Covenant News Wire Service

Suspect Freed In Death of Fetus

Suspect Freed In Death of Fetus

Prosecutors Have Doubts About Initial Allegations

On Christmas Day, San Jose police arrested Clifford Beene Watkins and accused him of kicking his girlfriend in the stomach, a blow they believed led to the death of her 18-week-old fetus. On Wednesday, prosecutors released Watkins from jail, offering only a cryptic explanation that the case ``is not what it appeared.''

Authorities declined to say what changed in the intervening four days to dissuade them from filing a murder charge against Watkins. But they now have serious doubts about the allegations the girlfriend first made to police, who passed that information on to the media.

``Facts were distributed,'' Assistant District Attorney Karyn Sinunu said, but an investigation revealed ``the actuality is different.''

She would not elaborate, other than to say that investigators continue to examine crime scene evidence to ``make sure it is consistent with the stories we are getting from witnesses.''

They are also awaiting medical reports on the mother to determine ``the victim's injuries, if any,'' Sinunu said.

San Jose police and paramedics responded to a call from the Capitol Hill Inn on Monterey Highway reporting an apparent case of domestic violence about 12:15 a.m. Saturday. A police press release about the incident stated that the woman, about four months pregnant, was ``badly injured in the assault.''

She reportedly told police that during an argument with Watkins he ``choked her and kicked her in the stomach.'' She went to the motel's front desk and asked them to call 911.

Paramedics took the 25-year-old woman, whose name is not being released, to Santa Clara Valley Medical Center. Her fetus died about 10 hours later after an emergency delivery. Watkins was arrested and accused of murder, domestic violence and assault with a deadly weapon.

But on Wednesday, prosecutors announced they were releasing Watkins from Santa Clara County jail. Sinunu said that Watkins has been neither exonerated nor implicated in the death of the fetus, but as of Wednesday the investigation by the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Department did not merit criminal charges.

In fact, Sinunu suggested that the original story the girlfriend told police was largely bogus.

A clearer picture of what happened should emerge within two weeks as investigators continue their work, she said. In the meantime, Watkins was scheduled to be released from Santa Clara County jail Wednesday evening. He could not be reached for comment.

``We have many things to check out,'' Sinunu said.

http://www.mercurynews.com/m
ld/mercurynews/10528799.htm

Jay Sekulow brown noses GOP

Sekulow brown noses GOP

Editor's note: It is disheartening to see a once respected Christian advocate law firm being turned into a boot-licking lackey of the Republican Party. I know personally that there are Christian men working for the ACLJ that want to see this bloodshed outlawed as much as I do. Nevertheless, as long as Chief Counsel Jay Sekulow leads this Christian funded law firm down the path of supporting bad law that regulates the murder of children by abortion, and lying to Christians that abortion regulations are "pro-life," then such underhanded deceptiveness will be met with public rebuke by Covenant News: others beware. What we need are Christian advocates that will apply political pressure to lawmakers to pass laws that will counterblow the unjust opionions of the courts and see reprobate judges impeached from the bench! This simply can not be done as long as our trusted advocates brown nose baby murdering political parties that fund and regulate abortion.
--Jim Rudd

(Read: Partial-Birth Ban of No Effect)

ACLJ Files Brief with 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Behalf of Members of Congress in Support of National Ban on Partial-Birth Abortion

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 29, 2004--The American Center for Law and Justice, specializing in constitutional law, announced today it has filed an amicus brief on behalf of members of Congress asking a federal appeals court in San Francisco, California to overturn a decision by a federal district court in San Francisco - one of three cases in which a district court declared the national ban on partial-birth abortion unconstitutional. The brief was filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and supports the position of the Department of Justice that the ban is constitutional.

"The ban is needed to put an end to one of the most barbaric and medically useless procedures that targets the most vulnerable among us - the partially born child," said Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel of the ACLJ, which is filing briefs in support of the ban in all three cases. "Congress acted properly and constitutionally in passing the ban and we are determined to work to protect the life of the partially born child as this legal challenge continues on its way to the Supreme Court. We are privileged to represent members of Congress in this battle to bring an end to what can only be described as infanticide."

The ACLJ represents 31 members of Congress - all members of the U.S. House of Representatives. They include: Rep. Robert B. Aderholt (R-AL), Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO), Rep. Rodney Alexander (R-LA), Rep. Bob Beauprez (R-CO), Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO), Rep. Michael C. Burgess (R-TX), Rep. Michael "Mac" Collins (R-GA), Rep. Barbara Cubin (R-WY), Rep. Jo Ann S. Davis (R-VA), Rep. and Senator-elect Jim DeMint (R-SC), Rep. Jo Ann H. Emerson (R-MO), Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL), Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ), Rep. Scott Garrett (R-NJ), Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA), Rep. Melissa A. Hart (R-PA), Rep. Ernest J. Istook, Jr. (R-OK), Rep. Walter Jones, Jr. (R-NC), Rep. Ric Keller (R-FL), Rep. Steve King (R-IA), Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R-CO), Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R-TX), Rep. C.L. "Butch" Otter (R-ID), Rep. Charles "Chip" Pickering, Jr. (R-MS), Rep. Joseph R. Pitts (R-PA), Rep. Jim R. Ryun (R-KS), Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN), Rep. John Sullivan (R-OK).

"Partial-birth procedures represent the beachhead of abortion's assault on postnatal life, the bridge between abortion and infanticide," the brief states. "Absent strong legal barriers and vigorous societal condemnation, partial-birth procedures open the way to legal infanticide." The brief contends that the government has a "vital and compelling interest" in preventing the spread of the practice of abortion into infanticide.

Sharply criticizing the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade to treat unborn children as "non-persons," the brief urges the appeals court not to "compound this fundamental injustice by extending Roe to deny the personhood of partially born children."

The brief argues that "the human being who is partially outside the mother's body is a person entitled to the equal protection of the law" under both the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution.

"The history of legal developments of the past century and a half regarding prenatal human life has been a history of increasing recognition and protection of unborn children," the brief states. "Imposition of a 'total birth' requirement for personhood would be to constitutionalize, in extreme form, a distinction that the civil and criminal law is in the process of repudiating."

The brief is posted online (http://www.aclj.org/media/pdf/AmicusAppealBrief2.pdf) and contends that the law must be consistent in protecting life. "The physician who strangles a newborn is guilty of murder, but the physician who strangles a partially born baby is exercising a 'liberty,'" the brief states. "A disabled child may recover large sums to compensate for harm suffered in the delivery process, but the mother could have had the same child killed in that same delivery process because she did not want a handicapped baby. . . . Such contrasts make a mockery of the law. . . . The integrity of the legal system calls for inclusion, not exclusion, of partially born children within the term 'person' in the Fifth Amendment."

The brief has been filed with the 9th Circuit. Earlier this month, the ACLJ filed an amicus brief with the 8th Circuit and plans to file next month with the 2nd Circuit in support of the ban.

The American Center for Law and Justice, which specializes in constitutional law, is based in Washington, D.C.

http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.j
sp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20041229005121&newsLang=en

Judge Dismisses Charges

Judge Dismisses Citations Against Abortion Protesters

They are accused of loitering at abortion clinic in Allentown.

A district justice dismissed loitering and obstructing public places citations against eight Allentown abortion protesters Tuesday, adding to the list of charges thrown out since a federal judge issued a ruling in August.

Abortion protesters claimed vindication Wednesday, but a lawyer for Allentown said he believes the district justice ruled in error.

District Justice Carl L. Balliet dismissed summary citations against Edward J. Kuchar, 73; Joseph A. Arietta, 74; Thomas L. Portland, 57; and Sandra L. Godshalk, 60, all of Allentown; Phillip T. Pongracz, 45, of South Whitehall Township; Kathleen Rose Kuhns, 61, of Reading; Kathleen R. Mondok, 67, of Bethlehem; and Joseph F. O'Hara, 73, of Hobbie, Luzerne County.

They were cited by city police with loitering and/or obstructing a public place for activities during protests at the Allentown Women's Center, an abortion clinic at 1409 Union Blvd., on Oct. 26, Nov. 9, and/or Nov. 13, according to the citations.

They were cited with persisting, after repeated police warnings, in blocking traffic by standing or walking in the street in the 1400 block of Keats Street, which faces the clinic's main entrance at the back of the building, or for blocking the clinic entrance, the citations state.

Balliet dismissed the charges based on an Aug. 9 decision by federal Judge James M. Kelly of Philadelphia allowing protesters to remain on ''the public walkways'' of Keats Street.

But lawyer Thomas C. Anewalt, a former city solicitor representing the city on the civil aspects of the center protests, pointed to language in the ruling stating that the protesters are allowed on Keats Street only if they '' … conduct their protest activities in a lawful manner that does not obstruct traffic on Keats Street, or the entrance to the.''

The citations Balliet dismissed were issued precisely because protesters blocked Keats Street and the clinic entrance, Anewalt said, calling Balliet's ruling ''inappropriate'' and particularly frustrating to police, who he said issued the citations in a good faith effort to balance the rights of protesters with those of clinic workers and patients.

Balliet could not be reached Wednesday for reaction to Anewalt's comments.

On Dec. 20 Balliet threw out similar charges stemming from different protests at the center, and on Dec. 9 a Lehigh County senior judge dismissed harassment and defiant trespass charges against Pongracz and another protester.

Pongracz said Wednesday that the series of dismissals vindicates the protesters.

''What this means is starting tomorrow, we're going to be on Street, and there will be no arrests,'' Pongracz said. ''We're seeing some light now; we're seeing justice.''

Anewalt said city officials will continue to respect the protesters' rights, but that protesters still must refrain from breaking the law by loitering, obstructing streets, or engaging in harassment and other illegal activities.

And yet to be determined, Anewalt said, is where the ''public walkways'' of Keats Street might be, if any. There are no sidewalks on the narrow street.


http://www.mcall.com/news/local/all-b4_5dismi
ssdec30,0,876191.story?coll=all-newslocal-hed

Court Upholds Gay Castration

Court Upholds Gay Castration


Chemical castration of a man with AIDS convicted of sexually assaulting a 4-year-old boy at Lake Tahoe has been upheld by a California state court.

Rudolph Christopher Steele, 43, of South Lake Tahoe had appealed the El Dorado County Superior Court sentence for his 2003 conviction by a jury on sodomy and oral copulation charges.

He contended the hormone-suppression therapy - dubbed "chemical castration" - that the court ordered he undergo when paroled was improper. The state Board of Prison Terms is the agency to impose such conditions, Steele argued.

He also said the hormone suppression might interfere with his AIDS medication.

"Liberty, privacy, bodily integrity, procreation and due process of law" are deprived by the hormone treatment, Steele's appeal said.

The Sacramento-based appellate court in its ruling Wednesday affirmed the sentence imposed by the El Dorado County Superior Court.

Hormone suppression is an additional punishment that a trial court imposes at sentencing and not a parole condition that only the Board of Prison Terms can impose, the state court ruled.

The appellate court noted the sentence imposed in El Dorado County called for the prison board to address possible impacts of hormones on the AIDS medication Steele takes.

He was arrested in summer 2002 after the youth said Steele, a family friend, had sexually molested him.

The boy has since tested negative for AIDS.


http://www.tahoebonanza.com/ar
ticle/20041229/Region/112290019

Court OKs chemical castration for Tahoe gay
Chemical castration of a man with AIDS convicted of sexually assaulting a 4-year-old boy at Lake Tahoe has been upheld by a state court. Rudolph Christopher Steele, 43, of South Lake Tahoe had appealed the El Dorado County Superior Court sentence for his 2003 conviction by a jury on sodomy and oral copulation charges.

Judge Taps Lawyer For Woman Accused In Baby Abduction

Judge Taps Lawyer For Woman Accused In Baby Abduction

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Lisa Montgomery claimed poverty Tuesday during her initial hearing before a federal judge in Missouri, prompting appointment of an attorney to defend the woman against a charge that could put her on death row.

Montgomery, 36, of Melvern, Kan., waived formal reading of the complaint, which alleges she kidnapped a premature baby Dec. 16 in Skidmore after cutting the infant from the womb of her mother, Bobbie Jo Stinnett, 23.

Stinnett, strangled and slashed, died of her wounds. Her daughter survived and was allegedly whisked across the state line by Montgomery into Kansas. She is accused of trying to pass the girl off as her own to family.

Montgomery was taken into custody Dec. 17 at her Melvern home. The newborn was later united with her father in Topeka.

U.S. Magistrate Judge John Maughner presided over the 10-minute hearing Tuesday. Montgomery wore an orange jumpsuit. Chains at her waist and handcuffs on her wrist made it physically difficult for her to take an oath to tell the truth.

Maughner read the charge in the complaint -- kidnapping resulting in death. Conviction carries a minimum sentence of life in prison and a maximum sentence of death.

In an interview after the hearing, U.S. Attorney Todd Graves said it would take "a fair amount of time" to assess whether to seek the death penalty.

"That is way too early to make a determination," Graves said. Maughner instructed the federal public defender's office to represent Montgomery, and an attorney from that office, Anita Burns, was at Montgomery's side.

The judge ordered Montgomery to remain in custody until 2 p.m. Thursday, when a detention hearing would be held to resolve her eligibility for bond. Federal prosecutors filed a motion to keep her incarcerated pending trial.

Montgomery also must face a preliminary hearing to establish whether sufficient evidence exists to indicate the crime occurred and Montgomery was involved. It is common for defendants to waive this hearing.

The affidavit accompanying the federal complaint says Montgomery "confessed to having strangled Stinnett and removing the fetus. Lisa Montgomery further admitted the baby she had was Stinnett's baby and that she had lied to her husband about giving birth to a child."

If Maughner orders the case to proceed, prosecutors would present evidence at a later date to a grand jury. That panel would meet in private to decide if Montgomery should be indicted. If so, she would go on trial in federal court.

Despite use of microphones in the courtroom, some of Montgomery's responses to the judge's questions were inaudible because the defendant spoke in hushed tones. She said she had no assets that would disqualify her for court-appointed counsel. Other than personal clothing, she said she owned a run-down 1986 Isuzu Trooper.

"It hasn't been driven in five years," Montgomery said. "Junk, basically."


http://cjonline.com/stori
es/122904/loc_judge.shtml

Planned Parenthood powdered

Non-dairy creamer scares the bageebees out of baby killers

Letter Scare Proves Fake At Planned Parenthood

HONOLULU -- Workers at the offices of Planned Parenthood of Hawaii got a scare Tuesday morning when a clerk opened a suspicious letter.

Workers were evacuated from the building shortly before 8 a.m. after a clerk opened a letter and some white powder spilled out onto her hands and dress.

The clerk called 911 because of fears the powder could be anthrax.

"She sounded very, very upset, but said she felt otherwise OK. So, what the police will now do and hazmat, is try to identify that substance," said Annelle Amaral of Planned Parenthood of Hawaii.

"And it came up predominantly all carbohydrates, and the leading carbohydrate was non-dairy creamer," said Honolulu Fire Department Capt. Carter Davis.

Workers were let back into the building a little after 9 a.m.

Planned Parenthood officials said the letter had a postmark from Colorado, but didn't have a return address.

Even though the powder was not anthrax, the letter is being turned over to the FBI and postal authorities for further investigation.

http://www.thehawaiichannel.
com/news/4030373/detail.html

Montgomery appears in court

Montgomery makes Missouri court appearance
KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A Melvern woman accused of killing a Missouri woman and cutting a baby from her womb made an initial appearance this afternoon before a federal judge in Missouri.

Lisa M. Montgomery, 36, appeared in an orange jumpsuit and shackles for the 10-minute hearing before U.S. Magistrate Judge John T. Maughmer. She asked for a public defender to represent her, and Maughmer asked her a series of questions.

Montgomery answered quietly -- her responses often inaudible to the those gathered in the courtroom.

If convicted, Maughmer said, Montgomery faces a minimum of life in prison and a maximum of the death penalty.

Speaking to reporters outside the courthouse this afternoon, U.S. attorney Todd Graves said it's "way too early to make a determination" whether he will seek the death penalty.

Lisa MontgomeryMontgomery is scheduled to appear at a detention hearing at 2 p.m. Thursday in Kansas City, Mo., to determine whether she could be released on bond pending other proceedings. Prosecutors have filed a motion to keep Montgomery in custody.

Montgomery is accused of attacking Bobbie Jo Stinnett, 23, of Skidmore, Mo., on Dec. 16 in Stinnett's home. Montgomery allegedly strangled the expectant mother and cut an 8-month-old fetus from her abdomen. Stinnett later died.

Montgomery returned to Melvern with the newborn girl, Victoria Jo Stinnett, who was recovered Dec. 17 and united with her father.

http://cjonline.com/stories
/122804/bre_montgomery.shtml

Lisa Montgomery appears in court
The Associated Press
A woman accused of killing a pregnant woman and cutting the baby from her womb appeared in court in Missouri Tuesday. It was Lisa Montgomery's initial appearance before a federal judge, where she's charged with kidnapping resulting in death. The hearing lasted less than 10 minutes. Montgomery answered a series of questions about whether she qualifies for a public defender. The magistrate judge said it appears that she qualifies. Montgomery is accused of strangling Bobbie Jo Stinnett -- who was eight months pregnant -- and cutting her baby girl from her womb on Dec. 16. She's scheduled to return to court Thursday for a detention hearing. Prosecutors have already asked that she be denied bond.

Guilty Pro-Abort Gets Suspended Sentence

Protestors to return in June

FLINT, MI. -- The Rev. Matt Trewhella had never seen anything like what happened when he and other anti-abortion protesters came to Flint in August.

But he's vowing Missionaries To The Preborn will return just the same.

Amanda Crim of Davison startled Trewhella and other onlookers when she drove her car over a curb at S. Saginaw and W. Court streets and began screaming at the anti-abortionists during a downtown demonstration. Crim said she was outraged by the group's graphic placards showing aborted fetuses.

Crim and the Wisconsin pastor yelled at each other in front of a gathering crowd before Crim slapped Trewhella, who struck back. The pair wrestled to the ground, where Trewhella's wife, young children and supporters pulled them apart.

The incident was detailed in a Journal article and photo.

Trewhella, who heads the Milwaukee anti-abortion group Missionaries to the Preborn, said he required no medical attention after the incident; a cut lip that his son, Matt, 3, sustained in the melee healed in a couple of weeks.

Trewhella's contingent of about 35 people had no similar encounters during the remainder of the two-week area trip.

"We have had several occasions when we have been punched, slapped or spit on, but nothing like what happened in Flint," he said.

Undaunted, he said the anti-abortionists plan to bring their posters and placards to Flint again.

"We plan on coming back next summer, sometime in June," Trewhella said.

Crim, 25, was arrested after the incident and eventually pleaded guilty to assault and battery before Flint District Judge Nathaniel C. Perry III. He suspended her sentence until Feb. 28 with the promise that the Flint city attorney will dismiss the case if she has not had more "assaultive contacts."

The Journal could not reach Crim for comment. Her uncle, Douglas W. Crim, a Lansing attorney who represented her in court, said he had no comment on the case.

Crim is the granddaughter of former state House Speaker Bobby Crim, for whom the famed Crim Festival of Races is named.

http://www.mlive.com/news/fljournal/inde
x.ssf?/base/news-25/1104250813101030.xml

Censoring the Declaration

Fire, Brimstone Over Faith

A teacher's civil rights suit alleging antireligious bias immerses a Silicon Valley school in an angry debate that leaves both sides feeling devastated.

CUPERTINO, Calif. — These have not been the happiest of holidays for Stevens Creek Elementary.

The Silicon Valley school has been engulfed in a media storm of allegations that it prohibited lessons on the Declaration of Independence — even banned it from classrooms — because the hallowed document contains religious references.

"It's been there for years," school secretary Kathleen Garfield said as she pointed to a framed replica of the declaration on a library wall, a few steps from a row of books devoted to religious customs. "This has just been devastating."

The Stevens Creek experience, complete with raging talk show commentary and a deluge of angry e-mail and telephone calls, is a primer on how painful and divisive the debate over God in public schools can be.

Some e-mail and calls have been vulgar and threatening, frightening school staffers and parents in this San Jose suburb. And though the initial furor has eased — the campus curtailed extra security patrols — a lasting resolution might be some time off.

The turmoil began when fifth-grade teacher Stephen Williams brought a federal civil rights lawsuit Nov. 22, accusing the Cupertino Union School District of illegally forbidding him to instruct students on the religious context of America's founding.

A self-described orthodox Christian, Williams claims he is being discriminated against because of his faith.

Excerpts from the Declaration of Independence are among the materials he is not allowed to teach, according to the suit.

District officials have denied the charges. Their formal response to the suit is due in court Jan. 14.

The Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative legal group representing Williams, announced the suit with a news release headlined, "Declaration of Independence Banned From Classroom."

The release and some early media accounts did not mention that the full declaration is part of the Stevens Creek curriculum, that it is presented in the fifth-grade history textbook or that it is displayed on walls throughout the district.

The assertion that the declaration had been barred proved enough to make Stevens Creek fodder for reasoned discussion about the line between church and state, and Web-fueled attacks labeling the school godless, unpatriotic and communist.

"One guy told me he hoped I burned in hell," said Garfield, who told of crying so hard that she wondered if she could return to work.

On his attorney's advice, Williams, who continues to teach, no longer gives interviews.

He became an overnight darling of the Christian right thanks to coverage by programs such as Fox News' "Hannity & Colmes," which traveled to Cupertino for a broadcast on the suit.

"It's just sad to me that the separation of church and state has been just kind of warped to mean that we can't even include some of our founding documents in the classroom," Williams said on the show.

In the suit, Williams says he had no intention of proselytizing.

Parents have accused him of doing just that.

Their complaints prompted Stevens Creek Principal Patricia Vidmar in May to begin screening Williams' lesson plans for religious content.

According to court documents, Vidmar, who declined to be interviewed because of the litigation, disallowed a batch of writings by George Washington, John Adams and William Penn, as well as a list of what nine presidents have said about the Bible (Thomas Jefferson: "The Bible makes the best people in the world.").

In addition, Vidmar ordered Williams not to assign an Easter exercise.

Several parents said the lesson would have involved reading the Easter story in the Bible, reviewing some teachings of Jesus Christ and interviewing Christian families and church workers.

Cupertino schools Supt. William Bragg, who monitored Vidmar's dealings with Williams, said she excluded the Declaration of Independence passages from Williams' lesson plans because "they were embedded in all this material" that mainly focused on religion.

Bragg added that he had grown concerned that the 38-year-old teacher was overemphasizing religion to the point of violating the rights of students and parents.

And he said much of the material Williams wanted to use was far too sophisticated for fifth-graders, such as a selection from "The Principles of Natural Law," in which 18th century Swiss jurist and professor Jean Jacques Burlamaqui addresses the existence of God. "We had no inkling a lawsuit was coming," said Bragg, sitting in his office in the district's worn but tidy headquarters. "We try to work through these things. We felt it was under control."

The superintendent said his schools follow state guidelines in teaching students of the historical importance of religion, do not subscribe to the position that "under God" should be removed from the Pledge of Allegiance, and have featured Christian carols in holiday music programs.

"There are a lot of churches around," he noted of Cupertino, a high-tech hub that is the home of Apple Computer. "It's upsetting when you see people being characterized as communists, stupid, nonbelieving."

Gary McCaleb, senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, which promotes expanded teaching of Christianity in schools, said the principal and district went too far.

"No public school teacher should abuse his office by trying to indoctrinate his students," McCaleb said. "But they have a right to teach about religion. Williams was singled out for this particular treatment because he was a Christian."

McCaleb stressed that the alliance and Williams were appalled at the flood of hate mail and calls to the school, and have received plenty themselves.

"Unfortunately, there are people out there on both sides of the fence who don't know how to behave as a civilized human being," McCaleb said. "This media thing has exceeded my experience."

But he defended the headline on the alliance's news release . "I think it's a fair summary," he said.

McCaleb said his client has been hurt by the reaction of many teachers and parents.

Williams' critics say they are now cool toward him, but professionally courteous.

And they credit the Stevens Creek staff for shielding students from the fallout of the controversy.

One teacher spoke in Williams' favor.

"I believe that he is teaching to the standards," said Donna Axelson, a third-grade instructor. "I feel bad for what Steve's going through."

Axelson said Williams is vocal about his faith, but she does not believe he preaches to students. Any parent who was worried about his teaching, she said, should have asked to observe his classroom before complaining.

"It's unfortunate that there are a lot of people who have passed judgment," Axelson added.

A devout Christian, she said a parent complained earlier this year when she sent home a newsletter containing a verse that included a stanza about prayer. During a phone interview, Axelson cried as she read lines about a child overhearing a parent praying. Williams' detractors say they welcome instruction on religion within the bounds of its historical and cultural significance. In his case, they contend, it came across as advocacy and made some children uncomfortable.

Mike Zimmers, whose daughter was in Williams' class last year, is among those who complained.

"After the second day of class, my daughter said, 'I don't think he's very respectful of other people's religions…. He talks about Jesus 100 times a day.' "

Zimmers was at a gathering of eight parents in a home near Stevens Creek, in a hilly neighborhood shaded by pines.

All but one described themselves as Christians. Two said they were political conservatives.

Sarah Beetem, a veteran fifth- and sixth-grade teacher, was also there.

"The young teachers who live alone are afraid," she said. "A single-parent teacher got a call at 1 a.m.: 'You teach at that godforsaken school, you better never do that again.' "

One of the conservative parents, Larry Woodard, said Stevens Creek had been smeared by "blatant, out-and-out lies…. We bought our house here because of this school."

Maria Segal, the parent who opened her home to the meeting, summed up the sentiments.

"Who are these people to inflict this upon us?" she said. "How do we go about getting our reputation back?"

http://www.latimes.com/la
-me-teacher26dec26.story

Religion, history, politics at loggerheads in Cupertino
STEPHEN Williams, an evangelical Christian, is a fifth-grade teacher at the Stevens Creek public school in Cupertino, Calif. The free exercise clause of the First Amendment guarantees his right to be a Christian, but his faith has placed him under suspicion by the schools principal, Patricia Vidmar, and resulted in him suing the school district, claiming he is being denied the right to distribute historical handouts that mention God and Christianity. Among those documents are: Samuel Adams "The Rights of the Colonists"; excerpts from George Washingtons prayer journal and John Adams diary; as well as excerpts from the Declaration of Independence all documents that mention God. At a time when the fundamental principles of our history are superficially taught in our schools, Williams should be commended.

Fetus Murder Charges

Man Charged With Murder After
Pregnant Woman's Fetus Dies
San Jose police have charged a man suspected of beating his pregnant girlfriend with murder, following the death of the woman's unborn child.

Police said the 25-year-old woman was 18 weeks pregnant when the male fetus was delivered dead yesterday. She told police that her boyfriend, 44-year-old Clifford Beane Watkins, choked her and kicked her in the stomach at a local motel.

"A man became so angry at his pregnant girl friend that not only did he choke her," San Jose police Sgt. Steve Dixon told KCBS, "he kicked her right in the stomach, and ultimately we believe that caused the death of the fetus."

Police say they don't know if the assault sent the unidentified woman into premature labor, caused a miscarriage or required doctors to induce labor.

Authorities responded to the 911 call early Christmas morning and transported the woman to Santa Clara Valley Medical Center.

""The clerk actually called. The woman was at the front desk," Dixon said. "She had some visible injuries, so our officers were dispatched, as were the paramedics."

The mother's condition was not available this morning.

http://cbs5.com/news/local/2004/12/26/Man_Charged_W
ith_Murder_After_Pregnant_Woman%27s_Fetus_Dies.html

Autopsy on dead fetus complete;
assailant remains jailed
Coroners conducted an autopsy today on the 18-week-old male fetus that police say died after the mother was kicked in the stomach, but a ruling on the official cause of death is pending until toxicology tests are completed.

Police arrested Clifford Beane Watkins, 44, on suspicion of murder, domestic violence and assault with a deadly weapon. He is being held in Santa Clara County jail without bail.

Police said Watkins kicked his pregnant girlfriend in the stomach, and the fetus died on Saturday after an emergency delivery. The Santa Clara County Sheriff's Department has since assumed jurisdiction over the case because the motel falls within its area of patrol.

The toxicology tests should be finished within the next few days, at which point the case will be referred to the Santa Clara County District Attorney's office for a decision whether to charge Watkins with murder, said Terrence Helm, a deputy public information officer for the sheriff's department.

Helm said the 25-year-old mother was in stable condition but did not know if she had been released from the hospital as of this afternoon. Her name is not being released. Helm also said that authorities haven't yet determined if Watkins is the father of the fetus. But he and the mother were in a dating relationship, Helm said.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/
mercurynews/news/10509144.htm?1c

The Secret Hand

The Secret Hand

By Paul Proctor / NewsWithViews.com

As a conservative and a Christian, I have no interest in being a “Bush basher,” only a truth teller; and sometimes the truth, however unpleasant, must be told regardless of whom it might offend. If there was anything that needed bashing, it is the manipulative marketing machinery that keeps all presidential candidates, outside the elites’ two-party tent, in obscurity. ...

Regardless of how many republicans were elected to office or will be appointed to the Supreme Court over the next four years; unless this nation repents and God Himself miraculously intervenes, the harsh reality is:

1. Roe vs. Wade will not be overturned
2. Human cloning and fetal stem cell research will proceed as planned
3. Euthanasia will abound
4. Homosexuality will be exalted, protected and promoted more than ever
5. The government will go right on growing itself at an alarming rate
6. Taxes will rise unabated
7. Debt and deficits will soar to unprecedented levels
8. Congress will vote themselves more and more raises
9. The dollar will decline into nothingness
10. Corruption and waste will increase dramatically
11. Public education will continue teaching theory over truth
12. Prime time TV will become porn time TV and involve younger people
13. Sex will be used to sell more products and services than ever before
14. Freedom and privacy will forever fade into memories
15. Violence, war and occult activity will become the norm and…
16. Those who persist in proclaiming the absolute truth of God’s Word will be ever more harassed, arrested, fined, incarcerated, persecuted, tortured, and/or killed, for their faithfulness.

I’m sure, four years ago, most republican voters thought a lot of this would be fixed, addressed or at least reined in a little after Bush took office. Didn’t happen though, did it? No, it just got worse. So, what makes them think the next four years will be any better, the fact that they've added a few more republicans to the mix?

Doctor Did Abortions After License Was Revoked

Police: Doctor Did Abortions After License Was Revoked

MIRAMAR -- A doctor whose license was revoked for botching abortions, including leaving fetus parts inside his patients, was arrested because he kept performing the procedures, officials said.

Robelto A. Osborne, 44, turned himself in to Miramar police Wednesday and was released on bond the same night. He was charged with performing medicine without a license, a third-degree felony.

Osborne performed the abortions at A GYN Diagnostic Center in Miramar, police said. There was no answer to telephone calls at the clinic on Friday and he does not have a listed home phone. Police also have an arrest warrant out for Kieron A. Nisbet of Homestead, who allegedly gave patients anesthesia without a medical license.

The state Department of Health says it was tipped off about Osborne by an anonymous caller and it contacted police Nov. 16.

According to state records, Osborne's license was revoked in August because he failed to perform necessary preoperative procedures, did not treat a severe uterine perforation and did not return calls to his emergency line from a patient in extreme pain and bleeding.

Records also said Osborne left fetus parts inside his patients, which can cause infection, hemorrhaging and even death.

Cops Bust Abortion Doctor

Police arrested a doctor who they say performed abortions after his license was revoked. They are hunting for another man with no medical license who may have given patients anesthesia.

The Miami Herald

Although a Miramar doctor's medical license had been revoked since this summer after state officials said he endangered women's health by botching abortions, he continued to practice and perform abortions, Department of Health officials said Thursday.

Robelto A. Osborne, 44, of 555 NE 15th St., Miami, turned himself in to Miramar police Wednesday night. He was charged with performing medicine without a license, a third-degree felony, at A Gyn Diagnostic Center at 6161 Miramar Parkway, Suite 300.

Police now have an arrest warrant out for Kieron A. Nisbet, 34, of 16230 SW 248th St., Homestead, who investigators said gave abortion patients anesthesia even though he does not have a medical license.

Miramar police spokesman Bill Robertson said the Department of Health contacted detectives about Osborne and Nisbet on Nov. 16.

On the afternoon of Dec. 15, police temporarily closed the clinic to execute a search warrant. Robertson said there are other physicians who work at the clinic, but he could not say how many. A detective involved in the probe said those doctors' attorneys have been in contact with police.

Also, investigators have interviewed several patients, Robertson said.

An anonymous informant tipped Department of Health authorities to Osborne's continued practice in Miramar.

Osborne's license was revoked, according to Department of Health records, in August because he failed to perform necessary pre-operative procedures and did not treat a severe uterine perforation. Records also show he did not return calls to his emergency line to patients who complained of extreme pain and bleeding.

Osborne also left fetus parts inside his patients, the documents show.

If the uterus is not cleaned after an abortion, an infection can develop, and a woman can hemorrhage and die, according to doctors.

In addition to revoking Osborne's license in August, the state fined him close to $7,000, records indicate. Osborne did not dispute the state's action, records show.

A Gyn Diagnostic Center, decorated for Christmas with a holiday Bambi sticker on the door and a red bow inside the waiting room, was locked before 5 p.m. Thursday. Workers at neighboring businesses in the small Steiner Building strip mall said several police cars had been there last week.

Efforts to contact Osborne and the clinic Thursday were unsuccessful.

Before he practiced in Miramar, according to Department of Health documents, Osborne performed abortions at A Woman's Choice Clinic in Miami Lakes.

A 41-year-old sought an abortion from Osborne there in January 2000, records show. After the procedure, she complained of bleeding and pain, and Osborne gave her a shot in her leg to help the bleeding subside, according to health department files.

Osborne did not perform necessary post-operative procedures on the woman, causing her to hemorrhage, records show.

Later, the same woman called Osborne, but he did not return her calls, the documents show. Soon after, she went to an emergency room where doctors performed a hysterectomy and foundparts of a fetus in her uterus, according to state records.

Also, the records reveal, Osborne botched an abortion on an 18-year-old in 1996 at a Hialeah clinic. The woman was treated at Baptist Hospital in Miami-Dade County to repair damage to her small intestine.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miam
iherald/news/10488575.htm?1c

Abortion regulation group to change tactics in Minnesota

The state's largest anti-abortion group, and a very powerful state lobbying group, will take a different approach to its work at the state Capitol next year.

The group plans to push the state to offer $5 million in grants to already existing anti-abortion pregnancy centers to make it easier for women who are pregnant to avoid having an abortion.

"This is about doing something positive," said Scott Fischbach, executive director of the MCCL. In the past decade, the group has been seen mainly pushing for limits on legal abortion and providers of abortion.

The money would fund a $1 million public information campaign about the pregnancy centers' services and provide $4 million to the for pregnancy centers so they can help pregnant women and new mothers with health care, job training, housing and other services.

Traditional opponents of the MCCL greeted the proposal with a mixture of skepticism and surprise.

Tim Stanley, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Minnesota, said funding the pregnancy centers might not make fiscal sense. He also said he suspected the measure was designed as a diversionary tactic from the MCCL's other priorities. But Stanley did see something positive in the measure.

"If we don't have to have a battle over abortion it looks good to me," he said.


http://www.twincities.com/mld/twinci
ties/news/breaking_news/10469364.htm

Street Preachers Lose Court Battle

Street Preachers Lose Court Battle

KSL-TV 5

SALT LAKE CITY -- A federal judge has ruled Salt Lake City's ban on street preachers around the Mormon conference center is constitutional.

In a 28-page ruling released Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Tena Campbell upheld the city's rules limiting the places where preachers can stand and sermonize during the church's twice-annual worldwide conferences.

The city adopted the zones after the October 2003 conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, when two street preachers were assaulted by conference attendees.

"The city not only has a significant interest, but a duty, to ensure the safety of these persons, as well as others who are walking, driving and demonstrating, near or at the Conference," Campbell wrote.

Attorneys for the World Wide Street Preachers Fellowship argued the zones violate the constitutional rights to free speech and unfettered exercise of religion.

Attorney Geoffrey Dobbin said he was disappointed with Campbell's decision. He planned to meet with his clients and analyze the ruling before making a decision on a possible appeal to the 10th Circuit.

The basic framework of the buffer zones will remain in place for the April 2005 conference, Salt Lake City Attorney Ed Rutan said, although the restrictions change slightly with each gathering depending on how many demonstrators apply for permits to protest in designated reserved areas.

A spokesman for the LDS Church declined to comment on Tuesday's ruling, noting the church has never been a party in the case.

Preachers said their religion requires -- and the Constitution allows -- them to be able to stand and preach. They complained the city's rules expanded no-standing zones - which forbid anyone from standing on some parts of the sidewalk when pedestrian traffic peaks with up to 25,000 conference-goers entering the center.

Campbell wrote the no-standing rule applies to everyone, not just the preachers.

Campbell also said protesters are allowed to walk through those zones with conference-goers and spread their message by speaking, carrying signs and handing out pamphlets. They just can't stand still.

The judge used a similar analysis when she rejected the preachers' request for a temporary restraining order before the April 2004 conference.

Christians go as Bethlehem's star dims

International Herald Tribune

BETHLEHEM -- In the town where Christ was born, the Christians are leaving.

Four years of violence, an economic free fall and the rapidly rising Israeli separation barrier have all contributed to the hardships facing Palestinian Christians in Bethlehem, one of the largest concentrations of Christians in the region.

An estimated 3,000 Christians in the Bethlehem area have moved abroad since the Palestinian uprising began in 2000, according to Bernard Sabella, an associate professor of sociology at Bethlehem University who has tracked the issue. While some others put the number a bit lower, there is a consensus that 10 percent or more of the Christian population in Bethlehem and two adjoining towns has left and that the exodus is continuing.

"Christians all over the world need to know this reality. If there is not a breakthrough in the peace process, this trend will continue," said Hanna Nasser, a Christian who is the mayor of Bethlehem. "Imagine the town of Bethlehem without Christians."

Bethlehem's central square should be packed for Christmas celebrations. But the town's economy is dependent on year-round tourism, and the pilgrims stopped coming when the fighting began.

"For four years there has been no business, no way to earn a living," said Saleh Michel, 88, a Roman Catholic.

For decades, Michel ran what seemed a recession-proof family business. His musty souvenir shop, the Bethlehem Oriental Store, is less than 10 paces from one of Christendom's most important shrines, the Church of the Nativity, built on the site where tradition holds that Jesus was born.

Yet Michel rarely opens these days and one of his adult sons has moved to Italy.

"I asked him to stay," Michel recalled. "He said, 'then feed me.' He had no choice but to leave and find work elsewhere."

Michel began working at the store in 1936, the year that Arabs launched an uprising against the British rulers of Palestine. Bad days have come and gone, but for the first time he cannot even pay the rent.

"There were difficult times, but there were always tourists. This uprising has ruined us," said Michel.

Just five years ago, Bethlehem and its Christians were giddy with optimism.

The stone square outside the Church of the Nativity was overflowing with tourists for Christmas and New Year's celebrations. Palestinians were talking up the possibility of statehood in 2000. Pope John Paul II visited in March 2000, helping fuel a surge in visitors. Several new hotels were rising to accommodate them.

"We all had high hopes," said Fayez Khano, who carves olive wood souvenirs in a workshop dusted with flakes of blond wood.

But today, Khano, a father of three, has a son and a daughter in Dublin and another daughter who is about to move to the United States. "We depend on our kids to send us money," said Khano, who along with his brother, has been crafting Jesus figures and manger scenes at his shop for a quarter-century. "I want to stay because I was born here, but my wife is pushing me to leave. If the situation continues, I will have to consider it."

This recent exodus marks an acceleration of a decades-old trend that has seen the steady emigration of the Christian population throughout many parts of the Middle East.

Bethlehem was more than 90 percent Christian until the middle of the last century. But the 1948 war, launched by Arab states with the founding of Israel, brought an influx of Muslim refugees to the Bethlehem area and signaled the start of a demographic shift. Today, Christians account for about 21,500 of 60,000 Palestinian residents, or about 35 percent, according to Sabella. The figures include Bethlehem and two neighboring towns, Beit Jalla and Beit Sahour.

The Christians, most of them Greek Orthodox or Catholic, have not been directly involved in the fighting, but have suffered the consequences.

In the early days of the uprising, Muslim gunmen in the Bethlehem area took hilltop positions in Beit Jalla, which is predominantly Christian. This afforded them a clear line of fire at the southernmost part of Jerusalem, which is built on land Israel seized in the 1967 Mideast war.

When the Israeli military responded, Beit Jalla residents found themselves on the front line of the conflict, and occasionally among its casualties.

Israeli troops have staged multiple incursions in the Bethlehem area in pursuit of militants involved in attacks. During the most sweeping raid, more than three dozen Muslim gunmen charged into the Church of the Nativity in April 2002, and remained for 39 days before surrendering.

Also, Palestinian suicide bombers have slipped out of Bethlehem and unleashed deadly attacks in neighboring Jerusalem several times. Today, Israel's separation barrier, a network of concrete walls and electronic fences, is a hulking presence on the edges of Bethlehem. The barrier is isolating the town from Jerusalem, and separates some residents, including the mayor, from olive groves and other farmland that have been in Palestinian families for generations.

Bethlehem residents cannot travel the short distance to Jerusalem without Israeli permission, and the town is surrounded with 78 obstacles, including dirt mounds, checkpoints and concrete barriers, according to a report released this week by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Near the main entrance to Bethlehem, the Israeli military has erected a series of tall concrete barriers to protect Jewish visitors to Rachel's Tomb, the place where tradition says the biblical Jewish matriarch is buried. The number of visitors is relatively few, but the military presence has turned the area into a ghost town, and 72 of the 80 Palestinian businesses in the immediate vicinity have closed in the past two years, according to the UN report.

Arab Christians have been a relatively prosperous minority inside Israel as well as in the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. But today they account for less than 2 percent of overall population, and many question the future prospects of the Christian community.

The Christians are generally well-educated and middle-class, and many have relatives or other connections abroad that allow them to move with relative ease to the United States, Europe or Latin America.

Jerome Murphy-O'Connor, a Dominican priest and a longtime professor of the New Testament at Ecole Biblique, in Jerusalem, says Christians are feeling squeezed by both sides.

"No matter who wins, the Christians feel they are treated as second-class citizens," he said. "If the Israelis win, then they are Arabs. If the Muslims win, then they are Christians."

When Father Murphy-O'Connor arrived from Ireland in 1963, some 200 Arab Christians attended Sunday services at St. Stephen's Basilica, the church of the Ecole Biblique. Today there are fewer than 10.

The Christian emigrants tend to be quite successful and rarely look back. In one striking example, the two main candidates in El Salvador's presidential election this year - the winner, Tony Saca, and the runnerup, Schafik Handal, were both descendants of Arab Christian families that came from Bethlehem.

In an attempt to stem the Christian exodus, Father Amjad Sabarra, the Catholic pastor of Bethlehem, has launched a job creation program directed at young men.

In the past year, more than 400 Bethlehem residents have received at least some part-time work, mostly in housing restoration.

Sabarra is also working with recent university graduates, finding them internships and counseling them on the historic role of Christians in the Holy Land.

"I used to have one person working in my office," he said, laughing. "Now I have 20."


http://www.iht.com/article
s/2004/12/22/news/noel.html

Bobbi Jo Stinnett Remembered By The Nation And the World

Bobbi Jo Stinnett Remembered
By The Nation And the World

Americas Amber Alert News Center

(MARYVILLE, Mo. USA NA) AP -- Funeral held for slain mother-to-be

By Bill Draper,

Hundreds of mourners gathered Tuesday in this small northwestern Missouri farming community for the funeral of a young pregnant woman who was strangled and whose baby girl was cut from her womb.

The crowd filled the flower-filled Price Funeral Home and overflowed into the entrance for the service for Bobbie Jo Stinnett, 23. Cars lined the streets on a bitter cold day. “I’ve known her since she was a baby,” said family friend Carl Montgomery. “She grew up into a beautiful swan.”

Stinnett’s mother found her eight-months-pregnant daughter in a pool of blood in her small home Thursday, the baby she was carrying missing. Lisa M. Montgomery, 36, of Melvern, Kan. - a woman Stinnett knew from breeding and dog shows, and no relation to the family friend - has been charged with kidnapping resulting in death.

Family and friends said Montgomery, arrested Friday, tried to pass off Stinnett’s baby as her own. The child, who has been named Victoria Jo Stinnett, spent the weekend in a Topeka, Kan., hospital before going home Monday afternoon with her father, Zeb Stinnett, and another relative. The Rev. Harold Hamon, who married the Stinnetts in spring 2003 at the Skidmore Christian Church, spoke at the funeral; burial followed at a cemetery in Skidmore.

Many mourners were unable to get into the service. Others, some crying and exchanging hugs, took turns letting each other get closer to the sanctuary. One tearful mourner carried a dozen pink roses, but became so distraught she had to be taken outside. Afterward, pallbearers waited outside as the gold coffin was placed into a hearse.

The FBI would not comment on whether Stinnett and Montgomery had met before Thursday. But a Nebraska dog trainer who planned to attend the funeral said the two women had chatted on the Internet - and attended the same dog shows. The two were even photographed together at a dog show in Abilene, Kan., in April, said Nancy Strudl, of Omaha, Neb.

Strudl recalled Stinnett was shy but “a sweetheart after you got to know her.” She said Stinnett knew so much about the genetics of the rat terrier breed that she gave advice to others. She also said Stinnett “stood up” for Lisa Montgomery, whom Strudl accused of misrepresenting the pedigree of dogs she sold. “She said, ‘Maybe it was just a misunderstanding,”‘ Strudl said. “She was so trusting and she convinced them to give (Montgomery) another chance.”

Other breeders were skeptical when Lisa Montgomery said she was pregnant - she “never gained an ounce,” Strudl said. “She told us all she was pregnant with twins, and about a month and a half ago her messages were ‘I lost one of the twins. It’s so terrible, but they saved one twin,”‘ Strudl said. “We didn’t believe she was pregnant. I don’t know how she fooled her family and community.”

On Monday, Montgomery’s husband said he believed the baby his wife presented to him was theirs. “I had no idea,” Kevin Montgomery said when asked about his wife’s alleged actions. He has not been charged and prosecutors have not said if they suspect he knew anything.


Team Amber Alert News, TX

Christmas Displays Being Looted

Hostility to Religion Or Profit Motive?

WOODSTOCK, Ill. -- The ranch house here where Marc Moxon and his family live is a sparkling winter wonderland: trees garlanded in glittering lights, illuminated plastic penguins, polar bears and other characters dotting the lawn, even a reindeer-drawn sleigh on the roof.

But the glowing plastic Joseph and Mary and the three wise men sitting in front of the house look dejected. The manger between them is empty, as it has been since someone swiped the baby Jesus two weeks ago. Several days earlier, a sign was left at the house asking, "Would Jesus use this much electricity?"

"After they left the sign, we weren't that surprised to see him stolen," Moxon said. "We heard they had some [lost Christ figures] at the police station. Maybe we'll go look down there."

Just a block from Moxon's home in this community about 60 miles north of Chicago, another house suffered a similar fate. A jolly Santa Claus is projected on the garage and two reindeer bob their heads on the lawn, but the manger by the front door is empty.

Woodstock Police Chief Joe Marvin said three Christ figures were reported stolen from mangers the night of Dec. 8, and Moxon's household did not report its theft. Two Christ figures have been found discarded.

Just as pumpkins are smashed at Halloween, a number of Nativity scenes fall victim to pranksters every year. But this year the number being vandalized or stolen appears to be higher than usual; the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights says it has logged twice as many complaints as in most years, and more are expected in the days leading up to Christmas.

Some see the rash of stolen Christ figures as indicative of hostility toward Christmas or Christianity.

"There will always be some young people who are drinking who would smash a menorah or a Nativity scene, whatever is there," said William Donohue, president of the Catholic League, which places a Nativity scene in Central Park and has received several dozen reports of stolen Christ figures from around the country. "But this is happening so much this year, I can only see it as part of the trend of Christian-bashing and trying to stamp out Christmas. It started with the criticism of the Mel Gibson movie ["The Passion of the Christ"] earlier this year. The culture wars are at their height right now, and this is part of it."

But Omar M. McRoberts, a University of Chicago assistant professor of sociology whose book about religion in poor neighborhoods was published last year, thinks the thefts have more to do with economics.

"It's a function of the commodification of this holiday, of the fact that people are competing to have more and more elaborate displays outside their houses and these are things you could get a good price for on eBay," he said. "It's ironic that a holiday which is essentially about poor people having a baby in an animal's food trough is represented with these expensive ornaments."

Some theft victims say it is simple economics. Figures from the Salem United Methodist Church in Barrington, Ill., were stolen from the sanctuary right after they were put on display after Thanksgiving. The Rev. Ann Findley Spurgeon thinks the thief wanted to sell them.

"We don't put Christ out until Christmas or the wise men until the Epiphany [Jan.6], but all the others were stolen -- Mary and Joseph and the animals," she said. "They were expensive figures, so we think someone just needed some money."

Other times the incidents seem purely hostile. A couple in Lockport, Ill., saw their holiday decorations, including their Nativity scene, attacked five times in seven days, at least once by a carload of bat-wielding boys. They finally gave up and took down the ornaments.

"It's just so sad," said Joyce Rakowski, exhausted from talking to local reporters. "We're very sad, and we just want to try to get on with our holidays."

The Christ figure in Chicago's life-size Nativity scene in downtown Daley Center Plaza was stolen this year for the second time in its history. In 1999, a caller identifying himself as "Thelonious Monk" called the Nativity Scene Committee, a group of local volunteers who put up the display, to let it know the missing baby Jesus was sequestered at the downtown railroad station.

This year, police arrested a 19-year-old student shortly after he swiped the Christ figure around 3:30 a.m. on Dec. 5.

"I'm not convinced people are doing it out of hatred," said Jim Finnegan, co-chairman of the Nativity Scene Committee. "In our two cases, it was almost a lark. This time I got a call from the police at 4 a.m. saying they had in custody a boy going to the School of the Art Institute. I think he just wanted it because it was a beautiful piece of art."

Finnegan does not expect the Christ figure to be stolen again this year.

"We have him secured to the manger with a small but very secure cable," he said. "It's padlocked tight. The hay covers that part well enough, so it doesn't ruin the ambiance at all."


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles
/A17659-2004Dec21.html?nav%3Drss_nation&sub=AR

Bush Supports Ecumenical/Cross-Hating Movement

Bush Supports Ecumenical/Cross-Hating Movement

President's father also praises work of Moonies

WorldNetDaily.com

Both President Bush and his father have expressed their support for a group of mostly black church leaders that endorses the practice of throwing the cross into the trash – literally.

According to an online column by John Gorenfeld, the American Clergy Leadership Conference sponsored a nationwide "Tear Down The Cross" day for Easter 2003 during which pastors led ceremonies where traditional sanctuary crosses were tossed into dumpsters. Over 100 crosses reportedly were trashed.

Writes Gorenfeld, "This [cross removal], movement leaders said, cleared the way for a new age and second messiah."

Last week, the movement's leaders presided over a Washington prayer breakfast featuring messages of thanks from both Bush presidents.

Though ACLC's website says part of its purpose is to "promote through fellowship the unity of the body of Christ," it also aims to "foster cooperation and understanding among all religions." That cooperation is evidenced by the involvement of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the founder of the Unification Church who was dubbed the king of peace at a coronation ceremony in the Dirksen Senate Office Building earlier this year.

The organization also works closely with both Muslim and Jewish clergy.

Rudolph's Defense Attorneys Get Bomb Model Access

Judge: Make replicas to be used in trial available to defense

By Val Walton / The Birmingham News

A magistrate judge ruled Tuesday Eric Robert Rudolph's defense attorneys should have access to, if prosecutors plan to use them at trial, any replica or model of the bomb used in the Southside abortion clinic blast.

U. S. Magistrate Judge T. Michael Putnam was ruling on a defense request that they be given access to 36 items attorneys believe could be favorable to Rudolph. Putnam denied some and approved others.

Rudolph has pleaded not guilty to the January 1998 bombing of the New Woman All Women clinic that killed an off-duty police officer and injured a nurse. His trial is scheduled for May.

Putnam said the defense cannot have access to information maintained by the Birmingham Police Department about arrests or incidents in the area of the clinic from 1988 to January 1998 and all investigations conducted involving abortion protesters from 1985 to 1998.

Putnam said the information was in the control of Birmingham police, not the federal government.

Rudolph's attorney also sought the government's witness list, which Putnam denied.

Putnam is requiring prosecutors to give the defense all information involving the testing of a shovel that supposedly belonged to Rudolph. The judge noted the test was "negative," but said it was unclear what the test was negative for. He said there is a suggestion that the bomb at the Birmingham clinic was placed under a plant or buried.

Prosecutors should provide the defense with the information within 30 days, the judge wrote.


http://www.al.com/news/birminghamnews/i
ndex.ssf?/base/news/110371065332710.xml

Court Watch

Court Allows Church to Use Hallucinogenic Tea
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a New Mexico church has the right to use a hallucinogenic tea in its services, rejecting a government argument that the tea is illegal and potentially dangerous. The ruling brings to a close a long-running legal fight between federal officials and the Brazil-based O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao do Vegetal over the church's use of hoasca tea, brewed from plants found in the Amazon River Basin.

Running Away Gets De Facto Death Penalty?
Court Sides With Police Over Deadly Force
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court refused to clarify when police can use deadly force to stop fleeing suspects but said a lower court got it wrong in allowing a lawsuit against an officer in Washington state who shot a burglary suspect. Law enforcement groups and 16 states had encouraged the court to use the officer's appeal to clarify protection for officers from lawsuits when they injure or kill fleeing suspects. The court issued an unsigned opinion that found only that the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco erred in ruling that the officerette, Rochelle Brosseau, clearly violated the suspect's constitutional rights. Brosseau shot Kenneth Haugen in 1999 as he fled in his Jeep to avoid being arrested for drug charges and for questioning in a burglary. Haugen pleaded guilty to fleeing police but then filed suit claiming a civil rights violation. He suffered a punctured lung in the shooting but recovered. The 9th Circuit said Brosseau should face a jury. Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in a dissent that the officer was out of bounds in shooting a suspect who had not threatened anyone, and that it should be left to a jury to decide if she should have to pay damages.

Court OKs Arrest on 'Reasonable' Grounds
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court ruled Monday that police have authority to arrest suspects on charges that later fall apart, so long as officers had a second, valid reason for the detention. The 8-0 ruling sets aside a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in favor of Jerome Alford. Two Washington State Patrol officers had arrested him for tape recording their conversation during a traffic stop in November 1997.

Court to Hear File-Sharing Dispute
The Supreme Court said it will consider whether Internet file-sharing services are responsible for their customers illegally swapping songs and movies, a multibillion-dollar case testing the limits of copyright law in the digital age. Justices will hear a challenge to a lower court ruling in favor of Grokster Ltd. and StreamCast Networks Inc. that was a blow to recording companies and movie studios seeking to stop the online distribution of their copyrighted works. At issue is whether the file-sharing services should be held liable, even if they have no direct knowledge of what millions of online users are doing with the software they provide for free.

Rehnquist Sits Out Some High Court Cases
WASHINGTON -- Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist has cut back on his workload while receiving treatment for thyroid cancer, a Supreme Court spokeswoman. Until Monday, Rehnquist had participated in every decision. After two rulings were released that did not include votes by Rehnquist, Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg issued a statement saying the chief justice will not participate in decisions from the dozen cases heard in November unless the remaining eight justices are deadlocked.

Ailing Rehnquist Plans to Swear in Bush again
WASHINGTON -- Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, suffering from thyroid cancer and absent from the bench for seven weeks, still plans to preside at President Bush's inauguration on Jan. 20, a Supreme Court spokeswoman said. The chief justice normally swears in the president, but it had been unclear if Rehnquist would be well enough. Little information about his condition has been released, though it's known he is undergoing the kind of treatment often used for the most serious type of thyroid cancer.

Rehnquist's Health Still Top Court News
WASHINGTON -- The biggest news to come out of the Supreme Court so far this session has nothing to do with the law. It's the health of Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, which remains shrouded in mystery as the court hibernates for the holidays. The few details released about Rehnquist's condition have been mixed: He won't rule on cases heard in November, but plans to participate in the cases argued in December. He works exclusively at home for now, but intends to swear in President Bush on Jan. 20.

Court to Join Int'l Death Penalty Debate
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court waded into a fierce international debate over how the United States prosecutes foreigners in death penalty cases, agreeing to hear the case of a Mexican man in an unexpected move that expands the court's examination of fairness in capital punishment. The justices already are considering the constitutionality of executing killers who committed their crimes as juveniles.

Court Upholds Inmate's Death Penalty
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court ruled Monday that a Florida death row inmate should not automatically get a new trial because his lawyer conceded the man's guilt without his consent. The high court also rejected an appeal from Texas death row inmate Troy Kunkle. The move allows his execution to proceed, even though one justice declared that Kunkle's sentence clearly violated the Constitution.

Court to Review 'Supermax' Prisons
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court agreed to consider how much flexibility corrections officials have to put inmates in super maximum-security prisons. Most states and the federal government have such prisons, intended to separate the most dangerous prisoners from other inmates. Justices will review an appeal next year from Ohio, which opened a super-security prison with about 500 beds in 1998 after a deadly inmate riot five years earlier at a state prison.

Court Limits Pollution Cleanup Lawsuits
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court on Monday put restrictions on companies that want to clean up voluntarily their polluted land and sue former owners to share the costs. The court ruled 7-2 against a company that in 1981 bought land in Texas that had been used for aircraft engine maintenance businesses and then went to court to recover some of the $5 million it spent cleaning up pollution there. The justices said the company improperly tried to use the Superfund law to sue because the government had not demanded that the cleanup be done.

Court Considers Beef Ad Campaign Case
WASHINGTON -- A food fight broke out at the Supreme Court with justices considering whether the government can force farmers to pay for ad campaigns with catchy phrases like "Beef: It's what's for dinner" and billboards featuring milk mustaches on celebrities. Farmers are challenging the multimillion-dollar beef promotion program, saying they shouldn't have to pay for ads they disagree with. The eventual ruling could jeopardize more than 100 federal and state campaigns for other products — eggs, mangoes, popcorn and even alligators.

Court to Hear Property Limits Case
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court said Friday it would hear a challenge to a local ordinance intended to preserve housing for the poor, disabled and elderly. A historic San Francisco hotel has been in a long-running battle with the city over the hotel's decision to convert rooms previously designated for permanent residents to accommodate tourists. The plans of the San Remo Hotel conflicted with a 14-year-old ordinance that restricts such conversions, unless owners pay a sizable fee.

Court Reverses Cosmetics Case Ruling
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court on Wednesday reversed a lower ruling in favor of a cosmetics company that contended a competitor was unfairly using the name of its tattooing ink. The unanimous decision set aside a ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for Lasting Impressions, which had sued KP Permanent Make-up alleging trademark infringement over ink used to give women permanent lipstick, eyebrow color and even beauty marks. Both companies wanted to call their product "micro color."

Major Cases for Supreme Court in 2005
Some of the major issues to be decided by the Supreme Court next year:
DEATH PENALTY: Is it unconstitutionally cruel to execute juvenile killers? (Roper v. Simmons, 03-633.) Argument heard Oct. 13. And may the United States try and sentence to death foreign nationals without notifying their government, in violation of international law? (Medellin v. Dretke, 04-5928.) Argument not yet scheduled.
FREE SPEECH: May the government require beef producers to pay fees that are used to promote the industry, even if the producers disagree with some of the marketing campaigns? (Veneman v. Livestock Marketing Association, 03-1164, and Nebraska Cattlemen v. Livestock Marketing Association, 03-1165.) Argument heard Dec. 8.
POLICE SEARCHES: Can police use drug-sniffing dogs to check stopped cars whose drivers have given police no particular reason to suspect illegal activity? (Illinois v. Caballes, 03-923.) Argument heard Nov. 10.
LAND RIGHTS: When can local governments seize people's homes and businesses to be used for tax-producing projects like shopping malls? (Kelo v. City of New London, 04-108.) Argument scheduled for Feb. 22.
TEN COMMANDMENTS: Do government displays of the Ten Commandments at public buildings violate the First Amendment's ban on an "establishment" of religion? (Van Orden v. Perry, 03-1500, and McCreary County v. ACLU, 03-1693.) Arguments scheduled for March 2.

Same-Sex Union Cases to Be Heard

Consolidated lawsuits on marriage rights for gays and lesbians are to be presented today before a judge in San Francisco.

By Lee Romney / The Los Angeles Times

SAN FRANCISCO -- The cases ultimately expected to reach the California Supreme Court and decide whether the state's gays and lesbians should be granted civil marriage rights will be heard today by a San Francisco Superior Court judge.

At the heart of the consolidated lawsuits — brought by the city of San Francisco and a dozen gay and lesbian couples — is the contention that current law defining marriage as "between a man and a woman" violates the state Constitution by denying homosexuals the "fundamental right" to marry the person of their choosing.

Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer, defending existing law, counters that California is dedicated to equal rights and benefits for same-sex couples, evidenced by a sweeping domestic partners law that takes effect next month.

Balancing these efforts, he said, is the state's interest in maintaining "the common and traditional understanding of marriage" as heterosexual.

"The responsibility of my office is to defend current law…. So we've tried to make the best argument that can be made," said Lockyer, a self-described supporter of gay rights.

Conservative groups that have filed their own lawsuits on the issue argue points that Lockyer has disavowed: that the state has no interest in supporting gay marriage because homosexuals cannot naturally procreate and that children of gay and lesbian unions fare poorly.

All arguments will play out today in a courtroom across the street from the ornate City Hall where more than 4,000 same-sex couples were granted marriage licenses last spring under a directive from Mayor Gavin Newsom.

Newsom's move — which came months after the Massachusetts high court upheld same-sex marriage — was later deemed illegal, and the licenses were invalidated. But it set in motion a heady series of nationwide gay marriage initiatives and counter-initiatives in an election year.

The San Francisco Superior Court cases stemmed from Newsom's action.

"The question that will be discussed goes to the core of everything we've been trying to advance," Newsom said. "The national ramifications if California goes the way of Massachusetts would be quite extraordinary."

Newsom has been lambasted by some fellow Democrats for his actions, which some contend helped President Bush win a second term and contributed to a nationwide anti-gay marriage backlash. Voters in 11 states last month approved state constitutional amendments banning such marriages, and gay marriage opponents in California promise to do the same if the high court grants gays and lesbians marriage rights here.

Still, Newsom said, his plans are on script.

"This is where we always wanted to end up," he said. "The idea of the marriages in February was to fast-track this process and put a human face on the issue."

In all states where the same-sex marriage question has been litigated, suits were filed by gays or lesbians. California's case is the first in which a municipality — the city and county of San Francisco — has directly challenged state law.

City officials argue that by denying same-sex couples the "fundamental right" to marry, California is violating its constitutional guarantees of "liberty, privacy and equality." The right to marry was affirmed in 1948 when the high court struck down laws against interracial marriages.

By forcing the city to discriminate, they argue, the state is harming all San Francisco residents.

The city estimates that the ban costs San Francisco about $13 million a year in public health and social service benefits, money it would not have to spend if gay couples were married. The city also argues that it loses about $6 million in potential marriage license fees and tourist revenue.

But the monetary losses are secondary, said City Atty. Dennis Herrera.

"Without full recognition of gay and lesbian families through marriage, we are limited in our ability to protect the equal rights of our citizens," he said.

Most laws are presumed by the courts to be constitutional and will be upheld as long as there is a rational basis for them, legal analysts say. But laws that restrict the rights of a class or group historically subject to disfavor must meet a tougher test. In those cases, the government must show that the law serves a specific state interest. San Francisco's attorneys and the lawyers for the 12 couples contend that gays and lesbians make up such a class and that no compelling state interest exists to deny them marriage rights.

Unlike other states, California already has in place an unparalleled system of benefits for gays and lesbians. Those benefits, Lockyer said, balance the state's interest in preserving heterosexual marriage tradition.

Lockyer said the rights granted to domestic partners are almost equal to those of marriage, "but the term 'marriage' is reserved for opposite-sex couples."

Attorneys for the couples counter that separate but equal (or in this case nearly equal) is not justified or permitted by the state Constitution.

"This case is really about whether lesbians and gay men in California are going to be treated as fully human and fully equal citizens," said Shannon Minter, legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights, which filed the couples' suit, along with the American Civil Liberties Union and Lambda Legal. "It poses the equality issue very starkly."

Among the plaintiffs are Lancy Woo and partner Cristy Chung, who say they are raising their 6-year-old daughter on unequal turf. Marriage, Woo said, bestows "overall acceptance" that domestic partnership benefits cannot.

She and Chung checked out prospective schools for their daughter and were told by some teachers that the issue of gay parenting is reserved only for "health class…. I said, 'Oh, we're a health issue?' " said Woo, a San Francisco dog groomer. "It's so degrading…. We're proactive parents…. We deserve the same right to be acknowledged as your everyday family."

Meanwhile, the Proposition 22 Legal Defense and Education Fund and the Campaign for California Families have weighed in, submitting declarations that same-sex unions are harmful to children. Other declarations are from people who said they were once homosexual but became heterosexual. If homosexuality is a choice, the groups argue, then homosexuals cannot be considered a legally protected class.

The organizations filed suit against Newsom in the spring, and a judge last month coordinated their cases with the others to allow them a voice.

Proposition 22 is the 2000 ballot initiative that reaffirmed California's definition of marriage as heterosexual by dictating that no out-of-state same-sex marriages would be recognized in California.

Glen Lavy, senior counsel with the Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund, which represents the Proposition 22 group, said the law justifiably discriminates.

"The primary purpose of marriage is procreation, and that is the reason the state recognizes marriage," Lavy said.

"If it's 'We want to make people happy,' then you couldn't exclude incest; you couldn't exclude polygamy."

Minter counters that there are compelling state interests against incest and polygamy but none that justifies "drawing the line based on a person's gender or sexual orientation."


http://ktla.trb.com/news/local/ktla-me-samesex2
2dec22-lat,0,616381.story?coll=ktla-newslocal-1

More gang members showing up in border seizures

More gang members showing up in border seizures

Yuma Sun, Arizona

Federal authorities say they have been arresting members of a notorious and violent Central American gang recently in the Yuma area among the thousands of illegal immigrants being apprehended.

Joe Brigman, spokesman for the U.S. Border Patrol's Yuma sector, said patrol agents over the past 18 months have been apprehending members of the Mara Salvatrucha gang as those deported gang members are trying to make their way to Los Angeles and possibly to the East Coast.

Brigman would not say how many of those gang members have been arrested.

Distinguished by their tattoos, including on their faces, the Mara Salvatrucha gang members take pride in a propensity for violence, Brigman said.

The gang members are also known to act as enforcers for certain Mexican drug cartels, Brigman said.

The gang started in Los Angeles among the children of El Salvadoran refugees who came to the United States in the 1980s fleeing civil war in El Salvador, Brigman said. Some had ties with violent street gangs there, he said.

The Mara Salvatruchas formed in order to protect themselves from other Hispanic Los Angeles gangs and later expanded into various criminal enterprises, he said.

"They're highly violent. They are, without a doubt, the most violent street gang in America today," Brigman said.

Gang members who have been arrested for criminal activity in the United Sates have been deported to El Salvador and other Central American nations where they originated, Brigman said.

"We have no indication they have established a network of gang-related activities in the Yuma area," he said.

While the Mara Salvatruchas may not have gotten a foothold in Yuma County, they are now reportedly in Arizona, said Al Valdez, supervising investigator with the Orange County District Attorney's Office Gang Unit.

"They may not be in Yuma but they are in Arizona," said Valdez, adding the gang reportedly operates in 30 U.S. states as well as Canada and in Central America, Valdez said.

In Central America, the Mara Salvatrucha gang and other gangs reportedly became the targets of vigilante groups and death squads, one of which is known as the Sombra Negra, or Black Shadow, Valdez said.

Last year, a massive crackdown on gangs in Central America caused some of those gang members to flee into Mexico, unleashing violence there, according to The Associated Press.

Valdez said the gang, also known as "MS-13", is more organized and mobile than other gangs, and is the largest Hispanic gang in the United States, Valdez said.

Valdez said Mara Salvatrucha gang members "have a hair trigger for violence" and are known to terrorize others in their own ethnic community, threatening them with violence or death if they cooperate with police.

In Virginia last year, MS gang members chopped off the fingers of a rival gang member. In 2002, they decapitated a woman who testified against them, Valdez said. Gang members murdered the woman after she left a federal witness protection program, he said.

Brigman said gang member arrests in the Yuma sector led the Border Patrol to conduct a gang awareness seminar recently for 50 to 60 local, state and federal law enforcement personnel. The seminar centered on the Mara Salvatrucha gang and the 18th Street Gang, Brigman said.

http://sun.yumasun.com/artman/p
ublish/articles/story_13789.php

Federal health budget, abortion language OK'd

The giant omnibus spending package heralds lean times ahead for the federal funding of medical research and health information technology efforts.

For fiscal 2005, NIH received a $573 million increase over the 2004 budget.

By Joel B. Finkelstein, AMNews staff.

Washington -- President Bush recently signed into law a fiscal year 2005 appropriations package that leaves little room for funding new programs but includes a controversial measure that could limit payment for providing abortion services.

Language inserted into the $143 billion budget for the Labor and Health and Human Services departments is designed to allow health insurers, hospitals and other medical institutions to choose not to offer or pay for abortions or abortion counseling and referrals. State governments and federal agencies found to be discriminating against these institutions for not offering these services risk losing federal funding.

According to proponents, the measure simply expounds on a law that has been on the books for more than 25 years but that some jurisdictions have interpreted as referring only to individual physicians, nurses and others.

"My experience as a physician -- and I still see patients -- is that the majority of nurses, technicians and doctors who claim to be pro-choice, who claim to support Roe v. Wade, always say to me that they would never want to participate in an abortion, perform an abortion, or be affiliated with doing an abortion," the provision's author, Rep. Dave Weldon, MD (R, Fla.), said in a statement.

Reproductive rights groups have used loopholes in current law to coerce hospitals and health plans into offering abortion services and to require that physicians provide referrals, said Gene Rudd, MD, associate executive director of the Christian Medical & Dental Assns.

"How can we force people to do something morally unconscionable like that when it's clearly such a controversial issue that people have strong emotions about? Ironically, the pro-choice people don't want to allow people to have that choice," he said.

But the provision could have the effect of limiting women's access to abortion services and jeopardizing physicians' ability to inform patients of all of their medical options at federally funded family planning clinics, "effectively gagging physicians across the country," said a letter to Congress from Vivian M. Dickerson, MD, president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

So far, the Weldon provision also has been challenged in two lawsuits, including one filed by California Attorney General Bill Lockyer, who called it a "back-door attempt to overturn Roe v. Wade." He also said it raises state sovereignty issues.

The National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Assn. also has filed a lawsuit claiming that the provision is at odds with regulations requiring all family planning clinics receiving federal funding to provide referrals for women requesting information on abortion.

On the appropriations end of the measure, Congress managed to cut about $3 billion from the original House and Senate proposals for the Labor and HHS departments. One victim of the belt tightening is the National Institutes of Health, which received a lower funding increase than research advocates had expected.

"It was anticipated that there would be a slowdown in support in the post-doubling era," said Bill Leinweber, who is the vice president of Research!America, a public education and advocacy alliance of which the American Medical Association is a member. The goal to double the NIH budget in five years successfully ended in 2003.

"The research community worked diligently to make that a soft landing, but as we look at the numbers now, this can be termed nothing less than a crash landing," he said.

Overall, the NIH received $28.6 billion in the 2005 budget, a $573 million or 2% increase over 2004. Much of that money will go to support ongoing multiyear research. But at that funding level, the NIH can afford to increase the average grant budget by only 1.3%, while the cost of doing research has gone up by 3.5%, according to estimates by the American Assn. for the Advancement of Science.

The new funding level also means that NIH likely will fall far short of its anticipated funding of 515 more research grants in 2005.

The HHS budget also fails to deliver new funding for the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, run by David Brailer, MD.

Having come into the office a couple of months after the president submitted his budget proposal, Dr. Brailer had little time to make his case to Congress. "Money is important, it's the starting point of programs, but I don't think the act was intentional," he told AMNews.

Dr. Brailer and his staff will keep receiving their paychecks but will have to convince other offices and agencies within the department to provide funding for their projects.

The IT office also will continue to work closely with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, which received $50 million for investing in health information technology initiatives.

In contrast, some public health initiatives did well in the 2005 budget. For example, another funding boost was secured for community health centers, which are a Bush administration priority for dealing with the problem of uninsured Americans.

The health centers received an additional $131 million over 2004 levels, for a total of $1.6 billion in 2005. The increase fell $88 million shy of the president's request. About $31 million will go toward supporting existing grants to help with the rising cost of providing health care.

With other health-related priorities being cut back, health centers can't really complain about getting less of an increase than originally proposed, said a spokeswoman for the National Assn. for Community Health Centers.

At current levels, HHS still can fund only about one in every four clinics that apply for federally qualified status.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

Growth slowdown

Appropriations for the National Institutes of Health continue to increase each year, but the rising cost of administering grants and maintaining infrastructure cuts into research and development funding, as shown here.

R&D spending
(in billions)
2005 $27.43
2004 $27.22
2003 $26.74
That is $81.39 billion unconstitutional spending by the G.W. Bush
2002 $23.39
2001 $20.76
2000 $18.48
1999 $16.41
1998 $14.53
1997 $13.71
1996 $13.04

Note: 2004 and 2005 are estimated figures. Source: American Assn. for the Advancement of Science, November

http://www.ama-assn.org/amed
news/2004/12/27/gvsc1227.htm

It Can't Happen Here

By Rep. Ron Paul, MD

In 2002 I asked my House colleagues a rhetorical question with regard to the onslaught of government growth in the post-September 11th era: Is America becoming a police state?

The question is no longer rhetorical. We are not yet living in a total police state, but it is fast approaching. The seeds of future tyranny have been sown, and many of our basic protections against government have been undermined. The atmosphere since 2001 has permitted Congress to create whole new departments and agencies that purport to make us safer- always at the expense of our liberty. But security and liberty go hand-in-hand. Members of Congress, like too many Americans, don’t understand that a society with no constraints on its government cannot be secure. History proves that societies crumble when their governments become more powerful than the people and private institutions.

Unfortunately, the new intelligence bill passed by Congress two weeks ago moves us closer to an encroaching police state by imposing the precursor to a full-fledged national ID card. Within two years, every American will need a “conforming” ID to deal with any federal agency-- including TSA at the airport.

Undoubtedly many Americans and members of Congress don’t believe America is becoming a police state, which is reasonable enough. They associate the phrase with highly visible symbols of authoritarianism like military patrols, martial law, and summary executions. But we ought to be concerned that we have laid the foundation for tyranny by making the public more docile, more accustomed to government bullying, and more accepting of arbitrary authority- all in the name of security. Our love for liberty above all has been so diminished that we tolerate intrusions into our privacy that would have been abhorred just a few years ago. We tolerate inconveniences and infringements upon our liberties in a manner that reflects poorly on our great national character of rugged individualism. American history, at least in part, is a history of people who don’t like being told what to do. Yet we are increasingly empowering the federal government and its agents to run our lives.

Terror, fear, and crises like 9-11 are used to achieve complacency and obedience, especially when citizens are deluded into believing they are still a free people. The loss of liberty, we are assured, will be minimal, short-lived, and necessary. Many citizens believe that once the war on terror is over, restrictions on their liberties will be reversed. But this war is undeclared and open-ended, with no precise enemy and no expressly stated final goal. Terrorism will never be eradicated completely; does this mean future presidents will assert extraordinary war powers indefinitely?

Washington DC provides a vivid illustration of what our future might look like. Visitors to Capitol Hill encounter police barricades, metal detectors, paramilitary officers carrying fully automatic rifles, police dogs, ID checks, and vehicle stops. The people are totally disarmed; only the police and criminals have guns. Surveillance cameras are everywhere, monitoring street activity, subway travel, parks, and federal buildings. There's not much evidence of an open society in Washington, DC, yet most folks do not complain-- anything goes if it's for government-provided safety and security.

After all, proponents argue, the government is doing all this to catch the bad guys. If you don’t have anything to hide, they ask, what are you so afraid of? The answer is that I’m afraid of losing the last vestiges of privacy that a free society should hold dear. I’m afraid of creating a society where the burden is on citizens to prove their innocence, rather than on government to prove wrongdoing. Most of all, I’m afraid of living in a society where a subservient populace surrenders its liberties to an all-powerful government.

It may be true that average Americans do not feel intimidated by the encroachment of the police state. Americans remain tolerant of what they see as mere nuisances because they have been deluded into believing total government supervision is necessary and helpful, and because they still enjoy a high level of material comfort. That tolerance may wane, however, as our standard of living falls due to spiraling debt, endless deficit spending at home and abroad, a declining fiat dollar, inflation, higher interest rates, and failing entitlement programs. At that point attitudes toward omnipotent government may change, but the trend toward authoritarianism will be difficult to reverse.

Those who believe a police state can't happen here are poor students of history. Every government, democratic or not, is capable of tyranny. We must understand this if we hope to remain a free people.


http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2004/tst122004.htm

Bush White House's Christ-less Christmas

Bush White House's Christ-less Christmas

Official commemorations emphasize
Santa, Rudolph over Jesus in 2004

WorldNetDaily.com

WASHINGTON -- What's missing from the White House commemoration of Christmas this year?

Jesus.

The little baby in the manger.

The reason for the season.

While President Bush was re-elected last month in an election victory many attributed to an outpouring of support by evangelical Christians impressed with his candid outspokenness about his faith, some Americans notice the White House website lacks even a single mention of Jesus, whose birth is celebrated by hundreds of millions worldwide Dec. 25.

Judge Admits Rudolph’s Bible As Evidence

Judge Admits Rudolph’s Bible As Evidence

'Bombs' Written In Margin Of Book Of Revelations
NBC13.com

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- In a new turn in the case against alleged abortion clinic bomber Eric Robert Rudolph, the defendant’s Bible and what's written in it may now be used in the case against him.

Rudolph's attorneys challenged evidence seized from several search warrants executed at his North Carolina home and storage unit. A judge has said that evidence should be admissible, including the accused bomber's personal Bible.

Magistrate Judge Micheal Putnam said investigators did not overstep the boundaries of their search warrants, and the Bible and other evidence should be admissible.

Only days after the deadly bombing at a Birmingham clinic in January of 1998, FBI agents seized loads of evidence from Rudolph's trailer in Murphy, N.C. -- items like guns, a wig and a black Bible.

Last month, Rudolph's attorneys challenged some of that evidence in court, claiming it exceeded the scope of the search warrants. One of the contested pieces of evidence was the black Bible. They argued the book was irrelevant to a bombing case.

But prosecutors said investigators confiscated it because they believed the bombing could be religiously motivated.

In a filing late Thursday, prosecutors highlighted a quotation from the Book of Revelations in Rudolph's Bible:

“And there fell upon man a great hail storm out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent; and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail; for the hail thereof was exceedingly great.” Prosecutors said Rudolph underlined the quotation and wrote the word “bombs” in large letters in the margin.

Putnam's decision is only a recommendation to the trial judge in the case. Judge Lynwood Smith will make a final ruling at a later date on what evidence is admissible.

Judge rules N.C. Rudolph evidence OK

Judge rules N.C. Rudolph evidence OK

Asheville Citizen-Times and Wire Reports

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- A federal magistrate judge has ruled that evidence collected by authorities from bombing suspect Eric Rudolph's North Carolina trailer and shed was properly seized and can be used at his trial.

Rudolph has pleaded not guilty to charges that he bombed a Birmingham abortion clinic on Jan. 29, 1998, killing an off- duty Birmingham police officer and injuring a nurse.

U.S. Magistrate Judge T. Michael Putnam's recommendations on the evidence will now go before U.S. District Judge C. Lynwood Smith Jr., who will conduct Rudolph's death penalty trial in May.

Rudolph's attorneys challenged the validity of warrants used to search a storage shed and trailer. Putnam, who is handling pretrial matters, rejected that claim and found that Rudolph's May 2003 arrest in Western North Carolina behind a Murphy grocery store after his more than five years as a fugitive was legal.

The defense had challenged the arrest hoping to block use of false statements Rudolph made to police. The statements could now be allowed in his trial.

U.S. Attorney Alice Martin said Friday she was pleased with the recommendations. Efforts to reach Rudolph's attorneys were unsuccessful. Putnam's decision provides a 15- day period for objections.

Rudolph's attorneys had argued that federal agents improperly seized items such as a Bible, 24 books, a sales receipt, $1,600, two daggers, bayonets and pistols. Those items weren't within the scope of the search warrants, the lawyers argued.

But prosecutors said Rudolph abandoned his property to go into the North Carolina wilderness once he was linked to the bombing. Because he had left behind the property, it was searchable, they said.

The magistrate judge agreed.

"The defendant no longer held any reasonable expectation of privacy in the storage unit or trailer, having abandoned them in his flight from justice," Putnam wrote in his report.

According to testimony at an October hearing, traces of explosives were detected on seized items such as a towel, a turquoise and black baseball cap and a rocking chair cushion.

Rudolph, now held without bond in Birmingham, is also accused in the deadly bombing at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996 and blasts at two more sites in Atlanta in 1997.

The Modern Threats to Religious Freedom: They Are Greater than One May Think

Modern Threats to Religious Freedom:
They Are Greater than One May Think

By William L. Anderson / LewRockwell.com

The latest issue of Newsweek devotes its cover story to the Christian faith of George Bush. While I have only given the stories cursory reading, I can imagine that many Christians, or at least the branch of Christians known as Evangelicals, see that story and tell themselves, "We have arrived."

Yet, for all of the hype among Evangelicals that Bush and some of his underlings adhere to Christianity, from what I can see from my vantage point, religious freedom – and especially the freedom for Christians – Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox – to be able to practice their faiths in the future have never been in such peril. All of the building blocks necessary to deprive Christians of their rights already have been enshrined into law and have been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. Ironically, the Bush Presidency will make it easier for future governments to make Christianity de facto illegal.

On the surface, it would seem that Christianity has never been stronger or more influential in this country. Not only are the president, attorney general, and other cabinet members and advisors open about their Christianity, but Christian books are on the best-seller lists and Christian popular music dominates the radio airwaves. However, for a long time, I have been intensely looking at the current scene and have concluded that (1) the political authorities have squarely targeted Christians and Christianity for harassment and are freely carrying out their agendas at the present time, (2) the historical legal protections in this country for Christianity have been eroded past the point of no return, (3) most Christians are clueless in understanding this situation, and (4) when Christians do happen to recognize dangers to practicing their faith, they tend to endorse legislative and political actions that in the long run will make things even worse for themselves and those Christians who will follow after them.

Bush Signs Intelligence Overhaul Bill

By Jennifer Loven / The Associated Press
Friday December 17, 2004 10:01 PM

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush on Friday signed the largest overhaul of U.S. intelligence-gathering in a half century, aiming to transform a system designed for Cold War threats so it can deal effectively with the post-Sept. 11 scourge of terrorism.

``Instead of massed armies, we face stateless networks. We face killers who hide in our own cities,'' Bush said in a somber ceremony in an ornate Commerce Department auditorium where the treaty creating NATO was signed. ``To inflict great harm on our country, America's enemies need to be only right once. Our intelligence and law enforcement professionals in our government must be right every single time.''

The new law creates a national intelligence center and a powerful new position of national intelligence director to oversee the nation's 15 separate intelligence agencies.

Bush sat at a small desk adorned with a ``Protecting America'' placard to sign the legislation that endured a difficult, monthslong path to passage. The president was flanked by CIA Director Porter Goss, FBI Director Robert Mueller, several members of Congress involved in the legislation and the co-chairs of the independent commission whose findings about the Sept. 11 attacks were the impetus for the bill and who lobbied tirelessly for its approval.

Not on stage but in the audience were several relatives of people who died in the 2001 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, Washington and a Pennsylvania field. Families of some attack victims were also central to the bill's passage, walking the halls of Congress with pictures of loved ones in hand and persistently pressing sometimes-reluctant lawmakers.

The next step is for Bush to choose someone to fill the new post of director of national intelligence. Potential candidates include Goss; Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden, the head of the National Security Agency; Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, and White House homeland security adviser Fran Townsend.

Establishing such an intelligence chief was a principal recommendation of the Sept. 11 commission. It also was one of the legislation's most controversial provisions as lawmakers tangled over the extent of the director's budget authority and how the person would work with the military.

But Bush gave a clear job description, saying the new DNI would be the ``principle adviser to the president on intelligence matters'' and making plain that the director could move intelligence assets around the globe as needed to keep an eye on terrorist groups like al-Qaida.

The president also made a point of saying the intelligence director would have complete control over spending - Washington's best indicator of power - by being responsible for both determining the intelligence agencies' annual budgets and directing how the funds are spent. That was an idea, like the creation of the Sept. 11 commission itself and the Department of Homeland Security, that Bush initially opposed before changing his mind and accepting it.

Under the legislation, the CIA remains in charge of collecting human intelligence and analyzing all intelligence gathered. But the new law puts the DNI over the CIA, along with all 15 of the nation's military and civilian intelligence agencies to make sure those sometimes disparate interests work together to predict and prevent future attacks.

It also includes a host of anti-terrorism provisions, such as letting officials wiretap ``lone wolf'' terrorists and improving airline baggage screening procedures. It increases the number of full-time border patrol agents by 2,000 per year for five years and imposes new federal standards on information that driver's licenses must contain.

``The many reforms in this act have a single goal: to ensure that the people in government responsible for defending America have the best possible information to make the best possible decisions,'' Bush said.

The new law makes the most far-reaching changes to U.S. intelligence gathering and analysis in nearly 60 years, since the CIA, Department of Defense and National Security Council were created as the Cold War emerged in the wake of World War II.

The Sept. 11 commissionagencies and the failure to fully recognize the danger posed by al-Qaida contributed to the government's inability to thwart the attacks, the report said.

Intelligence Bill Stirs Fears That
It Will Lead to a National ID Card

By Lance Gay / Scripps Howard News Service

WASHINGTON -- Privacy advocates worry that provisions buried in the intelligence bill President Bush is to sign today will lead to a national identification card.

Little-noted measures included in the legislation that reshuffles intelligence agencies order states to begin issuing new fraud-proof birth certificates, and new driver's licenses with standardized data encoded on them are set for 2006.

The legislation also orders states to stop putting Social Security numbers on licenses.

What data will be included on licenses and how it will be used in federal databanks is not yet clear. The legislation only requires the data to be "machine readable," leaving the issue of what data to collect to the Department of Transportation and the Department of Homeland Security.

Regulations concerning fraud-proofing birth certificates are to be drafted by the Department of Heath and Human Services.

"There's a problem," said Marc Rotenberg, a Georgetown University law professor who serves as executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a Washington think tank.

"There are two directions they can go here. One is to reduce the likelihood of fraud and counterfeiting of driver's licenses, which we all would applaud. Or they could link this all together in a new national database, which is what they should not do."

Rotenberg called the measure "not quite half a step towards a national identification card" because its full impact has not yet been determined.

The bill, which Congress adopted earlier this month after stripping out controversial immigration provisions, carries out key recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, including establishing standards for birth certificates and driver's licenses.

But James Plummer of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse noted that all but one of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 had valid American identification -- including driver's licenses -- and that the changes Congress has ordered wouldn't prevent terrorists from obtaining the new and more secure documents.

"This is a bunch of troubling language," said Plummer. "I don't think this solves the issue at all."

Plummer said he's concerned that the measure, for the first time, sets federal standards on documents such as birth certificates and driver's licenses that traditionally have been matters for states to decide.

The legislation states that within two years, U.S. government employees won't accept any driver's licenses or birth certificates issued by the states that don't comply with the new fraud-proof requirements.

That means drivers from states that don't comply with the new requirements will be unable to use their state licenses as identification to get past federal airport screeners and board an aircraft.

"It's definitely crossing over into a national ID system, something this country hasn't seen before and something that was more a feature of Eastern European systems during the Cold War," Plummer said.

He said it raises privacy concerns because driver's licenses are used today in determining eligibility to conduct many routine activities. It is a basic document used by Americans to vote, buy guns, open bank accounts, cash checks and check into hotels.

Organizations ranging from the American Civil Liberties Union to the American Conservative Union to the Gun Owners of America oppose the measure.

Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, has concerns about where this could all lead.

"History shows governments inevitably use such power in harmful ways," Paul said. "It is just a matter of time until those who refuse to carry the new licenses will be denied the ability to drive or board an airplane."

Power of spy chief still remains hazy

International Herald Tribune

WASHINGTON -- President George W. Bush on Friday signed into law the largest overhaul of U.S. intelligence gathering in 50 years, hoping to improve the spy network that failed to prevent the Sept. 11 attacks.

The 563-page bill, which endured a thorny path to congressional passage, also aims to tighten borders and aviation security. It creates a federal counterterrorism center and a new intelligence director, but Bush did not announce a candidate for that post at the ceremony Friday.

Bush was joined at the signing ceremony by Porter Goss, the CIA director; Robert Mueller, director of the FBI; members of Congress; leaders of the Sept. 11 commission; and relatives of people killed on Sept. 11, 2001.

The new position of national intelligence director was one of the bill's most controversial aspects. Although the legislation gives the new director strong budget authority, its language is complex enough that there could be continued debate over the director's power.

But Bush attempted to leave no doubt about the sweeping nature of the intelligence director's budgetary authority.

Bush said it would be the director's responsibility "to determine the annual budgets of all national intelligence agencies and offices and to direct how these funds are spent," he said.

The new structure was designed to help the nation's 15 intelligence agencies work together to prevent attacks like the ones that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, Pennsylvania and at the Pentagon.

The Sept. 11 Commission, in its July report, said disharmony among the intelligence agencies contributed to the inability of the government to prevent the attacks. Commission members and families of the Sept. 11 victims lobbied persistently for the legislation through the summer political conventions, the election and a postelection lame duck session of Congress. The bill was threatened by disagreements between the White House and key House Republicans about immigration issues and how the new national intelligence director would work with the nation's military.

Bush was criticized for not engaging aggressively enough with members of his own party to break the impasse. But in the final days, he and Vice President Dick Cheney pushed hard for the legislation, and both the House and the Senate passed it overwhelmingly.

The new law includes a host of anti-terrorism provisions, such as letting officials wiretap "lone wolf" terrorists and improving airline baggage screening procedures. It increases the number of full-time border patrol agents by 2,000 per year for five years and imposes new federal standards on information that driver's licenses must contain.

http://www.iht.com/articles
/2004/12/17/news/intel.html

Township agrees to settle over abortion clinic

Township agrees to settle over abortion clinic

By Keith Phucas / King of Prussia Courier

UPPER MERION - Faced with mounting legal costs from its three-year court battle with an abortion clinic, Upper Merion Township agreed Wednesday to an $800,000 settlement in the case.


UPPER MERION - Faced with mounting legal costs from its three-year court battle with an abortion clinic, Upper Merion Township agreed Wednesday to an $800,000 settlement in the case.

The clinic, Associates in Obstetrics and Gynecology, claimed in its federal lawsuit that the township singled the facility out for selective enforcement because of anti-abortion sentiment, and in doing so, denied patients their constitutional right to an abortion. In the settlement agreement, the municipality admitted no wrongdoing and the women's clinic agreed to withdraw all claims against the township, according to a press release issued by Ed Higgins, Upper Merion's public information officer.

The $800,000 cash payment is to be paid over a period of years. According to township manager Ron Wagenmann, Upper Merion's insurance companies would only cover a portion of the six-figure settlement. After more than three years, township officials are relieved that the lawsuit is over.

"We're satisfied that it's finished, and that our zoning policy will be upheld," Wagenmann said.

Thus far, township officials have not disclosed how much money was spent defending the case, though the amount is said to be sizeable. The press release said the township settled the suit "to minimize the potential financial burden to the community given the unpredictability and uncertainty of this type of litigation and the mounting expense of continued litigation."

The clinic first attracted attention in August 2001 when pro-life demonstrators picketed outside the two-story office building, at 677 W. DeKalb Pike, across from the King of Prussia mall. That same month, zoning officer Mark Zadroga issued the clinic a cease-and-desist order for violating a zoning ordinance and failing to have a use-and-occupancy permit.

Since 2001, the municipality and clinic have been embroiled in a protracted legal battle over whether the clinic was operating legally. The township contended that the women's facility violated municipal zoning code that requires medical clinics to operate on at least three-acre parcels. The clinic appealed the citation. On June 5, 2002, the Zoning Hearing Board issued a 3-0 decision that the facility was violating zoning policy and should cease operation.

The clinic then filed an appeal in Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas.

In December 2002, the court upheld the zoning decision. In 2003, Associates in Obstetric and Gynecology filed a civil-rights lawsuit in federal court. The clinic closed permanently on March 13, 2003.

In August 2003, the township Board of Supervisors voted narrowly to reject a proposal to settle the case that would have allowed the clinic to reopen.

Women Warriors and the American Empire

Women Warriors and the American Empire

by Steven LaTulippe / LewRockwell.com

While surfing the web the other day, I came across a story from the Washington Times titled "Army Charged with Ban Violation." The story describes several controversial new reorganizations going on in the US Army, especially as they relate to women soldiers:

A pro-military group is charging that the Army is violating the Defense Department's ban on women in land combat by collocating mixed-sex support units with war-fighting soldiers.

At issue is how the Army is transforming its 10 active divisions into multiple, self-contained "units of action."

In essence, the Pentagon brass has decided to change the structure of Army units so as to combine support groups with front-line combat brigades. This will, they claim, create a more flexible force which will be more effective in the field. The law currently forbids female soldiers from serving in ground combat units, which is the "fly in the ointment" for this particular reform.

But nevertheless, the Pentagon is pushing forward.

Before commenting, I should first confess a certain bias concerning this general topic. While I consider war to be a tragedy that should be avoided by all reasonable means, I find the idea of women engaging in combat to be particularly unconscionable. Call me old fashioned, but I still cling to an admittedly traditional attitude towards women. They are beautiful…they are wonderful…and the idea of having them participate in the butchery of combat is too grotesque to contemplate.

LewRockwell.com

Rudolph defense: Possible Link
Between Clinic, Station Bombs

By Jay Reeves / The Associated Press

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- A judge told prosecutors to turn over information about a bomb found outside Birmingham police headquarters in 1996 after lawyers for Eric Rudolph raised the possibility Wednesday it was somehow linked to a deadly 1998 bomb blast at an abortion clinic just a few miles away.

At the time, authorities said the police station bomb - which was safely disarmed - was similar to the bomb that killed a woman at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, a blast in which Rudolph is charged.

No one was ever charged with planting the police station bomb, but Rudolph is awaiting trial on federal death penalty charges in the abortion clinic bombing, which killed an off-duty Birmingham police officer.

Prosecutors denied suggestions that the two Birmingham bombs were connected.

Attorneys discussed the bombings at a wide-ranging hearing that also included new tidbits of evidence about the case against Rudolph, including the disclosure that a hair found in Rudolph's pickup truck belonged to someone else and that a key government witness graduated from law school under what the defense characterized as questionable circumstances.

Held without bond, Rudolph pleaded not guilty in the clinic bombing, which also critically injured a nurse. His trial is set to begin March 23, but he was not in court for the hearing.

Defense attorney Bill Bowen asked U.S. Magistrate Judge T. Michael Putnam to make prosecutors hand over any reports or other evidence on a bomb found outside police headquarters on Oct. 30, 1996. Disarmed by authorities, the device consisted of three galvanized pipes loaded with explosives and held in a black nylon backpack, similar to the design of the Olympic park bomb.

Under questioning from Putnam, the defense said they could try to prove some link between the bomb found at the police station and the clinic bomb, which was disguised as a potted flower and loaded with nails. Someone could have been trying to kill Birmingham police rather than targeting the abortion industry, Rudolph's attorneys said.

The distinction could be important because Rudolph has been described by some as an abortion opponent, and he also is accused of setting off bombs that went off outside a building that housed an abortion clinic in Atlanta in 1997.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Joey Burby said prosecutors don't see a link between the Birmingham clinic bombing and the police station bomb but would give the defense its "fairly thin" file on the police station bomb.

Arguing that prosecutors should be forced to turn over additional information gathered by police about abortion protests and opponents in Birmingham, defense lawyer Judy Clarke said the lack of evidence linking Rudolph with the pro-life movement in Birmingham was "a gaping hole" in the government's case against the North Carolina man.

Burby said a prosecution witness would testify about six fingerprints that could link Rudolph to the clinic bombing, but he confirmed a defense claim that government testing showed that a hair found inside Rudolph's Nissan pickup truck belonged to someone other than Rudolph.

Prosecutors didn't fully address another potential avenue for the defense: Questions over whether an unidentified government witness who said he spotted a man near the abortion clinic the morning of the blast may have later had government assistance getting through law school.

"We find it incredible he graduated from law school. We find it just as incredible as his testimony," Bowen told the judge.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Whisonant denied suggestions that someone may have helped the witness with exams in law school, but prosecutors didn't directly address the question of whether he may have received some other type of assistance, perhaps with expenses. Burby said prosecutors would turn over that information closer to trial.


http://www.ledger-
enquirer.com/mld/ledgerenquirer/news/local/10424192.htm

Unborn doomed in Texas

Unborn doomed in Texas


Baby murderers plan to 'regulate' the
slaughter of children by abortion in Texas

AUSTIN, Texas -- The consensus among several Texas legislators and observers of the abortion issue is that [abortion regulators] will build on a past pattern of seeking incremental changes in existing law by requiring minors to obtain parental consent for abortions.

John Colyandro, executive director of the Texas Conservative Coalition, believes some [abortion regulators] will try to champion the parental consent issue, given the history of lawmakers taking incremental steps to regulate abortion since Roe v. Wade in 1973. Colyandro said conservatives in Texas consider abortion and gay marriage the two most important social issues and said they will undoubtedly be addressed next year. "I would expect debate on consent because it is the next logical step," Colyandro said.

Texas Right to Life, an anti-abortion group based in Houston, however, will not take an active role in pushing for parental consent. Surveys done by Texas Right to Life have shown no significant reductions in the number of abortions performed in states that have moved from notification to consent, Stacey Emick, legislative director for the group, said.

At a recent meeting, a coalition of anti-abortion groups agreed overwhelmingly not to direct their efforts to parental consent. "From a practical standpoint, we don't think it would be worth all the work and all of the political capital that would be spent in trying to get it passed," Emick said.

Instead, Texas Right to Life intends to focus its efforts on closing what it describes as loopholes in the 24-hour waiting period bill. The group also plans to push for laws that would provide penalties for people who coerce minors into having abortions and require that an adult accompanying a minor to an abortion procedure provide proof of parenthood, Emick said. (Read: Christians Murdering Babies)

Ala. Judge Wears Ten Commandments on Robe

The Associated Press

MONTGOMERY, Ala. -- A south Alabama judge refused to delay a trial yesterday when an attorney objected to the judge's wearing a judicial robe with the Ten Commandments embroidered in gold on the front of the garment.

Circuit Judge Ashley McKathan showed up on Dec. 13 at his Covington County courtroom in Andalusia wearing the robe at the start of a week of jury trials of cases that were being appealed from lower courts — mostly cases like driving under the influence and possession of marijuana.

Attorneys who try cases at the courthouse said they had not seen the judge wearing the robe previously. The commandments were described as being big enough to read on the robe by anyone near the judge, but not like eye-catching slogans on T-shirts.

Andalusia attorney Riley Powell said he was defending a client charged with DUI and filed a motion objecting to the judicial robe and asking that the case be continued. He said McKathan denied both motions.

"I am all for the Ten Commandments for me personally and for my family," Powell said. "But I feel this creates a distraction that affects my client."

McKathan told the Associated Press that he believes the Ten Commandments represent the truth "and you can't divorce the law from the truth."

"The Ten Commandments can help a judge know the difference between right and wrong," McKathan said.

He said he didn't believe the commandments on his robe would have an adverse effect on jurors.

"I had a choice of several sizes of letters. I purposely chose a size that would not be in anybody's face," McKathan said. He said he does not always wear a robe in court, but plans to wear the Ten Commandments robe on a regular basis.

The case is raising comparisons to former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, who was removed from office in 2003 for refusing to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the rotunda of the Alabama Judicial Building in Montgomery.

Moore first came to national prominence when he was a circuit judge in Etowah County and hung a Ten Commandments display on the wall of his Gadsden courtroom.

Moore said yesterday he supported McKathan's decision to wear the Ten Commandments robe.

"The recognition of the God who gave us the Ten Commandments is fundamental to an understanding of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. I applaud Judge McKathan. It is time for our judiciary to recognize the moral basis of our law," Moore said.

Powell said his client's DUI trial will continue today. He said if he loses the case, he expected the judge's wearing of the Ten Commandments robe to be part of an appeal to the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals.

He said the Ten Commandments on the robe was not mentioned in front of the jury yesterday, but he believed it could be a factor. He said the robe could have more of an effect on jurors than a plaque on the wall.

"If you have a plaque, it doesn't impart a judge's own personal opinion," Powell said.


http://www.firstamendmentce
nter.org/news.aspx?id=14550

They're Phishing with Stink-Bait: Don't Get Hooked

By Trevor Bauknight

Phishing has gotten out of control on the Internet; and unfortunately, it has nothing to do with following a great Vermont band around the country aboard a VW Bus.

It is a relatively new phenomenon in the world of Internet scams, and it involves the sending of e-mail "alerts" which appear to have originated at places like eBay, PayPal, banks and other institutions with which you may have online accounts. These fraudulent alerts warn you that your information needs to be updated or verified for some reason and they include a link which looks like a legitïmate link where you might update account information or what-have-you.

The funny thing is that when you have the status bar at the bottom of your web browser visible and you hold your pointer over the link, you can usually see where it will really take you if you clïck it; and typically, this is a totally unrelated domain (often only a numeric IP address shows) run by a scammer out to collect your personal information. Many people don't notice these details while browsing, and it has been reported that up to 5% of the "phished" fall victim to the scam.

To tell you how difficult it can be to discern between the legitïmate and the scams, I follow this stuff for a living, and I missed two out of ten on the MailFrontier Phishing IQ Test (which, incidentally, is a good place to get a look at some examples of what the phishermen are up to and how they go about their shameful business). I erred on the side of caution, however, assuming that two legitïmate messages were scams; and that's a pretty good policy, in general.

Your online identity is a valuable thing, and is becoming more valuable as more and more day-to-day activities take place on the Web. People are paying bills online, making travel plans online and even communicating their most private, personal feelings online. Anyone who can steal your online identity (or, more accurately, in this case, con you into giving it to him) can, for all intents and purposes, *become you* in order to carry out all kinds of nefarious activities.

Below are some easy-to-remember ways to avoid the hook:

1) Keep in mind that legitïmate companies don't operate this way. No matter how shiny the bait, no company (and certainly no bank!) is going to use this method for this purpose. E-mail is not a secure or 100% reliable means of communication, and they know this. Just as Microsoft doesn't send out software patches by e-mail, financial companies don't send out mail bearing fake links for you to follow.

2) Keep your browser window's status bar visible...glancing at it before you clïck a link will very often show you the destination URL without you having to clïck and wind up in pop-up hell or some other questionable corner of the 'Net. This setting is usually changed somewhere under the browser's View menu.

3) Keep a close eye on your online accounts regularly. You should periodically login to your eBay, PayPal and other such accounts if for no other reason than to change the password. If you change your password regularly, an e-mail feverishly telling you that your account may have been compromised will be even more obviously fake than otherwise, and you can laugh at the pitiful scammers as you drag the message to the Trash. Checking your accounts manually will also give you the opportunïty to see what the latest news may be straight from the horse's mouth.

4) Whatever you do, don't send personal information via e-mail to anyone you wouldn't trust acting as you. If you think you may need to chëck the status of your eBay account, for example, don't respond to an e-mail asking you to do so; but, rather, login from the top-level eBay site and navigate to your account. Scammers are adept at setting up a fake link-target to look just like the corresponding legitïmate page.

5) Keep your anti-virus and anti-spyware software up-to-date and active. This is a good general policy that will help keep your computer frëe of harmful viruses and spyware. Some phishing e-mails include attachments meant to run automatically because of poorly-configured e-mail software or for you to run manually when you're convinced by the fake e-mail that you should.

6) You should configure Windows to show filename extensions at all times so that you can see when an attachment that looks like nice.jpg is really nice.jpg.vbs, a Visual Basic scrïpt that can cause untold headaches. Also, make sure your e-mail software isn't doing anything crazy with attachments like downloading them automatically. Opening attachments you're not expecting is generally a bad idea anyway.

If you're concerned that you may already be a victim of a phishing scam, you should review all your online accounts for unusual activity as well as your offline accounts with banks, credït cards, etc. Any unusual delay in receiving statements should raise a flag. You should also file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission. The FTC maintains a good source of information on e-mail and Internet scams at http://www.ftc.gov/spam.

Forward copies of phishing e-mails you receive to spam@uce.gov with headers intact so that they can examine the source of this garbage.

Maintaining an up-to-date computer and a vigilant attitude while browsing will keep your Online Identity in your hands and, with any luck, phishing will go back to being primarily something done by nomadic hippies.

About The Author

Trevor Bauknight is a web designer and writer with over 15 years of experience on the Internet. He specializes in the creation and maintenance of business and personal identity online (CafeID.com) and can be reached at trevor@tryid.com.

Catholic Health System Give Benefits to Fornicator and Sodomite 'Partners'

Catholic Health System Give Benefits to Fornicator and Sodomite 'Partners'

PeaceHealth extends health care
benefits to household partners

By Tim Christie
The Register-Guard

PeaceHealth, the Catholic-sponsored health system that owns Sacred Heart and five other hospitals in the Northwest as well as the Eugene-based PeaceHealth Medical Group, is following a trend steadily gaining ground in corporate America, as well as among government agencies and universities.

When Kate Hill, a psychiatric social worker at Sacred Heart Medical Center, first tried to enroll her partner of 23 years in the company health insurance plan, she was told: Sorry, you need a valid marriage license.

So last March, after Multnomah County began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex partners, Hill and Jennifer Meyer drove to Portland and got married. When Hill, marriage license in hand, again asked Sacred Heart to insure her partner, she was told: Sorry, we'll have to run this one by the lawyers.

But starting in January, Meyer will be covered by Hill's insurance because Sacred Heart's corporate parent has decided to offer insurance to employees' domestic partners - or any other adult in the household.

But where most employers that extend health benefits are offering them only to employees' domestic partners, PeaceHealth's policy takes it a step further by offering insurance to any one adult member of an employee's household, whether a gay or opposite-sex partner, a parent, adult child or sibling.

PeaceHealth leaders took up the issue after employees asked about extending benefits, spokesman Brian Terrett said, and reached a decision after 2 1/2 years of a painstaking "ethical discernment process."

"It's a mission-driven decision," said Sister Kathleen Pruitt, vice president of mission and spirituality for PeaceHealth. "PeaceHealth as a (health) system can't save the whole world, but we can certainly extend benefits to our employees to take the burden of health care and give them some sense of ease and relief."

Extending health benefits to include same-sex partners was not a difficult decision, nor does it conflict with church doctrine, she said.

"We're not making a moral comment on any lifestyle," she said.

While voters in 11 states, including Oregon, passed ballot measures last month to ban gay marriage, the move to extend health benefits to unmarried partners has been steadily gaining steam in corporate America in recent years.

About two-thirds of Fortune 100 companies now offer domestic partner benefits, said Ilse de Veer, a senior benefits consultant with Mercer Human Resource Consulting in Norwalk, Conn.

"They've decided that, first of all, from a total cost perspective, it's not a particularly expensive benefit," she said. "It sends a message of inclusion and diversity."

It also helps companies to retain and recruit talent, she said, and allows them to comply with contracting ordinances adopted by cities such as San Francisco, Seattle and Los Angeles.

Companies that extend benefits beyond domestic partners are less common, but more are starting to do so, she said. Some companies decided broader eligibility would take the spotlight off the potentially controversial issue of domestic partnership benefits, she said.

The Human Rights Campaign, the largest gay and lesbian advocacy group in the country, keeps track of employers that offer domestic partner benefits, but not those that extend benefits to any adult living with an employee.

"It achieves the same objective as providing domestic partner benefits," said Darryl Herrschaft, deputy director for the Human Rights Campaign's workplace project. "It is more inclusive, and it meets the goal of providing a safety net for employees who may have an uninsured partner at home so they can focus more of their attention on their jobs."

The fact that so many big corporations are doing it - an average of 25 Fortune 500 companies have extended benefits each of the past four years - is evidence that the policy makes good business sense, regardless of the politics around gay marriage, Herrschaft said.

"Companies are making these decisions, making these commitments to diversity, independent of what is going on in the political arena," he said. "They're making their decisions based on business principles, and those principles haven't changed since Nov. 2."

In Oregon, Nike, Columbia Sportswear, Adidas and The Oregonian are among companies that offer domestic partner benefits. In Eugene, Obie Media Corp. and Microniche, a small software company, offer such benefits. In the public sector, the cities of Eugene, Corvallis and Portland and Multnomah County cover domestic partnership benefits, as do the University of Oregon, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland State University and Southern Oregon University.

McKenzie-Willamette Medical Center in Springfield does not offer extended benefits to employees, spokeswoman Rosie Pryor said. She said the hospital has considered it in the past and could consider it in the future.

Of the 8,200 PeaceHealth employees systemwide who are eligible to extend their health benefits, so far 265 have done so. In Oregon, 148 employees, out of 3,633 eligible, have insured domestic partners or others.

PeaceHealth has set fairly strict criteria for extending benefits. To be eligible, a person must be a member of the household and share a "close personal relationship" with the employee; share the home as a principle resident for at least a year prior to enrollment; and be over 18. Nannies or other employees are not eligible, nor are adults who have access to other medical coverage, including Medicare.

Mitch Temple gets no health benefits as manager of the Perugino coffee bar in downtown Eugene, but starting in January, he'll be covered since he lives with his partner, PeaceHealth nurse-practitioner Phyllis Roberts.

"It's already set my mind at ease," he said. "It really makes working there dramatically more attractive if one's mate is included, regardless of whether the employee is married to that mate."

But not everyone is so elated by the new policy.

Hill, 47, and Meyer, 50, have decidedly mixed feelings about the extension of benefits. The couple have been together 23 years and have two children, ages 21 and 17.

While PeaceHealth was making up its mind about the new policy, Meyer lost her job as a technical writer - and her benefits - and the couple had to pay $500 a month for COBRA, a federal transitional insurance program.

"For me it's a little bit too little too late," Hill said. "I feel a little grumpy after spending thousands and thousands on COBRA. I'm frustrated, and I'm grateful."

"Maybe its a very diplomatic compromise," Meyer said, "but it doesn't give us the exact rights of married couples."

For instance, while a husband and wife who work for different employers can double up their insurance coverage by adding each other to their plans, that's not possible under PeaceHealth policy, they said.

Meyer said she, too, is grateful that more people will be covered, but suggested PeaceHealth leaders may have been squeamish about the domestic partner issue, so they expanded coverage to include other adults to avoid controversy.

"I guess what I resent is that it just completely doesn't acknowledge the fact that Kate and I have a marriage-like commitment," she said.

Scott Peterson Gets Death Penalty

Scott Peterson Gets Death Penalty

Crime.About.com

The jury in the Scott Peterson murder trial deliberated for 12 hours over three days before returning an unanimous recommendation that Peterson receive the death penalty for the murder of his pregnant wife, Laci Peterson.

Shortly before announcing they had reached a verdict, the jury requested to review seven exhibits from the trial, including photos of the bodies of Laci and Conner Peterson taken when they were discovered on the shore of San Francisco Bay. They jury was required to weigh both the aggravating and the mitigating circumstances of the case in making their decision.

On November 12, the same 12 jurors found Peterson, 32, guilty of first-degree murder with special circumstances in the death of his pregnant wife, Laci, and second-degree murder in the death of their unborn son Conner.

After a series of delays due to motions and appeals made by Peterson's defense in an effort to have the penalty phase of the trial moved to another location, the penalty phase of the trial began Nov.

30, 2004. The prosecution took only one day to present its case; the defense took seven days and presented testimony from 39 of Peterson's family and friends.

In a 40-minute closing argument, prosecutor Dave Harris told the jurors, "This is somebody who had everything and threw it away. He had a plan and he executed it."

"Two years ago today, the defendant, Scott Peterson, bought a boat," Harris said. "He told Amber Frey his wife was 'lost.'"

Defense attorney Pat Harris later told jurors he was begging them not to take the life of Scott Peterson, because he did not deserve to die. "We've tried in the last week to put on people from all walks of life — all types of people who knew Scott," Harris said. "We tried to show you who we believe Scott Peterson is."


Death Penalty Almost Meaningless?

Even with a recommendation for the death penalty from the jury, the judge in the case does not have to follow that recommendation when he officially sentences Scott Peterson Feb. 25. The judge cannot imposed the death penalty if the jury does not recommend it, but can imposed a life sentence, even if the jury votes for death.

Even if Scott Peterson is sentenced to death, chances are his parents will never live to see him executed. In fact, the chances are greater that Peterson will die of old age before being executed in the State of California.

In California, the death sentence is rarely carried out. Since the death penalty was reinstated by a Supreme Court in 1977, 629 criminals have been sentenced to die, but only 10 of them have actually been executed. Less than two percent of those on death row have actually been executed in the past 27 years.


Justice Delayed in California

In the United States, the average time between sentencing and execution is about 10 years, but in California the average time is closer to 20 years. The last person executed in California, Stephen Wayne Anderson, was on death row for 20 years.

In California, anyone sentenced to death is automatically entitled to an appeal and is provided an attorney specifically for the appeals process. It can take up to five years just to be assigned an attorney and only then can the appeals process begin.

There are so many criminals backed up on California's death row, that the state is planning to build a $220 million annex to expand San Quentin's death row, to the chagrin of state taxpayers.

Peterson Jury Reaches Penalty Verdict

Peterson Jury Reaches Penalty Verdict
The jury in the double-murder trial of Scott Peterson informed the court at 2:30 p.m. Eastern time that they have reached a verdict as to whether he will receive the death penalty or life in prison without the possibility of parole. The verdict will be announced in open court at 4:30 p.m. Eastern time. Shortly before reaching a verdict, the jury asked to see seven exhibits from the trail, including photos of Laci and Conner Peterson's bodies after they were discovered washed up on the shore of the San Francisco Bay.

Mom wants justice for her 'fetus'

Justice for her 'fetus'

By Ethan Baron / The Vancouver Province

A woman whose fetus died from a car accident lashed out yesterday against the law that says her unborn son was not a human.

"I don't want to see the person that hit me get away with it," said Aimee Wilson, 25, of Langley.

"He killed my son."

Wilson, eight months pregnant, was driving her Honda Civic on Alderbridge Way in Richmond about 11 p.m. on Nov. 28 when she was in a collision at No. 4 Road with another Civic, driven by a 21-year-old Burnaby man.

Staff at Vancouver General Hospital couldn't find her fetus' heartbeat.

"I remember asking a couple times, 'Are you sure, are you positive?' I couldn't believe it." The fetus was removed by caesarean section. Wilson suffered a broken ankle.

Police say no charges can be laid in relation to the fetal death because under the Criminal Code, a fetus does not become a human until it is born alive.

Wilson and her boyfriend, Charles Thiele, 29, had known through ultrasound that their fetus was a boy, and they had named him Garrett.

"We had started collecting stuff, a baby stroller, a bassinet crib for the bedroom. I bought him a little hat and booties to bring him home in."

Hospital staff dressed the dead, five-pound, five-ounce fetus in a tuque and flannel pajamas, and brought it to Wilson and Thiele so they could say goodbye.

"He was absolutely beautiful," Wilson said. "He looked like a little porcelain doll.

"When I first was looking at him I didn't feel hurt, I was just so in awe. I was just absolutely amazed at the fact that we had created something so beautiful.

"He's got Charles' lips. He was born with a full head of dark hair like I was."

Wilson struggles unsuccessfully to understand how Garrett could be considered non-human.

"He did everything that a normal child would do. I could pretty much time when he was going to start moving in the evening. He would always prop one foot under my rib and one on my hip, and I could feel his heels moving around. He used to get hiccups on a regular basis.

"Garrett used to, every once in awhile, push back when you pushed him. You can't tell me that something's not human that reacts back, and has certain schedules.

"Just because he's in my stomach doesn't mean he's not a human. Without the accident, he would have survived."

Wilson has been recovering in St. Paul's Hospital. On her window sill sits a small silver box with a gold angel on top and a lock of Garrett's hair inside. Her breasts are full of milk.

"One of the biggest things that I'm finding hard to deal with was he was the first great-grandchild of my grandparents. My mom was looking forward to it so much. People were really, really happy. It really hurts me to see them hurting as much as me. They wanted the baby as much as I did."

Police say speed was a factor in the crash and they plan to lay charges, but until their investigation is finished they will not reveal who will be charged.

"It's not as clear-cut as one might think," said Richmond RCMP Cpl. Dave Williams.

The man driving the other car has "assisted the investigation greatly," but hoped-for witnesses have not materialized, Williams said.

WHAT THE LAW SAYS

- Under the Criminal Code, a fetus becomes a human when it "has completely proceeded, in a living state, from the body of its mother."

- In civil law, under which lawsuits are filed, there is a "born alive" rule that creates a definition of human life similar to that of the Criminal Code.


http://www.canada.com/vancouver/theprovince/news/
story.html?id=cfb72db6-c720-4e94-bb70-d724cdc4cada

Miliary Violating 'Women in Combat' Ban

Miliary Violating 'Women in Combat' Ban

By Rowan Scarborough / The Washington Times

A pro-military group is charging that the Army is violating the Defense Department's ban on women in land combat by collocating mixed-sex support units with war-fighting soldiers.

A 1994 Pentagon policy bars the Army from such unit commingling. But as the Army undergoes a far-reaching transformation, it plans to put sex-integrated Forward Support Companies (FSC) alongside newly created brigade "units of action," charges Elaine Donnelly, who heads the Center for Military Readiness.

"They are eliminating the collocation rule," said Mrs. Donnelly, basing her assertion on internal Army documents and sources.

At issue is how the Army is transforming its 10 active divisions into multiple, self-contained "units of action." The Army has looked at the idea of imbedding mixed-sex FSCs into actual combat brigades. It concedes this would violate the Pentagon policy against collocating women-included units and would require notification to Congress, according to internal documents.

Mrs. Donnelly sent a letter of complaint to House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter, California Republican.

She contended that mixed-sex FSCs "will surely lead to even more involuntary assignments of women to other infantry and armor units that engage in direct ground combat, or collocate with those that do."

She added, "The Army's most recent plans ... would force female soldiers into support units that are organic to and collocated with combined [unit of action] infantry/armor battalions. These plans, which are already in progress, constitute violation of current Defense Department regulation."

Gen. Peter Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff, is the moving force behind its transformation into modular units of action that train and deploy as one self-contained brigade, with combat and support elements. The first new-styled division, the 3rd Infantry at Fort Stewart, Ga., will deploy to Iraq in January.

Related
The Church Must Oppose the Sin of Women at War
Vision Forum Ministries
Vision Forum Ministries presents a forum of scholars, theologians, and journalists in opposition to the idea that a free people can survive while sending mothers and daughters to war.

Abortion pill too dangerous to be sold

At a Senate hearing on the arthritis drug Vioxx‚ a Food and Drug Administration official named five other drugs that should be either removed from the market or severely restricted because of complications arising from their use. These five drugs are Crestor‚ Meridia‚ Bextra‚ Accutane and Serevent.

When the New York Post filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the deaths related to Ortho-McNeil’s contraceptive patch‚ they reported their findings in October that at least 17 women’s deaths were related to the patch.

The records show the FDA did not follow the five standard procedural and scientific requirements to prove safety and effectiveness for the abortion pill RU-486. The FDA has received 676 reports of problems with the drug‚ including 17 ectopic pregnancies‚ 72 cases of blood loss so severe that they required transfusions and 7 cases of serious infections. Also‚ a myocardial infarction in a 21-year-old woman three days after her abortion. Three Americans‚ one Canadian‚ two Britons and one Swede have died after taking RU-486. I would also add to this list birth control pills and hormone replacement therapy that are known to cause blood clots‚ heart attacks and strokes. Documents released by the FDA under a Freedom of Information Act suit‚ show that the Clinton administration – which had been warned of the potential hazards of RU-486 as far back as 1995 in a citizen’s petition filed by Americans United for Life – pushed to get it approved before the 2000 election despite the lack of reliable data demonstrating its safety.

The Food and Drug Administration did announce recently that it will only strengthen the warning label for RU-486‚ known by the brand name Mifeprex. It seems political concerns are given more consideration than women’s lives. If the FDA were serious about protecting women‚ drugs like RU-486 and the patch would definitely be included in the above lists of drugs to be banned from the market.

Last year Sen. Sam Brownback‚ R-Kansas‚ and Rep. (and now Senator-elect) Jim DeMint‚ R-S.C.‚ unsuccessfully put forward a bill that would have suspended the drug’s approval pending further study. You might want to ask Congress why this wasn’t important. And how many disabilities and deaths are acceptable for drugs that have no proven medical necessity?

Sandy Sasso of Hatfield is president of North Penn Citizens for Life.

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=13511720&a
mp;BRD=2275&PAG=461&dept_id=466401&rfi=6

Bush 'Disappointing' Some Pro-lifers

But the traitors exude confidence in Bush
WASHINGTON -- Some pro-life leaders are doing a slow burn over President Bush's early Cabinet nominations of Condoleezza Rice and Alberto Gonzales and his support of pro-choice Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Arlen Specter.

These leaders say Mr. Bush is not the only one who can claim a mandate from his Nov. 2 victory, since the Bush campaign has credited evangelical Christians with having played a major role.

"Mr. Bush has been disappointing since the election because he supported Specter for the Judiciary chairmanship over the strong objections of pro-life Christians and because he nominated pro-choice candidates for both attorney general and secretary of state," says Rod Pennington, founder of Voices Heard, a new grass-roots Christian activist group.

American Life League President Judie Brown said that, in a private meeting with her and other pro-life activists, Mr. Gonzales said, "I have no problem with Roe vs. Wade" -- the 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion. Mrs. Brown and other abortion opponents have sought to have that ruling overturned ever since.

Mrs. Brown says the Justice Department is "crucial to pro-life concerns" because the attorney general "must defend any law passed by Congress, including the partial-birth abortion ban" that Mr. Bush signed into law last year. "We question where Mr. Gonzales' heart would be in such a defense," Mrs. Brown said.

She also said she doubts whether Mr. Gonzales will vigorously press the Justice Department's lawsuit against an Oregon physician-assisted suicide law brought under Attorney General John Ashcroft, who is stepping down.

As for Miss Rice, currently Mr. Bush's national security adviser, her job as secretary of state would touch on the right-to-life movement's concerns in that the Justice Department can -- and now does -- bar U.S. taxpayer funding of abortion groups overseas.

"It's one of the few issues where you have a right-to-life concurrence with the State Department," says Free Congress Foundation Chairman Paul M. Weyrich.

Mr. Pennington says his concern about Miss Rice stems in part from a 1999 San Francisco Chronicle interview in which she is quoted as calling herself a "pro-choice evangelical." Through a spokesman, Miss Rice declined to discuss that interview or her views on social issues.

Many other evangelical and Catholic abortion opponents say they trust Mr. Bush and support -- or at the very least reserve judgment on -- his recent Cabinet nominations.

"I know Condoleezza Rice and know something of the way she thinks and have tremendous confidence in her," said Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky.

Mr. Mohler said he expects Mr. Gonzales would, as attorney general, uphold Mr. Bush's pro-life policies before the courts.

Mr. Gonzales, currently White House counsel, aroused suspicions in pro-life circles while on the Texas Supreme Court, when he joined a majority in ruling that requiring minors to get parental permission for an abortion would, in some cases, violate the state constitution. Mrs. Brown said Mr. Gonzales' ruling implied that "he does not view abortion as a heinous crime."

However, other pro-lifer leaders say they agree with the Colorado-based Focus on the Family, which has said it will support Mr. Gonzales to head the Justice Department.

Meanwhile, Mr. Specter remains a sore point with some traditional-values leaders, still fuming over the support Mr. Bush gave him against a conservative challenger, Rep. Patrick J. Toomey, during the Pennsylvania Republican primary.

Mr. Specter, slated to succeed pro-life Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, Utah Republican, as Judiciary chairman when the new Congress convenes, caused an uproar with a post-election interview in which he seemed to be warning Mr. Bush against making pro-life judicial nominations. Mr. Specter later denied such an interpretation, and pledged to support the president's nominees.

"We have mixed emotions on Arlen," Michael Bowman, executive director for Concerned Woman Political Action Committee. "We believe if the GOP has to be dependent on him, they will never truly be in the majority."

http://www.wpherald.com/Religion_Culture/s
toryview.php?StoryID=20041208-010358-9926r

House Passes Sweeping Intelligence Reforms

House Passes Intelligence Reforms

WASHINGTON -- The House of Representatives on Tuesday approved a sweeping overhaul of U.S. intelligence agencies, ending weeks of wrangling over the Pentagon's power under the reforms demanded after the Sept. 11 attacks.

On a vote of 336-75, the House sent the measure to the Senate for final congressional approval expected on Wednesday. The bill, which creates a new director of national intelligence post, then goes to President Bush for his promised signature.

Dozens of Republicans broke ranks with Bush and voted against it because the compromise bill omitted immigration provisions they wanted.

It is the biggest revamping of U.S. intelligence in more than 50 years and the second major government overhaul since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks against the World Trade Center and Pentagon that killed almost 3,000 people. Congress earlier created the Homeland Security Department that brought together various federal law enforcement agencies.


http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm
/20041208/pl_nm/security_intelligence_dc_11

Choose Life' plates may win Senate OK
Proposal pinned to highway naming bill

Ohioans may yet be able to "Choose Life" on their license plates.

State senators frustrated with inaction on the vehicle tags with the anti-abortion slogan believe they have found a way to get them approved.

Sen. Jim Jordan, an Urbana Republican, said Monday that he planned to tack the proposal onto a little-watched highway-naming bill that is headed to the House floor this week.

The House already approved the tags last November, 67-25, so there's little chance it would change course. Money from sale of the tags would go to local nonprofits that steer women toward adoption instead of abortion. Some of these "crisis pregnancy centers" have come under fire for misrepresenting themselves to pregnant women.

But the maneuver will allow the issue to skirt past Senate Transportation Chairman Jeff Armbruster.

Armbruster is a North Ridgeville Republican who has blocked authorization of the plates for a year. The measure will go straight to the Senate floor without a hearing.

"License plates are just getting so politically charged, that I think we've gotten beyond what license plates are supposed to be for," Armbruster said. "When does it end?"

Sen. Bob Hagan, a Youngstown Democrat, attacked the maneuver as "totally political and politically absurd."

He plans to vote against the measure, though it will be tacked onto a bill that would name a stretch of highway after his late father, former State Rep. Robert E. Hagan.

"What's next? 'Choose Death'? 'Choose Choice'? 'Choosy Mothers Choose Jif'?" he quipped. "I don't know what we do about these politically charged attempts to insert the abortion issue into every bill."

Jordan defended the move.

"This should have been law a long time ago," he said. "It's been around six or seven years. We have all kinds of license plates. But somehow we can't do something that's as positive as 'Choose Life' with a couple of smiling kids on it, yet we can have a Smoky the Bear license plate."

Kellie Copeland, a spokesman for NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio, called the action "stealthy."

"They've just totally circumvented the legislative process in order to avoid conflict with a prominent member of their caucus," she said. "And the state will spend a lot of money to defend this bill." She said similar measures have been legally challenged in other states.

"Choose Life" is among a growing list of politically charged issues being placed on license plates. Last week, Ohio lawmakers approved tags plugging the National Rifle Association, for example.

Toby Hoover, director of the Ohio Coalition Against Gun Violence, said she found herself in the ironic position of supporting the bill. Hoover's group fought against the NRA last year in the debate over a bill allowing most Ohioans to carry concealed weapons.

"I am a bit astonished, given the strong opposition of the NRA to registering gun owners," she said. "But soon we'll know who has the guns by the license plates on their cars."

http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/
index.ssf?/base/news/1102415925263090.xml

Investigators say Kopp was seen in
slain abortion doctor's neighborhood

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Witnesses are able to place James Kopp in the Amherst neighborhood where the fatal shooting of abortion doctor Barnett Slepian took place, investigators said Monday.

While testifying in U.S. District Court, Amherst Police Department detective Raymond Nitche said he spoke to a man who claimed he briefly spoke to Kopp as he was jogging through the neighborhood. Other residents called in descriptions to police that matched Kopp, Nitche said.

Kopp, an anti-abortion extremist serving 25 years to life in state prison, was convicted of second-degree murder last year in Slepian's death. He is charged in U.S. Federal Court with violating the freedom of Access to Clinic Entrance Act.

While awaiting trial in the murder case, Kopp admitted carrying out the October 1998 sniper attack but said he meant only to wound Slepian, and "the bullet took a crazy ricochet."

Handcuffed and clad in an orange jumpsuit, Kopp made no comment during his court appearance Monday.

Meanwhile, his attorney John Humann argued that one crime log showed a a change in a witness's testimony from being "almost" sure that Kopp was in Slepian's neighborhood, to being "totally sure."

Humann also wants Kopp's confession thrown out because of a conflict of interest on the part of Kopp's former attorney Bruce Barket.

Kopp, 50, could be sentenced to life without parole if convicted of the federal charge. He would be 73 years old before becoming eligible for parole on the murder conviction.

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/state/ny-bc-ny--
abortiondoctor1206dec06,0,1588070.story?coll=ny-region-apnewyork

Baby's killing draws attention to church

The Dallas Morning News

PLANO – About 200 regulars sat in padded folding chairs in the brick church in east Plano, worshipping in jeans, suits, boots and heels. There were no hymnals, but most adults brought their own well-worn Bibles.

Their leader, Doyle Davidson, told them that Water of Life Church has been flung into the spotlight and that God wanted them to seize the moment to spread the word of God.

"He is raising me up so the metroplex will know who I am," Mr. Davidson told his followers Sunday morning.

Mr. Davidson says he did not know Dena Schlosser and her husband, John, well. He and others say the couple attended sporadically since church records show they first donated money in June 2002.

Authorities say Mrs. Schlosser killed her 10-month-old daughter last month by cutting off the child's arms. Mr. Davidson said the curiosity that followed about his church and its beliefs can only spread his message, which is broadcast on television.

Mr. Davidson, 72, is a self-described prophet and apostle. He aligns those who question him with Satan.

For much of Sunday's service, Mr. Davidson spoke about himself. His voice at times carried an aw-shucks cadence and other times the sharpness of authority. He is known to lay hands on church members to drive out the devil. The church has services every Wednesday and twice on Sundays.

"This probably sounds like an ego trip, and I don't care anymore," he said later of his methods. "I've been pounded on so many times by unbelievers."

'Why I'm hated'

Mr. Davidson, who prefers "Doyle" to the title of reverend or pastor, knows his teachings aren't mainstream or always well liked. He boils down to two reasons "why I'm hated."

The first is that women – many of whom he calls Jezebels – should not question their husbands.

Second, he believes that the Ten Commandments are "not made for the righteous man, but for the lawless, the disobedient." He considers righteousness "living by faith, by the spirit and doing exactly what Jesus said to do."

Mr. Davidson teaches that doctors aren't necessary because people can be healed if their faith is "in the right place." He doesn't take medicine but says God "won't condemn you for going to a physician."

When paramedics arrived at Mrs. Schlosser's apartment Nov. 22, she was found covered in her daughter's blood, holding a knife and listening to religious hymns. The night before, she told her husband she wanted to "give her child to God," according to court records.

Mrs. Schlosser's stepfather, Mick Macaulay, has stopped short of blaming the church for her actions, but he said the extreme beliefs may have affected her mental health.

Mrs. Schlosser suffered from postpartum depression after her daughter's home birth in January. Her condition was diagnosed and treated after Child Protective Services investigated her on a neglect complaint when she left her infant daughter, Margaret, alone in the apartment.

"I'm not saying that anybody suggested, 'Go cut your baby's arms off,' " said Mr. Macaulay, a mental health counselor who lives in Canada with Mrs. Schlosser's mother, Connie. "This diminishing of women, this diminishing of women's powers, women's importance, referring to women as Jezebels, I think, further undermines an already fragile ego state that Dena's experiencing. I think it presses her to subordinate herself and forgo her own judgment.

"I look at Doyle as being one of the major influences in this whole thing."

Dr. Philip Korenman, the media relations committee chair for the North Texas Society of Psychiatric Physicians, said: "In my opinion, this is a medical issue, not a religious one.

"I'm sure when people are distressed, they are going to the places that they know to try to get support and relief. And that's not a bad thing. The hope is that they are going to be speaking to some people who recognize and guide them to the right places to get help," said Dr. Korenman, who has a private practice in Plano.

Ole Anthony, who heads Trinity Foundation, a watchdog for television evangelists, said his organization hasn't received any major complaints about Water of Life. He also said that though Mr. Davidson certainly has "a very strong personality," he has seen nothing to suggest any wrongdoing.

"It wouldn't be fair, I think, to call him a cult," Mr. Anthony said.

Cults typically involve brainwashing and physical restraint, he said, and Water of Life does not.

Mr. Davidson said that those who disagree with him, along with Catholics, Baptists and Methodists, belong to cults.

A member's view

Member Jack Turquette was disturbed to hear that Mrs. Schlosser's parents placed some responsibility for the child's death on the church. He said Water of Life and its practices had nothing to do with what happened.

"I really didn't appreciate that. You can't say, 'Hey, my stepdaughter's mentally ill,' then start pointing fingers. She either is or isn't," he said.

Ralph Edge, one of three ministers who helps Mr. Davidson, said the Schlossers weren't active in the church beyond attending services. Mrs. Schlosser mostly remained in the fellowship hall along with other parents who had small children, where they could watch the service on a television.

"That's mainly where they stayed," said Mr. Edge, who is also Mr. Davidson's nephew. "They kept to themselves, mostly."

Mr. Schlosser's personal Web site contains Bible quotations and a link to Mr. Davidson's Web site. On another site, he writes that his interests are "GOD's plan for my life." Mr. Schlosser has declined to comment through the ordeal.

Mr. Davidson was a veterinarian when, he said, God called him to ministry in 1969. He began preaching in Missouri the following year. In 1972, he came to North Texas. He ministered at the First United Methodist Church in McKinney in 1977 and formed Water of Life Ministries three years later.

He moved his congregation to east Plano in 1981, where it bought the building from another church. His ministry went on radio, then television. The services are broadcast in several states and on the Web.

Mr. Davidson said he was arrested on a charge of public intoxication after he tried to cast the devil out of a former member. He said he will be found not guilty because he was not intoxicated. Plano police could not provide information Monday about the arrest.

No other criminal record could be found.

Chris Wilkins moved his wife and three kids from Indiana in 1999 after seeing Mr. Davidson on television. He said he had attended different churches but felt that pastors were telling him to raise his hands and praise God so they could reach into his pockets. But that isn't the case at Water of Life, he said.

Mr. Wilkins recalled being rid of devils on one of his first visits to the church.

"I had my hands up and I was worshipping God, and they came screaming out of me. It's the only way I could explain it. And the devils just didn't want to go. I could picture their little hands pulling on my body and not wanting to let go," Mr. Wilkins said. "Now nobody saw this. It was through the spirit. But all I could see was a glass tube full of cold air that went all the way toward the ceiling."

Becky Forrest and her husband, Ronald, regularly drive in from Kilgore in East Texas to attend services at Water of Life. It's the spiritual base that draws them. They said Mr. Davidson takes his direction from the Bible and God.

"I just believe Doyle is an apostle prophet and directed by God," Ms. Forrest said. "And what he teaches from the pulpit is strictly from the Bible. It's definitely the word of God. I don't think you find that too much in other churches."

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news
/city/collin/plano/stories/120704dnmetchurch.a0ba.html