First, a campaign-issued timeline said McCain initially met Palin in February, then held one phone conversation with her last week before inviting her to Arizona, where he met with her a second time and offered her the job Thursday.
Then came the campaign's disclosure that Palin's unmarried 17-year-old daughter, Bristol, was pregnant. The father is Levi Johnston, who has been a hockey player at Bristol's high school, The New York Post and The New York Daily News reported in their Tuesday editions.
In addition, the campaign also disclosed that Palin's husband, Todd, then age 22, was arrested in 1986 in Alaska for driving under the influence of alcohol.
Shortly after Palin was named to the ticket, McCain's campaign dispatched a team of a dozen communications operatives and lawyers to Alaska. That fueled speculation that a comprehensive examination of Palin's record and past was incomplete and being done only after she was placed on the ticket.
Steve Schmidt, a senior adviser, said no matter who the nominee was, the campaign was ready to send a "jump team" to the No. 2's home state to work with the nominee's staff, work with the local media and help handle requests from the national media for information, and answer questions about documents that were part of the review.
At several points throughout the process, McCain's team warned Palin that the scrutiny into her private life would be intense and that there was nothing she could do to prepare for it.
Culvahouse disclosed details of his examination in a half-hour interview with the AP.
First, a team of some 25 people working under Culvahouse culled information from public sources for Palin and other prospective candidates without their knowledge. For all, news reports, speeches, financial and tax return disclosures, litigation, investigations, ethical charges, marriages and divorces were reviewed.
For Palin specifically, the team studied online archives of the state's largest newspapers, including the Anchorage Daily News, but didn't request paper archives for Palin's hometown newspaper. "I made the decision that we could not get it done and maintain secrecy," Culvahouse said.
Reports, 40-some pages and single-spaced, on each candidate then were reviewed by McCain, Schmidt, campaign manager Rick Davis and top advisers Mark Salter and Charlie Black.
Among the details McCain's campaign found: Palin had once received a citation for fishing without a license.
Palin, like others on the short list, then was sent a personal data questionnaire with 70 "very intrusive" questions, Culvahouse said. She also was asked to submit a number of years of federal and state tax returns, as well as any controversial articles she had written or interviews she had done. The campaign also checked her credit.
Then, Culvahouse conducted a nearly three-hour-long interview.
He said the first thing she volunteered was that her daughter was pregnant, and she also quickly disclosed her husband's DUI arrest.
Early on, the public search unearthed details of the investigation by the Republican-controlled legislature into the possibility that Palin ordered the dismissal of Alaska's public safety commissioner because he would not fire her former brother-in-law as a state trooper.
Culvahouse said that he asked follow-up questions during the interview, and "spent a lot of time with her lawyer" on the matter.
"We came out of it knowing all that we could know at the time," he said.
As for the financial records review, Culvahouse said: "It was very clean. We had no issues there."
Throughout the process, the campaign said, Davis had multiple conversations with Palin.
He refused to be released from prison...
because there were men who had been there longer than he had and he felt using his dad's clout to get him out was wrong for those men, and it was, and that takes the kind of courage and integrity Barack Obama can only dream about.
How can you say he never regretted it? Does Obama regret throwing a friend and mentor, the man who baptized his children, under the bus for his political career? This is a man you should trust? Hello??
Document NOT to be released to the public?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nT-BvWg3e1I&eurl
Laws vary state-to-state
Many people were confined against their will just because someone wanted them "out of the way." These were normal people with no mental illness - that is why it is so difficult - don't blame the liberals. Blame your state.
CONFINING THE MENTALLY ILL
In the legal space between what a society should and should not do, taking action to restrict the liberty of people who are mentally ill sits in the grayest of gray areas.
Our notions about civil and constitutional rights flow from an assumption of "normalcy." Step beyond the boundaries and arrest and prison may legally follow. Short of that, government's ability to hold people against their will is severely and properly limited. Unusual behavior on the part of someone who is mentally ill is not illegal behavior. Freedom can't be snatched away on a whim, or on the thought that a person is hard to look at, hard to hear, hard to smell.
It was only a few decades ago that the promise of new medications and a change in attitude opened the doors of the mental hospitals and sent many patients into society. There, they would somehow "normalize" and join everyone else, supported by networks of out-patient facilities, job training, special living arrangements and regular, appropriate medication. But the transition has been imperfect, long and difficult.
In some parts of urban America there is little professional support for those with mental health problems. A new generation of drug and alcohol-fueled mental illness has come on the scene. People frequently end up on the street, un-medicated and exhibiting a full range of behaviors that are discomforting at the very least and threatening at their worst.
Why do you think Obama campaigned in Europe/Germany last year? sm
Were they voting for him?
Huge red flag went up for a lot of us on that one.
The writing was on the wall, but so many refused to see it.
You hope it's wrong, and so do I. But only time will tell.
No doubt conservative right-wingers can be found in Germany
So let me get this straight. While there, did you actually founnd more than 250,000 Germans who were PO'ed? You did a quick street survey, right?
A picture is worth 1000 words. Your claim does nothing to change the fact that the turn-out was phenomenal, he brought many in the audience to tears, was perceived as the Black JFK and created a sensation all across Europe. Please note, this is not a US media source.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23520458-details/Obama+addresses+200,000+in+Berlin+as+he+calls+for+%5C'walls+between+Christians,+Muslims+and+Jews+to+come+down%5C'/article.do
Judith Miller released from jail.
After 86 days in jail, her *source* has officially given his permission for her to reveal his identity in a story that she never even WROTE presumably regarding WMD/Valerie Plame's identity.
Her source?
Well, none other than *Scooter* Libby, CHENEY'S CHIEF OF STAFF.
Aren't we fortunate to have such honest, ethical, patriotic Cons in the White House? Seems a lot of them could learn a lot about confidentiality and ethics from a member of that horribly corrupt mainstream media -- Judith Miller!!
New 'Bin Laden message' released...sm
I guess he's still alive and sending videos.
-------------
From BBC: New 'Bin Laden message' released
Osama Bin Laden
This would be Bin Laden's fourth message this year
A new recording purportedly from al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden has been posted on an Islamic website.
He praised Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaeda leader killed in Iraq three weeks ago, as the lion of holy war.
The video, lasting 19 minutes, shows a still picture of Bin Laden, and moving pictures of al-Zarqawi.
The recording's authenticity has not been verified, but if it is confirmed, it would be the fourth audio message Bin Laden has released this year.
However, no new video images of the al-Qaeda leader have appeared since October 2004.
Last week a video was broadcast purportedly showing the deputy leader of al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahri in which he paid tribute to Zarqawi and said his death would be avenged.
Universal fight
In the latest recording, Bin Laden addresses US President George W Bush, warning him not to be too happy about Zarqawi's death, for the banner [of al-Qaeda in Iraq] hasn't dropped but has passed from one lion of Islam to another lion.
Bin Laden says al-Qaeda will go on with operations against the US and its allies.
We will continue, God willing, to fight you and your allies everywhere, he said, in Iraq and Afghanistan and in Somalia and Sudan until we waste all your money and kill your men.
In an apparent reference to a campaign against Iraq's Shias by Zarqawi, Bin Laden addressed those who accuse Abu Musab of killing certain sectors of the Iraqi people.
Abu Musab had clear instructions to focus his fight on the occupiers, he went on, particularly the Americans and to leave aside anyone who remains neutral.
He called on President Bush to return Zarqawi's body to his family, and used rhyming couplets to eulogise the dead al-Qaeda leader.
That's when the letter was dated. It could have been written the day he released it.
Why would he quit the day after his dad accepted the nomination and not release the letter then?
UCLA released a study recently that said...
that the New Deal probably prolonged the depression by at least 7 years. Are you sure that socialism is what the market needs--it is my thought that this problem was well on its way before Bush came into office--caused by the interference in the market that was already in place.
Meixco has released a travel alert.
College campuses here are posting warnings on their websites, warning students that the violence has gotten very bad and they may be targeted or even killed. From a friend who works down there regularly, it is that bad and he says it is only a matter of time before something extremely violent happens to tourists. He hears it in the streets and he watches his back constantly. Mexican drug lords are gearing up to use these tourists for ransom......
Germany seek charges against Rumsfeld for prison abuse sm
Friday, Nov. 10, 2006
Exclusive: Charges Sought Against Rumsfeld Over Prison Abuse
A lawsuit in Germany will seek a criminal prosecution of the outgoing Defense Secretary and other U.S. officials for their alleged role in abuses at Abu Ghraib and Gitmo
By ADAM ZAGORIN
Just days after his resignation, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is about to face more repercussions for his involvement in the troubled wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. New legal documents, to be filed next week with Germany's top prosecutor, will seek a criminal investigation and prosecution of Rumsfeld, along with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, former CIA director George Tenet and other senior U.S. civilian and military officers, for their alleged roles in abuses committed at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison and at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The plaintiffs in the case include 11 Iraqis who were prisoners at Abu Ghraib, as well as Mohammad al-Qahtani, a Saudi held at Guantanamo, whom the U.S. has identified as the so-called 20th hijacker and a would-be participant in the 9/11 hijackings. As TIME first reported in June 2005, Qahtani underwent a special interrogation plan, personally approved by Rumsfeld, which the U.S. says produced valuable intelligence. But to obtain it, according to the log of his interrogation and government reports, Qahtani was subjected to forced nudity, sexual humiliation, religious humiliation, prolonged stress positions, sleep deprivation and other controversial interrogation techniques.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs say that one of the witnesses who will testify on their behalf is former Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, the one-time commander of all U.S. military prisons in Iraq. Karpinski — who the lawyers say will be in Germany next week to publicly address her accusations in the case — has issued a written statement to accompany the legal filing, which says, in part: It was clear the knowledge and responsibility [for what happened at Abu Ghraib] goes all the way to the top of the chain of command to the Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld .
A spokesperson for the Pentagon told TIME there would be no comment since the case has not yet been filed.
Along with Rumsfeld, Gonzales and Tenet, the other defendants in the case are Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Stephen Cambone; former assistant attorney general Jay Bybee; former deputy assisant attorney general John Yoo; General Counsel for the Department of Defense William James Haynes II; and David S. Addington, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff. Senior military officers named in the filing are General Ricardo Sanchez, the former top Army official in Iraq; Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the former commander of Guantanamo; senior Iraq commander, Major General Walter Wojdakowski; and Col. Thomas Pappas, the one-time head of military intelligence at Abu Ghraib.
Germany was chosen for the court filing because German law provides universal jurisdiction allowing for the prosecution of war crimes and related offenses that take place anywhere in the world. Indeed, a similar, but narrower, legal action was brought in Germany in 2004, which also sought the prosecution of Rumsfeld. The case provoked an angry response from Pentagon, and Rumsfeld himself was reportedly upset. Rumsfeld's spokesman at the time, Lawrence DiRita, called the case a a big, big problem. U.S. officials made clear the case could adversely impact U.S.-Germany relations, and Rumsfeld indicated he would not attend a major security conference in Munich, where he was scheduled to be the keynote speaker, unless Germany disposed of the case. The day before the conference, a German prosecutor announced he would not pursue the matter, saying there was no indication that U.S. authorities and courts would not deal with allegations in the complaint.
In bringing the new case, however, the plaintiffs argue that circumstances have changed in two important ways. Rumsfeld's resignation, they say, means that the former Defense Secretary will lose the legal immunity usually accorded high government officials. Moreover, the plaintiffs argue that the German prosecutor's reasoning for rejecting the previous case — that U.S. authorities were dealing with the issue — has been proven wrong.
The utter and complete failure of U.S. authorities to take any action to investigate high-level involvement in the torture program could not be clearer, says Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, a U.S.-based non-profit helping to bring the legal action in Germany. He also notes that the Military Commissions Act, a law passed by Congress earlier this year, effectively blocks prosecution in the U.S. of those involved in detention and interrogation abuses of foreigners held abroad in American custody going to back to Sept. 11, 2001. As a result, Ratner contends, the legal arguments underlying the German prosecutor's previous inaction no longer hold up.
Whatever the legal merits of the case, it is the latest example of efforts in Western Europe by critics of U.S. tactics in the war on terror to call those involved to account in court. In Germany, investigations are under way in parliament concerning cooperation between the CIA and German intelligence on rendition — the kidnapping of suspected terrorists and their removal to third countries for interrogation. Other legal inquiries involving rendition are under way in both Italy and Spain.
U.S. officials have long feared that legal proceedings against war criminals could be used to settle political scores. In 1998, for example, former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet — whose military coup was supported by the Nixon administration — was arrested in the U.K. and held for 16 months in an extradition battle led by a Spanish magistrate seeking to charge him with war crimes. He was ultimately released and returned to Chile. More recently, a Belgian court tried to bring charges against then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for alleged crimes against Palestinians.
For its part, the Bush Administration has rejected adherence to the International Criminal Court (ICC) on grounds that it could be used to unjustly prosecute U.S. officials. The ICC is the first permanent tribunal established to prosecute war crimes, genocide and other crimes against humanity.
Germany, who killed millions of Jews wants to prosecute Rumsfeld.
That makes sense.
Nazi Germany was created during a long cold winter
when unemployment was high. People was literally starving and freezing. Leadership had failed to keep the citizens fed and sheltered. Rogue leadership, Hitler, arrives announcing he will bring an end to the suffering. War employs. When there are no jobs, war is the alternative for a country. And pillaging, which is what basically happened, and the attempt at extinctousing an undesirable (to Hitler) nationality. Desperation in a country is a ticket to the empowerment of leadership which could potentially change the course of history. Or maybe we know that as it has just happened to us.
Vanity Fair: NORAD tapes released sm
For anyone interested, here is the link to NORAD tapes.
http://www.vanityfair.com/features/general/060801fege01
That's awful! Praying all those held will be released safely...
they are saying a woman and child have been released, and that is a good thing...praying this will end with no innocent folks being hurt.
To Piglet....Gary Kasparov was released from jail
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/11/29/kasparov.jail.ap/
Obama has NEVER released his official birth cert.
nm
His exact quote was "Last week, they released
techniques and that was clearly a political decision and ignored the advice of their Director of National Intelligence and their CIA director".
**Outlining torture techniques**
Nuff said.
oops - made a mistake - the other guy's book was released during the campaign -
I am sorry that I was wrong. Obama's book had already been released.
The first copy obviously sold really well though considering the amount of money they paid him to do the sequel.
Red state, blue state?
Written last Thanksgiving: "Some would argue that two different nations actually celebrated: upright, moral, traditional red America and the dissolute, liberal blue states clustered on the periphery of the heartland. The truth, however, is much more complicated and interesting than that.
Take two iconic states: Texas and Massachusetts. In some ways, they were the two states competing in the last election. In the world's imagination, you couldn't have two starker opposites. One is the homeplace of Harvard, gay marriage, high taxes, and social permissiveness. The other is Bush country, solidly Republican, traditional, and gun-toting. Massachusetts voted for Kerry over Bush 62 to 37 percent; Texas voted for Bush over Kerry 61 to 38 percent.
So ask yourself a simple question: which state has the highest divorce rate? Marriage was a key issue in the last election, with Massachusetts' gay marriages becoming a symbol of alleged blue state decadence and moral decay. But in actual fact, Massachusetts has the lowest divorce rate in the country at 2.4 divorces per 1,000 inhabitants. Texas - which until recently made private gay sex a criminal offence - has a divorce rate of 4.1. A fluke? Not at all. The states with the highest divorce rates in the U.S. are Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Texas. And the states with the lowest divorce rates are: Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont. Every single one of the high divorce rate states went for Bush. Every single one of the low divorce rate states went for Kerry. The Bible Belt divorce rate, in fact, is roughly 50 percent higher than the national average.
Some of this discrepancy can be accounted for by the fact that couples tend to marry younger in the Bible Belt - and many clearly don't have the maturity to know what they're getting into. There's some correlation too between rates of college education and stable marriages, with the Bible Belt lagging a highly educated state like Massachusetts. But the irony still holds. Those parts of America that most fiercely uphold what they believe are traditional values are not those parts where traditional values are healthiest. Hypocrisy? Perhaps. A more insightful explanation is that these socially troubled communities cling onto absolutes in the abstract because they cannot live up to them in practice.
But doesn't being born again help bring down divorce rates? Jesus, after all, was mum on the subject of homosexuality, but was very clear about divorce, declaring it a sin unless adultery was involved. A recent study, however, found no measurable difference in divorce rates between those who are "born again" and those who are not. 29 percent of Baptists have been divorced, compared to 21 percent of Catholics. Moreover, a staggering 23 percent of married born-agains have been divorced twice or more. Teen births? Again, the contrast is striking. In a state like Texas, where the religious right is extremely strong and the rhetoric against teenage sex is gale-force strong, the teen births as a percentage of all births is 16.1 percent. In liberal, secular, gay-friendly Massachusetts, it's 7.4, almost half. Marriage itself is less popular in Texas than in Massachusetts. In Texas, the percent of people unmarried is 32.4 percent; in Massachusetts, it's 26.8 percent. So even with a higher marriage rate, Massachusetts manages a divorce rate almost half of its "conservative" rival.
Or take abortion. America is one of the few Western countries where the legality of abortion is still ferociously disputed. It's a country where the religious right is arguably the strongest single voting bloc, and in which abortion is a constant feature of cultural politics. Compare it to a country like Holland, perhaps the epitome of socially liberal, relativist liberalism. So which country has the highest rate of abortion? It's not even close. America has an abortion rate of 21 abortions per 1,000 women aged between 15 and 44. Holland has a rate of 6.8. Americans, in other words, have three times as many abortions as the Dutch. Remind me again: which country is the most socially conservative?
Even a cursory look at the leading members of the forces of social conservatism in America reveals the same pattern. The top conservative talk-radio host, Rush Limbaugh, has had three divorces and an addiction to pain-killers. The most popular conservative television personality, Bill O'Reilly, just settled a sex harassment suit that indicated a highly active adulterous sex life. Bill Bennett, the guru of the social right, was for many years a gambling addict. Karl Rove's chief outreach manager to conservative Catholics for the last four years, Deal Hudson, also turned out to be a man with a history of sexual harassment. Bob Barr, the conservative Georgian congressman who wrote the "Defense of Marriage Act," has had three wives so far. The states which register the highest ratings for the hot new television show, "Desperate Housewives," are all Bush-states.
The complicated truth is that America truly is a divided and conflicted country. But it's a grotesque exaggeration to say that the split is geographical, or correlated with blue and red states. Many of America's biggest "sinners" are those most intent on upholding virtue. In fact, it may be partly because they know sin so close-up that they want to prevent its occurrence among others. And some of those states which have the most liberal legal climate - the Northeast and parts of the upper MidWest - are also, in practice, among the most socially conservative. To ascribe all this to "hypocrisy" seems to me too crude an explanation. America is simply a far more complicated and diverse place than crude red and blue divisions can explain.
I don't know what state you live in but in my state
they are adding police and only in the big cities do they have paid firemen. The rest are volunteers.
I look at it this way: If a state can't stay in the black, then they have to cut spending some place that wouldn't jeopardize the safety of the citizens. Threats of cutting essential services like Barney Fife stated today are unjustified. Cut the non-essential services first.
Our governor talks about cutting back on services, laying off government workers, which I think is a good idea because government is too big anyway, but then he turns around and spends more money on non-essential items. Doesn't make sense.
I'm from that state and...
He paid for his Senate campaign with the earnings from one malpractice suit.
In my state......
the welfare reform has gotten so rigid - it isn't worth it. $115 per person per month and adults have to work a 40-hour week to get it. I WOULDN'T live in the low income housing areas - crime is too high, get knifed getting the mail. The unemployment rate is at an all time high in this state.......so getting a job is really tough and then you are lucky to get minimum wage which would prevent you from any type of subsidy (food stamps) from the government. The help on the heat bill? Well you might get some help at the beginning of winter, but by January the funding has run out, so you're screwed on that one. They can't shut your heat off in the winter, but by spring they can and they won't turn it back on until you pay the whole amount due. So those lucky welfare recipients are just having a ball at the expense of us self-righteous, key-pounding, pull yourself up by your bootstraps gods. Indeed, why work?
And in a state that had.........sm
over 860,000 new registrations or changes of address filed this year alone. The estimated population of people over the age of 18 in 2006 (last year data available) is 8,711,807. I think 860,000 is a significantly large portion of that population.
as far as state goes
I do know there is some truth to some states having sent out IOUs as some people have actually gotten them, but I just didnt know for sure about federal. I guess as far as states go, it would depend on the financial stability of each state? I have read a news article that 46 states are on their way and in serious danger of being bankrupt within the next few months to a year. Go ahead and flame me any of you, but it is the truth.
We are having them in my state also.....
In fact, I am on the organizing committee for the one in the town where I live. It will be on 4/15/09.
I doubt it will do much good, but it is time to take back our country from the "anointed one" and his cronies and become the great country that people once looked up to.
If we do not act now, America will become just another 3rd world country complete with universal health insurance that includes forced coverage for abortions, firing of the health care people who listen to their conscience, and refuse to perform abortions, and (by extrapolation) euthanasia or worse for the people who are older and not in good healthhave who have been deemed not as important as a younger, healthier person, and therefore should not have access to the best health care around.
This is a ramble, but it needs to be said. We have been thrown under the proverbial bus.
Name the city and state this happens in? sm
I'm sorry this is foreign to me.
The US is becoming a police state.sm
It is not full-fledged yet, but 95% there. There is a rush to incarcerate (1 in 136 Americans are in jails and prisons). National ID card by 2010, RFID chips, face scanners installed at high schools, those who disagree with government are called homegrown terrorists (another false flag) or traitors. It is very well known that both Bush presidents support the one world government (NWO). The USA no longer resembles the Constitutional Republic it is supposed to be. Land of the free is an illusion.
Sad state of affairs.
So very very sad.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0704-04.htm
|
