Scientology sounds like the Catholic Church on steroids.
Lawsuit alleges purpose of Scientology is 'taking people's money'
By Erin McClam
NBC News
The Church of Scientology has strayed from principle and devolved into a cash-hungry enterprise that misuses parishioner donations to protect itself from questions and to intimidate its own members, a California couple charged Wednesday.
The couple said in a federal lawsuit that the church had misused about $400,000 of their money, including donations meant for construction projects and for relief from natural disasters.
They also said that church donations had been used to finance a high-priced lifestyle for its leader, David Miscavige.
The lawsuit, filed in Tampa, Fla., by Luis and Rocio Garcia of Irvine, Calif., accuses the church of fraud and breach of contract.
The church said in a statement that it had not been served and could not comment on the lawsuit.
It added: “We can unequivocally state all funds solicited are used for the charitable and religious purposes for which they were donated.”
The Garcias were members of the church for 28 years before leaving in 2010, their lawyer Theodore Babbitt told NBC News.
The church uses “large, high-pressure fundraising drives” as a main source of revenue and has morphed into an organization “whose primary purpose is taking people’s money,” the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit alleges that the church has used contributions to “stifle inquiries into the Church’s activities and finances, to intimidate members and ex-members” and “to finance the lavish lifestyle of Miscavige.”
Five Scientology organizations are named as defendants.
The lawsuit focuses on a Scientology building in Clearwater, Fla., that Babbitt said remains unopen. The California couple said that the church had accepted more than $200 million in donations in all for the building, known as “Super Power,” and spent less than half on construction.
The lawsuit makes specific charges about how the church misused the Garcias’ money. The couple claimed that they gave $340,000 for the building, in more than a dozen donations between 1998 and 2005, and were made promises that the church did not fulfill.
One of those donations came in August 2005, according to the suit, when the Garcias were asked to give $65,000 for a cross to go on top of the building and were told that contractors were ready to do the work. The cross did not go up for five years, the suit said.
The couple also charged that the church had misspent money meant for eradicating child pornography and helping victims of natural disasters.
The Garcias have spoken out against the church before.
Luis Garcia told the Tampa Bay Times newspaper, for a profile published in 2011, that the church had strayed from the teachings of its founder, L. Ron Hubbard, and had been “corrupted.”
The church said that it had expelled Garcia, while he maintained that he resigned, according to the newspaper. The paper did not quote the church as giving a reason for the claimed expulsion.
Babbitt said it was the first time his law firm had been involved in legal action against the church.
Perhaps the highest-profile defection from the church has been that of Paul Haggis, the Oscar-winning writer and director of the 2004 movie “Crash.” He belonged to the church for 34 years before leaving in 2009.
Haggis, in an interview last week with the NBC program “Rock Center with Brian Williams,” described the church as a cult and said he was disturbed by allegations of abuse at its highest levels, including violence and involuntary confinement.
Saturday, January 26, 2013
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Godless mom strikes a chord with parents
A CNN iReport essay on raising kids without God draws record-breaking number of comments
January 18th, 2013
By Daphne Sashin
CNN
Deborah Mitchell remembers the time, when her boys were younger, and another mom asked her about her religious beliefs.
Mitchell was raised Catholic but moved away from religion in her early 20s. She told the other mother that she didn’t go to church and didn’t even really believe in God.
Then, she says, the recruiting started.
“She used to call my house and tell me she was praying for me. She’d leave me messages and leave cards in my mailbox with scripture,” Mitchell says. “I do realize that she meant well, but at the same time, I know my views were seen as wrong. I needed to be ‘saved.’”
Mitchell, a mother of two teenagers in Texas who feels “immersed in Christianity,” started a blog about raising her children without religion because she felt frustrated and marginalized. She didn’t want to feel so alone, she says.
This week, she gained a whole new audience and the reassurance that she's not alone. Her essay on CNN iReport, “Why I Raise My Children Without God,” drew 650,000 page views, the second highest for an iReport, and the most comments of any submission on the citizen journalism platform.
It starts:
When my son was around 3 years old, he used to ask me a lot of questions about heaven. Where is it? How do people walk without a body? How will I find you? You know the questions that kids ask.
For over a year, I lied to him and made up stories that I didn’t believe about heaven. Like most parents, I love my child so much that I didn’t want him to be scared. I wanted him to feel safe and loved and full of hope. But the trade-off was that I would have to make stuff up, and I would have to brainwash him into believing stories that didn’t make sense, stories that I didn’t believe either.
Mitchell posted the essay detailing her seven reasons for raising her children without God on CNN iReport because she felt there wasn’t anyone else speaking for women or moms like her. As she sees it, children should learn to do the right things because they will feel better about themselves, not because God is watching. She asks questions like: If there was a good, all-knowing, all-powerful God, why would he allow murders, child abuse and torture?
Lots of people disagreed with her. Tons. They flagged her iReport as inappropriate and criticized CNN for linking to her essay on the CNN.com homepage. But there were plenty of others who wrote thoughtful rebuttals, respectfully disagreeing with Mitchell while not foisting their own beliefs on her. Take, for instance, a Methodist dad, who said faith can be hard to nail down, but “not to avail ourselves of the power of something we don't completely understand is silly.”
Others said Mitchell presented a simplistic view of religion.
“Presentations such as these seem to ignore a substantial percentage of believers - well-educated, compassionate, liberal folk, Christian and non-Christian alike - who, I feel, are able to worship without being blind to the realities of the world, or without lying to their children about their understanding of these complexities,” wrote commenter RMooradian. “I'll be raising my children with God, but I understand those who cannot!”
But Mitchell’s essay also struck a chord with hundreds of like-minded parents raising children in a world where lack of belief puts them in the minority, often even in their own family.
“Thank you for writing this. I agree with everything you say, but I’m not brave enough to tell everyone I know this is how I feel,” a woman who called herself an “agnostic mommy of two in Alabama” posted in the comments. “Thank you for your bravery and letting me know I’m not alone.”
It’s a growing group. One in five Americans is not affiliated with any religion, and that number has grown by 25% in the past five years, according to a survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. Of that group, 88% said they were not looking for religion, although 68% of the unaffiliated said they believe in God.
Brittany Branyon, an American graduate student and substitute teacher living in Germany, was also compelled to express her thanks to Mitchell. Branyon was raised Southern Baptist in Georgia and Alabama. In high school, when she began to question the theory of creation and befriended gay and lesbian students, she says her mother tried to perform an exorcism.
“She opened all the windows and doors in the house, brought me to the door, held my shoulders and shook me while screaming, ‘Satan, get out of this child!’, ‘Satan, leave this child alone!’.”
After moving away from the South, she and her husband “became more comfortable in our secular ways,” but still take criticism from family members. They are now expecting their first child.
“Though we are elated to welcome our child into the world, we can’t help but dread the religious uproar that is to come from our families,” she wrote in an e-mail.
Such an uproar is familiar to Carol Phillips, a stay-at-home mother in northern Virginia. When she gave birth to her first child, she said her family was shocked that the baby wasn’t baptized. She said her mother-in-law cried and told her the little girl’s soul would not go to heaven.
Then there are the comments from strangers. Last year, Phillips said she and her daughter were at a birthday party when a tornado warning sounded.
“We were all in the basement keeping safe. A little girl was saying baby Jesus will keep us safe. My daughter asked who Jesus was. The rest of the time was spent hearing ‘I'll pray for you sweetie, we can take you to church with us if you want,’” Phillips told CNN.
Commenting on Mitchell’s iReport, Phillips said, “To live out loud and to speak freely about my beliefs brings many clucking tongues. I would think it’s easier to come out as gay than atheist.”... Read more.
January 18th, 2013
By Daphne Sashin
CNN
Deborah Mitchell remembers the time, when her boys were younger, and another mom asked her about her religious beliefs.
Mitchell was raised Catholic but moved away from religion in her early 20s. She told the other mother that she didn’t go to church and didn’t even really believe in God.
Then, she says, the recruiting started.
“She used to call my house and tell me she was praying for me. She’d leave me messages and leave cards in my mailbox with scripture,” Mitchell says. “I do realize that she meant well, but at the same time, I know my views were seen as wrong. I needed to be ‘saved.’”
Mitchell, a mother of two teenagers in Texas who feels “immersed in Christianity,” started a blog about raising her children without religion because she felt frustrated and marginalized. She didn’t want to feel so alone, she says.
This week, she gained a whole new audience and the reassurance that she's not alone. Her essay on CNN iReport, “Why I Raise My Children Without God,” drew 650,000 page views, the second highest for an iReport, and the most comments of any submission on the citizen journalism platform.
It starts:
When my son was around 3 years old, he used to ask me a lot of questions about heaven. Where is it? How do people walk without a body? How will I find you? You know the questions that kids ask.
For over a year, I lied to him and made up stories that I didn’t believe about heaven. Like most parents, I love my child so much that I didn’t want him to be scared. I wanted him to feel safe and loved and full of hope. But the trade-off was that I would have to make stuff up, and I would have to brainwash him into believing stories that didn’t make sense, stories that I didn’t believe either.
Mitchell posted the essay detailing her seven reasons for raising her children without God on CNN iReport because she felt there wasn’t anyone else speaking for women or moms like her. As she sees it, children should learn to do the right things because they will feel better about themselves, not because God is watching. She asks questions like: If there was a good, all-knowing, all-powerful God, why would he allow murders, child abuse and torture?
Lots of people disagreed with her. Tons. They flagged her iReport as inappropriate and criticized CNN for linking to her essay on the CNN.com homepage. But there were plenty of others who wrote thoughtful rebuttals, respectfully disagreeing with Mitchell while not foisting their own beliefs on her. Take, for instance, a Methodist dad, who said faith can be hard to nail down, but “not to avail ourselves of the power of something we don't completely understand is silly.”
Others said Mitchell presented a simplistic view of religion.
“Presentations such as these seem to ignore a substantial percentage of believers - well-educated, compassionate, liberal folk, Christian and non-Christian alike - who, I feel, are able to worship without being blind to the realities of the world, or without lying to their children about their understanding of these complexities,” wrote commenter RMooradian. “I'll be raising my children with God, but I understand those who cannot!”
But Mitchell’s essay also struck a chord with hundreds of like-minded parents raising children in a world where lack of belief puts them in the minority, often even in their own family.
“Thank you for writing this. I agree with everything you say, but I’m not brave enough to tell everyone I know this is how I feel,” a woman who called herself an “agnostic mommy of two in Alabama” posted in the comments. “Thank you for your bravery and letting me know I’m not alone.”
It’s a growing group. One in five Americans is not affiliated with any religion, and that number has grown by 25% in the past five years, according to a survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. Of that group, 88% said they were not looking for religion, although 68% of the unaffiliated said they believe in God.
Brittany Branyon, an American graduate student and substitute teacher living in Germany, was also compelled to express her thanks to Mitchell. Branyon was raised Southern Baptist in Georgia and Alabama. In high school, when she began to question the theory of creation and befriended gay and lesbian students, she says her mother tried to perform an exorcism.
“She opened all the windows and doors in the house, brought me to the door, held my shoulders and shook me while screaming, ‘Satan, get out of this child!’, ‘Satan, leave this child alone!’.”
After moving away from the South, she and her husband “became more comfortable in our secular ways,” but still take criticism from family members. They are now expecting their first child.
“Though we are elated to welcome our child into the world, we can’t help but dread the religious uproar that is to come from our families,” she wrote in an e-mail.
Such an uproar is familiar to Carol Phillips, a stay-at-home mother in northern Virginia. When she gave birth to her first child, she said her family was shocked that the baby wasn’t baptized. She said her mother-in-law cried and told her the little girl’s soul would not go to heaven.
Then there are the comments from strangers. Last year, Phillips said she and her daughter were at a birthday party when a tornado warning sounded.
“We were all in the basement keeping safe. A little girl was saying baby Jesus will keep us safe. My daughter asked who Jesus was. The rest of the time was spent hearing ‘I'll pray for you sweetie, we can take you to church with us if you want,’” Phillips told CNN.
Commenting on Mitchell’s iReport, Phillips said, “To live out loud and to speak freely about my beliefs brings many clucking tongues. I would think it’s easier to come out as gay than atheist.”... Read more.
OBAMA URGED TO RESIGN OVER BEYONCÉ SCANDAL
by Andy Borowitz
The New Yorker
January 23, 2013
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) – A rising chorus of congressional Republicans are calling on President Obama to acknowledge that the pop singer Beyoncé lip-synched during his inaugural festivities on Monday and resign from office, effective immediately.
“By lip-synching the national anthem, Beyoncé has cast a dark cloud over the President’s second term,” said Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky). “The only way President Obama can remove that cloud is by resigning from office at once.”
While many in the media have blamed Beyoncé for the lip-synching controversy, Mr. Paul said, “We must remember that this happened on President Obama’s watch.”
Mr. Paul said that the White House’s refusal to comment on the Beyoncé crisis “only serves the argument that this President has something to hide.”
“If Beyoncé lip-synched the national anthem, how do we know President Obama didn’t lip-sync his oath of office?” he said. “If that’s the case, he’s not legally President. But just to be on the safe side, he should resign anyway.”
Mr. Paul also blasted Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for her testimony on Benghazi before the Senate today: “Her tactic of answering each and every question we asked her didn’t fool anyone.”
Read more
Saturday, January 19, 2013
Irony of the 2nd Amendment: well-regulated militias were instituted to take guns away from people
The Second Amendment was Ratified to Preserve Slavery
By Thom Hartmann
Truthout
15 January 2013
The real reason the Second Amendment was ratified, and why it says "State" instead of "Country" (the Framers knew the difference - see the 10th Amendment), was to preserve the slave patrol militias in the southern states, which was necessary to get Virginia's vote. Founders Patrick Henry, George Mason, and James Madison were totally clear on that . . . and we all should be too.
In the beginning, there were the militias. In the South, they were also called the "slave patrols," and they were regulated by the states.
In Georgia, for example, a generation before the American Revolution, laws were passed in 1755 and 1757 that required all plantation owners or their male white employees to be members of the Georgia Militia, and for those armed militia members to make monthly inspections of the quarters of all slaves in the state. The law defined which counties had which armed militias and even required armed militia members to keep a keen eye out for slaves who may be planning uprisings.
As Dr. Carl T. Bogus wrote for the University of California Law Review in 1998, "The Georgia statutes required patrols, under the direction of commissioned militia officers, to examine every plantation each month and authorized them to search 'all Negro Houses for offensive Weapons and Ammunition' and to apprehend and give twenty lashes to any slave found outside plantation grounds."
It's the answer to the question raised by the character played by Leonardo DiCaprio in Django Unchained when he asks, "Why don't they just rise up and kill the whites?" If the movie were real, it would have been a purely rhetorical question, because every southerner of the era knew the simple answer: Well regulated militias kept the slaves in chains...
By Thom Hartmann
Truthout
15 January 2013
The real reason the Second Amendment was ratified, and why it says "State" instead of "Country" (the Framers knew the difference - see the 10th Amendment), was to preserve the slave patrol militias in the southern states, which was necessary to get Virginia's vote. Founders Patrick Henry, George Mason, and James Madison were totally clear on that . . . and we all should be too.
In the beginning, there were the militias. In the South, they were also called the "slave patrols," and they were regulated by the states.
In Georgia, for example, a generation before the American Revolution, laws were passed in 1755 and 1757 that required all plantation owners or their male white employees to be members of the Georgia Militia, and for those armed militia members to make monthly inspections of the quarters of all slaves in the state. The law defined which counties had which armed militias and even required armed militia members to keep a keen eye out for slaves who may be planning uprisings.
As Dr. Carl T. Bogus wrote for the University of California Law Review in 1998, "The Georgia statutes required patrols, under the direction of commissioned militia officers, to examine every plantation each month and authorized them to search 'all Negro Houses for offensive Weapons and Ammunition' and to apprehend and give twenty lashes to any slave found outside plantation grounds."
It's the answer to the question raised by the character played by Leonardo DiCaprio in Django Unchained when he asks, "Why don't they just rise up and kill the whites?" If the movie were real, it would have been a purely rhetorical question, because every southerner of the era knew the simple answer: Well regulated militias kept the slaves in chains...
Monday, January 14, 2013
Hunger Games
Elizabeth Banks in Hunger Games seems a cross between Marie Antoinette and English/American opponents of American rebels.
Saturday, January 12, 2013
James Yeager lost his mind, then he lost his handgun carry permit
Click on the link below if you want to see the videos:
Under the Mountain Bunker
Come for the Apocalypse – stay for the coffee!
James Yeager lost his mind, then he lost his handgun carry permit
Posted on January 12, 2013
State Suspends Permit Of Man In Gun Control Rage Video
In a statement released Friday officials said they had suspended the handgun carry permit of James Yeager, CEO of Tactical Response based on “material likelihood of risk of harm to the public”. [...]
“The number one priority for our department is to ensure the public’s safety. Mr. Yeager’s comments were irresponsible, dangerous, and deserved our immediate attention. Due to our concern, as well as that of law enforcement, his handgun permit was suspended immediately. We have notified Mr. Yeager about the suspension today via e-mail. He will receive an official notification of his suspension through the mail,” Commissioner Bill Gibbons said.
Yeager, CEO of Tactical Response, a company that offers training to civilians in weapons and tactical skills, has multiple certifications with several different types of weapons. Officials with the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security were explicit in stating that the Yeager was not a Department of Safety and Homeland Security certified instructor, nor is his school department certified.
###
MrCensureMoi: Here is Yeager’s original video, which he subsequently pulled from his YouTube channel and replaced — removing the “I’m going to start killing people!” portion (near the end):
Click here
Under the Mountain Bunker
Come for the Apocalypse – stay for the coffee!
James Yeager lost his mind, then he lost his handgun carry permit
Posted on January 12, 2013
State Suspends Permit Of Man In Gun Control Rage Video
In a statement released Friday officials said they had suspended the handgun carry permit of James Yeager, CEO of Tactical Response based on “material likelihood of risk of harm to the public”. [...]
“The number one priority for our department is to ensure the public’s safety. Mr. Yeager’s comments were irresponsible, dangerous, and deserved our immediate attention. Due to our concern, as well as that of law enforcement, his handgun permit was suspended immediately. We have notified Mr. Yeager about the suspension today via e-mail. He will receive an official notification of his suspension through the mail,” Commissioner Bill Gibbons said.
Yeager, CEO of Tactical Response, a company that offers training to civilians in weapons and tactical skills, has multiple certifications with several different types of weapons. Officials with the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security were explicit in stating that the Yeager was not a Department of Safety and Homeland Security certified instructor, nor is his school department certified.
###
MrCensureMoi: Here is Yeager’s original video, which he subsequently pulled from his YouTube channel and replaced — removing the “I’m going to start killing people!” portion (near the end):
Click here
Tuesday, January 01, 2013
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Corporations can't have religious beliefs
Rethinking Hobby Lobby - A Legal Argument Against Corporate Religion
by Grizzard
Daily Kos
Dec 30, 2012
...Hobby Lobby's owners are currently arguing that Hobby Lobby - the corporate entity - should not be required to violate its religious convictions by providing certain forms of contraception in health insurance plans. As I noted in my previous diary, the central problem here is easy to figure out. These people are importing their own religious obligations onto a corporation that is independent of them...
Friday, December 21, 2012
Michele Bachmann denies benefiting from government aid
Michele Bachmann denies benefiting from government aid
As Michele Bachmann kicks off her run for the GOP presidential nomination, she defends herself against allegations surrounding the hundreds of thousands in government funds that went to her family farm and a counseling clinic.
By Richard A. Serrano
LA Times
June 26, 2011
With a new Iowa poll putting her in a dead heat with the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, Rep. Michele Bachmann deflected allegations that she and her family had benefited from government assistance programs and said that hundreds of thousands of dollars to her family farm and a counseling clinic went instead to her employees and her in-laws.
"My husband and I did not get the money," she said, appearing on Sunday news talk shows as she prepared to officially open her campaign in her original hometown of Waterloo, Iowa.
The Los Angeles Times reported Sunday that Bachmann, a congresswoman from Minnesota and "tea party" favorite, portrayed herself as a fiscal conservative while also benefiting from government funds and federal farm subsidies. An examination of her record and finances showed that a counseling clinic run by her husband received nearly $30,000 from the state of Minnesota in the last five years, with part of the money coming from the federal government. And a family farm in Wisconsin, where she is listed as a partner, received some $260,000 in federal subsidies.
Bachmann and her staff declined to talk to about the government assistance for the L.A. Times article. But asked about the issue on "Fox News Sunday," she insisted that she and her husband had not benefited at the expense of federal and state taxpayers.
"First of all," she said, "the money that went to the clinic was actually training money for employees. The clinic did not get the money. And my husband and I did not get the money either. That's mental health training money that went to employees."
As for the farm, she said it belonged to her father-in-law. "It's not my husband and my farm," Bachmann said. "And my husband and I have never gotten a penny of money from the farm."
As the Los Angeles Times reported on Sunday, however, in financial disclosure forms, Bachmann reported receiving between $32,503 and $105,000 in income from the farm, at minimum, between 2006 and 2009.
Bachmann also repeated her stance that she was opposed to federal earmarks that sponsored pet projects for politicians back home and said she believed "the states have to build roads and bridges," not the federal government.
But asked whether that was an inconsistency given that her family appeared to be benefiting from government aid, she said the clinic money was spent to train employees when they otherwise would have been there working.
Bachmann also was asked about the farm subsidies on CBS' "Face the Nation." She suggested the public instead should be outraged about a sharp increase in government limousines in the two years since President Obama took office.
She also said she had been a Christian since she was 16 and that God often steered her political course....
As Michele Bachmann kicks off her run for the GOP presidential nomination, she defends herself against allegations surrounding the hundreds of thousands in government funds that went to her family farm and a counseling clinic.
By Richard A. Serrano
LA Times
June 26, 2011
With a new Iowa poll putting her in a dead heat with the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, Rep. Michele Bachmann deflected allegations that she and her family had benefited from government assistance programs and said that hundreds of thousands of dollars to her family farm and a counseling clinic went instead to her employees and her in-laws.
"My husband and I did not get the money," she said, appearing on Sunday news talk shows as she prepared to officially open her campaign in her original hometown of Waterloo, Iowa.
The Los Angeles Times reported Sunday that Bachmann, a congresswoman from Minnesota and "tea party" favorite, portrayed herself as a fiscal conservative while also benefiting from government funds and federal farm subsidies. An examination of her record and finances showed that a counseling clinic run by her husband received nearly $30,000 from the state of Minnesota in the last five years, with part of the money coming from the federal government. And a family farm in Wisconsin, where she is listed as a partner, received some $260,000 in federal subsidies.
Bachmann and her staff declined to talk to about the government assistance for the L.A. Times article. But asked about the issue on "Fox News Sunday," she insisted that she and her husband had not benefited at the expense of federal and state taxpayers.
"First of all," she said, "the money that went to the clinic was actually training money for employees. The clinic did not get the money. And my husband and I did not get the money either. That's mental health training money that went to employees."
As for the farm, she said it belonged to her father-in-law. "It's not my husband and my farm," Bachmann said. "And my husband and I have never gotten a penny of money from the farm."
As the Los Angeles Times reported on Sunday, however, in financial disclosure forms, Bachmann reported receiving between $32,503 and $105,000 in income from the farm, at minimum, between 2006 and 2009.
Bachmann also repeated her stance that she was opposed to federal earmarks that sponsored pet projects for politicians back home and said she believed "the states have to build roads and bridges," not the federal government.
But asked whether that was an inconsistency given that her family appeared to be benefiting from government aid, she said the clinic money was spent to train employees when they otherwise would have been there working.
Bachmann also was asked about the farm subsidies on CBS' "Face the Nation." She suggested the public instead should be outraged about a sharp increase in government limousines in the two years since President Obama took office.
She also said she had been a Christian since she was 16 and that God often steered her political course....
Friday, November 30, 2012
Maybe Jeffrey MacDonald was innocent after all
Maybe Jeffrey MacDonald went to California to escape the people who killed his wife and children, NOT because he was guilty.
Maybe Jeffrey MacDonald was innocent after all
In a rare interview, co-counsel Wade Smith reflects on the murder case that's long captured America's imagination
By Lynn Parramore, Alternet
Nov 30, 2012
AlterNet Remember the perceptual illusion where you look at a picture and you’re certain that you see the bust of a young woman? Then, if someone draws your attention to certain details, suddenly the picture transforms into the profile of an old woman. It’s a disorienting trick. You think you know what you’re seeing, but then you aren’t so sure.
The Jeffrey MacDonald murder case is one of the most disturbing in living memory. There are only two possible pictures, both nightmares.
Picture No. 1. Jeffrey MacDonald, a Princeton-educated Green Beret doctor with no history of violence and a sterling record, butchered his pregnant wife and two young daughters using a knife, ice pick and club. Then he injured himself and set up the scene to make the crimes appear to be the work of intruders. He claimed they chanted, “Kill the pigs! … Acid is groovy!” and scrawled the word “PIG” on the wall in his wife’s blood.
Picture No. 2. Jeffrey MacDonald, a bright young man with everything in life to look forward to, lost his wife and children to senseless, horrific violence. A military hearing found charges against him “untrue,” but he was convicted nine years later in a civilian trial. He has been imprisoned for three decades for a crime he did not commit.
Two possibilities: MacDonald is a monster, or he is a victim of terrible injustice. Young woman; old woman.
Until recently, most people saw Picture No. 1. So did I. I grew up in Raleigh, N.C., about an hour from the Fort Bragg army base in Fayetteville where the murders occurred on Feb. 17, 1970, in the middle of the night. I was born in May of that year, and would thus be the same age as the child Colette MacDonald was carrying when her life was snuffed out. In the early ’80s, I whipped through a dog-eared copy of “Fatal Vision,” Joe McGinniss’ sensational true-crime novel about the killings. It was almost as scary as ”Helter Skelter” – the story of the Charles Manson murders in California that are said to have inspired Jeffrey MacDonald in the coverup for his homicidal rampage.
In 1984 I was glued to the TV, like millions of other Americans, watching the popular miniseries based on McGinniss’ book. McGinniss made the murders sound like the work of a diabolical genius, a man who could transform in a moment from a loving father to a homicidal maniac, and again, in the blink of an eye, to a calculating con man. I thought of devils that lurked in human flesh, like in “The Exorcist,” another popular based-on-a true-story-book-turned-movie of the period that floated around our house. When the show was over, I retired to the safety of my bed, safe from unpredictable evils.
A Shifting Picture
McGinniss’ stark rendering of Picture No. 1 stuck in my mind until recently when a friend from North Carolina told me that Errol Morris had published a book suggesting MacDonald was innocent. That got my attention: the Oscar-winning Morris, whose film “The Thin Blue Line” exonerated a Texas man wrongfully convicted for murder, is one of the world’s great documentary filmmakers. He is both a careful researcher and a profound investigator of the human condition.
My friend and I sat around in her backyard, tossing up what facts about the case we could recall. I even laughed at the idea of hippie murderers in North Carolina. Of all places! But then I felt uneasy. “You sure Errol Morris wrote the book?” She was sure.
Soon I was reading Morris’ “A Wilderness of Error,” feeling skeptical and wondering why this reputable man would involve himself in a case that everyone and their mother (including mine) knew the truth about.
But it didn’t take long to realize that something was wrong. Enough somethings to fill the long, solitary chapters of a man’s life unfolding behind prison walls.
Morris researched the MacDonald case for 20 years and knows each labyrinthine turn of its progress through the criminal justice system. Even before bureaucratic stalling and federal machinery overtook the search for truth, things were working against Jeffrey MacDonald. A crime scene was left open to bystander traffic. Inexperienced military police failed to pick up a woman near the house who fit MacDonald’s description. Many think this woman could have been Helena Stoeckley, a drug abuser and professed member of a witchcraft cult who repeatedly confessed to having been at the MacDonald house the night of the murders, but recanted her story whenever she seemed to fear prosecution. Now deceased, she remains a pivotal figure in the case.
As I read Morris’ meticulous examination the evidence, the picture in my mind became less clear. I began to see that Joe McGinniss’ creation of Picture No. 1 might be just that: a creation. Some of the “facts” I thought I knew began to look more like ideas conjured by eager prosecutors and a journalist who had dealt so disingenuously with Jeffrey MacDonald in writing ”Fatal Vision” that he was sued after publication. McGinniss’ publisher settled with MacDonald out of court, after the judge called the author a “con man.” (This story, in its own right, became a famous book about journalistic ethics by Janet Malcolm.)
The story many of us think we know tells that MacDonald’s wounds were superficial. But he had multiple bruises and puncture wounds, and two stab wounds, including one that collapsed his lung — a serious injury that left him falling in and out of consciousness. The popular story says there was no evidence of intruders. But there was, including wax drippings (MacDonald insisted that one of the intruders carried a candle), fibers and hairs that did not belong to the household or family members.
McGinniss drew on pop-sociology to render an image of a psychopathic killer in the guise of the friendly doctor-next-door; the kind we know from endless horror movies. He theorized that diet pills caused MacDonald to fly into a fit of rage. McGinniss had to be creative, because the man’s character never fit the crime. MacDonald had no history of violence or temper. When the initial military hearing was conducted in 1970, no one in his life could be found who had a bad thing to say about him. Psychiatric professionals on both sides pronounced him incapable of having committed the crimes. On the evening of the murders, Jeffrey MacDonald had taken his kids to ride the pony he had bought them, fed them dinner while their mother took a night class, and put them to bed. It didn’t make sense.
But did hippie intruders make sense? Maybe more than I would have thought as a teen. Vietnam-era Fayetteville was not sleepy Raleigh in the 1980s. There was violence. Soldiers’ corpses arrived at Fort Bragg stuffed with heroin. In 1970 America was gripped by the horror of the Manson murders – a fact used against MacDonald because he subscribed to Esquire magazine, which had run a story about the dark side of hippie culture. The Esquire story, for all its salaciousness, touched upon real issues that plagued many communities outside of California. In Fayetteville, an Army town, strong tensions existed between Army types like Jeffrey MacDonald on one side of the war, and hippies and protesters on the other. Helena Stoeckley confessed many times that MacDonald’s willingness to turn heroin addicts in to the police infuriated local drug dealers. She knew this world, and was herself a police informant. According to her, they wanted to teach MacDonald a lesson and rough up his family the night of the killings. But things got out of hand.
In October 1970, following an investigation and hearing, the military dropped its case against MacDonald, and he was honorably discharged from the Army. He moved to California to become the director of emergency medicine at St. Mary’s Medical Center in Long Beach. But an unfortunate thing happened in the following years. MacDonald’s relationship with his father-in-law, originally a staunch supporter, became strained. Freddy Kassab had inserted himself into the 1970 military hearing and made himself the center of a media circus, holding news conferences and firing off letter to members of Congress. He wanted his son-in-law to stay on the East Coast and pursue the killers. Eventually, he turned on the man he had once so ardently defended. Through his aggressive pursuit of the case, MacDonald was indicted.
MacDonald was tried in a civilian court in 1979. Many felt that his acquittal would be a cinch, but much more was to go wrong. The nine-year lag between the murders and the trial is extremely unusual; experts consider such a lag to pose a great danger of wrongful conviction. Appearances didn’t help MacDonald, either. He looked angry on the stand. Worse still, Judge Franklin Dupree seemed to have his mind made up before the trial began. Some said he should never have taken the case because his former son-in-law was the prosecutor in the original Army hearing. Dupree would not admit overwhelming psychiatric testimony in MacDonald’s favor, nor the testimony of witnesses to whom Helena Stoeckley had confessed her involvement. Bernie Segal, a long-haired Jewish lawyer from Philadelphia, took the lead in the case and managed to alienate the entire courtroom. Segal took up nearly all the time in the critical period for closing remarks and left only a few minutes for co-counsel Wade Smith, an eloquent native Carolinian who understood the jury.
One thing about this case is never in doubt no matter who’s talking: If Wade Smith had been able to lead and give his closing remarks, MacDonald would be a free man today.
The list of misfortunes goes on: exculpatory evidence withheld; possible prosecutorial misconduct; and fallible humans who twisted the MacDonald story to fit their own agendas. MacDonald was convicted twice, both in the courtroom and in the all-important court of public opinion, which was sealed by McGinniss’ book and miniseries.
Since 1979, the MacDonald case has continued to trouble those who delve beneath the surface of the media narrative. The social justice movement is now involved; the Innocence Project, a prestigious nationwide network dedicated to exonerating the wrongfully convicted, has worked strenuously for MacDonald’s conviction to be overturned. In a 2011 press release, the Innocence Project stated:
Since MacDonald was convicted of the murders in 1979, considerable evidence of his innocence has come to light. Most recently, retired US Marshall Jimmy Britt came forward with information that another suspect in the case, Helena Stoeckley, admitted to the prosecutor that she was in the house on the night of MacDonald’s murder and that he treated to indict her for first degree murder if she admitted that in court. In addition, DNA testing on evidence that was recovered from the fingernails scrapings of one of the victims and a hair found under another victim did not match MacDonald. Earlier, evidence came to light that a FBI forensic examiner mislead the jury about synthetic hair evidence. MacDonald claimed the hairs were from the wig of one of the murders, but the forensic examiner incorrectly claimed they were from one of the children’s dolls.
None of this has set MacDonald free. By now, many members of the original hearing and 1979 trial are dead, including Judge Dupree. Judge James Fox, a close friend of Dupree’s and quite elderly himself, has taken over and has dismissed appeals. Recently, the 4th District Court of Appeals ordered Fox to consider new evidence, and to examine all the evidence as a whole. On Sept. 17, 2012, in Wilmington, N.C., a crowd of familiar faces assembled for a new hearing. Jeffrey MacDonald, Joe McGinniss, prosecutor James Blackburn (who went to prison himself for defrauding his clients), Wade Smith and others newer to the case gathered once again to testify.
MacDonald now waits to see if the federal judge will vacate his 33-year-old conviction. He could get an answer by the end of this year...
See interview of Wade Smith...
Maybe Jeffrey MacDonald was innocent after all
In a rare interview, co-counsel Wade Smith reflects on the murder case that's long captured America's imagination
By Lynn Parramore, Alternet
Nov 30, 2012
AlterNet Remember the perceptual illusion where you look at a picture and you’re certain that you see the bust of a young woman? Then, if someone draws your attention to certain details, suddenly the picture transforms into the profile of an old woman. It’s a disorienting trick. You think you know what you’re seeing, but then you aren’t so sure.
The Jeffrey MacDonald murder case is one of the most disturbing in living memory. There are only two possible pictures, both nightmares.
Picture No. 1. Jeffrey MacDonald, a Princeton-educated Green Beret doctor with no history of violence and a sterling record, butchered his pregnant wife and two young daughters using a knife, ice pick and club. Then he injured himself and set up the scene to make the crimes appear to be the work of intruders. He claimed they chanted, “Kill the pigs! … Acid is groovy!” and scrawled the word “PIG” on the wall in his wife’s blood.
Picture No. 2. Jeffrey MacDonald, a bright young man with everything in life to look forward to, lost his wife and children to senseless, horrific violence. A military hearing found charges against him “untrue,” but he was convicted nine years later in a civilian trial. He has been imprisoned for three decades for a crime he did not commit.
Two possibilities: MacDonald is a monster, or he is a victim of terrible injustice. Young woman; old woman.
Until recently, most people saw Picture No. 1. So did I. I grew up in Raleigh, N.C., about an hour from the Fort Bragg army base in Fayetteville where the murders occurred on Feb. 17, 1970, in the middle of the night. I was born in May of that year, and would thus be the same age as the child Colette MacDonald was carrying when her life was snuffed out. In the early ’80s, I whipped through a dog-eared copy of “Fatal Vision,” Joe McGinniss’ sensational true-crime novel about the killings. It was almost as scary as ”Helter Skelter” – the story of the Charles Manson murders in California that are said to have inspired Jeffrey MacDonald in the coverup for his homicidal rampage.
In 1984 I was glued to the TV, like millions of other Americans, watching the popular miniseries based on McGinniss’ book. McGinniss made the murders sound like the work of a diabolical genius, a man who could transform in a moment from a loving father to a homicidal maniac, and again, in the blink of an eye, to a calculating con man. I thought of devils that lurked in human flesh, like in “The Exorcist,” another popular based-on-a true-story-book-turned-movie of the period that floated around our house. When the show was over, I retired to the safety of my bed, safe from unpredictable evils.
A Shifting Picture
McGinniss’ stark rendering of Picture No. 1 stuck in my mind until recently when a friend from North Carolina told me that Errol Morris had published a book suggesting MacDonald was innocent. That got my attention: the Oscar-winning Morris, whose film “The Thin Blue Line” exonerated a Texas man wrongfully convicted for murder, is one of the world’s great documentary filmmakers. He is both a careful researcher and a profound investigator of the human condition.
My friend and I sat around in her backyard, tossing up what facts about the case we could recall. I even laughed at the idea of hippie murderers in North Carolina. Of all places! But then I felt uneasy. “You sure Errol Morris wrote the book?” She was sure.
Soon I was reading Morris’ “A Wilderness of Error,” feeling skeptical and wondering why this reputable man would involve himself in a case that everyone and their mother (including mine) knew the truth about.
But it didn’t take long to realize that something was wrong. Enough somethings to fill the long, solitary chapters of a man’s life unfolding behind prison walls.
Morris researched the MacDonald case for 20 years and knows each labyrinthine turn of its progress through the criminal justice system. Even before bureaucratic stalling and federal machinery overtook the search for truth, things were working against Jeffrey MacDonald. A crime scene was left open to bystander traffic. Inexperienced military police failed to pick up a woman near the house who fit MacDonald’s description. Many think this woman could have been Helena Stoeckley, a drug abuser and professed member of a witchcraft cult who repeatedly confessed to having been at the MacDonald house the night of the murders, but recanted her story whenever she seemed to fear prosecution. Now deceased, she remains a pivotal figure in the case.
As I read Morris’ meticulous examination the evidence, the picture in my mind became less clear. I began to see that Joe McGinniss’ creation of Picture No. 1 might be just that: a creation. Some of the “facts” I thought I knew began to look more like ideas conjured by eager prosecutors and a journalist who had dealt so disingenuously with Jeffrey MacDonald in writing ”Fatal Vision” that he was sued after publication. McGinniss’ publisher settled with MacDonald out of court, after the judge called the author a “con man.” (This story, in its own right, became a famous book about journalistic ethics by Janet Malcolm.)
The story many of us think we know tells that MacDonald’s wounds were superficial. But he had multiple bruises and puncture wounds, and two stab wounds, including one that collapsed his lung — a serious injury that left him falling in and out of consciousness. The popular story says there was no evidence of intruders. But there was, including wax drippings (MacDonald insisted that one of the intruders carried a candle), fibers and hairs that did not belong to the household or family members.
McGinniss drew on pop-sociology to render an image of a psychopathic killer in the guise of the friendly doctor-next-door; the kind we know from endless horror movies. He theorized that diet pills caused MacDonald to fly into a fit of rage. McGinniss had to be creative, because the man’s character never fit the crime. MacDonald had no history of violence or temper. When the initial military hearing was conducted in 1970, no one in his life could be found who had a bad thing to say about him. Psychiatric professionals on both sides pronounced him incapable of having committed the crimes. On the evening of the murders, Jeffrey MacDonald had taken his kids to ride the pony he had bought them, fed them dinner while their mother took a night class, and put them to bed. It didn’t make sense.
But did hippie intruders make sense? Maybe more than I would have thought as a teen. Vietnam-era Fayetteville was not sleepy Raleigh in the 1980s. There was violence. Soldiers’ corpses arrived at Fort Bragg stuffed with heroin. In 1970 America was gripped by the horror of the Manson murders – a fact used against MacDonald because he subscribed to Esquire magazine, which had run a story about the dark side of hippie culture. The Esquire story, for all its salaciousness, touched upon real issues that plagued many communities outside of California. In Fayetteville, an Army town, strong tensions existed between Army types like Jeffrey MacDonald on one side of the war, and hippies and protesters on the other. Helena Stoeckley confessed many times that MacDonald’s willingness to turn heroin addicts in to the police infuriated local drug dealers. She knew this world, and was herself a police informant. According to her, they wanted to teach MacDonald a lesson and rough up his family the night of the killings. But things got out of hand.
In October 1970, following an investigation and hearing, the military dropped its case against MacDonald, and he was honorably discharged from the Army. He moved to California to become the director of emergency medicine at St. Mary’s Medical Center in Long Beach. But an unfortunate thing happened in the following years. MacDonald’s relationship with his father-in-law, originally a staunch supporter, became strained. Freddy Kassab had inserted himself into the 1970 military hearing and made himself the center of a media circus, holding news conferences and firing off letter to members of Congress. He wanted his son-in-law to stay on the East Coast and pursue the killers. Eventually, he turned on the man he had once so ardently defended. Through his aggressive pursuit of the case, MacDonald was indicted.
MacDonald was tried in a civilian court in 1979. Many felt that his acquittal would be a cinch, but much more was to go wrong. The nine-year lag between the murders and the trial is extremely unusual; experts consider such a lag to pose a great danger of wrongful conviction. Appearances didn’t help MacDonald, either. He looked angry on the stand. Worse still, Judge Franklin Dupree seemed to have his mind made up before the trial began. Some said he should never have taken the case because his former son-in-law was the prosecutor in the original Army hearing. Dupree would not admit overwhelming psychiatric testimony in MacDonald’s favor, nor the testimony of witnesses to whom Helena Stoeckley had confessed her involvement. Bernie Segal, a long-haired Jewish lawyer from Philadelphia, took the lead in the case and managed to alienate the entire courtroom. Segal took up nearly all the time in the critical period for closing remarks and left only a few minutes for co-counsel Wade Smith, an eloquent native Carolinian who understood the jury.
One thing about this case is never in doubt no matter who’s talking: If Wade Smith had been able to lead and give his closing remarks, MacDonald would be a free man today.
The list of misfortunes goes on: exculpatory evidence withheld; possible prosecutorial misconduct; and fallible humans who twisted the MacDonald story to fit their own agendas. MacDonald was convicted twice, both in the courtroom and in the all-important court of public opinion, which was sealed by McGinniss’ book and miniseries.
Since 1979, the MacDonald case has continued to trouble those who delve beneath the surface of the media narrative. The social justice movement is now involved; the Innocence Project, a prestigious nationwide network dedicated to exonerating the wrongfully convicted, has worked strenuously for MacDonald’s conviction to be overturned. In a 2011 press release, the Innocence Project stated:
Since MacDonald was convicted of the murders in 1979, considerable evidence of his innocence has come to light. Most recently, retired US Marshall Jimmy Britt came forward with information that another suspect in the case, Helena Stoeckley, admitted to the prosecutor that she was in the house on the night of MacDonald’s murder and that he treated to indict her for first degree murder if she admitted that in court. In addition, DNA testing on evidence that was recovered from the fingernails scrapings of one of the victims and a hair found under another victim did not match MacDonald. Earlier, evidence came to light that a FBI forensic examiner mislead the jury about synthetic hair evidence. MacDonald claimed the hairs were from the wig of one of the murders, but the forensic examiner incorrectly claimed they were from one of the children’s dolls.
None of this has set MacDonald free. By now, many members of the original hearing and 1979 trial are dead, including Judge Dupree. Judge James Fox, a close friend of Dupree’s and quite elderly himself, has taken over and has dismissed appeals. Recently, the 4th District Court of Appeals ordered Fox to consider new evidence, and to examine all the evidence as a whole. On Sept. 17, 2012, in Wilmington, N.C., a crowd of familiar faces assembled for a new hearing. Jeffrey MacDonald, Joe McGinniss, prosecutor James Blackburn (who went to prison himself for defrauding his clients), Wade Smith and others newer to the case gathered once again to testify.
MacDonald now waits to see if the federal judge will vacate his 33-year-old conviction. He could get an answer by the end of this year...
See interview of Wade Smith...
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
Hillary Clinton is a bigger help to Netanyahu than his pal Romney
Romney’s Republican Disneyland
by Amy Davidson
The New Yorker
November 21, 2012
Has anyone, this week, been seeking out Mitt Romney’s views on the Gaza crisis? Have there been calls to put him on a plane and have him sit down with Benjamin Netanyahu or Mohamed Morsi, and sort things out? Hillary Clinton handled that instead, and we seem to have a ceasefire, while the urgent questions about Romney have been whether that was really him, photographed blurrily, pumping his own gas, or what he and Ann thought of Jacob imprinting on Renesmee in the new “Twilight” movie—which they saw over the weekend—and which vampire coven reminded them most of the Republican primary field. Last month, Romney was talking about the near-psychic bond he had with Netanyahu; that may have been nice for them, but it hardly seems to matter anymore to anyone else. By the time there was a ceasefire deal, on Wednesday, the Romney radar was alive to his trip to Disneyland with his wife and grandchildren, according to reports sourced back to park visitors who tweeted pictures...
by Amy Davidson
The New Yorker
November 21, 2012
Has anyone, this week, been seeking out Mitt Romney’s views on the Gaza crisis? Have there been calls to put him on a plane and have him sit down with Benjamin Netanyahu or Mohamed Morsi, and sort things out? Hillary Clinton handled that instead, and we seem to have a ceasefire, while the urgent questions about Romney have been whether that was really him, photographed blurrily, pumping his own gas, or what he and Ann thought of Jacob imprinting on Renesmee in the new “Twilight” movie—which they saw over the weekend—and which vampire coven reminded them most of the Republican primary field. Last month, Romney was talking about the near-psychic bond he had with Netanyahu; that may have been nice for them, but it hardly seems to matter anymore to anyone else. By the time there was a ceasefire deal, on Wednesday, the Romney radar was alive to his trip to Disneyland with his wife and grandchildren, according to reports sourced back to park visitors who tweeted pictures...
Tuesday, November 06, 2012
Machine turns vote for Obama into one for Romney
Machine turns vote for Obama into one for Romney
Zachary Roth
11/06/2012
A Pennsylvania electronic voting machine has been taken out of service after being captured on video changing a vote for President Obama into one for Mitt Romney, NBC News has confirmed. Republicans have also said machines have turned Romney votes into Obama ones.
The video was first posted on Youtube by user “centralpavoter.” It shows a voter’s finger repeatedly pressing the button for Obama, but a check mark coming up next to Romney’s name:
NBC News confirmed that the machine has been taken off line.
Underneath the video, the user gave an account of what happened:
My wife and I went to the voting booths this morning before work. There were 4 older ladies running the show and 3 voting booths that are similar to a science fair project in how they fold up. They had an oval VOTE logo on top center and a cartridge slot on the left that the volunteers used to start your ballot.
I initially selected Obama but Romney was highlighted. I assumed it was being picky so I deselected Romney and tried Obama again, this time more carefully, and still got Romney. Being a software developer, I immediately went into troubleshoot mode. I first thought the calibration was off and tried selecting Jill Stein to actually highlight Obama. Nope. Jill Stein was selected just fine. Next I deselected her and started at the top of Romney’s name and started tapping very closely together to find the ‘active areas’. From the top of Romney’s button down to the bottom of the black checkbox beside Obama’s name was all active for Romney. From the bottom of that same checkbox to the bottom of the Obama button (basically a small white sliver) is what let me choose Obama. Stein’s button was fine. All other buttons worked fine.
I asked the voters on either side of me if they had any problems and they reported they did not. I then called over a volunteer to have a look at it. She him hawed for a bit then calmly said “It’s nothing to worry about, everything will be OK.” and went back to what she was doing. I then recorded this video.
There is a lot of speculation that the footage is edited. I’m not a video guy, but if it’s possible to prove whether a video has been altered or not, I will GLADLY provide the raw footage to anyone who is willing to do so. The jumping frames are a result of the shitty camera app on my Android phone, nothing more.
Separately, the RNC last week sent a letter (pdf) to elections officials in six other states, including Ohio, Nevada, and Colorado, raising concerns that machines had wrongly counted votes for Romney as ones for Obama, and asking them to address the problem. Late Update, 2:35 pm: A spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of State told Mother Jones a machine that showed that problem, likely the same one, is back online after being “recalibrated.”
Zachary Roth
11/06/2012
A Pennsylvania electronic voting machine has been taken out of service after being captured on video changing a vote for President Obama into one for Mitt Romney, NBC News has confirmed. Republicans have also said machines have turned Romney votes into Obama ones.
The video was first posted on Youtube by user “centralpavoter.” It shows a voter’s finger repeatedly pressing the button for Obama, but a check mark coming up next to Romney’s name:
NBC News confirmed that the machine has been taken off line.
Underneath the video, the user gave an account of what happened:
My wife and I went to the voting booths this morning before work. There were 4 older ladies running the show and 3 voting booths that are similar to a science fair project in how they fold up. They had an oval VOTE logo on top center and a cartridge slot on the left that the volunteers used to start your ballot.
I initially selected Obama but Romney was highlighted. I assumed it was being picky so I deselected Romney and tried Obama again, this time more carefully, and still got Romney. Being a software developer, I immediately went into troubleshoot mode. I first thought the calibration was off and tried selecting Jill Stein to actually highlight Obama. Nope. Jill Stein was selected just fine. Next I deselected her and started at the top of Romney’s name and started tapping very closely together to find the ‘active areas’. From the top of Romney’s button down to the bottom of the black checkbox beside Obama’s name was all active for Romney. From the bottom of that same checkbox to the bottom of the Obama button (basically a small white sliver) is what let me choose Obama. Stein’s button was fine. All other buttons worked fine.
I asked the voters on either side of me if they had any problems and they reported they did not. I then called over a volunteer to have a look at it. She him hawed for a bit then calmly said “It’s nothing to worry about, everything will be OK.” and went back to what she was doing. I then recorded this video.
There is a lot of speculation that the footage is edited. I’m not a video guy, but if it’s possible to prove whether a video has been altered or not, I will GLADLY provide the raw footage to anyone who is willing to do so. The jumping frames are a result of the shitty camera app on my Android phone, nothing more.
Separately, the RNC last week sent a letter (pdf) to elections officials in six other states, including Ohio, Nevada, and Colorado, raising concerns that machines had wrongly counted votes for Romney as ones for Obama, and asking them to address the problem. Late Update, 2:35 pm: A spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of State told Mother Jones a machine that showed that problem, likely the same one, is back online after being “recalibrated.”
Saturday, November 03, 2012
Nonpartisan Tax Report Withdrawn After G.O.P. Protest
Nonpartisan Tax Report Withdrawn After G.O.P. Protest
By JONATHAN WEISMAN
New York Times
November 1, 2012
WASHINGTON — The Congressional Research Service has withdrawn an economic report that found no correlation between top tax rates and economic growth, a central tenet of conservative economic theory, after Senate Republicans raised concerns about the paper’s findings and wording.
Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, center, and other Republicans raised concerns with an economic report that questions a central tenet of conservative economic theory.
The decision, made in late September against the advice of the agency’s economic team leadership, drew almost no notice at the time. Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, cited the study a week and a half after it was withdrawn in a speech on tax policy at the National Press Club.
But it could actually draw new attention to the report, which questions the premise that lowering the top marginal tax rate stimulates economic growth and job creation.
“This has hues of a banana republic,” Mr. Schumer said. “They didn’t like a report, and instead of rebutting it, they had them take it down.”
Republicans did not say whether they had asked the research service, a nonpartisan arm of the Library of Congress, to take the report out of circulation, but they were clear that they protested its tone and findings...
By JONATHAN WEISMAN
New York Times
November 1, 2012
WASHINGTON — The Congressional Research Service has withdrawn an economic report that found no correlation between top tax rates and economic growth, a central tenet of conservative economic theory, after Senate Republicans raised concerns about the paper’s findings and wording.
Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, center, and other Republicans raised concerns with an economic report that questions a central tenet of conservative economic theory.
The decision, made in late September against the advice of the agency’s economic team leadership, drew almost no notice at the time. Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, cited the study a week and a half after it was withdrawn in a speech on tax policy at the National Press Club.
But it could actually draw new attention to the report, which questions the premise that lowering the top marginal tax rate stimulates economic growth and job creation.
“This has hues of a banana republic,” Mr. Schumer said. “They didn’t like a report, and instead of rebutting it, they had them take it down.”
Republicans did not say whether they had asked the research service, a nonpartisan arm of the Library of Congress, to take the report out of circulation, but they were clear that they protested its tone and findings...
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Voting machines tied to the Romneys could decide the election in Ohio
Voting machines tied to the Romneys could decide the election in Ohio
a publication of Working Assets
October 22, 2012
Could a voting machine company with deep financial ties to the Romney family help Republicans steal the presidential election in Ohio?
It could happen. If this year's presidential election comes down to the electoral votes in Ohio, the deciding votes could be cast on electronic voting machines manufactured by Hart Intercivic.
Tell the Department of Justice: Don't let Republicans steal the election in Ohio with Romney-owned voting machines.
A 2007 study conducted by Ohio's Secretary of State showed that Hart Intercivic's touch screen voting machines could be easily corrupted. The New York Times reported:
At polling stations, teams working on the study were able to pick locks to access memory cards and use hand-held devices to plug false vote counts into machines. At boards of election, they were able to introduce malignant software into servers.1
Hart Intercivic is majority owned by H.I.G. Capital which controls two of the five seats on the Hart Intercivic board. An investment fund with deep ties to the Romney family and the Mitt Romney for president campaign, H.I.G. Capital was founded by Tony Tamer, a major bundler for the Romney campaign, and it is one of the largest partners of Solamere Capital, an investment fund founded by Tagg Romney and Spencer Zwick, Mitt Romney's chief fundraiser from the 2008 presidential campaign.2 This makes the Romney family part owner of the voting machine company, through it's interest in H.I.G. Capital.
Tell the Department of Justice: Don't let Republicans steal the election in Ohio with Romney-owned voting machines.
What's more, three other H.I.G. Capital directors are major fundraisers for the Romney campaign, and H.I.G. Capital is the 11th largest contributor to the Mitt Romney campaign.3 Two of the company's directors, Douglas Berman and Brian Schwartz, were even in attendance at the Boca Raton fundraiser4 where Romney infamously declared:
There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what... who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it... These are people who pay no income tax...[M]y job is is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.5
And as if the ties between Tagg Romney's Solamere, Romney contributors at H.I.G. Capital, and Hart Intercivic weren't astonishing enough, two members of Hart Intercivic's 5-member board of directors made direct contributions to the Romney campaign.
That's right. Directors of the company that makes touchscreen voting machines that could decide the presidential election in Ohio, have made contributions to the Mitt Romney for President campaign.
It is disturbing and dangerous that Hart Intercivic, the company that makes the machines that will count many of the votes in Ohio on election night has deep financial ties to family members of Mitt Romney. And that its leadership has been actively involved presidential campaign by donating and bundling hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Mitt Romney. The fact that these machines are easily corruptible touch screen voting machines makes matters even worse.
Gov. Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama are locked in a tight election race which could very well be decided by Ohio's 18 electoral votes. We must take action now.
Thank you for all you do to protect the integrity of our Democracy.
1. Bob Driehaus, "Ohio Elections Official Calls Machines Flawed," New York Times, December 15, 2007.
2. Rick Ungar, "Romney Family Investment Ties To Voting Machine Company That Could Decide The Election Causing Concern," Forbes, October 20, 2012.
3. "Mitt Romney (R) Top Contributors." Open Secrets, October 1, 2012.
4. Dave Gilson, Who Was at Romney's "47 Percent" Fundraiser?, Mother Jones, Sept. 18, 2012.
5. MoJo News Team, "Full Transcript of the Mitt Romney Secret Video," Mother Jones, September 19, 2012. Sign the petition
a publication of Working Assets
October 22, 2012
Could a voting machine company with deep financial ties to the Romney family help Republicans steal the presidential election in Ohio?
It could happen. If this year's presidential election comes down to the electoral votes in Ohio, the deciding votes could be cast on electronic voting machines manufactured by Hart Intercivic.
Tell the Department of Justice: Don't let Republicans steal the election in Ohio with Romney-owned voting machines.
A 2007 study conducted by Ohio's Secretary of State showed that Hart Intercivic's touch screen voting machines could be easily corrupted. The New York Times reported:
At polling stations, teams working on the study were able to pick locks to access memory cards and use hand-held devices to plug false vote counts into machines. At boards of election, they were able to introduce malignant software into servers.1
Hart Intercivic is majority owned by H.I.G. Capital which controls two of the five seats on the Hart Intercivic board. An investment fund with deep ties to the Romney family and the Mitt Romney for president campaign, H.I.G. Capital was founded by Tony Tamer, a major bundler for the Romney campaign, and it is one of the largest partners of Solamere Capital, an investment fund founded by Tagg Romney and Spencer Zwick, Mitt Romney's chief fundraiser from the 2008 presidential campaign.2 This makes the Romney family part owner of the voting machine company, through it's interest in H.I.G. Capital.
Tell the Department of Justice: Don't let Republicans steal the election in Ohio with Romney-owned voting machines.
What's more, three other H.I.G. Capital directors are major fundraisers for the Romney campaign, and H.I.G. Capital is the 11th largest contributor to the Mitt Romney campaign.3 Two of the company's directors, Douglas Berman and Brian Schwartz, were even in attendance at the Boca Raton fundraiser4 where Romney infamously declared:
There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what... who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it... These are people who pay no income tax...[M]y job is is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.5
And as if the ties between Tagg Romney's Solamere, Romney contributors at H.I.G. Capital, and Hart Intercivic weren't astonishing enough, two members of Hart Intercivic's 5-member board of directors made direct contributions to the Romney campaign.
That's right. Directors of the company that makes touchscreen voting machines that could decide the presidential election in Ohio, have made contributions to the Mitt Romney for President campaign.
It is disturbing and dangerous that Hart Intercivic, the company that makes the machines that will count many of the votes in Ohio on election night has deep financial ties to family members of Mitt Romney. And that its leadership has been actively involved presidential campaign by donating and bundling hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Mitt Romney. The fact that these machines are easily corruptible touch screen voting machines makes matters even worse.
Gov. Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama are locked in a tight election race which could very well be decided by Ohio's 18 electoral votes. We must take action now.
Thank you for all you do to protect the integrity of our Democracy.
1. Bob Driehaus, "Ohio Elections Official Calls Machines Flawed," New York Times, December 15, 2007.
2. Rick Ungar, "Romney Family Investment Ties To Voting Machine Company That Could Decide The Election Causing Concern," Forbes, October 20, 2012.
3. "Mitt Romney (R) Top Contributors." Open Secrets, October 1, 2012.
4. Dave Gilson, Who Was at Romney's "47 Percent" Fundraiser?, Mother Jones, Sept. 18, 2012.
5. MoJo News Team, "Full Transcript of the Mitt Romney Secret Video," Mother Jones, September 19, 2012. Sign the petition
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Song about California Propositions 2012
The Proposition Song 2012
kimalex3331 video
Oct 17, 2012
A nonpartisan, entertaining, three-minute sing-along song produced by the California Voter Foundation, www.calvoter.org, to help voters sort out the 11 propositions on the November 6, 2012 ballot - "let's all be singing along, cuz the ballot is so darn long!"
Oct 17, 2012
A nonpartisan, entertaining, three-minute sing-along song produced by the California Voter Foundation, www.calvoter.org, to help voters sort out the 11 propositions on the November 6, 2012 ballot - "let's all be singing along, cuz the ballot is so darn long!"
Monday, October 15, 2012
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Professors object to remains over 9,000 years old being given to Kumeyaay
Since the discovery of Kennewick Man, our understanding of the ancestry of indigenous Americans has increased in complexity. Some believed that Kennewick Man was Caucasoid. It was suggested that he might be related to the Ainu people of Japan. And of course, most of the people of the Americas didn't stay in one place for thousands of years. They tended to move around. But it now seems that American Indian ancestry might be more mixed than we once believed.
White et al v. University of California: Motions to Dismiss Granted
UCLA American Indian Studies Center
Oct. 12, 2012
On October 9, 2012, the federal District Court in San Francisco granted the University’s motion to dismiss the White v. UC lawsuit without leave to amend (see PDF below). This lawsuit was filed by three UC professors to prevent UCSD from transferring certain very old remains (estimated to be 9000-10,000 years old) to a local tribe. Among other things, the parties dispute whether such a transfer is required under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). UC moved to dismiss the complaint on procedural grounds, primarily arguing that the tribes are necessary parties to the suit given their interest in the remains and the possibility of inconsistent rulings against the University, but, because they are independent sovereigns, they are immune from suit and therefore the suit must be dismissed. The Kumeyaay Cultural Repatriation Committee (KCRC), which was also sued by Plaintiffs, made a similar argument.
UC has agreed to Plaintiffs’ request to maintain the status quo while they decide whether to appeal. Also, the separate case filed by KCRC against the University is still pending in federal court in San Diego and is stayed while the injunction in the White case is in place. Plaintiffs have 30 days to file a notice of appeal.
White et al v. University of California: Motions to Dismiss Granted
UCLA American Indian Studies Center
Oct. 12, 2012
On October 9, 2012, the federal District Court in San Francisco granted the University’s motion to dismiss the White v. UC lawsuit without leave to amend (see PDF below). This lawsuit was filed by three UC professors to prevent UCSD from transferring certain very old remains (estimated to be 9000-10,000 years old) to a local tribe. Among other things, the parties dispute whether such a transfer is required under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). UC moved to dismiss the complaint on procedural grounds, primarily arguing that the tribes are necessary parties to the suit given their interest in the remains and the possibility of inconsistent rulings against the University, but, because they are independent sovereigns, they are immune from suit and therefore the suit must be dismissed. The Kumeyaay Cultural Repatriation Committee (KCRC), which was also sued by Plaintiffs, made a similar argument.
UC has agreed to Plaintiffs’ request to maintain the status quo while they decide whether to appeal. Also, the separate case filed by KCRC against the University is still pending in federal court in San Diego and is stayed while the injunction in the White case is in place. Plaintiffs have 30 days to file a notice of appeal.
Koch Brother Facing Federal Lawsuit For Allegedly Imprisoning Employee
Koch Brother Facing Federal Lawsuit For Allegedly Imprisoning Employee
By Justin Acuff
Addicting Info
October 13, 2012
William Koch is facing a federal lawsuit for allegedly and illegally imprisoning and interrogating an employee. Kirby Martenson, a former executive for a number of Koch subsidiary companies, claims that he was fired, imprisoned, and interrogated for an excessive amount of time at the Old West ghost town replica that Koch built recently.
The Huffington Post said that, “John Houston Scott, an attorney for Kirby Martenson, a former executive for a number of Koch subsidiaries, confirmed the story to HuffPost, adding that he guessed the case could go to trial in a year,” which indicates that there is sufficient evidence to warrant a legitimate lawsuit.
Huffpost goes on, explaining,
“Kirby Martensen states in a lawsuit that we investigated him for participating in a wide-ranging scheme to defraud, accepting bribes and diverting business from our company,” Brad Goldstein, director of corporate affairs for Oxbow, a Bill Koch company, said in a statement. “He is right. We absolutely investigated Martensen and determined that he did participate in the fraud against the company. We identified who was defrauding us and are pursuing appropriate action to hold them accountable. In fact, several of the wrongdoers have admitted their involvement and one has directly implicated Mr. Martensen in the scheme.”
Through his privately held companies — Oxbow Carbon and Huron Carbon — Bill Koch has given $3 million to the pro-Mitt Romney super PAC Restore Our Future. His more well-known brothers have given substantially more to the effort to elect the Republican presidential candidate.
“Any allegations of misconduct by Mr. Koch simply are untrue and stem from Martensen’s attempts to divert attention from his own wrongdoing,” said Goldstein.
However, in the lawsuit filed and elsewhere, Martenson disputes those claims. On Courthouse News, you can see the following:
Billionaire William Koch imprisoned and interrogated one of his executives at a secluded Aspen ranch, under a sheriff’s guard, because the executive suspected Koch’s companies of tax evasion, the employee claims in Federal Court.
“Martensen understood that the goal of this assignment was to help legitimize OCM’s Bahamian shell company,” according to the complaint in the Northern District of California. “This included, but was not limited to, discussions and negotiations concerning the sourcing of pet-coke and sales to Asian customers. Plaintiff was informed that the move to Asia was for tax purposes. More than 75 percent of Oxbow’s fuel-grade petroleum coke export profits were derived from its Asian trading business. Plaintiff has information and believes this relocation was part of a plan being implemented to evade paying taxes to the United States on profits in excess of $200,000,000 per year.
The billionaire allegedly used “false pretenses” to lure Martensen and other executives to Bear Ranch, his property near Aspen, in March.
“Following lunch Martensen and others were told by Mr. Koch that they would be interviewed by a compensation specialist as part of a 360 degree peer review. Martensen was then escorted to a small room and interviewed by two agents of Koch. The interview turned into an interrogation that lasted several hours. Martensen was accused of participating in a wide-ranging scheme to defraud Oxbow and Koch of millions of dollars, accepting bribes from competitors and ‘diverting freight to a known competitor.’
If the allegations are true, William Koch should face jail time. We know this won’t happen (since when do rich people go to jail?), but the fact that this case is seeing light is a step in the right direction for America. One must consider, though, to the fact that this is a power vs. power situation and if it had been an employee of lower status there is a good chance we never even would have heard of it.
Another disturbing part of the allegations is the sheriff’s participation in the holding of the ‘prisoners.’ Indeed, if there was no cause, what was the sheriff even doing there? It seems obvious that whether or not William Koch was in the wrong, the sheriff was, because he is obviously on Koch’s payroll. That is a disgusting mark of the all-too-common corruption in America.
By Justin Acuff
Addicting Info
October 13, 2012
William Koch is facing a federal lawsuit for allegedly and illegally imprisoning and interrogating an employee. Kirby Martenson, a former executive for a number of Koch subsidiary companies, claims that he was fired, imprisoned, and interrogated for an excessive amount of time at the Old West ghost town replica that Koch built recently.
The Huffington Post said that, “John Houston Scott, an attorney for Kirby Martenson, a former executive for a number of Koch subsidiaries, confirmed the story to HuffPost, adding that he guessed the case could go to trial in a year,” which indicates that there is sufficient evidence to warrant a legitimate lawsuit.
Huffpost goes on, explaining,
“Kirby Martensen states in a lawsuit that we investigated him for participating in a wide-ranging scheme to defraud, accepting bribes and diverting business from our company,” Brad Goldstein, director of corporate affairs for Oxbow, a Bill Koch company, said in a statement. “He is right. We absolutely investigated Martensen and determined that he did participate in the fraud against the company. We identified who was defrauding us and are pursuing appropriate action to hold them accountable. In fact, several of the wrongdoers have admitted their involvement and one has directly implicated Mr. Martensen in the scheme.”
Through his privately held companies — Oxbow Carbon and Huron Carbon — Bill Koch has given $3 million to the pro-Mitt Romney super PAC Restore Our Future. His more well-known brothers have given substantially more to the effort to elect the Republican presidential candidate.
“Any allegations of misconduct by Mr. Koch simply are untrue and stem from Martensen’s attempts to divert attention from his own wrongdoing,” said Goldstein.
However, in the lawsuit filed and elsewhere, Martenson disputes those claims. On Courthouse News, you can see the following:
Billionaire William Koch imprisoned and interrogated one of his executives at a secluded Aspen ranch, under a sheriff’s guard, because the executive suspected Koch’s companies of tax evasion, the employee claims in Federal Court.
“Martensen understood that the goal of this assignment was to help legitimize OCM’s Bahamian shell company,” according to the complaint in the Northern District of California. “This included, but was not limited to, discussions and negotiations concerning the sourcing of pet-coke and sales to Asian customers. Plaintiff was informed that the move to Asia was for tax purposes. More than 75 percent of Oxbow’s fuel-grade petroleum coke export profits were derived from its Asian trading business. Plaintiff has information and believes this relocation was part of a plan being implemented to evade paying taxes to the United States on profits in excess of $200,000,000 per year.
The billionaire allegedly used “false pretenses” to lure Martensen and other executives to Bear Ranch, his property near Aspen, in March.
“Following lunch Martensen and others were told by Mr. Koch that they would be interviewed by a compensation specialist as part of a 360 degree peer review. Martensen was then escorted to a small room and interviewed by two agents of Koch. The interview turned into an interrogation that lasted several hours. Martensen was accused of participating in a wide-ranging scheme to defraud Oxbow and Koch of millions of dollars, accepting bribes from competitors and ‘diverting freight to a known competitor.’
If the allegations are true, William Koch should face jail time. We know this won’t happen (since when do rich people go to jail?), but the fact that this case is seeing light is a step in the right direction for America. One must consider, though, to the fact that this is a power vs. power situation and if it had been an employee of lower status there is a good chance we never even would have heard of it.
Another disturbing part of the allegations is the sheriff’s participation in the holding of the ‘prisoners.’ Indeed, if there was no cause, what was the sheriff even doing there? It seems obvious that whether or not William Koch was in the wrong, the sheriff was, because he is obviously on Koch’s payroll. That is a disgusting mark of the all-too-common corruption in America.
Wednesday, October 03, 2012
Philippines defies church to push family planning
Philippines defies church to push family planning
By Karen Lema
Oct 2, 2012
(Reuters)
Philippine President Benigno Aquino is squaring off against his country's powerful Catholic church in a bid to give people free access to the means to limit the size of their families.
The predominately Catholic country has one of Asia's fastest-growing populations together with significant levels of chronic poverty. While neighbours have accelerated towards prosperity, the Philippines has lagged.
Economists say high population growth is a primary factor for that, but the church disagrees. It says population growth is not a cause of poverty and that people need jobs, not contraception.
Aquino, a Catholic like 80 percent of the population, has thrown his support behind a reproductive health bill that will, if passed by the two houses of Congress, guarantee access to free birth control and promote sex education.
That's something that Liza Cabiya-an might have benefited from, if she'd had the opportunity.
Cabiya-an, 39, has 14 children. The oldest is 22, the youngest just 11 months. Their home is a hut in a Manila slum.
"It's tough when you have so many children," said Cabiya-an, a shy smile revealing poor teeth. "I have to count them before I go to sleep to make sure no one's missing."
At one time Cabiya-an had access to contraception but Manila mayor Jose Atienza, a devout Catholic, swept contraceptives from the shelves of city-run clinics in 2000.
After that, Cabiya-an's efforts to limit the size of her family were patchy, restricted by her meager resources. She went on and off the pill and resorted to an illegal abortion more than once.
With income of about 7,600 pesos ($180) a month from doing laundry and her husband's pay as a labourer, Cabiya-an has only been able to send five of her children to school. The others would appear doomed to join the quarter of the country's 95 million people stuck below the poverty line.
Contraceptives are generally available in the Philippines although they are not used as much as elsewhere.
In the Philippines, 45-50 percent of women of reproductive age, or their partners, are using a contraceptive method at any given time. Indonesia's rate is 56 percent and Thailand's 80 percent.
Population growth mirrors that. The Philippines population is increasing by 1.9 percent a year, while Indonesia's is 1.2 percent and Thailand's is 0.9 percent. China's population is growing at an annual rate of 0.6 percent.
"If you increase access to contraceptives for women ... you will have births averted," said Josefina Natividad, director of the University of the Philippines' Population Institute.
Though available in most places, the cost of contraceptives is prohibitive for many people. But that should change if the reproductive health bill is passed.
Aquino's government has promised what it calls inclusive growth and it sees slowing population growth as key to that.
"The president has already, at the risk of alienating the church, declared that the bill is a priority," Budget Secretary Florencio Abad said. "That message is very clear."
"STATE IMMOBILISED"
But it's a message the church doesn't like.
It says artificial contraception is immoral, and the bill will pave the way to legalizing abortion. The bill does not legalize abortion though it seeks to improve care for women suffering from complications after an illegal abortion.
The church says people should use natural family planning.
It says poverty is a cause, not effect, of a high birth rate. Children are being born into homes without enough food to eat because of the government's failure to end corruption and provide jobs, the bishops say.
"It's our firm belief that contraceptives will never be the answer," said Father Melvin Castro, executive secretary of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines' Episcopal Commission on Family and Life.
"They are poor not because they have no access to contraceptives but because they have no work. Give them work and it will be the most effective birth spacing means for them."
Economists say the church's persistent opposition has been the most important factor influencing population policy.
"The state ... has been immobilized from effectively addressing the issue by the Catholic hierarchy's hardline position," a group of 30 economists from the University of the Philippines said in a recent paper.
But despite the arguments of the church and political opponents who decry using state funds to finance contraception, a poll last year showed about 70 percent of people support the bill. Its backers want it passed during the term of this congress, which ends in June.
Economists say if the Philippines is ever to take advantage of a "demographic dividend", when a large, young workforce is generating the savings and investment to give the economy a sustained boost, it will have to bring down the fertility rate.
The median age in the Philippines is only 22.2 compared with 25 in Malaysia, India's 25.1 and Indonesia's 27.8.
Unlike aging countries such as Japan, where the elderly put a burden on the working population, in the Philippines it's the children who command the resources that could otherwise be diverted to savings and investment.
There are 58 dependents for every 100 working-age people in the Philippines, according to World Bank data, compared with 40 in Indonesia and 29 in Thailand.
"The demographic window will only open if fertility rates are going to go down in such a way that the young-age population will grow at a slower rate than the working-age population," said Arsenio Balisacan, socio-economic planning secretary.
Aquino might seem an unlikely champion of free contraception. His late mother, Corazon Aquino, rose to power at the head of a people power revolution, fostered by the church, that swept away old dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1986.
Marcos had made reining in population growth a priority beginning in the 1960s and enshrined family planning in a 1973 constitution. But Corazon Aquino, mindful of the church's help in the democracy movement, scrapped that clause when the charter was rewritten in 1987.
($1 = 42.0300 pesos)
By Karen Lema
Oct 2, 2012
(Reuters)
Philippine President Benigno Aquino is squaring off against his country's powerful Catholic church in a bid to give people free access to the means to limit the size of their families.
The predominately Catholic country has one of Asia's fastest-growing populations together with significant levels of chronic poverty. While neighbours have accelerated towards prosperity, the Philippines has lagged.
Economists say high population growth is a primary factor for that, but the church disagrees. It says population growth is not a cause of poverty and that people need jobs, not contraception.
Aquino, a Catholic like 80 percent of the population, has thrown his support behind a reproductive health bill that will, if passed by the two houses of Congress, guarantee access to free birth control and promote sex education.
That's something that Liza Cabiya-an might have benefited from, if she'd had the opportunity.
Cabiya-an, 39, has 14 children. The oldest is 22, the youngest just 11 months. Their home is a hut in a Manila slum.
"It's tough when you have so many children," said Cabiya-an, a shy smile revealing poor teeth. "I have to count them before I go to sleep to make sure no one's missing."
At one time Cabiya-an had access to contraception but Manila mayor Jose Atienza, a devout Catholic, swept contraceptives from the shelves of city-run clinics in 2000.
After that, Cabiya-an's efforts to limit the size of her family were patchy, restricted by her meager resources. She went on and off the pill and resorted to an illegal abortion more than once.
With income of about 7,600 pesos ($180) a month from doing laundry and her husband's pay as a labourer, Cabiya-an has only been able to send five of her children to school. The others would appear doomed to join the quarter of the country's 95 million people stuck below the poverty line.
Contraceptives are generally available in the Philippines although they are not used as much as elsewhere.
In the Philippines, 45-50 percent of women of reproductive age, or their partners, are using a contraceptive method at any given time. Indonesia's rate is 56 percent and Thailand's 80 percent.
Population growth mirrors that. The Philippines population is increasing by 1.9 percent a year, while Indonesia's is 1.2 percent and Thailand's is 0.9 percent. China's population is growing at an annual rate of 0.6 percent.
"If you increase access to contraceptives for women ... you will have births averted," said Josefina Natividad, director of the University of the Philippines' Population Institute.
Though available in most places, the cost of contraceptives is prohibitive for many people. But that should change if the reproductive health bill is passed.
Aquino's government has promised what it calls inclusive growth and it sees slowing population growth as key to that.
"The president has already, at the risk of alienating the church, declared that the bill is a priority," Budget Secretary Florencio Abad said. "That message is very clear."
"STATE IMMOBILISED"
But it's a message the church doesn't like.
It says artificial contraception is immoral, and the bill will pave the way to legalizing abortion. The bill does not legalize abortion though it seeks to improve care for women suffering from complications after an illegal abortion.
The church says people should use natural family planning.
It says poverty is a cause, not effect, of a high birth rate. Children are being born into homes without enough food to eat because of the government's failure to end corruption and provide jobs, the bishops say.
"It's our firm belief that contraceptives will never be the answer," said Father Melvin Castro, executive secretary of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines' Episcopal Commission on Family and Life.
"They are poor not because they have no access to contraceptives but because they have no work. Give them work and it will be the most effective birth spacing means for them."
Economists say the church's persistent opposition has been the most important factor influencing population policy.
"The state ... has been immobilized from effectively addressing the issue by the Catholic hierarchy's hardline position," a group of 30 economists from the University of the Philippines said in a recent paper.
But despite the arguments of the church and political opponents who decry using state funds to finance contraception, a poll last year showed about 70 percent of people support the bill. Its backers want it passed during the term of this congress, which ends in June.
Economists say if the Philippines is ever to take advantage of a "demographic dividend", when a large, young workforce is generating the savings and investment to give the economy a sustained boost, it will have to bring down the fertility rate.
The median age in the Philippines is only 22.2 compared with 25 in Malaysia, India's 25.1 and Indonesia's 27.8.
Unlike aging countries such as Japan, where the elderly put a burden on the working population, in the Philippines it's the children who command the resources that could otherwise be diverted to savings and investment.
There are 58 dependents for every 100 working-age people in the Philippines, according to World Bank data, compared with 40 in Indonesia and 29 in Thailand.
"The demographic window will only open if fertility rates are going to go down in such a way that the young-age population will grow at a slower rate than the working-age population," said Arsenio Balisacan, socio-economic planning secretary.
Aquino might seem an unlikely champion of free contraception. His late mother, Corazon Aquino, rose to power at the head of a people power revolution, fostered by the church, that swept away old dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1986.
Marcos had made reining in population growth a priority beginning in the 1960s and enshrined family planning in a 1973 constitution. But Corazon Aquino, mindful of the church's help in the democracy movement, scrapped that clause when the charter was rewritten in 1987.
($1 = 42.0300 pesos)
New research states no hope in preventing sea level rise (Video)
Buying land about a mile in from the coast line of all the Earth’s present coastal regions is a sound real estate investment strategy...
New research states no hope in preventing sea level rise (Video)
OCTOBER 2, 2012
PAUL HAMAKER
Examiner.com
More precise predictions of sea level changes published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, the Institute of Physics journal, on October 1, 2012, are the first to predict sea levels rise due to climate change that included all potential sources of added fresh water to the world's oceans
The newest model developed includes expansion of ocean volume due to increased temperature for the first time. A more accurate prediction based on present polar ice sheet rates of melting and the inclusion of the melting of the majority of the Earth’s 200 glaciers make this model the most accurate yet devised.
Polar ice and ocean volume are the majority contributors to sea level rise. Glacier melting is a small contributor relative to the other two.
The news is not good.
Shows how much energy is added to the various parts of the climate system due to global warming, according to the 2007 IPCC AR(4) WG1 Sec 5.2.2.3
Even if the entire world adopted the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) emissions scenario that appears to be most accepted across the globe, sea levels will rise 22 feet by the year 3000.
The researchers from Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Manchester Metropolitan University and the Université catholique de Louvain are the first climate scientists to admit the inevitability of sea level rise at an ever accelerating rate to due the intransigence of most countries in adopting any form of emissions containment that might make a difference and the impossibility of even the most austere emissions measure to reverse an inevitable result.
Buying land about a mile in from the coast line of all the Earth’s present coastal regions is a sound real estate investment strategy for today’s entrepreneurs plans for their grand children.
The research was reviewed at the Eureka Alert web site on October 1, 2012.
New research states no hope in preventing sea level rise (Video)
OCTOBER 2, 2012
PAUL HAMAKER
Examiner.com
More precise predictions of sea level changes published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, the Institute of Physics journal, on October 1, 2012, are the first to predict sea levels rise due to climate change that included all potential sources of added fresh water to the world's oceans
The newest model developed includes expansion of ocean volume due to increased temperature for the first time. A more accurate prediction based on present polar ice sheet rates of melting and the inclusion of the melting of the majority of the Earth’s 200 glaciers make this model the most accurate yet devised.
Polar ice and ocean volume are the majority contributors to sea level rise. Glacier melting is a small contributor relative to the other two.
The news is not good.
Shows how much energy is added to the various parts of the climate system due to global warming, according to the 2007 IPCC AR(4) WG1 Sec 5.2.2.3
Even if the entire world adopted the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) emissions scenario that appears to be most accepted across the globe, sea levels will rise 22 feet by the year 3000.
The researchers from Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Manchester Metropolitan University and the Université catholique de Louvain are the first climate scientists to admit the inevitability of sea level rise at an ever accelerating rate to due the intransigence of most countries in adopting any form of emissions containment that might make a difference and the impossibility of even the most austere emissions measure to reverse an inevitable result.
Buying land about a mile in from the coast line of all the Earth’s present coastal regions is a sound real estate investment strategy for today’s entrepreneurs plans for their grand children.
The research was reviewed at the Eureka Alert web site on October 1, 2012.
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