Covenant News Wire Service

Nation on trial Wednesday

Court to Weigh Ten Commandments

AUSTIN, Texas -- On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court will consider whether a 6-foot granite monument on the grounds of the Texas state Capitol bearing the words "I am the Lord thy God" - and two similar displays at Kentucky courthouses - constitute unconstitutional government establishment of religion.

Many people warn that if the states lose, the ruling would force the removal of similar objects from memorials and public spaces across America. Dozens of demonstrators are expected for rallies and prayers outside the courthouse in Washington while the case is argued inside.

As he strolls from the Texas Supreme Court to the state Capitol, Thomas Van Orden recounts the ominous e-mails that warn "we're gonna get you" and tell him to "get the hell out" if he can't support the American way of life.

Van Orden shrugs off the angry responses to his lawsuit seeking to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the Capitol grounds. A Vietnam veteran and former lawyer who is now homeless, Van Orden says he already "went to hell" and is still finding his way back.

Derided by some as an atheist, Van Orden says he's simply "not religious" despite growing up in the Methodist Church in East Texas and having a brief interest in the Unitarian Church as an adult.

"I have nothing against the Ten Commandments. I grew up with the Ten Commandments," he said. "I didn't sue Christianity or Judaism. I sued the government. It was filed to uphold the principles of the First Amendment."

Supporters of keeping the monument on the Capitol grounds say the traditions of Western law are rooted in the Ten Commandments. America can't scrub the role of religion from its history, said Kelly Shackelford of the Liberty Legal Institute, which defends religious freedoms and First Amendment rights and filed briefs in support of keeping the monument.

"What they're really advocating on the other side is a religious cleansing from our history," Shackelford said. "It should be treated with respect as our part of history, not some new form of pornography that has to be banned from our public arena."

The Fraternal Order of Eagles donated the Texas monument in 1961 and gave scores of similar monuments to towns across the United States.

Van Orden acknowledges the role religion has played in law but believes most people view the Ten Commandments from a religious perspective, not a historical one.

State Attorney General Greg Abbott, a Catholic who keeps a photograph in his office showing him meeting Pope John Paul II, will defend the Texas monument.

"I hope and believe the United States Supreme Court is not going to force agnosticism upon the people of this state and this country," Abbott said. "The First Amendment was never intended to remove all religious expression from the public square."

Abbott noted the U.S. Supreme Court's marble courtroom also has a carving of Moses holding the tablets of the Ten Commandments.

Van Orden rejects that comparison, noting the carving also shows other historical lawgivers, including Hammurabi, Confucius and Muhammed, as well as the secular figures Napoleon and Caesar Augustus.

Van Orden said he wouldn't have sued if the Texas Capitol grounds paid similar homage to historical figures.

The case has brought Van Orden a modicum of fame as the "homeless lawyer," a pauper who maneuvered through a complex legal system all the way to the highest court in the land.

"From a West Austin bush to the United States Supreme Court," Van Orden said. "That's pretty cool."

Yet he's vexed that news reports have paid as much attention to him as his case.

He generally refuses to discuss his background or why his law license was suspended several times for issues ranging from taking money for work he didn't perform to failure to pay fines. He is around 60 years old but won't give his age.

He told The Washington Post that depression cost him his practice and his family. In 1995, the State Bar ordered that a psychiatrist or psychologist certify whether he was mentally capable of practicing law. Although his license remains suspended, Van Orden still has the taste and sharp mind for practicing law.

In 2002, he personally argued his Commandments case before a federal judge, and he did it again before an appeals court in New Orleans.

Before the Supreme Court, however, his case will be argued by Duke University law professor and First Amendment scholar Erwin Chemerinsky.

Van Orden is undecided about whether to go to Washington for the arguments.

"It takes money to go to Washington," Van Orden said.


http://apnews.myway.com/art
icle/20050226/D88GGGA00.html

Infected Sodomite Had Sex With 100 Gays

BOSTON -- The New York sodomite who sparked fears of a powerful new strain of HIV had unprotected sex with more than 100 gays in the months before his diagnosis, a top researcher said yesterday.

Dr. David Ho of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center in Manhattan will unveil today a case study of the unidentified gay, who his team believes may harbor a mutant strain of the deadly virus.

Skeptical AIDS researchers from around the world believe the case is isolated and not the beginning of a new epidemic.

In a preview of the study, Ho said the new strain is resistant to 19 of 20 drugs used to fight the HIV virus and becomes full-blown AIDS in months, not years. The development led city health officials to send out a dire warning earlier this month.

"We don't know if this is an isolated case or if there are more cases out there," Ho told the Daily News.

The victim, who's in his mid-40s, participated in wild orgies fueled by crystal meth before becoming sick, Ho said.

City Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden said yesterday health workers have been "working to identify [the man's] sexual partners, and urge them to be tested."

But he declined to say how many of those partners they'd been able to reach.

Despite the fears of a superbug, other experts have pointed out that rapid progression of HIV is not new, nor is resistance to multiple drugs.

Instead of being a new strain, the virus could have rapidly developed into full-blown AIDS because of something unique to the patient, said Dr. Douglas Richman of University of California at San Diego.

But even officials at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have acknowledged the case is alarming.


http://www.nydailynews.com/fr
ont/story/284403p-243554c.html

Rudolph manhunt called into question

By Don O'Briant / The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

When Eric Rudolph disappeared into the Appalachian Mountains in 1998, the FBI embarked on a massive manhunt that lasted more than five years. It was a manhunt that need never have happened, says CNN producer Henry Schuster. In "Hunting Eric Rudolph" (Berkley, $19.95), to be published on Tuesday, Schuster and GBI Agent Charles Stone explain that a miscommunication between the FBI and North Carolina Sheriff Jack Thompson on Jan. 30, 1998, allowed Rudolph to slip away.

"The sheriff and his folks had located Eric Rudolph's trailer and they were ready to go pick him up," Schuster says. "But the FBI never told Sheriff Thompson that Rudolph was anything other than a material witness. Instead, they told him to wait."

The FBI didn't show up at Rudolph's trailer until after the U.S. attorney in Birmingham had a televised news conference naming Rudolph as a suspect in the abortion clinic bombing that killed a security guard, Schuster says. "By the time the FBI went to Rudolph's trailer in North Carolina, he had stocked up with supplies at Bi-Lo and disappeared."

He would not be captured until 2003, when a rookie police officer caught him foraging for food behind a grocery store. During those years, Schuster and Stone interviewed family members and friends to learn everything they could about the man suspected in four lethal bombings, including the one in Atlanta's Centennial Olympic Park in 1996.

In 2001, Schuster produced a CNN documentary, "The Hunt for Eric Rudolph," that portrayed the suspect as a right-wing extremist in a bizarre family no fiction writer would dare invent. Much of the documentary, along with additional material gathered since then, became the basis for the book.

"His mother had been a nun who quit the Catholic church and went on a search for the 'true' church," Schuster says. "She became involved with Christian Identity, which preaches the most extreme, distorted version of Christianity. They believe that Jews and blacks are the demon seed of Eve and the serpent in the Garden of Eden, that the Bible is the history of the white race, and that whites are the lost tribe of Israel."

Rudolph apparently absorbed the lessons well. Before he dropped out of public school, he wrote a paper in which he said the Holocaust never happened, Schuster says. "He has one brother who amputated his hand and videotaped it as a protest against the manhunt, and another brother who's a gay musician in Greenwich Village."

A self-proclaimed survivalist, Rudolph is described as a marijuana grower who traveled to Amsterdam to find the right seeds for his cash crop. His former sister-in-law, Deborah Givens, told Schuster and Stone that Rudolph regularly smoked joints and loved to watch Cheech and Chong videos, particularly "Up in Smoke."

One of the nagging questions that remains is how Rudolph managed to survive for more than five years in the wild, supposedly living off the land.

"It doesn't completely add up," Schuster says. "I talked with a Navy Reserve guy who had been through a survival and escape school. He was skeptical of Eric's story. He said Eric looked in far too good a condition for someone who had been on a five-year camping trip."


http://www.ajc.com/news/content/living/0205/25bookbuzz.ht
ml?UrAuth=`NcNUOaNYUbTTUWUXUTUZTYU\UWUcUWUZU]UaUcTYWVVZV

General: National ID cards on the way

Barry McCaffrey tells local agencies they need better tools to deal with disasters.

By Pedro Ruz Gutierrez / Orlando Sentinel

Retired Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey, the former White House drug czar, on Thursday said the same technology available to the U.S. military should be used by public-safety agencies in emergencies and natural disasters.

Speaking at a public-safety and technology conference sponsored by Motorola Inc., McCaffrey also said the country faces several challenges after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. These include an inconsistent immigration policy, an inability to control borders, the lack of a unified national police and the need for a national identity card.

"Within 10 years, we are going to have national identification cards," McCaffrey told about 150 people at The Peabody Orlando hotel off International Drive.

McCaffrey served as the country's top anti-drug warrior under President Clinton and now is a national-security consultant as well as a professor at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y.

McCaffrey, the keynote speaker, also reminded attendees they are the first line of defense on the homeland-security front.

The general said because of the country's governmental make-up, protection occurs at the city and county levels and the best intelligence is available to local governments first. "We don't have a national police force," he said. "It's worked for us for over 200 years."

Predicting a future showdown over civil liberties, he also said law-enforcement agents must have the authority to question people and demand identity documents.

"For God's sake, if we're licensing hairstylists and dog walkers . . . we can't ask who you are?"

The highly decorated general also suggested law-enforcement agencies take the initiative and not wait for a first strike. "My advice to law enforcement: Never get in a fair fight. Your purpose is to end hostilities rapidly."

In response to complaints that local agencies often share information with federal agencies but don't receive anything in return because of information deemed classified, he said, "Some things you can't fight."

After McCaffrey's speech, Motorola representatives showed a videotaped re-enactment of a kidnapping and SWAT team response that highlights the latest in technology. The demonstration, taped in Polk County and being shown around the country at Motorola conferences, features the use of digital cameras, a virtual command center, and the integration of law-enforcement and emergency-response systems.

"Our vision of the future is not science fiction," said Kelly Kirwan, vice president of Motorola's Southern sales division. "It's becoming science fact."

Capt. John Phillips, the logistics and communications liaison for Polk County Fire Services, said the need to connect and share information was put to the test during last year's hurricane season. He said the county's Motorola radio system did not fail during hurricanes Charley, Frances or Jeanne.


http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/orl-locsecurity25022505feb
25,1,5172739.story?coll=orl-news-headlines&ctrack=1&cset=true

Judge Greer orders Terri's starvation

Parents of disabled Florida woman granted 3 weeks to appeal ruling

By Art Moore / WorldNetDaily.com

A Florida judge today ordered that Terri Schiavo's life-sustaining feeding tube be removed March 18 at 1 p.m.

Pinellas Circuit Court Judge George Greer denied a motion for an indefinite stay filed by parents Robert and Mary Schindler, who wanted more time to pursue medical tests that might prove their severely brain-damaged daughter could benefit from physical therapy.

Greer could have ordered the tube be removed immediately. The extra three weeks gives the Schindlers time to appeal the decision.


http://www.worldnetdaily.com/ne
ws/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=43046

Abortion and Sex Predators

Kline: Records could ID child sexual abusers

By Ron Sylvester / The Wichita Eagle

Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline on Thursday defended his secret inquiry into the records of late-term abortion patients, saying it is necessary to prosecute suspected child abusers.

Anti-abortion groups across the state chimed in with emotional support for Kline that went as far as accusing two clinics -- which on Tuesday had asked the Kansas Supreme Court to intercede -- of aiding child molesters.

Both sides are battling over individuals' privacy rights and the limitations on government power. Each claim to be protecting the rights of the individuals.

And because most of the evidence has been sealed in Shawnee County District Court, few details are being discussed outside the pleadings to the state's high court.

Information in the court records indicates that the abortion providers fighting Kline and Judge Richard Anderson are Wichita's Women's Health Care Services and Overland Park's Comprehensive Health of Planned Parenthood of Kansas & Mid-Missouri.

Their battle involves Kline's attempt to subpoena the unedited records of 90 women and girls who sought abortions at least 22 weeks into their pregnancies.

During a news conference Thursday, Kline would not discuss his specific reasons for wanting the complete records.

In October, Anderson ordered the medical records be turned over to Kline, prompting this week's appeal by the clinics to the state's highest court.

Kline addressed one of the two reasons that have been cited in court records for his investigation -- the sexual activity of girls.

"Rape is a serious crime, and when a 10-, 11-, or 12-year-old is pregnant, they have been raped under Kansas law," Kline said Thursday. In Kansas, no one under the age of 16 can legally consent to sex.

"There are two things child predators want, access to children and secrecy, and as attorney general I am bound and determined to not give them either."

Kline's comments unleashed a flurry of responses from anti-abortion groups and the state's two main abortion providers.

"No agency offering abortion services or the judges that are complicit in the stonewalling of justice should be allowed to be accessories to the exploitation of women and children," read a statement from Concerned Women for America of Kansas, a group based in Johnson County.

Both George Tiller, the doctor who owns the Wichita clinic, and Planned Parenthood of Kansas & Mid-Missouri released responses that said they were complying with laws that require reporting of child sexual abuse.

"Dr. Tiller has always consistently, carefully and appropriately followed the law in all respects," read a statement released on Tiller's behalf by Wichita lawyers Lee Thompson and Dan Monnat.

The lawyers pointed out that earlier this week Tiller complied with a Texas request for records, which they called "a legitimate inquiry... to more fully investigate a specific event."

The same lawyers, in their filing to the state Supreme Court, characterized Kline's investigation as a "fishing expedition" into the private lives of the clinic's patients.

In a statement, Planned Parenthood said Kline, at his news conference, "sought, falsely, to portray abortion providers as somehow impeding legitimate investigations of statutory rape.... Planned Parenthood and Comprehensive Health provide high quality reproductive health care, protect medical privacy and fully comply with the law."

Court records also claim that Kline's subpoena isn't limited by age. Kline's office has argued to Anderson, the pleadings say, that it also wants to inspect the legality of all late-term abortions performed in Kansas.

The clinics are asking the high court to limit the scope of Kline's inquiry and not release complete medical records.


http://www.kansas.com/mld
/kansas/news/10987545.htm

Virginia Passes Marriage Amendment

House, Senate Fine-Tune Marriage Measure

By Christina Bellantoni / The Washington Times

RICHMOND -- The House and Senate are making final adjustments to a constitutional amendment that defines marriage as the union of a man and woman.

The amendment will go to voters next year.

Both chambers of the Republican-controlled legislature passed their versions with overwhelming majorities, but there are minor language differences between the two.

Sen. Stephen D. Newman, Lynchburg Republican, said his version is better because it uses the language found in a similar amendment that was approved in Ohio.

"It's considered the most vetted, reliable language in the nation, and the best way to do it is to use the best language in the nation," he said yesterday. "This is an awfully important measure in Virginia, and I'm committed to make sure this is reality."

A handful of delegates and senators will meet to reconcile the two versions before the legislature adjourns Saturday. Those conferees have not yet been appointed. Mr. Newman will be a conferee on the Senate side.

Both measures ban civil unions.

Homosexual-rights groups oppose the constitutional amendment and said it is not needed because Virginia law already forbids any type of same-sex union and does not recognize homosexual "nuptials" performed in other states.

The amendment does not need the approval of Gov. Mark Warner, a Democrat.

"Photo red" was brought back from the dead yesterday. Four days after a House committee killed local pilot programs that use cameras to catch red-light runners, the Senate revived them as a floor amendment to related legislation.

After adopting the amendment, the Senate voted 29-9 to pass the bill. The measure now goes directly to the House floor, bypassing the committee that had refused to lift the July 1 expiration date for the programs in several Northern Virginia localities and Virginia Beach.

The programs use cameras to take pictures of cars whose drivers run lights at certain busy intersections. The license plate number is used to identify the car's owner, who then gets a ticket in the mail.

Supporters of photo red technology said it encourages compliance with the law and saves lives by reducing the number of broadside collisions. Critics see the use of cameras as an invasion of privacy. They also don't like the practice of ticketing the car's owner, even though the owner can avoid a fine by stating that someone else had been driving the vehicle when the violation occurred.

There was virtually no discussion of the issue on the Senate floor yesterday.

The amendment was tacked onto a bill sponsored by Delegate Gary Alan Reese, Fairfax County Republican, requiring a motorist involved in an accident to provide his license plate number and state of registration to police and the other driver.

Photo red opponents could ask House Speaker William J. Howell for a ruling on whether the amendment is germane to the original bill. Another traffic safety measure restricting cell phone use by teenage drivers likely is headed to a conference committee to resolve differences between the Senate and the House.

The Senate bill originally prohibited motorists younger than 18 from using cell phones while operating a vehicle. The House amended the bill to allow teens to use only hands-free mobile phones, but the Senate voted 32-6 yesterday to reject the amendment.

Sen. Jay O'Brien, Fairfax County Republican, said teens frequently use cell phones to send text messages, which would be distracting even on hands-free devices.

"They have to look at that one-inch screen and read a paragraph, and even scroll down," Mr. O'Brien said. "The hands-free device isn't going to help when they slam into another car."

The Senate accepted another House amendment changing "operating" to "driving" to make clear that teens can use cell phones if the car is parked.

The measure now goes back to the House, which can either back down from its position or insist on a conference committee to resolve the dispute.


http://www.washingtontimes.com/functions
/print.php?StoryID=20050223-103040-1994r

Lindsey's False Premise

Hal Lindsey is Making Predictions–Again

By Gary DeMar / American Vision

Hal Lindsey is once again making predictions about the end times using Israel as the prophetic time piece. In his latest article on the subject, he claims that the reestablishment of the Sanhedrin is prophetically significant. Here’s how he explains it:

“These religious authorities [in Israel] believe it was necessary to re-establish the Sanhedrin because only this properly ordained body of sages can authenticate a Messiah when he comes. There is a growing expectation of the long-awaited Messiah to appear among devout Jews. The rebirth of the Jewish state and recapture of Jerusalem has increasingly influenced this conviction.”

So Jesus was not the Messiah, and the NT is a fraud. That’s the logic of Lindsey’s position since the Sanhedrin did not authenticate Jesus as the Messiah. If the Sanhedrin of the first century was wrong, as the NT says it was, what makes Lindsey think that the Sanhedrin of the twenty-first century is going to be right?


http://www.americanvision.org
/articlearchive/02-18-05.asp

Hal Lindsey Is Wrong – The 'Temple' Will Not Be Rebuilt

By Bill Barnwell / LewRockwell.com

One of the strangest teachings from proponents of dispensationalism is the assertion that the ancient Jewish temple will be rebuilt. It is understandable why some extremely conservative Orthodox Jews would desire to have a rebuilt temple, but logically it makes little sense why so many Christians are clamoring to see a third temple. Last week, Hal Lindsey wrote an excited column at WorldNetDaily titled "Revived Sanhedrin discusses temple" where he cites evidence of plans for a renewed temple in Israel. While Mr. Lindsey is a fine Christian and no doubt has done many good things for Christianity, his theological views on the "end-times" which he has been teaching for years are, I believe, full of errors and pose both theological and political concerns.


http://www.lewrockwell.com
/barnwell/barnwell46.html

Newborn Thrown From 8th Floor Apartment

The second case of infanticide this year

SINGAPORE -- The newborn baby thrown down a block of flats in Woodlands on Monday was the second case of infanticide this year.

The newborn baby girl was found at about 12.30pm on Monday.

Placed in a plastic bag, she was flung off from the eighth floor of Block 678, Woodlands Avenue 6.

A 16-year-old girl was arrested and the case classified as infanticide.

But why do some mothers go through pregnancy, only to abandon their babies later?

Mr John Vijayan, Singapore Planned Parenthood Association, said: "It could be that the girl is going through post-natal blues and she does not even know what she has done. She is not ready for motherhood and face the world that she is now a mother.

"The other reason could be that she could be fearing what would she do with a kid? You know there is no father, and probably no parental support.

"She will be just lost and keeping away from her family or even the boyfriend got her pregnant and just want go get rid of it."

Mr Vijayan, who has been counselling troubled teens for about 20 years, added that usually without family support, the teenager will feel that she had come to a brick wall and decide to take things in her own hands.

Meanwhile, neighbours say they were shocked and saddened by the incident.


http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/
singaporelocalnews/view/119927/1/.html

AG Seeks Abortion Records

Clinics say the investigation undermines their patients' right to privacy.

By Ron Sylvester / The Wichita (Kan.) Eagle

Two medical clinics are asking the Kansas Supreme Court to intercede in a secret investigation by Attorney General Phill Kline involving medical records of females seeking late-term abortions.

Documents filed Tuesday by lawyers in Wichita and Topeka reveal details of a closed-door court battle raging since last fall between state powers and individuals' right to privacy.

The action "arises out of a secret inquisition of nearly 90 women who obtained abortions at two Kansas clinics in 2003," the legal brief claims.

A spokesman for Kline said the office had no immediate comment but expected to make a statement today. Kline has little more than a week to file his response to the high court.

Two Wichita-area lawmakers say they want Kline to continue to seek the records, which might reveal sex crimes against children. A federal judge in Wichita has blocked Kline's access to similar records in an unrelated lawsuit.

Until this week's filing, the existence of Kline's investigation has been under seal in Shawnee County District Court in Topeka, and hearings were closed to the public. Kansas law gives prosecutors the right to conduct secret inquisitions during a criminal investigation.

Because of the court-ordered seals, the two clinics are not identified in the Supreme Court brief.

Even the patients whose medical records are under subpoena have not been told the state's top law enforcement officer is attempting to gain access to their files, the brief said.

Lawyers for the clinics say the effects of turning over private medical information could be chilling.

"The logical and natural progression of this action," the brief said, "could well be a knock on the door of a woman who exercised her constitutional right to privacy by special agents of the attorney general who seek to inquire into her personal medical, sexual or legal history."

According to the brief:

Kline's subpoena ordered the complete, unedited medical records be delivered to Shawnee County District Judge Richard Anderson by October 2004. Kline subpoenaed records of females who sought abortions at least 22 weeks into their pregnancy.

Under the order signed by Anderson, the records would include each patient's name, medical history, details of her sex life, birth control practices and psychological profile.

The attorney general wants to look at the records to search for evidence of crimes defined by laws that limit late-term abortions and require mandatory reporting of suspected child sexual abuse.

State Sens. Phil Journey, R-Haysville, and Susan Wagle, R-Wichita, released a statement Wednesday afternoon supporting Kline's efforts.

"If a child the age of 10, 11 or 12 years of age seeks an abortion in Kansas, by law that child has been raped, and we believe the state has the obligation to investigate that rape, bring the rapist to justice and prevent further exploitation of the child," the statement read.

In June 2003, Kline tried to require all of the state's health care providers to report any knowledge of sexual activity of girls under the age of 16. That's the legal age that a girl can consent to sexual relations in Kansas.

But after several health care providers sued in federal court, U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten issued a temporary restraining order, citing confidential patient-doctor privilege. The case is still pending.

In the latest dispute, the two clinics are arguing that by requesting their records, Kline is trying to get through the state courts what the federal judge denied him.

In their brief, the clinics say they have offered to turn over limited records with names and other personal information blacked out. But the brief said Kline declined to provide specifics of his investigation and instead wanted the complete records.

On Oct. 21, Anderson ruled that Kline could have the uncensored files. The clinics now want the Supreme Court to intervene, saying "these women's rights will be sacrificed if this fishing expedition is not halted or narrowed."


http://www.centredaily.com/mld/cen
tredaily/news/nation/10981030.htm

Bishop Samuel Pippens, 77, Gets Life For Molestation

A 77-year-old Birmingham church bishop was sentenced Tuesday to life in prison with the chance of parole for molesting a boy who once visited his home.

Samuel Pippens showed no emotion after Circuit Judge Clyde Jones handed down his decision. Pippens' attorney said she will appeal.

Pippens had faced 10 years to life in prison for sodomy involving the boy, now 13, who testified last December he was molested from age 7 or 8 until he was 12 at Pippens' East Lake home.

The child's mother tearfully told Jones she didn't want to see Pippens go to prison and that if Pippens can apologize she asked that Jones be lenient in sentencing. She thought an apology would help her son heal. "My son tells me he hates his life. He wished he was dead," she said.

A break was called so that Pippens' attorney could confer with him. However, an apology never came.

After court, defense attorney Sherryl Snodgrass Caffey of Huntsville said her client maintains his innocence.

"He can't apologize without telling a lie," she said. "This is a person who holds the truth very dear. He can't apologize for something he didn't do."

Testimony during the trial was that Pippens and his wife baby-sat the boy periodically in their home. The boy said the abuse happened when he and Pippens were alone.

Pippens' wife, who is pastor of the Faith Tabernacle Deliverance Church in Birmingham, told the judge the boy had not been to their home since he was 5. Vivian Pippens remains supportive of her husband and said after court her husband was treated unfairly.

Prosecutor Jim Neill called Tuesday's sentence appropriate, and said that a 20-year-old man who faced the same sex crime would have received the same sentence.


http://www.al.com/news/birminghamnews/i
ndex.ssf?/base/news/110915451142240.xml

Battle's Just Begun

Christians Demand Apology; Group Pursues Legal Redress

By Allie Martin and Jenni Parker / AgapePress

The American Family Association of Pennsylvania is demanding that a judge apologize to members of a Christian group who were arrested during an outreach to homosexuals for comparing the street ministers to Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan. Meanwhile, though acquitted, the Christian activists may be heading back into court.

Last week, Judge Pamela Dembe of the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas dropped all charges against adult defendants belonging to the Christian group Repent America, who were arrested last fall for witnessing during a homosexual pride event in Philadelphia. The charges against the remaining member of the "Philly 5," a 17-year-old girl, were also dropped.

Eleven Christians were initially arrested, a group that ranged from 17 to 72 years of age. They were taken into custody and held in jail for 21 hours, simply for ministering at a city-funded, public homosexual event called "OutFest" in October 2004. They were charged with three felonies and five misdemeanors and faced a potential sentence of up to 47 years in prison and $90,000 in fines each.

Some of the charges were dropped without a hearing, but four of the adult Repent America members that had been arrested -- Michael Marcavage, Mark Diener, Dennis Green, and James Cruse -- were bound over for trial by District Court Judge William Austin Meehan. Meanwhile, 17-year-old Lauren Murch faced a separate trial.

Justice Served with an Unflattering Comparison

According to WorldNetDaily reports, when Judge Dembe reviewed the evidence -- much of it provided by Repent America, since the group had videotaped the events leading up to the arrests -- she found no basis for the allegations against the remaining defendants and dismissed the charges. Dembe is also the judge who, last month, removed the bail requirement that the defendants keep at least 100 feet away from any homosexual gathering.

After hearing arguments and reviewing the videotape of the arrests, the Common Pleas judge noted that America is one of the few countries in the world "that protects unpopular speech." She said this means "Nazis can March in Skokie, Illinois" and "the Ku Klux Klan can march where they wish to" since, in the U.S., "we cannot stifle speech because we don't want to hear it, or we don't want to hear it now."

But while Diane Gramley, president of the American Family Association of Pennsylvania, is glad justice was served, she feels the remarks the judge made in dismissing the charges should have been withheld. She says the Repent America members did not deserve to be compared with fascists and white supremacists, especially after all they had been through.

"For 18 weeks their life has been in an upheaval," Gramley says, "and then the judge who dismisses the charges makes these statements. It's just outrageous as far as I'm concerned, and I would encourage folks to contact her and let her know that her comments were not appreciated."

Gramley feels Dembe's framing comments put the defendants on a par with hate-filled groups and characterized the Christian activists unfairly. "We're very pleased that the judge handed down the decision that she did," the pro-family spokeswoman says, "but we just wish she had not used the words Nazis and KKK in the statement that she made, equating Repent America with those types of hate organizations."


When Love of God and Neighbor Becomes a Hate Crime

Repent America founder Michael Marcavage would say that, far from being a hate group, his group is offering a loving response to sins that are destroying the social fabric of America. He feels the ministry has a calling and a responsibility to confront abortion, homosexuality, and other sins, and in describing its mission, he says, "If we love God, we will obey His commandments; and if we love our neighbors, we will go to them with the Word of God, so that they may be saved."

But after coming through his arrest and the ordeal of being tried in court for ministering at OutFest, Marcavage notes that the price of godly obedience is becoming increasingly steep in an increasingly faith-hostile America. "Christianity is being criminalized," he says. "The attack against Christians by government officials has never been so extreme. Not only are they removing symbols of Christianity from the public square, but they are now removing the Christians themselves."

Marcavage says what he finds most disturbing about this case, aside from "the arrests, imprisonment, and malicious prosecution," is the use of Pennsylvania hate crime law, which has added sexual orientation as a protected category. "Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne Abraham knew exactly what she was doing when she targeted us with the hate law due to our biblical opposition to homosexual behavior," the Repent America spokesman says. He notes that Abraham sits on the National Executive Committee of the Anti-Defamation League, whose members he calls "the architects of the hate crimes legislation."

Brian Fahling, senior trial attorney for the American Family Association Center for Law & Policy, has worked on behalf of the Philadelphia Christian group in the federal courts. In a statement responding to this latest ruling, he commented that the AFA Law Center is pleased for its clients as well as relieved that "justice has finally been done in the criminal system, and though it is apparently slow and rusty, the system still works."

But according to Fahling, Judge Dembe's decision to dismiss the charges ends only the first chapter in the ongoing saga of the Philadelphia 11. The group's legal representatives will be pursuing federal legal action against the arresting officers and the City of Philadelphia, and they are calling for a Department of Justice investigation into the corruption and abuse of power they allege took place in the so-called City of Brotherly Love.


http://headlines.agapepress
.org/archive/2/222005d.asp

Court Watch

Court to Review Oregon's Assisted Suicide Law
ASHLAND, ORE. -- The United States Supreme Court has agreed to take up physician-assisted suicide, potentially one of the most profound political and social issues today. The case involves Oregon's law allowing certain individuals to take their own lives with the help of a doctor. The outcome could determine whether such laws are enacted in other parts of the country.

Court Rejects Challenge to Abortion Ruling
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a challenge to its 1973 ruling legalizing abortion by the woman once known as "Jane Roe," who was at the center of the historic case. Without comment, justices declined to hear the appeal from Norma McCorvey and thus dodged a highly charged political debate for now. McCorvey's protest of Texas' abortion ban led to the Roe v. Wade ruling establishing a constitutional right to abortion.

Court Considers Property Owners' Rights
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court struggled Tuesday to balance the rights of property owners against the goals of town officials who want to sweep away old neighborhoods and turn the land over to private developers. Riverfront residents who are suing the town of New London, Conn., say their working-class neighborhood is slated for destruction primarily to build an office complex that will benefit a pharmaceutical company that built its research and development headquarters nearby.

Court Curbs State Prison Segregation
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court extended its skepticism of government policies that classify by race, ruling that state prisons cannot segregate inmates even temporarily except under the most extraordinary circumstances. The 5-3 decision Wednesday set aside a lower court ruling for California that said prisons should have wide leeway to impose race restrictions for safety reasons. It all but ended a long-standing policy in California and called into question prison restrictions in two other states.

Court Won't Review Utah Park Policy Case
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to review a National Park Service policy of asking visitors to avoid walking near Utah's Rainbow Bridge out of respect for American Indian religion. Justices let stand a lower court ruling that dismissed a 2000 lawsuit charging the policy at the world's largest natural bridge unconstitutionally endorses religion. Two visitors, Evelyn Johnson and Earl DeWaal, had alleged they were forced to leave the area and threatened with arrest several times. A prehistoric altar once stood near the arch, but it was destroyed in the 1930s.

Court Won't Remove Judge From Suit
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected the efforts of Interior Department officials to remove a federal judge from overseeing an 8-year-old lawsuit by American Indian landowners seek an accounting of trust funds set up on their behalf. The suit alleges the government mismanaged oil, gas, timber and grazing royalties going back more than a century on behalf of more than 300,000 American Indians.

Court to Hear Protective Clothing Dispute
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to consider whether meat-processing plants must pay their slaughterhouse workers for the time it takes to change into protective clothing and walk to their work stations.

Court Date Set in Arthur Andersen Appeal
HOUSTON -- The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments on the Arthur Andersen accounting firm's appeal of its obstruction-of-justice conviction. The April 27 arguments will be the last scheduled for the court this term and will focus on how the law was presented to a federal jury in Houston, the court said Tuesday. The firm was found guilty of obstructing justice by destroying Enron Corp.-related documents before the Houston-based energy giant's December 2001 collapse.

Court Won't Review Slaying Confession
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to consider throwing out a confession from a former Navy seaman charged with killing a shipmate during the Vietnam War. Without comment, justices let stand an 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that allowed the confession. Seven of the 11 judges concluded that Michael Edward LeBrun, 58, understood his rights during interrogation by Navy Criminal Investigative Service officers.

Court Won't Review Ban on Sex Toys
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court declined Tuesday to review the constitutionality of a state law banning the sale of sex toys, rejecting an appeal that said consumers have a right to sexual privacy. Without comment, justices let stand a lower court ruling that said Alabama had a right to police the sale of devices that can be sexually stimulating.

Rehnquist to Miss High Court's Opening
WASHINGTON -- Ailing Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist will be absent from the bench when the Supreme Court returns for the second half of its term next week, the court announced Friday.

Stay Extended 48 Hours

Judge extends deadline 48 hours in Terri Schiavo's case

CLEARWATER, Fla. -- A judge Wednesday extended a stay keeping Terri Schiavo's feeding tube in place, saying he needed time to decide whether her husband, who wants to let her die, is fit to be her guardian.

Pinellas Circuit Court Judge George Greer extended until Friday an emergency stay that was to expire Wednesday afternoon. He said he also needs more time to determine whether Terri Schiavo needs more medical tests to determine if she has greater mental capabilities than previously thought.

Terri Schiavo's parents have been in a long, bitter struggle with her husband, Michael Schiavo, to keep her alive. She collapsed 15 years ago Friday, when a chemical imbalance possibly triggered by an eating disorder caused her heart to stop beating and cut off oxygen to her brain.

The Florida Department of Children & Families moved to intervene in the case Wednesday, hours after Gov. Jeb Bush told reporters he was seeking a way to keep Terri Schiavo alive.

Details of the agency's involvement in the case were not immediately available; Greer denied a DCF attorney an opportunity to speak at the afternoon hearing.

George Felos, who represents Michael Schiavo, criticized the DCF move, saying it "reeks of the intervention of politics into the case and is an affront to the court."

David Gibbs, the attorney for Schiavo's parents, Robert and Mary Schindler, countered that there are serious allegations of abuse in the case. The Schindlers have accused their son-in-law of mistreating his wife; he has emphatically denied the accusations.

Some doctors have testified that Terri Schiavo is in a persistent vegetative state with no hope for recovery, but the Schindlers have countered with other medical opinions that she might improve with rehabilitation. The 41-year-old woman appears to cry, laugh and react to her family.

Bush said Wednesday he is exploring options to block the removal of the tube but added that there was only so much he could do.

"I can assure you, I will do whatever I can within the means, within the laws, of our state to protect this woman's life," Bush said, adding that he has received thousands of e-mails and telephone calls from the Schindlers' supporters.

"People with deep faith and big hearts are concerned, as I am about the circumstance that Ms. Schiavo is in," the governor said. "I want them to know I will do what I can, but there are limits to what any particular person - irrespective of the title they currently hold - can do."

In October 2003, Schiavo went without food or water for six days before Bush pushed through a law letting him order reinsertion of the tube. The Florida Supreme Court later struck down his action as unconstitutional. The tube was also removed for two days in 2001.

Michael Schiavo said his wife never wanted to be kept alive artifically, but she left no written directive.

The Schindlers dispute their daughter had such wishes and say their son-in-law stands to gain from his wife's death, both financially and personally. They have offered to take care of her if Michael Schiavo, who has a new family with another woman, would divorce her.


http://apnews.myway.com/art
icle/20050223/D88EFQAO0.html

Looting in Missouri

Police: Mob Loots Late-Night Convenience Store

Police are investigating a couple of incidents in which a mob has looted a late-night convenience store in the 1500 block of East 23rd Street.

The lootings have coincided with the closing time of a popular bar downtown Lawrence bar. The most recent incident happened early Sunday morning.

"I go to lock the door and not letting anyone in, and they just rip the door from my hand and started barging in," store manager Kelly Williams said.

Aylward said it has happened once before, but on Sunday the crowd was even bigger -- estimated at 100 to 150 people -- inside the shop, stealing stuff as fast as they could. Aylward said that the looters didn't just take one or two items. They took boxes of candy, snacks and even cases of beer. The store did not disclose how much of a financial hit it took.

All of it was caught by a surveillance camera. Police did not make arrests that night, but suspected the people pictured on the surveillance tape had just let out of Last Call -- a bar known for its music and late hours.

"If we do close early and other places don't, I don't see how that solves the problem," bar owner Dennis Steffes said.

Steffes insists the problem is not alcohol, his hours, or the crowds.

"We have crime whether or not Last Call was open or not. You know, that's what I mean. The only way you're going to stop this is you have to remove the crime. The only way you're going to remove the crime is to arrest the criminals," Steffes said.

The convenience store, which was open 24 hours, will now close a bit earlier, Aylward said.

"Something's got to be done," Williams said.


http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=35
3&u=/ibsys/20050223/lo_kmbc/2598093&printer=1

Terri Schiavo, Feb. 23, 2005

Schiavo Husband, Parents to Argue in Court
Two courts ruling within an hour of each other handed victories to either side yesterday in the bitterly contested fight over the fate the brain-damaged woman, paving the way for more legal wrangling.

Clock running out for Terri Schiavo
Attorneys maneuver as emergency stay expires today
An emergency stay delaying removal of Terri Schiavo's feeding tube expires this afternoon after a court hearing on the fate of the severely brain-damaged Florida woman.

Humane Society?
In Orwellian fashion, proponents of the “right-to-die” movement emphasize their compassion and humanity in relieving the suffering of those who want to die with dignity rather than suffer pain or humiliation in a so-called vegetative state.

Pray for Terri Schiavo
I received this email today. Please visit the sites listed and do as they ask. This is very serious…if we are at the point where a living, responsive woman is deemed unworthy to live and starved to death, and we say and do nothing, we are a nation which deserves serious judgment from God. God bless America? We need to fall on our faces before the holy God and plead for His mercy, repenting of our selfishness and apathy.

Jeb Bush could save Terri's life ... if he wanted to
Recently, the U.S. Supreme Court paved the way for the execution of Terri Schiavo, beginning today. She is the brain-damaged woman whose husband has been trying to starve and dehydrate her to death for years. Florida Gov. Jeb Bush should have responded...

Judge orders Schiavo hearing
The founder of Operation Rescue urged Gov. Jeb Bush and Florida legislators Tuesday to head off any court action removing Terri Schiavo's life supports. As a circuit judge in Pinellas County ordered a one-day delay in removal of her feeding tube, Randall Terry said his organization would mount a nationwide campaign of phone calls and e-mails to prod lawmakers into action. "Terri does not deserve to be starved to death," said Terry. "If we had a dog and put it in a cage here at the Capitol and said we were going to starve this dog to death, there'd be an outrage of public opinion - and rightly so. Why do we treat a human being in ways we wouldn't treat a dog?"

Terri Schiavo and the soul of America
It is often said by abortion supporters that a fetus is not a baby until it can survive independently outside the mother's womb. This is, of course, a specious argument since this "survival" is not possible without the care and nourishment of others, either pre or post birth.

Terri Schiavo counts: Now give her equal protection
Before lawmakers in Florida allow Terri Schiavo, a mentally disabled woman who is fed through a tube, to be starved and dehydrated to death, they ought to take a careful look at the 2000 Census. It explains why the Constitution compels them to keep fighting for Terri's life.

Schiavo's Parents Gain Another Day to Plead for Her Life
PINELLAS PARK -- The parents of a severely brain-damaged woman won one more reprieve Tuesday when a judge ordered Terri Schiavo's feeding tube to remain in place at least until 5 p.m. today. Pinellas Circuit Judge George Greer issued the order just 45 minutes after an appellate court cleared the way for Michael Schiavo to remove his wife's life support.

Courts Deadlock on Schiavo's Fate
2nd DCA says tube can be removed,
but circuit judge issues an emergency stay.
DUNEDIN -- The fate of a severely brain-damaged woman remained locked in a flurry of legal gamesmanship Tuesday, as a state appeals court cleared the way for her husband to have a feeding tube removed, but a local judge then blocked the removal, at least for another day.

George Tiller Subpoenaed by Texas

News Wire
Tiller subpoenaed in Texas investigation
Texas authorities have subpoenaed Wichita's notorious abortion doctor George Tiller ("Tiller the Killer"). Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline said Tuesday the case involves a 19-year-old woman who was treated at Tiller's clinic and later died.

Related

• Texas seeks records of Tiller patient who died
• Abortion at Kansas Clinic Led to Woman’s Death Leaked Governor’s Memo Admits
• Wichita abortion doctor subpoenaed in Texas investigation
• Sebelius seeks clinic inquiry; Board to investigate rumored death at Wichita abortion office
• State investigates report of death at Tiller clinic

Tiller subpoenaed in Texas investigation

By John Hanna / The Associated Press

TOPEKA, Kan. -- Texas authorities have subpoenaed Wichita abortion doctor George Tiller.

Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline said Tuesday the case involves a 19-year-old woman who was treated at Tiller's clinic and later died.

A spokesman for the Texas attorney general's office said it is not investigating the woman's death but events in Texas before she went to Kansas.

Kline described Tiller as a potential witness for the investigation. Tiller's attorneys said Texas authorities want to examine medical records and other unspecified items - and that the doctor would comply. His attorneys did not say what the case involves, including whether it involves a patient at his clinic.

Tiller's attorneys described the subpoena as routine and said the Texas investigation is not directed at the doctor.

"Other medical facilities in Wichita have received similar subpoenas from the state of Texas in this investigation," they said in a statement. "We see no reason that Dr. Tiller's appearance will be required in any court regarding the records."

Tiller's clinic, Women Health Care Services, is under scrutiny because anti-abortion groups have reported that the woman died on or about Jan. 13. On Monday, Kansans for Life, the state's largest anti-abortion group, released a document confirming that the Kansas Board of Healing Arts has initiated an investigation.

Kline said during a news conference Tuesday that the 19-year-old woman, a Texas resident, received services at Tiller's clinic earlier this year and later died. He said the woman was developmentally disabled but would not discuss the circumstances of her death or what services Tiller's clinic provided.

Kline stressed that Tiller himself is not facing a criminal inquiry and said the doctor was subpoenaed as someone who may have evidence significant to the Texas investigation.

Kline acknowledged his statements during the news conference suggested Texas officials were investigating the woman's death, but he later said, "I do not mean to infer that."

"It probably could have been worded more delicately," Kline said. "I just didn't want to get into the details of what Texas is doing."

Spokesman Ben Taylor said Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott and Kline's office are cooperating, but that there had been a misunderstanding about the scope of Texas' investigation.

"Our investigation centers on events that may have happened in Texas," Taylor said. "We are not investigating the woman's death."

Taylor declined to discuss his office's inquiry further, noting that the investigation is ongoing.

For more than a decade, Tiller's clinic has been the target of anti-abortion protests because the doctor performs late-term abortions. The first report of the woman's death came from Operation Rescue, an anti-abortion group.

---

On the Net:

Kansas attorney general's office: http://www.accesskansas.org/ksag

Texas attorney general's office: http://www.oag.state.tx.us/index.shtml

Kansas Board of Healing Arts: http://www.ksbha.org

Tiller's clinic: http://www.drtiller.com


http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kan
sascity/news/local/10965016.htm?1c

Emergency stay issued for Terri Schiavo

DUNEDIN, Fla. — The case of a severely brain-damaged woman remained locked in a legal stalemate Tuesday after an appeals court cleared the way for her husband to remove her feeding tube only to see a judge promptly block the removal for at least another day.

The 2nd District Court of Appeal offered no specific instructions in a one-page mandate issued in the case of Terri Schiavo, who was left brain damaged 15 years ago. That meant her husband, Michael Schiavo, could order his wife's tube be removed.

But Pinellas Circuit Court Judge George Greer later issued an emergency stay blocking removal of the feeding tube until 5 p.m. EST Wednesday. Greer, who has been overseeing the long-standing dispute, scheduled a hearing on the case for earlier Wednesday.


http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story
/CTVNews/1109099090336_104508290/?hub=World

Eric Rudolph: Born to Run

Rudolph Defense Claims Carolina Culture Linked To Years On The Run

By Jay Reeves / The Associated Press

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- Eric Rudolph's lawyers have an explanation for his nearly 5 1/2 years on the lam after an Alabama abortion clinic bombing: His culture made him do it.

The defense has asked a court to allow the testimony of a university professor who contends Rudolph's years as a fugitive are consistent with the culture of western North Carolina, where the serial bombing suspect spent much of his life.

The question of why Rudolph was a fugitive for so long is likely to be key to his upcoming death penalty trial since the government claims his years on the run are a sign of guilt.

In a document filed Friday, the defense said jurors in Rudolph's upcoming trial should be allowed to hear from Western Carolina University history professor Curtis W. Wood.

The professor would say that "Rudolph's retreat to the wilderness in the face of being sought by federal law enforcement is consistent with the cultural values, principles and lifestyles of some of those in the region," according to the defense.

The subculture of the area includes "strong community ties coupled with an independent spirit; living off the land; preservation of individual privacy and freedom; and a persistent mistrust and suspicion of government," according to an earlier defense document.

Prosecutors oppose testimony by Wood, arguing it lacks any scientific basis. A judge has said he would rule on the issue without a hearing.

Rudolph vanished after a man driving his pickup truck was seen in Birmingham near the scene of a deadly abortion clinic bombing in January 1998. He was captured in May 2003 in Murphy, N.C., and reportedly told authorities he spent the intervening years hiding in the mountains.

Preliminary jury selection is set to begin next month in Birmingham. Rudolph also is accused in the fatal bombing at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996 and bombings in Atlanta in 1997.


http://www.wgcltv.com/gl
obal/story.asp?s=2983889

Court: Husband Can Kill Wife

By Vickie Chachere / The Associated Press

Court clears way for husband to remove feeding tube from Terri Schiavo

DUNEDIN -- A Florida appeals court cleared the way Tuesday for the husband of a severely brain-damaged woman to remove the feeding tube which has been keeping her alive for 15 years.

The 2nd District Court of Appeal offered no specific instructions in a one-page mandate issued in the case of Terri Schiavo. That means Michael Schiavo could order his wife's tube removed within hours of the appeals court action, which ended the last judicial stay blocking the tube's removal.

Terri Schiavo's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, were seeking an emergency stay from a Pinellas County judge in hopes of keeping their daughter alive long enough for them to file additional legal pleadings in the case. It would likely take several days for Terri Schiavo to die if the tube is pulled.

The appeals court's mandate allowed Michael Schiavo to act under previous court rulings. The appeals court has consistently upheld lower court rulings that Terri Schiavo had expressed wishes not to be kept alive artificially, although she left no written directive.

Pinellas Circuit Court Judge George Greer, who twice has granted Michael Schiavo permission to remove his wife's feeding tube, was asked to issue an emergency stay that would keep Terri Schiavo alive while her parents seek to oust their son-in-law as her guardian and additional medical tests which might back their assertion that their daughter has some mental capabilities and reacts to them with tears and smiles.

George Felos, Michael Schiavo's attorney, did not have any immediate reaction.

The internationally watched legal battle which pitted Michael Schiavo against his in-laws over the fate of his 41-year-old wife prompted protests Tuesday _ including the picketing of Michael Schiavo's home _ and pleas in Tallahassee for lawmakers and Gov. Jeb Bush to intervene.

Michael Schiavo's anticipated direction for doctors to remove the tube comes almost exactly to the day of the 15th anniversary of Terri Schiavo's collapse.

She suffered severe brain damage on Feb. 25, 1990 when a chemical imbalance believed to have been brought on by an eating disorder caused her heart to stop beating and cut off oxygen to her brain. While she breathes on her own, she relies on the feeding tube to survive. Doctors have ruled she is in a persistent vegetative state with no hope for recovery.


http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/s
fl-222schiavo,0,7509469.story?coll=sfla-home-headlines

McCorvey Rejected Without Comment

Supreme Court Rejects McCorvey's Challenge To Roe Vs. Wade Without Comment

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a challenge to its landmark 1973 ruling legalizing abortion by the woman once known as "Jane Roe," who was at the center of the historic case.

Without comment, justices declined to hear the appeal from Norma McCorvey and thus dodged a highly charged political debate for now. McCorvey's protest of Texas' abortion ban led to the Roe v. Wade ruling establishing a constitutional right to abortion.

McCorvey, who says she now regrets her role in the decision, argued in court filings that the case should be heard again in light of evidence that abortion harms women.

The high court's move Tuesday wasn't surprising. A decision to reopen a case based on so-called "changed circumstances" is rare, and two lower courts had already refused to reconsider the ruling.

It also comes amid intense speculation over whether ailing Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist will retire this term. Liberal groups have vowed to fight any nominee replacing him that opposes the landmark ruling.

At least three justices, Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, have said Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided and should be overturned.

In its September ruling throwing out McCorvey's lawsuit, a three-judge panel of the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had said that her claims were "moot," or no longer relevant, because Texas' abortion ban had long been repealed.

The last major abortion decision by the Supreme Court came in 2000, when the court ruled 5-4 to strike down Nebraska's ban on so-called "partial-birth" abortion because it failed to provide an exception to protect the mother's health.

The case is McCorvey v. Hill, 04-967.


http://www.cnn.com/2005/LA
W/02/22/scotus.abortion.ap/

Latest News Headlines

• Man Charged in Alleged Plot to Kill Bush
• Right-To-Die Case Hinges on Appeals Court
• Supreme Court to Review Assisted Suicide Law
• Brazil Leader Vows to Catch Nun's Killers
• Poll Shows Doubts Over Bush Democracy Push

• Texas Police Seek Missing Pregnant Woman
• Fla. Couple Accused of Torturing Kids
• BTK Killer's Writing Style Has Changed
• CDC Chief: Bird Flu Could Become Epidemic
• Microsoft in Quandary Over Virus Security
• Bill to Bar Eating Cats, Dogs Stirs Debate

High Drama, Conflict Await Supreme Court

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court returns this week for the second half of its term with some of the biggest issues yet to be decided: the juvenile death penalty, Ten Commandments displays and the future of its ailing leader.

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, 80, has been working mainly from home since October, when he announced he had thyroid cancer. Since then, his only public appearance was to swear in President Bush last month.

Little is known about Rehnquist's condition, though he appeared frail. The court has not said whether he will return even part-time to the bench when the justices resume work Tuesday.

"It's symbolically important that he return," said Stephen Wermiel, a law professor at American University, noting it would help dispel concerns that Rehnquist isn't sufficiently engaged in his job. "It will be an important guidepost to see if he will come back at all."

Speculation is rampant that Rehnquist will step down, though when that might happen is anybody's guess. Some believe he will wait until the end of the session in June so any confirmation battle over a high court nominee doesn't handcuff Congress at the beginning of Bush's second term.

Due to his cancer treatment, Rehnquist did not participate in decisions from the dozen cases heard in November. However, the court said he intends to take part in the December and January cases by relying on briefs and transcripts of the arguments.

In the November cases, Rehnquist has said he will step in to vote if the other eight justices are deadlocked.

Justices could rule as early as next week on whether the Constitution allows states to execute juvenile killers, a question that could strike down the practice in 19 states. The court is closely divided on death penalty issues; the question is which side will get the majority in this case, which was heard in October while Rehnquist was still on the bench.

Other major cases already argued but yet to be decided involve whether the federal government can prosecute people who use marijuana medicinally, the scope of the landmark Title IX gender equity law, and whether states can bar interstate wine sales over the Internet.

Justices will hear several arguments this spring on religion and property rights, including a case Tuesday that will decide whether cash-strapped cities may seize people's homes to make way for economic development projects. The court also will revisit the death penalty in late March when it considers how U.S. authorities should deal with foreign nationals facing charges that could result in execution.

And it will hear a big-money Internet dispute that questions whether file-sharing services should be held responsible when their customers illegally swap songs and movies online.

The emotionally charged Ten Commandments issue will be argued in two cases the court will hear March 2. The question for justices is whether government displays violate the Constitution's ban on "establishment" of religion.

The case offers Rehnquist another chance to leave a constitutional mark on the role of religion in public life. Last year justices punted on whether "under God" should be included in the Pledge of Allegiance recited daily in public schools nationwide. They rejected the case on technical grounds.

"There's going to be a lot of fireworks here," said Richard Garnett, a former Rehnquist clerk who teaches law at Notre Dame. "I'm sure the chief justice would very much like to be able to participate fully in this term's cases since so many are closely connected to his constitutional legacy, such as religious freedom."

In the coming weeks, justices will consider whether to hear the Bush administration's challenge to Oregon's unique assisted suicide law, and a challenge to the government's right to put terror suspect Zacarias Moussaoui on trial even though he had no access to potentially favorable al Qaeda witnesses.

The Supreme Court also expects to receive soon a government appeal of a lower court ruling letting colleges limit activities of military recruiters on campus because of the military's ban on openly gay people.

But if accepted for review, those cases won't be heard until the new term starting in October. If Rehnquist does step down as expected, a court divided 5-4 on issues including the death penalty, affirmative action and gay rights could by then have its first new member in more than a decade.


http://news.findlaw.com/ap_stories/a/w
/1154/2-17-2005/20050217114504_06.html

Montana House Dumps Hate Crimes Bill Protecting Gays

HELENA, Mont. - The Montana House on Monday killed a bill that would have extended the state's hate crimes law to protect gays.

The bill would have made it a crime to target people based such factors as age, economic condition, disability, gender or sexual orientation. It was rejected 54-46.

State law already outlaws intimidating or harassing someone because of race, religion, color, creed or national origin. Offenses carry a minimum two-year prison term.

Debate focused mainly on whether the law should cover crimes against gays and lesbians.

Republicans, who accounted for all but five of the opponents, warned the bill would stifle free speech and could prevent clergy from speaking out against homosexuality in their sermons.

Supporters said the bill aimed to protect people who could be targeted because they belonged to a certain group.

Similar bills have failed in each of the six preceding legislative sessions.

A similar bill in the state Senate has been stalled in committee since January.


http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&u=
/ap/20050221/ap_on_re_us/hate_crimes_1&printer=1

Satan's Love Spell

Beliefnet.com Interviews Witch About Casting Love Spells

Wiccan high priestess cast spell on men

Phyllis Curott is an author, attorney and Wiccan high priestess. One of the Wiccan spiritual movement's most influential theologians, Curott lectures and teaches internationally, and is also the Wiccan representative to Harvard University's Religious Pluralism Project Consultation on Religious Discrimination and Accommodation. Curott, 50, describes The Love Spell as a true story of a love spell that worked, and the sexual and spiritual journey that the spell provoked. It's also a tale of personal, and global, awakening to the magic of love. Beliefnet senior editor Deborah Caldwell talked with Curott about the spell.

How did you decide that you wanted to cast a love spell?

From the time we’re little kids--singing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” or blowing out the candles and wishing on our birthday cake--we’re casting spells all the time. When you meditate, when you make a plan, when you make a wish, you’re casting a spell, you’re opening your heart to the universe, you’re focusing your mind and visualizing what you want, and you then are investing life force energy to bring it about. And that was part of the message of this book--I wanted people to realize how powerful we really are in manifesting the longings of our heart.

Tell the story of casting the old-fashioned spell to get your man.

I was 27, and practicing Wicca at the time. I was a witchlet, a baby witch, and had been practicing for about a year. My women’s group would meet in this wonderful, spooky old shop, a dark dusty shop in New York, which is no longer there, a perfect movie set. I would see all these people coming in to cast love spells, and I had been longing for a long time, and finally I said to myself, “Well, why not? If you can, why shouldn’t you?” So I concocted a potion which was made up of an herb which at the time was much more obscure and now much better known in the medical community, using the bark--it’s calledyohimbe--using the bark of an African tree, and it has to be treated very specifically because it can be toxic.

Wow.

It’s given to men to enhance their sexuality, and in African cultures it’s given to newlywed couples for their honeymoon night. Anyway, I whipped up this little potion and I followed the directions very carefully, and it was a full moon on a Friday night, the night devoted to the Goddess of Love, and I cast a circle to create sacred space and to contain the energy that I was going to raise, and I had a drawing of a very romantic image of a man who looked like a king. He was wearing a crown, and had wonderful cheekbones and long hair. He was riding this magnificent horse with a long mane and a long tail, and a broad sword and a shield with a face on it. And sitting in front of him on the horse in his embrace, is a princess, and they’re going through a magical forest. And I clutched that to my chest as I went into an altered state, which was extraordinary and intense, with amazing feelings of energy coursing through me. And I then proceeded to use a little good old-fashioned sex magic, which is essentially the harnessing of one’s arousal and orgasm. That energy is directed into what it is that you are longing for, the goal of your spell, the object of your prayers. And for me it was embodied in this image.

There was this sense of diving deep below the surface of my own inhibitions, which is when I brought the energy of sexuality into this religious ritual that was devoted to love. And then I fell asleep after the culmination of this rite and the raising of energy.

A number of weeks later, lo and behold, one evening the priestess that I was studying with said, “I have somebody that I want to introduce you to,” and she pointed to a man standing, looking at a book, his back to me. He had long hair, and when he turned around he was the image in that drawing. The long hair, gaunt cheekbones, and I almost passed out.

Did you immediately know this was “him?”

Yes, I knew who it was. And he looked at me and I looked at him and there was this flair, that love at first sight thing that hits, and I think he felt it too.

How does casting a spell work?

We know now, through lots of studies, how much the mind and the heart--the energy of a human being’s soul--directed at a goal can affect the outcome. That’s quantum physics. One perspective on this is when you use herbs and spells and incense and music and chanting, essentially all you’re doing is using those things to trigger a shift in consciousness. And that it’s actually that shift in consciousness that makes things manifest. There is another theory which says, yes, that’s true, that is what’s going on, but simultaneously everything has energy, and so you’re adding the energies of a plant and aroma and light and color and sound – all these additional energies to your own, which have the effect of magnifying what you’re doing.

Suppose I work for 10 years with a particular ritual tool, like a goblet--for me it’s a very powerful spiritual aid. If a stranger came along and picked that goblet up and drank from it or put it on their shelf or whatever, would they suddenly have magic in their lives because the object was so charged. It’s not until you are conscious and aware that you can unlock that power, tap into that power and make it work.

Suppose you’re a typical American woman who is not a Wiccan. How would you cast a love spell?

One of the most important messages that I hope will be communicated in this book is that you don’t have to be Wiccan to understand love. Everybody knows when you fall in love the world is magic, regardless of your religion. Everybody has that experience, that the world is more radiant, that all of your senses are heightened. Love is for me the greatest of magic or the greatest of miracle or the greatest divine truth, they all mean the same thing. When you make a wish, when you pray, when you meditate, when you chant, when you visualize--so much of the self-help books do what we’ve been doing for a long time, but without that red-button word “witch” or “witchcraft.” For example, you sit down and you make a list of all the qualities that you want in a partner, and then you take that list and you put it in an envelope and you put it some place safe. Then lo and behold, that person appears. Anyone can do it, because what you’re doing--whether it’s a spell or a potion or a meditation or wish or a list, what you’re doing is opening your heart to the universe. And love is the most powerful energy there is. And longing is an expression of that desire for love. It's also the initiation of our journeys to love and the journey to ourselves. But anyone can do that, and everybody does.

Do you believe in love at first sight? I do. But I have learned that love at first sight is not often as it appears to be.

Explain.

If you walk into a room full of strangers, there’s some sort of unconscious radar--whether it’s body language or appearance or whatever--that will direct you to exactly who you are attracted to. Inevitably that person embodies the pattern that we absorbed in childhood. It’s an unconscious pattern that holds within it all the mysteries of the journey of love that we have to go through. And it’s a journey that involves realizing who we are and seeing what our needs and our wounds are. What we so often do is project those those wounds, those needs, onto the person with whom we fall in love at first sight. That person embodies the missing parts of ourselves. And then through the relationship we’re seeking to heal these leftover wounds of childhood.

You experienced love at first sight with Derek, the object of your love spell, but then it turned out he wasn’t the right man.

Yes--you know, you go through life, you have relationships, you approach them with a full and open heart, and a belief that this is the one, and you commit yourself to that journey together. Then you begin to find that the reality doesn’t conform to your fantasy.

In fact, when we fall in love at first sight we are under the influence of the love potion--that’s what they call it--which is this biochemical surge that the brain and the body produces, that basically intoxicates you so you go mad with love, and you can’t see the person that you’ve fallen in love. And it’s not until those chemicals abate, which takes anywhere from six months to three years, that you begin to see the reality of the person that you are with, and most people at that point think that they’ve fallen out of love, because that intensity, fervor, and erotic arousal has diminished. You are entering a new level of intimacy, which demands more of you in a sense, people leave, because they’re not getting the rush. Very often people will go looking for the repetition of that rush; they look to fall in love again.

To me, a relationship is discovering the reality of who you’re with, and the role they play in the discovery of your own soul. You can’t love fully--you can’t find your soul mate until you have found your own soul, until you’re whole. And the gift that we give each other in these relationships is the opportunity to discover those missing or wounded parts of ourselves, so that instead of trying to heal your partner--and that’s what I did--I finally realized it was myself that needed healing. Instead of trying to support and nurture him, it was I who needed the support and the nurturing. And it was only after I had made that journey, which was a journey of many years, that I came to a place of peace and wholeness and openness to the ability to truly love.

What is the relationship between women’s sexuality and spirituality?

I think that relationships are the new mystery schools--in Western culture they were the mysteries of the Goddess, often sexual. The mythology was that of the descent of the goddess into the underworld, and her confrontation with death, which was usually the God in his role as the warrior, and their union out of which new life comes, and the emergence then out the underworld. Their union is sexual, and to me that idea of conjoined polarity is at the heart of the entire universe. The entire universe is held together by the dynamic interaction of these opposite poles that are brought together to create something new; that’s how new life’s created.

So when we engage in relationship, that coming together is the opportunity for the revelation of a profound spiritual mystery, which you find in the eyes of the beloved. And that’s the reason for our existence. It is through us that love comes into the world, and it is through us that divinity comes into the world, and it is at that moment of connection, of recognition, loves comes into the eyes, it is that moment of connection with another. And it doesn’t have to be only a sexual, you know, expressed in a sexual connection.It can be through a child, it can be through friends, it can be an act of compassion with a stranger--but it is that moment of recognition of the connection between two human beings that we are expressing our divinity. Sexuality between two people who are in love is a way of finding the divine within yourself, experiencing it, seeing it, recognizing it, feeling it, being a partner, seeing it embodied, feeling it embodied.

So are you saying that the love potion brings two people together, but it’s only after sexual union that you figure out whether you can create true love together--or are you saying that you find common ground as friends first, and then experience the sacred sexual union?

I think it can work both ways. In my experience, there was an amazing experience of realization initially through sexual experience, through the process of making love. That experience of making love as a revelation of divinity can be an event that occurs once, and then never again. That requires a more sophisticated perspective than most of us have.

You wrote a fair amount about the idea of being sexually receptive, of learning how to be feminine in your sexuality. Can you explain that?

I’ve been having conversations with women all over the country and I’m hearing from so many women that they’re all struggling with the same thing that I struggled with. We were part of the first wave of women into the work force. And in order to make our way, we had to become like men. But the problem was that, first of all we were buying into the rules of the game, when in fact it was the game that needed to be changed. And in the process of going over to the other side we relinquished a lot of the feminine.

This book is about realizing that what I had done in the boardroom I was doing in the bedroom. And it’s been an amazing to talk to so many women and hear over and over again how they have all been struggling with the same affliction that we didn’t even realize for a long time: that we would get home, after being the breadwinners, and go to bed with our partners, and it was just not working. There was no sexual tension, it wasn’t erotic, it wasn’t arousing, it wasn’t working, and it was in part because we were still in our heads, we were still trying to control. We were still, you know, active! active! active! Go go go go go! Evaluating: is he aroused? Am I doing it right? Am I doing a good job?

And then we would come home, and very often we would come home to men who were holding the feminine energy and they were drawn to us because we were holding the masculine energy, but when it came time to enter the temple of the heart, the sacred sanctuary of eroticism, we were frustrated and unfulfilled and we didn’t know why. Even when we began to figure out why, it was still a struggle because we couldn’t get the armor off. And there was a complete rejection of the idea of being receptive. We confuse being receptive with being passive or being submissive, and the fact is that no one can experience love unless they’re capable of being receptive. Receptive is dynamic. It’s just a different movement of energy. It’s pulling instead of pushing.

How did you write those explicit scenes?

It was unbelievably difficult to write this. There’s a reason that very few writers write erotically, because it is the hardest thing to write.

Did you read romance novels?

I did! I read a lot of romance novels, actually. I read the classics, I read the erotic sex scenes from major authors, all periods of literature, and I read a lot of modern stuff, which I found to be completely unerotic. There are stories about sex and they’re not even remotely sexy.

And finally, thanks to the librarian at my local library, I found my way to romance novels. I discovered that romance novels are actually the secret erotica of the American women. The women in these books are strong, self-reliant, independent, but they haven’t lost their feminine capacities to be receptive. And the men are very strong males, but they are incredibly receptive, very emotional, very giving, and the erotic scenes are about that give and flow of energy back and forth. Because both partners have to be capable of both.

And then I sat down and I started to write, and I was blocked! Completely blocked! Try to write a love scene in the first person! No one does that, it’s an utterly insane thing to do. So I started by writing in the third person, and then I went back and changed it to first person, and gradually by the end of the book I was able to write in the first person. For all of my spiritual perspectives, I had to confront that we are the embodiment of divine energy, that our bodies are sacred, that sexuality is sacred, that it’s the path to discovering divinity.

When you sit down to write this kind of thing, you feel like you’re having sex in public and you have to confront all of the inhibitions that come from your culture. And it took a while, but I was able to break though. It was very important to me to write a book that was sexy and arousing that validated women’s capacity for to experience ecstasy. Their right to experience it, their capacity to experience it, what it was that they longer for, and I wanted to write it in a way that was genuinely reaffirming of that and arousing, because I really believe that a sexually aroused and gratified woman is the most powerful force in the universe, and in that that state is the embodiment of the Goddess.

So you finished the book and write and ending that was a fantasy about meeting Mr. Right. And then what happened?

It ended with the realization that I’m casting a spell and that it ends with my closing of the book, putting down my pen, and the reader’s realization that I’ve cast the spell. And I sent it to my editor and she called me up and she said, “You have to get the guy in the ending.” And I said, “I’d love to but it’s not a novel, it’s a memoir. This book is the story of a spell that worked but the book itself is also a spell.” She said, “You’re a witch! Make it work!” and I said, “I’m doing the best I can.”

And then about one lunar cycle after that, I met someone--it was utterly guided and incredibly magical. We didn’t meet in person--we met over the Internet, and we corresponded for six weeks before we actually met in person. Did you meet on an online dating service?

We did. I looked at a dating site on my computer and thought, "It’s like eBay shopping! So much fun!" And I put up a profile and I was swamped and started dating and made a very good friend from it with whom I dated for a quite a while. But then I had to work on my book, so I put it aside. And a month after I met with my editor, the little voice inside that I had learned to listen to--said go to the dating site. I said, “I’m not wasting my time with that." And the voice said “You have to go right now.”

So I gave up because the voice is usually right, and I’m looking through the pictures and there’s this little picture of Sitting Bull, which I recognized because I did a lot of indigenous, shamanic work for a long time. The voice said, “That’s the one.” And up came the profile and I started reading and it was written by someone who was clearly a terrific writer, and there were pictures of this dark haired, dark eyed guy. I sent him a note and he looked at my profile. And we had, as two writers would, a very 19th century courtship of correspondence.


http://www.beliefnet.com/s
tory/160/story_16056_1.html

Georgia Abortion Providers Less Vexed

Doctors who provide abortions still oppose a bill before the General Assembly, but they welcome changes approved last week — including one allowing physicians to keep performing first-trimester abortions in their offices.

Physician groups and state officials don't know how many doctors perform such abortions, outside of hospitals and the nine state-licensed abortion clinics. But authorities say many do. Abortion rights activists say the service is especially vital in rural areas far removed from the clinics.

"It's an extremely important service," said Dr. Joel Engel, who said he performs a few abortions a year, on his regular patients, at Northside Hospital but none in his Atlanta office. "Shouldn't women, who already agonize over this decision, be able to have it done by their own doctor, whom they know and trust?"

Anti-abortion activists will try again to curb office-performed abortions in future legislation, said Pat Chivers, a lobbyist for Georgia Right to Life.

The existing bill, approved Thursday by a House committee, is expected to go before the full House this week. It would require a 24-hour waiting period for abortions after women receive information on fetal pain, fetal development and alternatives to abortion such as adoption.

It also would require a minor's parents or legal guardian to be notified before she could have an abortion. Current law says a stand-in, such as a grandparent or other relative, can be given notice.

Abortion providers still decry those stipulations, saying they would interfere with their medical practice and cause more later-term abortions by making it more difficult for women to get them. They also oppose increased record keeping required by the bill.

But the doctors say they are relieved other requirements were removed. One would have made them tell women that abortion increases the risk of breast cancer, a link disputed by the National Cancer Institute. Another would have allowed the husband or parents of a woman seeking an abortion to sue a doctor for failing to provide information required by the bill.

"It's still a big imposition," Dr. Carrie Cwiak of Emory University, who performs abortions at Grady Memorial Hospital and Feminist Women's Health Center in Atlanta, said of the revised bill. "It's just not as ridiculous an imposition."

One of the biggest victories for abortion rights activists was the removal from the bill — by its sponsor, Rep. Sue Burmeister (R-Augusta) — of the requirement that doctors providing first-trimester abortions do so only at hospitals or clinics. Physicians performing abortions in their offices offer surgical abortions without anesthesia or medication-induced abortions using the pill RU-486.

The state does not have a record of how many doctors provide such abortions, said Demetrius Parker, a spokesman for the Georgia Division of Public Health. But he confirmed that hundreds of the 30,000 or so abortions reported in Georgia each year are performed by doctors in counties without abortion clinics. Six of the clinics are in metro Atlanta, with one each in Augusta, Columbus and Savannah.

Engel, who is on the board of Planned Parenthood of Georgia, said more than half of the state's 850 or so obstetrician/gynecologists perform abortions, many of them in their offices. "But less than 1 percent will acknowledge it," he said. "They don't want to discuss it. They're afraid."

Dr. John Moore, president of the Atlanta OB/GYN Society and former president of its Georgia counterpart, estimated that about 25 percent of the doctors perform abortions — less than 15 percent in their offices.

But Moore said restricting office-performed abortions would have a big impact. "It would certainly hurt women in small towns and rural areas where they don't have a clinic," he said.

While abortion rights activists applauded most changes to the bill, they were suspicious of one: a definition of "fetus" as a "member of the species homo sapiens from fertilization until birth."

Intrauterine devices, emergency contraception pills such as Plan B and other birth control measures sometimes work by preventing implantation in the uterus of eggs already fertilized. Some worry that the new definition of fetus could lead to birth control restrictions.

Chivers, of Georgia Right to Life, said the definition of fetus was added because it fits with what other states, such as Pennsylvania, have adopted.

Chivers said anti-abortion activists were not happy losing some provisions in the bill. But "compromises are part of the process," she said. "We're satisfied with it and ready for it to go to the House."


http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/me
tro/legis05/0205/21legabortion.html

The Best And Brightest

By Paul Proctor / NewsWithViews.com


In its ongoing pursuit of the culture and its favor, today’s compromised church continues to imitate the world it wants to “reach” for Christ, demonstrating clearly to those with eyes to see and ears to hear that something has gone terribly wrong in and around the pulpit and that very few of those in leadership are aware of it or are willing to address it with any honesty or conviction.

Though openly fought battles against liberal strongholds like euthanasia, fetal stem cell research, human cloning, abortion, gun control, homosexuality and public education are proudly waged by many highly visible conservatives, giving the illusion of progress, a Christianized humanism and ecclesiastical socialism are sweeping the country right now and rotting the church from within while its celebrated shepherds bask in the glory of their newfound stardom under a “born again” White House.


http://www.newswithviews.co
m/PaulProctor/proctor64.htm

Woman´s Right To Know Act

WOMAN´S RIGHT TO KNOW ACT

As Introduced In The House
STATE EXPANSION OF THE CHILD KILLING BUSINESS

Legislative Analysis of Georgia's Woman´s Right to Know Act by Jim Rudd

Guided by the homicidal principles of "keeping abortion safe and legal," the Woman´s Right to Know Act (HB 197) stipulates that abortion is to be authorized by the Georgia Department of Human Resources and performed in locations licensed by the DHR. The DHR Commissioner and The Board of Human Resources are under the authority of the Governor.

The Act also allows Georgia doctors to kill babies in the first-trimester in their private offices by surgical abortions and medication-induced abortions using the pill RU-486.

HB 197 defines Abortion as, "the use or prescription of any instrument, medicine, drug, or any other substance or device with the intent to terminate the pregnancy of a female known to be pregnant."

The Act also exempts ALL abortifacient birth-control from being considered as abortion by stating, "the term 'abortion' also shall not include the prescription or use of contraceptives."

HB 197 creates a 24-hour waiting period before the state licensed killing begins. Abortion providers -- the state's Willing Executioners -- are to give mothers seeking to kill their children by abortion, "informed consent" information 24-hour before the state further assists them in killing their children.

The Act requires that abortion providers are to notify parents of pregnant teenagers 24-hours before their unborn grandchildren are killed. The bill also contains a provision allowing pregnant girls to seek a judicial parental-bypass that can waive the notification requirement by the juvenile court.

Apart from being a shocking example of genocidal thinking, the Act specifically states, "No penalty may be assessed against the female upon whom the abortion is performed or attempted to be performed."

Are Georgia lawmakers aware of the fact that if HB 197 becomes law, it would make them and the citizens of Georgia, directly accountable for the murder of every child killed under these regulations?

Abortion is a crime of murder
It's not a bureaucratic health subsidy

After DHR hires the employees, new offices are opened, the computers systems are up and running, and the fiscal "health" budget is adjusted to subsidize HB 197's regulatory controls of child killing, what then? Do Georgians actually believe that after this multi-million dollar child killing bureaucracy is thoroughly entrenched into the state government, lawmakers are just going to turn around and outlaw abortion?

In all I would say that by attempting to incorporate such homicidal regulations into the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, state lawmakers are saying they intend to keep the murder of children by abortion legal for a very long time to come.

Such legislation is NOT pro-life

It can be clearly stated that the expansion of state abortion regulations by defining how, when, where, on whom, by whom, or with whose permission abortions may be carried out, is NOT "pro-life!"

Regulating abortion is NOT outlawing abortion! Regulating how children are to be killed is NOT outlawing child killing! Quite the contrary.

Deuteronomy 30 sets forth God's pro-life principle: Obey the commandments, choose life and live. Or, disobey the commandments, choose death and die. Christians choose life. The supporters of HB 197 and their ilk have chosen death.

Should HB 197 become law future historians will undoubtedly declare Georgia's legislative slaughter of unborn children as one of the greatest evils perpetrated by human beings.

'Philly 5' Are Free!

Judge Drops All Charges

Philadelphia Judge Clears Christian Demonstrators of 'Hate Crimes' Charges

By Allie Martin / AgapePress

All charges have been dropped against four Christians who were arrested in October for sharing the gospel at a pro-homosexual event in Philadelphia. Charges pending against a minor who was also arrested at the time are expected to be dismissed as well.

Last fall, Philadelphia police arrested 11 Christians as they were taking part in street witnessing on a public sidewalk at a "gay pride" event. Charges were dropped against six of the believers in January, but the four adults and one juvenile -- all members of the group Repent America -- faced serious charges under Philadelphia's "hate crimes" laws. Those five were charged with criminal conspiracy, "ethnic intimidation," and riot. In a case that brought national attention, each of the five faced as much as 47 years in prison if convicted.

Now charges have been dropped against the four adults. On Thursday (February 17), Court of Commons Pleas Judge Pamela Dembe dismissed the charges, ruling that peaceful expressive activities like those of the Christian demonstrators are fully protected by the First Amendment. She also stated that prosecutors were unable to make even a minimal showing of any criminal conduct.

The defendants were represented by the American Family Association Center for Law & Policy (CLP), a legal group based in Tupelo, Mississippi. While the CLP says it is "pleased and relieved" with Dembe's ruling, the firm's chief counsel says the city must be held accountable.

"The next chapter of this story is just beginning," says attorney Steve Crampton, "and that is, our federal lawsuit against the city for what we believe to be an intentional effort to suppress First Amendment rights."

The CLP is calling for the Department of Justice to investigate what it describes as "corruption and profound abuse of power" by city officials as they pursued the case against the defendants. "[T]he city clearly continued to prosecute the Christians with a vengeance during the hearing with bad faith arguments," states a CLP press release.

"Frankly, the 'hunters' have now become the 'hunted.'" says Crampton. "We intend to ask hard questions and vigorously pursue discovery to figure out exactly why these charges were ever leveled in the first place."

Crampton maintains his clients were targeted simply because of their message -- one of hope through a relationship with Jesus Christ for those wishing to leave the homosexual lifestyle.

"Under any other circumstances with any other speakers on the public streets, [the case] never would have even been filed, much less gotten to this stage," the attorney contends. He notes that the defendants spent 21 hours in jail -- "one lady [spent] ten days in jail," he says -- and faced a "very real threat of losing 47 years of their lives for doing nothing but sharing the truth" on the public sidewalk in Philadelphia.

"There has been a grave injustice visited upon them," the attorney adds, "and we intend to vindicate those rights in federal court."

Crampton says he is hopeful charges against 17-year-old Lauren Murch will be dropped during a hearing on Friday morning. The City of Philadelphia indicated it may appeal Judge Dembe's decision.


http://headlines.agapepres
s.org/archive/2/172005a.asp

Witchcraft Murder

London Witchcraft Murder Traced to Africa Child Trade

By James Owen / National Geographic

This story may contain information upsetting to sensitive or young readers.

In September 2001 a gruesome discovery was made in London's River Thames. The hideously mutilated torso of a small black boy was found floating through the city. The boy's arms, legs, and head had all been hacked off.

So began a stranger-than-fiction detective story that led U.K. investigators into a macabre netherworld of witchcraft and child sacrifice.

Murder squad detectives had nothing to go on: There were no reports of a missing child and no witnesses or crime scene. No face, fingerprints, or dental records remained that could help identify the boy. The police simply called him Adam. He was believed to have been between four and seven years old.

The investigation to discover Adam's true identity and bring his killers to justice is the subject of a National Geographic Explorer documentary, to be aired on the National Geographic Channel in the U.S. this weekend. It tells how the latest advances in forensic science led detectives across two continents in their dogged quest to solve Adam's murder.

"It is one of the most astonishing, horrible stories to happen in years and years in this country," said Richard Hoskins, who worked on the police investigation team.

The autopsy report concluded that Adam's throat had been slit. His body was then deliberately drained of blood.

With no clear leads, murder squad detectives at Scotland Yard in London called in forensic experts who used the latest scientific methods to examine Adam's bones, stomach, and intestines for clues. What they discovered became central to the investigation.

Ken Pye, a forensic geologist at the University of London, analyzed Adam's bones for trace minerals that are absorbed from food and water. Levels of trace minerals vary depending on which part of the world a person comes from.

Pye's tests revealed levels of strontium, copper, and lead two and a half times higher than would be normally expected in a child living in England. Using these trace minerals as his guide, Pye gradually narrowed down Adam's likely geographic origin to West Africa.

Stomach Contents

Extensive analysis of the contents of Adam's stomach and intestines pointed detectives in a similar direction. The forensic team found a strange, unidentifiable plant material. There was also a sandlike mineral and a substance that resembled small clay pellets. Added to this bizarre mixture were tiny particles of gold.

Plant anatomists were brought in to help identify the plant. The closest match, it turned out, was the Calabar bean—an obscure but highly toxic type of climbing vine from West Africa.

This proved a major breakthrough in the investigation, as it linked Adam's death to witchcraft in a region that's regarded as the birthplace of voodoo. Wade Davis, an anthropologist and explorer-in-residence at the National Geographic Society, says dozens of poisons are traditionally used in West Africa.

"The Calabar bean is a very toxic plant, because the poison acts in such a way as to bring on total paralysis and an insanely painful death," he said.

Richard Hoskins, a U.K.-based expert on African religion and voodoo, says the Calabar bean, in combination with the other ingredients in Adam's gut, pointed to the West African country of Nigeria. There, witch doctors are known to use such potions for black magic.

"It's extraordinarily significant," he said. "The [beans are] ground down and then burnt in a pot. Taken together, this is the final clinching point that proves as near as certain that this was a sacrifice."

Hoskins says human sacrifice is a highly unusual aspect of black magic but that Nigerians themselves acknowledge that sacrificial killings often occur. Animal-blood offerings are deeply rooted in West African voodoo culture. It's regarded as a way to communicate with the spirit world and gain protection from ancestral deities.

"In any religion there is room for perversion of the religious doctrine," Davis said.

Deviant Practices

Davis added that deviant practices are most likely to occur in countries where there is civil unrest, poverty, and violence.

"It wouldn't surprise me if this strange, cultish behavior emerged out of the chaos and madness that is modern Nigeria," he said. In parts of Africa, most notably southern Africa, child parts are sometimes used by rogue witch doctors in a traditional form of medicine known as muti.

"It is felt by some that to kill a living person solely for the use of medicine is the most empowering form of medicine imaginable, and within that the most extreme form of all is to kill a child," Hoskins said.

The special police unit that investigates muti killings in South Africa estimates that there may be as many as a hundred such murders in the country each year.

Yet the West African connection was further strengthened when bone samples arrived from Nigeria for comparison with Adam's remains. Ken Pye and the forensic team were able to pinpoint Adam's birthplace to a region near Benin City in southwestern Nigeria. The closest match to Adam's bone chemistry came from Benin's main mortuary.

This bought another crime into the scope of the investigation—human trafficking.

West Africa is one of the areas that are the most exploited by criminals who sell people into modern-day slavery. According to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), some 200,000 children are trafficked out of western and central Africa each year. UNICEF defines child trafficking as the transportation and exploitation of unwilling or unknowing children, often for slave labor or sex work.

Police now suspected that Adam was brought to the U.K. by a child-smuggling ring, but not as child labor. Adam had been earmarked for human sacrifice. To find out why and by whom, murder squad detectives traveled to Nigeria and the city of Benin. They were beginning to close in on Adam's witchcraft killers, thanks to the clues revealed by forensic science.

While police have yet to secure a conviction for Adam's murder, they have succeeded in breaking up a major trafficking operation, possibly saving many other West African children from a life of slavery, prostitution, or even worse. With the trafficking gang's ringleader now in jail, detectives remain hopeful that Adam's killers can finally be brought to justice.


http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news
/2005/02/0210_020510_tv_witchcraft.html

Bush Names Spy-in-Chief

John Negroponte named as national intelligence chief

President George Bush has chosen John Negroponte, US ambassador to Iraq and former United Nations ambassador, to be the director of national intelligence.

The position is a newly created post set up in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

Mr Negroponte, a career diplomat, will oversee all 15 US intelligence agencies, including the CIA and FBI, and making sure they work in a unified way.

President Bush nominated him to serve as the US Ambassador to Iraq on April 19, 2004.

Born in London in 1939 to Greek parents, Mr Negroponte was a career diplomat.

He served at eight different Foreign Service posts in Asia, Europe and Latin America; and he also held important positions at the State Department and the White House.

He was appointed by President Reagan as Ambassador to Honduras during the administration's war with Nicaraguan Sandinistas.

The US Government was allegedly involved in the cover-up of human rights abuses by CIA-trained operatives, was accused by critics of arming the Nicaraguan Contra rebels and ignoring murder and torture by the Honduran military regime.

President Bush nominated him to serve as Ambassador to Iraq in April 2004.

http://www.sky.com/skynews/ar
ticle/0,,30200-1171380,00.html

Related
Bush Nominates Negroponte As Intel Chief

Botched Abortion Lawsuit

Woman Receive $50,000 For Perforated Uterus, Unable To Bear Future Children

Woman permanently damaged by abortion gets $50,000 for pain, suffering

By Rae Theodore / Westlaw Litigation Reporter

A Louisiana woman whose second trimester abortion went awry leaving her unable to have future natural child births will receive $50,000 for pain and suffering, according to a state appeals court ruling.

The Louisiana Court of Appeal decision affirms a judgment notwithstanding the verdict by Civil District Court Judge Nadine M. Ramsey. The judge's $50,000 award overturned an Orleans Parish jury verdict that determined the abortion was slipshod but had not damaged the woman.

The appeals court said the jury had been "clearly wrong" on the issue of damages.

The case dates to May 1990 when Amanda Henderson visited the office of Dr. Max Pailet to terminate a 14-week pregnancy.

Pailet stopped the procedure when Henderson complained of extreme pain. Later that same day, Henderson was taken to Charity Hospital, a Louisiana medical facility, for treatment of abortion-related bleeding, the appellate court opinion reported.

It was later discovered that Pailet violated the applicable standard of care when he attempted to perform a two-step abortion procedure in a single step and perforated Henderson's uterus. During surgery at Charity Hospital, Henderson received a blood transfusion, which she said later caused her to worry about contracting AIDS, according to the appellate court opinion.

Henderson consequently filed suit against Pailet and state health care providers at Charity. The consolidated cases went to trial in June 2003 in Orleans Parish. Following four days of testimony, jurors found that while Pailet violated the applicable standard of care, the breach did not cause any damage to Henderson, whose future births will now have to be by caesarian section.

Judge Ramsey then stepped in with her judgment notwithstanding the verdict and awarded Henderson $50,000 for pain and suffering. Pailet appealed.

Based on the evidence, the Court of Appeal held that Henderson suffered damages when Pailet perforated her uterus. The appeals court noted that the procedure destroyed Henderson's ability to have natural childbirths and caused her severe pain and suffering and mental anguish, and that the blood transfusion caused her to have AIDS-related anxiety.


Henderson v. ABC Insurance Co. et al., Nos. 2004-CA-0172, 2004-CA-0173 and 2004-CA-0174, 2005 WL 159594 (La. Ct. App. Jan. 19, 2005).

http://news.findlaw.com/andrews/h/a
:d/20050216/20050216henderson.html

Judge sets hearing on bomb model, other evidence in Rudolph case

By Jay Reeves / The Associated Press

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- The judge in Eric Rudolph's death penalty case agreed Wednesday to a hearing on whether prosecutors can show jurors a model of the bomb that killed a police officer outside a Birmingham abortion clinic.

U.S. District Judge Lynwood Smith said the hearing would begin on March 28 in Huntsville, where he normally hears cases.

The defense has asked the judge to bar prosecutors from using the bomb model, made by a government expert. Smith said he would also hear testimony on defense challenges of the work of forensic experts who examined pieces of the bomb.

After a joint agreement between prosecutors and the defense, the judge said he would issue a ruling without oral arguments on whether jurors can hear evidence about fingerprints, handwriting analysis and the culture of western North Carolina, where Rudolph lived and was arrested two years ago.

The judge said he wouldn't decide until the trial whether the defense can present testimony challenging the accuracy of eyewitness identifications like one man allegedly made of Rudolph near the clinic shortly after the blast.

Separately, a magistrate judge granted a defense request for a subpoena seeking documents about a piece of testing equipment used by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to test explosives evidence.

Rudolph's lawyers hope to prove the device was unreliable, a move that could cast doubt on scientific evidence that prosecutors say links Rudolph to the bombing.

Preliminary jury selection is set to begin next month in the trial of Rudolph, accused of using a remote-control device to detonate a bomb outside the abortion clinic in January 1998, killing the officer and critically injuring a nurse.

Rudolph also is charged with setting off the bomb that went off during Atlanta Olympics in 1996, killing a woman, and with planting more bombs in metro Atlanta in 1997. He was captured in Murphy, N.C., in 2003 after more than five years as a fugitive.


http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/mld/le
dgerenquirer/news/local/10916512.htm

Specter Has Cancer

WASHINGTON -- Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., announced Wednesday that he has Hodgkin's disease but expects to continue to work in the Senate while being treated.

"I have beaten a brain tumor, bypass heart surgery and many tough political opponents and I'm going to beat this, too," Specter said in a statement.

Hodgkin's disease is a type of cancer involving the lymph nodes. Specter will receive chemotherapy every two weeks for up to 32 weeks at the Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania, a release from his office said.

A biopsy done Monday of a lymph node under his left arm came back positive for Hodgkin's disease, the release said. Follow-up scans at the Abramson Cancer Center on Wednesday established that Specter has stage IVB Hodgkin's disease.

Specter, a 75-year-old Pennsylvania moderate who just won re-election to his Senate seat, became Judiciary chairman in January.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=512&u=/ap
/20050216/ap_on_go_co/specter_hodgkin_s_1&printer=1

Sen. Alren Specter [R-Pa] Announces He Has Cancer

Arlen Specter Has Hodgkin's Disease
Specter Will Keep Working In Senate

United States Sen. Arlen Specter (R., Pa.) has announced that he has been diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease, in a press release from his office Wednesday afternoon.

In a press release, Specter said he had experienced persistent fevers and enlarged lymph nodes under his left arm and above his left clavicle.

The statement said Specter received testing on Feb. 14 at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia. The testing involved biopsy of a lymph node and biopsy of bone marrow.

The lymph node was positive for Hodgkin's disease. The bone marrow biopsy showed no cancer. A follow up PET scan and MRI established Specter has stage 4B Hodgkin's disease, the statement said.

Hodgkin's disease is a cancer of the lymph system. Approximately 7,500 new cases are diagnosed every year in the United States.

His office said Specter is expected to receive chemotherapy over the next 24 to 32 weeks and he is expected to be able to perform all duties, including chairing the Senate Judiciary Committee.

"Sen. Specter's Hodgkin's disease has a five-year survival rate of 70 percent. He is in superb physical condition, particularly in light of his daily squash regimen, " said Specter's oncologist, Dr. John H. Glick.

In the statement, Specter said: "I have beaten a brain tumor, bypass heart surgery and many tough political opponents; and I'm going to beat this, too. I have a lot more work to do for Pennsylvania and America."


http://www.nbc10.com/news/42052
35/detail.html?rss=phi&psp=news

Judging Judges

The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

President Bush Monday renominated 20 candidates for federal judgeships who had been previously blocked by Senate Democrats as being too controversial. A discussion with two members from the Senate Judiciary Committee about the president's nominees.

KWAME HOLMAN: Without fanfare, the White House yesterday sent the names of 20 judicial nominees to the Senate, 12 of whom previously were blocked by Democrats. The president, who repeatedly had promised to resubmit the candidates, said his nominees are well-qualified and deserve a Senate vote.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: The United States Senate must also live up to its constitutional responsibility. Every judicial nominee deserves a prompt hearing and an up-or-down vote on the floor of the United States Senate.

KWAME HOLMAN: Democrats, however, say some of the president's nominees are extreme conservatives. Minority Leader Harry Reid:

SEN. HARRY REID: Unless there's something that is new, that I'm not aware of, with each of these men and women, we will vote the same way we did in the past.

KWAME HOLMAN: Among those re-nominated for district and appeals court judgeships: Terrence W. Boyle, a federal district judge in North Carolina; Democrats have criticized his opinions in civil rights cases.

Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen; questions have been raised about her rulings in civil rights, abortion, and environmental cases.

California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown; Democrats complained that she referred to the New Deal as a "socialist revolution."

And William Haynes II, who served as Pentagon counsel when policies were created that allowed the U.S. to hold so-called enemy combatants without charges or access to attorneys.

Republicans have maintained the Democrats' objections are about politics, not policy.

SEN. ORRIN HATCH: It seems as though our colleagues just seem to hate President Bush, and they're not being fair to him. They're not being fair to his nominees. SEN. DICK DURBIN: 98 percent of this president's nominees have been approved. By any reasonable standard, this president is doing very well.

KWAME HOLMAN: In his second term, the president renews his fight over judicial nominations with a critical advantage: a larger Republican majority in the Senate. Republicans, who held 51 seats in the last Senate, never could muster the 60 votes needed to end the Democrats' filibusters of court nominees.

Now they hold 55 seats, and believe they are within striking distance. And if that doesn't work, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has warned he may seek to outlaw filibusters entirely.

JIM LEHRER: And to Gwen Ifill.

GWEN IFILL: For more on the brewing fight over the president's court choices we are joined by two members of the Senate Judiciary Committee: Jeff Sessions, Republican from Alabama; and Charles Schumer, Democrat from New York.

Sen. Sessions, obviously, there's a political calculus involved in this on the president's part as well as members of the Senate. What has changed this time from the last time, many of these same nominees were sent to the Senate?

SEN. JEFF SESSIONS: Well, there are four more Republican votes in the Senate, but more importantly it was a big issue in this past election. President Bush never made a speech that he didn't talk about it. The American people are very concerned that un-elected lifetime appointed federal judges are setting social policy and really imposing a view of America that they're not comfortable with.

I think it's a big deal. Perhaps Harry Reid should call Tom Daschle and ask his opinion about whether he should continue to block these highly qualified nominees. I think they are mainstream lawyers who believe in the rule of law, who believe a judge should show restraint, and therefore I think they should be confirmed and I think we're going to see some improvement in that area.

GWEN IFILL: Sen. Schumer, it seems that Sen. Sessions stopped just short just now of calling you obstructionists; the term that was used to apply to Sen. Daschle, and of course, he's now former Sen. Daschle. What exactly are your objections this time? Are they any different than last time?

SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER: Well, the seven judges who we blocked, nothing has changed about them and we're going to try to block them. I mean, the charge of obstructionist is laughable. It seems like, you know, President Bush and his Republican colleagues want one-party rule.

The rules of the Senate have always been that you have to get some bipartisan support unless you have such a large majority that you can roll over the minority. And the president got ten judges blocked of 214. Is that obstructionist or is that what the founding fathers wanted? If they didn't want the Senate to block any judges at all, they wouldn't have had the Senate as part of the process. They just would have said the president can pick them.

So, you know, the term obstructionist - and, by the way, I've talked to Tom Daschle, he's encouraging us to do the same thing. He said he didn't lose on judges, he didn't lose on any issue on the merits; he lost on a low, dastardly campaign that attacked him in ways that he had never seen before.

So we can ask -- I guess Harry Reid has asked Tom Daschle and Tom Daschle said "do the right thing." We believe we're protecting the future of America from extremists, not all the judges the president nominates, not 90 percent of the judges or 10 percent of the judges the president nominates, but the 2 or 3 percent that he nominates that are so extreme it's laughable.

GWEN IFILL: Sen. Sessions, is there any possibility that this time as opposed to past times we might see a solution reached by reaching across the aisle, by perhaps getting some Democrats to change their minds?

SEN. JEFF SESSIONS: I hope so. I know Bill Pryor, who I have such tremendous admiration for, and such a magnificent lawyer, such a decent person --

GWEN IFILL: The nominee from Alabama?

SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER: From Alabama, he's being filibustered and did not get an up or down vote. So I'm hopeful that people would reconsider on that. He's been appointed now, he's served; he's got some cases that he can show that demonstrate his skill.

But you know, just yesterday, Harry Reid indicated that they were not giving an inch, they intend to continue to filibuster all the judges that have been filibustered before and presumably new ones will be added to that list. And this is unprecedented in American history, this systematic filibustering of judges, which basically raises the vote requirement for confirmation from fifty-one to sixty is something that Bill Frist and I think a majority of American people do not believe should continue. And I think will end one way or the other.

GWEN IFILL: Before I ask you, Sen. Schumer, about the filibuster -- which I do want to do -- I do also want to clarify that Sen. Pryor, who Sen. Sessions was talking about did get a recess appointment which has since expired, so when you say he's actually served, it was without Senate confirmation.

SEN. JEFF SESSIONS: Right. But it hasn't expired yet.

GWEN IFILL: Right. Sen. Schumer, let's talk about that filibuster question. Sen. Frist and others have talked about the "nuclear option," which is changing the Senate rules to basically outlaw filibusters.

SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER: Yeah. Well, let me just say first, Jeff has a short memory. The Republicans, when they controlled the Senate, blocked 61 judges. Now they didn't filibuster. They didn't have to. They had control. They wouldn't bring them up for a hearing. Some judges sat four and five years.

And Jeff himself tried, although unsuccessfully, to filibuster a few of the judges he considered extreme at the far left. That's part of the process. It is -- when a Democratic president is there and he chooses to nominate people who are way over to one extreme, the Republicans try to block him by whatever means they have available.

GWEN IFILL: But is all that about to end, Sen. Schumer, with this rule to change the filibuster? SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER: No. Let me say this. This is the highest hypocrisy. Here we are, Jeff sessions and all the Republicans, saying, "We need strict constructionism on the courts," and they are using this nuclear option. They're saying they're just going to have a ruling. It's like a third world dictator, the vice president and the chair just ruling by himself and saying it's unconstitutional when there's not a word in the Constitution that says it should be a majority vote in the Senate on judges or anything else.

In fact, the only thing in the Constitution says that the Senate should make its own rules. So what they're doing is they are so interpreting the law, making -- they are so being activist by making their own interpretation of the Constitution to defend themselves against so-called activist judges. It's the highest hypocrisy.

GWEN IFILL: Let's let Sen. Sessions respond to that.

SEN. JEFF SESSIONS: I need to respond to that. First of all, judges came up under President Clinton that I objected to, but when a cloture motion was filed, every single time I voted for cloture to give them an up and down vote because I never believed they should be filibustered.

Sen. Schumer, on the other hand, when President Clinton was there said it made a mockery of the Constitution not to allow judges to have an up or down vote. SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER: I didn't say that.

SEN. JEFF SESSIONS: Yes, you did, I've got the quote.

SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER: No.

SEN. JEFF SESSIONS: And I want to say this further... that the rules are within the prerogative of the Senate. The Senate has the power to change the rules. Robert Byrd has changed them on a number of occasions. The issue has been discussed and researched quite in-depth. I think the more it's been studied, the more comfortable people feel with the power of the majority to set rules that will work for them in these circumstances.

SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER: The Senate rules, wait, I have to answer that. The Senate rules say you need a two-thirds vote to change the Senate rules. That wasn't just an arbitrary number. It's because the Senate is supposed to work by comity. You're supposed to have Democrats and Republicans working together; that's why the two-thirds was chosen.

They hope, unilaterally, to have Vice President Cheney say he can change the rules, and then a 51 vote can back it up. That's overruling the Senate rules, overruling hundreds of years of tradition. The founding fathers wanted the Senate to be bipartisan and to slow things down.

GWEN IFILL: Allow me to step back a moment from the question of whose rules should apply here because most Americans watching this probably think to themselves we've been here before. We've seen this kind of gridlock. Those two guys are never going to agree.

Today, we heard Pat Robertson say what happens on the judgeships is going to be the ultimate test, and we heard the opposite from the other side from Planned Parenthood and People for the American Way and others. So why should any of this matter? What is the actual practical effect of these judgeship nominations and these fights that happen?

SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER: Let me give you a couple of examples...

GWEN IFILL: Sen. Sessions, if you don't mind, I'd like to start with you.

SEN. JEFF SESSIONS: I would say it has a significant practical impact. Judges too often with lifetime appointments unaccountable to the American people are doing things like striking down three strikes and you're out laws in California, striking down the Pledge of Allegiance, redefining marriage in this country.

The American people do not appreciate that. I do not believe it's consistent with their position on the bench. And there are a lot of other issues of that kind that are of concern. We simply want judges who will follow the law. I believe that the left desire judges who will impose their agenda on the people and the people have no recourse through a vote to remove them from office.

So it's more than Republicans and Democrats. It is a discussion and a battle over the rule of -- the role of judges in our legal system, and I believe a judge should show restraint. President Bush believes that. He's taken his case to the American people. I believe he's been affirmed in that opinion.

GWEN IFILL: Sen. Schumer, your chance to respond.

SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER: Yeah. The bottom line is the judges we have blocked want to turn the clock back. They don't want to be narrow interpretation of the law. Their view of narrow interpretation of the law is to turn the clock back to the 1890s.

One of the judges that they nominated said, "God's gift to white people was slavery." A judge they nominated said the purpose of a man is to be subjugated to a woman. A judge we blocked, we blocked those two. A judge they nominated said there should be no zoning laws. If someone wanted to build a factory right next to your home, that's a taking of property. And a final one said there should be no labor laws, no minimum wage, no wages and hours, no worker protection laws, because those were all takings, unconstitutional takings.

The people we have blocked are extremists, and if they were to go forward, the America we know, the changes we have made to making America a more fair and humane place, would be gone; and we'd go back to the 1890s where those who had the power got their way completely. They can't do it in the Congress. They can't even do it when they elect a president. So they're trying in the courts. It's our job to block them.

GWEN IFILL: All right. The first nominations come to the floor Terrence Boyle and William Myers on March 1. Sen. Schumer and Sen. Sessions, thank you both very much.

SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER: Thank you.

SEN. JEFF SESSIONS: Thank you.


http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/co
ngress/jan-june05/judges_2-15.html

Latest News Headlines

• Bush May Raise Taxes for Social Security
• Greenspan Urges Caution on Social Security
• Feted and Hated, Kyoto Global Warming Pact Starts
• Rice Pushes for Bush Funding Requests
• Lawmakers Press Rumsfeld on Iraq Situation

• U.S. Sees Threats from Terror, Iran and North Korea
• Russia to Sell Advanced Missiles to Syria
• U.S. Recalls Its Envoy in Syria
• Iran Will Know How to Build Bomb in 6 Months - Israel
• Shiites Fail to Agree on Nominee for Iraq's Top Post

Dean: Catholics, Democrats on same social mission

Dean elected DNC chairman
Howard Dean was elected Democrat National Committee chairman by acclamation Saturday after promising to end his party's decade-long decline by sharpening its message, broadening its base and strengthening its operations at the grass roots.

"Today will be the beginning of the re-emergence of the Democrat Party. The first thing we have to do is stand up for what we believe in," the fiery former Vermont governor told hundreds of cheering DNC members who gathered at the Washington Hilton to choose their new party leaders.

Using the organizational and personal networking skills that made him the front-runner for the 2004 presidential nomination before his candidacy imploded in the Iowa caucuses, Mr. Dean drove nearly a dozen rivals from the chairman's race and calmed party doubts about his temperament and anti-war, liberal image to win the top DNC leadership post.

To alleviate concerns, he promised the DNC's 447 members, who serve as the party's board of directors, that he would not run for president again in 2008 and gave House and Senate Democrat leaders an ironclad pledge that he would leave the party's policy-making to them.

"We will not set the agenda. That will be set by Democrat congressional leaders," he said.

The Hilton ballroom exploded with cheers and a thunderous standing ovation when outgoing DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe slammed down the gavel and declared Mr. Dean the new national chairman. Many viewed Mr. Dean's victory as a remarkable political comeback for the man who had attacked the party's leaders for backing President Bush in the Iraq war and whose political career seemed all but over after his collapse in the presidential primaries.

"If you'd told me a year ago that I'd be standing here doing this ... I would not have believed you, and neither would a lot of other people," Mr. Dean said.

Mr. Dean said at a press conference after his acceptance speech that he would be embarking on a nationwide party-rebuilding crusade to reach out to pivotal parts of the electorate that the Democrats have been losing, including Catholics and evangelicals, whose support has been a key factor in the Republicans' victories, particularly in rural America.

"We are definitely going to do religious outreach. We're definitely going to reach out to the evangelical community," he said.

Acknowledging the Catholic Church's active role in speaking out against John Kerry's pro-choice stance, Mr. Dean said, "We have to remind Catholic Americans that the social mission of the Democrat Party is almost exactly the same as the social mission of the Catholic Church."

A major complaint at closed-door DNC caucus meetings was that the party once again didn't focus on Southern and Mountain West states last year, where Republicans have had an electoral lock for most of the past two decades.

"We cannot abdicate the South and the West if we are to be a national party," former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb told the DNC yesterday, triggering sustained applause.

Mr. Dean said that both regions would be among his highest priorities.

"I intend to be living in the [Bush] red states. That's where we need to do a lot of work. In this job, I am going to be living in motels around the country," he told reporters.

Notably, the former presidential candidate who became the leader of the party's dominant anti-war wing, never mentioned Iraq in his remarks to the DNC, even though it was the issue that fueled his campaign and raised questions about the Democrats' weakness on national security and the war on terrorism.

"I'm not going to get into policy issues. I think my views on Iraq are well-known, but I think the day-to-day battles over what goes on in Iraq, the proper place for that is the Congress and the Democrat leadership of Congress, and I don't see any need for me to make pronouncements on an issue I won't be voting on," he said.

In his address to the DNC, Mr. Dean laid out in more detail how he plans to rebuild the party by focusing first and foremost on shifting more of the DNC's financial resources to the states.

"If we want to win nationally, we have to start winning locally," he said.

"The party's strength does not come from the consultants in Washington. It comes from the grass roots," he said.

The second change he will make is to begin framing Democrat issues differently.

"We can't move forward by just being against the administration," he said.

Nonetheless, Mr. Dean provided the DNC's activists with plenty of anti-Bush red meat, signaling that the party was ready to rumble with the Republicans.

He attacked Mr. Bush's budget-cutting proposals for "bringing Enron-style accounting to the nation's capital," saying it shows that "you cannot trust Republicans with your money," and he called the president's Social Security reforms "a dishonest scheme" that would leave "a legacy of debt that our children do not deserve."

But Mr. Dean's attacks on Mr. Bush drew a warm congratulatory welcome yesterday from his counterpart, Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman.

"I congratulate Howard Dean on his election as DNC chairman and look forward to engaging in a constructive dialogue with him about the major issues facing our nation. Howard Dean's energy and passion will add to the political discourse in this country, and he will be a strong leader for his party," Mr. Mehlman said.


http://washingtontimes.com/nati
onal/20050213-121441-4897r.htm

The Republican Revolution That Wasn't

WASHINGTON -- If the history of the Republican revolution were being written today, a single overarching question would have to be answered: Whatever happened to the promise of smaller government?

That question was asked again last week, when President Bush unveiled a $2.57 trillion budget for 2006, the largest in the nation's history. The cuts he called for, in areas like veterans' medical care, farm subsidies and vocational training, were met in Washington with doubts that they would ever get through the Republican Congress.

"Republicans have lost their way," lamented Newt Gingrich, the government-slashing firebrand of a decade ago.

In 1995, a band of 73 freshman Republicans swept into the House of Representatives, with Mr. Gingrich as their speaker. Flush with ideological zeal and determined to get government off the backs of the people, as Ronald Reagan would say, they pushed through a budget resolution that called for eliminating scores of programs and three federal departments.

Their fervor was so politically potent that in 1996, a Democratic president, Bill Clinton, declared, "The era of big government is over."

Yet government has only grown. The Cato Institute, a libertarian research institution, says overall federal spending has increased twice as fast under Mr. Bush as under Mr. Clinton. At the same time, the federal deficit is projected to hit a record high of $427 billion this year.

These trends seem likely to continue. The White House estimated last week that the cost of prescription drugs for Medicare beneficiaries, originally projected at $400 billion from 2004 to 2013, would, in fact, be $724 billion from 2006 to 2015. Republicans called for scaling back the benefit, but on Friday, Mr. Bush said no and vowed to veto any changes to the Medicare bill.

"The era of big government being over is over," declared Marshall Wittmann, a senior fellow at the Democratic Leadership Council, a centrist Democratic research organization. That would certainly seem to be borne out in the record of the Republican revolutionaries, known as the "Class of 1994" for the year they were elected. Of the 30 who are still in the House of Representatives, 28 hsponsored bills in the last Congress that would have increased government spending overall, according to the National Taxpayers Union, an antitax group.

Some of the expansion in government was beyond their control. One big reason for the rise in spending is the growth of mandatory entitlements like Medicare and Medicaid. Another is the administration's "war on terror"; the government has added an entire new agency, the Department of Homeland Security, since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and has spent many billions in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"Those were legitimate reasons for more expansive spending," said Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota. "But we can no longer hide behind that."

Republicans like Mr. Thune say they are pleased that Mr. Bush's budget calls for cutting or eliminating 150 programs, and they applaud his promise to cut the deficit in half within five years. Yet the old Gingrich revolutionaries have lowered their battle cry to a whimper; instead of demanding that federal agencies be put out of business, they are fighting among themselves over small-bore questions of what to cut and what to keep.

"The Gingrich revolution was about system change," said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, a member of the Class of 1994. "Now we're in the weeds of government, this program and that program, and we've lost the big picture."

To most Americans, the federal budget, more than 2,000 pages of fine print, is hard to grasp; it isn't easy to summon a mental image of $2.57 trillion. One way to look at it is to consider how much the government spends per household. In the 1990's, the figure held steady at about $18,000, according to Brian M. Riedl, a budget analyst for the Heritage Foundation. But last year, it exceeded $20,000, adjusted for inflation, the highest amount since World War II. But the government only takes in $17,000 for each household. "So right there," Mr. Reidl said, "we're borrowing $3,000 per household."

Mr. Riedl says the Republicans lost their zeal for spending cuts after 1995, when Congress forced a government shutdown over a budget impasse with President Clinton. The effort came off as mean-spirited and petty, and Republicans took the blame.

For Mr. Gingrich, the architect of the shutdown, the costs were especially high. He left government soon after, a reminder of how much easier it is to be a revolutionary than to govern.

"Ever since the government shutdown was determined to be a political loser for Republicans," Mr. Riedl said, "they have been tentative to take on spending."

By 1998, they didn't have to. That was the year Mr. Clinton and Congress balanced the budget. Without a deficit to rail against, conservatives had little reason to call for spending cuts. And with the budget in surplus, they learned what the Democrats, who had ruled the House for 40 years without interruption, had long known: constituents reward lawmakers who bring federal money home.

"Too many people started to believe that the surest path to re-election is to spend money rather than cut government," says Representative Jeff Flake, an Arizona Republican. "The material that comes from the Republican caucus is not to call for the elimination of this program or that, it's to brag that we have increased the budget for education by 144 percent."

That is not surprising, says Mr. Wittmann of the Democratic Leadership Council. "Yesterday's revolutionaries are today's pragmatic politicians," he said. "It's a classic tale of any revolution. They start out as revolutionaries wanting to storm the Bastille and the end up as 'All the King's Men.'"

There are still revolutionaries out there. Mr. Gingrich, for one, still advocates "very large-scale change."

Mr. Bush's budget, for instance, proposes cuts only in so-called nondefense discretionary spending. A very small slice of the budget pie, roughly one-sixth of the total, is devoted neither to the military nor to the entitlement programs like Medicare and Medicaid. Until Congress overhauls these and other entitlements, Mr. Gingrich says, spending will never be brought into line, and many of his former disciples agree.

"We need to be braver when it comes to putting the reforms of entitlements on the table," said Mr. Graham, the South Carolina senator. The Medicare prescription drug bill, Mr. Graham said, "was a reform that included new goodies. We need to put some reforms on the table that require sacrifice. That's the Republican Party I miss."

With President Bush asking Congress to overhaul another entitlement program - Social Security - it may be difficult for lawmakers to find the energy and time to do as Mr. Graham suggests.

Still, Republicans say they sense a new budget-cutting fervor on Capitol Hill. Some conservatives whose arms were twisted by their leaders to vote in favor of the Medicare prescription drug bill are vowing, "Never again."

Last week, Representative Jim Nussle, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, warned that Mr. Bush should be prepared to use his veto power, something he has not done since he became president, to enforce spending limits.

To former Gingrich revolutionaries like Representative Sue Myrick, Republican of South Carolina, that was good news.

"We haven't given up," said Ms. Myrick, who is one of the two representatives from the Class of 1994 who has continued to sponsor bills that would result in lower government spending (the other is Steve Chabot of Ohio). "I'm more encouraged this year than I've been since 1994."

Mr. Flake, the Arizona Congressman, said the future of his party hinges on the revolution's revival. "If voters want bigger government," he warned, "then sooner or later they'll return to the genuine article, and that's the Democrats."


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/13/w
eekinreview/13stolb.html?oref=login

What Pat believes is the 'ultimate test'

Robertson: GOP Must Push Judges Through

WASHINGTON -- Evangelist Pat Robertson indicated Tuesday that if Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist expects backing of religious conservatives for a possible 2008 presidential bid, he had better get President Bush's judicial nominees confirmed by the Senate, or at least voted on.

"It is the ultimate test," Robertson said at the National Press Club. "He cannot be a leader and allow Democrats to do what they did in the last session."

The Democrats' ability to stall White House picks for the federal bench was one of the most contentious issues of Bush's first term.

With a Senate comprised of 55 Republicans, 44 Democrats and a Democrat-leaning independent, Democrats still have the 40 votes necessary to uphold a filibuster and block a vote on a nominee by the full Senate. In the case of a vote by the full Senate on a nominee, a simple majority would be needed for confirmation.

"To the evangelicals, that is the number one consideration," Robertson said, saying "unelected judges" were largely responsible for laws on abortion, gay marriage and Internet pornography.

Bush has sent judicial nominations back to the Senate that were blocked in his first term, assuring another fierce fight. Conservative Christians are a core group of the Republican voter base, so their backing can be crucial in a presidential campaign.

Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition and head of the Christian Broadcasting Network, said he's also worried about Middle East peace efforts.

"I do not believe the state of Israel will be secure if it has a Palestinian state in its heart," Robertson said. A Palestinian state, he said, would have the ability to import weapons to groups in the country that have not agreed to the peace process.


http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=512&u=/
ap/20050215/ap_on_go_co/robertson_gop_1&printer=1

Sodomite Priest Paul Shanley Sentenced for Raping Boy

BOSTON -- Defrocked priest Paul Shanley, a central figure in the Boston Archdiocese clergy sex abuse scandal, was sentenced Tuesday to 12 to 15 years in prison for raping a boy repeatedly in the 1980s, sometimes in a church confessional.

"It is difficult to imagine a more egregious misuse of trust and authority," Judge Stephen Neel said in imposing the term. But he turned aside a prosecutor's request for a life sentence.

Shanley, 74, once known for a being a hip "street priest" who reached out to troubled children and homosexuals, was convicted last week of two counts each of child rape and indecent assault and battery on a child.

He will eligible for parole after serving two-thirds of his sentence, or 8 years. He was also sentenced to 10 years' probation.

The case hinged on the reliability of the accuser's memories of the abuse, which he said he recovered three years ago as the clergy sex abuse scandal unfolded in the media.

Prosecutor Lynn Rooney had recommended a life sentence, saying Shanley used his position of authority to gain the trust of the boys he then molested.

"He used his collar and he used his worshipped status in that community," Rooney said. "There has been no remorse shown on the part of this defendant. There has been no acceptance of responsibility."

Shanley's lawyer, Frank Mondano, did not suggest a specific term, but asked Neel to allow Shanley to serve his sentence in a county lockup rather than state prison. The judge refused. Another notorious pedophile priest, John Geoghan, was killed in a Massachusetts state prison, allegedly by a fellow inmate.

Mondano said the prosecution's case was built on "vilification, half truths and lies." He has said he plans to appeal.

Among the spectators who packed the courtroom for Shanley's sentencing hearing were other people who accused Shanley of sexually abusing them but were not part of the criminal case. As Shanley was led from the courtroom in handcuffs, they burst into applause and one man called out "Goodbye."

Shanley's accuser, now a 27-year-old firefighter in a suburb of Boston, said the former priest would pull him from Sunday morning catechism classes at St. Jean's parish in Newton and rape and fondle him. The abuse began in 1983, when he was 6 years old, and continued for six years, he said.

Rooney read a written statement by Shanley's accuser.

"I want him to die in prison," the man's statement said. "I hope it is slow and painful."

The accuser's wife addressed Shanley in court, saying "no words can ever explain my disgust for you. You are a coward. You hid behind God."

"You robbed my little boy of his innocence," the accuser's father told Shanley. "You destroyed his understanding of good and bad and right and wrong."

During the trial, the accuser broke down on the witness stand as he described in graphic detail being abused by Shanley in a church bathroom, rectory, confessional and pews.

"He told me nobody would ever believe me if I told anybody," he testified.

Shanley became a focal point of the scandal after plaintiffs' attorneys forced the church to release internal records about him. Among the records were documents indicating that he was transferred from parish to parish after allegations surfaced, and that he had attended a forum with other people who later went on to form the North American Man-Boy Love Association, or NAMBLA.

He was one of the few priests among hundreds implicated in the scandal to face criminal charges. Most others escaped prosecution because the statute of limitations ran out long ago. But in Shanley's case, the clock stopped when he moved out of Massachusetts. He was arrested in California in May 2002.

Some inmate advocates say whatever prison term Shanley gets could amount to a death sentence.

Geoghan was beaten and strangled behind bars in 2003, a year after being convicted of molesting a 10-year-old boy. A fellow prisoner later told investigators he killed Geoghan "to save the children."

Shanley is "so high-profile that that puts a big target on his back," said James Pingeon, a lawyer at Massachusetts Correctional Legal Services, a group that provides civil legal services to inmates. "We feel concerned. Obviously, he's a vulnerable person because of his notoriety and his age."


http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&u=/ap/2
0050215/ap_on_re_us/church_abuse_shanley_17&printer=1

The National ID Trojan Horse

by Rep. Ron Paul

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a national ID bill last week that masqueraded as “immigration reform.” The bill does nothing to address immigration policy, however, nor does it propose deporting a single illegal alien already in our country. It does nothing to address the porous border between the U.S. and Mexico, which is the fundamental problem. In reality, the bill is a Trojan horse. It pretends to offer desperately needed border control in order to con a credulous Congress into sacrificing more of our constitutionally protected liberty.

Supporters claim the national ID scheme is voluntary. However, any state that opts out will automatically make non-persons out of its citizens. The citizens of that state will be unable to have any dealings with the federal government because their ID will not be accepted. They will not be able to fly or to take a train. In essence, in the eyes of the federal government they will cease to exist. It is absurd to call this voluntary, and the proponents of the national ID know that every state will have no choice but to comply. Federal legislation that nationalizes standards for drivers’ licenses and birth certificates creates a national ID system pure and simple.

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. Such domestic travel restrictions are the hallmark of authoritarian states, not free republics.

This bill establishes a huge, centrally-coordinated database of highly personal information about American citizens: at a minimum their name, date of birth, place of residence, Social Security number, and physical and possibly other characteristics. The bill even provides for this sensitive information of American citizens to be shared with Canada and Mexico! Imagine a corrupt Mexican official selling thousands of identity files, including Social Security numbers, to criminals!

This legislation gives authority to the Secretary of Homeland Security to expand required information on drivers’ licenses, potentially including such biometric information as retina scans, finger prints, DNA information, and even Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) radio tracking technology. Including such technology as RFID means the federal government, as well as the governments of Canada and Mexico, could know where American citizens are at all times.

What will this mean for us? When this new program is implemented, every time we are required to show our drivers’ license we will, in fact, be showing a national identification card. We will be handing over a card that includes our personal and likely biometric information, information which is connected to a national and international database. This will further degrade our precious privacy, which is the hallmark of a civilized society. As Ayn Rand said, the “Savage’s whole existence is public.”

A national ID card will have the same effect as gun control laws: criminals will ignore it, while law abiding people lose freedom. A national ID card offers us nothing more than a false sense of security, while moving us ever closer to a police state. The national ID proposal should die a well-deserved death in the Senate, and it should be denounced as authoritarian and anti-American.


http://www.house.gov/paul/
tst/tst2005/tst021405.htm

Abortion Instructor Fired, Files Suit

Says county hospital hurt reputation, wants $20 mil

The former program director for Maricopa Medical Center's obstetrics and gynecology residency program wants the county to pay him $20 million for damaging his professional reputation and hurting his future earning potential.

Dr. Chris Carey has filed a notice of claim against the county. The notice is a precursor to a lawsuit.

The claim states that county officials engaged in a "prolonged crusade to defame, disparage, and terminate Dr. Carey."

The county has yet to elaborate on why supervisors directed Maricopa Integrated Health System's chief executive officer to remove Carey from the position, except to say that it's a personnel issue.

Carey said the issue boils down to his views on abortion training. Carey, who advocates for abortion rights, said supervisors did not want the residency program to offer training in family planning or induced abortion even though accreditation groups require programs to provide the training if requested.

The claim, filed last week, states that the county launched more than four separate investigations against Carey.

County officials declined comment.

The hospital has named a new interim chair and program director, but Carey has remained employed there. He said he will no longer be part of the system as of March 1.

The OB/GYN program has been under investigation by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, an accreditation group for the nation's teaching hospi- tals. Maricopa County used to govern the hospital, but it handed over power to a new special health care district board in January.


http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepubli
c/local/articles/0213hospitalclaim.html

Man Indicted In Death Of Fetus

Lonnie McKenzie Jr. allegedly stabbed his pregnant wife in attack

A Summit County grand jury indicted a 24-year-old Lodi man Friday in the knifing of his wife and death of the 14-week-old fetus she was carrying.

Lonnie M. McKenzie Jr. faces counts of murder, attempted murder, felonious assault on his wife, assault against a friend of his wife's who came to her aid and carrying a concealed weapon, according to Summit County Prosecutor Sherri Bevan Walsh.

The incident took place Jan. 30 when McKenzie went to the home of his estranged wife's father in Norton.

McKenzie confronted his wife, Michelle, and her friend, Richard Hobbs, 25, of Norton, who had driven her there, according to police. An argument ensued, with McKenzie allegedly stabbing his wife with an 8-inch steak knife while she was on the phone with police. Police heard the attack over the phone before the call was disconnected.

McKenzie and Hobbs also fought, with Michelle McKenzie again calling police to give her address.

Michelle McKenzie's wounds included a collapsed lung, damaged liver and a damaged kidney, which had to be removed, Walsh said in a news release.

This is McKenzie's second set of charges involving his wife. He was charged with domestic violence and child endangering in July 2002 for an attack during an argument. The endangering charge was dismissed and the domestic violence charge was reduced to disorderly conduct, Walsh said.

McKenzie will be arraigned on the new charges at 8 a.m. Wednesday before a Summit County Common Pleas Court magistrate.


http://www.ohio.com/mld/bea
conjournal/10881190.htm?1c

Selling Abomination to Kids

Fairchild Pulls Prom Magazine Over Child-Porn URL in Ad

Two publishers today—Fairchild Publications and Hearst Magazines—are taking radically different approaches to the appearance of a child-porn Web site address that accidentally turned up in a prom-dress ad that is running in both publishers’ newsstand prom fashion/beauty specials.

Fairchild Publications, publisher of Jane and Modern Bride, announced it will pull some 200,000 copies of YM Your Prom off newsstands after Studio 17, a prom-dress advertiser, mistakenly printed a child-porn Web site address in two of its six ad pages. Fairchild had put a total of 680,000 copies on newsstand in late December, but an estimated 75 percent had already been sold.

“As a publisher that reaches teens with this special prom issue, not to mention as a mother, we are taking swift action to take all the remaining issues off the newsstand to prevent teenagers from unwittingly being exposed to a Web site that contains pornographic material,” said Mary Berner, president/CEO of Fairchild. “We have contacted the advertiser who placed the ad and they are equally distressed by this copy error.”

Meanwhile, Hearst Magazines, publisher of Seventeen and CosmoGirl, has also had to grapple with this snafu. Some 600,000 copies of Teen Prom are also carrying the Studio 17 pages, but the publisher said it will not pull its copies off newsstands. “We have no plans to do that at this time,” said a Hearst spokeswoman.

“This was a mistake on the advertiser’s behalf—in fact, the error also appeared in their own catalogue. This is a very unfortunate situation and, quite simply, the result of human error. We've received very few complaints and have handled them immediately,” the Hearst spokeswoman added.

http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/recen
t_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000798594

Mobilizing Prayer Warriors

To Unplug or not to Unplug?

By Gary North

I have not sent out a letter to this list since November 17. I had hoped to be able to send out an announcement in December or early January that my commentary on Luke is finally indexed, but Luke is proving to be a hard row to hoe. It may not be finished until next month. My book deserves a good index. Of all books in the Bible, Luke's economic message condemns both the economic practices and the economic faith of the modern world. Luke's call to faith in God rather than faith in mammon hits the modern world right in the heart.

What motivated me to write this letter was "Million Dollar Baby." You may have heard about it. Clint Eastwood directed it. Eastwood is a first-rate director, and this is his best effort so far. It will not surprise me if he wins an Oscar for his work. It will surprise me if Hillary Swank doesn't win the Oscar for best actress. Her performance is spectacular. Even more important, her role may be the best one that any woman has had for a decade, and maybe two. The only role I can think of just off the top of my head that matches it is Geraldine Paige's old woman who wanted to visit her childhood home in "A Trip to Bountiful." That was two decades ago. She won the Oscar.

The contrast between the two roles is worth considering. "A Trip to Bountiful" is about a Christian woman at the end of her life. She finds herself in a difficult position, living with her son and daughter-in-law in a small apartment just after World War II. She is barely tolerated by her daughter-in-law, who resents her humming of hymns as the old woman works all day in the apartment. The daughter-in-law wants only her Social Security check to pay the rent. The movie is about a family's attempt to reconcile a troublesome situation peacefully. It was written by Horton Foote, who I regard as America's greatest playwright, ever -- not the God- hating Arthur Miller. Foote is still alive, and probably still writing, almost seventy years after he began his craft. This has to be a record. He lives in the same small house in the same small Texas town he grew up in -- another record.

"Million Dollar Baby" is about a very different sort of woman. The character is a 31-year-old woman who wants only to become a boxer. That any woman wants to become a boxer is odd enough. That there are paying fans to see women box is indicative that something has gone wrong in modern culture. The role of women as warriors is questionable enough in high-tech warfare, in which conceivably some of them can do well behind the lines, such as in cryptography. But boxing? Boxing is a bloody sport where fighters risk killing each other. The athlete's goal is to inflict more pain on the opponent than the opponent inflicts on him. What is a woman doing in a boxing ring? As the movie's script admits, the sport is a freak show.

Only late in the film are we told what the movie is really about: the moral dilemma of assisted suicide. Clint Eastwood plays the role of a loving, caring, protective father figure who decides to play Dr. Kevorkian.

He goes to mass daily, then harasses the priest with the same skeptical questions, over and over, after mass. Yet he prays nightly for his daughter, who severed all contact with him decades earlier. We are not told why.

The movie is about murder. There can be little doubt: the audience is expected to side with Eastwood's character, who gets away with murder. The script writer did not even bother to cover up the fact that Eastwood's character would have been under suspicion of murder as the prime suspect. He leaves his fingerprints all over the hospital room. But the authorities do nothing, and he makes a clean getaway. He disappears successfully -- highly unlikely in today's Social Security number-traceable society.

Richard Dreyfuss made a similar movie a quarter century ago: "Whose Life Is It, Anyway?" The moral issue raised is the same, yet it is never dealt with openly. The issue is this: Should an adult in his right mind have the moral and legal right to demand that others stop keeping him alive? This is not the issue of active suicide: a person's taking of his own life, i.e., inflicting the ultimate negative historical sanction. It is the issue of passive suicide: refusing to take active steps that would keep yourself alive.

In wartime, there are suicide missions. We think nothing of this. Volunteering is regarded as honorable. In wartime, a wounded soldier may tell his buddy to stop trying to defend him from the enemy and leave. An act of heroism, we say. But if someone in a hospital bed tells his physician to pull the feeding tubes out of his throat, the physician refuses. After all, he may get sued. Medical ethics supposedly prohibits tube-removal. It is wrong to kill a patient in a hospital bed. After all, the person in the bed isn't an unborn infant. Someone is paying good money to keep the person in the bed alive, so life in this case is precious.

This raises a crucial yet neglected question: Who is paying $5,000+ a day to keep him alive. An insurance company? Medicare? The person's family? Or, in the case of "Million Dollar Baby," the Boxing Commission?

An old person in a hospital bed may want to go home and die in his own bed. This is not allowed. This is why there is a Kevorkian problem today. The individual who wants to go home and die in his bed is not permitted to get his wish. The state doesn't enforce it.

But what if the person is not age 80? What if he is age 40? What if his decision to go home is, in effect, a suicide mission? It will not directly save other men's lives. But it will save society $5,000 a day for the next 40 years -- money that could be used to save other men's lives.

The moral issue is never presented this way. The decision to "unplug" a person in a hospital bed is always presented as a decision about the sick person's quality of life. Is a quadriplegic enjoying a good life? No? Well, then, let him have the right to pull the plug. The issue is never presented as an act of self-sacrifice to save society an expense that must be paid for, and for which the scarce economic resources could be used more productively.

This refusal to unplug will eventually bankrupt Medicare. Because of modern technology, the health care industry can keep very sick old people alive for an extra six months. Half of all the money an American absorbs for medical care in his lifetime is absorbed in the final six months of his life. But the welfare state is messianic. It is determined to heal. The result will be the bankruptcy of the government.

Unless. . . . Unless society finally concludes that it's cheaper to play Dr. Kevorkian than Dr. Kildare. Then, step by step, plug-pulling will be made mandatory. A person's second childhood will put him into the category of the pre-born. Come that day, the state's officials will step in and pull the plug on their own authority, over the protests of the person in the bed and his family. Such is the dilemma created by Medicare and all state-funded medical care. When the state can put a gun in the belly of a voter and tell him to pay his fair share to keep another voter alive, this voter may organize politically with other voters to get the state to pull the plug. Such is democracy. Vox populi, vox dei.

The movies never put the issue this way because the screenplays are written by people who are deeply committed to the ideal of the messianic state. Hollywood's answer to "Whose life is it, anyway?" is clear: the state's.

In the movie, the priest tells Eastwood not to do this. He tells him that he will be irrevocably lost if he does. Not that he will successfully get lost, but be lost. This, biblically speaking, is nonsense. Repentance is always an option in history. The priest does not offer counsel with respect to the moral issues involved -- for Eastwood, the woman in the bed, the state, or society. This, I fear, is not just Hollywood's version of priests. On the issue of pulling the plug, the clergy seems baffled. Like a giant squid, the messianic state has filled the moral environment with ink.

This leads me to a consideration of the issue raised by the characters played by Hillary Swank and Richard Dreyfuss: the quality of life. Both of them are convinced that they have no life worth living. I suppose quadriplegia does have the effect of focusing one's attention on the issue of the meaning and quality of life. If you are literally a talking head, what good is your life?

I don't face this problem in the way that most people would. I'm a writer. A writer, like a theoretical physicist, can remain productive when paralyzed, though probably not $5,000 a day worth of productivity (after taxes). But what of the average person? Swank's character was a poorly educated person. Dreyfuss' character was an artist. When our work is no longer possible, and when we can't go on the endless vacation called retirement, what good are we to anyone?

The question is legitimate. Society's answers are muddled.

What would you do of value if you were a quadriplegic? With a war on, this is not a hypothetical question for severely wounded vets. The Veterans Administration's hospital beds are filling up with such people -- ignored, warehoused for life, rarely interviewed on television. They see nurses every day, who are trained to remain aloof and professional in order to preserve their sanity. Their families may show up for weekly visits, but for the next 60 years? Probably not. The girlfriends won't. What of the young wives? Probably not.

What would you do of value under similar circumstances?

I have a suggestion: pray. Hollywood will never do a movie on this topic. But the churches aren't much better.

Across America, there is an idle army of potential prayer warriors: in retirement homes, in "convalescent" homes, in prisons, and in hospital beds. What if the churches systematically organized these people? What if prayers went up daily -- for people in the same environment as the praying heads, for sick people in churches, for community evangelism, and for peace? Paul wrote:

I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth (I Tim 2:1-4).

For anyone with his mind still intact, prayer is a way to make a positive contribution to society. Prayer is a work of grace. A quadriplegic is in a position to come close a literal fulfillment of Paul's words:

Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you (I Thes. 5:16-18).

This is not Hollywood's solution. It is also not the church's. Not yet.

If I were a pastor praying for church growth, let alone my church's local social influence, I would organize a program of mobilization and evangelism. Maybe I would call it "Praying Heads." I would go into our society's warehousing centers to recruit volunteers. I would go into a local convalescent home to preach, but always with an offer -- not an offer to "roll that wheelchair down the aisle for Jesus," but to get listeners to volunteer for daily prayer. This commitment should start out small: 10 minutes a day. Get people into a prayer program as you would get them into an exercise program: one step at a time.

I would organize it thusly: specific prayers for specific people, beginning with people in the center. Then I would widen the circle to include the local church. The typical Wednesday night prayer meeting sounds like a medical center anyway. Everyone seems to have a relative or a friend or a relative of a friend who is sick. The group is asked to pray, once. Then there is no follow-up. Next week, it's someone else. The haphazard nature of Wednesday night prayer does not do justice to Christ's parable of the unjust judge.

And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint; Saying, There was in a city a judge, which feared not God, neither regarded man: And there was a widow in that city; and she came unto him, saying, Avenge me of mine adversary. And he would not for a while: but afterward he said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man; Yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me. And the Lord said, Hear what the unjust judge saith (Luke 18:1-6).

The churches are missing a tremendous opportunity. They are not mobilizing the troops outside the four walls of the church. They regard old folks' homes and hospitals and prisons as places that absorb church resources, unplugged drains that need constant refilling. This is a mistake. Churches should seek to transform these centers into prayer centers.

When I ministered to men in a level-5, maximum security prison in Texas in the late 1990s, I told those men that they had the most precious resource in abundance: free time. I told them that they were in a position to convert this resource into kingdom benefits through systematic prayer.

I don't think the modern church has begun to mobilize for battle. I don't think it has any conception of the power or organized, systematic, targeted, specific prayer. James wrote:

From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts (James 4:1-3).

If churches would systematically recruit and then mobilize the local armies of people with time of their hands, creating full-time prayer circles and prayer chains, there would be positive transformation.

We have not because we ask not. We need full-time askers.

___________________________________

This newsletter is available by double request only, i.e., double opt-in. Send an e-mail to ice@kbot.com. You will immediately be sent a letter: "Subscription Confirmation -- Take Action!" Click the embedded confirmation link to confirm your subscription. Only then are you added to this mailing list. There is no other way to subscribe.

Second, to change your e-mail address, click the UNSUBSCRIBE link. Then send in a new subscription request: ice@kbot.com. Out with the old; in with the new!

Third, visit http://www.freebooks.com, where you can download 90+ free books.

Fourth, send for a list of my free, on-line economic commentaries on the Bible: commentaries@kbot.com.

Fifth, send a donation to Dominion Educational Ministries, Inc., 991 Chicago Ave., Harrisonburg, VA. 22802

Sodomite AIDS Plague Alarm!

New Strain: Full-Blown AIDS In 3 Months

NYC Health Officials Find New, Virulent HIV Strain

New York City doctors have discovered a man with a previously unseen strain of HIV that is resistant to three of the four types of anti-viral drugs that combat the disease, and progresses from infection to full-blown AIDS in two or three months, the health department said.

``We've identified this strain of HIV that is difficult or impossible to treat and which appears to progress rapidly to AIDS,'' said New York City Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden. ``We have not seen a case like this before. It holds the potential for a very serious public health problem.''

The case was diagnosed in a New Yorker in his mid-40s who reported multiple male sex partners and unprotected anal sex -- often while using the drug crystal methamphetamine.

``It is likely there are others infected with this strain and this individual has infected others,'' Frieden said. The case is ``extremely concerning and a wake-up call,'' he said.

Antonio Urbina, medical director of HIV education and training at St. Vincent's Catholic Medical Center, site of one of Manhattan's largest AIDS clinics, said the patient's use of crystal methamphetamine shows that the drug ``continues to play a significant role in facilitating the transmission of HIV.'' The drug reduces peoples' inhibitions and their likelihood of using condoms or other forms of safe sex, he said.

`Alarming'

While drug resistance is increasingly common among patients who have been treated for HIV, cases of three-class antiretroviral-resistant HIV -- or 3-DCR HIV -- in newly diagnosed, previously untreated patients are extremely rare, and the combination of this pattern of drug resistance and rapid progression to AIDS may not have been seen previously, the health department said in a news release.

The strain found in New York was ``highly unusual,'' said Ronald Valdiserri, 53, deputy director of the National Center for HIV, Sexually Transmitted Diseases and Tuberculosis at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in an interview.

``We're talking about a single case, but clearly the fact that we are dealing with such broad resistance of drugs and the rapid clinical progression is quite alarming,'' Valdiserri said.

U.S. health officials intend to contact clinics across the country to set up a surveillance system for the HIV strain, he said. City officials are working to identify, contact and counsel the patient's sex partners, Frieden said.

Fuzeon

Frieden said the one drug the HIV strain isn't resistant to is Enfuvirtide, sold under the trade name Fuzeon, developed by Trimeris Inc. of Durham, North Carolina, and Roche Holding AG of Switzerland. The problem, Frieden and other physicians said, is that this drug is most effective when used in a ``cocktail'' with other retrovirus drugs such as nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors, non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors and protease inhibitors.

Trimeris stock closed at $13.60, up 86 cents or 6.75 percent, in composite trading on the Nasdaq, the biggest single- day percentage gain since Sept. 10, when it rose 11.49 percent, and down $4.63 from $17.93 a year ago. Roche shares traded at 123.2 Swiss Francs, up 0.5 francs, in composite trading in Zurich, down six Swiss Francs from a year ago.

The news ``is probably positive for Trimeris,'' said Sharon Seiler, a biotech analyst with New York-based Punk, Ziegel & Co., which she said owns no shares in the company, though it does act as a market maker. Fuzeon's required twice-daily injections and the need to mix the solution for 20 minutes ``have been significant impediments to the drug's sales'' in two years on the market, she said.

Fast Onset

The drug, which costs a patient an average $20,000, is the first in a class called fusion inhibitors that work by preventing HIV from infecting healthy cells.

The infected New Yorker had gone for AIDS tests frequently over the years and tested negatively until December, when he tested positive for the virus, Frieden said. Physicians believe he became infected in October.

``In this patient's case, onset of AIDS appears to have occurred within two or three months and at most 20 months after HIV infection,'' Frieden said. The patient, whose name was withheld, has symptoms usually associated ``with someone who has very advanced disease,'' he said.

The normal time of progression from infection to full-blown AIDS in an untreated patient is about nine years, with death following within 18 months, said Karlie Stanton, a spokeswoman for the CDC in Atlanta. For someone treated with anti-viral drugs, the average progression to disease from infection is 11 years, with death occurring within an average six years, Stanton said.

Watching for Cases

Doctors at the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center in Manhattan diagnosed the patient, Frieden said. David Ho, director of the center, said that while this represents a single case, ``it is prudent to closely watch for any additional possible cases while continuing to emphasize the importance of reducing HIV risk behavior.''

Persons diagnosed and living with HIV/AIDS in New York City totaled 88,479 out of a total population of 7.3 million in calendar year 2003, the last year in which statistics are available.


http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/ne
ws?pid=10000103&sid=azBO_AumTJhs

Experts Want H.I.V. Testing for All Americans

Urging a major shift in U.S. policy, some health experts are recommending that virtually all Americans be tested routinely for the AIDS virus, much as they are for cancer and other diseases.

Since the early years of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, the government has recommended only screening in big cities, where AIDS rates are high, and among members of high-risk groups, such as gay men (but no nationwide quarantine was ever called, which would have saved thousands of innocent lives).

Now two large, federally funded studies found that the cost of routinely testing and treating nearly all adults would be outweighed by a reduction in new infections and the opportunity to start patients on drug cocktails early, when they work best.

"Given the availability of effective therapy and preventive measures, it is possible to improve care and perhaps influence the course of the epidemic through widespread, effective and cost-effective screening," Dr. Samuel A. Bozzette wrote in an editorial accompanying the studies, which appear in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.

A failure to institute such screening at doctors' offices and clinics would be "a critical disservice" to patients with the AIDS virus and "the future health of the nation," wrote Bozzette, who is from the University of California at San Diego and the Rand Corp. think tank in Santa Monica, Calif.

Dr. Robert Janssen, director of HIV-AIDS prevention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the CDC will re-evaluate its guidelines over the next two years, and will consider the study's findings as well as the availability of new, rapid HIV tests that produce results in a half-hour instead of the usual week or two.

Who would bear the cost of expanded testing and the cost of the treatment, which runs to at least $15,000 a year remains a sticky question amid government cutbacks in health-care funding. However, Janssen said the studies' findings could lead to some private insurers to encourage more HIV testing.

One of the studies, by researchers at Duke and Stanford universities and the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System, estimated that routine one-time testing of everyone would cut new infections each year by just over 20 percent, and that every HIV-infected patient identified would gain an average of 1 1/2 years of life.

The other study, by Yale and Harvard researchers, found that testing people every three to five years would be cost-effective for all but the lowest-risk people, such as those who are celibate or are in monogamous heterosexual relationships. And even for those people, one-time testing was found to be cost-effective.

Nationwide, about 40,000 new HIV infections occur each year. An estimated 950,000 people are infected with the virus, but about 280,000 of them don't know it.

CDC guidelines recommend routine tests wherever the prevalence of HIV infection is more than 1 percent basically, cities and some densely populated suburbs.

"If you need proof of the fact that it's not working, look at all the people who have slipped through the cracks 280,000," said A. David Paltiel of the Yale School of Medicine's division of health policy, lead author of the second study.

The VA-funded study found that in areas where about 1 in 100 patients has undiagnosed HIV what the CDC calls high-risk settings widespread testing would cost about $15,100 for each year of good health gained by people diagnosed with the virus, counting the benefits to their sexual partners.

Even in areas with an undiagnosed HIV infection rate of only 1 in 2,000 the rate in the general population each healthy year gained by newly diagnosed HIV patients and their partners would still cost less than $50,000. That is the threshold at which health economists generally consider treatments to be cost-effective.

Paltiel noted the two groups of researchers had very similar cost-benefit results, even though they used different computer models.

"The cost-benefit to individuals and society is worth" widespread screening, said Dr. Lawrence Deyton, chief of public health in the Department of Veterans Affairs, which provides medical care to about 5 million veterans.

In light of the findings, he said the VA is going to urge more patients to get tested.

"We're going to take the ball and run with it," Deyton said.


http://abcnews.go.com/He
alth/wireStory?id=485527

Abandoned baby dies at hospital

An infant who had been abandoned outside a suburban hospital has died, authorities reported, a day after the remains of what apparently was a human fetus was found in the laundry of another area hospital.

Someone put a newborn boy in a box and dropped it off Tuesday night or Wednesday morning on the grounds of Westlake Hospital, 1225 W. Lake St., Melrose Park, WGN-AM 720 reported.

As outdoor temperatures dropped below freezing, no one noticed the box until Wednesday morning.

By that time, it was too late to save the child, WGN and CLTV reported. The infant was pronounced dead at the hospital shortly after 11 a.m. Wednesday.

Investigators said a note written in Spanish was left with the baby, WGN reported. Melrose Park police and Illinois Department of Children and Family Services officials were investigating.

Separately, the remains of a possible human fetus were discovered Wednesday among linens in the laundry room of St. Francis Hospital, Evanston, authorities said. The body of a baby boy was found in the same laundry room last fall.

Evanston Deputy Police Chief Joe Bellino said police were notified about 8:35 a.m. that laundry workers at St. Francis found the remains as they sorted through a fresh load of linens. The laundry room was shut down, and a team of crime investigators was called.

St. Francis is one of several hospitals owned by Resurrection Health Care. The laundry room provides laundry service for nine hospitals, a spokeswoman said.

Police determined the remains did not come from St. Francis because the linens were from another hospital, Bellino said.

"Our first concern is to locate the hospital that the laundry came from," he said. "We are working to do that now. From there, we will see what we need to do."

On Wednesday, hospital officials released a statement saying they were working with police.

"We offer our prayers for everyone involved," the statement said. "We are providing pastoral counseling for those employees on the scene as well as any others who desire it."

In October, Evanston police asked for help locating the mother of a baby boy whose body was found entangled in newly washed laundry at the same hospital. In that case, which is still under investigation, the baby apparently had been placed in a basket of soiled linen.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-050210ba
by,1,170005.story?coll=chi-news-hed&ctrack=3&cset=true

Utah's anti-Christian bill

State law would specifically discriminate against street preachers, sidewalk counselors and literature distribution at places of worship and abortion clinics

Bill calls for harsher penalties against Christian street preachers

Street preachers at general conference In Salt Lake City may face stiffer penalties in the future under a bill that has progressed to the House Floor with a low probability of being considered unconstitutional.

The bill would make it a class B misdemeanor for street preachers to knowingly come within eight feet of another person to “obstruct, detain, hinder, impede or block” anyone entering a place of worship or health care facility. This includes distributing handbills or leaflets and displaying a sign or object. It will also be illegal to educate or counsel another person or engage in oral protest.

Under this bill, HB131, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who believe they have been approached in such a way will be able to seek a court injunction and sue for civil damages.

Though Provo City Councilman Paul Warner has seen the protestors at general conference and disagrees with their message, he thinks they have their rights, too.

“It [protesting] gives people a chance who are in a minority position to express themselves,” he said.

Warner also said these people might be getting pushed into a corner they shouldn’t necessarily have to be in.

“Sometimes we try to control too much; that’s been my experience city-council- wise,” Warner said.

Some members of the church disagree with the protesting at general conference.

“It’s bothersome and annoying to members of the church,” said BYU student Landon Budge. “But I suppose it’s their right to do that.”

Budge said as long as the First Amendment is not violated, additional restriction on the street preachers would be preferable.

However, not all street preachers are there to disrupt general conference.

Standing Together, an Evangelical ministry devoted to sharing Christ’s love, has made a significant effort during the last two general conferences to stand outside and respectfully greet members of the LDS Church and welcome them to conference, said Eric Ryan McHenry, ministry associate for Standing Together.

“We felt that the actions of the street preachers has not reflected the greater heart [of the Evangelical community],” McHenry said.

He said some of these actions, such as rudeness, name-calling and stomping and spitting on temple garments do not reflect Christ’s love in any way. He also referred to 1 Corinthians 13:1 in describing the futility of these people’s efforts.

“The thing we’ve been criticized for is criticizing other Christians to make ourselves look good,” McHenry said.

This is why he felt a good-faith effort to find similarities rather than differences, and to build civility rather than discord was so necessary.

He said there are four types of Christians. First is the kind that will “clack’em over the head with the Bible and show them the truth.” He believes this is overkill.

Second are those who feel there are just two things to avoid in conversation: politics and religion.

Next are those that have Mormon friends, but think they just can’t talk to them about faith.

Finally, he described the group he belongs to as those with “convictive civility,” which he regards as a better representation of faith. These are those who recognize differences between religions courteously. He thinks it is a greater sign of respect to acknowledge differences and strengths, but not concede on any level.

McHenry said Standing Together has received thanks from leaders in the LDS Church on many occasions for their efforts to unite people of different faiths in Utah communities.

One letter, written by the late Elder Neal A. Maxwell and Elder Henry B. Eyring of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles on April 9, 2004 said: “The Christian Service rendered by you and your associates on Saturday and Sunday was significant and appreciated by many. Your kindness and wishes for an enjoyable conference was an uplifting contrast to those that came to disrupt the spirit of worship and goodwill.”


http://newsnet.byu.
edu/story.cfm/54288

Killing Preborn Charges Law

Fetus' death triggers charge of murder law

In Ohio, causing the death of an 8-week-old fetus can get you charged with murder, even if the embryo can't survive on its own.

The reason is simple: Ohio law says so.

The issue surfaced in a recent Summit County case. Police there charged Lonnie McKenzie Jr. with murder after his estranged wife's 2-month-old fetus died.

Police say the Lodi man stabbed Michelle McKenzie -- once in the back and once in the chest -- with an 8-inch steak knife on Jan. 30, killing her unborn baby.

Michelle McKenzie remains in serious condition in intensive care at Akron General Medical Center.

Officials can file a murder charge in such cases because of how Ohio law defines murder, says Katherine Federle, an Ohio State University law professor.

"Under the statute, it is murder if you purposely cause the death of another or purposely cause the unlawful termination of another's pregnancy," Federle says.

The law doesn't raise the issue of viability -- the ability of the fetus to survive on its own.

Under the law, the penalty for ending someone else's pregnancy is the same as murdering an adult: 15 years to life and a fine of up to $15,000.

"States are the final decision makers in what goes on in their states," says Karin Mika, a professor of legal writing at Cleveland State University's law school.

The exception, she says, is when the U.S. Supreme Court makes a decision regarding constitutional rights.

That's what happened in Roe v. Wade. The 1973 case gave women the constitutional right to an abortion.

But if someone else takes the life of that fetus, a state's criminal laws come into play.

Terminating another's pregnancy was added to Ohio's murder law in 1996, after a Middletown woman and her unborn son were killed in a car accident. The driver of the other car was 16, speeding and driving without a license. The victim was 8½ months pregnant.


http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer
/index.ssf?/base/news/110794519836261.xml

Three in Va. Indicted Under 'Feticide' Law

Two Pregnant Women Slain in Attacks

A Prince William County grand jury indicted three men yesterday under Virginia's new "feticide" law in two unrelated attacks on pregnant women who were slain along with their fetuses.

Jorge Vazquez-Hernandez was indicted on charges of murder and the unintentional killing of a fetus in the October fatal stabbing of a pregnant salesclerk in Manassas, Rosa Isabel Umana, 30, prosecutors said.

In an attack last month, Carlos Diangilo Williams, 26, was indicted on charges of murder and the intentional killing of a fetus in the beating with a baseball bat of his former girlfriend, Cheri Washington, 17, prosecutors said.

Two of Williams's relatives also have been charged in the slaying and turned themselves in yesterday, police said. If convicted, Williams, who was also charged with abduction, faces a maximum prison sentence of life plus 50 years.

Prince William Commonwealth's Attorney Paul B. Ebert said at a news conference yesterday that he was disappointed that he could not seek the death penalty for Williams. But Ebert said there is no evidence to prove that Williams purposely killed the Hylton High School student, a requirement under state law to pursue a capital murder case.

"His intention was only to kill the fetus. Otherwise, it would have been capital. It is a horrendous crime . . ." said Ebert, joined by Prince William Police Chief Charlie T. Deane. "If there was ever a capital case, I wish this was it."

The cases are among the first to test the state's feticide law, which took effect July 1. If the killing was premeditated, the sentence range is 20 years to life in prison. If it is not premeditated, then the sentence is between five and 40 years.

Stephen James Covington Jr., 18, who police said gave Williams the baseball bat, was indicted on charges of murder, killing a fetus and abduction. A 17-year-old was charged on a juvenile petition as an accessory after the fact on charges of murder, killing a fetus and abduction. Covington and the juvenile lived with Williams in the 14800 block of Dixon Court, police said. If tried as an adult and convicted, he would face up to 12 months on each charge.

Law enforcement officials said that Washington, who was five months pregnant and wanted to have the child, went to Williams's home early Jan. 27 to talk about her pregnancy but that Williams became enraged.

He "did not want her to have a baby, and he was going to kill the unborn child," Deane said yesterday.

Williams held her against her will at his home for several hours, pounded her stomach with a baseball bat and kicked and stomped on her, police said. Deane said one of the accomplices arrested in connection with the attack covered up the crime afterward.

Ebert said Williams, believed to be the unborn child's father, had learned of Washington's pregnancy the day before the attack or the day it occurred. Williams allowed her to leave and ordered her to tell other people a "story that didn't involve him" if asked about her injuries, Ebert said.

After walking away from the home shortly before 2 p.m. that day, she collapsed. A motorist found her, and the teenager was later taken to Potomac Hospital in Woodbridge. Police interviewed Washington, whose fetus was dead, at the hospital. Washington was flown to Inova Fairfax Hospital, where she died the next morning.

Police seized the bat, a large kitchen knife, a pair of rubber gloves and duct tape from the home, according to search warrants filed in court.

Natasha Washington, 23, the victim's sister, said the family is upset that prosecutors cannot seek the death penalty. "He took two lives, but whether it's in prison or not, he gets to wake up every morning," she said. "I don't think he deserves to get to live."

Natasha Washington said she has never met and does not know those charged in her sister's slaying.

Umana, who was also five months pregnant, was fatally stabbed while at work at a general store in Manassas on Oct. 11, police said.

A jail officer testified in a court hearing last month that Vazquez-Hernandez told him that he stabbed her because he got mad that she followed him every time he visited the store.

Ebert said the assailant did not know she was pregnant, which is why Vazquez-Hernandez was charged with the unintentional killing of the fetus, as well as murder.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn
/articles/A6459-2005Feb7.html?sub=AR

FBI whistle-blower to testify for defense in Rudolph bombing

ATLANTA, Georgia -- Attorneys for accused bomber Eric Rudolph have enlisted the services of FBI whistle-blower Frederick Whitehurst as they seek to get scientific evidence against Rudolph thrown out before his trial.

Whitehurst worked at the FBI lab from 1986 to 1998 and was its leading expert on bomb residue.

During his entire last year at the bureau, he was suspended after making allegations of shoddy work and misleading testimony. A day after he returned to work, he voluntarily resigned as part of a $1.16 million settlement with the FBI.

Jury selection begins in the Rudolph trial on March 23. He could be sentenced to death if convicted of bombing a Birmingham, Alabama, abortion clinic on January 29, 1998. A police officer was killed by the blast.

This time, Whitehurst will be testifying about lab and fieldwork done by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, not the FBI.

In defense motions filed Tuesday in Birmingham, Whitehurst is quoted as challenging the work of ATF bomb technicians who collected evidence from the site of the clinic bombing, as well as from Rudolph's home and truck after he became identified as a suspect.

"I have concluded that the actions of law enforcement agents who seized and processed various items of explosive-related evidence at the crime scene, and at Mr. Rudolph's storage facility, trailer, and Nissan truck, is not the product of reliable scientific principles and methods, and that these law enforcement officials did not apply the principles and methods of science reliably to the facts of this case," said the Whitehurst affidavit.

Whitehurst also said ATF bomb techs -- who reconstructed the clinic bomb based on evidence found at the scene and who are expected to testify that it involved a remote control detonator -- are not qualified and "have drawn conclusions about the manufacture of the detonator not supported by the evidence."

Whitehurst also testified as an expert witness for the defense in the O.J. Simpson murder case.

Rudolph had been on the run for more than five years when he was arrested by a rookie police officer behind a grocery store in Murphy, North Carolina, on May 31, 2003.

He had been the subject of an intensive manhunt and was wanted for the bombings of a clinic where abortions are performed in Birmingham and a string of bombings in Atlanta, Georgia, including the blast that took place during the 1996 Summer Olympics in Centennial Olympic Park.


http://edition.cnn.com/2005/LAW/
02/08/rudolph.fbi.whistleblower/

Lawmakers Seek Change in Hate Crimes Law

Bill Would Strip 'Sexual Orientation' from PA's Hate Crimes Law

Legislators in Pennsylvania have introduced a bill designed to remove language from a state "hate crimes" law that was used against Christian protestors in the "Outfest" case in Philadelphia. The arrests of the Christians allowed political opponents of the hate crimes law to say their warnings were ignored.

House Bill 1493 became Act 143 of the Pennsylvania Hate Crimes Law in November 2002 and added "sexual orientation" protection to the law. Legislators and other opponents -- like Diane Gramley of the American Family Association of Pennsylvania -- warned then that the law could be used against the First Amendment rights of Christians, a charge sponsors adamantly denied was the intent. She even recalls one of the measure's supporters accusing opponents of having "an active imagination," and saying the bill was about "thugs, hooligans, murderers, and blood in the street," not about infringing on the rights of Christians.

That was until the pro-homosexual Outfest event in October 2004, when the "ethnic intimidation" charge against the arrested Christians was drawn from Act 143. Gramley says opponents of the measure now have the proof they need -- and 17 of them have co-sponsored House Bill 204.

"[This bill] removes the wording that was added back in November 2002 [when] 'actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender, and gender identity' [were added]," she explains.

State Representative Tom Yewcic was to introduce the new bill today (February 7) at a capital news conference. Gramley calls the lawmakers' move a "bold step in restoring the First Amendment rights of Pennsylvania's Christians."

Five of the Christians arrested at the Outfest event are stilling facing 47 years in prison and fines up to $90,000 each. Those who were arrested committed no violence against homosexuals at the gathering. However, a city prosecutor declared that the bullhorn used by one of the Christians was an "instrument of crime."


http://headlines.agapepres
s.org/archive/2/72005b.asp

Rudolph challenges ID by black witness near clinic bombing

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- Defense lawyers are questioning claims of a black man who allegedly saw Eric Rudolph near the scene of a deadly abortion clinic blast, arguing his identification may be flawed because Rudolph is white.

In a document filed Wednesday, Rudolph's attorneys asked a judge to consider allowing testimony from a university professor about the shakiness of so-called "cross-racial identifications" and eyewitness identifications in general.

The government has opposed the testimony, calling it unscientific and claiming such evidence was barred in other courts.

Court documents indicate a hearing will be held on whether jurors should be allowed to see a variety of scientific evidence in Rudolph's trial — scheduled to begin in late March with two months of jury selection — but no date for a hearing has been set.

The defense wants jurors to hear from Steven Penrod, a psychology professor from New York. Penrod has testified in other cases about the difficulty witnesses have accurately identifying people of other races, Rudolph's lawyers said.

Prosecutors object to testimony by Penrod, arguing other courts have refused to let him testify about eyewitness identification. His testimony could "confuse, mislead and potentially usurp the jury," prosecutors said.

Defense lawyers want to use Penrod to challenge the testimony of a black man identified in court papers only as "J.H." The witness, attending the University of Alabama at Birmingham at the time, allegedly saw Rudolph within a block of the clinic when the bomb went off on Jan. 29, 1998.

The defense said the importance of J.H.'s testimony to the prosecution's case "cannot be overestimated."

"No witness ever saw Mr. Rudolph on the property of the abortion clinic. J.H. is the only witness who will be able to place Mr. Rudolph anywhere near abortion clinic close to the time of the explosion," the defense argued in asking a judge to let Penrod testify.

Court documents show that J.H. followed a man believed to be Rudolph after the bombing. The witness's actions led to the sighting of Rudolph's truck in Birmingham shortly after the explosion, prompting a more than five-year manhunt that ended with Rudolph's arrest in May 2003 in North Carolina.

Jailed without bond since then, Rudolph pleaded innocent in the Alabama bombing, which killed a police office and seriously injured a nurse. He could be sentenced to death if convicted.

Rudolph also is charged with setting a bomb that exploded at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, killing a woman and injuring dozens, and with other bombings in Atlanta in 1997.


http://www.al.com/newsflash/regional/index.ssf?/bas
e/news-11/1107978400152900.xml&storylist=alabamanews

Latest News Headlines

• Rove's New Position Will Involve Policy
• GOP Tries to Rally Support for Bush Budget
• Bush Faces Fight on Farm Payment Limits
• Study: Nine in 10 Americans Worry About Retirement
• Tech Virus Threat Spreads
• Microsoft Releases Several Security Fixes

• Abortion in The Crosshairs
• After Calif. More States Eye Stem Cell Research
• Harvard Pushing Stem Cell Research
• Maryland stem cell bill is introduced
• Prenatal Screening for Parasite Urged

• Dean steps up to rebuild Democrats
• Lawmakers Favor Civil Unions, Despite Objections
• Mayor Defends Marriage Licenses to Sodomites
• Virginia Bill Sets Fine for Low-Riding Pants
• Another Teacher Accused Of Sex With Student
• Teacher Nabbed For Student Sex
• Porn Pictures Said Taken at Disney Hotel

Flu Vaccine for Cannibals

CONSUMER WARNING: New flu vaccine tainted with aborted baby parts

Abortion-Tainted New Flu Vaccine From
Vaxin Uses Aborted Fetal Cell Lines

LARGO, Fl. -- Children of God for Life's executive director, Debi Vinnedge, has issued a consumer warning that a new flu vaccine in early human testing is being produced using aborted fetal cell lines. In a January 12, 2005 letter, Vinnedge asked Vaxin, a Birmingham, Alabama biotech firm, to reconsider its decision to use PER C6 in its new flu vaccine. When the company did not respond, Vinnedge decided to go public with the information.

"There are ethical alternatives to aborted fetal cell lines for use in vaccines," said Vinnedge. "None of the current flu vaccines on the market today use objectionable sources. Why should we start now?"

While Vinnedge understands that chick embryos, which are currently used for flu vaccines, slow down production time, there are still other avenues that can and should be used. "The end, no matter how noble, cannot justify the means," said Vinnedge. "Using aborted fetal cell lines is not ethical and cannot be justified, regardless of the reasons." Added Vinnedge, "Why even one of Vaxin's competitor's for a new flu vaccine, Protein Sciences, is using caterpillar cell lines! Certainly no one has a problem with that!"

Ronald Brus, the CEO of Crucell, the company that created PER C6, was quoted as saying the cell line, which was taken from the retinal tissue of an 18-week gestation baby, is not problematic because the mother donated the fetus and no further abortions would be needed to sustain production.

"Mr. Brus is being disingenuous by glossing over the fact that these cell lines came from babies killed by abortion," said Vinnedge. "The truth is abortion violently takes the life of a living human being and is always wrong. Therefore, using cell lines obtained from aborted babies is always wrong as well."

See more on abortion tainted vaccines from Children of God for Life at:

Consumer warning: New flu vaccine from Vaxin to use aborted fetal cell lines

Largo, FL - Children of God for Life’s executive director, Debi Vinnedge, has issued a consumer warning that a new flu vaccine in early human testing is being produced using aborted fetal cell lines. In a January 12, 2005 letter, Vinnedge asked Vaxin, a Birmingham, Alabama biotech firm, to reconsider their decision to use PER C6 in their new flu vaccine. When the company did not respond, Vinnedge decided to go public with the information.

“There are ethical alternatives to aborted fetal cell lines for use in vaccines,” said Vinnedge. “None of the current flu vaccines on the market today use objectionable sources. Why should we start now?”

While Vinnedge understands that chick embryos, which are currently used in the flu vaccines, slow down production time, there are still other avenues that can and should be used. “The end, no matter how noble, cannot justify the means,” said Vinnedge. “Using aborted fetal cell lines is not ethical and cannot be justified, regardless of the reasons.” Added Vinnedge, "Why even one of Vaxin's competitor's for a new flu vaccine, Protein Sciences, is using caterpillar cell lines! Certainly no one has a problem with that!"

Ronald Brus, the CEO of Crucell, the company that created PER C6, was quoted as saying the cell line, which was taken from the retinal tissue of an 18-week gestation baby, is not problematic because the mother donated the fetus and no further abortions would be needed to sustain production. “Mr. Brus is being disingenuous by glossing over the fact that these cell lines came from babies killed by abortion,” said Vinnedge. “The truth is abortion violently takes the life of a living human being and is always wrong. Therefore, using cell lines obtained from aborted babies is always wrong as well.”

Vinnedge further noted that in 2001, thousands of protest letters were sent to the Dept of HHS when they awarded a contract for a new smallpox vaccine that would have used the aborted fetal cell line, MRC-5. “We reminded Vaxin that 57 percent of the people polled said they would refuse the vaccine if aborted fetal cell lines were used,” said Vinnedge. “If the public took such a strong stand against something as serious as smallpox, how do you suppose they will react to a simple flu shot?”

Hundreds of thousands of Children of God for Life’s brochures have been spread worldwide, listing the vaccines using aborted fetal cell lines. Vaxin’s flu vaccine will now be added to that list. “Consumers and medical professionals have the right to know where these cell lines are coming from so they can make ethical and moral choices in the products they are buying,” said Vinnedge.


Click here: For A Listing of Vaccines Using Aborted Baby Parts

Anti-Christ training

Air Force Academy Basic Training in Religious Tolerance

New York Times suggests Christian Air Force cadets with
Biblical world view are as bad as sexual assault scandal


COLORADO SPRINGS -- As the Air Force Academy here was still coping with fallout from a sexual assault scandal in the past couple of years, officials learned that they also had a problem with religious intolerance on campus, where 93 percent of the 4,000 cadets are Christian.

"People were doing and saying things that would not be tolerated at any Air Force base we've ever been at," said Col. Debra Gray, vice commandant of cadets at the academy, which plans to begin mandatory religious sensitivity sessions in February for cadets as well as faculty and staff members.

Some cadets were offended when fliers for the film "Passion of the Christ" were left around campus. Others have complained of being told by other cadets to march in a "heathen flight" if they did not participate in religious services during basic training. One Jewish cadet reported being called a "Christ killer." Atheists have expressed problems with God's being invoked in public academy statements.

"I felt, and we felt, it was necessary to tell people, 'There are people among us who are not feeling the same as the rest of us, who are feeling marginalized,' " said Lt. Gen. John Rosa, the academy superintendent, who is Roman Catholic. "If it's one person, it's a big problem. It's just like sexual assault; if we have one sexual assault, that's too many."

After learning of years of sexual assaults on female cadets, officials began to study the culture and climate at the academy. Partly through anonymous surveys, the issue of religious tolerance - or lack of it - jumped out.

"One of the questions was how often do you hear off-color jokes, sexual, religious slurs, that kind of thing," General Rosa said. "Ninety percent of our young people told us they heard those often or frequently. It was a matter of daily routine that when you formed up to march someplace, somebody in that group would tell an off-color joke."

In a survey last fall, 32 percent of non-Christian cadets said Christian cadets were given preferential treatment, while 7 percent of Christian students agreed. Forty-seven percent of non-Christian cadets said cadets had a low tolerance for those who did not follow religion or did not believe in a divine being; 19 percent of Christian cadets agreed.

And much like the sexual assault issue, officials found that cadets did not feel they could go to the faculty or staff to have their problems heard or resolved - in some cases, because a teacher might have been part of the problem.

Stephanie King, a 22-year-old senior who is Jewish, says she has had more than one professor announce his religion to students. One of her instructors, a born-again Christian, Ms. King said, invited students interested in Christianity to talk to him after class. "It made me uncomfortable," she said.

Ms. King said she also hesitated to seek tutoring from an instructor whose office was adorned with a "humongous crucifix and a basket of prayer cards."

Ms. King and other students said it seemed unfair that training days were never scheduled on Sundays, but occasionally on Friday evenings and Saturdays.

"I think that there is a problem here, but it's not really one of intolerance," said Hila Levy, an 18-year-old freshman who is Jewish. "It's more an attitude and insensitivity issue."

For now, Ms. Levy says she is sacrificing her time for worship to avoid a bad reputation among her peers by taking too much time off, but she is still torn over what to do for Passover when an important training day may be scheduled.

In November, one day after General Rosa announced to the academy that there were problems of religious intolerance and that sensitivity training would soon begin, the football coach hung a banner in the locker room that read, "I am a member of Team Jesus Christ." The coach, a Christian, was told that the banner was inappropriate, and it was removed.

Col. Michael Whittington, senior staff chaplain, said the problem was not just about one group of a particular faith picking on another.

"In truth," Colonel Whittington said, "these incidents that have come up have just come from all over. It's not a single group. It's just a lack of respect, and it's across-the-board lack of understanding and sensitivity, not really malicious."

He added that the problem of religious intolerance on campus was cumulative, and that while many incidents went unreported, officials were looking at complaints that stretched back over the past five years.

Colonel Whittington is one of 16 chaplains at the academy; 15 are Christian and one is Jewish. Students are allowed to leave campus for religious services as well. When the academy's signature building, the Cadet Chapel, was designed in 1959, there was still a mandatory attendance rule for all cadets. Chapel attendance has been voluntary since 1973, when the requirement was abolished over concerns about a separation between church and state.

The religious sensitivity training courses that will begin in February are called "respecting the spiritual values of people," or R.S.V.P. The goal is to create a culture of tolerance and respect in which students feel comfortable enough to go to officials to resolve their problems. Cadets who violate standards of tolerance can be disciplined, depending on the severity and frequency of the offense.

Acknowledging that a military campus is by nature a conservative culture, and that the academy is on the edge of a city that is also home to some of the country's most outspoken conservative Christian leaders, including James Dobson, head of the Focus on the Family, General Rosa said the academy must set an example.

"We support and defend the right for people to believe," he said. "The American people expect a lot out of us, and we expect a lot out of ourselves."

Lynn Ross-Bryant, an associate professor of religious studies at the University of Colorado, said that perhaps the efforts at the academy would be mirrored in society over time.

"It's a really positive step that might help our whole culture shift to true pluralism and acceptance of different groups," she said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/0
2/05/national/05religion.html

Court Victory in Waco

Charges against abortion protesters dismissed

McLennan County Court-at-Law Judge Tom Ragland dismissed the charges Monday against 18 defendants in a case that pitted preachers and other abortion opponents against a year-old city ordinance regulating the time, place and manner of demonstrations in school zones.

Ragland deliberated less than one hour after a daylong retrial of the case before dismissing the charges against three preachers, their followers and other community activists opposed to Planned Parenthood's Columbus Avenue clinic, where abortions are performed each Wednesday morning.

Ragland did not explain his ruling, which did not kill the city ordinance.

"This is such a mark of liberty in our city again," said the Rev. Ronnie Hol- mes, senior pastor of Church of the Open Door. "The voice of freedom is not muzzled. The voice of the voiceless will be heard in Waco."

"We appreciate Judge Ragland's conduct of the trial and how he abided by the law," said Stephen Crampton, chief counsel with the American Family Association Center for Law and Policy. The Tupelo, Miss.-based organization affiliated with the Rev. Don Wildmon has represented the protesters since midsummer, taking over from the original counsel, Christian Law Association of Seminole, Fla.

About two dozen anti-abortion demonstrators regularly offer "sidewalk counseling" as area women head into the clinic Wednesday mornings, the only day the Planned Parenthood facility on Columbus Avenue offers abortions.

Activists sing hymns, pray, preach the Gospel and often hand out written materials to dissuade women from going through with the procedure. Holmes said that people have been making this weekly vigil for more than a decade, "as a last voice to help a woman in a crisis time in her pregnancy."

Even with the compromise worked out with city officials to avoid further citations, using a "wing-span" standard of keeping demonstrators at least an arm's length apart to avoid the definition of "group" in the ordinance, Holmes reported that the activists have been periodically successful in persuading an abortion client to change her mind. The pastors and others were cited by the city in March 2004 for violating an ordinance adopted a month earlier that prohibits "street activity and parades," including demonstrations, in school zones during certain hours. They had refused to disperse when ordered by Waco police.

Planned Parenthood's Audre Rapoport Women's Health Center on Columbus Avenue is located across the street from Waco Montessori School. In November 2003, a group of anti-abortion activists from Wisconsin created a public outcry for displaying large photographs of dismembered fetuses on the sidewalks surrounding the school. That event was cited by many as the impetus for the city ordinance.

Waco Police Chief Alberto Melis, called by the defense, said that the Missionaries to the Pre-Born's Texas road trip, which they also called "The Gates of Hell" tour, "may have" led to the development of the ordinance. He added that he was not consulted on its wording, just its enforcement. He admitted the ordinance was "not easy to interpret," so that is why he hand-picked the patrol officers he wanted to handle the citations.

'Emotionally charged'

"It was an emotionally-charged subject and I wanted level-headed officers," Melis said.

Violation of the city ordinance is a Class C misdemeanor, punishable by a fine of up to $500 but no jail time.

Chris Taylor, the assistant city attorney, said during the trial that "ample evidence" was provided that the defendants knew they would be cited if they did not leave the scene. The U.S. Supreme Court recognizes that sometimes the greater good requires restrictions of time, place and manner in the exercise of free speech, Taylor added. "It doesn't matter to the regulation what comes out of your mouth or is on your sign or T-shirt." Monday's dismissal of city charges against local anti-abortion forces comes three weeks after a federal judge in Austin sided with the city of Waco on its right to pass an ordinance to protect children in school zones during certain hours. Attorneys for anti-abortion activists say they are appealing the latter judgment.

The federal lawsuit was filed in June 2004 by three plaintiffs alleging their civil rights had been violated because the ordinance was an unconstitutional restriction on their rights of free speech and peaceable assembly.

The ordinance was needed to reduce traffic hazards and didn't target any particular school or group, according to City Attorney Art Pertile. The curtailment of some rights for a short period of time, he said, was reasonable and in the best interests of public safety and the welfare of children.

But plaintiffs Carolyn Knowles, Joe Rodriguez Jr. and Brenda Telles said the ordinance was too vague and overreaching in its definitions, giving rise to arbitrary enforce- ment and censorship.

In response to the federal lawsuit, Doel Garcia, leader of Waco Right-to-Life, said, "This is what happens when you have un-elected, unaccountable judges."

Garcia was one of the defendants who won the case Monday.

http://www.wacotrib.com/news/content/news/stor
ies/2005/02/08/20050208wacpreach_trial_di.html

Latest News Headlines

• GA Preacher Guilty Of 116 Counts Of Bilking Churches
• Sodomite Priest Found Guilty On All Counts
• Timeline: US Catholic sex scandal
• 'Choose Life' Banner brings complaints
• Spy Cameras 'Patrol' New Orleans
• Bush Putting 'Big' Back in Government
• Bush Budget Funds Faith-Based Initiatives

Man kills post-aborted Lover

Adulterer charged with murder after lover's abortion

Abortion 'triggered lover's murder'

A scorned young man shot his married lover dead after she secretly aborted their child and ended their affair, a court heard yesterday.

Aspiring policeman Pisey "Peter" Prasoeur, 23, was devastated when Aneta Pochopien terminated their baby on his birthday in September 2003 and sank deeply into depression, Melbourne Magistrates' Court was told.

Mr Prasoeur, of Euroka St, Chadstone, is charged with the murder of the Chadstone mother outside her home on April 14 last year.

Mrs Pochopien, 33, was killed as she arrived home from her night shift at Silcraft Pty Ltd, where she was a factory worker and Mr Prasoeur was a security guard.

Prosecutor Geoff Horgan, SC, told the court it was a short drive from the factory to Mrs Pochopien's home and Mr Prasoeur had time to leave work, kill her and return.

He said Mr Prasoeur later tried to kill himself and sent a text message to a friend saying where he had hidden the murder weapon.

Conrad Tracey, a long-time friend of Mr Prasoeur, told police he believed the affair was his friend's first serious relationship with a woman.

He said in his statement that Mr Prasoeur had said he was prepared to support Mrs Pochopien and her son Martin, 10, if she left her husband.

Mr Prasoeur was also prepared to commit to his lover and the child they were expecting, but news of the abortion devastated him. Mr Prasoeur's mood declined drastically and when the relationship ended he was hurt and surprised, Mr Tracey said.

"He made it clear to me that she had gone from a serious emotional and sexual relationship with him to not wanting to have anything to do with him," Mr Tracey said.

He said it had been Mr Prasoeur's priority in life to become a police officer, but the ambition all but disappeared after the romance ended.

"It was always Aneta this, Aneta that and his outlook on life was quite grim," Mr Tracey said in his statement.

Co-worker Harry Delaney told the court there was a lot of gossip about the pair at work, but Mr Prasoeur had assured him they were just friends.

Mr Prasoeur later revealed he had a girlfriend and was on top of the world – until suddenly he began to lose weight and become withdrawn.

The preliminary hearing before magistrate Brian Wright was to continue.

http://www.thecouriermail.news.com.au/commo
n/story_page/0,5936,12184493%255E421,00.html

Parties Merging on Abortion

We can save lives by keeping it safe, legal and rare

Democrats give "pro-lifers" space
Party seeks broader appeal on the issue

Kristen Day, who describes herself as "pro-life," said she and other Democrats opposed to abortion have endured a long, cold winter in a party that proudly proclaims its pro-choice credentials.

But lately, Day has perceived a thaw -- and said some unlikely allies may get the credit: Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. John Kerry, who was the party's 2004 presidential candidate, and even Howard Dean, the former Vermont governor who has been all but anointed as the next chairman of the Democrat National Committee.

"For the past -- how many years? -- pro-life Democrats have been literally afraid to speak out, and the issue wasn't talked about in our party, '' said Day, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Democrats for Life in America. "But it's an exciting time that the conversations have been happening. All the major Democrats are talking about inclusion for pro-life Democrats.''

But the excitement for some like Day is countered by deep concern among other political observers who have long equated "pro-life" with efforts to restrict or outlaw abortion -- and who insist that as Democrats look ahead to 2008, the party should not step back from a strong and resolute position in support of abortion rights.

Nancy Keenan, the new president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, the nation's leading reproductive rights advocacy group, said last week in San Francisco she was disappointed that Kerry was "judgmental" about abortion in his recent comments.

Kerry told Tim Russert on "Meet the Press": "I don't want abortion. Abortion should be the rarest thing in the world. I am actually personally opposed to abortion. But I don't believe that I have a right to take what is an article of faith to me and legislate it to other people.''

But, said Keenan, "Who are we to stand in your shoes and know the complexity of this decision? For some women who have had an unintended pregnancy, or who have been raped, (abortion) is a relief,'' she said. "We are in no place -- not the government, not the politicians -- to judge.''

The debate over tone, message -- and the subtle shape of outreach to voters -- reflects the current hand-wringing over the Democrat Party's efforts to broaden its appeal after its defeat at the polls in November. After the election, analysts viewed abortion rights and same-sex marriage -- among the subjects loosely termed "values" -- as issues where voters overwhelmingly aligned with President Bush and the Republicans and not the Democrats.

The abortion component of the debate has intensified because events, including the comments of Kerry, the suggestion of party leaders such as House Democrat leader Nancy Pelosi that Tim Roemer, the antiabortion former congressman from Indiana, be given serious consideration as the party's next chief, and comments by Dean that "we ought to make a home for pro-life Democrats.''

But perhaps the most news-making event was a recent address by Clinton, the New York senator, on the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, the landmark abortion rights case. Clinton said abortion is often "a failure of our system of education, health care and preventive services."

She called abortion "often the most difficult (decision) that a woman will ever make. The fact is that the best way to reduce the number of abortions is to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies in the first place.''

Keenan applauded Clinton's speech, saying the message should be "folks, you have got to talk about (pregnancy) prevention ... and we have been trying to talk about prevention for years.''

Cato Institute senior fellow Doug Bandow -- in a recent commentary called "Can Democrats be Pro-life?'' -- said any discussion of abortion is laden with political pitfalls for Democrats.

"Being pro-life has been the political death for any Democrat with national aspirations,'' he wrote. "Many on the left are unable to even contemplate a legitimate argument against abortion ... and many activists still don't understand what there is about abortion not to like.''

But Rev. Lennox Yearwood of Washington, D.C., a founder of the Progress Democrats of America Hip Hop Caucus and a senior consultant to P. Diddy's Citizen Change movement, said there is certainly room for Democrats to have the discussion -- particularly as it relates to ethnic voters, who may have spiritually based reservations about abortion.

"Most African Americans are not for abortion,'' Yearwood said, but they would still support "a much more tolerant community about the needs of the woman.''

State Sen. Carole Migden said that as a staunch abortion-rights member of the Democrat National Committee, she supports Dean's efforts to reach out to Democrats of all beliefs on the issue.

But she also cautions that some of the problems Democrats now face may be of their own making -- over-stressing abortion and failing to highlight other critical issues.

Too often, "it looks like we're pro-death,'' she said. "Our language gets sloppy and we suffer from it. ... It's appropriate to lean on the Democrats for poor framing -- and that's one of the most striking examples.''

Former President Bill Clinton's classic definition that abortion should be "safe, legal and rare,'' Migden said, should be the talking point for Democrats. "We hope it doesn't happen, and we want good school counseling programs'' to prevent it, she said, "so it's not a philosophical shift, it's a change in language and a desire to unify the message.''

Karen Pearl, the interim president of Planned Parenthood of America, which provides reproductive health care, sex education, counseling -- as well as birth control and abortion services -- said the media, too, has been to blame for some of the overemphasis on abortion.

"We need to start talking about prevention of unintended pregnancy ... that changes the whole debate,'' Pearl said.

Political consultant Katie Merrill, a Democrat who represents clients in both parties as head of the Kensington-based Progressive Strategy Partners, said Democrats must also stress how this issue relates to a very personal matter -- "the right to privacy ... and that the government should not get in the way of a very personal, private decision.''

Day notes that the debate may be contentious for a long time -- and she recalled that Roemer, the antiabortion candidate for party chairman, was hissed when introduced as a candidate at a recent function.

"There are people out there who support abortion on the demand and won't cross the line, and people on the extreme other side,'' Day said. But "the vast majority want it to be rare ... and those people in the middle can definitely work together.''

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c
gi?file=/c/a/2005/02/07/MNGU8B751L1.DTL

Monday's News Headlines

• DUI Judge to Face Drunk Driving Charge
• Perv Ex-Congressman Told To Move Out of House
• Same-Sex Marriage Debate Resumes in Connecticut
• Cookie Girls Won't Have to Pay Fine
• Study: Men Think Quicker Than Women

• Wreath laid at tomb on Reagan's birthday
• Stem cell showdown looming in Maryland
• Cheney Sees More U.S. Borrowing for Pension Accounts
• Does 'bankrupt' apply to Social Security?
• CIA to meet on release of Nazi papers

• Attacks in Iraq Kill at Least 30 People
• Rice Announces Palestinian Aid Program
• 9/11 Hijacker Used Loophole to Get Driver's License
• Senate Scrutinizing U.S. Intelligence on Iran
• AP: Oil-For-Food Probe Eyes Annan Papers
• Buyers of Iraq U.N. Oil May Be Implicated

Judge Rules Embryos 'Human Beings'

Parents can sue for wrongful-death of frozen embryo

A frozen embryo destroyed in a Chicago fertility clinic was a human being whose parents are entitled to file a wrongful-death lawsuit, a Cook County judge ruled Friday.

Attorneys on both sides of the abortion issue said it was the first such ruling they had heard of as the country debates whether stem cells derived from embryos can be used in research and medicine.

Alison Miller and Todd Parrish hoped to conceive a child with help from the Center for Human Reproduction, but the one fertilized egg the couple created was thrown out "in error" by a clinic worker.

Friday, Judge Jeffrey Lawrence II said "a pre-embryo is a 'human being' ... whether or not it is implanted in its mother's womb" and the couple is entitled to seek the same compensation awarded to other parents whose children are killed.

"Philosophers and theologians may debate," he wrote, "but there is no doubt in the mind of the Illinois Legislature when life begins. It begins at conception."

James Kopriva, attorney for the fertility clinic, declined to comment, saying they were weighing their options.

Colleen Connell, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Chicago, said she expected the ruling would be overturned on appeal.

"It may be groundbreaking, but it's the wrong decision," Connell said, predicting the ruling could chill doctors' interest in reproductive medicine. "No appellate court has ever declared a fertilized egg a human being in a wrongful-death suit."

Northwestern University law professor Victor Rosenblum, an abortion opponent, said he admired the judge's ruling but expected that the appellate and state Supreme Court would want to weigh in. "This is the first case I've heard of like this."

Pro-Life Action League director Joe Scheidler praised the ruling. "That's scientifically correct: Life begins at fertilization, not implantation."

Northwestern University law professor Dorothy Roberts said the ruling has "dangerous" and "scary" implications for the law.

Courts have upheld statutes that allow homicide charges when fetuses are killed along with their mothers but have not extended the same legal status to unimplanted embryos, the experts said.

James Costello, who represented the couple with Paul McMahon, said the clinic worker's negligence is now at issue, given the ruling.

"This couple was trying to have children," he said. "They had nine blastocysts, the doctor said one looked great. So it was frozen and they came back later to have it unfrozen, when they were told, 'Whoops -- we made a clerical mistake and threw it in the garbage.'"

The embryo "had a unique set of DNA" not unlike a child "and was just thrown out like a piece of garbage," he said.

The couple had sought fertility help in 2000. Parts of their case were thrown out last year, but the courts allowed them to request a new hearing on the issue of a wrongful-death case.

While the state's definitions of when life begins provided the basis for their case, they also relied on a pair of memos from clinic chairman Dr. Norbert Gleicher.

Gleicher says he was "extremely sorry" for "this very obvious error" caused by a "communication mix-up," finishing with an "offer of a free [in vitro fertilization] cycle as a gesture of goodwill on our part."

He said those responsible no longer work for the clinic: One left to work for a different Chicago fertility clinic, and another left to spend more time with her children.

Connell and Roberts said the couple should be able to sue for their loss, but under a tort or breach-of-contract claim, not a wrongful-death action.

http://www.suntimes.com/out
put/news/cst-nws-egg05.html

Author barred from trial challenging abortion regulation

ACLU witness critical of some abortion foes

A nationally known author on violence at abortion clinics has been barred from testifying in federal court because of his opinion that Ohio's attempts to regulate abortion play into the hands of Christians bent on establishing a theocracy.

In his opinion filed in federal court in Cincinnati, Dallas Blanchard wrote that people he characterized as religious zealots have an ultimate agenda to "institute Old Testament sanctions for homosexuality, adultery, abortion and juvenile delinquency: stoning of violators."

Abortion foes dream of turning America into a "Christian" nation with no public schools, no welfare agencies, nor any "other governmental programs beyond law enforcement and the military," Blanchard wrote.

And he tied the most vocal and strident opponents of abortion to a movement of religious extremists and terrorists.

For those sweeping assertions, Blanchard, an author, sociology professor and Methodist minister from Pensacola, Fla., got the boot.

U.S. District Judge Sandra Beckwith took the unusual step of barring him from an upcoming trial after disparaging his hypothesis about an Old Testament theocracy as impossible to prove. In her recent ruling, she wrote Blanchard off as a researcher whose work has not been reviewed by his academic peers.

The American Civil Liberties Union had planned to pay Blanchard $300 an hour to express dire views about a never-enforced 1998 Ohio law.

The law requires a woman to meet with a physician 24 hours in advance of an abortion. The law also says teenage girls must get permission from a parent or juvenile court judge before having an abortion.

A temporary injunction stopped both provisions from taking effect. Only now is that injunction coming under review to see if it should be made permanent.

The ACLU contends the law was specifically designed to intimidate women and wants it deemed unconstitutional. The trial is to begin Feb. 14.

The case is being closely watched to see if the courts will let states chip away at the U.S. Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion.

Blanchard, 71, a Justice Department consultant on abortion clinic violence during the Clinton administration, is writing a book about Operation Rescue, the group that tried to shut down abortion clinics during the 1990s.

He was co-author of "Religious Violence and Abortion: The Gideon Project" in 1993 and wrote "The Anti-Abortion Movement and the Rise of the Religious Right: From Polite to Fiery Protest," a year later.

In a telephone interview, Blanchard didn't waiver.

"All the people who commit violence are theocrats," he said.

He stuck to his view that militant abortion foes want to establish a nation governed by religious laws where stonings would take place.

Women would be more vulnerable under the 1998 law, he said, because they would have to see a doctor twice before receiving an abortion, doubling their exposure to abortion opponents.

"Look, I was trying to put things in context," Blanchard said. "I guess some people aren't comfortable with that, or they don't want to hear it."

Former State Rep. Jerry Luebbers, a Cincinnati-area Democrat, proposed the law. He said he wasn't trying to help militants.

"I was an old-fashioned Democrat. I am an old-fashioned Democrat," said Luebbers, who left the House because of term limits. "I was against it [abortion]."

As the case neared trial, lawyers for the Ohio attorney general sought Blanchard's ouster.

"Professor Blanchard is neither a psychiatrist nor a psychologist, and he admittedly has not done any studies regarding what does or does not intimidate women who go to abortion clinics," Assistant Attorney General Anne Berry Strait said in a court filing.

In the phone interview, Blanchard called his predictions about the plans of the anti-abortion movement "informed speculation."

"I find that as I get more and more information, my speculation tends to become more and more true through time," he said.


http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/
index.ssf?/base/news/1107599788116251.xml

Saturday's News Headlines

• Bush Admits His Plan Doesn't Fix Social Security
• Retirees would lose some profits from accounts
• “Fixing” Social Security
• Dean Virtually Locks Up DNC Chairmanship

• Bush to Seek $419.3 Billion for Defense
• US 'in for a Shock' in Iraqi Vote Results
• The Real Test of Iraqi Freedom
• Fresh attacks kill 21 Iraqis, 2 U.S. troops
• Ex-Abu Ghraib Guard Sentenced to 6 Months
• Senate Panel to Review Iran Intelligence -Report
• The Tangled Web of Homeland Security
• New York-Bound Flights Get False Hijack Threats

• Federal Jury Weighs Case of Alleged Church Bilking
• N.Y. Judge Strikes Down Law Banning Same-Sex Marriage
• Psychologist Says Meds Made S.C. Boy Kill
• Lawsuit Over Uterus Accusation Is Settled
• British Teachers 'Back' Abortion Advice
• Blake Prosecutor Re-Creates Killing Scene For Jury
• No Verdict Yet in Mass. 'Gay' Priest Abuse Case
• Transvestite Pleads Guilty in Man's Death

• Spammer Trick Could Send Junk Email Soaring
• Ex-AOL Worker Pleads Guilty in Spam Case
• FBI Shuts Down Unclassified E-Mail System
• Chemical Spray Used On Students
• Girls Sued For Dropping Off Cookies
• 10-Year-Old Accused Of Raping Classmate
• Sex Assault Verdict Surpasses Top 15 in State
• Male and Female Firemen Accused of Sex-Orgy at Station

Friday's Headlines

• Snipers Target Border Agents
• FBI to scrap $170 million project
• School May Fire Professor for 9/11 Comment
• General Says It Is 'Fun to Shoot Some People'
• Rumsfeld Says He Offered to Resign Twice
• Republicans: Social Security Plan Cannot Win Approval

Rudolph defense says "numerous deficiencies" in ATF crime labs

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- Internal audits of crime laboratories run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms reveal "numerous deficiencies" that could help discredit evidence allegedly linking Eric Rudolph to a deadly abortion clinic blast, his lawyers said in documents made public Thursday.

A check of the Rockville, Md., lab in December 2000 found problems including inadequate training, unlocked doors, evidence left on counter tops, inadequate policies on calibrating testing machines and cramped examination rooms, according to the defense.

In the agency's Atlanta lab, the defense said maintenance logs showed numerous problems with testing equipment, some of which may not have been working properly around the time the office was examining evidence from the 1998 Alabama bombing.

While the defense documents didn't provide details on work done in the bombing case by individual AFT crime labs, Rudolph's lawyers claimed the audits indicate mistakes could have been made during the analysis of evidence from the clinic blast.

Neither prosecutors nor the ATF had any immediate comment on the defense allegations, but a former prosecutor who was involved in the case said he never heard of any concerns about the agency's labs.

"I don't think there's a problem with it, and I think that will come out at trial," said Doug Jones, a former U.S. attorney.

Rudolph is set for trial this spring in the clinic bombing, which killed an off-duty police officer and critically injured a nurse. He also is accused in the deadly blast at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta and a series of bombings in Atlanta in 1997.

Rudolph, who pleaded not guilty, could be sentenced to death if convicted. He was captured in May 2003 in North Carolina after more than five years as a fugitive.

The defense said the government has turned over six audits from three ATF labs documenting problems in the years after the clinic bombing investigation.

"These reports identify numerous deficiencies that will be significant to the defense effort at trial to impeach the reliability of the ATF laboratory work in this case," said a defense filing.

But prosecutors haven't turned over all reports from the period closer to the blast, Rudolph's lawyers said. In a lengthy request, they asked for an order to make the government release additional reports on the labs.

Prosecutors filed no immediate response to the defense motion, but they have defended the work of government experts in the past.

The ATF's public affairs office declined immediate comment on the lab audits, which examined facilities in Washington besides Maryland and Atlanta.

ATF experts analyzed evidence including items taken from Rudolph's North Carolina trailer, where agents say they found a towel, cushion and other things contaminated with explosives. An ATF examiner also matched Rudolph's handwriting to words written on documents including Rudolph's Bible, which prosecutors say had the words "Bombs" written in a margin.

The ATF labs are accredited by the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors/Laboratory Accreditation Board, but the defense said the offices can fail inspections in many areas without losing the seal of approval.

The defense's questions resemble doubts raised in the 1990s about work performed by the FBI's crime lab, which is separate from the ATF labs. An inspector general's review in 1997 concluded that scientists in the explosive units of the FBI lab used questionable scientific practices and gave inaccurate testimony. Those findings led to an overhaul of the facility.

Jones said the FBI's problems likely helped improve other government labs because "everybody was on notice for potential problems and especially sensitive to those kinds of things."


http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/mld/le
dgerenquirer/news/local/10808655.htm

'And the land is defiled'

Rare Sex Disease Strikes New York

NEW YORK -- Two New Yorkers have been diagnosed with a rare sexually transmitted disease that is spreading among gay and bisexual men in Europe, the city health commissioner says.

The disease, known as LGV or Lymphogranuloma venereum, is caused by specific strains of chlamydia and is often marked by painful, bloody rectal infection and genital ulcers.

"LGV is a serious condition and its emergence in New York City reflects continuing high levels of unsafe sexual activity among men who have sex with men" (Lev.20:13), Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden told a news conference on Wednesday.

"Unprotected anal intercourse, in particular, is extremely risky in terms of the spread of LGV as well as HIV," he added.

The U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta has confirmed six recent cases in the United States, including three cases in San Francisco and one in Atlanta.

Among the cases identified thus far, most have also had HIV/AIDS infection, Frieden said.

The Netherlands has reported 92 cases of LGV dating back to 2003 and Belgium, France, Sweden and Britain have also reported infections.

Most people infected report having multiple sex partners and engaging in unprotected anal intercourse and other high-risk practices, officials said.

LGV can be cured by a three-week course of antibiotics if identified early. Untreated, it can cause swelling and scarring of the genitals and permanent damage to the bowels.

http://www.reuters.co.uk/printerFriendlyP
opup.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=665705

Related
Medical Consequences Of What Homosexuals Do
Throughout history, all civilized societies have condemned homosexuality. Until 1961 homosexual acts were illegal throughout America.

Moving Buffer Zones

Bill creates moving buffer zone around abortion bound women

HELENA, Montana -- A bill aimed at protecting abortion clinic patients from protesters narrowly advanced in the House on Wednesday despite potential enforcement problems and objections it stifled free speech.

The House Judiciary Committee forwarded the measure, 10-8, to the full House for debate. Rep. Mark Noennig, R-Billings, broke party lines and supported the proposal.

The measure, sponsored by Rep. Robyn Driscoll, D-Billings, would prohibit the obstruction of access to a health care facility by forbidding a person to come within eight feet of anyone entering or leaving such a business in order to "protest, counsel or educate about a health issue." The ban would apply within 36 feet of a health care facility.

Backers of the bill touted it as striking the proper balance between free speech and the right of patients to obtain legal health services.

"It's intimidating for (patients) to walk through the door because they're afraid of someone being really intimidating and loud and abrasive toward them," said Rep. Gail Gutsche, D-Missoula.

At least 15 other states already have laws similar to Driscoll's proposal. The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld such restrictions as permissible limits on free speech.

Opponents called the bill unnecessary and unconstitutional.

"A true test of our respect for freedom is when we can extend it to the person we agree with the least," Rep. Roger Koopman, R-Bozeman, said. "This would have a chilling effect on free speech."

Others expressed concern over enforcement issues and said current law already allows health care clinics to create a buffer through protection orders.

"My opposition to this bill is primarily the slippery slope," committee chair Rep. Diane Rice, R-Harrison, said. "Who will be here next time wanting this bubble around them?"

A bill creating a similar "buffer zone" at clinics was killed by the 2003 Legislature.

http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?tl=1&display
=rednews/2005/02/02/build/state/66-abortion-buffer.inc

FBI Investigates Pastor

FBI examines pastor’s sermons on abortion & homosexuality

MOUNT VERNON, Ill. -- Nov. 23, 2004, started out like any other normal morning for Randy Steele, senior pastor at Southwest Christian Church in Mount Vernon, Ill., a town about 80 miles southeast of St. Louis. One of the longtime members of his church was on her deathbed and he planned to spend the day consoling her family. Then the phone rang.

It was the FBI. Steele said they wanted to meet with him personally. After agreeing to a time later that same afternoon, he said his first thoughts turned to his congregation.

“I was wondering what somebody in my church might have done,” Steele said. “So I was in a lot of prayer asking God to give me the right words to say.”

When two FBI agents arrived at the church, Steele said they traded small talk for a few minutes before the suspense got to him and he asked about the nature of their visit.

Their answer stunned him.

“One guy opened a file,” Steele said. “And he said, ‘This is pertaining to a sermon that you preached on Memorial Day.’”

On Memorial Day 2004, Steele was in the middle of preaching a sermon series he called “Life Issues” dealing with controversial cultural issues from a biblical perspective. One such sermon was about abortion and Steele chose Memorial Day to preach about it.

“I shared the number of people who have died in wars versus the number who had died through ‘legal’ abortion since 1973,” Steele said. “I stated that we are in a different type of war that is being fought under the 'presupposition of freedom.’”

Steele said that he went on to name an abortion clinic in Granite City, Ill., a city just outside St. Louis, and pointed out that they perform as many as 45 abortions per week.

Somebody in the church that day apparently misunderstood Steele’s “different type of war” comment to mean that he was actually calling his congregation to a physical war against abortion clinics, so he or she placed an anonymous phone call to the FBI.

The informant allegedly told the FBI that in addition to Steele calling for a war against abortion clinics, he also said he was willing to go to jail over such a cause.

Steele said that he had spoken about his willingness to go to jail, but that he made those remarks in a different sermon that dealt with homosexuality from the same sermon series.

“I had mentioned a pastor in Canada who had been arrested for speaking about homosexuality in his church,” Steele said. The pastor said he went on to tell his congregation that “if speaking the truth means that we go to jail, then by golly, that’s where I'm going to be and I’m going to save you a seat next to me.”

“That was the major gist of why [the FBI] felt like they could come here and look through my sermons,” Steele said.

Marshall Stone, FBI supervisory special agent and media coordinator for the Springfield (Ill.) division of the FBI, was unwilling to speak specifically about the FBI’s visit to Southwest Christian Church, but when asked to speak in general terms about whether the FBI normally looks through pastors’ sermons after receiving anonymous tips about them being a possible danger, he did offer a few comments.

“I don't know that there’s any case where we would say, ‘This is typical,’” Stone said. “Each complaint, each investigation is followed up based upon facts and specific circumstances of that complaint, allegation or investigation.”

Since there aren’t any typical cases, Stone was asked if FBI agents would make a determination on site regarding whether to examine a pastor’s sermons. He responded in the affirmative.

Steele said that after the two FBI agents examined his two sermons in question, they realized he was not a physical threat to abortion clinics and apparently dropped their investigation.

When asked whether a case like this would be dropped on site, Stone said, “We get complaint calls or allegations all the time -- whether it’s over e-mail, telephone or letters. We do a lot of looking into things on the surface to make a determination of whether there’s something we need to be doing and make determinations all the time that there is nothing there that we need to be concerned about or have jurisdiction over. So, technically there’s nothing to drop if it’s looked into without ever opening a formal investigation.”

Steele said he was initially a little irritated that the FBI would ask to see his sermons, especially since he had to take time away from the grieving family in his congregation to answer questions, but he said he has no plans to stop preaching messages that are culturally relevant.

“As a pastor I believe that as Christians we are called to speak the truth no matter what,” Steele said. “And we have to continue to speak that truth in love to all people and to share the message of Christ because it’s the only message that's going to change the lives of people.”

Roger Lipe, senior pastor at Woodlawn Baptist Church, a Southern Baptist Convention congregation, in nearby Woodlawn, Ill., agreed with Steele’s position of speaking the truth in love to a culture that isn’t always going to be tolerant of such a message.

“Just look at what’s happening in our society and what’s happening in Canada -- the laws that have been made there -- and the pressure on Americans today to enforce hate crime laws,” Lipe said. “Obviously it’s going to mean that someday when you [as a pastor] get into your own pulpit, your own church, among your own people to preach against subjects like abortion and homosexuality and other biblical things that we’ve got to preach on, then there’s probably going to be a price to pray.”

In spite of his admitted initial irritation about being questioned by the FBI, Steele said that after his meeting with the two agents, he printed off the two sermons, handed them to the agents and invited them back to his church hoping that as private citizens they might be interested in hearing the Word of God.

--30-- Story provided courtesy of The Pathway, newsjournal of the Missouri Baptist Convention. Lee Warren is a freelance writer in Omaha, Neb.

http://www.bpnews.ne
t/bpnews.asp?Id=20055

'Focus on the Family broke The Law'

Editor's note: For Justice to be served, all these "Christian" groups that have erroneously told the public, over the radio or through the mail, that President George W. Bush is "pro-life," should be hauled into criminal court by the FCC and the U.S. Postal Service for perpetrating a nationwide fraud upon the American people! --Jim Rudd

Group asks IRS to check into Focus on the Family

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- A watchdog group has asked the Internal Revenue Service to investigate whether the conservative Christian group Focus on the Family broke the law by trying to sway voters in the November presidential election.

Citizens Project, a group that has monitored Focus and other religious organizations since 1992, is taking issue with an article in the Citizen, a magazine printed by Focus.

The November article, ''The 2004 Election: What's At Stake,'' compares presidential candidates George W. Bush and John Kerry and their positions on abortion, stem-cell research and same-sex marriage.

''You're pro-life, and you want to preserve the traditional definition of marriage for the next generation,'' the article says. ''So which of the presidential candidates comes closest to sharing your values?''

The watchdog group asked the IRS in a Feb. 1 letter to investigate. As a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, Focus on the Family is forbidden to endorse political candidates or parties.

''Our organization believes that this article may have violated federal tax law with its use of code words such as 'pro-life' and with its implied support of President George W. Bush as a candidate for president,'' wrote Ellie Collinson, executive director for Citizens Project.

Focus officials said the article was written under the guise of its lobbying arm, Focus on the Family Action, a 501(c)4 organization that operates under a different set of tax criteria. Its money is separate from Focus on the Family and can be used for lobbying.

''It makes this particular article free and clear, as per our attorneys,'' said Tom Minnery, vice president of government and public policy for Focus on the Family Action.

Collinson said her group isn't sure Focus on the Family broke tax laws and will await an IRS determination.

''We're not going to make an accusation, because we don't know,'' she said.

http://www.casperstartribune.net/apd
ata/wire_detail.php?wire_num=203350

ALL rips Unborn 'Pain' Act

Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act is flawed;
proposed bill implies legitimacy of abortion

“At its roots, the Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act ultimately establishes the legitimacy of abortion in federal law, and is therefore flawed legislation,” said Judie Brown, president of American Life League. “The bottom line is, abortion is never acceptable in any circumstance. Legislation that even tacitly acknowledges a ‘right’ to abortion cannot be considered a pro-life measure.”

After much consideration, American Life League finds that it cannot embrace the language in the bill because of its recognition of abortion. “This bill actually condones abortion as long as the mothers of some preborn children are advised to anesthetize their children before killing them,” said Brown. “The bill also sets an arbitrary threshold of 20 weeks gestational age, even though research indicates the preborn can feel pain as early as 13-1/2 weeks. What about those younger children? This is not pro-life legislation. It is a major concession to the pro-death agenda to say that it is acceptable to kill children as long as they can’t feel the pain. Pain or no pain, the child is still dead. Anesthesia does not excuse direct killing of innocent human beings.”

Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kansas), with the encouragement of some national pro-life groups, introduced the bill (S.51) in the Senate last week. “Pro-lifers need to wake up and recognize that the more we concede, the further we are from really saving women and children from the tragedy of abortion,” said Brown. “Abortion is a violent act that must never be condoned, supported, promoted or excused. Because of this undeniable truth, American Life League cannot favor such a flawed concept as the one that is represented in the Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act.”

http://www.all.or
g/news/050202.htm

Man Accused of Murdering Fetus

Norton -- A Lodi man who stabbed his estranged wife during an argument has been charged with murder because one of the two thrusts of the 8-inch steak knife killed her 2-month-old fetus, officials said.

Lonnie McKenzie Jr., 24, who is also charged with attempted murder, is scheduled to be arraigned today in Barberton Municipal Court. He is in Summit County Jail under a $250,000 cash bond.

Michelle McKenzie, 22, is in serious condition in the intensive care unit of Akron General Medical Center. She was stabbed once in the back and once in the chest.

According to Norton Police Lt. Thad Hete and police reports, this is what occurred:

Michelle McKenzie was living with her father, Ronald Long, on Albert Street. Around 11 p.m. Sunday Richard Hobbs, 25, of Norton drove her home. He remained in the car as she went inside. She found Lonnie McKenzie inside and they began arguing.

She called police as Lonnie McKenzie went outside, where he confronted Hobbs. When she joined them, another fight ensued and Lonnie McKenzie pulled a knife from his coat and stabbed her. He also kicked and punched Hobbs, who tried to intercede. Police arrested McKenzie and found Michelle McKenzie inside on a sofa.

Police learned Monday that the fetus had died, but they don't know if Lonnie McKenzie was the father. The couple have three children.

http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/
index.ssf?/base/summit/110734053671223.xml

The Religious Left

Beyond right and left lies `prophetic politics'

Some Christian folk offering a different spin on religion and politics in the United States are attracting increasing attention among politicians and media moguls. These believers are speaking for an alternative (if not really new) vision of the way in which religion and politics are aligned.

They're calling for a "prophetic politics" that is neither ideologically predictable nor loyally partisan. Rather, it is a political stance that maintains "the moral independence to critique both the Left and the Right."

The leading spokesman for the movement is Jim Wallis. The evangelical preacher, activist and author is the founder of Sojourners, a nationwide organization of Christians who have a progressive political focus on issues of poverty and peace. For quite some time, he has been recognized as a major evangelical Christian voice in behalf of social justice.

Wallis has published a new book, "God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It" (HarperSan Francisco, 2005). It's a comprehensive manifesto of the "prophetic politics" movement.

Wallis and his associates want to expand the discussion of moral values from the Christian Right's focus on abortion and gay marriage to include a biblical concern for poverty, care of the natural environment and opposition to unjust war. They speak of a "consistent ethic of life." It's a moral view akin to the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin's "seamless garment of life," a metaphor and concept that links all life issues, including abortion, euthanasia and the death penalty.

They judge neither George Bush nor John Kerry to have been consistent-ethic-of-life candidates. They join Pope John Paul II in rejecting Kerry's view on abortion and Bush's policy on war. Neither candidate championed the poor as a "moral value" or discussed the war in Iraq from a religious perspective. Single-issue voting and a pro-family agenda that was really anti-gay framed the discussion of moral values too narrowly.

Wallis therefore concludes: "The ways in which both parties' visions are morally and politically incomplete must now be taken up by people of faith. That can best be done by reaching into both conservative Christian communities who voted for George Bush and more liberal Christian communities who voted for John Kerry."

What is happening in this movement, I think, is the joining of evangelical, Roman Catholic, mainline Protestant, Pentecostal and African-American Christians who are traditional or conservative (sometimes moderate) on personal moral questions and quite progressive (sometimes radical) on questions of social justice.

I do not use "radical" casually. Noting that whenever questions of growing economic disparity in the United States are raised, both the political and media elites call it class warfare, Wallis comments: "There is indeed class warfare raging in this country, but not from those who speak for the poorest Americans. It is the class warfare of tax cuts and budget priorities that make the rich richer while further decimating low- and middle-income families. For many in the religious community across the theological spectrum, that inequality has become intolerable."

Those who find some of these ideas interesting may want to read "God's Politics." It provides a corrective to a religious Right that has truncated the discussion of moral values to several push-button issues and to a Left that separates considerations of religious and moral values from formulation of public policy.

But Wallis goes beyond correction. His premise is that the crucial choice of our time is that between cynicism and hope. While the prophets begin in judgment, they end in hope. Wallis presents a positive vision for a future based on prophetic faith, "the religion of the prophets and, of course, Jesus."

Of course.

http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/ne
wssentinel/living/10795682.htm

Bush's Islam Embrace

Bush Inaugural: Embracing Islam and the "words of the Koran"

Muslim cleric prays at ecumenical "National Prayer Service"
on Friday at National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.

President George W. Bush, Second Inaugural Address,
given outside the United States Capitol, on Thursday, January 20, 2005:

"In Americas ideal of freedom, the public interest depends on private character on integrity, and tolerance toward others, and the rule of conscience in our own lives. Self-government relies, in the end, on the governing of the self. That edifice of character is built in families, supported by communities with standards, and sustained in our national life by the truths of Sinai, the Sermon on the Mount, the words of the Koran, and the varied faiths of our people. Americans move forward in every generation by reaffirming all that is good and true that came before ideals of justice and conduct that are the same yesterday, today, and forever."

Bush Inaugural speech text click here.

CCL comments:

1. Considering the Christian heritage of America, which has been affirmed by both the U.S. Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court in earlier generations (e.g., Congress declared 1983 the "Year of the Bible"; and the U.S. Supreme Court in Church of the Holy Trinity vs. United States (1892), stated "Our laws and our institutions must necessarily be based upon and embody the teachings of the Redeemer of mankind. It is impossible that it could be otherwise; and in this sense and to this extent our civilization and our institutions are emphatically Christian."), this attribution to "the words of the Koran" as something which sustains in our national life the edifice of character, is an abomination, and yet is one more example of George W. Bush's faithfulness to the Illuminati vision of the New World Order (one-world government, one-world money, and one-world religion), as expressed publicly when President Bush said, "...our Founders declared a new order of the ages;..."

2. For documentation from the colonial charters and early state constitutions of the many declarations of Christian faith therein, as well as in later Congressional actions, and in the 1892 U.S. Supreme Court decision mentioned above, see "No King but King Jesus!"

3. Notice also Mr. Bush's crafty attempt to stroke the "spiritual" hot button of his (deceived) Christian evangelical base with his misappropriation of the words "the same yesterday, today, and forever", which come from Hebrews 13:8, and which actually refer to Jesus Christ, the One Whose Name Mr. Bush doesn't seem to publicly mention anymore (ever since Bush has had evangelicals eating out of his hand).

_________________________________________________

Muslim cleric prays at ecumenical "National Prayer Service"
on Friday at National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.

_________________________________________________

Prayer service starts work of Bush's second term

Posted 1/21/2005 7:30 AM
Updated 1/21/2005 12:41 PM

[Excerpt]

"Four days of celebrations surrounding Bush's inauguration culminated with a National Prayer Service on Friday, following a tradition set by the nation's first chief executive, George Washington."

[CCL note: You can believe that George W. Washington did NOT have a Muslim cleric praying at his inaugural prayer service!!!]

"The hourlong service, Bush's second visit to the church in two days, brought together 3,200 invited family, Cabinet members, top White House aides and others in the majestic Gothic-style sanctuary of the National Cathedral."

"Instrumental and choral music filled the church and an interfaith lineup of Christian, Jewish and Muslim clergy helped celebrate through prayer the events of the day before ­ Bush's swearing-in at the Capitol."

[CCL note: Why did George W. Bush even bother to put his left hand on a Bible when he took his oath of office ? In that same Holy Book, God says, "I am the LORD thy God,... Thou shalt have no other gods before me." [Exodus 20:2,3] Of course, George W. Bush has expressed publicly, repeatedly, his blasphemous, heretical belief that Christians and Muslims worship the same God / god (see news article at www.bushrevealed.com), and still his ecumenical Council on National Policy admirers like James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, and Pat Robertson continue to support him and mislead evangelical Christians about Bush's adherence to Christian faith and practice (Woe unto these blind guides! - Isaiah 3:12)


"For the leaders of this people cause them to err; and they that are led of them are destroyed." Isaiah 9:16


No king but King Jesus!

Steve Lefemine, pro-life missionary
dir., Columbia Christians for Life
Columbia, South Carolina
www.christianlifeandliberty.net

Men with Graphic Displays

The Weak, the base, and the unlovely

By Dan Holman

“But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise;
and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty”

1 Corinthians 1:27

In the year 2000, I often ministered in Peoria, IL where National Health Care killed babies 2 days a week. I performed street theater in front of the clinic. There is little opportunity to counsel. The aborting women drive into the parking lot at the back of the clinic. They are out of sight and earshot from counselors on the street.

I used a bloody baby doll to reach their sensibilities. I find that women are often very offended when someone treats a doll like an abortionists treats children. It is somewhat surprising how protective women are of the one and not the other. The woman approaching me in the picture slapped me in the face for my treatment of the doll.

The soldiers from the recruiting office next door fought with me over the doll. Neither the Marines, nor the Army, nor the Navy, nor the Air Force would protect the children slated for abortion.

I recently learned of a baby that was saved because of the graphic display. Peoria native, Rudy Watt, a regular at the clinic, told me that on January 27, 2005, a woman drove into the parking lot and told him that 5 years ago she saw a man with a bloody baby doll outside the clinic. She was too upset to go through with the abortion. She now has a 5 year old girl at home. She encouraged Rudy to keep up the good work.

I am often told that graphic displays do more harm than good. I know that is not true. A woman may not go through with an abortion for the wrong reasons, but it makes little difference 5 years down the road. Her situation will change, but she can never unabort her child. It matters little if she is mad at me. It matters little if she thinks pro-lifers are crazy, rude, or mean. It matters only that her baby is alive.

The woman stopped at the clinic because she wanted to encourage those speaking up for the babies to never stop. She understands today that she came very close to doing the unthinkable. She grew to love her child. She shutters at her earlier intentions. I know the feeling. I came very close to playing God myself. I would not have my daughter Lisa had not God intervened.

We stand in faith. There are days when we have no sense of accomplishment. Every now and then God gives us a peek behind the scenes. This news comes when right to lifers raise a shrill of protest about our signs. They accuse us of being mean-spirited. They think themselves more loving by refusing to hold a picture of an aborted baby.

At last year’s Right to Life March, Donna learned of 2 babies saved years ago by her setting up signs on an Iowa-Illinois bridge. A woman told her that her sister was going to Carthage, IL for an abortion. She was convicted upon seeing the signs and turned back. Shortly after having the baby, she found herself pregnant again. This time Donna did not have to be at the bridge with her signs. Her remembrance of them was enough for her to reject abortion.

Chet Kilgore operates his sign business out of a mobile home in rural Dousman, Wisconsin. He lives very modestly. There is little demand for his product. For years, he was the only person in the world from whom one could acquire these signs. He has saved more babies out of his trailer than any person I know. God does indeed use the weak things to confound the strong, the base, to confound the noble, and the foolish things to confound the wise. Those who want proof request a sign, but no sign shall be given them but the sign of the aborted baby.


Dan Holman
Missionaries to the Pre-born, Iowa
P.O. Box 135
Keokuk, Iowa 52632
(319) 601-9349
truthvan@interl.net


Chet Kilgore: (262) 495-8459 AntiAbortionSigns.com

La Quinta Inns Send Abortionist Tiller Packing

Corporate office orders Tiller to stop using hotel as a hospital

WICHITA, KS -- Operation Rescue has been informed by La Quinta Inns that the corporate offices sent an investigator to Wichita and discovered that nurses in the employment of late-term abortionist George Tiller were in fact renting rooms in order to provide medical care to abortion patients undergoing multiple-day procedures at Women’s Health Care Services. La Quinta Inn representative Teresa Ferguson informed OR that Tiller was called by the La Quinta corporate office and told to immediately stop the practice, which they had determined to be an illegal one.

Ferguson also informed Operation Rescue that Tiller was told he could no longer use the La Quinta Inn name to promote his abortion business and ordered Tiller to strip the La Quinta name from all of his literature and website.

Operation Rescue investigators will monitor the situation to insure the local hotel is in compliance with corporate wishes.

“Thanks to hundreds of men and women of conscience who called and brought Tiller’s association with the La Quinta to the attention of the corporate office, an end has been put to this apparently illegal arrangement,” said OR president Troy Newman. “We are thankful that the La Quinta Corporation has done the right thing and sent Tiller packing.”

This news comes just days after Operation Rescue broke the story that one of Tiller’s patients died from abortion complications. Because of details that have come to OR concerning woman’s death, Operation Rescue believes that she may very well have been a guest at the La Quinta.


http://www.operationrescue
.org/archives/000162.shtml