Don't sign on the dotted line......

• How does this affect me personally? - Amanda
  • Don't sign on the dotted line...... - sm
    • on the other hand... - Amanda
      • It doesn't sound like you have any choice...... - sm
  • Another AIG problem - Midas Rex
    • I would check into that for any guarantees. - Backwards typist
  • I don't know the answer to your question... - Alex
    • Have a lawyer... - Amanda
      • P.S. I hope you fight to the end. - anonymous for now.
      • That doesn't sound good. I worry myself - anonymous for now.

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That is such a typical party line statement, it took my breath away.  I am not saying that questioning and challenge is not good. It is.  But just joining in without question is frightening. It reminds me of Nazi Germany.  By the way, Not in Our Name is not what they seem to be.  I really question your causes, but certainly not your right to participate in them.  I would hardly wear being arrested, for whatever reason, as a badge of honor. It isn't.  There are many ways to support a cause and do it legally. 

'MAINSTREAM' USEFUL IDIOTS
By BYRON YORK

The organization itself is not broad-based at all, but is, rather, one of a
small group of radical sects devoted to causes far removed from the antiwar
effort. Not In Our Name is in fact two groups, which began as one.  The
group relies on tax-exempt foundations that in the past have been - and
today still are - affiliated with a variety of radical causes, including the
defense of convicted murderer Mumia Abu-Jamal, support for Fidel Castro's
regime in Cuba and involvement with figures linked to Middle Eastern
terrorism.
The organization was created in March 2002 by a gathering of left-wing
activists that included representatives from the Revolutionary Communist
Party, the All-African Peoples Revolutionary Party, Refuse and Resist!, the
International League of Peoples' Struggle and the National Lawyers Guild,
among others.

There had been concern among organizers that some of those who might be
inclined to sign the statement )in opposition to a war on Iraq) might not
want to be associated with Not In Our Name's activist wing. So the group
created two separate entities, one called the Not In Our Name Statement
(which handles the manifesto and the collecting of celebrity signatures) and
the other called the Not In Our Name Project (which handles street
demonstrations and other protests).

Today, the staffs and finances of both groups are managed independently.
Still, both parts of Not In Our Name need to raise money. Rather than
creating foundations to collect cash, they formed alliances with so-called
fiscal sponsors - that is, already established foundations that could use
their tax-exempt status for fundraising.

THE Not In Our Name statement that appeared in the Times included a small
box asking that donations be sent to something called the Bill of Rights
Foundation. Last year, the foundation agreed to serve as Not In Our Name
Statement's fiscal sponsor, but a look at the group's Internal Revenue
Service records shows that until recently, it has had nothing at all to do
with the peace movement. Rather, almost every dollar raised by the group for
several years went to the legal defense of Mumia Abu-Jamal, the convicted
cop-killer whose case has become a cause célèbre among some on the Left.

In 2001, for example, the foundation spent a total of $102,152, of which
$95,737 went toward Abu-Jamal's legal expenses. In the year 2000, the
foundation spent $75,956, of which $57,722 was for Abu-Jamal. And in 1999,
the foundation spent $155,547, of which $139,126 went to Abu-Jamal's
lawyers.

At the end of 2001, Abu-Jamal changed his legal and finance team, leaving
the Bill of Rights Foundation without its main cause. In 2002, it hooked up
with Not In Our Name Statement. Foundation president Judith Levin sees the
Abu-Jamal case and opposition to a possible war as closely linked. They're
related as a matter of principle, she explains. The connection is the
violation of civil rights of people in this country.

FOR its fund raising, the Not In Our Name Project is allied with another
foundation, this one called the Interreligious Foundation for Community
Organization. Founded by several New Left leaders in 1967 to advance the
struggles of oppressed people for justice and self-determination, IFCO was
originally created to serve as the fundraising arm of a variety of activist
organizations that lacked the resources to raise money for themselves.

In recent years, IFCO served as fiscal sponsor for an organization called
the National Coalition to Protect Political Freedom (their partnership ended
when the coalition formed its own tax-exempt foundation). Founded in 1997 as
a reaction to the 1996 Anti-Terrorism Act, the coalition says its function
is to oppose the use of secret evidence in terrorism prosecutions.

Until recently, the group's president was Sami Al-Arian, a University of
South Florida computer-science professor who has been suspended for alleged
ties to terrorism. (He is still a member of the coalition's board.)
According to a New York Times report last year, Al-Arian is accused of
having sent hundreds of thousands of dollars, raised by another charity he
runs, to Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The Times also reported that FBI
investigators suspected Mr. Al-Arian operated 'a fund-raising front' for
the Islamic Jihad movement in Palestine from the late 1980s to 1995.
Al-Arian also brought a man named Ramadan Abdullah Shallah to the University
of South Florida to raise money for one of Al-Arian's foundations - a job
Shallah held until he later became the head of Islamic Jihad.

TODAY, IFCO sponsors Refuse and Resist!, an antiwar group with ties to the
Revolutionary Communist Party, and also devotes substantial energy to
supporting the Castro regime in Cuba. Cuba is a particular favorite of
IFCO's executive director, the Rev. Lucius Walker, who, addressing a
solidarity conference in Havana in November 2000, proclaimed, Long live
the struggle of the Cuban people! Long live the creative example of the
Cuban Revolution! Long live the wisdom and heartfelt concern for the poor of
the world by Fidel Castro! Both IFCO and the Bill of Rights Foundation are
tax-exempt 501(c)(3) charities, which means that all contributions made to
them - whether for antiwar protests, Cuban solidarity rallies, or the
defense of Mumia Abu-Jamal - are fully tax-deductible.

The groups have been quite successful. The most recent IRS records available
for IFCO, from the year 2000, show that the foundation took in $1,119,564 in
contributions. For their part, organizers of the Not In Our Name Statement
report that they have taken in more than $400,000 in recent months for the
purpose of publishing their statement. It is not possible to say who is
giving the money, or whether it comes from many people or just a few;
federal laws do not require tax-exempt foundations to reveal their donors -
or even whether donations are received from inside or outside the United
States.

'WE who sign this statement call on all Americans to join together, says
the Not In Our Name manifesto. To hear the group's leaders speak, one might
think that is actually happening, that there really is a broad-based
movement represented by these activists. But a look at the people and
organizations involved in Not In Our Name suggests otherwise - no matter how
many celebrity signatures they might collect.

Byron York is National Review's White House correspondent. From the Feb. 24
issue

SEE BOTTOM OF MESSAGE FOR SIGN PIC FIRST.

======================================

CNN) -- An atheist sign criticizing Christianity that was erected alongside a Nativity scene was taken from the Legislative Building in Olympia, Washington, on Friday and later found in a ditch.

An employee from country radio station KMPS-FM in Seattle told CNN the sign was dropped off at the station by someone who found it in a ditch. "I thought it would be safe," Freedom From Religion Foundation co-founder Annie Laurie Gaylor told CNN earlier Friday. "It's always a shock when your sign is censored or stolen or mutilated. It's not something you get used to." The sign, which celebrates the winter solstice, has had some residents and Christian organizations calling atheists Scrooges because they said it was attacking the celebration of Jesus Christ's birth.
"Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds," the sign from the Freedom From Religion Foundation says in part. The sign, which was at the Legislative Building at 6:30 a.m. PT, was gone by 7:30 a.m., Gaylor said. The incident will not stifle the group's message, Gaylor said. Before reports of the placard's recovery, she said a temporary sign with the same message would be placed in the building's Rotunda. Gaylor said a note would be attached saying, "Thou shalt not steal."

"I guess they don't follow their own commandments," Gaylor said. "There's nothing out there with the atheist point of view, and now there is such a firestorm that we have the audacity to exist. And then [whoever took the sign] stifles our speech."

Gaylor said that police are checking security cameras pointed at the building's entrances and exits to see if they can see anyone stealing the sign.
 
"It's probably about 50 pounds, " Gaylor said. "My brother-in-law was huffing and puffing carrying it up the stairs. It's definitely not something you can stick under your arm or conceal."

The Washington State Patrol, which is handling the incident, could not be reached for comment.

Dan Barker, a former evangelical preacher and co-founder of the group, said it was important for atheists to see their viewpoints validated alongside everyone else's.

Barker said the display is especially important given that 25 percent of Washington state residents are unaffiliated with religion or do not believe in God. (A recent survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found 23 percent of Washingtonians said they were unaffiliated with a religion and 7 percent said they didn't believe in God.)
"It's not that we are trying to coerce anyone; in a way our sign is a signal of protest," Barker said. "If there can be a Nativity scene saying that we are all going to he**ll if we don't bow down to Jesus, we should be at the table to share our views."

He said if anything, it's the Nativity scene that is the intrusion.

"Most people think December is for Christians and view our signs as an intrusion, when actually it's the other way around," he said. "People have been celebrating the winter solstice long before Christmas. We see Christianity as the intruder, trying to steal the holiday from all of us humans."

The scene in Washington state is not unfamiliar. Barker has had signs in Madison, Wisconsin, for 13 years. The placard is often turned around so the message can't be seen, and one year, someone threw acid on it, forcing the group to encase it in Plexiglas.

In Washington, D.C., the American Humanist Association began a bus ad campaign this month questioning belief in God.

"Why believe in a God?" the advertisement asks. "Just be good for goodness sake."

That ad has caused the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority to field hundreds of complaints, the group said, but it has heard just as much positive feedback, said Fred Edwords, the association's spokesman.

Edwords said the ad campaign, which features a shrugging Santa Claus, was not meant to attack Christmas but rather to reach out to an untapped audience.

Edwords maintains the campaign began in December mostly because the group had extra money left over for the year. The connection to Christmas is a coincidence, he said.

"There are a lot of people out there who don't know there are organizations like ours to serve their needs," Edwords said. "The thing is, to reach a minority group, in order to be heard, everyone in the room has to hear you, even when they don't want to."

The ad campaign, Edwords said, is to make people think. He said he doesn't expect to "convert" anyone.
But the Christian Coalition of America is urging members to oppose the advertisements.

"Although a number of humanists and atheists continue to attempt to rid God and Christmas from the public square, the American people are overwhelmingly opposed to such efforts," Roberta Combs, the group's president said in a press release.

"We will ask our millions of supporters to call the city of Washington, D.C., and Congress to stop this un-Godly campaign."

As far as the criticism goes, Edwords said there are far more controversial placards in Washington.
"That's D.C. -- this is a political center," he said. "If I can see a placard with dead fetuses on it, I think someone can look at our question and just think about it."

The anger over the display in Olympia began after it was assembled Monday. The sentiment grew after some national media personalities called upon viewers to flood the phone lines of the governor's office.

The governor's office told The Seattle Times it received more than 200 calls an hour afterward.

"I happen to be a Christian, and I don't agree with the display that is up there," Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire told The Olympian newspaper. "But that doesn't mean that as governor, I have the right to deny their ability to express their free speech."

For some, the issue isn't even that the atheists are putting their thoughts on display, but rather the way in which they are doing it.

"They are shooting themselves in the foot," said iReport contributor Rich Phillips, who describes himself as an atheist. "Everyone's out there for the holidays, trying to represent their religion, their beliefs, and it's a time to be positive."
The atheist message was never intended to attack anyone, Barker said.

"When people ask us, 'Why are you hateful? Why are you putting up something critical of people's holidays? -- we respond that we kind of feel that the Christian message is the hate message," he said. "On that Nativity scene, there is this threat of internal violence if we don't submit to that master. Hate speech goes both ways."

bill with pork in it either but we see how well that went down.  Obama does nothing to hide his lies.  The media and kool-aid drinkers do it for him so he blatantly lies for all to see and yet his robots still refuse to see it. 

Our country is in serious trouble and all Obama cares about is spending spending spending for his own personal agenda.  Just another politican looking out for his own personal interests without giving a second thought to the Americans who are suffering.

STOP GOVERNMENT SPENDING!!!!!!!!!

But am I the only one who finds it disgraceful that Americans are reduced to BEGGING this president, via a petition, to PLEASE do SOMETHING to help keep Americans safe? Every other word out of his mouth has to do with the "war on terror" (or whatever his phrase de jour currently is).  Yet, after four years, he STILL couldn't care less if our borders are secure.

This is not a new issue.  This is what some of us on these boards have been saying for a long time now.  After 9/11, experts in terrorism said we MUST secure our borders.  Instead, Bush chose to spend billions of dollars on his war against Iraq and throwing Americans to the wolves.

As I said, I will gladly sign this petition, not believing for a nanosecond that it will do any good because this president simply doesn't CARE.  And all that does is give me one more reason to loathe and despise him, and it increases the personal terror I feel daily at the fact that our safety lies in his thoroughly incompetent, ignorant, uncaring hands.

Ya'll complaining about welfare when it only compromises about 12% of your tax dollars being spent - when, I bet dollars to donuts - ya'll get the "earned income credit" which is a kickback on tax returns which amounts to more than you paid.....WELFARE!  Don't cry to me about supporting other people............witless greed all the way down to the bottom of the barrel.

Like George did, the new generation of Bushes let other Americans do the dying for them.

Bush has derided the mothers and fathers of our nation's war dead for not wanting any more young American men and women to die in Iraq. We owe them [the already killed and wounded soldiers] something, he told veterans in Salt Lake City (even though his administration tried to shortchange the veterans agency by $1.5 billion, according to Maureen Dowd). We will finish the task that they gave their lives for.

BUSH EXTENDED FAMILY PHOTO taken January 20, 2005

Yet, not one -- not one -- of any of Bush's children or his nieces and nephews have volunteered for service in any branch of the military or volunteered to serve in any capacity in Iraq. Not one of them has felt the cause was noble enough to put his or her life on the line.

Here is the full list of the children of Bush and his siblings who have chosen to let other young men and women -- mostly poor, rural and minorities -- die for them, because they have no desire to die for George W. Bush's alleged noble cause (assuming an eligible age of 17 with parental consent to join the military):

Military Service Eligible Children of George W. Bush
Jenna Bush
Barbara Bush

Military Service Eligible Children of Jeb Bush
George P. Bush
Noelle Bush
John Ellis Bush Jr.

Military Service Eligible Children of Neil Bush
Lauren Bush
Pierce Bush

Military Service Eligible Children of Marvin Bush
Marshall Bush

Military Service Eligible Children of Dorothy Bush Koch
Samuel LeBlond
Ellie LeBlond

Here is the complete chart:

Click image for full size

Furthermore, not one of George's siblings served in the military when they were eligible, and Bush got a cozy stateside position in the Texas Air National Guard to avoid risking his life in another noble war, Vietnam.

Why do George W. Bush, his siblings, and their children think that the war is noble enough for kids like Casey Sheehan to die in, but not them?

Sign this petition, demanding that the Bush sibling children serve in George's noble war or he must bring the troops home now. Because if it's not noble enough for the Bush family to risk their lives fighting for, it's just a disastrous graveyard for poor and middle class Americans, dug deep to advance Bush's partisan agenda.

Bush can be brave with other people's children, because he has nothing personally to risk.

The Audacity of FOCA

BY The Editors

October 19-25, 2008 Issue | Posted 10/14/08 at 10:00 AM

As the election quickly approaches, the U.S. bishops are shining a harsh spotlight on one bill: the Freedom of Choice Act, commonly called FOCA. FOCA is again before Congress; its chief sponsor in the Senate is Barbara Boxer and one of its co-sponsors is presidential candidate Barack Obama.

In July 2007, Obama told a Planned Parenthood audience: “The first thing I’d do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act.” Search YouTube.com for the words “Obama” and “FOCA” to hear it for yourself. Since Obama has said that signing FOCA into law would be his first priority as a new president, summarizing the bill answers the question: For what change does Barack Obama have the audacity to hope?

The U.S. bishops’ summary of FOCA points out:

• It creates a “fundamental right” to abortion throughout the nine months of pregnancy. No governmental body at any level would be able to “deny or interfere with” this right, or to “discriminate” against the exercise of this right “in the regulation or provision of benefits, facilities, services, or information.” For the first time, abortion would become an entitlement the government must condone and promote.

• Some states require that women be told about the risks of abortion. FOCA would erase all informed-consent laws states have enacted.

• Many states require that parents be informed and sign off on their daughters’ abortions, just as they are informed and involved in every other surgical procedure. FOCA would override and end all parental-involvement laws.

• Some states have laws promoting maternal health. Obama’s FOCA wouldn’t allow them.

• Regulation on abortion “clinics” helps keep these businesses responding to health and safety concerns. FOCA would end these regulations.

• FOCA would disallow “government programs and facilities that pay for or promote childbirth and other health care without subsidizing abortion,” say the U.S. bishops.

• Conscience-protection laws would end. These currently allow Catholic and other pro-life hospitals, doctors, medical students and health-care workers to opt out of participating in abortion in many places.

• After FOCA, any laws that prohibit a particular abortion procedure, such as partial-birth abortion, will no longer be in force.

• FOCA would also strike laws requiring that abortions only be performed by a licensed physician.

For a careful legal analysis of FOCA by the U.S. bishops’ Office of General Counsel, or a summary fact sheet to distribute, see NCHLA.org.

In a Sept. 19 letter to members of Congress, Cardinal Justin Rigali, chairman of the bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities, raised the bishops’ concerns about any possible consideration of FOCA.

“Despite its deceptive title, FOCA would deprive the American people in all 50 states of the freedom they now have to enact modest restraints and regulations on the abortion industry,” wrote Cardinal Rigali. It would also “counteract any and all sincere efforts by government to reduce abortions in our country.”

nm