Oregon Christian Coalition Head Resigns - Family Sexual Abuse
Posted By: Lilly on 2005-10-12 In Reply to:
If these are *family values* then the right is RIGHT. I'm proud to say I don't have 'em!
These people get scarier and scarier every day, and I'm keeping my children away from them!
Christian Coalition head to withdraw from political life
10/10/2005, 5:50 p.m. PT
By RUKMINI CALLIMACHI The Associated Press
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The longtime head of the Christian Coalition of Oregon said Monday that he is withdrawing from public life, a day after news reports detailed accusations of sexual abuse against him by three female relatives.
I am thankful for a family that loves and supports me, and intend to withdraw from public life until this is resolved, Lou Beres wrote in a statement posted on the organization's web site, at http://www.coalition.org
Beres has denied any criminal misconduct and wrote that he will pursue the Biblical response and do all within my power to reconcile with that person.
Multnomah County District Attorney Michael Schrunk told The Oregonian newspaper that officials are investigating the complaints against Beres.
The three women — now adults — allege they were abused by Beres as preteens. Their families called the child abuse hot line last month, after the three openly discussed the alleged abuse for the first time.
I was molested, one of the women, now in her 50s, told The Oregonian. I was victimized and I've suffered all my life for it. I'm still afraid to be in the same room with him.
Beres, 70, has blamed personal and political enemies for the complaint.
Only one of the three cases appears to fall under Oregon's statute of limitations on sex abuse, which expires after six years. Authorities said that case involves a young woman who was allegedly abused by Beres when she was in elementary school.
A nephew of Beres' is standing up for the three women.
My family has gone through hell, said Richard Galat, 41, of Oakland, Calif., who told detectives that his uncle had molested several female relatives over the years.
Lives have been ruined. Those of us who have come forward have been ostracized, verbally abused and the victims of character assassination...It must stop, he said.
In response to Galat's statements, Beres said on the Christian Coalition web site Monday, I am grieved by the false allegations of my nephew, Richard Galat. I am attempting to determine the source of each claim.
Beres, who did not immediately return a phone message from The Associated Press, is the former head of the Republican Party in Multnomah County, the Democratic stronghold that includes Portland.
Jim Moore, who teaches political science at Pacific University in Forest Grove, said Monday that Beres has not been particularly influential in Oregon politics.
In fact, under his leadership, the Christian Coalition in Oregon has gone downhill.
In state legislative races in 2004, for example, Moore said that, we found that Christian Coalition candidates basically did not do as well as they did in the past.
Oregon Republican Chairman Vance Day said Beres hasn't been much of a factor in state GOP politics since he stepped down as Multnomah County chairman about 10 years ago.
I don't view this as having any major impact on politics here in Oregon; I don't think the Christian Coalition has a big footprint here at all, he said.
The group did support a constitutional amendment against gay marriage that passed handily with voters in November of 2004, but support for that cause was rallied by another conservative-leaning group, the Defense of Marriage Coalition.
Tim Nashif, the political director of that group, said he has few details about the allegations, and added that his group is not associated with the Christian Coalition.
Anytime any family goes through anything like this it's a pretty grievous situation and our hearts go out to them, he said. The truth has a tendency to come out.
Complete Discussion Below: marks the location of current message within thread
The Christian Coalition, the onetime powerhouse of the religious right founded by Pat Robertson, is struggling to stay afloat.
The group’s annual revenue has shrunk to one- twentieth of what it was a decade ago – from a peak of $26 million in 1996 to $1.3 million in 2004 – and it has left a trail of unpaid bills from Texas to Virginia. Among the creditors who have sued the coalition for nonpayment are landlords, direct-mail companies, lawyers and at least one former employee seeking back pay.
It has even come to this: The company that moved the group out of its Washington headquarters in 2002 went to small-claims court Friday in Henrico County trying to collect $1,890 that remains unpaid on its three-year-old bill.
It is the latest in at least a dozen judicial collection actions brought against the coalition since 2001. The amounts sought by creditors total hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The reasons for the group’s decline are legion, say supporters, critics and experts who have followed its trajectory. Among them are the loss of key leaders, including Robertson, who resigned as president in 2001; alleged mismanagement by his successors; the cyclical nature of politics; and bitter infighting within the organization and with other political players on the religious right.
CHRISTIAN COALITION TIMELINE
1988 After Pat Robertson’s failed bid for the Republican presidential nomination, he turns to Ralph Reed – a shrewd political operative who became a highly visible spokesman for the religious right – for day-to-day operations of the coalition founded in 1989.
1997 Ralph Reed leaves the coalition and later sets up a political consulting business in Georgia, where he is now seeking the 2006 Republican nomination for lieutenant governor.
2000 The coalition, which had been based in Chesapeake through the 1990s, moves to an office on Capitol Hill in Washington.
2001 Robertson resigns as president, turning over the reins to Roberta Combs, right, who, within a year, closes the Washington office and moves the group to South Carolina. Since its move to South Carolina, the coalition has been pursued by a variety of creditors, including suppliers of services for its 2002 “Road to Victory” rally in Washington.
2004 In a fiscal report to South Carolina, the coalition claims revenue of $1.3 million and expenses of $1.5 million, leaving a $200,000 deficit.
“Their future is really bleak,” said Mark J. Rozell, a professor of public policy at George Mason University who has followed the Christian conservative movement for years. “The Christian Coalition is a shell of its former self.”
In one sense, the group is a victim of its own success, Rozell said. It is widely credited with helping Republicans seize control of Congress in 1994 and the White House in 2000, but with those goals achieved, it has lost much of its reason for being.
“These types of opposition groups tend to do really well when the other party is in power – especially, for a religious right group, when the folks in power are Bill and Hillary Clinton,” Rozell said. “But when Bush is in the White House and the Republicans control Congress, the need for a Christian Coalition as a counterweight to established power just isn’t that great.”
Coalition officials insist everything’s fine. As if to underline the point, last month they announced the hiring of a new executive director, Jason T. Christy, the 34-year-old publisher of The Church Report, a national news and business journal for pastors and Christian leaders.
“The Christian Coalition is going to be around for a long time,” said Roberta Combs, the group’s president. “I really believe that with all my heart.”
The coalition arose from the ashes of a failed 1988 bid for the Republican presidential nomination by Robertson, the Virginia Beach-based founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network.
To run the group’s day-to-day affairs, Robertson brought in Ralph Reed – a shrewd political operative who became a highly visible spokesman for the religious right.
The coalition mobilized millions of conservative Christians with its voter guides – pocket-sized candidate scorecards distributed in churches.
Reed left the coalition in 1997 and set up a political consulting business in Georgia, where he is now seeking the 2006 Republican nomination for lieutenant governor. He has also become a central figure in the American Indian casino gambling scandal surrounding indicted Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
The coalition hit its zenith in 1996, when it pulled in a record $26 million in revenue. By contrast, in its 2004 annual report to the South Carolina secretary of state, the group reported $1.3 million in revenue and $1.5 million in expenses, leaving a $200,000 deficit.
Based in Chesapeake through the 1990s, the coalition moved to an office on Capitol Hill in Washington in 2000. Its Chesapeake landlord sued the group in 2001 for $76,546 in back rent, in a case that is still open in Chesapeake Circuit Court.
Within months of the move to Washington, 10 black employees filed a racial discrimination lawsuit alleging that they were forced to enter the office by the back door and eat in a segregated area. The coalition settled the suit in December 2001 for about $300,000, according to several published reports.
That same month, Robertson announced his resignation as president, saying he wanted to spend more time on his broadcast ministry and Regent University, the Christian school he founded next door in Virginia Beach. He was succeeded as president by Combs, head of the coalition’s South Carolina chapter, who closed the Capitol Hill headquarters in November 2002 and now runs the group from an office in Charleston, S.C.
On its Web site, the coalition still lists a Washington post office box as its mailing address, but it no longer has an office in the capital. It employs a lobbyist who works out of his home.
It was the move from Capitol Hill that left an unpaid bill resulting in the claim against the coalition Friday in Henrico County. The coalition is contesting the claim.
Since its move to South Carolina, the coalition has been pursued by a variety of creditors, including the mailing companies Pitney-Bowes and Federal Express. The group has also been sued by suppliers of audio, lighting, exhibit construction and other services for its 2002 “Road to Victory” rally in Washington, which featured a star-studded lineup of speakers, including Robertson and now-indicted House leader Tom DeLay.
Even the coalition’s longtime Virginia Beach law firm, Huff, Poole & Mahoney, has joined the chase. The firm secured a $63,958 judgment for back legal bills in 2003 that resulted in a garnishment of the group’s bank account and a partial payment of $21,136. The firm has retained a South Carolina attorney to try to collect the rest.
One of the coalition’s most costly legal battles was a 2002 blowup with Focus Direct Inc., a San Antonio direct-mail company that sued the group over a major fundraising campaign that went sour. The case dragged on for two years. Combs said it was settled for $200,000.
One of the coalition’s co-defendants, Northern Virginia fundraiser William G. Sidebottom, declared bankruptcy as a result. His attorney, Kevin M. Young of San Antonio, said it was a messy case.
“My father was a preacher, and I became aware of an old saying: 'There’s no politics like church politics,’” Young said. “This is an example of that. On the outside, everybody’s making a happy face, but behind the curtain, it was pretty unseemly.”
And then there’s family politics.
Combs hired her daughter Michele as communications director and Michele’s husband, Tracy Ammons, as a Capitol Hill lobbyist. When their marriage dissolved into a nasty divorce and child-custody battle, Ammons was fired.
He then sued the coalition for $130,000 in unpaid salary, accusing his mother-in-law of “personal animosity and malice” arising out of a desire to break up the marriage.
Explaining in an affidavit how he went months without a paycheck, Ammons said: “I believed that … I could trust my own mother-in-law.”
In another affidavit filed in the Ammons case, Tammy Farmer, who worked at the coalition as a bookkeeper in 2001, said she found the group’s financial affairs in disarray.
“I witnessed a very consistent and chronic pattern of Roberta Combs intentionally refusing to pay valid debts, salaries and accounts for no discernible reason,” Farmer said.
As the overdue bills piled up, Farmer said, telephone service would be cut off occasionally and vendors would refuse to do further business with the coalition.
Farmer said Combs frequently told her, “Don’t pay … they’ll never sue.”
Debt is nothing new for the coalition, Combs said Friday.
“In 1999, when I came into the national organization, it had debt,” she said. “I had to do a lot of creative things. It has less debt now than it had then.”
The Ammons case is in arbitration, but fallout from it continues. Arlington County Circuit Judge Joanne F. Alper imposed $83,141 in sanctions against Ammons and his attorney, Jonathon Moseley, for improper and frivolous pleadings. Both declared bankruptcy as a result.
The coalition’s attorney, Brad D. Weiss, moved last month to withdraw from the Ammons case, citing an “irreconcilable conflict” among himself, the coalition leadership and its board.
Meanwhile, two other attorneys, H. Jason Gold and Alexander M. Laughlin, who had been representing the coalition in the Ammons bankruptcy proceedings, moved to withdraw as well. Their reason: The coalition had failed to pay them.
News researcher Jakon Hays contributed to this story.
The founding pastor of a second Colorado church has resigned over gay sex allegations, just weeks after the evangelical community was shaken by the scandal surrounding megachurch leader Ted Haggard.
Haggard, a gay-marriage opponent, admitted to unspecified sexual immorality when he resigned last month as president of the National Association of Evangelicals and pastor of the 14,000-member New Life Church in Colorado Springs. A male prostitute had said he had had sex with Haggard for three years.
On Sunday, Paul Barnes, founding pastor of the 2,100-member Grace Chapel in this Denver suburb, told his evangelical congregation in a videotaped message he had had sexual relations with other men and was stepping down.
Dave Palmer, associate pastor of Grace Chapel, told The Denver Post that Barnes confessed to him after the church received a call last week.
The church board of elders accepted Barnes' resignation on Thursday.
On the videotape, which The Post was allowed to view, Barnes told church members: I have struggled with homosexuality since I was a 5-year-old boy. ... I can't tell you the number of nights I have cried myself to sleep, begging God to take this away.
Barnes, 54, led Grace Chapel for 28 years. He and his wife have two adult children.
Palmer said in a written statement that While we cannot condone what he has done, we continue to support and love Paul.
This morning I heard James Carville say that it seems Obama is looking toward more of a coalition gov., with both Democrats and Republicans in his cabinet.
This seems to me like a very good thing - one way to get cooperation from the Republicans in Congress, probably.
Obama pressures Philly area synagogue to drop RJC Rrepresentative from a ... The RJC has launched a new series of ads raising critical issues for the Jewish... www.rjchq.org/ - 44k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this
Religious Coalition for Choice
I received an email last night from the above organization, RCRC.org. It is an organization supported by many major religious supporting reproductive choice. A few of the member groups are:
Catholics for Choice
The American Baptist Church
Presbyterian Church USA
United Methodist Church
Episcopal Church
United Church of Christ
Union for Reformed Judiasm
any many, many more ...
I posted this on this board because the choice issue is a political issue, as well as a faith issue for so many people.
As a Jew, I find it interesting that so many Christian organizations support reproductive choice for women. I'm curious if anyone here belongs to any of these groups or knows anything about the organization. I am still reading up on it myself.
Chairman of Missing and Exploited Children Caucus Resigns...sm
But not before he solicited at least two teenagers via email/internet. See articlee (be sure to read on and see what he says to them).
Family values....Obama's family can't even agree
@@
I feel very sorry indeed for Sarah Palin and her family, she ran for VP, not her family, she should
on her experience, her political record, etc, period, no attacking children, and no one throwing stones at "sinner" daughters, that is what I mean, the media wants to put people on pedestals and then throw stones at them at they hunt down not just the public figure, but all their loved ones, I think it is disgusting, it is a HUMAN issue, has nothing to do with politics on either side, why twist my post that way?
To sexual deviant
Thank you for your post. I totally agree with you. I have to say that I am ashamed that I used the word "normal" in one of my posts to the others becuase I was so offended that people think this way and consider themselves to be "normal". Then after I posted I looked at it and said to myself ugh!.
I have a friend who I was in school with all the way from grade 1 through 12. When we were in high school she told us she was gay. That's when she told us that she had always liked girls since she was in grammar school, but in our little town in the east coast she never dared say anything and when she finally did tell her parents, they treated her horribly. She said I don't do anything differently than you do. I get up, I work, I cook, I eat, I watch movies, it's only my sexual preference.
All I know is I get highly irritated when I hear people trying to meddle in others lifes when it does not affect them and is none of their business. I have the same issues with the right-to-lifers. Why people don't just live their own lives and stop trying to tell other people what to do with theirs.
Again I apologize for stating the word "normal" in my other post.
Sexual intercourse
takes a man and a woman. Imagination won't get you anywhere. All the "love" in the world won't make it happen.
Hey T - Im in Oregon too
I was born and raised in CT, so I always consider myself a New Englander, but now here in GPass Oregon. I'm glad we matter. I've already submitted my vote for him. I do hope we matter because we should be given an equal chance as everyone else.
Here in Oregon
I live in a small town in southern OR (population around 34,000) and it's really bad. 5 houses in our neighborhood have just become vacant (one in foreclosure) just since Christmas. But throughout the town more and more homes are foreclosing and people moving out. I think DH said about 30% of the homes in this town are vacant now. We figure its only a matter of time before the stores start closing down. School teachers have been asked to work one day without pay. Town won't pay any more for police/fire, therefore some 911 calls are going unanswered. Gangs are getting more and more frequent. There's not a lot of industry here (just mainly Wal-Marts, grocery stores, a few restaurant and some mom and pop shops), but whatever industry that is here is laying off. Community colleges are cutting back on a lot of programs. More and more homeless and kids not in school wandering around the town. Not sure how much longer the town will survive. Lots of retired here so they keep going, but there is just nothing to look forward to here. We don't eat out (no money, plus we don't like leaving our home for very long with all the people wandering around). Every day we hear of some house being broken into and it was right after they left to go do something. But they are so bold that they break into your home while your asleep. Overall the economy is very bad here and it looks like no signs of improvement in the near future, if ever at all. This may become a ghost town in a few years and maybe just a vacation spot (that is when people can afford to take vacations again).
Just participating in a Christian church does not make you a Christian (sm)
Everyone who goes to a Christian church is not automatically a Christian. Only God knows if you truly are or not. He could easily still have Muslim values and attend a Christian church. Does he? I have NO IDEA. I really don't know. What I DO KNOW is that the Christian church he attended did not teach what God wants to be taught. I know that from the Bible because we are not supposed to preach hate or damnation, yet that is what his minister preached, LOUDLY.
Yes, Santorum apparently has own sexual repression as well
He apparently would like a threesome. Below is the transcript from when Santorum was on Imus's show the other day:
Santorum: Did your wife tell you that she called me the other day?
Imus: She didn't.
Santorum: She didn't?
Imus: No, what about the autism thing?
Santorum: Well she called and the first thing she said to me was you know Suzanne Wright? I said sure and then she says, well I'd like to do a threesome.
This is one subject we will disagree on. There are plenty of straight people who are sexual deviants. There are a lot of gay people who are way more normal than straight people. All those child molesters, predators who hack up women, pornography predators, etc. - never once have I ever heard any of them were gay.
You may not agree with their lifestyle but it doesn't make it wrong. They are human beings with feelings and emotions. As for anatomy being created for that type of behavior - their parts fit just fine with each other. Marriage is more than just sex anyway. Their lifestyle may not be your cup of tea, but that doesn't make it wrong for them and I believe people should let them live their lives whatever way they want to. Would you want the gays coming in telling you how to live your life?
As for what the bible says (or your interpretation of it)...I know that would kind of be considered to be for the faith board but it is pertaining to the conversation here. The bible has been used throughout history to fit the viewpoints of the ones trying to make a point. As for it's validity there are too many unanswered questions for me.
You are correct that you have the right to post your opinion, the same as I do mine. I just found your comments so...not offensive but more of shocking that anyone even thought this way, let alone publicly stated it. And I guess I did find it offensive to put gay people in the same category of pornographers and people who want to marrry animals, etc.
All of us are unique people made by our creator. We all have our "flaws" and none of us are perfect. The creator knows this and for some reason he created everyone with different lifestyles. Not all gay people are the ones you see running around the streets dressed in makeup and costumes dancing in the parade, or like that girl that was on the news skipping and throwing leaflets in a church yelling it's okay to be gay.
I just say if they want to marry, let them marry. It's their life and we have no right to deprive them of the same human rights we want to enjoy. It all boils down to we are all people. Don't tell me what I can and cannot do in my home and I will not tell you what you can and cannot do in yours. Letting them marry whomever they want will not affect me in my personal life.
It's funny because I was raised the same way you are thinking, but times are changing and after being out and around in the world I became more intelligent, independent, open minded, tolerant and thoughtful of others. Just wish we all could.
Strange, they keep telling us in Oregon...
That it will all come down to us.
I certainly hope that's true because we hate Hillary AND McCain.
Oregon loves Obama!
Wow, did you see the headline about Obama in Oregon? His rally had 65,000 yesterday with another 15,000 who couldn't fit in, plus more on boats watching from the water. That must have been something! Here's to hoping for a big margin for Obama in Oregon tomorrow and in November!
Oregon allows assisted suicide---not
compassionate euthanasia. the person being euthanized must be coherent, terminally ill and willing.
Portland, Oregon. Beautiful day out.
LOVE IT HERE!!! We are almost at 10% unemployment rate. People are shopping, but more looking than buying. There are still a lot of people eating out at the high end restaurants, costing anywhere from 13.00-24.00 a plate. I do not see a recession here. People still out and about and driving to places. I know lots of people who are going away out of state for spring break.
I live in the burbs of Oregon in a city of 42,000. My family is getting ready for maybe a slight depression coming in the economy. I am currently taking a CERT training course in our city. To save money, my husband takes the bus in and then the MAX (electric train) into downtown Portland to work. Basically costs him nothing for gas as the company pays for it. Worry about hubby losing his job, although he says he is stable for now. I know other families who are out of work, but yet they seem to be just going along their normal business as some say they are in shock still. Hopefully their money does not run out.
My husband has been laid off about 5 times in 24 years of marriage. I know what it is like for hubby to be out of work and the last time was back in 2002 for 6 months. He is in IT. All those layoffs were in the ugly desert and he** hole spot of Phoenix, AZ for 21 years of marriage and 26 years of my life. Three seasons, spring for 2 months, summer and then he** for most of the year. Talk about living in the city! We are glad to be out of there. You either like or you HATE IT! Still have lots of family living there. The housing is horrible in Phoenix. There was a lot of greed and many out of staters bought second homes in Phoenix thinking they could sell in a year or two and make money. Guess what happened? Just about everyone had the same idea and so many with subprime loans.
That is why Oregon is such a great state to live in.
What a turn out! We live too far away to have gone, but like the other poster I don't do well in crowds.
I also saw bits and snippets of his interview on Good Morning America saying they should back off of Michelle. I think that's great that he is sticking up for her. Clearly the "other side" didn't post the message about what she was talking about and what she meant. They just took a snippet and made a commercial from it when they know that's not what she meant. Then they can sit there with a smirk on her face "she said it, it's on film" but they aren't showing what she meant, so they are purposely being deceiful. It is very low class and just too silly. What's next, they are going to find something his kids said? Also McCain and Clinton better watch out because if they go after Obama's spouse there is plenty of stuff on their spouses too. I read today that Clinton is planning to "unleash" something about Michelle and if she wants to bring anything up we've got plenty of dirt on her spouse "called impeachment". Then there is McCain's wife who is a recovering prescription drug addict and in 1994 escaped prosecution from stealing/using drugs (funny what money can buy you).
Interview with Charmaine Neville, family member of the Neville musical family
September 7, 2005
Women were Being Raped, Babies were Being Killed, Alligators were Eating People, But Where the Hell was the National Guard? How We Survived the Flood By CHARMAINE NEVILLE
This is a transcription of an interview Charmaine Neville, of New Orleans's legendary Neville family, gave to local media outlets on Monday, September 5.
I was in my house when everything first started. When the hurricane came, it blew all the left side of my house off, and the water was coming in my house in torrents.
I had my neighbor, an elderly man, and myself, in the house with our dogs and cats, and we were trying to stay out of the water. But the water was coming in too fast. So we ended up having to leave the house.
We left the house and we went up on the roof of a school. I took a crowbar and I burst the door on the roof of the school to help people on the roof.
Later on we found a flat boat, and we went around the neighborhood in a flat boat getting people out of their houses and bringing them to the school.
We found all the food that we could and we cooked and we fed people. But then, things started getting really bad.
By the second day, the people that were there, that we were feeding and everything, we had no more food and no water. We had nothing, and other people were coming in our neighborhood. We were watching the helicopters going across the bridge and airlift other people out, but they would hover over us and tell us Hi! and that would be all. They wouldn't drop us any food or any water, or nothing.
Alligators were eating people. They had all kinds of stuff in the water. They had babies floating in the water.
We had to walk over hundreds of bodies of dead people. People that we tried to save from the hospices, from the hospitals and from the old-folks homes. I tried to get the police to help us, but I realized they were in the same straits we were. We rescued a lot of police officers in the flat boat from the 5th district police station. The guy who was in the boat, he rescued a lot of them and brought them to different places so they could be saved.
We understood that the police couldn't help us, but we couldn't understand why the National Guard and them couldn't help us, because we kept seeing them but they never would stop and help us.
Finally it got to be too much, I just took all of the people that I could. I had two old women in wheelchairs with no legs, that I rowed them from down there in that nightmare to the French Quarters, and I went back and got more people.
There were groups of us, there were about 24 of us, and we kept going back and forth and rescuing whoever we could get and bringing them to the French Quarter because we heard that there were phones in the French Quarter, and that there wasn't any water. And they were right, there were phones, but we couldn't get through to anyone.
I found some police officers. I told them that a lot of us women had been raped down there by guys, not from the neighborhood where we were, they were helping us to save people. But other men, and they came and they started raping women and they started killing, and I don't know who these people were. I'm not gonna tell you I know, because I don't.
But what I want people to understand is that, if we hadn't been left down there like the animals that they were treating us like, all of those things wouldn't have happened. People are trying to say that we stayed in that city because we wanted to be rioting and we wanted to do this and, we didn't have resources to get out, we had no way to leave.
When they gave the evacuation order, if we could've left, we would have left.
There are still thousands and thousands of people trapped in their homes in the downtown area. When we finally did get into the 9th ward, and not just in my neighborhood, but in other neighborhoods in the 9th ward, there were a lot of people still trapped down there... old people, young people, babies, pregnant women. I mean, nobody's helping them.
And I want people to realize that we did not stay in the city so we could steal and loot and commit crimes. A lot of those young men lost their minds because the helicopters would fly over us and they wouldn't stop. We would make SOS on the flashlights, we'd do everything, and it really did come to a point, where these young men were so frustrated that they did start shooting. They weren't trying to hit the helicopters, they figured maybe they weren't seeing. Maybe if they hear this gunfire they will stop then. But that didn't help us. Nothing like that helped us.
Finally, I got to Canal St. with all of my people I had saved from back there.
I don't want them arresting nobody else. I broke the window in an RTA bus. I never learned how to drive a bus in my life. I got in that bus. I loaded all of those people in wheelchairs and in everything else into that bus, and we drove and we drove and we drove and millions of people was trying to get me to help them to get on the bus, too.
Charmaine Neville is a member of the third generation of New Orleans's legendary Neville musical family. She fronts the Charmaine Neville Band.
WASHINGTON-- The Supreme Court upheld Oregon's one-of-a-kind physician-assisted suicide law Tuesday, rejecting a Bush administration attempt to punish doctors who help terminally ill patients die.
Justices, on a 6-3 vote, said that a federal drug law does not override the 1997 Oregon law used to end the lives of more than 200 seriously ill people. New Chief Justice John Roberts backed the Bush administration, dissenting for the first time.
The administration improperly tried to use a drug law to punish Oregon doctors who prescribe lethal doses of prescription medicines, the court majority said.
Congress did not have this far-reaching intent to alter the federal-state balance, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for himself, retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen Breyer.
Kennedy is expected to become a more influential swing voter after O'Connor's departure. He is a moderate conservative who sometimes joins the liberal wing of the court in cases involving such things as gay rights and capital punishment.
The ruling was a reprimand to former Attorney General John Ashcroft, who in 2001 said that doctor-assisted suicide is not a legitimate medical purpose and that Oregon physicians would be punished for helping people die under the law.
Kennedy said the authority claimed by the attorney general is both beyond his expertise and incongruous with the statutory purposes and design.
Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for himself, Roberts and Justice Clarence Thomas, said that federal officials have the power to regulate the doling out of medicine.
If the term 'legitimate medical purpose' has any meaning, it surely excludes the prescription of drugs to produce death, he wrote.
Scalia said the court's ruling is perhaps driven by a feeling that the subject of assisted suicide is none of the federal government's business. It is easy to sympathize with that position.
Oregon's law covers only extremely sick people-- those with incurable diseases and who are of sound mind, and after at least two doctors agree they have six months or less to live.
For Oregon's physicians and pharmacists, as well as patients and their families, today's ruling confirms that Oregon's law is valid and that they can act under it without fear of federal sanctions, state Solicitor General Mary Williams said.
The ruling backed a decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which said Ashcroft's unilateral attempt to regulate general medical practices historically entrusted to state lawmakers interferes with the democratic debate about physician-assisted suicide.
Ashcroft had brought the case to the Supreme Court on the day his resignation was announced by the White House in 2004. The Justice Department has continued the case, under the leadership of his successor, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
The court's ruling was not a final say on federal authority to override state doctor-assisted suicide laws-- only a declaration that the current federal scheme did not permit that. However, it could still have ramifications outside of Oregon.
This is a disappointing decision that is likely to result in a troubling movement by states to pass their own assisted suicide laws, said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice, which backed the administration.
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and a supporter of the law, said the ruling has stopped, for now, the administration's attempts to wrest control of decisions rightfully left to the states and individuals.
Thomas wrote his own dissent as well, to complain that the court's reasoning was puzzling. Roberts did not write separately.
Justices have dealt with end-of-life cases before. In 1990, the Supreme Court ruled that terminally ill people may refuse treatment that would otherwise keep them alive. Then, justices in 1997 unanimously ruled that people have no constitutional right to die, upholding state bans on physician-assisted suicide. That opinion, by then-Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, said individual states could decide to allow the practice.
Roberts strongly hinted in October when the case was argued that he would back the administration. O'Connor had seemed ready to support Oregon's law, but her vote would not have counted if the ruling was handed down after she left the court.
The case is Gonzales v. Oregon, 04-623.
Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Abuse of children and the right
Hold on just a minute....from your post you are making it sound like conservatives and the right condone molestation of children. If that is what you were implying you are absolutely wrong. Please, please, please do not categorize all Christians and conservatives with the wacko extreme cults that dare do these things to children. I believe a few weeks ago there was a long thread on the C-board about child molestation. Personally, I think anyone who hurts a child should die...period. If it's sexual molestation the very least that should happen to a male offender is castration...I'd prefer the death penalty...
Again, this implied generalization that all conservatives are racists, homophobes, and child molesters is absolutely wrong.
then again, perhaps it's abuse of power like
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I am not saying that there are people who abuse
the system and what not. I am just saying that there are real, honest, hardworking people that are having a hard time right now - regardless of their political affiliation. I'm not saying Obama would be superior or vice versa, I am just saying that some people would not find his remark funny.
So abuse of power is OK by you?
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Abuse in Iraq as bad or worse
What I would like to know is this: Where is the outrage from all those who were so eager to go in and get *the brutal dictator*?
Abuse in Iraq as bad or worse than in Saddam's day: Allawi
LONDON (AFP) - Human rights abuses in Iraq now are as bad, or worse, than they when Saddam Hussein was in power, the nation's first post-Saddam prime minister was quoted as saying.
In an interview with the Observer newspaper in London, Iyad Allawi pointed an accusing finger at the interior ministry, and alleged that a lot of Iraqis are being tortured or killed during interrogation.
People are doing the same as (in) Saddam Hussein's time and worse, said Allawi, an prominent opponent of Saddam who steered the US-backed interim government in Baghdad until April this year.
It is an appropriate comparison. People are remembering the days of Saddam. These were the precise reasons that we fought Saddam Hussein and now we are seeing the same things.
Allawi's remarks came two weeks after US troops raided a secret prison in Iraq and found about 170 detainees in need of water, food and medical attention.
Graphic pictures released by the Committee of Muslim Scholars, the main Sunni religious organisation in Iraq, showed prisoners with severe burns, massive bruising and welts on their bodies.
US military commanders and diplomats called the abuse intolerable, pressuring elected prime minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari into ordering a joint Iraqi-US inquiry.
Interior Minister Bayan Baqer Solagh has denied claims that he commands death squads targeting the Sunni minority, adding that only a few detainees were punched and hit in the prison and that US forces knew of its existence.
Allawi told The Observer that the interior ministry, though not Solagh, was at the heart of the matter.
I am not blaming the minister himself, but the rank and file are behind the secret dungeons and some of the executions that are taking place, he was quoted as saying.
He also said: We are hearing about secret police, secret bunkers where people are being interrogated.
A lot of Iraqis are being tortured or killed in the course of interrogations. We are even witnessing Sharia courts based on Islamic law that are trying people and executing them.
He said that if immediate action is not taken, the disease infecting (the interior ministry) will become contagious and spread to all ministries and structures of Iraq's government.
More broadly, Allawi warned of the danger of Iraq disintegrating in chaos, saying: Iraq is the centrepiece of this region. If things go wrong, neither Europe nor the United States will be safe.
Abuse of power/hypocrisy seems to be
What is clear is that, slimy or not, she still used her office in an inappropriate manner to influence the outcome of a family dispute. What's ethical about that? The slimy trooper and the disposition of his divorce/custody case is supposed to be left up to the family courts and it not typically resolved by manipulation and interference by the Governor's office, now is it? Ethically challenged ethics clean-up maiden. Not my idea of a great pick.
Do you have any concept of what abuse of power is?
if you can turn off the hate machine long enough to remember how to do it. It was not Governor Palin's role to interfere in divorce/custody proceedings. Sister Palin could not have done what Governor Palin tried to do. She abuse the power of her office. We have already had 8 years of that kind of malarky. Most of us are not up for another 4. Got it?
Abuse of power is SP's middle name.
megalomaniac behaviors. I am particularly impressed by the "woman scorned" tantrum she had against her opponents that ensued within moments after she took office. Looks like Alaska's busy little ethics maid overlooked her own glass house.
Yes, there are people who abuse the system, but...
you can't apply that to everyone on welfare. There are a lot of good people who don't abuse the system who have to be on welfare.
Agreed. It's abuse of power AND a crime
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because slander is the 1st stage of violence and abuse...sm
the next step is physical abuse, the next is murder.
I'm sure the usual suspects from the Conservative board also agree with the conclusions of THIS Pennsylvania nut case and will be ready to blame Kennedy for starting trouble. LMAO!
Conservatives are getting weirder by the hour.
Kennedy slams Santorum for church sex abuse remarks
By Lolita C. Baldor, Associated Press Writer | July 13, 2005
WASHINGTON --In a rare personal attack on the Senate floor Wednesday, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy called Pennsylvania Republican Rick Santorum self-righteous and insensitive for his remarks linking Boston's liberal reputation to the clergy sex abuse scandal.
In recent days, Santorum has refused to back down from comments he made in a 2002 column, in which he said promoting alternative lifestyles spawns aberrant behavior, such as priests molesting children. He went on to say that it was not surprising that liberal Boston was at the center of the scandal.
"The people of Boston are to blame for the clergy sexual abuse? That is an irresponsible, insensitive and inexcusable thing to say," said Kennedy, D-Mass., in a speech from the Senate chamber.
Kennedy called for Santorum to apologize to the people of Boston and across the nation, noting that the clergy abuse happened all across the country, in "red states and blue states, in the north and in the south, in big cities and small."
On Wednesday, Santorum spokesman Robert Traynham said the Pennsylvania conservative recognizes that the church abuse scandal was not just in Boston.
He said Santorum "was speaking to a broader cultural argument about the need for everyone to take these issues very, very seriously."
Santorum's initial observations were in a July 2002 column for Catholic Online, and came back to public light last month and earlier this week in newspaper accounts.
"Priests, like all of us, are affected by culture," Santorum wrote in the Catholic Online column. "When the culture is sick, every element in it becomes infected. While it is no excuse for this scandal, it is no surprise that Boston, a seat of academic, political and cultural liberalism in America, lies at the center of the storm."
Rep. John Tierney, D-Mass., accused Santorum of abject ignorance, and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., called the senator's rationale bizarre.
"As a prosecutor in Massachusetts, I saw some of the worst criminals who had abused children and not once did I hear them hide behind Sen. Santorum's bizarre claim that the state was responsible for their acts," Kerry said.
David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said Santorum's column tries to minimize the abuse scandal, and imply that "some vague, larger societal defects" somehow caused clergy to assault children.
"In 2002, we gave Sen. Santorum the benefit of the doubt, assuming he was not aware of the scope of the abuse crisis," said Clohessy. "In 2005, it's hard to understand how he could repeat and stand by such misguided and harmful comments."
The scandal began in Boston in early 2002 when internal church files released under court order revealed abusive priests were transferred from parish to parish rather than removed from ministry. Cardinal Bernard Law resigned as archbishop later that year amid criticism over his handling of the crisis.
A 2003 investigation by Attorney General Thomas Reilly found that at least 1,000 children were abused by more than 235 priests and church workers between 1940 and 2000. And the archdiocese has paid out more than $120 million to settle abuse claims since 1950.
Reilly, a Democratic candidate for governor, also criticized Santorum on Wednesday. "For him to equate liberalism with child abuse is disgraceful," he said. "It's embarrassing for him and embarrassing to his party and his party should disown him."
Friday, Nov. 10, 2006 Exclusive: Charges Sought Against Rumsfeld Over Prison Abuse A lawsuit in Germany will seek a criminal prosecution of the outgoing Defense Secretary and other U.S. officials for their alleged role in abuses at Abu Ghraib and Gitmo ByADAM ZAGORIN
Just days after his resignation, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is about to face more repercussions for his involvement in the troubled wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. New legal documents, to be filed next week with Germany's top prosecutor, will seek a criminal investigation and prosecution of Rumsfeld, along with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, former CIA director George Tenet and other senior U.S. civilian and military officers, for their alleged roles in abuses committed at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison and at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The plaintiffs in the case include 11 Iraqis who were prisoners at Abu Ghraib, as well as Mohammad al-Qahtani, a Saudi held at Guantanamo, whom the U.S. has identified as the so-called 20th hijacker and a would-be participant in the 9/11 hijackings. As TIME first reported in June 2005, Qahtani underwent a special interrogation plan, personally approved by Rumsfeld, which the U.S. says produced valuable intelligence. But to obtain it, according to the log of his interrogation and government reports, Qahtani was subjected to forced nudity, sexual humiliation, religious humiliation, prolonged stress positions, sleep deprivation and other controversial interrogation techniques.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs say that one of the witnesses who will testify on their behalf is former Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, the one-time commander of all U.S. military prisons in Iraq. Karpinski — who the lawyers say will be in Germany next week to publicly address her accusations in the case — has issued a written statement to accompany the legal filing, which says, in part: It was clear the knowledge and responsibility [for what happened at Abu Ghraib] goes all the way to the top of the chain of command to the Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld .
A spokesperson for the Pentagon told TIME there would be no comment since the case has not yet been filed.
Along with Rumsfeld, Gonzales and Tenet, the other defendants in the case are Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Stephen Cambone; former assistant attorney general Jay Bybee; former deputy assisant attorney general John Yoo; General Counsel for the Department of Defense William James Haynes II; and David S. Addington, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff. Senior military officers named in the filing are General Ricardo Sanchez, the former top Army official in Iraq; Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the former commander of Guantanamo; senior Iraq commander, Major General Walter Wojdakowski; and Col. Thomas Pappas, the one-time head of military intelligence at Abu Ghraib.
Germany was chosen for the court filing because German law provides universal jurisdiction allowing for the prosecution of war crimes and related offenses that take place anywhere in the world. Indeed, a similar, but narrower, legal action was brought in Germany in 2004, which also sought the prosecution of Rumsfeld. The case provoked an angry response from Pentagon, and Rumsfeld himself was reportedly upset. Rumsfeld's spokesman at the time, Lawrence DiRita, called the case a a big, big problem. U.S. officials made clear the case could adversely impact U.S.-Germany relations, and Rumsfeld indicated he would not attend a major security conference in Munich, where he was scheduled to be the keynote speaker, unless Germany disposed of the case. The day before the conference, a German prosecutor announced he would not pursue the matter, saying there was no indication that U.S. authorities and courts would not deal with allegations in the complaint.
In bringing the new case, however, the plaintiffs argue that circumstances have changed in two important ways. Rumsfeld's resignation, they say, means that the former Defense Secretary will lose the legal immunity usually accorded high government officials. Moreover, the plaintiffs argue that the German prosecutor's reasoning for rejecting the previous case — that U.S. authorities were dealing with the issue — has been proven wrong.
The utter and complete failure of U.S. authorities to take any action to investigate high-level involvement in the torture program could not be clearer, says Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, a U.S.-based non-profit helping to bring the legal action in Germany. He also notes that the Military Commissions Act, a law passed by Congress earlier this year, effectively blocks prosecution in the U.S. of those involved in detention and interrogation abuses of foreigners held abroad in American custody going to back to Sept. 11, 2001. As a result, Ratner contends, the legal arguments underlying the German prosecutor's previous inaction no longer hold up.
Whatever the legal merits of the case, it is the latest example of efforts in Western Europe by critics of U.S. tactics in the war on terror to call those involved to account in court. In Germany, investigations are under way in parliament concerning cooperation between the CIA and German intelligence on rendition — the kidnapping of suspected terrorists and their removal to third countries for interrogation. Other legal inquiries involving rendition are under way in both Italy and Spain.
U.S. officials have long feared that legal proceedings against war criminals could be used to settle political scores. In 1998, for example, former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet — whose military coup was supported by the Nixon administration — was arrested in the U.K. and held for 16 months in an extradition battle led by a Spanish magistrate seeking to charge him with war crimes. He was ultimately released and returned to Chile. More recently, a Belgian court tried to bring charges against then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for alleged crimes against Palestinians.
For its part, the Bush Administration has rejected adherence to the International Criminal Court (ICC) on grounds that it could be used to unjustly prosecute U.S. officials. The ICC is the first permanent tribunal established to prosecute war crimes, genocide and other crimes against humanity.
So, what goes around comes around. After a hard week out on that campaign trail attacking Obama right, left and center, seems Sarah has a character issue of her own now to deal with. Oops!
Being faithful to his family
You're kidding, right?
I saw a show on TLC about this family...
To each his own, especially if you're footing the bill yourself, but this family is just uplain creepy. The children are all homeschool and virtually isolated from any other children other than another family or two who share the same nutty religious convictions. They even have their OWN church at home. The girls all wear these horrid sad-sack Little House on the Prairie identical plaid potato sack dresses that look like they were made from discarded curtains and when asked their only aspirations are to have lots of children and to be a mother. The boys also dress identically in little Leave it to Beaver short-sleeved dress shirts. It's called Full Quiver parenting, as in having as many kids as you get before you get to menopause or your uterus falls out, whichever comes first. I find the whole thing rather odd, but who am I to judge I suppose.
Your family will be in my prayers. nm
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