Brokeback Hunting
Certain people are raising questions regarding certain discrepancies in the Cheney hunting mishap story. These questions touch on the topics of sex, alcohol, hunting safety, and more.
I reflexively started a post with hard questions of my own regarding the general sanity and national identity of these haters of Dick, but, sadly, I now must confess that I, too, have come to question the nature of the hunting trip and the handling of the crisis.
It started with little more than a slight twinge as word spurted out that our Mr. Cheney had injured another man with a reckless ejaculation of shot. I didn't realize it at the time, but what was bothering me was the emasculation of Vice Presidential powers as the news was released by a woman.
Then, as time wore on with no word from Cheney, as rumors started to swirl regarding mistresses and drinking and other carryings on, loyal partisans such as myself were left with mouths agape as our number two raised a real stink by continuing to hide behind the skirt of the handsome rancher woman from Texas.
Like some kind of turncoat, I actually started to question the bona fides of the Veep. I did something I have often promised myself never to do: I turned off Fox news and examined the facts objectively. And I found myself asking more than a few bothersome questions.
Was Dick drinking more than the single beer that he admits?
Has Dick's gun always been so small and girly?
Was the performance of said gun affected by Dick's drinking?
Did Dick Cheney have a mistress in the hunting party?
Is it possible that homosexuality is genetic? (Note – this particular question has deep personal implications for myself. More on that later.)
There were more questions, but these are the only ones I feel like writing down.
Hmmmm... Lonely nights on the ranch lead to reckless experimentation, games of domination, cowboy boots, maybe even some spurs.
Later, a lover's spat, fueled by flowing liquor and countless doses of prescription meds, strengthens into a full fledged cat 5 disaster as the jealous one flies off into one of his well known tantrums. Except this time, instead of punching the wall or throwing some plates, he decides to really teach his bitch a lesson.
It all became crystal clear when Harry Whittington, much like a spouse who has endured decades of abuse at the hands of the man he loves, came out and apologized to Dick for having stupidly walked in front of his gun just as it was about to go off.
The contrition, along with a bunch of buckshot, was etched in his face but it had somehow become impossible for me to believe the 'clumsy spouse' talking points that my brethren in the conservative blogosphere were parroting. I knew the truth, and, for once, the cognitive dissonance was too overwhelming to ignore.
Thankfully, I've since had time to reflect. Oh, and I turned Fox back on.
Fact: If, indeed, the weekend went as the known facts would suggest, then Dick is obviously the dominant partner.
Fact: As the Dominant, or 'Top', Dick would play the role of the male. Dick was always the shooter, never the target. Therefore...
Fact: Dick, like Charlie Crist, is not a homosexual.
Phew. I'm glad we managed to put that controversy to bed.
Saving America’s Children
This LA Times article speaks for itself. Go read the whole thing. I just want to add that, as illustrated by the excerpted bit below, even kids who are getting the right upbringing – homeschooling, bible study, faith based healing, et al. - can fall prey to the wicked secularist rantings of science based theorists.
As the session ended, Nicole Ableson, 34, rounded up her four young children. "This shows your kids that there are other people who are out there who believe what you believe, and who have done the research," she said. "So they don't think 'This is just my parents believing in fairy tales.' "
Emily Maynard, 12, was also delighted with Ham's presentation. Home-schooled and voraciously curious, she had recently read an encyclopedia for fun — and caught herself almost believing the entry on evolution. "They were explaining about apes standing up, evolving to man, and I could kind of see that's how it could happen," she said.
Ham convinced her otherwise. As her mother beamed, Emily repeated Ham's mantra: "The Bible is the history book of the universe."
So, why do we keep insisting on stocking our libraries and schools with so-called encyclopedias and other false texts? This child was almost lost. Next time, it could be your daughter, and the outcome might not be so right.
Troops Supporter Unceremoniously Ejected!
Thankfully, the hard working people whose job it is to protect our leader from any exposure to dissent were on the ball last night. Rabble rouser Cindy Sheehan thought it would be cute to wear a brazenly anti-Bush t-shirt to the SOTU address.
Cindy Sheehan finally got her invitation to see President Bush again, but before she set eyes on him at the State of the Union address, Capitol Police removed her from the gallery overlooking the House chamber.
The offense: her shirt, bearing an anti-war message and other "unlawful conduct," police said.
Sheehan, the mother of a fallen soldier in Iraq who reinvigorated the anti-war movement, was handcuffed and charged with unlawful conduct, according to Capitol Police Sgt. Kimberly Schneider. The charge was a misdemeanor and Sheehan was being released on her own recognizance, Schneider said.
Schneider said Sheehan had worn a T-shirt with an anti-war slogan to Tuesday night's speech and covered it up until she took her seat. Police warned her that such displays were not allowed in the House chamber, but she did not respond, the spokeswoman said.
Good. The shameless hussy has no right to speak her mind unless she's ready to apologize to Our Leader for all the hell she's put him through – rudely camping out near his house and shrilly calling for policy changes that she is in no way qualified to have an opinion about.
So, good job on ejecting the wacko non-conformist peacenik, but, unfortunately, in their zeal to protect Our Leader from ideas that hurt, the Thought Police seem to have targeted an innocent Republican, a strong supporter of the war and, of course, the troops.
Beverly Young, wife of Rep. C.W. Bill Young of Indian Shores, said she was ejected from the House gallery during Tuesday night's State of the Union address because she was wearing a T-shirt that said "Support the Troops - Defending Our Freedom."
Young said she was sitting in the gallery's front row, about six seats from first lady Laura Bush, when she was approached by someone from the Capitol Police or sergeant-at-arms office who told her she needed to leave the gallery.
She reluctantly agreed but argued with several officers in the hallway outside the House chamber.
"They said I was protesting," she said in a telephone interview late Tuesday. "I said, "Read my shirt, it is not a protest.' They said, "We consider that a protest.' I said, "Then you are an idiot."'
She said she was so angry that "I got real colorful with them."
They told her she was being treated the same as Cindy Sheehan, an antiwar protester who was ejected before the speech Tuesday night for wearing a T-shirt with an antiwar slogan and refusing to cover it up.
Young, 50, said her shirt was not a protest but a message of support for U.S. soldiers and Marines fighting for their country. She often wears the T-shirts when visiting her husband at the Capitol and during her visits to see the wounded at military hospitals.
Sgt. Kimberly Schneider of the Capitol Police could not provide details about the incident but said, "She was not ejected from the gallery. She did leave on her own."
Young's husband, a Republican who chairs the House appropriations subcommittee on defense, was unaware she was removed until after the speech. He said he was furious about the incident.
"I just called for the chief of police and asked him to get his little tail over here," Rep. Young said late Tuesday. "This is not acceptable."
Beverly Young said, "Wait until the president finds out."
Yeah, there's gonna be hell to pay if Our Leader ever finds out about this. Folks should be able to enjoy the right to express their lockstep support of Our Leader's policies, and everyone knows that the best way to support the troops and show fealty to Our Leader is to wear an uberjingoistic T-shirt. Or put on a campaign bumper sticker. Same thing.
Anyway, my point is that training obviously needs to be improved, because ejecting someone for expressing the correct point of view simply wont do.
Snow job in Tampa: Trib pushes Bush agenda
Today's Tribune has an nice easy-to-read sales job for Bush's forthcoming plan to fix our health care crisis by offering Americans even less health insurance than we currently have.
Tonight, if leaks are correct, President Bush will use his annual State of the Union speech to seek support for changing the health care system into one that gives Americans what they need at a price they can afford.
He's likely to call for more choices in insurance, more information about the quality of medical services and more reason to care about price. The tools: health savings accounts, known as HSAs, and a medical Internet.
He's likely to say he favors expanded tax deductions and credits to help the uninsured buy health coverage and pay for services.
He's likely to say he wants to take the burden of benefits off employers so they can compete in a global marketplace.
And he's likely to say he wants fewer state regulations on health insurance so that new kinds of coverage can pop up.
Bush calls his vision "consumer-driven health care." He wants to take the medical industrial complex, turn it around and march it in the direction of the marketplace.
......The number of employers offering health coverage to their workers has steadily fallen from 69 percent five years ago to 60 percent last year. As Bush put it in a recent speech, health care has become "an unmanageable cost" for businesses.
Beset by rising premiums and co-payments, Americans don't have to be Bush supporters to hope he succeeds in reining in health costs. "Anything would be better than what we have now," said Cora Brown, an Apopka resident who attended a labor forum in Tampa on Monday.
Health-care inflation has been rising at three times the pace of wages and 2 1/2 times the rate of the overall economy since Bush took office. Neither employers nor the workforce can keep up.
Premiums rose 9.2 percent last year, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. The average cost of coverage for a family of four has reached $10,880 per year, an increase of 73 percent since 2000, the foundation reports. Health-care spending stands at $1.9 trillion, or more than 16 percent of the U.S. economy.
And it's not as though Americans are getting their money's worth, health analysts say.
Per-person spending on health care is $5,267, more than double the median spending among industrialized countries of $2,193. Yet the U.S. health system rates below its peers on most public-health measures such as immunization rates, birth outcomes and life expectancy.
Uh, those other industrialized countries have systems known as socialized medicine. Their systems cover every citizen and do it cheaper and better than our system.
But Bush is not talking about implementing a system with a proven track record that will provide coverage to everyone – the sick, the old, the chronically ill. He's proposing HSAs – savings accounts, which are great deals for people who are young, healthy, and gainfully employed. For the rest of us, HSAs are simply a means by which we can personally relieve employers of even more of the health cost burden while taking on greater personal financial risks.
HSAs are less insurance – the idea is to save money for a rainy day and cover medical expenses out of pocket for all but the most costly incidents. See, insurance will be cheaper if you buy it with a $3,500 deductible.
The problem arises when one reaches a point in one's life in which personal medical expenses will, predictably, start rising exponentially. Or when one experiences an income loss. Or when cancer or some other wasting disease strikes and one finds oneself suddenly uninsurable.
Despite the double handjob treatment from The Tribune's Fechter and Gentry, HSAs are anything but a system ''that gives Americans what they need at a price they can afford.''
Tonight, look for vague promises of more people being ''insured'', of tax cuts, of rebates, and of a healthfulier America.
And remember: if you're young, fit, and rich, HSAs are the best idea since Social Security reform!
Something to do on a rainy day…
A filibuster is within reach. Call, fax, or email your Congressman right now – this is your last chance. If you've already called, do it again.
Daily Kos: Breaking News: Cloture vote too close to call - Alito may be blocked
Poor timing
This report is making the rounds.
Tax refunds sought by 1.6 million poor Americans over the last five years were frozen and their returns labeled fraudulent, although the vast majority appear to have done nothing wrong, the Internal Revenue Service's taxpayer advocate told Congress yesterday.
A computer program identified the refund requests as suspect and automatically flagged the taxpayers for extra scrutiny for years to come, the advocate said in her annual report to Congress. These taxpayers were not told that the I.R.S. criminal investigation division suspected fraud.
The advocate, Nina Olson, said the I.R.S. devoted vastly more resources to pursuing questionable refunds sought by the poor - which under the highest estimate is $9 billion - than to the $100 billion in taxes not paid each year by people who work for cash and either fail to file tax returns or understate their income.
As for the suspected fraud in refund requests, Ms. Olson said her staff sampled the suspect returns and found that 66 percent were entitled to the amount sought or more. Another 14 percent were due a partial refund. She expressed doubt that many among the remaining 20 percent had committed fraud.
......"At a minimum, this procedure constitutes an extraordinary violation of fundamental taxpayer rights and fairness," Ms. Olson wrote, adding that it "may also constitute a violation of due process of law."
Her staff's sample of frozen returns found that the average reported income was about $13,000 and the refund due was about $3,500.
About three-quarters of those affected were employed parents who applied for the earned-income tax credit, under which all income and Social Security taxes can be returned and, in some cases, a payment made.
Which makes the timing of this corporate welfare education scheme* rather unfortunate.
This week a consortium of public and private nonprofit groups began trying to get employers in the Tampa area to encourage low- and middle-income workers to take advantage of the earned income credit this tax season. The credit can reduce the amount of taxes owed. Taxpayers can qualify for between $399 and $4,400 in tax credits.
On Tuesday, the consortium, called the Prosperity Campaign, approached employers in the West Shore business district, where an estimated 4,000 businesses are situated.
"There are lots of entry-level workers we need to reach," said Ron Rotella, executive director of the Westshore Alliance, a business group that plans to help educate workers about the overlooked credit.
Daley says she hopes the campaign is a success. Bosses benefit if workers are educated about the tax credit.
"It gives you a much better employee," Daley said. "I may work harder because my boss appreciates me."
Uh, yeah... my boss appreciates me to the point of underpaying me so severely that the government feels obligated to supplement my meager pay.
*Government subsidized payroll in the form of a tax credit that employers are touting as extra income.
E-voting: Flawed Florida systems unsafe says Sancho
Leon County Supervisor of Elections Ion Sancho started testing his e-voting system earlier this year. He quickly determined that an insider, or someone who gained access to the inside, could easily manipulate vote totals.
Now, with a decision to scrap the old system in favor of a new model, Sancho has tested some more, allowing experts access to the central computer that tabulates votes in an election. The experts were able to change results and leave no trace whatsoever.
Tests show some Diebold voting machines used in Florida and elsewhere around the nation can be hacked by election office insiders to change results, Leon County Supervisor of Elections Ion Sancho charged Thursday.
Sancho said the tests on optical machines that scan paper ballots, conducted for his office and a monitoring group, also indicated they can be manipulated without leaving any evidence of tampering.
"This is not supposed to be possible," Sancho said. "We did it."
Diebold spokesman David Bear discounted the tests as unrealistic because they bypassed normal security procedures.
"If I gave you the keys to my house and I turned off the alarm and told you when I wasn't going to be home, I don't doubt you can get into my house," Bear said. "But is that going to have any effect on the election? Absolutely not."
......He was unable then, however, to test if altered results on the cards could be uploaded into his mainframe computer because he was afraid it might be contaminated. He said he performed the upload this week only after county commissioners approved his request to buy a new optical scan system from another company.
The hacked results transferred into the mainframe although Diebold had contended its software would prevent that, Sancho said.
......Bear said the tests were unrealistic because polling places and vote-counting centers are filled with observers, including representatives of both major political parties, who are watching for such tampering. Sancho said the system could be hacked by an elections staffer or technician beforehand to produce faulty results.
......Most of the debate over voting machines in Florida has focused on touch-screen computer systems because the state doesn't require that they also spit out paper records that can be counted by hand if needed.
That makes Sancho's tests somewhat ironic, Bear said.
"Now we're not trusting paper," he said. "Somebody could also steal the pencil and then you couldn't mark the ballot."
Paper ballots are examined only during a recount triggered when results are very close, Sancho said. He said they would never come into play if an election thief made sure the difference was larger.
.....In 2003, Diebold's then-CEO Walden W. O'Dell invited people to a fundraiser for President Bush with a letter stating he planned to help "Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president." Ohio turned out to be the state that clinched Bush's re-election in 2004.
Here's how a system like Leon County's works: data is moved from individual voting machines via flash memory cards - in Leon County's case, these machines are optical scanners which have tabulated votes at precincts. Other counties use touch screens but transfer data with similar flash cards.
The flash cards, just like the ones in digital cameras and phones, are transported to the central office and fed into the central computer. The central computer then tallies the votes and spits out a result.
Sancho's tests show that flash cards can be altered with no trace. A person could simply pre-program the card with bogus numbers and no one would be the wiser. This has always been a much more likely scenario than someone hacking in from the outside, though media, fed by the GOP, like to present (and mock as partisan conspiracy theory) the much sexier Internet hacking scenario in which some geek breaks in through a home computer.
Diebold, the manufacturer of Leon and many other county machines, is pissed, but is offering no real defense – they are belittling the very idea of testing their equipment while screaming about licensing agreements and warning ominously that Sancho's soon to be replaced machines could now be compromised.
And the state of Florida is not very concerned.
Ion Sancho, Leon County's election chief, said tests by two computer experts, completed this week, showed that an insider could surreptitiously change vote results and the number of ballots cast on Diebold's optical-scan machines.
......The Leon County test results are likely to further fuel suspicions that the new electronic voting systems in Florida, in place since the 2002 elections, are susceptible to manipulation.
When the debate hit fever pitch before last year's presidential election, many conservatives said questions about the machinery were a liberal ploy to undermine confidence in the voting system.
......Sancho said Diebold isn't the only one to blame for hacker-prone equipment. The Florida secretary of state's office should have caught these problems early on, he said, and the Legislature should scrap a law severely restricting recounts on touch-screen machines and equip them with the means of producing a paper trail.
A spokeswoman for the secretary of state's office said any faults Sancho found were between him and Diebold.
''If Ion Sancho has security concerns with his system, he needs to discuss them with Diebold,'' spokeswoman Jenny Nash said.
......Sancho said he tried to discuss the problems with Diebold, but met with resistance. On Monday, he did one final test with Hursti at the Leon County supervisor's office, Hursti hacked the memory card to spit out seven ''yes'' votes on an issue and one ''no'' vote.
Then, six ''no'' votes and two ''yes'' votes were cast into the machine the same way voters would. Those results didn't show up in the final tally -- just the ones hacked into the card.
......''These were sold as safe systems. They passed tests as safe systems,'' Sancho said. ``But even in the so-called safe system, if you don't follow the paper ballots, there is a way to rig the election. Except it's not a bunch of guys stuffing ballots in a precinct. It's possibly one person acting in secret changing thousands of votes in a second.''
This could all be easily solved with a paper trail. Optical scan systems like Leon County's are preferred, but touch screens can be equipped with printers. Combine a paper trail with random audits of precincts and individual machines, comparing paper and electronic tallies, and it suddenly becomes much more difficult to rig an election.
In truth, it isn't surprising that a dedicated hacker can break into election machines. After all, hackers have broken into computers at IBM, the Department of Defense and elsewhere.
What is troubling, though, is that the Florida Legislature and state election officials haven't done all that they can to make sure that Florida's elections aren't an invitation to fraud or abuse. Florida does not require a paper trail for votes, which would give election supervisors a means to verify the accuracy of a machine count.
......At minimum, the state should require more testing of voting machines and audits of elections. Ultimately, though, the state should require that all voting machinery provide a paper trail. Banks already do that with receipts for ATM transactions. Voters deserve the same consideration.
Schiavo forms PAC
The husband of the Pinellas County woman who became the focus of a national end-of-life controversy has started a political action committee to keep the heat on politicians who tried to intervene in the case and fight his efforts to remove her feeding tube.
"The easiest thing would be to move on and let the headlines fade," Schiavo said in a statement Wednesday. "But my experience with our political leaders has opened my eyes to just how easily the private wishes of normal Americans like me and Terri can be cast aside in the destructive game of political pandering."
The Schiavo controversy already had emerged as a political issue. Polls showed voters overwhelmingly supporting Michael Schiavo's position in the debate, and Democrats in Florida and elsewhere routinely bring up Schiavo to cast the GOP as out of touch.
......When courts consistently ruled in his favor, leaders in Tallahassee and Washington tried to step in to keep her alive. President Bush cut short a vacation in Texas last year to join more than 200 members of Congress who passed legislation designed to force the reinsertion of her feeding tube.
"Those politicians lost a basic respect for marriage, family and personal privacy," Schiavo said.
The new federal PAC, TerriPAC, will raise money to "educate voters on where their elected officials stood when they had a choice between individual freedom and personal privacy and overreaching government action."
Another political committee is planned to concentrate on state races in Florida.
TerriPAC will request donations through its Internet site (www.TerriPAC.org) which also will provide information on how members of Congress voted on the Schiavo bill and what they said on the issue. The site also will encourage people to obtain living wills.
......"It would be easy to dismiss my actions as partisan. But I was a lifelong Republican before Republicans pushed the power of government into my private family decisions," Schiavo said. "And it is not so simple to forget those politicians who shamelessly sought to squeeze political leverage out of my family's most emotional hour."
His critics remain unforgiving.
His endorsement of Virginia's new governor, Tim Kaine, drew attention. Now, TerriPAC's targets are Florida gubernatorial candidates, U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., U.S. Senate Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., and U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, the embattled former House majority leader, said Schiavo's adviser, Florida-based Democratic political consultant Derek Newton.
Schiavo said he is channeling his "sadness, anger and worry" into defeating "politicians who shamelessly sought to squeeze political leverage out of my family's most emotional hour."
Others see different motives.
"He's exploiting a tragic situation and dishonoring Terri's memory," said Anthony Verdugo, director of Miami-based Christian Family Coalition.
Al-Arian acquitted
The most telling moment of the Al-Arian trial came when his lawyers opted to put on no defense. They simply declined to answer what they said was insufficient evidence presented by the government to prove their client's guilt. Apparently, the jury agreed.
Once billed as a major strike in the war on terrorism, the case against Sami Al-Arian crumbled Tuesday when jurors rejected federal charges that Al-Arian and three co-defendants operated a North American cell for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Tears of joy at the defense table met with blank expressions of shock among prosecutors after jurors deadlocked on nine counts against Al-Arian and found him not guilty of conspiring to commit murder abroad, money laundering and obstruction of justice.
......Defendants Sameeh Hammoudeh and Ghassan Ballut were acquitted on all counts. Hatim Fariz was acquitted on the counts on which jurors could reach a verdict.
......"This ranks as one of the most significant defeats for the U.S. government, for the Justice Department since 9/11," said Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University Law School who has represented other terrorism defendants.
"The Justice Department spent copious amounts of money and time to make the case against Al-Arian."
......One juror, who gave only her first name, said prosecutors failed to connect the dots on the conspiracies charged. Jurors were left to assume the defendants were aiding the Islamic Jihad even when the evidence didn't prove it, said Thanh, a 38-year-old department store sales associate from Lakeland.
......U.S. Attorney Paul Perez first had no comment when asked what effect the verdicts would have on the country's war against terrorism. But then he said, "I don't think there's any connection between the two things."
That's at odds with statements he and Ashcroft made in announcing the indictment.
Then, Perez called the defendants "major terrorist financial supporters who took advantage of the freedoms of an open society to help foster anti-Western violence."
"We have an extensive record in breaking up terrorist financing," Ashcroft said. "Our record on terrorist financing is clear: We will hunt down the suppliers of terrorist blood money, we will shut down these sources, and we will ensure that both terrorists and their financiers meet the same swift, certain justice of the United States of America.""
Al-Arian has been defending himself against these charges for years. First, the Tampa Tribune attacked him in print. Then, he was arrested and held in solitary while Bill O'Reilly churned up enough outrage to have him fired from his professorship at USF. Finally, he was charged, with John Ashcroft announcing the indictments with great fanfare and much talk about the Bush regime's winning strategy against terror.
In the end, not a single guilty verdict was returned after a six-month trial that included more than 80 witnesses and 400 transcripts of intercepted phone conversations and faxes.
The verdicts were a major defeat for the federal government, which characterized Al-Arian's indictment as a major case against terrorism, and a victory for Al-Arian's attorneys, who considered the government's case so weak they they declined to put on a defense.
......But officials with the U.S. Justice Department, which investigated Al-Arian for years before filing charges, are still deciding whether to retry Al-Arian and co-defendant Hatem Fariz on charges for which the jury deadlocked.
One remaining charge against Al-Arian and Fariz, a racketeering conspiracy charge, carries a potential life sentence. Al-Arian was returned to the Hillsborough jail after the verdict. His attorneys could try to get him out on bail but said it was likely immigration officials would immediately pick him up for detention. "The Justice Department has a strong track record of success in prosecuting terrorists and those who support terrorist activities. We remain focused on the important task at hand, which is to protect our country through our ongoing vigorous prosecution of terrorism cases," said Tasia Scolinos, director of public affairs for the U.S. Justice Department.
......A spokeswoman for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency said Tuesday the agency would work with the Department of Homeland Security to deport Al-Arian, who is not a U.S. citizen, at the conclusion of legal proceedings.
Al-Arian attorney William Moffitt called that move "totally vindictive" since Al-Arian has not been convicted of any crimes.
......Al-Arian went from computer science professor to controversial international figure in the decade after a television documentary and articles in the Tampa Tribune raised questions about terrorist ties to a think tank he ran at USF.
FBI agents tapped his phones for nine years. They twice raided his home and offices, taking dozens of boxes of personal belongings. He was arrested in February 2003 and fired by USF in that same month. He spent the past three years in jail, much of it in solitary confinement, charged with 17 counts of terrorism-related activities. His trial began June 6, 2005. It ended Tuesday, exactly six months later.
......As it turned out, the great majority of jurors wanted to acquit Al-Arian and the three co-defendants on all charges. But, they say, two to three others held out for conviction, which resulted in a hung jury on a combined 17 counts for Fariz and Al-Arian.
"Usually, there were 10 of us for acquittal on the charges, sometimes nine of us," said Ron, a juror from Pasco County who did not want his last name used. Because of the nature of the terrorism case, the government kept jurors' identities sealed from the public.
"Of course, we hate terrorism," said Ron. "But the evidence making these guys terrorists just wasn't there."
......Beyond the question of whether Al-Arian and those associated with him violated federal law, the trial did shed some light on unresolved questions about Al-Arian.
Wiretap conversations clearly show that, during the time he was presenting himself as an independent advocate of Palestinian rights, he was, in fact, deeply involved with PIJ, proposing changes in their leadership structure, overall strategy and financial management. Those discussions did not include talk of violent acts.
Moreover, evidence showed that top employees of WISE, including Al-Arian's brother-in-law, Mazen Al-Najjar, were receiving payments from PIJ while they were working in Tampa for the think tank and the university.
After five months of prosecution evidence, Al-Arian's defense attorneys caused a stir Oct. 27 when they rested without putting on a defense.
"Because there is a document called the U.S. Constitution - unless we're about to repeal it - it protects Dr. Al-Arian's right to speak, and the government has not proven that Dr. Al-Arian has done anything but speak. . . . The fact that Dr. Al-Arian is a Palestinian deprives him of no civil rights," said Moffitt, explaining the decision.
Now, having been acquitted, he'll be rapidly deported. USF wont consider reinstating him, and Bush's justice department will probably just slink away from a second and possibly even more humiliating trial.
AMERICAblog: Call to action
Ford Motor Company is regressing toward the philosophy of its founder.
In a nutshell, the rabid homophobes at the American Family Association threatened Ford with a boycott earlier this year because they were advertising in the gay press. Suddenly in June the AFA called off their threatened boycott because local Ford dealers had contacted the national Ford office and, apparently, suggested Ford might be amenable to working out a deal. Now we find out that Ford is pulling its gay ads and that Ford even tells the Advocate that the AFA's press release claiming credit for this entire thing is accurate.
UPDATE: The classic response from the folks you contact will often be "we're the wrong people to contact." They're not the wrong people to contact, though they may think they are. These are all people in Ford's marketing division, and Ford needs to hear from everyone in their marketing division that their very bad marketing decision is causing a firestorm of protest. We'll move on to other employees tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day, and so on. And each day we'll probably hear the same thing - Paramount and Microsoft both said this too us all the time, we're the wrong people. Well, find the right people and tell them that this is a big problem.
For this afternoon's action, please contact the same Ford marketing people by phone this time. They're apparently now blocking their email accounts, which means you got to them. Now phone them.
Steve Lyons: 313-845-1621
Mae Smith: 313-845-1510
Terri Cavanaugh: 313-845-0580These people are all in Ford's marketing department - some are execs, others are staff. We are intentionally targeting both high-level and lower-level staff in the marketing department so that our message is heard throughout the entire company, not just by one vice president.
As always, be nice but firm, and don't threaten them or do anything else obnoxious. Leave that kind of behavior to America's Taliban. But do make clear that their company is toast.
Background on what Ford has done. Amongst other things, you might want to ask Ford if they'd pull their ads from African-American or Jewish publications if the Klan objected?