Two Plead Guilty to Voting Twice in 2004
Mood:  d'oh
Topic: News

Two Plead Guilty to Voting Twice in 2004

SEATTLE -- As the results of 2004's general election are being contested in court halfway across the state, two people pleaded guilty Thursday to voting twice in the election.

Doris McFarland, 83, and Robert Holmgren, 59, each admitted in King County District Court that they forged the signatures of and cast ballots for their recently deceased spouses.

Each will have to pay $490 in fines and court fees but they won't spend any time in jail. Multiple voting is a gross misdemeanor that can carry up to a year in jail and a $5,000 fine.

"My wife died just before this election," Holmgren told Judge Eileen Kato. "My judgment was clouded by the grief. I'm really sorry for what I did."

McFarland's lawyer, John Price, told the judge that she simply didn't know what to do with the extra absentee ballot after her husband of 63 years, Earl, passed away last October.

The judge told each client the court was sorry for their losses and wished them luck.

The King County prosecutor's office is investigating five additional cases of multiple voting in the county, but no charges have been filed.

King County Prosecutor Norm Maleng said the pleas sent a message that "our system is dependent on the honor of its participants, and those who cheat may wind up in court explaining it to a judge."

"At the same time, today's disposition recognizes that these people made a very human mistake during a time of grieving. ... Their motivation in these cases was not to throw an election, but to remember a loved one," Maleng said.

In Chelan County Superior Court in Wenatchee, Republican candidate Dino Rossi and the state GOP have challenged the 129-vote victory of Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire, alleging that election officials' errors, illegal voters and fraud stole the election from Rossi.

The case has focused particularly on King County, which has a third of the state's total votes.

Washington Post ~ Associated Press - Gene Johnson ** Two Plead Guilty to Voting Twice in 2004

Black caucus retreats on 527s
Mood:  cheeky
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

Black caucus retreats on 527s

Some members of the Congressional Black Caucus are teaming up with conservative Republicans to push for the first major changes in the 2002 campaign-finance reform bill, most admitting that they made a mistake in voting for the bill three years ago.

"If I had the chance to vote again, I wouldn't vote the way I voted," said Rep. Gregory W. Meeks, New York Democrat, who along with most of the CBC supported the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act after they were promised by Democratic leaders that the bill would not harm their constituents or funding bases in order to garner their support.

Three years and a failed presidential election later, black politicians saw their political grass-roots organizations starved for funds under the new rules, as so-called "527s," private political groups so named for the Internal Revenue Service code provision under which they are organized were able to raise unlimited amounts of money for partisan purposes, subsequently siphoning off the cash.

"It definitely affected the ability of the historic system of African-American community groups to [register and mobilize black voters] the way they had always done it," said Marc H. Morial, president of the National Urban League.

The Urban League is a principal partner of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, a group of about 80 member grass-roots groups that historically have been relied upon to promote black voter turnout.

In the 2004 presidential election, many of the black civic groups were supplanted by 527s, which attempted to turn out the black vote on their own, a strategy that Rep. Albert R. Wynn, Maryland Democrat, said had proven to be inadequate. Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, who was expected to surpass his 2000 predecessor Al Gore, received 85 percent of the black vote, compared with Mr. Gore's 90 percent.

Although the effect of the money stream on the organizations was visible, the tracking of the money is not. The two major political parties always have been secretive about how much money they spend on voter registration and get-out-the vote activities, said Steve Weissman, a researcher for the Campaign Finance Institute, a nonpartisan organization that studies money in politics.

He said black organizations may have felt left out because most of the 527s targeted their dollars toward advertising in the northern Midwest and Southwest and not in the Deep South, where the majority of blacks in the United States live.

In response, Mr. Wynn and Rep. Mike Pence, Indiana Republican and chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee, co-authored the 527 Fairness Act, a bill that removes the $101,400 aggregate limit on hard-money contributions an individual can make to federal parties and congressional candidates in a two-year election cycle.

It also would allow nonprofit social welfare and grass-roots organizations, labor unions and trade associations to receive and spend contributions from individuals on political-issue advertisements and literature without establishing a federal political action committee.

"I'm looking at the bill very carefully because I have to make sure that we are able to participate in this game, and with the campaign-finance reform the way it is, we've taken a lot of folks who were at the table off the table," Mr. Meeks said. "I haven't decided yet, but we're reviewing it and asking questions."

House Democratic leaders oppose the bill and sent a letter to the entire Democratic caucus expressing their displeasure with the bill.

"We are writing to urge you to oppose [the bill], which, if enacted, will enable wealthy individuals and interests to pour unlimited amounts of hard money into federal elections," according to the letter.

Ron Walters, professor of political science at the University of Maryland, said the real fear among top Democrats is that removing the aggregate limits vastly could increase the power of Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean. Mr. Dean proved in last year's presidential election that he can raise vast amounts of money, and passage of the bill only would enhance his standing.

Black political strategists differ on what the 43-member caucus should do.

"The time has come for African-Americans to find new sources to fund our electoral activities. With campaign-finance rules, the old well is dried up," said Donna Brazile, former chairman of the DNC's Voting Rights Institute. "I believe it's time to dig for new sources to allow for more independence from the major two political parties."

Others like Morris Reid, managing director of Westin Rinehart, a political consulting firm, said the black caucus should use other means to gain support for the Pence-Wynn bill.

"Howard Dean needs to cut a deal with the CBC and Al Wynn, or the CBC needs to approach Dean," Mr. Reid said.

Mr. Walters said the caucus is holding back because it is concerned about the potential corrupting effect of money in politics.

"But the way the rules come down, it is penalizing African-American grass-roots organizations because they have been cut off from the meager funds they used to get ... it is in their best interests to go to Dean and ask for his support on the bill," Mr. Walters said.

Mr. Meeks said that would be "smart politics," but said the caucus has not discussed the bill at length and that he knows of no plans to do so.

DNC spokesman Josh Earnest said the party has not taken a position on the bill.

Washington Times ~ Brian DeBose ** Black caucus retreats on 527s

Dems, liberals fear violence against burglars
Mood:  spacey
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

Florida passed a law recently that says you cannot be prosecuted for killing someone who invades your home. A Chicago Alderman, apparently on a protest vacation, seems to think only black criminals invade homes. She said at a rally that the law will "lead to open war on black males." The ACLU, Southern Christian Leadership Conference and others attended the protest.

Alderman Dorothy Tillman of Chicago raises her fist with others at a rally Monday at the Martin Luther King Jr. Plaza. The crowd protested a law that guarantees people will not be prosecuted for using deadly force against intruders on their property. >>>>>

Crowd protests deadly force law

Critics: Bill can be easily misinterpreted

Throughout Pensacola, barbecue grills were heating up on Monday afternoon -- a Memorial Day tradition.

The beach was crowded with tents and towels laid side by side.

But underneath the canopy of downtown trees, and near the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. bust on the Palafox Street median, about 100 people softly sang hymns about a time when black people were oppressed.

And that, the impromptu singers believe, continues today.

Instead of slavery, the chains now come in the form of laws that are a threat to the black community, said a number of speakers at the two-hour rally Monday.

The issue: Florida Senate Bill 436, signed last month by Gov. Jeb Bush. It guarantees that people aren't prosecuted for using deadly force against intruders on their property.

The bill, filed by Sen. Durell Peaden, R-Crestview, was inspired by James Workman, a local man who killed an intruder in his southwest Escambia County home in the early hours of Nov. 3. No charges were filed against Workman.

But critics say that the bill just gives people a license to kill that can easily be abused or misinterpreted.

"What about all those people who perpetuate hate and who will use this as an act of aggression?" said the Rev. Hugh King, president of the Pensacola chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the organization that conducted the event.

"We live in some scary times right now," said Susan Watson, president of the local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. Watson, who is white, rhetorically asked the crowd if they believe that the law would be applied equally to her and to a black man.

Many in the crowd shook their heads; others yelled out, "No!"

"It got passed because we didn't do anything about it. It's our fault," she said. "We have to do something about it."

Chicago Alderman Dorothy Tillman, formerly of Pensacola, said the law will "lead to open war on black males."

"It's almost a way to eliminate people. Black men will be under the ground more than ever."

Tillman, a former staffer for King, was not on the list of speakers but was invited to the stage. She later led the crowd in singing the hymns.

Annie Winn, 62, brought her 5- and 11-year-old great-grandchildren to listen to the speakers.

"A lot of people are going to be killed," she said. "We need to protest and try to change this law -- it's just crazy."

At the end of the rally, Charles Steele, the national leader of the SCLC, charged the crowd to protest the law. Steele then led the crowd in a march down Palafox.

"The people united will never be defeated," they chanted.

Pensacola News Journal ~ Nicole Lozare ** Crowd protests deadly force law

Fruitcake progressives defiant, meet vowing to oust Republicans
Mood:  silly
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

Far left-wing groups are meeting in Washington this week to strategize on plans to win back the Presidency and other key offices. The good news is that they vow to stick to their failed ideology and to compromise even less than they are now, guaranteeing a further slide in the Dem party.

Progressives Vow to Take Back America

WASHINGTON — In some quarters of American politics, liberals stand accused of having no ideas — but that hasn't stopped those on the left from plotting to shift the balance of power.

In Washington on Wednesday, the most liberal wing of the Democratic Party salivated over the prospect that President Bush is in deep trouble and Democrats have a prospect of winning back ground lost in the last two elections.

"They have a big problem. America is not buying what they're peddling," said Robert Borosage, co-director of Campaign for America's Future, which is hosting the Take Back America 2005 conference. "Americans aren't buying what they're selling because they're being mugged by reality. The policies of Bush, (Senate Majority Leader Bill) Frist and (House Majority Leader Tom) DeLay are failing this country; they're weakening America."

The three-day meeting is part of a brainstorming strategy for developing the plan to throw out Republicans. In extensive polling for the conference, Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg said he found deep disenchantment with the war in Iraq and President Bush's proposals on Social Security as well as uneasiness over his economic policies.

By a margin of 55 to 37 percent, poll respondents said they believe the country is headed in the wrong direction. In a separate question, 55 percent said they want the country to go in a significantly different direction than it is now.

"Only 41 percent of the American people today say they want to continue the direction George Bush is going," Greenberg said.

But responses about the direction of the country measure far more than the president's policies. The most recent numbers were essentially the same as for the year preceding the 2004 election.

The president's approval rating — at 49 percent in this poll — is also about where it was on Election Day 2004, say Republican backers of Bush.

"These are the same folks that said the president's approval rating was too low to get re-elected; that the right track, wrong track was going to make Kerry win," said Republican pollster Matthew Dowd, referring to the president's opponent, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry.

Instead, Bush won by 3 million votes, 51-48 percent.

"He won Republicans, won independents and won some Democrats," Dowd said.

Even if the president were in as much trouble as Democrats hope, they readily acknowledge voters have doubts about Democratic candidates.

"In 2004, voters came away from the election without a clue for what John Kerry stood for," Greenberg said.

Democratic polling shows that one thing voters do like about Bush is the clarity of his ideas, something they do not see in Democratic candidates.

"They don't know their policy direction, they don't know their underlying values, they don't know who they fight for. And there is a reason. It's not because of bad communication, it's because they have not in fact run with conviction," Greenberg said.

Dowd agreed with the assessment.

"If you saw this as a football team, they need a new playbook and they need a new quarterback. They don't have either," he said.

The activists gathered in Washington said Democrats need a bold agenda of new initiatives, and most of all, need to fight the president and his allies in Congress on every front.

One speaker said the Democratic base will not come around if Democrats compromise, suggesting the partisan divide in Washington may get even deeper.

Fox News ~ Jim Angle ** Progressives Vow to Take Back America

Bill Clinton wants to be ''president of the world''
Mood:  spacey
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

Clinton told an aide that he wants to be Secretary General of the UN, a logical step up for someone who regards it as some kind of super-national body. The article details Clinton’s ambitions and even quotes Helmut Kohl as saying he would support Clinton’s efforts to be elected UN head.

Clinton's ambition remains
He plans active ex-presidency

This article includes material adapted from a new history of the Clinton presidency, The Survivor: Bill Clinton in the White House.

In 2001, in the opening months of his ex-presidency, Bill Clinton confided to an aide that he had decided on his dream job for the next chapter of his life: secretary general of the United Nations.

The goal may not be realistic, he acknowledged, but he then went on to analyze all the factors in minute detail, as though he were preparing for a political campaign: whether a U.S. president would ever see fit to back him, what it would take to persuade other nations to bend the long-standing tradition that the top job does not go to someone from a county with permanent status on the U.N. Security Council.

His ambition, as the aide described it, was both breathtaking and entirely logical for a natural-born politician who had reached the top of the American political ladder: "president of the world."

Four years later, say several associates who have spoken with him in recent months, Clinton regards his dream of leading the United Nations as something more than a flight of fancy and something less than serious. Already, however, he has succeeded to a surprising degree in fashioning his ex-presidency to make himself a dominant player on the world stage.

His goals are no less obvious than when he was on the rise as a domestic politician. Clinton wants to present an alternative face of America to the rest of the world -in implicit opposition to President Bush and to create a legacy that builds on his eight years in office.

His recent appointment as the U.N. representative on tsunami relief is the highest-profile example of Clinton's travels and activities abroad. The extent to which the 42nd president has preserved influence even after leaving the White House will be far more obvious in September. That is when a large delegation of world leaders, U.S. politicians, business leaders and celebrities of various stripes will arrive in New York for the first Clinton Global Initiative.

The event, as Clinton recently described it, is modeled after the famous annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. But Clinton has said he wants his three-day event to be more focused on concrete results. "I'm telling people not to come unless they are prepared to make a commitment to do something when they leave" on the conference's themes of fighting poverty, religious conflict and environmental degradation.

Among those planning to attend are British Prime Minister Tony Blair, King Abdullah of Jordan, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Even Rupert Murdoch, whose New York Postand Fox News network are favorite platforms for many of the harshest Clinton critics, plans to be there.

Jimmy Carter, the 39th president, organized his post-presidency around international endeavors. But, as the upcoming meeting illustrates, Clinton's post-presidency is in many ways without precedent.

Aides say Clinton's aim is to use his celebrity and networking talents with heads of state and various other famous and wealthy people on behalf of causes such as clean energy and AIDS relief. His Clinton Foundation, for instance, has negotiated steep discounts with pharmaceutical companies on antiretroviral drugs and is facilitating their delivery to about 110,000 people with AIDS in the developing world.

Viewed from a long perspective, there is an interesting historical twist in Clinton's post-presidential career. In the early years of his administration, the wide perception was that he was pre-eminently a domestic president.

But, starting with the Dayton accords that ended the Bosnian war in 1995, Clinton began gaining confidence in foreign policy. His signal insight, as veterans of his administration describe it, was the realization that foreign policy was not in the end so different from the subject he knew best, domestic politics. As Clinton saw it, both involved public salesmanship and required leaders who could frame issues to make difficult decisions politically possible.

Beneath the surface, there is a deep vein of politics in Clinton's international activities as ex-president. While he has mostly supported Bush on the Iraq war - and says that all Democrats should be supporting full victory even if they first opposed the war - almost every speech he has given in recent months has contained the same refrain, delivered in nearly identical language.

"We can't relate to the rest of the world only through a negative prism, and only through telling them to do things," he told the Chamber of Commerce in Lancaster, Pa. "Why? Because if you live in a world where you can't kill, jail or occupy all your enemies, security will never be enough. You've got to make a world where you've got more friends and fewer enemies, where you make partners."

The veiled criticism of Bush is unmistakable. Clinton, associates say, believes Bush has weakened U.S. standing in the world by being too dismissive of allies and projecting an image of American arrogance abroad. Bush says he welcomes allies but will not let dissenters abroad stop him from doing what he thinks is necessary to protect security.

For all the new rapport in the Bush-Clinton relationship - Bush throwing regular rhetorical bouquets to his predecessor and assigning him to visit tsunami-stricken areas - the two presidents represent twin poles in a pointed ideological debate. Since Sept. 11, 2001, has been at the center of national politics, this argument about the relative balance of force vs. persuasion in U.S. foreign policy has been at the middle of domestic politics. The debate is reflected in the records of Clinton and Bush. Many of Clinton's foreign policy achievements were rooted in the America-as-friend philosophy he espouses now. He expanded the NATO alliance, and sought to use his rapport with the erratic Boris Yeltsin to establish a cooperative relationship with Russia - efforts that paid dividends when Moscow helped the United States resolve ethnic conflicts in the Balkans by sending peacekeepers to Bosnia in 1995 and intervening to force a capitulation by Serbia in the 1999 Kosovo war.

One of the guiding principles of Bush's foreign policy was that his predecessor was possessed of a naive world view. As Bush and his lieutenants see it, Clinton's attempts to coax the late Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat to a peace deal with Israel were folly, while he did not do enough to confront rising threats from Iraq and the al-Qaida terrorism network.

Clinton also was criticized for passivity in running his government - including on issues of terrorism. He was not on speaking terms with then-FBI Director Louis Freeh, whom he appointed. The commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks found that Clinton and his top aides thought they had ordered that Osama bin Laden could be killed if there was an opportunity to do so in a covert mission, but that the White House expressed its preference with so many cautionary notes that the CIA believed it did not have permission.

Richard Clarke, a former antiterrorism official who served under Clinton and in both Bush administrations, recalled that "Clinton would make requests and just assume that these were being done, or that the people around him knew best." He said Clinton should have fired Freeh rather than tolerate a dysfunctional relationship with an essential national security official.

While the debate continues about Clinton's record as president, his activities as ex-president suggest a man who sees redemptive possibilities on the world stage. Even while president, amid the Monica Lewinsky scandal, he described Middle East talks as part of "my personal journey of atonement." One of the people helping Clinton raise money for tsunami relief is former White House chief of staff Erskine Bowles. He told associates that he was so appalled by Clinton's behavior during the scandal that their nearly fraternal relationship for a time became coolly correct, confined to business.

The role of Ira Magaziner also reflects the theme of second chances. He was famous as the policy architect of the 1993-1994 health care initiative, one of Clinton's most extravagant failures. These days, Magaziner is working nearly full-time on the Clinton Foundation's policy programs. He said Clinton has a stature that allows him to draw attention to AIDS treatment and issues that most people never could.

"Some of the problems that have bedeviled him at home and made him controversial don't really exist abroad," Magaziner said. "My sense is he wants to make his ex-presidency one where he has really major accomplishments in the world."

In the United States, the debate over Bush's approach to the world and Clinton's - between force and persuasion - remains unsettled. But it seems apparent which approach is more winning abroad. While Bush has generated deep suspicion, especially in Western Europe, Clinton is highly popular, European commentators said.

Europeans who chafe at Bush respond to Clinton's "inclusive, soft-toned way of communicating with the world, and especially with Europeans," said Arnout Brouwers, a prominent Dutch columnist who has studied American politics in Washington with the German Marshall Fund. "His personal history, his charms, even his personal failings, helped people identify with him as 'one of us.'"

Former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, a friend of Clinton's, agreed. "The reason Bill Clinton is popular in Europe is very simple: He just is. He is a man of great charisma," Kohl said in a brief interview, following a meeting with Bush in Washington.

Asked about Clinton's dream of heading the United Nations, Kohl said: "I do not know if Bill wishes to go to the United Nations. If he wants, I would support him."

Concord Monitor ~ Washington Post - John F. Harris ** Clinton's ambition remains

Greenpeace Perpetuates Poverty and Malnutrition
Mood:  chatty
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

Greenpeace’s cofounder, Dr. Patrick Moore is angry that the organization opposes genetically enhanced foods. The author argues this has more to do with a hatred of business than science or the environment and that the world is a worse place for it.

Greenpeace Perpetuates Poverty and Malnutrition

These anti-biotech radicals are on wrong side of history, science, morality and humanity.

Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore has said the environmental movement’s "campaign against biotechnology clearly exposes its intellectual and moral bankruptcy." It shows little regard for truth or the harm its ideologies inflict on poor people.

As if to underscore how right Dr. Moore is, Greenpeace activist Farida Akthen recently blasted the Bangladesh agricultural ministry for approving research on one of the most promising of all biotech miracles: golden rice. By adding a daffodil gene to ordinary rice, researchers gave it a golden color and enriched it with beta-carotene, which people can convert to vitamin A. Simply by eating a few ounces of golden rice a day, malnourished children can ward off a vitamin deficiency that causes half a million kids to go blind every year and leaves hundreds of millions (including many thousands in Bangladesh) susceptible to disease, intellectual impairment and death.

But Ms. Akthen, who also heads up another radical Bangladeshi group known as UBINIG, claims this technological marvel somehow impairs people’s health.

Genetically engineered (GE) food can infect people "with diseases unknown even to physicians," she recently misinformed journalists in Dhaka. "Tomatoes, potatoes, rice, wheat and barley were engineered in a way that their panthogenesis-related proteins prepare anti-fungal compounds that create allergies in a consumer’s body," she continued.

These bizarre claims might have a place in a Stephen King fright novel or Comedy Central skit. But they help prolong the suffering and death of millions who could be helped by agricultural advances that hold great promise for improving environmental conditions, agricultural production and nutrition in Bangladesh and other poor countries.

Biotech crops reduce the need for pesticides, and the time farmers must spend working in their fields. By eliminating the need to cultivate for weed control, herbicide resistant varieties reduce soil erosion. Because they grow better and resist insects and viruses, GE seeds dramatically increase yields per hectare. Researchers are working on varieties that tolerate drought better or absorb nutrients more efficiently and thus need less fertilizer.

Like most Americans, I eat food with biotech ingredients almost every day, and buy biotech corn (maize) whenever I can. It’s better for the environment and unlikely to be contaminated by dangerous fungal toxins that cause fatal diseases in animals, and cancer, reduced immunity and birth defects in humans. In fact, tests in England found that GE cornmeal had almost zero contaminants, whereas organic cornmeal had fungal contaminants (fumonisin) up to 30 times higher than limits set by the EU.

That’s because GE corn has built-in proteins that attack pests like corn borers, which chew pathways for these dangerous contaminants. By eliminating these pests, which often destroy almost entire crops in African countries, biotech varieties greatly increase yields per acre.

Americans so far have eaten over 1 trillion servings of foods containing at least one GE ingredient. Over the past 10 years, hundreds of millions of consumers around the world have eaten foods from these improved crops. Not one has gotten so much as a hiccup from them. All these crops are rigorously screened for allergies and other risks, and prestigious scientific bodies like the World Health Organization, U.S. National Academy of Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences and UK Royal Academy have all concluded that biotech crops and foods are at least as safe as (and often safer than) those from conventional and organic farms.

Ms. Akther "feels" the capitalist world has a "hidden plan to control the world’s food chain." This paranoid nonsense is designed only to scare people away from a technology that could transform their lives for the better. Golden Rice will be distributed free to farmers, who will retain the right to save and replant seed as long as they sell less than $10,000 annually. While farmers do have to pay for other GE seeds, most are happy to do so, because the benefits are so great.

South African farmers who use GE corn have boosted crop production, cut pesticide use up to 75%, tripled profits and saved 35-49 days per season working in fields. "With the old maize, I got 100 bags from my 15 hectares" (37 acres), says Richard Sithole. "With Bt maize I get 1,000 bags." Elizabeth Ajele shares his excitement: "My old plants would be destroyed by insects, even when I sprayed 12 times a season, but not the new biotech plants. If someone said we should stop using the new maize, I would cry."

Ms. Akthen wants Bangladeshi farmers to continue practicing "traditional agriculture." Also known as subsistence farming, it means families barely scratch an existence from poor soils, and rarely have enough to sell at local markets, much less to export.

If the world had to rely on organic farming or 1960s agricultural technologies to produce as much food as it actually did in 2000, notes Dr. Norman Borlaug, Nobel Peace Prize laureate for the first Green Revolution, "we would have had to double the amount of land under cultivation." Millions of acres of forest and grassland habitats would have been slashed, burned and plowed for subsistence farming -- or millions more people would have starved. As human populations grow, the problem would only worsen.

Instead, thanks to biotechnology, farmers can grow far more from the same acreage, thereby preserving habitats and fostering biodiversity and nutrition. Bangladeshis and Africans don’t even need modern machinery, or specialized training, to double or triple their yields. They merely have to plant these better seeds, to produce better lives for their families.

No wonder Dr. Moore says the greens’ position is "insanity."

Ms. Akthen, Greenpeace and UBINIG are on the wrong side of science, history, morality and humanity. Keeping GE seeds out of the hands of farmers -- and GE food out of the mouths of hungry children and parents -- violates their basic human rights, and perpetuates poverty and malnutrition.

Anti-biotech activists need to be held to civilized standards of honesty, transparency and accountability. And the news media need to demand peer-reviewed proof to support their claims and treat their fraudulent assertions with far more skepticism.

Intellectual Conservative ~ Paul Driessen ** Greenpeace Perpetuates Poverty and Malnutrition

Dems do not lack convictions; they just have to hide them
Mood:  chatty
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

Many pundits have argued since last November that the Dems do not have a cohesive message or underlying philosophy and that is why they are losing elections. This is not true. Dems pride themselves on their ideology. The problem is that it is a minority opinion and unsuited to winning national elections. Do you have an opinion? Register on the site, go to the Forum page and express your views.

Democrats don't lack principles

Famed Clinton pollster Stanley Greenberg is, I think, correct, but for the wrong reasons when he says that Democrats have lost major elections in recent years because they have not "run with conviction."

It's true that they haven't run with conviction, but it's not because they lack convictions as much as that they can't risk being open about them.

Greenberg said the Democrats' major weakness today is that "they do not know what they stand for, they don't know their policy direction, they don't know their underlying values, they don't know who they fight for."

As a Democrat, Greenberg can't really mean all of this, because if he did, he might as well be saying that there is no reason for his party to exist. If candidates of a major party truly don't have core beliefs and "don't know their underlying values," is there really any point to their participation, other than the raw acquisition of power?

The reality is that Democrats do know what they believe, they just don't know if they can afford to "stand for" those things in an election for national office. They do know their underlying values, but they don't know whether they can be completely open about them without risking an electoral bloodbath. So on some issues they vacillate, saying one thing to certain people – their rabid left-wing constituency groups – and different things to others. Whether it's foreign policy, social issues or economic ones, Democrats have a tough time unmasking themselves.

Their kaleidoscope of positions on the Iraq War is a case study in this phenomenon. Don't get me wrong. Most of them, in their gut, were adamantly opposed to attacking Iraq either to depose Saddam or to eradicate his presumed WMD. So they definitely knew what they believed and initially said so, but ultimately did an about-face when intelligence data indicated WMD, and, more importantly, the public became supportive of the president's position.

But as soon as anti-war candidates in their own party, like Howard Dean, started gaining traction, they had to revert to their original position. In order to justify their otherwise inexplicable reversal they had to manufacture excuses for their earlier support of the war resolution, such as the whopper that President Bush promised not to attack until he'd further exhausted diplomatic efforts at the United Nations and with France, Germany and Russia. To further save face with their bellicose anti-war base, they concocted the now-familiar fantasy that President Bush had lied about the WMD intelligence, to which they manifestly had equal access when they took their original stand in support of the war.

Now, consider the issue of abortion. Can anyone deny that most national Democrats favor abortion on demand? They believe in it so strongly that they're willing to assassinate the character of anyone – not to mention filibuster judicial nominees – who might disagree that it's a constitutional right. They're even willing to facilitate the grisly practice of partial-birth abortion.

Yet despite the fervency of their commitment against the unborn, they go to great pains to euphemize their position, saying they're actually pro-choice, not pro-abortion, and while greasing the skids to maximize the number of abortions, they insist they want to make abortion rare. Do you think they would play such games of deceit if they were as sure as they pretend to be that the majority of the public aligns with them – and their abject extremism – on this issue?

Even on tax policy, they are less than candid about their underlying philosophy. They candy coat their position by patronizingly peddling taxes as "contributions" and government expenditures as "investments." They shroud their socialistic proclivities to redistribute wealth by portraying confiscatory tax hikes on major producers as a refund of money that properly belongs to government. Similarly, they shamelessly depict across-the-board tax-rate reductions as gifts to the rich.

One might conclude that I'm making Greenberg's point for him – that if Democrats truly had strong convictions, they wouldn't disguise them so readily to placate voters. Point taken, but I think it's more likely a result of their realization, despite their denials, that their views are in the minority, and, unlike Republicans, they don't have the luxury of fully exposing their hearts.

They have this nagging feeling – mostly accurate, I might add – that the majority of the electorate is not on their side, so they are usually reduced to opposing President Bush and Republicans instead of offering their own coherent policies, or, alternatively, running trial balloons to see what will fly with the public. After all, unless they get elected, they won't accomplish anything. So, they do have principles – but they are unprincipled in their presentation of them. Or, if you prefer euphemism, call them "pragmatic."

Either way, Greenberg's advice that Democrats adopt a clearer message would likely be suicidal for them. So I hope they follow it.

World Net Daily ~ David Limbaugh ** Democrats don't lack principles

Amnesty International Leadership Donated Thousands To Lurch Heinz Kerry
Mood:  smelly
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

Amnesty head supported Kerry, Kennedy, ACLU

Think Amnesty International is above partisan politics? The chairman and the executive director of the U.S. arm of the organization, which called Gitmo a gulag, both donated money to John Kerry?s presidential campaign. The director is a lawyer who also supported Ted Kennedy and works with the ACLU.

Amnesty leadership aided Kerry

The top leadership of Amnesty International USA, which unleashed a blistering attack last week on the Bush administration's handling of war detainees, contributed the maximum $2,000 to Sen. John Kerry's presidential campaign.

Federal Election Commission records show that William F. Schulz, executive director of Amnesty USA, contributed $2,000 to Mr. Kerry's campaign last year. Mr. Schulz also has contributed $1,000 to the 2006 campaign of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat.

Also, Joe W. "Chip" Pitts III, board chairman of Amnesty International USA, gave the maximum $2,000 allowed by federal law to John Kerry for President. Mr. Pitts is a lawyer and entrepreneur who advises the American Civil Liberties Union.

Amnesty USA yesterday told The Washington Times that staff members make policy based on laws governing human rights, pointing out that the organization had criticized some of President Clinton's policies.

"We strive to do everything humanly possible to see that the personal political perspectives of our leadership have no bearing whatsoever upon the nature of our findings and the conduct of our work," a spokesman said.

Amnesty International describes itself as nonpartisan. Disclosure of the leadership's political leanings came yesterday as the Bush administration continued to lash out at the human rights group for remarks last week by Irene Khan, Amnesty's secretary-general.

Mrs. Khan compared the U.S. detention center at U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where more than 500 suspected al Qaeda and Taliban members are held, to Soviet dictator Josef Stalin's "gulag" prison system.

At the same time, Mr. Schulz issued a statement calling Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and other top administration officials "architects of torture." Mr. Schulz suggested that other countries could file war-crime charges against the top officials and arrest them.

Since Sunday, Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Vice President Dick Cheney; and President Bush have accused Amnesty International of irresponsible criticism.

Yesterday, it was Mr. Rumsfeld's turn.
"No force in the world has done more to liberate people that they have never met than the men and women of the United States military," Mr. Rumsfeld said at the Pentagon press conference. "That's why the recent allegation that the U.S. military is running a gulag at Guantanamo Bay is so reprehensible. Most would define a gulag as where the Soviet Union kept millions in forced labor concentration camps. ... To compare the United States and Guantanamo Bay to such atrocities cannot be excused."

Amnesty International has hit the White House for refusing to treat suspected al Qaeda and Taliban terrorists as prisoners of war subject to the Geneva Conventions; for abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq; and for a list of largely unsubstantiated complaints from detainees at Guantanamo.

Mr. Rumsfeld said "at least a dozen" of the 200 detainees released from Guantanamo "have already been caught back on the battlefield, involved in efforts to kidnap and kill Americans."

Mr. Schulz posted a statement yesterday on Amnesty's Web site (www.amnesty.org) that said, in part, "Donald Rumsfeld and the Bush administration ignored or dismissed Amnesty International's reports on the abuse of detainees for years, and senior officials continue to ignore the very real plight of men detained without charge or trial."

Amnesty International's Web site states it is "independent of any government, political ideology, economic interest or religion. It does not support or oppose any government."

Washington Times ~ Rowan Scarborough ** Amnesty leadership aided Kerry

Loss of Middle Class a ''Crisis'' for Democrats
Mood:  chatty
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

Loss of middle class a 'crisis' for Democrats

The Democratic Party, the self-proclaimed defender of the middle class, was trounced by Republicans among those voters in the 2004 election, according to a Democratic advocacy group that says the party faces "a crisis with the middle class."

A report released yesterday by Third Way says support for Republicans begins at much lower income levels than researchers had expected: Among white voters, President Bush got a majority of support beginning at an income threshold of $23,300 -- about $5,000 above the poverty level for a family of four.

The report says the economic gains of Hispanics have translated into strong Republican gains, as have economic strides across every category, save for black voters.

"As Americans become even modestly wealthier their affinity for Democrats apparently falls off. With middle income voters, it is Democrats -- the self-described party of the middle class -- who are running far behind Republicans, the oft-described party of the rich," the report says.

Although Mr. Bush's popular-vote margin of victory over Sen. John Kerry in 2004 was less than three percentage points, the Massachusetts Democrat lost the middle class -- defined by the report as voters living in households with incomes between $30,000 and $75,000 -- by six percentage points. Among white middle-class voters, the gap was 22 percentage points.

Voters from middle-class households made up 45 percent of the electorate last year, those making less than $30,000 constituted 23 percent of the vote, and households above $75,000 accounted for 32 percent of the vote. The median income among the voters was $54,348.

Polls show that voters identify the Democratic Party as the party of the middle class and that Democrats beat Republicans on middle-class issues such as jobs, health care and education, but that hasn't translated into votes, said Jim Kessler, policy director for Third Way, which was created after the 2004 election with the goal of "modernizing the progressive cause."

"Middle-class voters think Democrats care about issues they care about, but they don't care about the middle-class voter as much as they care about other voters -- that they're No. 4 or 5 on the priority list," Mr. Kessler said. Put another way, he said, "they think Democrats care about somebody else's schools, health care, jobs."

The report showed that Democrats continue to do well among black voters, and that did not change with income or education levels. But those findings "masked the deficit they faced with the remaining middle class," Mr. Kessler said.

A spokesman for the Democratic National Committee didn't return calls for comment. Sarah Feinberg, spokeswoman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said House Democrats plan to push for middle-class voters in the 2006 election cycle.

"Democrats are certainly going to be working to talk to middle-class voters and to make sure middle-class voters understand that their priorities are our priorities," she said, pointing to polls that show voters concerned about rising gasoline prices and access to affordable health care.

She said Congress instead has focused on business-friendly measures such as class-action lawsuits and bankruptcy reform.

"One of the main things we've been talking about this election cycle is the fact that the Republican leadership and the Republican Congress are very out of step with middle-class families, and almost everything in this country," she said.

Many in the Democratic Party, particularly among those on the left, say there are no policy lessons to be learned from the 2004 election, that the party failed to get out its message and that it was overshadowed by a strong president at war. But centrist Democrats have continued to argue that the party may be in bigger danger than many loyalists think.

This month's issue of Blueprint, a magazine published by the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, has several articles looking at statistics similar to Third Way's income data, such as Mr. Kerry's losing married parents of young children by 19 percentage points, taking 40 percent of the group compared with Mr. Bush's 59 percent. Those parents made up 28 percent of the electorate.

Washington Times ~ Stephen Dinan ** Loss of middle class a 'crisis' for Democrats

Democrats want to raise taxes on rich to fund schools
Mood:  silly
Topic: Lib Loser Stories

Democrats want to raise taxes on rich to fund schools

Speaker announces plan to put $1.7 billion into education annually.

SACRAMENTO — Assembly Democrats proposed Tuesday raising taxes on wealthy Californians to help increase education spending as an alternative to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposed state budget. The Democratic spending plan calls for increasing the state income tax bracket on couples earning over $285,000 from 9.3 percent to 10 percent and to 11 percent on couples earning more than $570,000. The tax hike would generate about $1.7 billion a year for education spending.

"Above all else, Assembly Democrats believe that Californians deserve a budget that funds our schools and builds opportunity for our children," Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, D-Los Angeles, said. "That is why our budget is one that will provide our schools with far more resources for education than the one that the governor has proposed in his May (budget) revise."

Democrats are expected to have difficulty getting the proposal through the Legislature, where it will need a two-thirds vote — meaning bipartisan support is required — and then obtaining the governor's signature. Schwarzenegger and most Republican lawmakers oppose any tax increases to balance the budget.

"This proposal is dead on arrival, as far as increasing taxes," said Assemblyman Rick Keene, R-Chico, vice chairman of the Assembly Budget committee.

Democrats estimate the hike would generate about $2.4 billion when first implemented because it would apply to more than a full fiscal year, and then generate about $1.7 billion annually after that.

The Democratic spending plan also eliminates Schwarzenegger's plans to implement $408 million in pay cuts for state employees and home health-care workers and shift $469 million in teacher pension costs onto local school districts.

Schwarzenegger spokesman Rob Stutzman suggested the only way Democrats would get a tax increase approved would be for the Legislature to place it directly on the ballot — again a move which would require bipartisan support since it is too late now to draft an initiative and collect signatures in time for the expected special election this fall.

"As for a tax increase, the governor remains opposed to tax increases," Stutzman said. "If the legislature wants to put that forward, that's certainly their right to do so. If they can muster a two-thirds vote, they can put it on the ballot even."

"Other than that, they should have been out circulating petitions as the governor's allies were trying to put (the governor's reform agenda) on a ballot for a potential special election this fall."

CA Press Telegram ~ Harrison Sheppard ** Democrats want to raise taxes on rich to fund schools