Misconceptions about the Crusades are all too common. Generally portrayed as a series of unprovoked holy wars against Islam, they are supposed to have been the epitome of self-righteousness and intolerance -- a black stain on the history of the Catholic Church in particular and Western, Christian civilization in general.

Since September 11, variations of this theme have been used to explain -- even justify -- Muslim terror against the West. Former president Bill Clinton himself, in a speech at Georgetown University, fingered Muslim anger at the Crusades as the "root cause" of the present conflict.

But the truth is that the Crusades had nothing to do with colonialism or unprovoked aggression -- and in A Concise History of the Crusades, renowned medieval historian Thomas F. Madden sets the record straight.

… At some point, Christianity as a faith and a culture had to defend itself or be subsumed by Islam. The Crusades were that defense. Their entire subsequent history is one of Western reaction to Muslim advances -- they were no more offensive than was the American invasion of Normandy.

… Islam was born in war and grew the same way. From the time of Mohammed, the means of Muslim expansion was always the sword.

Whether we admire the Crusaders or not, it is a fact that the world we know today would not exist without their efforts.

The Oregon Republican Party will begin its state convention in Keizer today and is taking the unusual step of closing half of the event to the news media.

Phillips said the party "has a lot to do" and that it seemed logical to allow the media to attend Saturday when Cheney is speaking. "It isn't that we're trying to keep anything from the public," she said.

"I just hope she doesn't address the gay marriage issue" in her remarks to the state GOP convention, said Mike White, a Republican and the head of the Oregon Family Council, a conservative group that supports the state gay marriage ban that's expected to qualify for the Nov. 2 ballot.

White, who is backing Bush's re-election bid, said he is "troubled" by the vice president's wife's refusal to endorse the federal constitutional amendment.

"She is here to rally support for the president, and common sense would say that she will only make remarks on issues she and the president agree on," White said.

… the reasoning employed by American policymakers in early 2002 as they planned the next step in the war on terrorism, comes into clearer focus. The U.S. had toppled the Taliban but had not caught bin Laden and some of his top aides. Without a friendly regime in Afghanistan to protect al Qaeda, where might bin Laden and his band of terrorists go next? One possibility -- a quite reasonable possibility -- would be a place that had offered them haven in the past: Iraq.

Almost none of this information was included in the preliminary (9/11) staff report, and thus was not part of the reporting last month that proclaimed no relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda. Because of that absence of information, in late June and early July, the idea that there was no Iraq-al Qaeda link became the conventional wisdom …

Liberals the likes of Ted Kennedy and the New York Times editorial board have crowed quite a bit in recent weeks that a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage would "put bias in the Constitution" by declaring marriage to be exclusively the union of one man and one woman. It is a specious, deceptive argument.

Liberals the likes of Ted Kennedy and the New York Times editorial board have crowed quite a bit in recent weeks that a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage would "put bias in the Constitution" by declaring marriage to be exclusively the union of one man and one woman. It is a specious, deceptive argument.

REPORTER: "With regard to Iran, more reports have been coming out about their possible links to terrorism and 9/11 and so forth. Is there any second guessing going on in the White House that maybe the administration should have been tougher with Iran and less tough with Iraq?"

McCLELLAN: "I think we are being tough with Iran. If you'll recall, the President in his -- I believe his 2002 State of the Union address talked about Iran, he talked about North Korea, he talked about
Iraq."

Did we invade the wrong country? One of the lessons now being drawn from the 9/11 report is that Iran was the real threat. It had links to al Qaeda, allowed some of the 9/11 hijackers to transit through, and is today harboring al Qaeda leaders. The Iraq War critics have a new line of attack: We should have done Iran instead of Iraq.

Well, of course Iran is a threat and a danger. But how exactly would the critics have "done" Iran? Iran is a serious country with a serious army.

Can you imagine these critics, who were shouting "quagmire" and "defeat" when the low-level guerrilla war in Iraq intensified in April, actually supporting war with Iran?  If not war, what then?  We know the central foreign policy principle of Bush critics: multilateralism. Kerry and the Democrats have said it a hundred times: The source of our troubles is Bush's insistence on "going it alone."

You have a unique and proper role to play this year. Partisan politics is a good thing - our parties, after all, were designed in part to limit the dangers of "faction" in our country. While I do not deny your right to say what you have said in the recent past, I deny the rightness in what you have said and why you have said it. It has increased the factionalism our parties were meant to tame. We have a robust First Amendment in this country, as well we should. But, like any freedom, its abuse can be corrupting. James Madison warned, "Liberty is to faction what air is to fire." Do not, in your campaign, so diminish the importance of America's role abroad with hate-filled rhetoric that you end up proving Thomas Jefferson wrong when he said, "Every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle." Frankly, today - as you fan the flames of resentment - you are putting into question your own principles, principles that should transcend partisan politics.

President Clinton wrote an instructive editorial in the Washington Post this past spring that you should take to heart. Writing of his failure to act on the grave human-rights abuses that took place in Rwanda, Clinton lamented that "We did not act quickly enough after the killing began. We should not have allowed the refugee camps to become a safe haven for the killers." Clinton continued that his hope was that "the international community will continue to learn from our mistakes in Rwanda in 1994. We need to improve our intelligence-gathering capabilities, increase the speed with which international intervention can be undertaken and muster the global political will required to respond to the threat of genocide wherever it may occur."

As you continue your efforts to defeat President Bush, I hope you will not abandon your legacy nor President Clinton's remorse.

It's never a good idea to take advice from your enemies.

... the [Michigan] GOP announced last week that it had graciously collected 43,000 signatures to place Nader's name on the ballot as an independent. Nader had planned to run in Michigan as the candidate of the old Reform Party -- once the vehicle for Ross Perot and more recently the home of Pat Buchanan. But Michigan's Republican secretary of state said she could not certify him for the ballot until a dispute between rival factions, both claiming the Reform Party franchise for Michigan, is resolved.

... how can the longtime liberal icon rationalize being the successor to right-winger Buchanan on the Reform Party ticket? "It's almost a pro forma thing," [Nader] said. "There was not a single quid pro quo." Besides, he said, "we agree on 80 percent of the issues," including the need to curb corporate power and end the U.S. military intervention in Iraq.

[Judge Stanley F.] Birch added that on a personal level he believes the Florida policy against homosexual adoption is "misguided," and he credited the couples with "courage, tenacity and devotion" to the children placed in their care [as foster children].

Some Republican opponents of the legislation also said they wanted to avoid setting a precedent that could used by a Congress controlled by Democrats to satisfy their allies or by lawmakers who wanted to shield future unconstitutional legislation from federal court review.

Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That Congress--

(1) declares that the atrocities unfolding in Darfur, Sudan, are genocide;

(2) reminds the international community, including the United States Government, of their international legal obligations, as affirmed in the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide;

(3) urges the Bush Administration to call the atrocities being committed in Darfur, Sudan by its rightful name: `genocide';

(4) calls on the Bush Administration to lead an international effort to prevent genocide in Darfur, Sudan;

(5) urges the Bush Administration to seriously consider multilateral or even unilateral intervention to prevent genocide should the United Nations Security Council fail to act;

(6) demands that the Bush Administration impose targeted sanctions, including visa bans and the freezing of assets of the National Congress and affiliated business and individuals directly responsible for the atrocities in Darfur, Sudan; and

(7) calls on USAID to establish a Darfur Resettlement, Rehabilitation, and Reconstruction Fund so that those driven off their land may return and begin to rebuild their communities.

The Mayor agreed that a typical prayer opening a council meeting states:

Our Heavenly Father, we are here tonight to discuss town business. We ask that you would clear up our minds and our hearts from animosity that we might face these issues and address them with an open mind tonight. We pray that all decisions made tonight would be most beneficial for the town and the citizens.

In Christ’s name we pray.

Amen (in unison).

The Town Council maintains that these prayers fall within the "Judeo-Christian tradition" because there is "no meaningful distinction between a reference to the Judeo-Christian God or ‘Heavenly Father’ and a reference to ‘Jesus Christ.’"

That argument misunderstands the term "Judeo-Christian tradition."

The district court found that initially Wynne "stood and bowed her head during the prayer" along with her neighbors. Wynne testified she did so because she felt "on the spot" and "wanted to show respect." * * * Finally, at a Council meeting in late 2000, Wynne objected to the Town Council’s practice of referring to "Jesus," "Christ," or "Jesus  Christ" in its prayers. As an alternative, she "proposed that the prayer’s references be limited to ‘God’" or, instead, "that members of different religions be invited to give prayers." * * * Subsequently, several Christian ministers drafted letter resolutions on behalf of their members expressing support for continuance of a "Christian" prayer at Council meetings and "opposition to allowing an alternative prayer to a professed ‘witch.’"

[snip]

Wynne continued to attend Town Council meetings but, she testified, "it began to get hard." When she refused to stand during the Christian invocation, she heard a voice, which she believed was Councilman Broom’s, state, "Well, I guess some people aren’t going to participate." Her fellow citizens then told Wynne she "wasn’t wanted," and that she "should leave town"; they accused her of being a "Satanist," and threatened that she "could possibly be burned out." Wynne felt "very, very uncomfortable" and "a little scar[ed]."

[snip]

At one Council meeting, the Council would not permit Wynne to participate after arriving a few minutes late to avoid the prayer, even though "she had signed up to speak at the meeting, and was listed on the agenda."

Quite simply, the Establishment Clause is best understood as a federalism provision–it protects state establishments from federal interference but does not protect any individual right. * * * But even assuming that the Establishment Clause precludes the Federal Government from establishing a national religion, it does not follow that the Clause created or protects any individual right. For the reasons discussed above, it is more likely that States and only States were the direct beneficiaries. * * * As strange as it sounds, an incorporated Establishment Clause prohibits exactly what the Establishment Clause protected–state practices that pertain to “an establishment of religion.”

The New Yorker magazine reports in its July 26th edition that members of all four branches of the U.S. military can get face-lifts, breast enlargements, liposuction and nose jobs for free -- something the military says helps surgeons practice their skills...Between 2000 and 2003, military doctors performed 496 breast enlargements and 1,361 liposuction surgeries on soldiers and their dependents, the magazine said.

Those of you who are sick and tired of watching liberals drool over Michael Moore's miserable "Fahrenheit 9-11" are probably wondering why our side doesn't have something better to watch.

Herb Meyer's video on "The Siege of Western Civilization" is taking off among conservative Americans. The video has sold out twice in just the last month - and one students' organization recently bought 1,400 copies for distribution to all their chapters at colleges throughout the country.

In "The Siege of Western Civilization," Herb Meyer outlines the real threats to our country's security, our economy - and above all to our culture. And he really "gets it." As Herb puts it, "Our culture is Western Civilization. This is who we are. We need to understand what Western Civilization is all about, such as the rule of law, human rights and economic liberty, and above all we need to teach this to our children. Today our civilization is under siege, and if our children don't understand what our civilization really is and what we stand for, they won't understand why it's worth defending."

Herb outlines the three main threats to our way of life and our future: the war that radical Islam is waging against us, the culture war within the United States that he calls "a second Civil War," and plunging birth rates in Europe, Japan and even here that not only will wreak havoc with our economies but could, quite literally, lead to the extinction of entire populations. And he does all this in a friendly, informal way that makes "The Siege of Western Civilization" good viewing not only for concerned adults, but for students as well.

p.336

Within the Pentagon, Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz continued to press the case for dealing with Iraq. Writing to Rumsfeld on September 17 [2001] in a memo headlined "Preventing More Events," he argued that if there was even a 10 percent chance that Saddam Hussein was behind the 9/11 attack, maximum priority should be placed on eliminating that threat. Wolfowitz contended that the odds were "far more" than 1 in 10, citing Saddam’s praise for the attack, his long record of involvement in terrorism, and theories that Ramzi Yousef was an Iraqi agent and Iraq was behind the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center.

and

p.259

Tenet told us that in his world "the system was blinking red." By late July, Tenet said, it could not "get any worse." Not everyone was convinced. Some asked whether all these threats might just be deception. On June 30, the SEIB contained an article titled "Bin Ladin Threats Are Real." Yet Hadley told Tenet in July that Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz questioned the reporting. Perhaps Bin Ladin was trying to study U.S. reactions. Tenet replied that he had already addressed the Defense Department’s questions on this point; the reporting was convincing. To give a sense of his anxiety at the time, one senior official in the Counterterrorist Center told us that he and a colleague were considering resigning in order to go public with their concerns.

"If you are a naive, uncommitted voter and wander into a theater, you aren't going to come away with a good impression of the president," Republican operative Joe Gaylord said. "It's a problem only if a lot of people see it."

Political control of legislative bodies in 10 states could change in the November election, the National Conference of State Legislatures said in an analysis that identified the battleground states as Colorado, Georgia, Indiana, Maine, Montana, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Vermont and Washington.

With nearly 80 percent of the 7,382 seats in state legislatures up for grabs in the election, 2004 could be a watershed for Republicans, who steadily have made gains since the early 1980s. The GOP could be poised to secure a clear balance of power in state legislatures, the NCSL said.

Chairman Thomas H. Kean, left, and Vice Chairman Lee H. Hamilton formally presented the Sept. 11 report in a Rose Garden ceremony.

QUESTION: Have you yet begun to get the reporting that Secretary Powell referred to in his Charlie Rose interview last week from your own team there on whether or not it is genocide? And do you expect to -- do you have any reason to expect a U.S. determination on whether or not it is genocide this week?

MR. BOUCHER: I cannot predict when there might be a determination. The State Department, the United States, has sent teams out to interview people, refugees in Chad, and over last weekend and earlier this week we've had a team of a half dozen or so people with, you know, Land Rovers and sleeping bags and equipment starting refugee interviews in camps in Chad near the Sudanese border to talk to people in, I think, a fairly systematic way about what happened to them, what they know, what we can identify as the atrocities and the perpetrators of things that might have occurred in Chad -- in Sudan, excuse me. That process has produced something like 50 interviews so far but we will continue that process and probably do maybe a thousand or even more over the course of the summer.

As that information comes in, depending on the results and what it says in those interviews, we will be reviewing it not only vis-ŕ-vis what happened and how to stop it, where the Secretary again and again has put the emphasis -- figure out what's going on, stop the violence and take care of the people who need it -- that's the first priority. But also we'll be reviewing it from a legal point of view if at some point -- to see if at some point that evidence constitutes evidence of genocide.

So as this information accumulates, it may or may not produce a determination of genocide at some point in the process. It's not possible to predict without knowing -- without seeing the information as it comes in quite yet at what point we may or may not have evidence of genocide.

QUESTION: If you're talking about doing a thousand such interviews over the course of the summer and you've only done 50 so far, it would seem to suggest that a determination is nowhere close to being made. Is that fair?

MR. BOUCHER: I don't -- I can't really say that because it depends on the content as much as it depends on the number. Certainly, the more content you have, the clearer picture you have, so from that point of view your question is well founded. But if a clear picture emerges in the first 50 or 100 or 200 interviews, you may have enough evidence at an earlier stage rather than a later one. Or you may go through the whole thing and not have -- not have the evidence you need to make that finding.

QUESTION: But the Secretary on Friday said, as he has said before, that there is not -- at this point it does not meet the legal definition of genocide. Does that apply to the 50 interviews you've gotten so far?

MR. BOUCHER: I don't think we've fully evaluated them, but I'm not aware of any change at this moment.

[edit]

QUESTION: I don't know if this is too much specificity. But how long does one of these interviews take? And, presumably, these camps are holding hundreds of refugees. Why is it taking so long to conduct the interviews? And I don't mean in terms of the time per interview, but just in terms of days that have gone by.

MR. BOUCHER: Well, we're just getting started. There is a lot of information that has come out and we have passed on much of that information. We've talked about it. Our judgments on the overall situation and what needs to be done are based on the information that we've gotten ourselves, that we've gotten from nongovernmental organizations and these other various sources.

But in terms of the sort of more systematic data collection, this is something we've just started this weekend and is a process that -- if it's to produce real serious evidence and identification of perpetrators and things like that, it has to be done in a very systematic, careful way. It has to be tested and that's what we're going through. I don't think this is an excessively long time to say -- they started at the end of last week and they've done 50 interviews so far and expect to do as many as a thousand or more in the next six weeks.

QUESTION: Why didn't they start earlier, (inaudible) for so long this month?

MR. BOUCHER: I think we've been collecting a lot of information in different ways. This is just one more way.

A roadside bomb exploded north of Baghdad early Wednesday, killing one U.S. 1st Infantry Division soldier and bringing to 900 the number of U.S. military forces killed since the beginning of military operations in March 2003.

Maj. Neal O’Brien of the 1st Infantry Division said the soldier killed in the roadside bombing was on patrol in a Bradley fighting vehicle in Duluiyah, 45 miles north of Baghdad, when the device detonated shortly after midnight Wednesday.

Florida recently tried to purge felons from its voter rolls. In light of the disastrously botched purge in 2000, the ensuing outcry was understandable. It turned out--surprise, surprise--that this year's process was also error-ridden and fundamentally unsound. One problem after another surfaced, until the state finally withdrew the list of suspected ex-felons that it had tried to use.

The straw that broke the camel's back was the revelation that because of idiosyncracies in how various state databases are maintained, the method used to generate the list systematically excluded Hispanics (the purge list named 48,000 people, of whom 61 were Hispanic).  This was a particular problem because (a) civil rights groups had been saying for four years that the 2000 purge disproportionately eliminated black voters and (b) Florida Hispanics tend to vote Republican, while blacks overwhelmingly vote Democrat.

Now comes a new story that, if I understand it correctly, deepens the scandal.

State election officials knew since at least 1998 that a recently scrapped felons list designed to clear convicted felons from voter rolls would have a glitch and exclude Hispanics, according to a company that helped create the list.

Private company DBT helped build the felons list for the 2000 election. DBT, which was later bought by ChoicePoint, discussed the difficulties involving Hispanic felons with experts in the secretary of state's office in late 1997 or early 1998, ChoicePoint spokesman Chuck Jones said Monday.

ChoicePoint and state officials analyzed the data together and realized that using race would create an inaccurate list because of the problems with Hispanic or Latinos, he said.

"We determined jointly that it was not reliable," Jones told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune for a story in Tuesday's editions.

This seems to be saying that Katherine Harris's office knew, two years before the election, that their list of suspected felons systematically excluded a Republican-leaning bloc of voters. Given the wildly disproportionate overrepresentation of blacks in the prison system, even a completely accurate felon purge would eliminate a much larger proportion of black voters than those of other races, but Harris (or at least her underlings) also knew that their inaccurate purge would exacerbate the partisan effects of the purge by leaving out Hispanics.

Forget the Supreme Court and the recount. Between the Palm Beach County butterfly ballot, the disproportionate undercounting of votes in poorer, Democratic precincts that used inferior voting machines, and the turning away of voters at some heavily Democratic precincts, from the outset it has been beyond reasonable debate that more eligible Florida voters went to the polls and attempted to vote for Gore than for Bush.  Beyond that, civil rights groups have claimed (a claim supported by post-election studies) that eligible black voters were disproportionately purged from the voter rolls erroneously during the purge.

But the new story adds another dimension.  It now seems that the co-chair of Bush's Florida campaign (the aforementioned Ms. Harris) used the power of her office to carry out a purge of voters that she knew in advance would create a racially discriminatory pattern of errors that would tilt the electorate toward Republicans. Since the list excluded Hispanics, it would both allow Hispanic felons to continue voting while disfranchising black and non-Hispanic white felons and erronously disfranchise eligible black and non-Hispanic whites while leaving eligible Hispanics alone for the most part.

The Sarasota Herald-Tribune ran this story yesterday.  Other Florida papers, notably the Miami Herald, have been very aggressive about reporting problems with the current purge, and they've picked up the story via the AP.  But this story deserves national attention if it means what I think it means, and I don't know whether any national media are picking it up yet.

Article 2

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Article 3

The following acts shall be punishable:

(a) Genocide;

(b) Conspiracy to commit genocide;

(c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide;

(d ) Attempt to commit genocide;

(e) Complicity in genocide.

Article 1

The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish.

[edit]

Article 8

Any Contracting Party may call upon the competent organs of the United Nations to take such action under the Charter of the United Nations as they consider appropriate for the prevention and suppression of acts of genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in article III.

Elsner: How would you describe the events taking place in Rwanda?

Shelly: Based on the evidence we have seen from observations on the ground, we have every reason to believe that acts of genocide have occurred in Rwanda.

Elsner: What's the difference between "acts of genocide" and "genocide"?

Shelly: Well, I think...as you know, there's a legal definition of this...clearly not all of the killings that have taken place in Rwanda are killings to which you might apply that label... But as to the distinctions between the words, we're trying to call what we have seen so far as best as we can; and based, again, on the evidence, we have every reason to believe that acts of genocide have occurred.

Elsner: How many acts of genocide does it take to make genocide?

Shelly: Alan, that's just not a question that I'm in a position to answer.

"A cheese sandwich. Write it down. Genocide is a cheese sandwich." When asked to explain, he said, "What does anyone care about a cheese sandwich? Genocide, genocide, genocide. Cheese sandwich, cheese sandwich, cheese sandwich. Who gives a shit? Crimes against humanity? Where is humanity? You? Me? Did you see a crime committed against you? Hey, just a million Rwandans. Did you ever hear about the Genocide Convention? That convention makes a nice wrapping for the cheese sandwich."

Chirac’s Bon Amis
 
When it comes to welcoming foreign dignitaries to la belle France, some guests are apparently much more welcome than others -- even when both of them have been criticized for human rights abuses.  President Jacques Chirac says that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is not welcome in Paris until Sharon explains his recent statement that French Jews should consider moving to Israel in the face of rising incidents of anti-Semitism in France.
 
I’m no fan of Sharon, and I’m not going to lose sleep over whether he crosses the threshold of the Elysee Palace or not.  But what does Chirac need an explanation for?
 
Is Chirac wondering why Israel, a nation established as a refuge for Jews, would encourage foreign Jews (as it always has) to immigrate there?
 
Is he insulted that Sharon suggested that France is not a safe place for Jews?  Chirac himself said as much only a few weeks ago when he voiced concern over "rising intolerance, racism, anti-Semitism" in France. 

None of Chirac’s anger seems to stem from broader criticisms of Sharon -- the erection of the West Bank wall and other human rights-related issues.  In this regard, at least the French leader is consistent: human rights are, as his fellow countrymen would say, de rien.

Last year, Chirac demanded that the European Union temporarily lift its travel sanctions again Zimbabwe so he could invite the country’s corrupt president, Robert Mugabe, to a summit hosted by France.  How important was this invitation?  So important that Chirac threatened to vote against renewal of the EU sanctions unless a waiver was issued for Mugabe’s February 2003 visit.
 
Chirac’s threat infuriated Great Britain and even prompted one of France’s largest newspapers, Le Monde, to decry the visit, editorializing that Mugabe’s presence in France was "an insult to the victims of his arbitrary reign."
 
The longstanding repressive rule of Mugabe and his rigged re-election 'victory' were ample reasons for criticizing Chirac.  But, just recently, Mugabe -- the object of Chirac's warm welcome -- has outdone even himself.  Zimbabwe's president has viciously attacked foreign-based charitable and aid organizations as "instruments of foreign interference."

In fact, those private relief organizations have been dispensing desperately needed food, shelter and other essentials that are desperately needed as Zimbabwe, once considered the breadbasket of Africa, has seen its grain harvests fall dramatically in the wake of Mugabe’s farm seizures.  When your goal is to let your opposition literally starve to death, relief organizations become your enemy.
 
At the summit last year at which Chirac welcomed Mugabe, he reassured participants by saying:

"Africa lies at the heart of France's priorities."

"For the first time since 1992, the Democratic candidate and the national and congressional fundraising committees combined to outraise their GOP counterparts over a six-month span of an election year, FEC data compiled by The Washington Post found. From Jan. 1 through June 30, Kerry and Democrats raised $292 million, compared with $272 million for President Bush and Republicans."

But scholars and the parties' strategists agree that the GOP's historical financial edge is eroding in the post-campaign-finance-reform era -- at least temporarily.

The financial shift is debunking the conventional wisdom about the new McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, which both sides predicted would hurt Democrats who traditionally relied more heavily on the now-outlawed six- and seven-figure "soft money" checks from wealthy voters, trade unions and corporations.

Predictions of a Democratic implosion failed, however, to anticipate two related developments: First, that hostility to Bush would mobilize liberal donors as never before; and second, that the Internet would provide an easy and accessible way to make contributions by credit card.

The vulnerable are clinging to life. The severely malnourished babies are no more than skin and bone. The aid agencies are battling to do what they can in the fight against hunger and disease. Dr. Jerry Erlich is inundated with cases and fears things could get even worse.

Now, in late July of 2004, where is the Left as the Sudanese government conducts a campaign of genocide against the wretched of the earth in Darfur Province? Oh, yes, there have been a few crocodile tears—but where are the demands for intervention?

A congressional resolution by Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, chairman of the House Administration Committee, says "the actions of terrorists will never cause the date of any presidential election to be postponed" and "no single individual or agency should be given the authority to postpone the date of a presidential election."

The resolution is supported by House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Illinois, and more than 60 other lawmakers. Ney said he would introduce it on Tuesday.

No national election has ever been postponed, the resolution says, noting that federal elections took place as scheduled during the Civil War, World War I and World War II.

"Postponing an election in the aftermath of a terrorist attack would demonstrate weakness, not strength, and would be interpreted as a victory for the terrorists," the resolution says.

A six-month examination by the New York Times, drawing on military and court records and interviews with dozens of industry executives and servicemen and women, has found that several financial services companies or their agents are using questionable tactics on military bases to sell insurance and investments that may not fit the needs of people in uniform.

Insurance agents have made misleading pitches to "captive" audiences like the ones at Fort Benning. They have posed as counselors on veterans benefits and independent financial advisers. And they have solicited soldiers in their barracks or while they were on duty, violations of Defense Department regulations.

The Pentagon has been aware of practices like these since the Vietnam War; investigations have even cited specific companies and agents. But because of industry lobbying, Congressional pressure, weak enforcement and the Pentagon's ineffective oversight, almost no action has been taken to sanction those responsible or to better protect those who are vulnerable, The Times has found.

And the problem has only intensified since the beginning of the Iraq war, say military employees who monitor insurance agents. With the death toll rising in Iraq, interest in insurance among the troops has surged, making the war a selling opportunity for many agents, they said.

The accounts were in fact a complex form of insurance, one that indeed allowed the soldiers to contribute to a savings fund at competitive interest rates. But there was a catch: they could participate only if they bought an expensive 20-year life insurance policy, one with premiums that would eat up all of their monthly payments in the first year and three-fourths of their payments over the next six years.

Insurance experts say the policies are intended for knowledgeable long-term investors who have savings to spare. They are almost never suitable for modest-income people as young and financially inexperienced as Specialist Stachler and his fellow soldiers.

"A young, single person with no dependents and no debts probably doesn't need life insurance at all," said Prof. James M. Carson, an insurance expert at Florida State University. Service members with families probably do need insurance and might want more than the $250,000 offered through the military's low-cost plan but cash-accumulation policies like these, he said, are an expensive way to obtain that additional coverage.

Moreover, the penalties for early withdrawals and the slow-growing cash value in most of the policies make them a terrible vehicle for short-term savings and a poor method for long-term investment, Professor Carson said. "If they just put their money into a money market fund," he said, "they would be out-earning the rate of return on most cash-value life insurance policies like these." The companies that sell the policies say they help military people save while providing some supplemental insurance coverage. But whether this was the right type of life insurance for the five men, now at Fort Bragg, is almost moot: none of them realized they were buying life insurance. The only paperwork they received, they say, is a one-page statement on the status of their accumulation fund; it says nothing about any insurance benefits.

"You know, he is the wrong father to appeal to in terms of strength. There is a higher father that I appeal to."
 
-- President Bush's response when asked if he consulted his father on foreign policy issues, from an interview with best-selling author Bob Woodward

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"The book (written by Stephen Mansfield) also shows that in the lead-up to announcing his candidacy for the presidency, Bush told a Texan evangelist that he had had a premonition of some form of national disaster happening. Bush said to James Robinson: 'I feel like God wants me to run for President. I can't explain it, but I sense my country is going to need me. Something is going to happen ... I know it won't be easy on me or my family, but God wants me to do it.'"

-- "Bush Says God Chose Him to Lead His Nation," The Observer (U.K.), November 2, 2003
  
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"(Canadian) Prime Minister Paul Martin got a sense of [the Bush administration's] sanctimony when he met with Mr. Bush in early January in Mexico.  Mr. Bush let the Prime Minister know that he believed himself to be on the side of God and tending to God's mission. The Canadian side, while aware of the President's penchant for religiosity, had been expecting to talk more about softwood lumber than the Ten Commandments ... Nor did they expect that, almost in the same breath, Mr. Bush would be filling the air with the f-word and other saucy expletives of the type that would surely leave the Lord perturbed.  ... Mr. Martin was somewhat taken aback by what he heard. After the meeting, he was barely out the door before he was asking someone in his entourage what was to be made of all the God stuff."
 
-- The Globe and Mail (Toronto), a column written by Lawrence Martin, Feb. 5, 2004

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"(Author Stephen) Mansfield describes aides discovering the president 'face down on the floor in prayer in the Oval Office. It became known that he refused to eat sweets while American troops were in Iraq, a partial fast seldom reported of an American president' ..."

-- An excerpt from "Bush's Messianic Complex," an article by Bill Berkowitz

... as the Democratic convention unfolds in Boston, expect Republicans to make the case against John Kerry by making the case against Massachusetts .... The strategy will be to paint Kerry as just another liberal wacko from effete Massachusetts, a state notoriously out of sync with the rest of the country.

Who knows whether this ploy will prove as effective for George W. Bush in 2004 as it did for his father in 1988. But if it works, it will be in spite of the fact that it isn't true.
 
... The stereotype has been reinforced ever since by the predominance of the Democratic Party in local politics: Democrats make up the state's entire delegation of congressmen and senators; among voters, Democrats outnumber Republicans three to one; Republicans hold just 29 of 200 seats in the state's House and Senate combined ...
 
But the problem with this line of reasoning is that Democrats are not the same thing as liberals. Indeed, a close look at the Democratic-dominated legislature suggests that the state's Democratic Party may be the most conservative in the Northeast. The legislature cut taxes 45 times during the past decade, leading to about $4 billion in savings for state residents. In 1999, a majority of Democrats in the legislature blocked an effort to index the minimum wage to inflation.
 
... And the Democrats' centrism is not limited to fiscal issues. In 1994, the state passed a welfare reform bill ... (that) gave those enrolled in the state program only two years to find a job, compared to the five years granted by the Republican-controlled Congress.
 
... The liberal wing of the party had sought to defeat [a proposed state constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage], but was outnumbered by moderate Democrats. Even this compromise, however, came as a disappointment to many because it endorsed civil unions. Finneran had earlier proposed a similar ban with no provision for civil unions. He fell two votes short.

... Beyond the legislature, voters, too, have shown themselves to be more politically moderate than their party affiliations might suggest. [Massachusetts] voted for Ronald Reagan twice and [has] elected three GOP governors in a row. In 2000, nearly half voted to abolish the state income tax.
 
... A poll last year by the University of Massachusetts found that 54 percent of state residents supported the death penalty. Compare that to support for the death penalty in neighboring Connecticut (58 percent, according to a 2003 poll) or Michigan (56 percent, according to a 2004 poll) or Illinois (55 percent, according to a 2003 poll) and it becomes clear that there's nothing exceptionally liberal about Massachusetts voters.

… Islamic terrorists are praying for a Democratic victory -- and … a Kerry presidency would put our nation in mortal peril

The people who, even in the face of evidence of his casual cruelty, of his habitual and unchristian contempt for weakness, love George Bush unconditionally: love him when he is tender, love him when he is tough - but who never, ever are tough on him.

[edit]

Conservatives see something angelic in George Bush. That's why they excuse, repress, and rationalize away so much.

And that is why conservatism is verging on becoming an un-American creed.

69% said "If the UN were to determine that genocide is occurring" in the Darfur region of Sudan, then the UN, including the US, should "act to stop the genocide even if it requires military force."

As you may know, in a province of Sudan called Darfur there is a conflict between the local black African Darfur is and the central government, dominated by Arabs. How much have you heard about this situation?

A lot....................................................................................3% Some..................................................................................11
Not very much....................................................................28
Nothing at all......................................................................56
(No answer)..........................................................................3

Days after the American secretary of state and the United Nations secretary general ended their tour, witnesses said, gunmen stormed a girls' school in the desert region of Darfur, chained a group of students together and set the building on fire. The charred remains of eight girls were still in shackles when military observers from the African Union arrived on the scene.

The blood of the Blacks runs like water, we take their goods and we chase them from our area and our cattle will be in their land. The power of al-Bashir belongs to the Arabs and we will kill you until the end, you Blacks, we have killed your God.

institute an enforcement proceeding against Fox News; order Fox News to cease and desist from using the slogan and mark 'Fair and Balanced;' and take such other action as may be appropriate to remedy the injury to consumers from Fox News’ deceptive practices.

No court created by Act of Congress shall have any jurisdiction, and the Supreme Court shall have no appellate jurisdiction, to hear or determine any question pertaining to the interpretation of section 1738c of this title or of this section. Neither the Supreme Court nor any court created by Act of Congress shall have any appellate jurisdiction to hear or determine any question pertaining to the interpretation of section 7 of title 1.

In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, or of any ruling, regulation, or interpretation of the various administrative bureaus and agencies of the United States, the word “marriage” means only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife, and the word “spouse” refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife.

The Tax Code says 'spouses' may file jointly, so the question is whether 'spouses' can include persons of the same sex.  Massachusetts considers the two taxpayers to be legally each other's spouses; does federal law say anything different?  Well, the IRS claims that title 1, section 7 says that when the Tax Code says 'spouses,' it means specifically spouses of opposite sexes; but I have no power to say whether the IRS's interpretation of title 1, section 7 is correct.  So I guess that since federal law has traditionally left matters of personal status to state law, and these taxpayers are married to each other under the laws of the state in which they are domiciled, I have no basis to uphold the IRS's refusal to accept their filing.

Iyad Allawi, the new Prime Minister of Iraq, pulled a pistol and executed as many as six suspected insurgents at a Baghdad police station, just days before Washington handed control of the country to his interim government, according to two people who allege they witnessed the killings.

They say the prisoners -- handcuffed and blindfolded -- were lined up against a wall in a courtyard adjacent to the maximum-security cell block in which they were held at the Al-Amariyah security center, in the city's south-western suburbs.
 
They say Dr. Allawi told onlookers the victims had each killed as many as 50 Iraqis and they "deserved worse than death".

The Prime Minister's office has denied the entirety of the witness accounts in a written statement to the Herald, saying Dr Allawi had never visited the center and he did not carry a gun. But the informants told the Herald that Dr. Allawi shot each young man in the head as about a dozen Iraqi policemen and four Americans from the Prime Minister's personal security team watched in stunned silence.

Iraq's Interior Minister, Falah al-Naqib, is said to have looked on and congratulated him when the job was done. Mr. al-Naqib's office has issued a verbal denial.  The names of three of the alleged victims have been obtained by the Herald.
 
... Re-enacting the killings, one witness stood three to four meters in front of a wall and swung his outstretched arm in an even arc, left to right, jerking his wrist to mimic the recoil as each bullet was fired. Then he raised a hand to his brow, saying: "He was very close. Each was shot in the head."
 
There is much debate and rumor in Baghdad about the Prime Minister's capacity for brutality, but this is the first time eyewitness accounts have been obtained.

A former CIA officer, Vincent Cannisatraro, recently told The New Yorker: "If you're asking me if Allawi has blood on his hands from his days in London, the answer is yes, he does. He was a paid Mukhabarat [intelligence] agent for the Iraqis, and he was involved in dirty stuff."

U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning wants to keep gay and lesbian Americans in their place -- or what he thinks should be their place -- by amending the federal Constitution to prohibit same-sex marriage.
 
In Kentucky's most celebrated gay rights controversy, his son, U.S. District Judge David Bunning, applied existing law to protect the right of a Gay Straight Alliance to meet at Boyd County High School.

... His son, the judge, is willing to uphold government efforts -- in this instance, the Equal Access Act of 1984 -- to ensure that all citizens, including gays, lesbians and their supporters, receive equal treatment under the law.

In last week's Senate debate over the marriage amendment, Sen. Bunning warned of the grave dangers that failing to pass it would pose.  ... Jim Bunning has no use for those "out-of-control, activist judges," who, in their "arrogance and selfishness," are giving gays and lesbians equal treatment before the marriage laws ... He insisted that "marriage as we have always known it" must be "protected from the actions of those extremists who wish to destroy it."
 
Obviously he would consider the Gay Straight Alliance at Boyd County High School extremist, since it was organized not just to provide a safe haven for members but "to promote tolerance, understanding and acceptance of one another regardless of sexual orientation."

... The real dangers are those described in the footnotes in Judge Bunning's decision in the GSA case: testimony about the harassment and intimidation that "have been and continue to be serious problems at (Boyd County High School)."
 
Although framed in dry legal language, it's a powerful recitation:

"One example of the harassment includes students in plaintiff Fugett's English class stating that they needed to take all the (expletive) faggotts out in the backwoods and kill them.  ... On a regular basis, students call out 'homo,' 'fag' and 'queer' behind [the student] McClelland's back as he walks in the hallway between classes."

If Jim Bunning is looking for real dangers to confront or messages to lament, how about those?  Maybe he can borrow a copy of his son's decision and study it.

Clinton was also in an awkward situation. He was well aware of being on public record during the recent bitter presidential campaign as criticizing Bush for failing to take action in Somalia, a tactical maneuver presumably designed to appeal to the African-American voting bloc, an overwhelming majority of whom voted for Clinton...

However, other politicians from both political parties objected as well. Opposition generated from those who had neither substantial Africa-American voting blocs in their district or states, or who could foresee the potential pit into which the United States might be injecting itself, came from both sides of the aisle.

And what later became extremely ironic about Ghali's stance on Somalia as a peacemaker, is the fact that while working for the Egyptian government as foreign minister, he was the principle bureaucrat that sold $5.8 million of dollars of military weapons to the pagan Hutu tribe of Rwanda. That sale led to the genocidal massacre of millions of Christian Tutsi tribesmen. This proved that the United Nations, who eventually sent African troops but did not intervene in the killings, was an impotent force without US aid, troops and leadership.

Welch Campaign: Warns Fox Valley: Are Feingold-Inspired Felons Knocking On Your Door?
7/16/2004

Shadow-group ACT, spawned from failed new campaign law, canvassing Fox Valley neighborhoods

A shady special interest group with a history of hiring felons to canvass on its behalf has promised to knock on doors throughout the Fox Valley this summer.

America Coming Together (ACT) has announced that it will officially open its Appleton office on Saturday, July 17, and launch the first canvass in the region. The group has paid felons - including convicted sex offenders and burglars - to conduct door-to-door voter registration drives in at least three election swing states.

"ACT and other groups like it are the spawn of Russ Feingold's much ballyhooed 'reform' bill that was supposed to solve the problem of soft money in politics," said Welch for Wisconsin Campaign Manager Mike Prentiss. "ACT has a dangerous track record of paying convicted felons to walk door-to-door gathering personal information from voters. The people of Wisconsin should be aware of what?s happening on the streets in their neighborhoods."

[edit]

"Big money continues to try to influence elections, despite what Senator Feingold promised," said Prentiss. "And instead of traditional political party grassroots activists working on behalf of the candidate of their choice, we now have potentially shady characters paid to go door-to-door by groups most people have never heard of to support John Kerry and Russ Feingold this fall."

Choose Heinz (ketchup) and you're supporting Teresa Heinz and her liberal causes, such as Kerry for President.

Choose W Ketchup and you support the Freedom Alliance Scholarship Fund, which provides scholarships to the children of our brave heroes who have fallen in battle.

The attack took place at 8am on 29 February 2004 when soldiers arrived by car, camels and horses. The Janjawid were inside the houses and the soldiers outside. Some 15 women and girls who had not fled quickly enough were raped in different huts in the village. The Janjawid broke the limbs (arms or legs) of some women and girls to prevent them from escaping. The Janjawid remained in the village for six or seven days. After the rapes, the Janjawid looted the houses.

But how seriously would we take those values when our interests were not implicated? After all, if humanitarian intervention must involve vital interests, then humanitarianism itself is irrelevant. One of the consequences of 9/11 may be that vital interests have come to feel so pressing that humanitarianism has become an unaffordable luxury. Judging by the near global silence over Darfur, this impulse toward self-protection may extend far beyond our own borders. Or perhaps the Bush administration's effort to repackage the immensely unpopular war in Iraq as a Wilsonian crusade to free a subject people has discredited the very principle of humanitarian intervention.