Hillary's Doctor Offers 'Born Again' Abortions

Editor's note: According to William F Harrison's book review of My Life by Bill Clinton at Amazon -- This guy was Hillary's doctor and a friend of Bill and Hillary since the 70's.

"I am almost 69 years old, and have been a student of all of the presidents of my lifetime, starting with FDR and going to GWB. I have known Bill and Hillary Clinton personally since they both moved to Fayetteville to teach at the University of Arkansas Law School in the early 70s. I met Hillary first as her physician and she soon introduced me to her then boyfriend, Bill.". William F Harrison

Hillary's Doctor Offers 'Born Again' Abortions

Yes, [one of Hillary Clinton's doctors] says, he destroys life. But he believes the thousands of women who have relied on him have been 'born again.'

Los Angeles Times

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. -- Dr. William F. Harrison has forgotten how many children the woman had. He remembers she was poor and, most vividly, he remembers her response when a physician diagnosed her distended stomach as pregnancy.

"Oh, God, doctor," the woman said. "I was hoping it was cancer."

This was in 1967. Harrison was a medical student and his wife was expecting their third child. It had never occurred to him that a woman would be anything but happy to learn she was pregnant.

The next year, he trained on a maternity ward. In a 24-hour shift, it was not unusual, he said, for four or five women to come in feverish or hemorrhaging from botched abortions.

Harrison opened an obstetrics and gynecology practice, but after the Supreme Court established abortion as a constitutional right in 1973, he decided to take on an additional specialty. Now 70, Harrison estimates he's terminated at least 20,000 pregnancies.

His clinic has not been picketed for years, but Harrison feels very much on the front lines these days.

Debate over President Bush's nominee for the Supreme Court, Samuel A. Alito Jr., has centered on abortion. Activists on both sides warn — or pray — that if Alito is confirmed, the court may one day reverse Roe vs. Wade.

At least a dozen states, and perhaps as many as 30, would probably continue to allow most abortions. But abortion rights activists predict that terminating a pregnancy would become a criminal act across much of the South, the Midwest and the Rocky Mountain region.

In Arkansas, for instance, the state constitution sets out "to protect the life of every unborn child from conception until birth." At least 10 other states — including Illinois, Louisiana, Pennsylvania and Utah — have similar language in their constitutions or legal codes.

Harrison warns every patient he sees that abortion may be illegal one day. He wants to stir them to activism, but most women respond mildly.

"I can't imagine the country coming to that," says Kim, 35, in for her second abortion in two years.

A high school senior says the issue won't weigh heavily when she evaluates candidates. "There's other issues I see as more important," she says, "like whether they'll raise taxes."

Patients asked to be identified only by their first names or, in some cases, by their ages to protect their privacy.

Harrison is beyond such concerns. For several years in the 1980s, his clinic was picketed, vandalized and once firebombed. Protesters marched outside his home and death threats became routine. Harrison responded by making his case.

He answered every phone call, replied to every letter in the newspaper and appeared at public forums to defend abortion rights. Eventually, the protesters in this college town left him alone. (Arkansas Right to Life focuses instead on educating women about alternatives to abortion, Executive Director Rose Mimms said.)

In the years since, Harrison has become more outspoken.

He calls himself an "abortionist" and says, "I am destroying life."

But he also feels he's giving life: He calls his patients "born again."

"When you end what the woman considers a disastrous pregnancy, she has literally been given her life back," he says.

Before giving up obstetrics in 1991, Harrison delivered 6,000 babies. Childbirth, he says, should be joyous; a woman should never consider it a punishment or an obligation.

"We try to make sure she doesn't ever feel guilty," he says, "for what she feels she has to do."

It is a few minutes before 11 a.m. when Harrison raps on the door of his operating room and walks in.

His Fayetteville Women's Clinic occupies a once-elegant home dating to the 1940s; the first-floor surgery looks like it was a parlor. Thick blue curtains block the windows and paintings of butterflies and flowers hang on the walls. The radio is tuned to an easy-listening station.

An 18-year-old with braces on her teeth is on the operating table, her head on a plaid pillow, her feet up in stirrups, her arms strapped down at her sides. A pink blanket is draped over her stomach. She's 13 weeks pregnant, at the very end of the first trimester. She hasn't told her parents.

A nurse has already given her a local anesthetic, Valium and a drug to dilate her cervix; Harrison prepares to inject Versed, a sedative, in her intravenous line. The drug will wipe out her memory of everything that happens during the 20 minutes she's in the operating room. It's so effective that patients who return for a follow-up exam often don't recognize Harrison.

The doctor is wearing a black turtleneck, brown slacks and tennis shoes. He snaps his gum as he checks the monitors displaying the patient's pulse rate and oxygen count.

"This is not going to be nearly as hard as you anticipate," he tells her.

She smiles wanly. Keeping up a constant patter — he asks about her brothers, her future birth control plans, whether she's good at tongue twisters — Harrison pulls on sterile gloves.

"How're you doing up there?" he asks.

"Doing OK."

"Good girl."

Harrison glances at an ultrasound screen frozen with an image of the fetus taken moments before. Against the fuzzy black-and-white screen, he sees the curve of a head, the bend of an elbow, the ball of a fist.

"You may feel some cramping while we suction everything out," Harrison tells the patient.

A moment later, he says: "You're going to hear a sucking sound."

The abortion takes two minutes. The patient lies still and quiet, her eyes closed, a few tears rolling down her cheeks. The friend who has accompanied her stands at her side, mutely stroking her arm.

When he's done, Harrison performs another ultrasound. The screen this time is blank but for the contours of the uterus. "We've gotten everything out of there," he says.

As the nurse drops the instruments in the sink with a clatter, the teenager looks around, woozy.

"It was a lot easier than I thought it would be," she says. "I thought it would be horrible, but it wasn't. The procedure, that is."

She is not yet sure, she says, how she is doing emotionally. She feels guilty, sad and relieved, all in a jumble.

"There's things wrong with abortion," she says. "But I want to have a good life. And provide a good life for my child." To keep this baby now, she says, when she's single, broke and about to start college, "would be unfair."

Politicians on both sides of the abortion debate often talk up adoption as a better alternative. Harrison's patients do not consider it an option.

A high school volleyball player says she doesn't want to give up her body for nine months. "I realize just from the first three months how it changes everything," she says.

Kim, a single mother of three, says she couldn't bear to give away a child and have to wonder every day if he were loved. Ending the pregnancy seemed easier, she says — as long as she doesn't let herself think about "what could have been."

By law, Harrison's staff must offer patients two pamphlets from the state. One lists adoption services and groups that provide free diapers, day-care subsidies and other aid. The second contains photos of the fetus at various stages of development.

Patients don't have to accept either pamphlet. Most wave them away, their minds made up.

For the few women who arrive ambivalent or beset by guilt, Harrison's nurse has posted statistics on the exam-room mirror: One out of every four pregnant women in the U.S. chooses abortion. A third of all women in this country will have at least one abortion by the time they're 45.

"You think there's room in hell for all those women?" the nurse will ask.

If the woman remains troubled, the nurse tells her to go home and think it over.

"If they truly feel they're killing a baby, we're not going to do an abortion for them," says the nurse, who asked not to be identified for fear protesters would target her.

The 17-year-old in for a consultation this morning assures the nurse that she does not consider the embryo inside her a baby.

"Not until it's developed," she says. "That would be about three months?"

"It's completely formed about nine weeks," the nurse tells her. "Yours is more like a chicken yolk."

The girl, who is five weeks pregnant, looks relieved. "Then no," she says, "it's not a baby." Her mother sits in the corner wiping her tears.

Harrison draws his own moral line at the end of the second trimester, or 26 weeks since the first day of the woman's last menstrual period. Until that point, he will abort for any reason.

"It's not a baby to me until the mother tells me it's a baby," he says.

But Harrison refuses to end third-trimester pregnancies, even if the fetus is severely disabled. Some premature infants born at that stage, or even a few weeks earlier, can survive. Harrison believes they may be developed enough to feel pain in utero. Just a handful of doctors around the nation will abort a fetus at this stage.

"I just don't think it should be done," says Harrison, who calls the practice infanticide.

Most women seek abortions much earlier in pregnancy; nearly 90% are in their first trimester. As long as Roe vs. Wade stands, states cannot ban abortions that early but legislatures can impose a variety of conditions.

At least 28 states, including Arkansas, require patients to receive counseling before the day of their abortion. Arkansas is also one of 26 states to require underage girls to get parental consent.

Abortion rights activists say such laws burden women unnecessarily, forcing them to miss work, find child care and pay for transportation to make two trips to the clinic, which may be hundreds of miles away. There's one abortion clinic in Mississippi and one in South Dakota. There are two in Missouri and two in Arkansas.

Amanda, a 20-year-old administrative assistant, says it's not the obstacles that surprise her — it's how normal and unashamed she feels as she prepares to end her first pregnancy.

"It's an everyday occurrence," she says as she waits for her 2:30 p.m. abortion. "It's not like this is a rare thing."

Amanda hasn't told her ex-boyfriend that she's 15 weeks pregnant with his child. She hasn't told her parents, either, though she lives with them.

"I figured it was my responsibility," she says.

She regrets having to pay $750 for the abortion, but Amanda says she does not doubt her decision. "It's not like it's illegal. It's not like I'm doing anything wrong," she says.

"I've been praying a lot and that's been a real source of strength for me. I really believe God has a plan for us all. I have a choice, and that's part of my plan."

Before, after and even during an abortion, Harrison lectures his patients on birth control. He urges them to get on the pill and to insist their partners use condoms.

They promise. But Harrison knows many will be back.

His first patient of the day, Sarah, 23, says it never occurred to her to use birth control, though she has been sexually active for six years. When she became pregnant this fall, Sarah, who works in real estate, was in the midst of planning her wedding. "I don't think my dress would have fit with a baby in there," she says.

The last patient of the day, a 32-year-old college student named Stephanie, has had four abortions in the last 12 years. She keeps forgetting to take her birth control pills. Abortion "is a bummer," she says, "but no big stress."

Harrison does not get frustrated with such patients.

He has learned to focus on the facts he considers most important: This woman does not want to be pregnant. He can give her back control of her life and keep a child from coming into the world unwanted. He believes in this so strongly, he waives his fees for women who can't come up with the money.

Last February, Harrison injured his head in a fall. He underwent three surgeries and spent months in rehabilitation. His wife urged him to retire.

"There's no one to take my place," he told her.

As soon as he felt strong enough, Harrison was back in surgery.

He'll keep at it as long as his stamina holds, or as long as it is legal.

Three abortions before lunch and three more after: The appointment book is always full.

*

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Abortion in the U.S.

The U.S. abortion rate has been dropping since 1990, but abortion remains one of the most common surgical procedures for women. A quarter of all pregnancies end in abortion. A third of all American women will have had an abortion by the age of 45, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion rights.

Who has abortions

By age:

Under 15: 1%

15-19: 19%

20-24: 33%

25-29: 23%

30-34: 13%

35-39: 8%

40-44: 3%

--

Abortions by gestational age

(Weeks of gestation at time of abortion) BTR Less than 9 59.1%
BTR 9-10 19.0%
BTR 11-12 10.0%
BTR 13-15 6.2%
BTR 16-20 4.3%
BTR 21-plus 1.4%
The normal gestation period is about 40 weeks

Sources: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Guttmacher Institute


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nati
on/la-na-abortion29nov29,0,2003322,full.story

Focus on the Family Faces IRS Grievance

IRS Asked to Probe James Dobson

DENVER -- A Washington-based group has asked the Internal Revenue Service to investigate whether Focus on the Family or its founder James Dobson violated IRS rules by electioneering.

James Bopp, an attorney for the Colorado Springs-based conservative Christian group, said the group has fully complied with IRS code.

The complaint, filed Monday by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, also asked the IRS to investigate whether the tax-exempt status of Focus on the Family should be revoked. Tax-exempt organizations cannot participate in campaigns for or against candidates for public office.

The group alleges that news articles showed Dobson endorsed candidates for Congress before the organization officially formed its separate public policy arm, Focus on the Family Action, in July 2004.

Bopp said the organization didn't break any rules.

"Anything Dr. Dobson did to endorse candidates, he did as an individual," Bopp said.

___

On the Net:

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington: http://www.citizensforethics.org

Focus on the Family: http://www.family.org

Focus on the Family Action: http://www.focusaction.org


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conten
t/article/2005/11/29/AR2005112900886_pf.html

CREW files IRS Complaint Against James Dobson's Focus on the Family

U.S. Newswire

WASHINGTON -- Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) today filed an Internal Revenue Services (IRS) complaint against Focus on the Family, a non-profit organization led by its founder and chairman James C. Dobson. The complaint asks for the IRS to investigate activities by the group which may violate IRS regulations and require a revocation of its tax-exempt status.

Although barred from electioneering, Dobson has endorsed candidates for political office several times. In early April, 2004, Dobson endorsed Republican Representative Patrick J. Toomey in his race for Senate in Pennsylvania. In addition, it was reported that Dobson actively campaigned during a rally for Rep. Toomey. Other candidates that Dobson reportedly endorsed in 2004 include North Carolina Republican candidate Pat Ballentine for Govenor and Oklahoma Republican candidate Tom Coburn for Senate.

"Mr. Dobson's egregious violations of IRS code demand an investigation into his improper activities that break both the spirit and the letter of IRS law," Melanie Sloan, executive director of CREW said today.

Recently, the IRS has actively pursued investigations against several perceived liberal groups. The IRS targeted the NAACP's chairman Julian Bond for a July 2004 speech in which he criticized the Bush administration's policies on civil rights and the war in Iraq. Additionally, the IRS has threatened to revoke the tax-exempt status of All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, California because of an antiwar sermon there during the 2004 presidential election. In his sermon "If Jesus Debated Sen. Kerry and President Bush," the Rector Emeritus of the church, George Regas, never encouraged parishoners to vote for one candidate over another, but only to vote their deepest values.

Sloan continued, "The IRS has established a track record of scrutinizing organizations, in particular liberal ones, that have purportedly violated electioneering regulations. We hope that the IRS will fully investigate Focus on the Family activities as vigorously as it has targeted those of progressive organizations."

CREW has sent copies of the complaint to Sens. Charles Grassley (R-IA) and Max Baucus (D-MT) in their roles as Chair and Ranking Member of the Senate Finance Committee.

The IRS complaint is available at http://www.citizensforethics.org.

http://www.usnewswire.com/

Chicago man accused of kidnap for ritual

Girl Kidnaped For Satanic Ritual

CHICAGO -- An 18-year-old Chicago man was arrested after allegedly kidnapping two young children to perform a demonic ritual intended to get back his former girlfriend, authorities said.

David Rodriguez was being held on $500,000 bond. Prosecutors said he and a 15-year-old companion snatched the children Friday outside a South Side library and planned to carve a pentagram in the girl's chest.

Rodriguez apparently needed only the girl, so he released her 8-year-old brother, who told people on the street about the kidnapping, Cook County Assistant State's Attorney Tracy Senica said.

Police found the girl unharmed at Rodriguez's home, and they arrested Rodriguez when he returned with candles and incense.

Rodriguez was charged with two counts of aggravated kidnapping, police spokesman John Mirabelli said.

His grandfather, Julian Rodriguez, called the accusations "ridiculous." He said his grandson was a "good kid."

Related

Teen Accused Of Abducting Girl For Satanic Ritual
CHICAGO -- Authorities believe a teenager accused of abducting two young children in Chicago intended to perform a demonic ritual in order to get a former girlfriend back. Prosecutors said David Rodriguez, 18, and a companion snatched Erika Castillo, 6, and her older brother, Oscar, outside a Little Village library on Friday and planned to carve a pentagram in the girl's chest.

Witchcraft Is Attracting Ever-Growing Numbers
The practice of witchcraft is attracting ever-growing numbers, particularly among young women. A recent attempt to understand its appeal is the book "Wicca's Charm," published in September by Shaw Books. Authored by journalist Catherine Edwards Sanders, the book stemmed from a magazine article she was commissioned to do. Initially dismissive of Wicca, during her subsequent research Sanders came to appreciate that a genuine spiritual hunger was leading people into neo-pagan practices. Sanders, a self-professed Christian, defines Wicca as a "polytheistic neo-pagan nature religion inspired by various pre-Christian Western European beliefs, which has as its central deity the Mother Goddess and which includes the use of herbal magic."

Bible Preaching Pentecostal Pastor Cleared of Hate Speech

Bible Preaching Pastor Cleared of Hate Speech

Pastor Ake Green placed the Bible against Sweden's pro-sodomite hate crimes law and the Word of God wins.

Sweden’s highest court today acquitted a Pentecostal pastor accused of hate speech for having denounced homosexuality as “a deep cancerous tumour on all of society,” and that sodomites engage in “bestiality”.

Pastor Ake Green’s Bible based sermons are protected by the freedom of speech and religion law, the Supreme Court in Stockholm said in a 16-page ruling.

“If two men sleep with each other, or if two women do so, it is abnormal, just like paedophilia,” Green said in his testimony.

In 2003, Green told his congregation on the small island of Oland that homosexuality was “a deep cancerous tumours on all of society,” warning that Sweden risked a natural disaster because of leniency toward sodomites. He also said sodomites are more likely than others to rape children and animals.

Pastor Green, 64, delivered fiery anti-sodomite sermons two years ago that triggered a legal battle trying the limits of Sweden's hate crimes legislation against freedom of speech laws. Green told the Supreme Court that his sermons were meant to warn sodomites that their lifestyle will result in an “eternal divorce” from God.

Green was convicted in 2004 under Sweden's hate crimes law, which had amended the previous year to include homosexuals, but acquitted on appeal. Pro-sodomite prosecutors had appealed against the appeals court decision to the Supreme Court for a final ruling in the case.

Green said the Supreme Court ruling was a relief both for him other preachers.

"This means we can continue to speak the way we have, and therefore it feels very good that they have ruled in way that that there should not be any infringement in our way of preaching," he told Swedish public radio.

The case attracted widespread international attention, with religious groups saying a conviction would be a threat to freedom of religion and speech.


News Wire Sources

Pentagon Expanding Its Domestic Surveillance Activity

Pentagon Collecting Info on Us

Fears of Post-9/11 Terrorism Spur Proposals for New Powers

The Washington Post

The Defense Department has expanded its programs aimed at gathering and analyzing intelligence within the United States, creating new agencies, adding personnel and seeking additional legal authority for domestic security activities in the post-9/11 world.

The moves have taken place on several fronts. The White House is considering expanding the power of a little-known Pentagon agency called the Counterintelligence Field Activity, or CIFA, which was created three years ago. The proposal, made by a presidential commission, would transform CIFA from an office that coordinates Pentagon security efforts -- including protecting military facilities from attack -- to one that also has authority to investigate crimes within the United States such as treason, foreign or terrorist sabotage or even economic espionage.

The Pentagon has pushed legislation on Capitol Hill that would create an intelligence exception to the Privacy Act, allowing the FBI and others to share information gathered about U.S. citizens with the Pentagon, CIA and other intelligence agencies, as long as the data is deemed to be related to foreign intelligence. Backers say the measure is needed to strengthen investigations into terrorism or weapons of mass destruction.

The proposals, and other Pentagon steps aimed at improving its ability to analyze counterterrorism intelligence collected inside the United States, have drawn complaints from civil liberties advocates and a few members of Congress, who say the Defense Department's push into domestic collection is proceeding with little scrutiny by the Congress or the public.

"We are deputizing the military to spy on law-abiding Americans in America. This is a huge leap without even a [congressional] hearing," Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said in a recent interview.

Wyden has since persuaded lawmakers to change the legislation, attached to the fiscal 2006 intelligence authorization bill, to address some of his concerns, but he still believes hearings should be held. Among the changes was the elimination of a provision to let Defense Intelligence Agency officers hide the fact that they work for the government when they approach people who are possible sources of intelligence in the United States.

Modifications also were made in the provision allowing the FBI to share information with the Pentagon and CIA, requiring the approval of the director of national intelligence, John D. Negroponte, for that to occur, and requiring the Pentagon to make reports to Congress on the subject. Wyden said the legislation "now strikes a much fairer balance by protecting critical rights for our country's citizens and advancing intelligence operations to meet our security needs."

Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies, said the data-sharing amendment would still give the Pentagon much greater access to the FBI's massive collection of data, including information on citizens not connected to terrorism or espionage.

The measure, she said, "removes one of the few existing privacy protections against the creation of secret dossiers on Americans by government intelligence agencies." She said the Pentagon's "intelligence agencies are quietly expanding their domestic presence without any public debate."

Lt. Col. Chris Conway, a spokesman for the Pentagon, said that the most senior Defense Department intelligence officials are aware of the sensitivities related to their expanded domestic activities. At the same time, he said, the Pentagon has to have the intelligence necessary to protect its facilities and personnel at home and abroad.

"In the age of terrorism," Conway said, "the U.S. military and its facilities are targets, and we have to be prepared within our authorities to defend them before something happens."

Among the steps already taken by the Pentagon that enhanced its domestic capabilities was the establishment after 9/11 of Northern Command, or Northcom, in Colorado Springs, to provide military forces to help in reacting to terrorist threats in the continental United States. Today, Northcom's intelligence centers in Colorado and Texas fuse reports from CIFA, the FBI and other U.S. agencies, and are staffed by 290 intelligence analysts. That is more than the roughly 200 analysts working for the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, and far more than those at the Department of Homeland Security.

In addition, each of the military services has begun its own post-9/11 collection of domestic intelligence, primarily aimed at gathering data on potential terrorist threats to bases and other military facilities at home and abroad. For example, Eagle Eyes is a program set up by the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, which "enlists the eyes and ears of Air Force members and citizens in the war on terror," according to the program's Web site.

The Marine Corps has expanded its domestic intelligence operations and developed internal policies in 2004 to govern oversight of the "collection, retention and dissemination of information concerning U.S. persons," according to a Marine Corps order approved on April 30, 2004.

The order recognizes that in the post-9/11 era, the Marine Corps Intelligence Activity will be "increasingly required to perform domestic missions," and as a result, "there will be increased instances whereby Marine intelligence activities may come across information regarding U.S. persons." Among domestic targets listed are people in the United States who it "is reasonably believed threaten the physical security of Defense Department employees, installations, operations or official visitors."

Perhaps the prime illustration of the Pentagon's intelligence growth is CIFA, which remains one of its least publicized intelligence agencies. Neither the size of its staff, said to be more than 1,000, nor its budget is public, said Conway, the Pentagon spokesman. The CIFA brochure says the agency's mission is to "transform" the way counterintelligence is done "fully utilizing 21st century tools and resources."

One CIFA activity, threat assessments, involves using "leading edge information technologies and data harvesting," according to a February 2004 Pentagon budget document. This involves "exploiting commercial data" with the help of outside contractors including White Oak Technologies Inc. of Silver Spring, and MZM Inc., a Washington-based research organization, according to the Pentagon document.

For CIFA, counterintelligence involves not just collecting data but also "conducting activities to protect DoD and the nation against espionage, other intelligence activities, sabotage, assassinations, and terrorist activities," its brochure states.

CIFA's abilities would increase considerably under the proposal being reviewed by the White House, which was made by a presidential commission on intelligence chaired by retired appellate court judge Laurence H. Silberman and former senator Charles S. Robb (D-Va.). The commission urged that CIFA be given authority to carry out domestic criminal investigations and clandestine operations against potential threats inside the United States.

The Silberman-Robb panel found that because the separate military services concentrated on investigations within their areas, "no entity views non-service-specific and department-wide investigations as its primary responsibility." A 2003 Defense Department directive kept CIFA from engaging in law enforcement activities such as "the investigation, apprehension, or detention of individuals suspected or convicted of criminal offenses against the laws of the United States."

The commission's proposal would change that, giving CIFA "new counterespionage and law enforcement authorities," covering treason, espionage, foreign or terrorist sabotage, and even economic espionage. That step, the panel said, could be taken by presidential order and Pentagon directive without congressional approval.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said the CIFA expansion "is being studied at the DoD [Defense Department] level," adding that intelligence director Negroponte would have a say in the matter. A Pentagon spokesman said, "The [CIFA] matter is before the Hill committees."

Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a recent interview that CIFA has performed well in the past and today has no domestic intelligence collection activities. He was not aware of moves to enhance its authority.

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has not had formal hearings on CIFA or other domestic intelligence programs, but its staff has been briefed on some of the steps the Pentagon has already taken. "If a member asks the chairman" -- Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) -- for hearings, "I am sure he would respond," said Bill Duhnke, the panel's staff director.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content
/article/2005/11/26/AR2005112600857_pf.html

Mom On Trial In Drowning Of Newborn In Toilet

Toilet Mom On Trial

MOBILE, AL. -- Jurors in Tina Machelle Graham's murder trial heard a recording Monday of a 911 call the defendant made early last year from her Shalimar Road home in west Mobile, asking for help.

She was asking for help because she was bleeding, prosecutors told jurors as Graham's trial got under way.

She was bleeding, Mobile County Assistant District Attorney Jo Beth Murphree said, because hours earlier Graham had given birth to a "perfect, healthy, seven-pound girl."

The birth occurred at about 2 a.m. on Feb. 15, 2004, jurors gathered before Circuit Judge Rick Stout were told.

Graham's 911 call did not come until as many as eight hours later, according to the prosecutor -- long after Graham had allowed the newborn to drown in a toilet. After Graham gave birth, Murphree said, she wrapped her little girl in a red covering, locked her body in a hall closet, and took a nap.

Only after Graham awoke from the nap, bleeding and in need of help herself -- with no thought for the infant, who by then had already stiffened into rigor mortis, Murphree told jurors -- did she think to seek medical attention.

"She didn't want the baby (and) couldn't afford it," Murphree said of Graham, 39, a woman described by her own attorney as having difficulty holding down jobs and struggling to care for three other children.

She wouldn't get an abortion, Murphree said, and she kept her pregnancy hidden from everyone, including her family.

And then on that Saturday night, the baby came.

Far from the cold-blooded act of destroying an unwanted baby, defense attorney Jeff Deen argued, his client's actions occurred because she was suffering then and now from mental stress and defect and was not responsible.

When her baby was born, Deen said, "this good mother of three daughters ... became frozen. She was not in touch with reality; she was totally out of her mind."

Deen promised jurors he would produce evidence showing that Graham had suffered from mental deficiency since she was a young teenager, had an IQ of under 90 and that her mental problems were hereditary.

When the infant began to emerge from her womb and slip into the toilet, Deen suggested, Graham experienced a "psychotic episode.

"She thought it was stillborn," Deen told jurors. "She was unable to reach down and grab her baby daughter."

During the state's presentation of the tapes, jurors on Monday heard a calm and articulate Graham speaking with emergency workers during a handful of telephone calls.

She asked that there be no sirens as emergency or police vehicles arrived because she didn't want to upset her other children.

At first Graham avoided mentioning the birth of the child and was vague about what was causing her physical distress, but ultimately began divulging what had happened.

"I passed a baby," she said at one point. "I just didn't know what to do. It happened so quick."


http://www.al.com/news/mobileregister/index
.ssf?/base/news/1133259315263651.xml&coll=3

Charges Shed Light On `Cult'

Charges Shed Light On 'Gay' Cult

Tridentine Latin Rite `cult' is likely hiding members accused of sex abuse, police say

BELLEVUE, WA -- The shadowy history of an Eastside church, recognized by many as a cult, has come into focus with new charges of child molestation and an admission by one former member that he molested an 8-year-old boy.

Steven A. Belzak told King County prosecutors that he began sexually abusing an 8-year-old boy at a home in Sammamish for male members of the Tridentine Latin Rite Church. In his confession, he said the abuse went on for three years, beginning in 2000.

Another church member, 20-year-old Justin Kirkland, is charged with first-degree child rape and first-degree child molestation. And last week prosecutors charged a third man, Michael W. Muratore, 21, with first-degree child molestation.

Kirkland and Muratore remain at large, and investigators believe the so-called cult that reared them is protecting them from prosecution.

``It's most likely that the cult is shielding or hiding them,'' said King County sheriff's spokesman Sgt. John Urquhart. ``This breakaway group is not recognized by the (Roman Catholic) church. They're a cult.''

Belzak, now 20, pleaded guilty earlier this month to two counts of child molestation. He is scheduled for sentencing Monday in juvenile court. Prosecutors say they'll recommend a judge send Belzak to intensive sexual deviancy treatment before determining how much time he should serve.

According to charging papers, the victim's mother went to Bellevue police in April 2004 after her son told her he had been molested while living at the Tridentine Latin Rite Church home in Sammamish.

Since her son was 2, the woman told detectives, he had been raised by the men and other boys who lived at the house. She said the church was a cult, and she was allowed to visit her son only twice a year.

She spent those years living with her daughters and other female members of the church at a home in Bellevue. It wasn't until she left the church last year that she learned of her son's abuse, prosecutors said.

The Journal could not reach the now-13-year-old victim or his mother, but she told KING 5 News this week how she learned her son was abused.

``They were raping him and they were telling him that it was OK, that that's what everybody does,'' she said. ``It's very hard to admit that these people that I gave my son to, that I trusted, are the very ones that destroyed his innocence.''

The woman's son told detectives and prosecutors that Muratore was the first to touch him when he was 7 or 8. Three weeks later, he said, Belzak touched him and made him take his clothes off while other boys were sleeping in the room.

He said Kirkland later began molesting him, as well. The abuse went on until he was 11, he said.

On one occasion, he was shut inside a closet with Belzak, when Belzak began touching him. A man who lived with the boys caught them and spanked them both.

Urquhart said there are no allegations of organized or ritual abuse in the church, and the acts didn't occur under the direction of any of the group's leaders. Still, investigators are concerned that sexual abuse of children might be ongoing, and they suspect the church is covering it up.

The church, also is known as ``Fatima Crusaders,'' has refused to cooperate with detectives, Urquhart said, and leaders of the cult have even denied the existence of Muratore.

In fact, many of the children in the group have no birth certificate, Social Security number or any type of documentation. That's why it has taken more than a year to charge Muratore.

``We had a name but it took us a long time to figure out who he was,'' Urquhart said.

In a report about the group published Nov. 25, 2002, in the Seattle Times, Muratore's father and aunt spoke about their decision to join the church.

A truck driver and father of nine, Michael E. Muratore, 48, said he and his wife left a mainstream Christian church when it began to feel more like social club.

``After three or four months, you learned everything,'' Muratore said. ``It left us with an empty feeling. There had to be more to it.''

The man said his faith in God ``gives total purpose to life. When you have a faith -- especially a purpose that says this is a means to an end, God provides opportunities.''

The men of Tridentine Latin Rite Church have since abandoned the house in Sammamish, and police don't know where they're living now.

Police say about 100 members of the Tridentine Latin Rite Church have lived in Renton, Bellevue and Issaquah for the last several years.

The church has no published address or telephone number, and the Journal was unable to reach any representative of Tridentine Latin Rite Church for comment.

The group should not be confused with other sects that broke away from the Catholic Church following global revisions in the way Catholics worship with The Second Vatican Council -- or Vatican II -- in 1965. The changes were intended to broaden the church's reach and appeal.

Some groups formed new churches in opposition to Vatican II ruling to modernize the traditional Tridentine mass by replacing Latin with local vernacular and instructing priests to turn their backs on the holy altar during Mass.

A lay church volunteer who helps organize a weekly traditional Latin mass at St. Joseph Chapel in downtown Seattle, Jason King of Mercer Island, said he and his organization, Una Voce of Western Washington, already have been mistaken for the cult. The difference, he said, is that he is a Roman Catholic and the Mass he organizes is fully recognized by the archdiocese of Western Washington.

``This cult is separate and distinct from the Catholic Church,'' King said. ``It's not recognized by the archdiocese. This cult doesn't even believe that Pope Benedict (XVI) is the pope. They don't believe there's been a pope since Vatican II in 1965.''

At the heart of the mysterious group lies its founder, Francis Konrad Schuckardt, a charismatic leader who considers himself to be the true pope, according to members of the group.

The group's history, as outlined in the book ``The Smoke of Satan: Conservative and Traditionalist Dissent in Contemporary American Catholicism'' by Michael Cuneo is marked by schism, controversy and police raids.

A graduate of O'Dea High School, Schuckardt was one of the original defectors of the church, following Vatican II. The vocal traditionalist was ousted from his congregation and spent decades cultivating a following throughout the Northwest.

Members of his church have described a harsh life with hours of prayer each day. Women and girls must cover their heads and wear long skirts. There have been reports of malnutrition and severe punishment such as shaving the heads of girls and forcing some to kneel during meals.

Former members say the church uses fear to discourage its young followers from running away.

In May 1987, a police SWAT team in California raided a house where the group was staying. They were searching for six children in two separate parental abduction cases. They didn't find the children, but they did find a cache of prescription pain killers, several guns, $75,000 in cash and records of numerous international bank accounts.

The six children turned up elsewhere a few days later, after a new investigation into the cult had begun.

Urquhart said investigators have found no sign of Schuckardt in more than two years. Most likely, he said, Schuckardt is dead, although his church insists he is alive.


http://www.kingcountyjournal
.com/sited/story/html/223654

Abortions Dropped After Arson

Abortions Dropped After Arson

Abortion makes cost of insurance too high for clinic

OLYMPIA, Washington -- When an arsonist torched their clinic nearly a year ago, Eastside Women’s Health Clinic owners Nancy Armstrong and Shelly Pacheco vowed not to let fear keep them from providing abortions.

But when they reopen the clinic Monday, after a year working out of a double-wide trailer in the parking lot, there will be no more abortions.

It wasn’t the arsonist who stopped them, but their insurance company.

After the Jan. 9 fire, which burned through the roof of the building and destroyed much of the interior, the clinic’s insurance company canceled its coverage. Other insurers quoted them rates more than 10 times what they had been paying.

“The insurance companies think, ‘Oh, you had an arson because you do abortions. We’re not going to insure you,’ ” Armstrong said. “Then the arsonist thinks, ‘Oh, it works.’”

To get a rate they could afford, clinic owners had to agree not to perform abortions.

Eastside Women’s Health had been one of three South Sound abortion providers.

The others, Planned Parenthood and Sound Choice Health Center, both in Olympia, have waiting lists for abortions because of the extra patient load.

Armstrong sometimes sends patients to Tacoma, the next-nearest place to get an abortion, if there’s more urgency than local clinics can meet. The abortion pill, RU486, for example, can only be taken in the very early stages of pregnancy.

Abortions made up less than 5 percent of the clinic’s business, and doctors there are still busy with the primary care and women’s health care they provide to 40 patients a day. They provided abortions to about 400 women a year.

The clinic is one of the only South Sound health care providers to accept insurance coverage from Medicare, Medicaid and the Department of Social and Health Services.

It was difficult for the owners to decide to stop offering abortion services, and difficult to acknowledge that the arsonists had won, Armstrong said.

“But they did win.”

Changes in store

The state constitution guarantees a woman’s right to reproductive choices, including abortion, and any infringement of that right — whether by arsonist or insurer — violates the constitution, some officials say.

“It would be something of an irony if abortion rights were to be taken away not by courts, but by the actions of insurers responding to terrorists,” said State Rep. Brendan Williams, D-Olympia.

Williams, a member of the House Financial Institution and Insurance Committee, has plans he hopes to enact this session to prevent other clinics from suffering the same fate. His idea is to have the state underwrite an insurance risk pool that reproductive health clinics could join.

“One of my concerns is the issue could be larger than the Eastside Women’s Clinic. I could see this happening elsewhere in the state,” Williams said.

Especially now, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, when insurance companies are being especially cautious about risks, abortion clinics could be lumped into a high-risk category that can’t get insurance even if they’ve never been the target of arson or other damage, Williams said.

“It’s appropriate that if the right to reproductive choice is going to be a meaningful one, the state needs to do its job by safeguarding that right,” Williams said.

The state Office of the Insurance Commissioner has also gotten involved with the clinic’s plight, getting the clinic owners an extension on their coverage when their insurer tried to drop them with no warning.

But it can’t force an insurance company to give coverage to something it considers a potential for profit loss.

“Insurance companies don’t have to sign on: If there’s a risk, they can refuse to underwrite that risk,” said John Hamje, deputy insurance commissioner. “My biggest concern about all of this is it may well be, because of that particular aspect of the industry, that somebody — a criminal, or as Rep. Williams has termed them, a terrorist — is able to achieve their criminal ends.”

Investigation continues

Agents from the federal bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms determined in January that the fire was arson, but they haven’t caught the arsonist. They haven’t made any arrests so far. The case is still open and active, they said.

“It’s not uncommon to take years to solve arsons. Sometimes you have all but one piece of the puzzle. It could be anything,” special agent Julianne Marshall said. “Even though time has passed, people talk.”

The ATF is offering up to a $15,000 reward for information that leads to an arrest. The statute of limitations on arson is 10 years.

There’s no evidence that the arsonist was an anti-abortion activist, but it’s logical to suspect that, investigators have said.

Anti-abortion protesters have gathered outside the clinic to picket nearly every Thursday since it was founded in 1981. They still do, Armstrong said, even though she told them last month that there would be no more abortions.

Armstrong is outraged by the way the insurance companies have treated her. Abortion is a legal medical procedure; an insurer shouldn’t dictate whether she offers it, she said.

Pro-choice activists see the right to abortion being whittled away by recent limitations federal and state authorities have imposed. But trying to get insured may be the ultimate limiting factor, Armstrong fears.

“That really impedes access, that the insurance companies act that way,” she said. “These things don’t help.”


http://159.54.227.3/apps/pbcs.dll/a
rticle?AID=/20051126/NEWS/51126001

Paul deParrie Arrested!

Pro-Life Preacher Arrested!

by Paul deParrie

On November 21, 2005, at about 9:30 a.m. I parked my car downtown about three blocks from the area of the South Park Blocks where I intended to minister to Portland State University students. Tim, a street preacher, was with me. He was going to preach and I was going to hold my 4’X5’ anti abortion sign. We walked up to the part of the park where Montgomery Street intersects the campus and the park (see diagram). There is a broad walkway beginning at Broadway which goes West between the Smith Building and another campus building and proceeds through the park to the other side. This walkway is about 40 to 50 feet across. Along the East edge of the park is another walkway going north and south which intersects the other walkway. This walkway is about 30 feet across. I positioned myself and my sign on the northwest corner of this intersection standing close to the landscaping. Yocom was on the southwest corner.

Shortly afterwards, two members of the PSU Public Safety patrol came to me and Sgt. K. Riddle (#24259) informed me that I could not stand there with my sign. She showed me her ordinance book with the synopsis of PCC 20.12.030 in it as her legal authority. She said I must carry the sign and “keep moving” or she would arrest me for trespassing. (Trespassing? In a PARK?) I turned on my video camera and verified what she said. I pointed out that the ordinance said nothing about having to carry a sign and keeping moving. I also told her that she could not arrest me for this as it had already been through the courts. I mentioned the federal injunction in Gathright v. City. I asked if she would like to see it as I had it in my car. She said okay, and I went, leaving Tim in charge of the sign. I called attorney Herb Grey to apprise him of the situation and ask him to call campus police and straighten them out. When I returned, neither if the campus police were there. Tim was talking to a Black lady about the gospel. A young woman, whom I assumed was a student, came up to me and said she thought the sign was “inappropriate” as, she said, there were sometimes children present. I told her that I made an effort to turn the sign away when I saw children in the area. She left.

A few minutes later, I saw the same woman walking back. At this time I had the sign turned a different direction because some children from the local day-care had come out of the Smith Building. I could see that the woman might be intending to damage the sign, so when she got close, I moved toward the front of the sign to get between her and it. She shouldered her way past me and grabbed the top rail of the sign. I reached around her shoulders trying to pull her away. She then put her weight into the sign and broke the frame (PVC electrical conduit) in two places. I then tried to hold on to her by her sweater or jacket so I could call the police. She slipped out of my grasp. I turned on my video camera and got pictures of her and told her she had committed a crime.

After a minute, she began talking to the Black woman Tim had been talking to. Then she went over toward the west entrance of the Smith Building.

I called 911 and gave a complete description of the incident and the woman. I waited, but Portland Police did not arrive. Eventually, Sgt. Riddle arrived and the woman went to talk to her. After that Sgt Riddle came to me and I tried to explain that the woman had committed a crime against me, but Riddle was not interested. She said she was there to arrest me for Harassment.

I was arrested at about 10:30 a.m. so if the Portland Police eventually did come, I was no longer there.

I was handcuffed and placed in the squad car and taken to the Public Safety Office on campus. While there, I was Mirandized and afterwards I made the simple declaration, “I acted in defense of my property and myself” and ended the conversation.

After about an hour, I was taken to the Justice Center jail as they wanted to do fresh mug shots. I was photographed within a half an hour, but was not released until just about 6:00 p.m.

Upon returning home, Sgt. Riddle had left a phone message for me saying that she would be sending me a two-year trespass warning in the mail. This should be excellent for taking to Judge Haggerty along with the video of Sgt. Riddle.

Another phone message was a friend who had come after the arrest who had located an independent witness to corroborate that the woman attacked me and my sign first.

I also called PPD and asked for an officer to come by and take my complaint. Officer Ray (#40967) was recalcitrant about assisting me and would not try to get the name of the woman from the campus police or their police report (which is filed with PPD). She kept insisting that I had broken the law in various ways including Harassment (even in defense) and saying that it was a crime for me to videotape the woman after her crime.

Preacher's Banner Taken

Preacher's Sign Stolen

The Alligator and Campus Communications

A University of Florida student was arrested for stealing a Turlington Plaza minister's sign, which read "Beware queer university," Friday afternoon.

Jennifer Arce, 23, approached campus evangelist David Miller from behind, snatched the sign and fled on foot toward University Avenue on Newell Road, where she was stopped by University Police.

Miller, who was detained by UPD on Nov. 10 for disturbing nearby classes while preaching, chased after Arce, yelling, "Catch that thief! Beware of thief!" said witness Lauren Dobson.

Arce ran through Turlington Plaza, past a game of 4-square being played by about 30 students, who cheered her on.

Miller pursued her while calling UPD on his cell phone, Dobson said.

Several students watched them run down the road to University Avenue, where two police cars were waiting to arrest Arce.

"They put her in handcuffs and put her in the police car," Dobson said. "Students who walked by and saw the situation began yelling at the preacher, calling him a homophobe and a jerk."

After giving the police a sworn complaint of what happened, Miller went back out to Turlington to continue preaching about 40 minutes later, said witness Randolph Hawkins, who was tabling on Turlington at the time.

"I came a first time, they throw me in handcuffs in a car for 30 minutes," Miller said to about 50 students after the incident in Turlington Plaza.

"I came a second time, someone steals my sign, and I have to chase her halfway across the campus - off campus even. She physically assaulted me."

Miller said he was protesting the school's attitude toward homosexuality because he feels that dormitories are "recruitment grounds" for homosexuals.

Miller said he first heard about this "recruiting" from his daughter, a resident assistant at Mallory Hall.

Resident assistants are encouraged to refer any student who has homosexual thoughts to homosexual groups, which perpetrates homosexuality, he said.

Miller said he is on Turlington preaching because UF created the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Affairs department last year. He said the campus attitude toward homosexuality is "disturbing."

After preaching for about an hour, Miller said he was going to meet with Eugene Zdziarski, dean of students, in order to try and get the LGBT Affairs department disbanded.

Arce was arrested on felony charges of robbery by sudden snatching, said UPD spokesman Lt. Joe Sharkey. The case will be reviewed by the State Attorney's Office.

Arce also is being investigated by Judicial Affairs in the matter.

Arce declined to comment.

Hawkins, who watched the incident, said the situation was very interesting and shocking.

"You always see those guys out there but that was very different from how it usually ends up happening," Hawkins said.


http://www.alligator.or
g/pt2/051121cops.php

The First Official Thanksgiving in America was in Virginia

The First Thanksgiving was in Virginia

Settlers held first Thanksgiving at Berkeley Plantation on
December 4, 1619 -- a year before the Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth.

By Charles Miller / Richmond Times-Dispatch

Each first Sunday in November a Thanksgiving Festival is held at the Berkeley Plantation in accordance with documentation from 1619. The event fulfills instructions given to the 38 settlers who arrived on the banks of the James River at Berkeley Hundred as documented in the proclamation:

"Wee ordaine that the day of our ships arrival at the place assigned for plantacon in the land of Virginia shall be yearly and perpetually kept holy as a day of thanksgiving to Almighty God."

The settlers set sail in a ship called The Margaret from the Port of Bristol in England, where at the Berkeley Castle funding for the journey was supplied by landowners including Sir Richard Berkeley and William Throckmorton. Agriculture was going through difficult times and many people in the area wanted to start a new life for themselves in America, and so they joined the leaders Sir John Woodleefe, George Thorpe, and John Smyth, who had planned this remarkable and historic voyage. Although they encountered severe weather that delayed their journey, the landing on December 4, 1619, is well documented by the Virginia Company of London.

Charles Berkeley from the Berkeley Castle stressed in his speech for the 1994 Virginia First Thanksgiving Festival that "this was the first thanksgiving to be held on American soil but it was not officially recognized until President Kennedy's term of office in the 1960s, as beforehand the Pilgrim Fathers were considered to have been the first American settlers to offer Thanksgiving. The Berkeleys in fact preceded them . . . ."

Former Virginia Governor Mills Godwin summarized the setting well in his 1981 remarks: "Berkeley has been a working plantation in Virginia since 1619, and a handsome brick manor house was built here early in the 18th Century. Here was born Benjamin Harrison, V, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and a post-Revolutionary Governor of Virginia, and his son, William Henry Harrison, the ninth President of the United States. Today, while privately owned, Berkeley has been magnificently restored and is open to the public as one of America's distinguished historic shrines."

Plantation Welcomes Festivities

Malcolm and Grace Jamieson purchased the Berkeley Plantation in 1928, and their son Jamie and his family continue the well-known gracious hospitality to the many visitors each year for the re-enactment of the First Thanksgiving. Berkeley is open daily and offers beautiful vistas from its 10 acres of formal terraced boxwood gardens and lawn that extend a quarter-mile from the front door of the mansion to the banks of the James River.

Clifford Dowdey depicts Berkeley and other plantations in his book, The Great Plantation, as an entrepreneurial endeavor: "These personal domains were built by men who, whatever their weaknesses of the flesh, contained the same ingredients that have built large successes throughout the ages -- ambition and energy, self-discipline and resourcefulness, and the power to conceive boldly. For the plantation was, above all things, a most bold concept: It was a private principality, a self-contained world that required a unique amalgam of talents of the very first order."

Perhaps Dowdey's remarks about Berkeley Plantation's success can be attributed to the leadership of King James I. His plan established the Virginia Company of London and the Plymouth Company, indeed opportunities that offered changes in the economic model for England that led to new world adventures.

William J. Carl, III, in his comments at the festival two Sundays ago, alluded to the importance of Berkeley Plantation in our economic heritage and as a place that our Forefathers and Foremothers birthed our great nation. The legacies are innumerable, including a signer of the Declaration of Independence, birthplace and host of Presidents, and the composition of "Taps" by General Daniel Butterfield when he was stationed at Berkeley in 1862 with McClellan's Army of the Potomac. So we honor the past but move forward to the future from this great place of history.

A Perpetual Celebration

As we express our gratitude at these Thanksgiving events, so we live out our words by offering thanks, remembering the past, and pledging to continue the great legacy of those before us who celebrated perpetually . . . and look forward to a great future in this free nation.

One of the attendees at this year's festival, Peggy Alexander, not only praised Carl's remarks but stated that the entire experience of being at Berkeley Plantation to celebrate the very first Thanksgiving was exceptionally enjoyable in an exquisite setting. Another visitor who came from Ohio remained in her seat to enjoy the historical environment long after the Chickahominy Indians ceased their dances.

I am a member of the Berkeley family through my mother's lineage and feel the sense of history each time I visit Berkeley Plantation. Indeed, Berkeley Hundred remains a historic treasure in the life of the Commonwealth of Virginia and of the nation.


Charles Miller is president of Virginia First Thanksgiving Festival, Inc., the foundation responsible for the re-enactment of Berkeley Plantation's annual Thanksgiving event.

Berkeley Plantation First Thanksgiving Festival
Celebrate the 1619 landing of the original colonists at Berkeley Plantation. Join us at the site of the First Official Thanksgiving in America, for a day dedicated to history, food, and fun with tours of the 1726 mansion, walks in the colorful autumn gardens and a formal living history program.

http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RT
D/MGArticle/RTD_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1128768243717

Man pleads guilty in killing of fetus

Man pleads guilty in killing of fetus

Prosecutors to seek more than 10 years in case of husband stabbing pregnant wife in Norton

AKRON, Ohio -- Prosecutors intend to seek more than 10 years in prison for a man who pleaded guilty to stabbing his wife and killing their unborn child in Norton last winter.

Lonnie McKenzie Jr. of Lodi was to go on trial Monday in Summit County Common Pleas Court, accused of attacking his pregnant wife and her friend in a jealous rage.

In court with his lawyer Friday, McKenzie pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter for terminating the pregnancy, and to attempted murder for stabbing his wife. Each conviction carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

He had been indicted on a murder charge, but prosecutors dropped that, along with charges of felonious assault, assault and carrying a concealed weapon, in exchange for his guilty pleas.

McKenzie, 25, is to be sentenced Dec. 15 by Judge Brenda Burnham Unruh.

He was arrested Jan. 30 after his wife, Michelle, who had been stabbed with an 8-inch steak knife, called Norton police.

Assistant prosecutor Becky Doherty said Friday the knife penetrated Michelle McKenzie's back, causing severe blood loss, which ended the life of the couple's 14-week-old fetus.

Michelle McKenzie, 22, also suffered a collapsed lung and one kidney was removed as a result of the attack.

Prosecutors say the couple had been separated, and Michelle McKenzie was living with her father.

McKenzie attacked his pregnant wife when she arrived at her father's Albert Street home in the company of a male friend who had given her a ride, prosecutors said. McKenzie wrongly assumed the male friend was romantically involved with his wife, prosecutors said.

``I'm going to ask for at least 10 years,'' Doherty said. ``He stabbed his wife in the back, and he did it knowing she was pregnant.''

Defense lawyer David Lowry declined to comment until after the sentencing. He remains in the county jail.

Doherty said the viability of the unborn child was not a legal issue in this case. McKenzie was charged under a special murder law and was accused of causing the ``unlawful termination of a pregnancy.''


http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/news/local
/states/ohio/counties/medina_county/13210396.htm

Family Blames Birth Control For Daughter's Death

Family: Birth Control Killed Our Daughter

Parents suing Johnson & Johnson

MADISON, Wis. -- Parents of a 14-year-old Wisconsin girl who died last year are suing the makers of a popular birth control patch for failing to warn people sooner about serious side effects.

Eighth-grader Alycia Brown died of blood clots on May 7, 2004, after using Ortho Evra for about six weeks, according to the lawsuit filed this week in federal court in Madison.

Patch maker Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical warned last week that users will be exposed to higher doses of hormones that put them at greater risk for blood clots and other side effects. The warning came after federal death and injury reports showed patch users die and suffer blood clots at a higher rate than women taking the pill.

While dozens have sued Johnson & Johnson and subsidiary Ortho-McNeil for deaths and injuries they blame on Ortho Evra, the La Crosse teen is the youngest known victim, said Janet Abaray, a Cincinnati lawyer whose firm represents Brown's family and many others.

Her mother, Lorie Brown, said she decided to put Alycia on birth control after finding a note from a friend suggesting she was having sex. She said she wanted her daughter to get a birth control shot, but Alycia was afraid of needles so she chose the patch.

"I know too many young girls that got pregnant and their whole life was done," Lorie Brown said. "I didn't want that for her, but I didn't want this either."

About 5 million women have used the patch since it went on the market in 2002. The Browns' lawsuit claims the company intentionally withheld information from its own clinical trials and Food and Drug Administration records suggesting the increased risks.

Julie Keenan, spokeswoman for New Jersey-based Ortho-McNeil, said she could not comment on pending litigation. The company issued a statement last week that it continues to study the product's safety.

After claiming Ortho Evra was as safe as the pill for years, the product's new warning labels say users will be exposed to about 60 percent more estrogen than those on birth control pills. In general, that puts users at a greater risk of side effects.

Abaray said the new warning was important but too late for victims such as Brown, who was supposed to go on a band trip to the Wisconsin Dells the day she died.

She went home from school after having trouble breathing and died hours later at a hospital. The cause of death was blood clots in her lower pelvis and Ortho Evra was likely a contributing factor, said John Steers, the La Crosse County medical examiner.

The family's lawsuit seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages for the death of Alycia, who played the flute and volleyball, loved pets and talked about becoming a veterinarian.

Lorie Brown said it's been especially tough for Alycia's 12-year-old sister, Destiny, who sits in her room most days mourning the loss of her best friend.

"I'm out to let people know: get off (Ortho Evra). That's my biggest goal here," Lorie Brown said. "I didn't save her life, but maybe I can save somebody else's."


http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/
news/local/states/wisconsin/13195779.htm

Bush goes to China church amid crackdown

Bush attends Communist church service

President of United States leads Communist choir at state controlled church in Beijing

President George Bush opened a rare visit to China yesterday by attending a Chinese church.

The gesture is likely to resonate with his religious constituency back home, but unlikely to cut much ice with his hosts, who continued their crackdown on underground Christians right up to the eve of the visit.

Arrests of underground Protestant and Catholic church leaders were reported up to Saturday.

China had released a group of underground Christians ahead of Mr Bush's visit, a Christian aid agency said yesterday. But, according to the US-based China Aid Association, others were detained or forced to stay out of Beijing, where Mr Bush arrived on Saturday night as part of a 40-hour China visit.

In Henan Province, in central China, authorities released eight underground church leaders on Saturday morning after holding them for 16 days, the association said.

But Zhang Mingxuan, leader of a house church, was sent out of Beijing on Saturday evening to detention somewhere in Henan Province, the aid group said.

Mr Bush started his itinerary yesterday with a visit to Gangwashi Church, in the heart of Beijing.

On Wednesday the New York-based advocacy group Human Rights Watch sent President Bush a letter urging him to be tougher with China on human rights issues.

But behind the clash on human rights, Mr Bush and President Hu Jintao took pains to emphasise the prospects of a huge trade link, at the moment in China's favour.

China announced a big order for 70 Boeing 737 aircraft worth about $US4 billion ($A5.5 billion) by its state-owned airlines, and Mr Hu dealt directly with American economic grievances in a joint news conference after their meeting at Beijing's Great Hall of the People.

He said he and Mr Bush had declared their willingness to "join hands" to work on the trade imbalance, and that China would fight piracy of American-made goods and keep making its currency more flexible. "We will follow the principle of benefitting not only China, but also the world at large, and unswervingly press ahead with the reform of the formation mechanism of the renminbu exchange rate," he said. Later, authorities helped recreate the city atmosphere of 1975 when Mr Bush stayed with his parents during his father's two years as US liaison chief.

A section of Beijing's western suburbs was barred to vehicles while Mr Bush rode a bike for a two-kilometre circuit, attended by six Chinese cyclists, in the car-free conditions that prevailed in the city 30 years ago.

US officials said the bike ride was a gesture to show Mr Bush's friendly attitude towards the people of China. But the President's speech last Wednesday in Kyoto, Japan, urging China to follow the democratic example of Taiwan, was suppressed in Chinese-language reports in the Communist Party-controlled domestic media.

So far, Beijing has not followed the precedent of earlier high-level American visits and released any prominent political prisoners.

In fact, it has stepped up its repression of political and religious figures, with a Protestant pastor, Cai Zhouhua, sentenced to three years in jail this month for printing Bibles without government permits.

Mr Cai's lawyer, Zhang Xingshui, was among several dissidents and potential critics who were either told to leave the city during Mr Bush's visit, or put under house arrest.


http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/bush-goes-to-c
hurch-amid-crackdown/2005/11/20/1132421545826.html

Bill would allow public prayer by officials

Bill Would Allow Public Prayer

AIKEN -- U.S. Rep. Gresham Barrett, R-S.C., announced plans Thursday to introduce legislation called the Public Prayer Protection Act.

The bill would allow elected and appointed officials "to pray in public as they see fit, no matter what their religion," Mr. Barrett, who represents Aiken County, said in a telephone conference call from Washington, D.C.

The bill also says all "establishment-clause" cases involving prayer by public officials should be decided by state rather than federal courts.

While various court challenges to the First Amendment nationwide played into his decision to sponsor the legislation, Mr. Barrett said, no particular case prompted him to action.

"It's something we've been thinking about for a long time," the congressman said.

In recent years, lawyers across the country have argued cases about the placement of Ten Commandments plaques at government buildings and the use of "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance in federal courts.

The U.S. Supreme Court in June denied a petition by the town of Great Falls, S.C., to overturn a 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision in a public prayer case, according to the American Civil Liberties Union of South Carolina Web site.

In that case, the circuit court upheld a 2003 lower court ruling that the town council violated the establishment clause of the First Amendment by invoking the name Jesus Christ in prayer at public meetings. The clause prohibits the preference of one religion over another.

U.S. District Court Judge Cameron Currie had previously ruled that the town of Great Falls is "permanently enjoined from invoking the name of a specific deity associated with any one specific faith or belief in the prayers at the Town Council meetings," according to the ACLU.

Meanwhile, Mr. Barrett acknowledged that a non-Christian at a public meeting might feel uncomfortable when an official prays "in Jesus' name."

However, Mr. Barrett said, "I would hope that they would be tolerant of me because I would certainly be tolerant of them."


http://chronicle.augusta.com/s
tories/111805/met_5739519.shtml

Barrett: If you don’t like the prayer, leave

If you don’t like the prayer, leave

His bill would allow open prayer at public meetings

Knight Ridder

WASHINGTON -- U.S. Rep. Gresham Barrett wants public officials to be able to pray openly at a public meeting — and invoke a specific deity’s name if they wish.

If you don’t like that, Barrett says, you can just leave the room.

“I assume some people will say this is an extreme measure,” said the Republican from Westminster, who invokes Jesus’ name when he prays in public.

“We’re trying to bring it back to what the framers of the Constitution had in mind.”

After introducing a bill Thursday that he said would protect the rights of elected and appointed officials to pray openly, Barrett was asked about those who might take offense at the invocation of Jesus’ name in a public meeting.

“The person doesn’t have to be in the room,” said Barrett, whose district covers the western part of the state from Pickens to Aiken county.

“That’s way too close to, ‘If you don’t like the way we do it here down South, go home,’” said the Rev. Joseph Darby, pastor of Charleston’s Morris Brown AME Church. “If I, as a Christian minister, can refer to ‘the Creator’ when praying in public, so can a public official.

“I’m bothered by Christians who think Jesus is so small they have to pass a law.”

Barrett’s bill would move some of the most controversial cases about public prayer from federal to state courts.

Barrett noted that while the Constitution prohibits Congress from passing laws “respecting an establishment of religion,” it also prohibits laws that would inhibit the free exercise of religion.

It is the latter that the bill seeks to protect, he said. It would allow public officials “to pray in public as they see fit, no matter their religion.”

Barrett, who said he personally has never been challenged on his public prayers, introduced the bill in the wake of an August federal appeals court ruling that said prayers invoking Jesus’ name at Great Falls Town Council meetings are unconstitutional.

Under Barrett’s bill, federal courts would not hear such cases.

The Constitution would allow it, said Eldon Wedlock, a USC professor of constitutional law. But the result would be a “nightmare” of conflicting state court decisions.

“This is an attempt to end-run the federal courts,” said Wedlock. “The genius of the Constitution is that it says that certain areas of the law should be the same,” no matter the state.

As for Barrett’s argument that he is simply defending the intent of the framers of the Constitution, Wedlock said that’s not always a noble goal.

“Slavery was constitutional once, too,” Wedlock said.

But Todd Young, policy director for the Atlanta-based Southeastern Legal Foundation, said Barrett’s bill seems to make sense.

While a South Carolina state court might permit public officials to invoke Jesus or Allah in a public prayer, Massachusetts might not.

Ultimately, Young said, voters could decide what prayer to permit in public meetings.

“If you don’t like what public officials are saying, vote the rascals out.”

http://www.thestate.com/m
ld/thestate/13198054.htm

Patriot Act reauthorization stalls

Patriot Act stalls

Knight Ridder

WASHINGTON -- A near-agreement to extend the controversial Patriot Act was blocked Friday by an odd-bedfellows coalition of liberals and conservatives who protested that it did too little to protect Americans' civil liberties.

The Patriot Act, which gives law-enforcement officials significant power to wiretap and search suspects in the United States, was Congress' main response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. But critics have always complained about the powers it gives police to invade the privacy of citizens, including the right to examine library records and search homes without residents knowing it.

As a result of such continuing concerns, an unusual coalition of Republicans and Democrats in the Senate and House was sufficiently upset at the latest proposed revisions in the Patriot Act that leaders Friday agreed to drop the immediate consideration of it, partly to avoid a threatened filibuster in the Senate over the weekend.

Congressional leaders still plan to finalize reauthorization of the Patriot Act by year's end, but the delay was a disappointment to the White House and at least a temporary victory for civil libertarians on the right and left.

Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., one of the leaders of the insurrection against the immediate renewal of the Patriot Act and the lone vote against the original legislation, said, "I remain committed to doing everything I can to stop any bill that does not contain adequate protections for our rights and freedoms."

With such staunch opposition in the Senate, the bill is likely to be changed in some small way to break the logjam and beat the law's year-end expiration date. Most likely, a change will be made to the length of time the revised law would be in effect, but less clear is whether the measure will be modified to address other concerns.

The failure to adopt the Patriot Act conference report in the House and the Senate comes on the heels of other recent legislative disappointments for the Bush administration, such as the inability of Congress to agree this week on the annual spending bill for education, labor and health programs. And it adds to the sense that Republicans who control Congress and the White House are struggling to govern.

Lawmakers said they had raised specific concerns about the Patriot Act with administration officials more than a year ago, but those concerns had gone unheeded in the last-minute push to renew the law.

"I don't think that a number of key advisers have served the president well, because this is important," said Sen. John Sununu, R-N.H., a member of the coalition that upended the bill on Friday. "We can protect civil liberties and still fight the war on terrorism."

The main sticking point to emerge between the House and Senate is what's known as the sunset provision, which places an expiration date on the law. Senators insisted that the law should expire in four years, but the House had sought a 10-year expiration. A draft agreement put the sunset provision at seven years.

But House members and senators worried about the erosion of civil liberties insisted upon the four-year timetable.

"On issues as important as the civil liberties of fellow American citizens, you review it and review it on a constant basis, no matter who is in the White House or who is in the Justice Department," said Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho. "It is fundamental to the strength and the character of our country."

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., who joined the dissenting lawmakers at a press conference, said he considered the sunset issue to be the final, most important difference between the House and Senate.

"It's important because the sunset provision keeps the pressure on the law enforcement agencies to observe the law or else it may not be renewed," said Specter, who had earlier threatened not to sign the final conference report if House Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., refused to consider the Senate's concerns.

In addition, senators opposing many of the House provisions said there were more than enough votes to sustain a filibuster. As many as 15 Republicans and 38 Democrats were expected to oppose the conference report if it reached the floor without more concessions.

"What you see evidenced today is such a broad spectrum of political thought in Congress," said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the co-author with Craig of the Senate version of the bill. "I think it should give pause to the leadership as to whether or not they should go forward with (the drafted proposals) in the Patriot Act."

Besides concerns about the sunset deadline, many lawmakers said they were unhappy about provisions allowing law enforcement searches of library records and business records, sneak-and-peek searches where a suspect is not present when his or her home is being searched, and national security letters that prevent a suspect from challenging a gag order in court that prohibits him from publicly talking about any allegations against him.

"My concerns go way beyond the sunset," Feingold said. "We should not allow even four more years of the violation of people's rights with regard to their business and library records, when they've done absolutely nothing wrong, without any real standard."

A draft of the conference report, which has not been approved, would require the government to notify the target of a sneak-and-peek search 30 days after the search, rather than within seven days, as the Senate had sought.

Some lawmakers also contended that the draft report would not provide meaningful judicial review of gag orders imposed through national security letters written by law enforcement officials. "It requires the court to accept as conclusive the government's assertion that a gag order should not be lifted unless the court determines the government is acting in bad faith," three Democratic and three Republican senators complained in a letter to the heads of the Judiciary and Intelligence committees.

And those same six senators said the draft report would allow the government to go on fishing expeditions for sensitive personal information simply by declaring the information is relevant.

But other senators said they were extremely worried that the Patriot Act would not be renewed before the Thanksgiving recess as lawmakers rushed to leave Washington.

"We know that the Patriot Act has been largely responsible for making America safer," said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. "The Patriot Act has not eroded any of our civil liberties that we hold near and dear as Americans."

For his part, Sensenbrenner insisted that the proposed revisions in the Patriot Act would go a long way to being protective of civil liberties and yet giving law enforcement the authority it needs to be successful.

"This agreement also ensures our tools to fight the next Mohamed Atta intent on killing thousands of Americans are at least as tough as those to fight drug dealers and organized crime," Sensenbrenner said.


http://www.timesleader.com/mld/time
sleader/news/politics/13206313.htm

Log Cabin Exec to Lead Planned Parenthood's Outreach to GOP

Gay Republican to Lead Abortion Outreach to GOP

CNSNews.com

The Planned Parenthood Federation of America has hired an official from the Log Cabin Republicans to head its Republican Party outreach efforts.

One pro-choice Republican leader called the move "very exciting," but conservative opponents of the nation's top abortion provider are not impressed.

Christopher Barron has served as political director of the homosexual advocacy group within the GOP since February 2004. A press release announcing his departure from the Log Cabin Republicans praised Barron for helping the organization "achieve important progress in making the conservative case for gay and lesbian equality."

In the statement, Log Cabin President Patrick Guerriero said that Barron had been "a huge asset" for the organization, which chose not to endorse President Bush in the 2004 election and instead supported "inclusive" Republican candidates for Congress.

"Over the past two years, Chris Barron was on the front lines fighting for an inclusive GOP, fueling Log Cabin's unprecedented growth across America and fighting to defend our families from attacks by the voices of intolerance," Guerriero said.

The press release noted that Barron coordinated Log Cabin's lobbying efforts to defeat the "anti-family" Federal Marriage Amendment." Barron also implemented a GOP lobbying strategy for HIV/AIDS funding, hate crimes legislation, federal employment non-discrimination legislation and legislation repealing the 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy.

"It has been an honor to serve as Log Cabin's political director during one of the most important moments for our organization and for our community," Barron said. "I look forward to continuing being a part of the Log Cabin family and continuing to support this organization in its fight for basic fairness for our families."

Guerriero wished Barron well in his new job, which he will begin in early December.

While Barron and representatives from Planned Parenthood did not return several calls seeking comment by press time, Ann E. W. Stone, national chairman of Republicans for Choice Political Action Committee, told Cybercast News Service she is "very excited about the possibilities" of Barron's new work with Planned Parenthood.

Stone noted that Planned Parenthood has been striving to mend fences with members of the GOP for at least 15 years. "They've had other people" reaching out to Republicans, Stone said, but those individuals "didn't have the breadth of experience" that Barron has.

Nevertheless, "the rank and file of Planned Parenthood has generally been pretty Republican," she said. "Some state chapters have been very Republican, and a lot of their big donors in the past have been Republican, so having somebody in there who actually is very talented and Republican is a good thing."

Stone added that Barron's open homosexuality will not be a problem for him in his new duties because "the Planned Parenthood Republicans tend to be more moderate, and they're not going to be homophobic."

However, Stone said, the same people who have problems with people being pro-choice will have problems with Barron's sexual orientation. "Being gay is just as bad as being pro-choice in their eyes."

Still, Barron "is probably the best person we've worked with," Stone noted. "He could be a very effective leader for working with all of us."

Reaction from representatives of conservative groups was less positive.

"This should be a seamless transition, given that both organizations pursue an anti-family agenda that's right at home in the culture of death," Robert Knight, director of Concerned Women for America's Culture & Family Institute told Cybercast News Service.

"Recall, for instance, that V. Gene Robinson, the openly homosexual Episcopal bishop, spoke at a Planned Parenthood event, which didn't raise a lot of eyebrows," Knight said. "After all, both Robinson and Planned Parenthood have rejected the natural family and pursued sex outside marriage and abortion as a reasonable, logical response to an unintended pregnancy."

Amanda Banks, a federal issues analyst for Focus on the Family Action, said Barron's move is not a surprise. "This gentleman has been employed by one organization that works in contradiction to the Republican Party platform, and now he's going to work for another organization that does the same thing."

Banks also told Cybercast News Service that she differs with Log Cabin's goal of an "inclusive GOP." "I think we have a different interpretation of the word 'inclusive,'" she said.

"Certainly, both parties should strive to be inclusive regarding things like race, gender, geographical location and socioeconomic status," she added. "But that doesn't equate to selling out on fundamental rights and institutions," including the definition of marriage as between one man and one woman.


http://www.cnsnews.com/news/viewstory.asp?Page=%
5CCulture%5Carchive%5C200511%5CCUL20051118a.html

Planned Parenthood Dedicates New Clinic

Planned Parenthood Dedicates New Regional Clinic

CARLSBAD, CA. -- A dedication ceremony was held Thursday at the new Planned Parenthood center in Carlsbad.

The 3,000-square-foot Isabella Center at 1820 Marron Road, Suite 110, was opened in the summer, but was dedicated yesterday. Its name was chosen by Jinx Ecke's children, Planned Parenthood officials said.

Jinx Ecke and her three children, including Paul Ecke III of Encinitas, donated $250,000 to help open the $340,000 center, said Keith Limberg, vice president of development for Planned Parenthood of San Diego & Riverside Counties.

The new center is open Monday through Saturday, replacing the smaller Oceanside Clinic. Available to the coastal North County region, the Isabella Center's services will include emergency contraception, birth control, counseling, gynecological exams, pregnancy testing, medication abortions and menopausal services, as well as services related to STDs, HIV, and hepatitis B.

Opposition to the new center is evident nearly every Friday when a small gathering of protesters aims several-foot-high signs with graphic abortion-related photographs at passing cars.

"It's kind of bothersome to drive by them ---- it's almost every single Friday," said Geri Hughes, an employee at Household Financial next door to the clinic.

But, Thursday night, clinic officials were in a celebratory mood. Their new facility next to the Westfield Shoppingtown's Plaza Camino Real mall is nearly 1,200 square feet larger than their old clinic in south Oceanside. It has five exam rooms, five offices, a lab, a lunchroom and two counseling rooms.

Instead of serving 25 people a day, it can take up to 50, clinic manager Jeanette Redden said.

That's important because of the regional demand for the center's services, said Keith Limberg, vice president of development for Planned Parenthood of San Diego and Riverside Counties.

The center, expected to serve 14,000 clients each year, is the only such clinic on the North County coast. It replaced the closed Oceanside center, which was half the size of the Isabella Center, Limberg said.

The Isabella Center is one of 18 health centers operated by Planned Parenthood of San Diego and Riverside Counties -- the second largest Planned Parenthood affiliate in the country.

-- Staff and wire reports

'Enforcer' testifies on slave ring's forced abortions

Forced Abortions in New Jersey

NEWARK -- A Honduran woman pleaded guilty to being an "enforcer" in a slave labor ring that smuggled girls as young as 14 into the country and used threats of violence to force them to work in North Hudson bars.

Xochil Nectalina Rosales Martinez, 29, also had been smuggled into this country and forced to work in one of the bars, but was later told she was in charge of running the Guttenberg apartment the ring used as a safehouse.

She said she was told that if "any of these bitches get out of line, you should beat them." She said she also was present when the girls and women were forced to have abortions if they became pregnant, and saw one of the women give birth to a baby that died soon after.

"I cannot stomach this behavior," U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie said after the hearing in the courtroom of U.S. District Court Joel Pisano. "People who engage in this kind of conduct undermine the ideal that people can come to this country and live in freedom."

Christie said he was hopeful that Rosales Martinez's guilty plea, and the information she has given federal prosecutors, will lead to additional guilty pleas among the 10 others charged.

Rosales Martinez faces up 53 to 61 months in prison, but in exchange for her cooperation will not be charged with any additional crimes, officials said.

In court yesterday, she said the alleged ringleader, Luisa Medrano, was in charge of the three bars - El Paisano Bar and El Puerto de la Union II, both in Union City, and El Puerto de la Union I in Guttenberg - where the girls and young women were forced to entertain male customers, dancing for tips and encouraging them to buy drinks.

Rosales Martinez said the girls had to earn at least $500 a week in order to pay off their $20,000 smuggling fee.

Christie would not say if the victims engaged in sex with bar customers or if the aborted baby was conceived with a customer, saying that such information might be needed as evidence.

Christie said the smuggling ring's victims can remain in the United States under a law intended to protect victims of human trafficking.

Rosales Martinez was herself smuggled into the United States from Honduras at a cost of $15,000 with the help of a "coyote" who got her across the Mexican border.

She was then brought to Union City, where she was forced to work at the El Paisano bar, and later recruited to be the house enforcer at the Guttenberg apartment where other women smuggled by the ring were required to stay.

Rosales Martinez cried as she recalled how the women were forced to take abortion-inducing pills so they could continue working.

Despite the pills, Rosales Martinez said, a 21-year-old woman gave birth to a live baby in a toilet bowl.

"Did you hear it cry when it was pulled from the toilet?" Assistant U.S. Attorney Deborah J. Gannett asked.

"Sí," Rosales Martinez replied, weeping.

The alleged ringleaders - Medrano and Rosales Martinez's cousins, Noris Elvira Rosales Martinez and Ana Luz Rosalez Martinez - are awaiting trial on conspiracy, alien smuggling and other charges.


http://www.nj.com/news/jjournal/index.ssf
?/base/news-0/1132222624300380.xml&coll=3

Thieves in sheep's clothing

Thieves In Sheep's Clothing

2 crisis pregnancy groups in Texas want to steal federal tax dollars

AUSTIN -- Only two groups applied to administer $5 million earmarked to promote childbirth over abortion after Planned Parenthood representatives complained that application requirements were too tight.

The two that answered the Texas Health and Human Services Commission's call for proposals are the Texas Pregnancy Care Network of Bellville, partnered with Real Alternatives; and The Heidi Group of Round Rock, partnered with the Texas Association of Women's Resource Organizations.

Real Alternatives said on its Web site that it is committed to "free and compassionate, practical and life-affirming alternatives to abortion."

The Heidi Group's Web site said the organization wants to make a difference for women with unplanned pregnancies, whom it said need a balanced approach and "hope offered through a relationship with Christ."

Planned Parenthood officials earlier voiced concern when draft requirements disqualified health care providers if they got federal family-planning funds, requiring them to offer "nondirective" counseling about options including abortion. They said the wording was so strict that it was at odds with legislative intent.

Agency spokespeople and backers of the program said its point, as approved by lawmakers, was to direct money strictly toward abortion alternatives.

The draft wording was changed after the complaints, but Planned Parenthood said changes made no difference.

Health and Human Services Commission spokeswoman Jennifer Harris said in an e-mail Tuesday that officials worked to ensure that the requirements were consistent with the legislation. The commission's decision to take public comments on draft requirements allowed it to "solicit feedback from stakeholders, and, in many cases, adjustments were made," she said.

"We still had to ensure that the active promotion of childbirth is a fundamental aspect of the statewide program that will be developed," she said.

Jennifer Bilbrey, director of public policy for The Planned Parenthood Trust of San Antonio and South Central Texas, said that "so-called 'crisis pregnancy centers' are applying for money that is being taken away from qualified, experienced family planning providers like Planned Parenthood.

"Our tax dollars will now pay for women to receive inaccurate, biased information from ill-equipped volunteers who fail to talk to women about all their options when faced with an unplanned pregnancy," she said. "This does nothing to solve the problem of unintended pregnancies."

The commission wouldn't release details of the groups' proposals for using the $5 million, spread over two years.

"The reasoning behind not releasing vendor proposals during the review and negotiation process is to ensure we're in a position to negotiate the best terms (or cost, if that's applicable) for the state," Harris said in an e-mail.

The commission intends to award the contract to a single bidder, with a goal for the contract to start Jan. 1.

Shirley Thompson, board chairwoman of the Texas Association of Women's Resource Organizations and executive director of Agape Pregnancy Help Center in San Antonio, said the organization includes resource centers around Texas, including pregnancy care centers, adoption agencies, maternity homes and mentoring groups.

Officials with Real Alternatives and the Texas Pregnancy Care Network didn't immediately return telephone calls.


http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/sto
ries/MYSA111605.01B.Abortion.1153814d.html

Transcript: Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Judge Samuel A. Alito

Transcript: Feinstein on Alito meeting

Courtesy FDCH/e-Media

SENATOR FEINSTEIN HOLDS A MEDIA AVAILABILITY FOLLOWING A MEETING WITH JUDGE SAMUEL ALITO

SPEAKER: U.S. SENATOR DIANNE FEINSTEIN (D-CA)

JUDGE SAMUEL ALITO, NOMINEE FOR UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT

[*]

FEINSTEIN: This is not a press conference, but if you want to ask me some questions -- thanks, Judge.

ALITO: Thank you, Senator.

FEINSTEIN: You're very welcome.

QUESTION: Can you step out here a little closer?

(CROSSTALK)

FEINSTEIN: Oh, all right.

QUESTION: Did you ask the judge about the job application issue with his comments about abortion?

FEINSTEIN: Yes, he did.

QUESTION: And?

FEINSTEIN: And what he told me was this. He said, "First of all, it was different then." He said, "I was an advocate seeking a job. It was a political job. And that was 1985.

"I'm now a judge, you know. I've been on the circuit court for 15 years. And it's very different. I'm not an advocate. I don't give heed to my personal views. What I do is interpret the law."

And I believe he was very sincere in what he said. And he talked about Roe in particular, about having had many reviews; didn't use the word "well settled," but did use the word "stare decisis."

And I agree with one thing. I mean, we talked about labels. And I don't really think he can be labeled in that sense. He is an independent thinker. He thinks for himself. He's got clearly a very good mind.

And as I said to him, the real part of this that matters is what you say on the record that's transcribed and becomes fact or record for all time. And that, of course, will begin on January the 9th.

END


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte
nt/article/2005/11/15/AR2005111500686.html

Tentative Deal on Patriot Act Teeters

Patriot Act deal wavering

WASHINGTON -- A tentative agreement to renew the Patriot Act this week teetered late Wednesday without explicit support of the lead Senate negotiator, as Democrats complained that the draft wouldn't sufficiently curb the FBI's power to probe the most private aspects of people's lives.

Hours after House and Senate negotiators said they had reached a tentative pre-dawn agreement, Democrats and civil libertarians complained that it didn't address their chief concern: the curbing of FBI power to gather certain information by requiring the investigators to prove the subject's records are connected to a foreign agent or government.

"It gives a nod toward checks and balances without fixing the most fundamental flaws in the Patriot Act," said Lisa Graves of the Americans Civil Liberties Union.

At least four Democratic senators announced their displeasure with the proposal, joined by Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., had hoped to reach an agreement that his counterpart, ranking Democrat Pat Leahy of Vermont, could support. But by dinnertime, Specter had scheduled — then canceled — a news conference on the Patriot Act. His office said only that negotiations were continuing.

The agreement, which would make most provisions of the existing law permanent, was reached just before dawn Wednesday. But by midmorning GOP leaders had already made plans for a House vote on Thursday and a Senate vote by the end of the week. That would put the centerpiece of President Bush's war on terror on his desk before Thanksgiving, a month before more than a dozen provisions were set to expire.

Officials negotiating the deal described it on condition of anonymity because the draft is not official and has not been signed by any of the 34 conferees.

Any deal would mark Congress' first revision of the law passed a few weeks after the Sept. 11 terror attacks. In doing so, lawmakers said they tried to find the nation's comfort level with expanded law enforcement power in the post-9/11 era — a task that carries extra political risks for all 435 members of the House and a third of the Senate facing midterm elections next year.

For Bush, too, such a renewal would come at a sensitive time. With his approval ratings slipping in his second term, the president could bolster a tough-on-terrorism image.

The tentative deal would make permanent all but a handful of the expiring provisions, the sources said. Others would expire in seven years if not renewed by Congress. They include rules on wiretapping, obtaining business records under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and new standards for monitoring "lone wolf" terrorists who may be operating independent of a foreign agent or power.

By noon, House Democrats on the panel were issuing complaints about the seven-year expiration, arguing that since the House had endorsed the four-year expiration dates enacted as part of the Senate bill, the three provisions should "sunset" at four years, not seven. They also complained that Republican negotiators shut them out of the last phase of talks, a charge Republicans deny. And they said Republicans had slipped into the bill a provision that Democrats believe would undermine the role federal courts play in assessing state court proceedings.

The draft also would impose a new requirement that the Justice Department report to Congress annually on its use of national security letters, secret requests for the phone, business and Internet records of ordinary people. The aggregate number of letters issued per year, reported to be about 30,000, is classified. Citing confidential investigations, the Justice Department has refused lawmakers' request for the information.

The 2001 Patriot Act removed the requirement that the records sought be those of someone under suspicion. As a result, FBI agents can review the digital records of a citizen as long as the bureau can certify that the person's records are "relevant" to a terrorist investigation.

Also part of the tentative agreement are modest new requirements on so-called roving wiretaps — monitoring devices placed on a single person's telephones and other devices to keep a target from evading law enforcement officials by switching phones or computers.

The tentative deal also would raise the threshold for securing business records under FISA, requiring law enforcement to submit a "statement of facts" showing "reasonable grounds to believe" the records are relevant to an investigation.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/2005
1117/ap_on_go_co/patriot_act_11

Tentative Deal on Patriot Act, Sources Say

Republicans Make Patriot Act Deal

House and Senate negotiators have struck a tentative deal on the expiring Patriot Act that would curb the FBI's investigative power and require the Justice Department to more fully report its secret requests for information about ordinary people.

Democrats and civil libertarians said that while the tentative deal makes some improvements, it doesn't address their chief concern: the curbing of FBI power to gather certain information by requiring the investigators to prove the subject's records are connected to a foreign agent or government.

"It gives a nod toward checks and balances without fixing the most fundamental flaws in the Patriot Act," said Lisa Graves of the Americans Civil Liberties Union.

The agreement, which would make most provisions of the existing law permanent, was reached just before dawn Wednesday. But by midmorning GOP leaders had already made plans for a House vote on Thursday and a Senate vote by the end of the week. That would put the centerpiece of President Bush's war on terror on his desk before Thanksgiving, a month before more than a dozen provisions were set to expire.

Officials negotiating the deal described it on condition of anonymity because the draft is not official and has not been signed by any of the 34 conferees.

Any deal would mark Congress' first revision of the law passed a few weeks after the Sept. 11 terror attacks. In doing so, lawmakers said they tried to find the nation's comfort level with expanded law enforcement power in the post-9/11 era — a task that carries extra political risks for all 435 members of the House and a third of the Senate facing midterm elections next year.

For Bush, too, such a renewal would come at a sensitive time. With his approval ratings slipping in his second term, the president could bolster a tough-on-terrorism image.

The tentative deal would make permanent all but a handful of the expiring provisions, the sources said. Others would expire in seven years if not renewed by Congress. They include rules on wiretapping, obtaining business records under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and new standards for monitoring "lone wolf" terrorists who may be operating independent of a foreign agent or power.

By noon, House Democrats on the panel were issuing complaints about the seven-year expiration, arguing that since the House had endorsed the four-year expiration dates enacted as part of the Senate bill, the three provisions should "sunset" at four years, not seven. They also complained that Republican negotiators shut them out of the last phase of talks, a charge Republicans deny.

The draft also would impose a new requirement that the Justice Department report to Congress annually on its use of national security letters, secret requests for the phone, business and Internet records of ordinary people. The aggregate number of letters issued per year, reported to be about 30,000, is classified. Citing confidential investigations, the Justice Department has refused lawmakers' request for the information.

The 2001 Patriot Act removed the requirement that the records sought be those of someone under suspicion. As a result, FBI agents can review the digital records of a citizen as long as the bureau can certify that the person's records are "relevant" to a terrorist investigation.

Also part of the tentative agreement are modest new requirements on so-called roving wiretaps — monitoring devices placed on a single person's telephones and other devices to keep a target from evading law enforcement officials by switching phones or computers.

The tentative deal also would raise the threshold for securing business records under FISA, requiring law enforcement to submit a "statement of facts" showing "reasonable grounds to believe" the records are relevant to an investigation.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/2005
1116/ap_on_go_co/patriot_act_5

Law Comes Before Personal Views, Alito Says

Alito: I Will Not Impose 'Personal Opinion'

WASHINGTON -- Distancing himself from his past conservative views on abortion and other social matters, Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr. told senators Tuesday that he was now a judge and would not impose his personal opinions on issues that come before him as a member of the nation's highest court.

Alito paid get-acquainted calls at Senate offices again today and sought to play down the significance of a memorandum that he wrote in 1985 in which he disavowed racial and ethnic quotas and said he did not believe the Constitution gave women the right to abortion.

The memo was part of a job application he submitted seeking a political position as the deputy assistant attorney general in the Reagan administration. Its release Monday created heightened concern among liberal senators and advocacy groups that Alito would attempt to legislate his conservative morals from the bench.

After Alito met with Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the only woman on the Senate Judiciary Committee, the California Democrat said she felt assured that Alito would strictly review the law, as she said he has sought to do as a judge on the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals since 1990.

Feinstein said Alito told her: "First of all, it was different then. I was an advocate seeking a job. It was a political job. And that was 1985. I'm now a judge, you know. I've been on the Circuit Court for 15 years. And it's very different. I'm not an advocate. I don't give heed to my personal views. What I do is interpret the law."

Feinstein said she was persuaded.

"I believe he was very sincere in what he said," she said. "And he talked about Roe in particular, about (it) having had many reviews."

She said that while Alito did not say that the landmark 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision legalizing abortion was "well settled," he used the Latin phrase "stare decisis" — indicating he thought it should stay as it is.


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/
nation/la-111505alito_lat,0,5408772.story

New York Judge Orders 12 Sex Predators Released

Judgette Orders Sex Predators Released

NEW YORK -- A judge on Tuesday ordered the release of 12 sex criminals she said were illegally detained when they were sent to a psychiatric hospital on Gov. George Pataki's orders after their prison sentences ended.

State Supreme Court Justice Jacqueline Silbermann directed the release of the 12 — whose crimes include the rape and sodomy of boys and girls — pending examinations of each prisoner by two court-appointed psychiatrists.

She said the men had to be examined within five days of her appointing the physicians. She said unless the psychiatrists find the ex-convicts to be mentally ill or to be dangers to themselves or to society they will have to be released immediately.

Pataki issued a statement saying he was "deeply troubled" by the judge's decision and would order an appeal. He said the ex-convicts "represent a real danger to our children and our communities."

The sex criminals had been ordered held by Pataki, who, after years of failing to secure a bill that would allow civil confinement of sex offenders when their sentences end, said he would "push the envelope" legally and hold them anyway.

Pataki used the state's involuntary commitment law, which normally deals with the noncriminal mentally ill, to win extended confinement of the sex criminals.

The judge noted in her nine-page decision that Pataki "ordered state correction and mental authorities to begin evaluating every sexually violent predator in state prisons before their release to determine if they should be civilly confined."

Lawyers for the sex criminals petitioned the court for their release, arguing that the state had violated the law that governs the transfer of apparently mentally ill prisoners to hospitals.

The judge agreed.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/2005
1116/ap_on_re_us/sex_predators_1

Across-the-Board Postal Rate Increase Starts Jan. 8

Postal Rate Increase

WASHINGTON -- An across-the-board increase in postal rates and fees is set to take effect on January 8, meaning the cost of a first-class stamp will go from 37 to 39 cents.

The Postal Service's board of governors approved the two-cent increase in first-class postal rates late Monday. It is the first increase since June 2002.

The cost of mailing a postcard will increase a penny, to 24 cents, as part of the roughly 5.4 percent, across-the-board hike in rates and fees.

The increase fulfills a requirement, passed by Congress in 2003, that the Postal Service establish a $3.1 billion escrow account. Congress is to determine later how to spend that money. The Postal Service said without the mandate it would not have had to raise rates next year.

The Postal Service has more than $69 billion in annual revenue.

Other rate changes include:

• First-class letter, one ounce, up 2 cents to 39 cents.


• First-class letter, two ounces, up 3 cents to 63 cents.


• Post card up 1 cent to 24 cents.


• Priority Mail, one pound, up 20 cents to $4.05.


• Express Mail, 8 ounces, up 75 cents to $14.40.


• Express Mail, 2 pounds, up 95 cents to $18.80.


• Certified mail up 10 cents to $2.40.


• Delivery confirmation (priority) up 5 cents to 50 cents.


• Delivery confirmation (first-class parcels) up 5 cents to 60 cents.


• Return receipt (original signature) up 10 cents to $1.85.


• Return receipt (electronic) up 5 cents to $1.35.


• Money orders up 5 cents to 95 cents.

http://www.news14charlotte.com/conten
t/top_stories/default.asp?ArID=106899

Deal avoids global split over Internet control

Deal avoids Internet split

Negotiators avoided a potentially damaging split between the United States and the rest of the world over control of the Internet, saying they had agreed to work towards enhanced international cooperation.

Diplomats said a working group reached an agreement on key clauses on Internet governance for endorsement at the World Summit on the Internet Society beginning in Tunis on Wednesday.

A three-year deadlock in preliminary talks until the late hours of Tuesday had revolved around Washington's single-handed oversight of the private body that oversees the technical and administrative roots of the global network.

The agreement set up two parallel tracks of talks, one an open-ended process "towards enhanced cooperation" by "relevant international organisations" on public policy issues, to be triggered by United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan early next year, according to the final draft.

The other creates an Intergovernmental Forum (IGF) to hold talks on all Internet issues, including problems such as as spam, cyber crime or computer viruses.

Officials said the private non-profit Internet Corporation For Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) was likely to exist even with its tender due for renewal by the US government next summer, since nothing in the final draft ruled it out.

"We did not change anything on the role of the US government with regard to the technical aspects that we were very concerned about," top US negotiator David Gross said after the agreement struck between 170 countries.

"We saw the world's countries recognising how very important the Internet is and how important the growth of the Internet is, and no one created a problem that could help retard that growth," Gross, the US coordinator for international communications and information policy, added.

Countries such as Iran and China had sought UN oversight of ICANN or the Internet governance, but the US firmly objected.

The agreement reached in the preparatory talks loosely followed a middle-of-the road formula proposed this week by the European Union.

"The worst has been avoided but we're not sure that the best is to come in the future. We have left a door open," a member of the French delegation, Bernard Benhamou, said.

"We did not close the door to the essential part, international cooperation," he added.

Officials warned that an ongoing split could have prompted the emergence of competing networks and torn apart the Internet.

Public policy issues include Internet resources, security of the network, and development issues, as well as ICANN's role in allocating domain names and addresses.

Washington's critics had warned that no single nation could maintain control over top level domain or country names (.cn, .fr, .uk,) without the threat of it being misused to block a foe's access to the Internet for political or economic reasons.

"It's as if the national telephone networks of all the countries in the world were run from Los Angeles," a European diplomat said.

The US had warned that regimes that do not allow freedom of speech might be in a position to have leverage over the Internet.

Business groups at the summit also objected to more sweeping changes, saying an intergovernmental body overseeing administration of the Internet would only "create uncertainty and hinder innovation".

The number of users of the worldwide web has grown from 106 million to more than one billion under the current seven year-old governance structure, the International Chamber of Commerce said.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20051115
/bs_afp/unsummitittelecom&printer=1

The American View Interviews Lawyer Who Fought For Ban On Partial-Birth Abortion Which Alito Voted Against

Interview with Attorney who faced Alito

Jay Sekulow's out-and-out lies exposed

“Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain”

Our 31st nationally-syndicated, one-hour radio show, “The American View,” interviews New Jersey attorney Richard Collier who fought for the law banning partial-birth abortion, a ban which Judge Samuel Alito voted against. This is the first of a series of programs which will detail how Alito is NOT pro-life regardless of what we have been told by Jay Sekulow, Steven Ertelt and other Republican Party cheerleaders.

Also, please, if you would like to help us keep our program on the air — which is presently on stations in 37 cities in 22 states — send us a donation of $25, $50, $100 or more. Make your check or money order out to: “The American View” and send it to:

The American View
8028 Ritchie Highway
Suite #303
Pasadena, MD 21122

And do, please, continue to pray for the success of our program that it might glorify God. Because, as He says in Psalm 127:1: “Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.”


http://www.theamericanview.com/index.php?id=455" target="_blank">The American View

Middle School To Test Planned Parenthood's Sex-Ed Workshop

Planned Parenthood's sex-ed workshop

Willow Run Middle School has been selected as one of the pilot sites to host a "Talk Early & Talk Often'' parent workshop. The initiative is part of Gov. Jennifer Granholm's Blueprint for Preventing Unintended Pregnancies, unveiled this summer, and is being tested in 60 communities through December.

The 90-minute workshop is free and is aimed at helping parents of middle school children talk with their child about abstinence and sexuality.

The workshop will be held at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Willow Run Middle School, 235 Spencer Lane, Ypsilanti Township. There is no charge to attend; however, space is limited and advanced registration is required. To register, call (734) 961-6157 or go to www.michigan.gov/ miparentresources and click on "Talk Early & Talk Often.''

The program is also sponsored by Lincoln Consolidated Schools and Planned Parenthood.

http://www.mlive.com/news/aanews/index.ss
f?/base/news-15/113188202749650.xml&coll=2

Related
Bush's Planned Parenthood funding
U.S. Department of Health and Humans Services (HHS)
Appropriations bills during Bush presidency

Jeffrey Randolph Wright accused of molesting boy, 12

Youth Group Volunteer Accused Of Molesting Boy

Pleads Not Guilty: Jeffrey Randolph Wright, 45, is accused of molesting a 12-year-old boy.

HEMET -- A man who volunteered with church youth groups and helped coach football has been charged with molesting a 12-year-old San Jacinto Valley boy, police said Thursday.

Jeffrey Randolph Wright, a 45-year-old Hemet resident, is charged with several counts of lewd acts with a child under 14, Riverside County court records show.

Wright, who remains in custody at the Southwest Detention Center with bail set at $500,000, has pleaded not guilty to the charges, court records show. Wright's next court date is Nov. 22.

Nobody answered the door Thursday afternoon at Wright's home. Wright's attorney, Charles Kish, of Temecula, said the investigation is in its early stages, and declined to comment.

Hemet police Detective Sgt. Kevin Caskey would not identify the youth groups, the local church or the team for which Wright volunteered as an assistant football coach. Caskey said that doing so may harm the investigation because police have not yet interviewed all the potential victims.

Caskey said that the charges involve alleged illegal acts with a 12-year-old boy who lives in the San Jacinto Valley. Police believe there may be additional victims, he said.

Officers seized a computer from Wright's home and found images of child pornography on it when they searched it on Oct. 25, the sergeant said. Officers arrested Wright on Oct. 31, court records show.

Hemet police are asking anyone with information about the case to call Detective Rob Gibbs at (951) 765-2422.


http://www.pe.com/localnews/hemet/storie
s/PE_News_Local_S_harrest11.dbe46b6.html

Liberal Coalition Is Making Plans to Take Fight Beyond Abortion

Plans to Take Fight Beyond Abortion

WASHINGTON -- A coalition of liberal groups is preparing a national television advertising campaign against the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. that seeks to move the debate over his selection beyond abortion rights and focus instead on subjects like police searches and employment discrimination, several leaders of the coalition said.

The possibility that Judge Alito could vote to narrow abortion rights has dominated discussion among both supporters and opponents of his nomination. But Nan Aron, president of the Alliance for Justice and one of the leaders of the coalition, said a poll commissioned by her organization showed the potential to attack Judge Alito on aspects of his record that had received less attention.

In addition to the alliance, a liberal legal group that focuses on judicial nominations, the coalition includes the abortion rights groups Naral Pro-Choice America and Planned Parenthood, as well as People for the American Way, the A.F.L.-C.I.O., the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Sierra Club.

Last week, the alliance released results of a poll that highlighted elements of the judge's record unrelated to abortion that the liberal groups say could have greater resonance with moderate voters.

Among the issues raised by the poll was Judge Alito's support as a lawyer in the Reagan administration for an employer's right to fire someone who had AIDS. Another issue was a judicial opinion he wrote supporting a police strip-search of a suspected drug dealer's female companion and her 10-year-old daughter. Others included his votes as a judge against employment discrimination suits and an opinion overturning part of the Family and Medical Leave Act.

Judge Alito has explained his reasons for supporting an employer's right to fire someone because that person had AIDS. He told The Washington Post, "We certainly did not want to encourage irrational discrimination, but we had to interpret the law as it stands."

He voted to uphold the strip search of the mother and daughter in Doe v. Groody, arguing in a dissenting opinion that the police were justified in their reading of their warrant because drug dealers often hid narcotics with the help of others in their households.

Besides the potential they see in other subjects, the liberal groups' advertising strategy also reflects the difficulty of pinning down Judge Alito's stand on abortion rights. Last summer, an abortion-rights group withdrew a commercial opposing the nomination of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. amid criticism that it misconstrued his defense of clinic protestors as support for a bomber.

The Alliance for Justice poll showed that a majority of Americans would oppose Judge Alito if they thought he would vote to overturn the landmark abortion rights case Roe v. Wade. But although groups on both sides of the issue expect Jude Alito to narrow abortion rights, his judicial record is hardly definitive.

His most controversial opinion on the subject was a dissent supporting provisions of a Pennsylvania law that with some exceptions required married women to notify their husbands before obtaining abortions. Many polls have shown that a majority of voters favor such restrictions.

People involved in the advertising effort said the coalition was planning to spend several million dollars to broadcast commercials, perhaps beginning late this week, on national cable networks and in the home states of potentially pivotal senators.

The groups are starting their campaign much earlier in the process than they have for past nominees; liberal groups did not begin advertising against Judge Robert H. Bork until around the start of his confirmation hearings. Judge Alito's hearings are two months away.

Even before seeing the commercials, Steve Schmidt, a spokesman for the White House, accused the groups of planning "millions of dollars worth of wildly inaccurate advertisements that border on character assassination."

Sean Rushton, executive director of the Committee for Justice, an organization that supports President Bush's nominees, said the liberal groups were recognizing that their opposition to abortion restrictions would alienate mainstream voters.

Mr. Rushton said the advertising campaign would end up helping Judge Alito by enabling conservatives to mount their own campaign in his defense, attacking the liberal groups for their stands on gay rights and other social issues. When Judge Alito testifies, the conservative groups' commercials "will just paint the accusers as the shrill and extreme ones," Mr. Rushton said.

Ms. Aron and Ralph G. Neas, president of People for the American Way and another leader of the coalition, emphasized that the liberal groups were not backing away from the abortion rights issue.

"To put together the broadest possible coalition and to appeal to as many voters as we can," Ms. Aron said, "raising all aspects of his record are important, including the abortion issues."

The goal, Mr. Neas said, is "to make clear that that is one of many issues" in "an epic struggle between two competing and radically different judicial philosophies."

Nancy Keenan, president of Naral Pro-Choice America, said her organization was "lock step" with the rest of the coalition and understood the need to emphasize issues in addition to abortion, "to look at the whole man, so to speak."


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/14/po
litics/politicsspecial1/14alito.html

City Risking Babies' Lives With Orthodox Circumcision Policy

Experts Outraged Over Circumcision Ritual

Renowned authorities blast mayor’s administration over controversial circumcision practice.

A renowned expert on sexually transmitted disease denounced as “outrageous” this week the Bloomberg administration’s failure to ban New York City mohels from suctioning blood with their mouths from a baby’s penis in the circumcision rite.

“[It] is a major public health hazard,” declared Dr. Jonathan Zenilman, a professor of epidemiology at the Bloomberg School of Public Health — the Johns Hopkins University education and research center named for New York’s philanthropist mayor, its biggest financial supporter.

Zenilman, who grew up in an Orthodox family in Woodmere, L.I., warned that allowing the practice known as metzitzah b’peh “is actually crazy” due to the potentially fatal danger of transmitting herpes to vulnerable newborns.

A prominent colleague, Dr. John Santelli, chair of the Department of Population and Family Health at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, joined the criticism.

“Those kids are at very high risk of death and encephalitis,” he said, explaining, “If you cut the skin — as obviously you have to in a circumcision — it increases risk of transmission to the infant. Newborns just don’t have great immune systems, so the worst time to get a case of herpes is in the newborn.”

Metzitzah b’peh, which is practiced routinely by some fervently Orthodox mohels, has been at the center of a case involving Rabbi Yitzchok Fischer, a Monsey-based mohel suspected of having infected three babies with herpes. One of the baby boys died last October.

But the city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, which began investigating the suspected link of the infections to Rabbi Fischer, agreed not to ban the practice after vigorous lobbying by New York’s fervently Orthodox community, including of Bloomberg. In his re-election campaign, Bloomberg’s TV commercials tout him as a champion of public health.

On Sept. 15 the city withdrew the lawsuit it had filed against Rabbi Fischer and the court order banning him from using the technique, and turned the case over to an Orthodox rabbinical court, or bet din, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Rabbi Fischer agreed to stop using the technique pending the bet din’s resolution of the case.

This appears to be the first time the city has turned the adjudication of a public health issue over to a religious body.

Zenilman and Santelli said the narrow focus on Rabbi Fischer is misplaced. They said because Herpes Simplex Virus Type 1 is a very common disease — studies cited by the Health Department in its legal briefs say that 65 percent of Americans have contracted it by age 12 — the potential impact on public health goes far beyond concern over one mohel.

“From a public health standpoint, at the least there should have been a consent decree that this practice would not continue in this community,” said Zenilman, who also heads the Johns Hopkins Center for Reproductive Tract Infections and is president of the American STD (Sexually Transmitted Diseases) Association. “It is within the scope of a public health authority to ban it, and I find it outrageous that it hasn’t been.”

Santelli, who is also a pediatrician, stressed, “This is a public health problem. It’s certainly a dangerous practice from a medical point of view.”

Indeed, legal documents filed in connection with the case by the director of the Health Department’s Bureau of Sexually Transmitted Diseases, state that Herpes Type 1, which generally causes just fever blisters and cold sores in healthy older children and adults, is fatal as much as 30 percent of the time in newborns.

Dr. Susan Blank, the bureau’s director, turned down an interview request from The Jewish Week. Requests for access to the results of the Health Department’s investigation of Rabbi Fischer have gone unanswered.

Rabbi David Zwiebel, executive vice president of Agudath Israel, an umbrella body of ultra-traditional Orthodox groups, has said metzitzah b’peh is probably performed more than 2,000 times a year in New York City. Many additional instances occur in other areas with substantial populations of ultra-traditional Jews, such as Rockland County.

The New York Times reported in August that Rabbi Fischer had done some 12,000 circumcisions.

Parts of the Orthodox community and Rabbi Fischer’s attorney frame the issue as one of religious practice that should be free from government interference. They question claims that it spreads herpes.

Mohels use antiseptic mouthwash before performing oral suction, they say, and the known incidence of herpes among infants who have undergone it is minuscule.

According to the Times, the city’s Health Department recorded cases in 1988 and 1998, though doctors in New York, as in most states, are not required to report neonatal herpes.

Prominent members of the large Satmar chasidic community, based in Brooklyn and Rockland County, including Rabbi David Niederman, a spokesman for the rabbinical court handling the case, have told The Jewish Week the community will continue the practice. A delegation of chasidic leaders lobbied Bloomberg on the issue in August. Their bloc vote is sought after by mayoral candidates.

“We’re going to do a study and make sure that everybody is safe, and at the same time it is not the government’s business to tell people how to practice their religion,” Bloomberg said on a radio program one day later.

Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden told the Times the city did not intend to ban or regulate the practice, partly because any such an attempt would be virtually unenforceable. Circumcision generally takes place in private homes.

Not all ultra-traditional groups mandate the practice, and the Modern Orthodox-oriented Rabbinical Council of America recommends using a sterile tube and gloves to avoid direct oral-genital contact.

The criticisms by Zenilman and Santelli come in the wake of a paper in the medical journal Pediatrics last year that studied eight cases of baby boys in Israel who developed herpes after their circumcision, “most probably as a consequence of transmission by the mohel’s saliva,” it stated.

“Oral metzitzah after ritual circumcision may be hazardous to the neonate” because it “carries a serious risk for transmission” of the herpes simplex virus, the paper concluded.

Asked its reaction to the experts’ warning this week, the Health Department reissued a statement it released last month:

“Our goal was for Rabbi Fischer to discontinue practicing metzitzah b’peh,” a spokesman said. “He has now agreed to do so. It has always been our preference for the religious community to regulate itself as long as the public’s health was protected.”

While cases of herpes transmission from mohel to baby are rare, they are documented going back as far as an 1811 medical book that detailed an outbreak in Krakow’s Jewish quarter.

Metzitzah b’peh was abandoned by all but fervently Orthodox mohels in the 1950s, when diseases including herpes, syphilis and gonorrhea were shown to be transmitted from mohel to baby.

As with Herpes Type 2 — the kind that results in genital blisters in adults — there is no cure for Type 1, only treatment for outbreaks. The virus can be passed from one person to another even when there are no symptoms, say medical experts.

“It’s often an asymptomatic disease,” Santelli said.

According to Zenilman, “People shed the virus occasionally even without the presence of lesions,” and any immune system suppression, including cancer and HIV-AIDS, can prompt shedding. Even taking inhaled steroids for asthma can prompt someone to unknowingly shed the Herpes 1 virus.

An actual outbreak of lesions can be prompted by trauma to the mouth, like having a dental cleaning, by having a fever for any reason, or being congested, or by exposure to the sun.

“It’s an everyday occurrence,” Zenilman said. “Although an individual can look absolutely healthy and have no illness, they can be shedding virus.”

Transmitting the virus, he said, requires genital-genital contact, oral-genital contact or other direct transmission across mucous membranes, like contact between a herpes blister on someone’s finger and someone else’s mouth.

Rabbi Fischer’s attorney, Mark Kurzmann, has said the infection of the three baby boys — including twins from Brooklyn — which became evident shortly after Rabbi Fischer circumcised them is “nothing more than a tragic coincidence.”

The twins were circumcised on Oct. 16, 2004, and admitted to Maimonides Medical Center eight days later with fever and lesions in the genital area, according to court documents. Two days after that, one of the twins died of liver failure as a result of Type 1 Herpes Simplex Virus.

At about that time, the Health Department became aware of another baby, on Staten Island, who developed signs of herpes infection a week and a half after Rabbi Fischer circumcised him using metzitzah b’peh. That baby was hospitalized for three weeks and recovered after antiviral treatment.

Kurzmann said he had no comment in response to the statements by Zenilman and Santelli.

In a September interview, Kurzmann said “it appears more likely than not that the babies contracted the herpes from someone prior to the bris, or a person other than Rabbi Fischer after the bris.”

That, said Zenilman, is nearly impossible because of when and where on the boys the herpes lesions appeared.

If it had passed from mother to baby during birth, he said, it would have required that the mothers in question had active herpes lesions in the birth canal. The newborns, in turn, would have had sores all over their bodies, not just in their genital areas.

Alternatively, Zenilman said, a mother-passed infection would have caused an encephalitis-like disease, and the baby also would have shown evidence of the disease in his first week of life, before the brit.

It is also highly unlikely another nurse in the hospital or caregiver caused the infection, he said, as that would have required the nurse to spit on the baby’s penis or have direct mouth-to-genital contact that could have infected all three babies.


http://www.thejewishweek.com/ne
ws/newscontent.php3?artid=11539

City Questions Circumcision Ritual After Baby Dies of Herpes

Baby Dies of Herpes After Circumcision

SweetLiberty.org

By Andy Newman / New York Times

A circumcision ritual practiced by some Orthodox Jews has alarmed city health officials, who say it may have led to three cases of herpes - one of them fatal - in infants. But after months of meetings with Orthodox leaders, city officials have been unable to persuade them to abandon the practice.

The city’s intervention has angered many Orthodox leaders, and the issue has left the city struggling to balance its mandate to protect public health with the constitutional guarantee of religious freedom.

“This is a very delicate area, so to speak,” said Health Commissioner Thomas R. Frieden.

The practice is known as oral suction, or in Hebrew, metzitzah b’peh: after removing the foreskin of the penis, the practitioner, or mohel, sucks the blood from the wound to clean it.

It became a health issue after a boy in Staten Island and twins in Brooklyn, circumcised by the same mohel in 2003 and 2004, contracted Type-1 herpes. Most adults carry the disease, which causes the common cold sore, but it can be life-threatening for infants. One of the twins died.

Since February, the mohel, Rabbi Yitzchok Fischer, 57, has been under court order not to perform the ritual in New York City while the health department is investigating whether he spread the infection to the infants.

Pressure from Orthodox leaders on the issue led Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and health officials to meet with them on Aug. 11. The mayor’s comments on his radio program the next day seemed meant to soothe all parties and not upset a group that can be a formidable voting bloc: “We’re going to do a study, and make sure that everybody is safe and at the same time, it is not the government’s business to tell people how to practice their religion.”

The health department, after the meeting, reiterated that it did not intend to ban or regulate oral suction. But Dr. Frieden has said that the city is taking this approach partly because any broad rule would be virtually unenforceable. Circumcision generally takes place in private homes.

Dr. Frieden said the department regarded herpes transmission via oral suction as “somewhat inevitable to occur as long as this practice continues, if at a very low rate.”

The use of suction to stop bleeding dates back centuries and is mentioned in the Talmud. The safety of direct oral contact has been questioned since the 19th century, and many Orthodox and nearly all non-Orthodox Jews have abandoned it. Dr. Frieden said he hoped the rabbis would voluntarily switch to suctioning the blood through a tube, an alternative endorsed by the Rabbinical Council of America, the largest group of Orthodox rabbis.

But the most traditionalist groups, including many Hasidic sects in New York, consider oral suction integral to God’s covenant with the Jews requiring circumcision, and they have no intention of stopping.

“The Orthodox Jewish community will continue the practice that has been practiced for over 5,000 years,” said Rabbi David Niederman of the United Jewish Organization in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, after the meeting with the mayor. “We do not change. And we will not change.”

David Zwiebel, executive vice president of Agudath Israel, an umbrella organization of Orthodox Jews, said that metzitzah b’peh is probably performed more than 2,000 times a year in New York City.

The potential risks of oral suction, however, are not confined to Orthodox communities. Dr. Frieden said in March that the health department had fielded several calls from panicked non-Orthodox parents who had hired Hasidic mohels unaware of what their services entailed.

Defenders of oral suction say there is no proof that it spreads herpes at all. They say that mohels use antiseptic mouthwash before performing oral suction, and that the known incidence of herpes among infants who have undergone it is minuscule. (The city’s health department recorded cases in 1988 and 1998, though doctors in New York, as in most states, are not required to report neonatal herpes.)

Dr. Kenneth I. Glassberg, past president of the New York section of the American Urological Association and director of pediatric urology at Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital of New York-Presbyterian, said that while he found oral suction “personally displeasing,” he did not recommend that rabbis stop using it.

“If I knew something caused a problem from a medical point of view,” said Dr. Glassberg, whose private practice includes many Hasidic families, “I would recommend against it.”

But Rabbi Moshe Tendler, a microbiologist and professor of Talmud and medical ethics at Yeshiva University, said that metzitzah b’peh violates Jewish law.

“The rule that’s above all rules in the Torah is that you cannot expose or accept a risk to health unless there is true justification for it,” said Dr. Tendler, co-author of a 2004 article in the journal Pediatrics that said direct contact posed a serious risk of infection.

“Now there have been several cases of herpes in the metro area,” he said. “Whether it can be directly associated with this mohel nobody knows. All we’re talking about now is presumptive evidence, and on that alone it would be improper according to Jewish law to do oral suction.”

The inconsistent treatment of Rabbi Fischer himself indicates the confusion metzitzah b’peh has sown among health authorities, who typically regulate circumcisions by doctors but not religious practitioners.

In Rockland County, where Rabbi Fischer lives in the Hasidic community of Monsey, he has been barred from performing oral suction. But the state health department retracted a request it had made to Rabbi Fischer to stop the practice. And in New Jersey, where Rabbi Fischer has done some of his 12,000 circumcisions, the health authorities have been silent.

Rabbi Fischer’s lawyer, Mark J. Kurzmann, said that absent conclusive proof that the rabbi had spread herpes, he should be allowed to continue the practice. Rabbi Fischer said through Mr. Kurzmann that the twin who died and the Staten Island boy both had herpes-like rashes before they were circumcised and were seen by a pediatrician who approved their circumcision. The health department declined to comment on its investigation.

The Big Lie That Precedent Is Binding On All Lower Court Judges - Not True!

The Big Lie That Precedent Is Binding

“The American View,” refutes the Big Lie that we’ve heard over and over which says that precedent (stare decisis) is binding and that lower court judges must follow the rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Joining the discussion is Scott T. Whiteman, Esq., Managing Editor of TheAmericanView.com Website. His article on this subject is on this page is titled “Stare Non Determinus.”


http://www.theamericanview.com/index.php?id=446

Posted by Editor at 09:39 AM