Dump Duhbya

Openness Promotes Effectiveness in our National Government Act of 2005

Guest opinion: Government openness ensures the consent of the governed – billingsgazette.com
By JOHN CORNYN, R-Texas
U.S. Senator

Just last month, U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., a longtime champion of open government at the federal level, and I joined forces to introduce the OPEN (Openness Promotes Effectiveness in our National) Government Act of 2005, to strengthen and enhance our federal open government laws. It has been nearly a decade since Congress has approved major reforms to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). And the Senate Judiciary Committee has not convened an oversight hearing to monitor compliance with FOIA since 1992. So this week, I will chair a Senate hearing to examine needed improvements to our open government laws. …

After all, open government is not a Republican or a Democrat issue; it is an American issue. Indeed, the bill is supported by a broad coalition of open government advocates and organizations across the ideological spectrum.

Open government is a fundamental principle of our democracy. As President Lincoln once said, “No man is good enough to govern another without that person’s consent”-and of course, consent is meaningless if it is not informed consent. For that very reason, the cause of open government is as American as our commitment to constitutional democracy.
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Track S.394 OPEN Governement Act

Theirs

March is Women’s History Month

Noelle has a great series highlighting historical women from around the world for Women’s History Month at hedgeblog. mjh

From Hypatia of Alexandria:

All formal dogmatic religions are fallacious and must never be accepted by self-respecting persons as final.

To teach superstitions as truth is a most terrible thing.

Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all.

From Sojourner Truth:

Then that little man in black there, he says women can’t have as much rights as men, ’cause Christ wasn’t a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.

If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back , and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.

hedgeblog: Women in History

Dump Duhbya

Propaganda is the Destroyer of a Free Press

Under Bush, a New Age of Prepackaged TV News By DAVID BARSTOW and ROBIN STEIN

To a viewer, each report looked like any other 90-second segment on the local news. In fact, the federal government produced all three. The report from Kansas City was made by the State Department. The “reporter” covering airport safety was actually a public relations professional working under a false name for the Transportation Security Administration. The farming segment was done by the Agriculture Department’s office of communications.

Under the Bush administration, the federal government has aggressively used a well-established tool of public relations: the prepackaged, ready-to-serve news report that major corporations have long distributed to TV stations to pitch everything from headache remedies to auto insurance. In all, at least 20 federal agencies, including the Defense Department and the Census Bureau, have made and distributed HUNDREDS of television news segments in the past four years, records and interviews show. Many were subsequently broadcast on local stations across the country without any acknowledgement of the government’s role in their production.

This winter, Washington has been roiled by revelations that a handful of columnists wrote in support of administration policies without disclosing they had accepted payments from the government. But the administration’s efforts to generate positive news coverage have been considerably more pervasive than previously known. At the same time, records and interviews suggest widespread complicity or negligence by television stations, given industry ethics standards that discourage the broadcast of prepackaged news segments from any outside group without revealing the source. …

A recent study by Congressional Democrats offers another rough indicator: the Bush administration spent $254 million in its first term on public relations contracts, nearly double what the last Clinton administration spent.

Mine

O, Ye of Too Much Faith!

ABC News: Answers Sought After Church Group Shooting

Terry Ratzmann, a buttoned-down churchgoer known for sharing homegrown vegetables with his neighbors, walked into the room and police said he shot 22 bullets from a 9 mm handgun within a minute.

None of those who knew him expected Ratzmann to be violent. Neighbors said he was quiet and devout, that he liked to tinker about his house and garden. He would even release the chipmunks caught in traps he set in his yard.

But Saturday, the Sabbath for the Living Church of God, Ratzmann turned on worshippers.

“He wasn’t a dark guy. He was average Joe,” said Shane Colwell, a neighbor who knew Ratzmann for about a decade. “It’s not like he ever pushed his beliefs on anyone else.”

The 44-year-old computer technician lived with his mother and sister in a modest home about two miles from the suburban Milwaukee hotel where police say he opened fire during service.

The Charlotte, N.C.-based Living Church of God is a denomination that grew out of a schism in the Worldwide Church of God, formed in 1933, and focuses on “end-time” prophecies.

This year, the group’s leader, Dr. Roderick C. Meredith, wrote that events prophesied in the Bible are “beginning to occur with increasing frequency.” The church has an estimated 6,300 members in 40 countries. …

“The Lord works in mysterious ways.”

North Jersey Media Group providing local news, sports & classifieds for Northern New Jersey!

Hence, the shock that came when police in Wichita, Kan., announced on Feb. 26 that he is BTK – the initials stand for Bind, Torture, Kill – architect of a murder spree that has claimed 10 lives and terrorized Kansans since 1974. Rader, we are told, was the very epitome of ordinary. He was a 59-year-old Boy Scout leader, a married father, council president of the Lutheran Church he has attended for more than 25 years and a compliance inspector for suburban Park City, where he was in charge of, among other things, animal control.

Two men. One a long time brutal serial killer, the other a spur-of-the-moment mass murderer. Both devout, regular church goers; one born-again, looking forward to the End of Days.

I do not mean to suggest that church goers are bad people. I wish to stress that going to church isn’t proof of one’s goodness — nor does it necessarily even prevent evil. I’m tired of the suggestion that I may lack values because I don’t go to chuch. Look who does. mjh

Mine

He’s Coming Back! – Updated 3-15

ABQjournal: Bush To Push Plan in N.M.

WASHINGTON? President Bush is expected to visit New Mexico? possibly next week? as part of his national tour to drum up support for his Social Security reform proposals.

In a speech in Louisiana on Friday, Bush said he was going to “head out West” to New Mexico, Colorado and Arizona after visiting Florida next week.

White House Spokesman Taylor Gross confirmed that the president would be visiting New Mexico as part of his Social Security tour but declined to release the exact date or town.

Hey, Duhbya, You're Fired!

Dump Bush photos by mjh

Update 3-15

ABQjournal: Around New Mexico
Bush Coming To Albuquerque

WASHINGTON — President Bush will visit Albuquerque next week as part of his national tour to promote Social Security reform, the White House announced Monday.

Bush will arrive in Albuquerque next Monday [3/21] and will spend the night at an unspecified location.

On Tuesday morning [3/22], he will lead a town-hall style discussion about his proposal to invest a portion of Social Security revenues in private investment accounts, said White House spokesman Taylor Gross.

Gross said details, such as when and where in Albuquerque the town hall event will be held and who will be invited to attend, will be released later this week.
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SENATOR JEFF BINGAMAN
SPEAKING ON SOCIAL SECURITY: A CRISIS?

Wednesday, March 23, 7:00 PM

UNM Law School, Room 2401

Stanford Drive, north of Lomas, south end of golf course
All are welcome ? bring your friends

loco

Update on Santa Fe Hate Crime

ABQjournal: 3 More Indicted In Gay Man’s Beating By Jeremy Pawloski, Journal Staff Writer

Deputy District Attorney Shari Weinstein, who presided over defendant Isaia Medina’s arraignment Friday in District Court, said Maestas suffered a broken nose, facial injuries, a concussion and lung injuries from “aspirating on his own blood” when he lost consciousness during the attack. …

Weinstein said in court that Medina was the “most culpable” of the six males charged in the beating, and that Medina, by his own admission, “straddled the victim” as he repeatedly punched Maestas in the face. …

Medina’s sister, Brandie Ulibarri, 26, said outside court that her brother “never starts fights” and that it hurts her when the issue of him being prejudiced against gays, or anyone else, comes up.

“He has lots of bisexual, gay and lesbian friends, so I don’t think that’s the issue with him,” she said.

But Weinstein said during the hearing that all of the defendants psyched each other up in the car ride to La Quinta, exhorting one another to “(mess) up the faggots.”

The three men newly charged in connection with Maestas’ beating are:
Joseph Cano, 18;
Jonathan Valdez, 20; and
Paul Montoya, 20, all of Santa Fe.

Each is charged with one count each of aggravated battery, conspiracy, contributing to the delinquency of a minor and criminal damage to property.

Previously charged in the case:
Isaia Medina;
David Trinidad, 17;
Gabriel Maturin, 20.

Trinidad is charged in his indictment with one count each of aggravated battery, battery, conspiracy and criminal damage to property. The District Attorney’s Office has said it intends to seek adult sanctions against Trinidad although he is 17.

All six men charged in the beating that put James Maestas, 21, in the intensive care unit at St. Vincent Hospital for over a week will be prosecuted under New Mexico’s “hate crimes” statute, the state Attorney General’s Office announced Friday.

[previous related entry: mjh’s Blog: Evil Among Us]

"It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds." — Sam Adams