Talking about Florida, I can only imagine how things would have been...sm

• Talking about Florida, I can only imagine how things would have been...sm - payback time in Florida
  • We would all be speaking Urdu by now. - nm
  • Al would have made sure we were . . . - pw
    • Or we'd be BROKE buying his carbon credits - algore
      • Yeah. That Nobel Peace Prize recipient - is a regular bastion of corruption.
        • He didn't deserve the Nobel Peace Prize - algore
        • Well, this would have been what really went - down
    • That whole "blood for oil" argument is garbage. - Same old rhetoric, same depressing left.nm
      • My guess is you probably drive one of - pw
        • You're really grasping at straws now - MSMT
      • Tell that to the families of the 100,000 - American and Iraqi soldier and civilian casualitie
      • Yeah, and never think about the fact that since 911, - USA has not been attacked -right?.nm
        • The left is not capable of thinking that way. Instead, - it's usually "what ya gonna give me for free
          • Believe me, the O lovers on here hate that - fact............NM

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Not bad for a town whose population is 70,000 people.

http://news-press.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080921/NEWS0107/80921022

(CNN) -- A Florida circuit judge Tuesday struck down a 31-year-old state law that prevents gays and lesbians from adopting children, allowing a North Miami man to adopt two half-brothers he and his partner have raised as foster children since 2004.

"There is no question, the blanket exclusion of gay applicants defeats Florida's goal of providing dependent children a permanent family through adoption," Judge Cindy S. Lederman wrote in her 53-page ruling.

"The best interests of children are not preserved by prohibiting homosexual adoption."

The state attorney general's office has appealed the decision.

Lederman said there is no moral or scientific reason for banning gays and lesbians from adopting, despite the state's arguments otherwise. The state argued that gays and lesbians have higher odds of suffering from depression, affective and anxiety disorders and substance abuse, and that their households are more unstable.

Lederman said the ban violated children's right to permanency provided under the Florida statute and under the federal Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997. Whether the ban violated the state's equal protection clause by singling out gays and lesbians should be considered, she said.

Lederman's ruling paves the way for Martin Gill to legally adopt the two half-brothers, ages 4 and 8, whom he has cared for since December 2004, the American Civil Liberties Union said.

The two boys, who are referred to as John and James Doe in court documents, were removed from their homes on allegations of abandonment and neglect.

On that December evening, John and James left a world of chronic neglect, emotional impoverishment and deprivation to enter a new world, foreign to them, that was nurturing, safe, structured and stimulating," Lederman wrote.

In 2006, the children's respective fathers' rights were terminated, court documents said, and they remained in the care of Gill and his partner.

"Our family just got a lot more to be thankful for this Thanksgiving," Gill said Tuesday, according to the ACLU, which represented him.

Florida is the only state that specifically bans all "homosexual" people from adopting children, although it does allow them to be foster parents.

This month, Arkansas voters approved a ballot measure to prohibit unmarried partners -- same-sex or opposite-sex couples -- from adopting children or from serving as foster parents. The measure is similar to one in Utah, which excludes same-sex couples indirectly through a statute barring all unmarried couples from adopting or taking in foster children.

Mississippi allows single gays and lesbians to adopt, but prohibits same-sex couples from adopting.

Neal Skene, spokesman for the Florida Department of Children and Families, said the appeal was filed so a statewide resolution on the law could be determined by an appellate court. He noted that another Florida circuit judge declared the law unconstitutional this year but that ruling had not been appealed.

"We need a statewide determination by the appellate courts," he said.

Gill's adoption petition cannot be approved until the appeal process is finished, Skene said, but the children will remain in Gill's home.

"These are wonderful foster parents," Skene said. "It's just that we have a statute, [and] the statute is very clear on the issue of adoption."

Several organizations -- including the National Adoption Center, the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics -- have said that having gay and lesbian parents does not negatively affect children.

The Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, a nonprofit organization that studies adoption and foster care, hailed the decision.

"This ban, which was the only one of its kind in the country, has done nothing but undermine the prospects of boys and girls in the foster care system to get permanent, loving homes," said Adam Pertman, the Adoption Institute's executive director, in a written statement.

"So this decision by Judge Lederman is a very important, hopeful ruling for children who need families."

campaign ads that would have emerged from the Clinton campaign against Ms. Now-where-did-I-put-my-notes Pirro.

Hillary hasn't impressed me much lately, though, and I truly can't imagine myself voting for her if she runs for President. 

JM in a meeting with Russian or Iraq leaders about nuclear arms.  JM gets mad, calls the leader a "#@@#$#" and shoves him.  Lord love a duck.

by his car and a young child walking by and the man says to the young child, "I've got some candy.  Do you want some candy?  You have to get into my car if you want a piece of candy."

Or how about Obamanation groupies.....Do you want change.  You have to get onto my bus and register to vote for change.  Remember Uhhbama is change.  HAIL OBAMA!  McCain bad.....Uhhbama good. 

  **'escalate violence' in the region since nobody has safe in those waters for years.  Should we be like the woman abused by her husband for years, who doesn't want him arrested because she doesn't want to 'make him mad'  ?

So these lawless jerks hijack, steal, kidnap, threaten murder, then swear vengeance when we oppose them?  http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/piracy

......One of the pirates pointed an AK-47 at the back of Phillips, who was tied up and in "imminent danger" of being killed when the commander of the nearby USS Bainbridge made the split-second decision to order his men to shoot, Vice Adm. Bill Gortney said. The lifeboat was being towed by the Bainbridge at the time, he said.

A fourth pirate was in discussions with naval authorities about Phillips' fate when the rescue took place. He is in U.S. custody and could face could face life in a U.S. prison.

**"This could escalate violence in this part of the world, no question about it," said Gortney, the commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command.

Abdullahi Lami, one of the pirates holding the Greek ship anchored in the Somali town of Gaan, said: "Every country will be treated the way it treats us. In the future, America will be the one mourning and crying," he told The Associated Press. "We will retaliate (for) the killings of our men.......

for me having to work any longer (now I can wait by the mailbox for a check!). What a country where you get penalized for hard work and doing the right thing.

who provides campaign funds.  Do you know why lobbyists are making the headlines?  Because they are bribing the politicians of both parties - lobbyists work for private interests (AIPAC) along with the pharmaceutical company ($280.00 for a bottle of pills?  Only in America, folks), oil industry (record profits at your expense) credit card companies and unethical banking procedures (Funny isn't it how Visa wrote the reformed BK bill, making virtually everyone end up in ch 13 (garnishing income, including SS) after raising credit limits and offering transfer balances at 0 percent to everyone with a last name and a roof over their head?  Along with mtgs that were bound to turn into bad loans when house prices dropped which they always do after a bubble.  God, I could go on and on here but I get tired.  The nation is in such trouble.  Serious serious trouble.  There is a huge loan to an unfriendly country (did you watch the Olympics?  did you ever see Bush look more uncomfortable other than during the Stephen Colbert roast during the national press conference.  lol.  

Well I want you to know what fascism.  And I want you to know that those treasury notes are backed up by the taxpayers (you) and real estate including roads and govt buildings and parks.  Have you noticed why Save-Mart Center is owned by savemart and not a community business or the community itself?  There is somethign happening slowly and surely and it is NOT going to benefit middle class america one iota.  You must know that as a poor person, you have no power, no voice.  Elections are rigged and the politicans cease to care whether you like them or not - oh wait, that has already happened. 

THINK ABOUT THIS!!!!  Your 401Ks and investments/assets are what at are stake! 

Fascist governments nationalized key industries and made massive state investments. They also introduced price controls, wage controls and other types of Soviet-style economic planning measures.^[12] Property rights and private initiative were contingent upon service to the state.^[13].^[14] Fascists promoted their ideology as a "third way" between capitalism and Marxian socialism.^[15] Fascists in Germany and Italy claimed that they opposed reactionaries, and that they were actually revolutionary political movements that fused with conservative social values.

1:  His approval rating as I write this has now decreased to 29%.  (However, by the time you read this, it may be even lower yet.  He is most definitely *a work in progress,* and the number of Americans who are waking up and smelling the proverbial coffee is increasing at a rapid rate.

2.  The fact that the government has been tracking phone calls of hundreds of millions of Americans may be nothing more than a political *parking ticket* compared to what we might discover next week.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/12/19380/1332

NSA Whistleblower: There's More, People Are Going To Be Shocked

by georgia10

Fri May 12, 2006 at 04:38:00 PM PDT

From the subscription-only Congress Daily, Chris Strohm reports that NSA whistleblower Russell Tice will make some on bombshell revelations on Capitol Hill next week:

A former intelligence officer for the National Security Agency said Thursday he plans to tell Senate staffers next week that unlawful activity occurred at the agency under the supervision of Gen. Michael Hayden beyond what has been publicly reported, while hinting that it might have involved the illegal use of space-based satellites and systems to spy on U.S. citizens. Russell Tice, who worked on what are known as special access programs, has wanted to meet in a closed session with members of Congress and their staff since President Bush announced in December that he had secretly authorized the NSA to eavesdrop on U.S. citizens without a court order.  In an interview late Thursday, Tice said the Senate Armed Services Committee finally asked him to meet next week in a secure facility on Capitol Hill.

Tice was fired from the NSA last May. He said he plans to tell the committee staffers the NSA conducted illegal and unconstitutional surveillance of U.S. citizens while he was there with the knowledge of Hayden, who has been nominated to become director of the CIA. Tice said one of his co-workers personally informed Hayden that illegal and unconstitutional activity was occurring. [...] I think the people I talk to next week are going to be shocked when I tell them what I have to tell them. It's pretty hard to believe, Tice said. I hope that they¹ll clean up the abuses and have some oversight into these programs, which doesn't exist right now. [...]

Tice said his information is different from the Terrorist Surveillance Program that Bush  acknowledged in December and from news accounts this week that the NSA has been secretly collecting phone call records of millions of Americans. It's an angle that you haven't heard about yet, he said.