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Perhaps the biggest part of this story isn't that the
Illinois Supreme Court ruled that the state income tax is
unconstitutional - perhaps the biggest part of the story is the
MEDIA COVER-UP. Have you seen this anywhere? It isn't on any wire services, not Reuters, not UPI, not AP.

Here's the decision:

THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, Appellant,
v.
VALDY OLENDER et al., Appellees.

Opinion filed December 15, 2005.

Here's the URL to the Illinois Supreme Court case.

http://www.state.il.us/court/Opinions/SupremeCourt/
2005/December/Opinions/Html/98932.htm

Docket No. 98932-Agenda 7-September 2005.
In a nutshell, finance bills have to be free standing according to
the Illinois state Constitution. The income tax was mixed up with a
bunch of other bills. So why isn't the media reporting one of the
biggest stories of the year?
Can you imagine the chaos when millions of "taxpayers" demand
refunds for years of payments to a tax that was unconstitutional
from the day it was passed? Where's the media firestorm over this?

Eavesdropping On Americans
Nothing New, Not a Surprise and
Not a Racial Issue Anymore

By Earl Ofari Hutchinson
BlackNews.com Columnist

was done to protect Americans from foreign threat or attack. The named targets in the past have been Muslim extremists, Communists, peace activists, black radicals, civil rights leaders, and drug peddlers.

The big puzzle is why anyone is shocked that President Bush eavesdropped on Americans. The National Security Agency for decades has routinely monitored the phone calls and telegrams of thousands of Americans. The rationale has always been the same, and Bush said it again in defending his spying, that it was done to protect Americans from foreign threat or attack. The named targets in the past have been Muslim extremists, Communists, peace activists, black radicals, civil rights leaders, and drug peddlers.

Even before President Harry Truman established the NSA in a Cold War era directive in 1952, government cryptologists jumped in the domestic spy hunt with Operation Shamrock. That was a super secret operation that forced private telegraphic companies to turn over the telegraphic correspondence of Americans to the government. The NSA kicked its spy campaign into high gear in the 1960s. The FBI demanded that the NSA monitor antiwar activists, civil rights leaders, and drug peddlers. The Senate Select Committee that investigated government domestic spying in 1976 pried open a tiny public window into the scope of NSA spying. But the agency slammed the window shut fast when it refused to cough up documents to the committee that would tell more about its surveillance of Americans. The NSA claimed that disclosure would compromise national security. The few feeble Congressional attempts over the years to probe NSA domestic spying have gone nowhere. Even though rumors swirled that NSA eyes were riveted on more than a few Americans, Congressional investigators showed no stomach to fight the NSA's entrenched code of silence.

There was a huge warning sign in 2002 that government agencies would jump deeper into the domestic spy business. President Bush scrapped the old 1970s guidelines that banned FBI spying on domestic organizations. The directive gave the FBI carte blanche authority to surveil, and plant agents in churches, mosques, and political groups, and ransack the Internet to hunt for potential subversives, without the need or requirement to show probable cause of criminal wrongdoing. The revised Bush administration spy guidelines, along with the anti-terrorist provisions of the Patriot Act, also gave local agents even wider discretion to determine what groups or individuals they can investigate and what tactics they can use to investigate them. The FBI wasted little time in flexing its new found intelligence muscle. It mounted a secret campaign to monitor and harass Iraq war protestors in Washington D.C. and San Francisco in October 2003.

Another sign that government domestic spying was back in full swing came during Condeleezza Rice's finger point at the FBI in her testimony before the 9/11 Commission in 2004. Rice blamed the FBI for allegedly failing to follow up on its investigation of Al-Qaeda operatives in the United States U.S. prior to the September 11 terror attacks. That increased the clamor for an independent domestic spy agency. FBI Director Robert Mueller made an impassioned plea against a separate agency, and the reason was simple. Domestic spying was an established fact that the FBI, and the NSA had long been engaged in it.

The September 11 terror attacks, and the heat Bush administration took for its towering intelligence lapses, gave Bush the excuse to plunge even deeper into domestic spying. But Bush also recognized that if word got out about NSA domestic spying, it would ignite a firestorm of protest. Fortunately it did. Despite Bush's weak, and self-serving national security excuse that it thwarted potential terrorist attacks, none of which is verifiable, the Supreme Court, the NSA's own mandate, and past executive orders explicitly bar domestic spying without court authorization. The exception is if there is a grave and imminent terror threat. That's the shaky legal dodge that Bush used to justify domestic spying.

Bush, and his defenders, discount the monumental threat and damage that spying on Americans poses to civil liberties. But it can't and shouldn't be shrugged off. During the debate over the creation of a domestic spy agency in 2002, even proponents recognized the potential threat of such an agency to civil liberties. As a safeguard they recommended that the agency not have expanded wiretap and surveillance powers or law enforcement authority, and that the Senate and House intelligence committees have strict oversight over its activities.

These supposed fail-safe measures were hardly ironclad safeguards against abuses, but they understood that domestic spying is a civil liberties nightmare minefield that has blown up and wreaked havoc on American's lives in the past. The FBI is the prime example. During the 1950s and 1960s, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover kicked FBI domestic spying into high gear. FBI agents compiled secret dossiers, illegally wiretapped, used undercover plants, and agent provocateurs, sent poison pen letters, and staged black bag jobs against black activists and anti-war groups.

Bush's claim that domestic spying poses no risk to civil liberties is laughable. Congress should demand that Bush and the NSA come clean on domestic spying, and then promptly end it.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is a columnist for BlackNews.com, an author and political analyst. 323-296-6331- hutchinsonreport@aol.com

ENOUGH ALREADY!
George Bush Junior is NO "conservative" and neither are you if you support him.

I am disgusted at what passes for a “conservative” these days. “Conservative” only a few short years ago meant financially conservative. “Conservatives” talked about the importance of a balanced federal and state government budget. “Conservatives” talked about the importance of a balanced trade situation. “Conservative” also meant, only a few short years ago, governmentally conservative. “Conservatives” talked about the importance of repealing regulations that interfered with the peoples ability to make choices in the market place. “Conservatives” talked about the importance of taking steps to make government smaller. “Conservative” only a few short years ago meant taking a conservative view to Constitutional limitations, protections and duties of the government. “Conservatives” talked about the importance of appointing judges that did not “interpret” the Constitution, but apply it as written. “Conservative” also meant, only a few short years ago, religiously conservative. “Conservatives” used to promote, defend and practice the Christian principles and traditions that are the foundation of this nations supposed republican form of government. “Conservatives,” only a few short years ago, in their conservative reading of the Constitution realized that the phrase within the first amendment continues past the much quoted “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,”[.] Notice the comma? The amendment continues “or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;”[.] There is no “separation of church and state” clause anywhere within the Constitution that is only the supreme court’s opinion based on a taken out of context letter from Jefferson. “Conservatives” not long ago rejected the concept of a court making “law” or rewriting “law” from the bench. “Conservatives” used to represent the free wheeling, independent spirit that used to be America by encouraging Americans not to be afraid and to grow and prosper based on their own initiative.

We have out of control public and private debt. Out of control spending of credit borrowed far beyond this nations means to ever balance the books. Bill Clinton’s, reprobate that he was, administration momentarily stopped the national debt clock and had created a monetary surplus. George Bush Junior’s administration quickly erased any surplus and has the national debt spiraling out of control faster than any nation in the history of the world. This Bush administration has shifted “welfare” in this nation away from needy families and admittedly a few scammers to multi-national corporations that have no loyalty or concern for the American people other than how much they can consume and how much credit they can create. The trade deficit has ballooned under this Bush administration. No American needs to see the official numbers to understand this. Americans need only to go to any retail store to quickly realize that nearly everything available is imported. Luckily Americans fruits, vegetables and meats are not clearly marked so as not to cause a panic in the realization that through this Bush administrations open border, corporatzation and globalization policy America has become dependant on imports just to feed itself.

Regulatory involvement of the government under this Bush administration has escalated to the point where it has and is driving privately owned and small businesses out of business ask any independent truck driver. The size of government has increased exponentially under this Bush administration with even a new billions of dollars a year cabinet level federal agency that frauds as “homeland security” while not even closing a southern border that has allowed the destruction of American society a thousand fold to that of 911 or any other “terrorist” attack on America OR American interests.

“Conservatives” used to talk about getting out of the UN and took an overall conservative view towards globalism. NOT this Bush administration. His solution to the illegal immigration catastrophe destroying American culture is to rename them all “guest workers.” Then there is the FTAA and so on, this Bush administrations favorably liberal view of “a new world order” makes Nazi Germany’s push for a “new world order” look timid and Hitler a slacker.

What about this Bush administrations “conservative “ view of Constitutional protections? Warrantless roving wiretaps on AMERICAN CITIZENS, indefinite incarceration without charges, trail, or communication with the outside world not to mention no assistance of counsel no Geneva convention protections either, secret courts with secret warrants, never being allowed to face the witnesses against you or see the evidence, breaking into peoples homes and never letting them know what information they took, what it is being used for, what was the probable cause. How about shooting unarmed people dead because they went off there medication and had a panic attack? Or strip searching grandma because she has a metal part in her hip replacement? How about arresting an American citizen walking down the street because he won’t produce his proper papers? What’s next…torture, oops, already there too. THIS IS the Amerika this Bush administration has provided.

Oh but at least he’s a Christian. HA!!! This Bush administrations works have shown them to be less effective “Christians” than the Clinton administration with many of their actions being straight forward anti-Christ. The Bush’s send out a “Holiday” card NOT a CHRISTmas card and his good “Christian” “desperate housewife” refers to a “Whitehouse Tree” NOT a CHRISTmas tree but assures us that the Whitehouse will be hosting a Hanukah party, what about a CHRISTmas party? George Bush Junior has recanted a previous statement he made and now states that there is more than one way into heaven. How many times is a “Christian” allowed to deny Christ and remain a “Christian?” Remember all you “conservatives,” if you are not FOR Christ you are against (anti) Christ, unless you are taking a more LIBERAL view of that BIBLICAL statement. NEVER in the history of this nation has the Christian faith been under such widespread attack as it is under this Bush administration…remember Philadelphia? And I might add, although not limited to this Bush administration, this Bush administration is using to fear and power of it’s IRS to silence Christian churches that oppose the war. This is the war that this Bush administration now admits was started based upon false information.

Today’s “conservatives” like to tout some illusion of spreading “democracy” in the Middle East as reality. The fact is all that is being done is this Bush administration is propping up puppet governments in order to control the resources just as it has been attempted for so long in Central and South America. And why in God’s green earth would a Republican/Conservative want to go around the world, or any place else for that matter, spreading “democracy? Wouldn’t it seem more understandable for a Republican/Conservative to run around the world spreading the REPUBLICAN FORM OF GOVERNMENT that this Bush administration supposedly took an Oath to depend?

I am insulted by this Bush administration propagandist “Marie Jon” passing off this Bush administrations actions as good for America or somehow protecting Americans. Before “Homeland Security,” before the “patriot act” this Bush administration knew the particulars of the 911 attack long before it happened and could have stopped it. Just as Franklin D. Roosevelt knew about the attack on Pearl Harbor long in advance and could have stopped it but didn’t because the attack provided political and policy advantage so has this Bush administration done the same. More government agencies and laws restricting Americans freedoms and liberty is not what is needed…an honest, non corporate globalist government is what is needed and this Bush administration ain’t it. Although he did tell the truth once when he said that he was not going to let the terrorists use our freedoms against us. The part he left out was because this Bush administration was planning to take those freedoms away from the American people…so no one can use them against us don’t cha know.

Today's headlines reeked with dismay about secretive telephone eavesdropping. In order to help protect America, our government was listening to phone calls of suspected terrorists. Have we forgotten 9/11? This sort of politicking is insulting to one's good common sense in light of the world of terrorism that swirls about us all as we ring in the new year.

Under the guidelines of President John F. Kennedy, Dr. Martin Luther King was being wiretapped because of his possible connection with antiwar communists in the 60s. Today, President George W. Bush is in a fight to wiretap suspected terrorists in an attempt to protect the country. The fruit of his efforts, the USA Patriot Act, is necessary to our national defense, but it will no doubt be short shifted as Congress begins its holiday break. With the Patriot Act expiring at the end of this year, this delay could cost us valuable protection.

What will be tossed at us next by the feeding frenzy of the far left? President Bush committed no crimes when he approved the wiretaps. Yet, to hear Democrats in the media and elsewhere, he is acting like a dictator by even thinking of the idea. Sidetracked by politics, the DNC seems content to leave us unprotected in exchange for anti-Bush rhetoric.

The New York Times reported days after the successful elections in Iraq about how Bush approved of the wiretaps. The Iraqi people had a victorious day just this week as millions of people took to the streets to vote for their newly formed democracy, but you wouldn't know it from watching the media. Instead, we hear of wiretaps and suggestions that Big Brother is coming. But they cannot get past the notion that America is a safer place to live because freedom is awake in the Middle East and because we have a President who understands that there may be sleeper cells in America waiting for the order to strike at us next, and the only way to address this threat is before that strike can happen.

The Democrats seem to have no ideas of their own. All they want to do is denigrate America and her President weekly with any new gimmick to get the people to turn against the President. This angry rhetoric by lawmakers and party leaders fills the biased media. Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy, brother of the late John F. Kennedy, leads the list of nuisance newsmakers. It has become Senator Kennedy's calling card these past four and a half years to be loud and outrageous, and constantly in the President's face. Yet, even his late brother understood the importance of keeping track of those who would hurt us whenever possible.

It is about time that good American people listen and become educated by President Bush's televised and broadcasted speeches, including an address to the nation on December 22nd. Sit down and absorb his words. Learn more about the war and why Iraq is pivotal to our success in beating the terrorists at their deadly games. And most importantly, understand that the Patriot Act is essential to our national defense because it exposes terrorist activity before we see another 9/11.

We have a country to save, and a weakened or non-existent Patriot Act hurts that cause. The President has America's our interest to protects and we must back him. Let your own politics be damned. We are all Americans first.

"On October 10, 1963, U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy committed what is widely viewed as one of the most ignominious acts in modern American history: he authorized the Federal Bureau of Investigation to begin wiretapping the telephones of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. Kennedy believed that one of King's closest advisers was a top-level member of the American Communist Party, and that King had repeatedly misled Administration officials about his ongoing close ties with the man. Kennedy acted reluctantly, and his order remained secret until May of 1968, just a few weeks after King's assassination and a few days before Kennedy's own. But the FBI onslaught against King that followed Kennedy's authorization remains notorious, and the stains on the reputations of everyone involved are indelible." by David J. Garrow

2005 -Today's Headlines
"President Bush has personally authorized a secretive eavesdropping program in the United States more than three dozen times since October 2001, a senior intelligence official said Friday night. " The disclosure follows angry demands by lawmakers earlier in the day for congressional inquiries into whether the monitoring by the highly secretive National Security Agency violated civil liberties.

"There is no doubt that this is inappropriate," declared Republican Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He promised hearings early next year." Friday, December 16, 2005 Associated Press

"Bush used his weekly radio address to criticize Democrats who have blocked the renewal of the anti-terrorism law that Congress passed overwhelming after the . In a live broadcast from the White House, the president said the effort to stall a vote was "irresponsible and it endangers the lives of our citizens." (Webcast The President')

"Bush said the program was narrowly designed and used "consistent with U.S. law and the Constitution." He said it is used only to intercept the international communications of people inside the United States who have been determined to have "a clear link" to Al Qaeda or related terrorist organizations"Saturday, December 17, 2005 Associated Press.

SUPPORT THE FILIBUSTER
or start practicing your best heel clicking, goose-stepping Hiel Bushler salute

WASHINGTON (AP) - The GOP-controlled House plans to quickly renew portions of the USA Patriot Act before they expire at the end of the year. Some Republicans say the nation's safety could be endangered if the Senate doesn't follow suit.

The House on Wednesday was expected to pass a White House-backed bill that would renew more than a dozen provisions of the Act - the government's premier anti-terrorism law - which are due to expire Dec. 31.

But saving those provisions will be more difficult in the Republican-controlled Senate, where some GOP and Democratic senators are unsatisfied with the compromise bill, which was worked out last week between key Republicans in the House and Senate.

At least one senator, Democrat Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, is threatening a filibuster.

House leaders and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on Tuesday warned the bill's opponents that they could be putting the country in danger by holding up the Act's reauthorization.

"The consequence of the Patriot Act expiring on December 31st is going to be putting the American people at greater risk," House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., said.

Added Gonzales: "The tools in the reauthorization of the Patriot Act are very important to the success of the Department of Justice in protecting this country."

Senate Democrats joined by some libertarian-leaning Republicans want to extend the expiring provisions of the law by three months to give Congress time to add more protections against what they say are excessive police powers.

"There's no reason to compromise right to due process, the right to a judicial review, fair and reasonable standards of evidence in the pursuit of our security," said Sen. John E. Sununu, R-N.H., one of several senators urging Congress to move the expiration date to March 31.

[I find it interesting that the AP is now categorizing Republicans who are not ready to goosestep into a dictatorship as "libertarian-leaning." Has it become a bad thing in the "land of the free" to support personal liberty?

GOP leaders told Bush that his hardcore push to renew the more onerous provisions of the act could further alienate conservatives still mad at the President from his botched attempt to nominate White House Counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.

“I don’t give a goddamn,” Bush retorted. “I’m the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way.”

“Mr. President,” one aide in the meeting said. “There is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution.”

“Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,” Bush screamed back. “It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!”

I’ve talked to three people present for the meeting that day and they all confirm that the President of the United States called the Constitution “a goddamned piece of paper.”

And, to the Bush Administration, the Constitution of the United States is little more than toilet paper stained from all the shit that this group of power-mad despots have dumped on the freedoms that “goddamned piece of paper” used to guarantee.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, while still White House counsel, wrote that the “Constitution is an outdated document.”

Put aside, for a moment, political affiliation or personal beliefs. It doesn’t matter if you are a Democrat, Republican or Independent. It doesn’t matter if you support the invasion or Iraq or not. Despite our differences, the Constitution has stood for two centuries as the defining document of our government, the final source to determine – in the end – if something is legal or right.

Every federal official – including the President – who takes an oath of office swears to “uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia says he cringes when someone calls the Constitution a “living document.”

“"Oh, how I hate the phrase we have—a 'living document,’” Scalia says. “We now have a Constitution that means whatever we want it to mean. The Constitution is not a living organism, for Pete's sake.”

As a judge, Scalia says, “I don't have to prove that the Constitution is perfect; I just have to prove that it's better than anything else.”

President Bush has proposed seven amendments to the Constitution over the last five years, including a controversial amendment to define marriage as a “union between a man and woman.” Members of Congress have proposed some 11,000 amendments over the last decade, ranging from repeal of the right to bear arms to a Constitutional ban on abortion.

Scalia says the danger of tinkering with the Constitution comes from a loss of rights.

“We can take away rights just as we can grant new ones,” Scalia warns. “Don't think that it's a one-way street.”

And don’t buy the White House hype that the USA Patriot Act is a necessary tool to fight terrorism. It is a dangerous law that infringes on the rights of every American citizen and, as one brave aide told President Bush, something that undermines the Constitution of the United States.

But why should Bush care? After all, the Constitution is just “a goddamned piece of paper.”

© Copyright 2005 Capitol Hill Blue

Description and Status

It was not only human rights groups like the Center for Constitutional Rights, but many in the military or retired from the military who opposed the Graham amendment: Judge John Gibbons, who argued the landmark CCR case Rasul v. Bush before the Supreme Court, John Hutson, Dean of Franklin Pierce Law Center and former Judge Advocate General of the U.S. Navy, and the National Institute for Military Justice, among others, wrote open letters to the Senate to oppose the dismantling of habeas corpus.

The Graham amendment will create a thousand points of darkness across the globe where the United States will be free to hold people indefinitely without a hearing and beyond the reach of U.S. law and the checks and balances of the courts enshrined in our Constitution. The last time this country suspended habeas corpus was for the internment of tens of thousands of Japanese Americans during World War II, a travesty that is now universally recognized as a blot on our nation’s history. The purpose of the writ of habeas corpus has always been to relieve those wrongfully held from the oppression of unchecked executive power. The most reliable way to determine whether someone is properly held or a victim of injustice is to have a right to judicial review of the detention. This has been understood at least since the proclamation of the Magna Carta in 1215.

While the Administration and its supporters have tried to characterize the men being held at Guantánamo as the worst of the worst against all evidence, the fact is that even the military has admitted that they often apprehended the wrong people. Most have no ties to Al Qaida, many were turned over to the U.S. for bounty, and many more were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. If they have no way to appeal their innocence or their status, they will be left to rot in detention indefinitely.

Senator Graham's jurisdiction-stripping efforts come as allegations of secret CIA detention facilities around the world dominate headlines; the Bush Administration has consistently sought to put itself above the law and evade oversight and accountability for torture and other abuse. It is no secret that arbitrary indefinite detention and widespread prisoner mistreatment have taken and continue to take place at Guantánamo and other U.S.-run facilities. The Graham Amendment will only serve to reinforce the growing perception in the world that the United States has become an enemy of human rights.

As has been the practice of this Administration, this latest scheme was accomplished stealthily and in secret. The Center for Constitutional Rights vows to continue to fight for the rule of law. We will not allow American democracy to be eroded a little at a time, until, finally looking around, we can longer recognize what has become of this democratic nation."

US Constitution: Article I Section 9: The privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.

Short Definition: Habeas Corpus
habeas corpus n. Law A writ issued to bring a party before a court to prevent unlawful restraint. [<Med. Lat., you should have the body] Source: American Heritage Dictionary

The basic premise behind habeas corpus is that you cannot be held against your will without just cause. To put it another way, you cannot be jailed if there are no charges against you. If you are being held, and you demand it, the courts must issue a writ or habeas corpus, which forces those holding you to answer as to why. If there is no good or compelling reason, the court must set you free. It is important to note that of all the civil liberties we take for granted today as a part of the Bill of Rights, the importance of habeas corpus is illustrated by the fact that it was the sole liberty thought important enough to be included in the original text of the Constitution.

CALL OR FAX THESE KEY SENATORS PLUS YOUR OWN:

Collins (ME) T: (202) 224-2523 F: (202) 224-2693

Snowe (ME) T: (202) 224-5344 F: (202) 224-1946

Dewine (OH) T: (202) 224-2315 F: (202) 224-6519

Mccain (AZ) T: (202) 224-2235 F: (202) 228-2862

Warner (VA) T: (202) 224-2023 F: (202) 224-6295

Hagel (NEB) T: (202) 224-4224 F: (202) 224-5213

Nelson (NEB) T: (202) 224-6551 F: (202) 228-0012

Conrad (ND)T: (202) 224-2043 F: (202) 224-7776

Landrieu (LA) T: (202)224-5824 F: (202) 224-9735

Lieberman (CT) T: (202) 224-4041 F: (202) 224-9750

Wyden (OR) T: (202) 224-5244 F: (202) 228-2717

I join the Center for Constitutional Rights in urging you to support the Bingaman amendment to the defense authorization bill which would remove the section of the Graham Amendment that strips U.S. court of the right to review writs of habeas corpus from Guantanamo detainees. Habeas Corpus is a fundamental right that our entire legal tradition is founded on. Unfettered Executive power jeopardizes our free and democratic society. Creating “no law zones” of unreviewable Executive power at Guantánamo undermines the moral standing of the United States in eyes of the world and endangers the lives of U.S. soldiers abroad. Please join me in supporting the Bingaman Amendment.

A bipartisan group of senators reached a compromise Monday that would allow detainees at Guantanamo Bay to appeal the rulings of military tribunals to the federal courts.

Under the agreement, detainees who receive a punishment of 10 years in prison to death would receive an automatic appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Lesser sentences would not receive automatic review, but detainees still could petition the court to hear their cases.

The Senate is to vote Tuesday on a proposal by Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., that would allow detainees to file habeas corpus petitions, but only in the D.C. appeals court. However, the proposal would prohibit detainees from filing petitions based on claims objecting to living conditions.

"It is reasonable to insist that when the government deprives a person of his or her liberty - and in this case for an indefinite period of time - that the individual have a meaningful opportunity to challenge the legality of their detention and challenge whether they are being wrongfully detained," Bingaman said.

Levin said he would vote for Bingaman's proposal but, should that fail, would support the compromise provision.

Graham said he opposed Bingaman's proposal because it did not correct "lawsuit abuse" by prisoners at Guantanamo, and, he said, it would continue to treat terrorism suspects as criminals by affording them the right to file habeas corpus petitions to fight their detentions in a U.S. court. [this guy actually feels that filing a writ of habeas corpus is "lawsuit abuse" after being held for years with no charges and being designated an "illegal combatant" for fighting against invaders within your own country. the administration has stated that the "illegal combatants" are not entitled to the protections of the Geneva Conventions because they are illegal combatants...criminals not true combatants entitled to the international protections...they want it both ways.]

The Supreme Court gave that right to the 500 or so prisoners held at Guantanamo in 2004. Many of the prisoners were captured in Afghanistan and have been held at Guantanamo for several years without being charged.

"Our country is at war and our government has the obligation to protect the American people," Bush said. "Any activity we conduct is within the law. We do not torture."

The "we do not torture" mantra coming from the White House seems reminiscent of the "I am not a crook" slogan Richard Nixon sported so well.

If the administration cannot completely kill the law it seeks an exemption for the CIA which in effect would give the agency tacit authorization and carte blanc to torture people.

It was recently disclosed that the spy agency maintains a network of prisons in eastern Europe and Asia, where it holds terrorist suspects and refuses to disclose who is held, for how long or the conditions by which they are held. The United States is also holding hundreds of foreign terrorism suspects at the military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and has brushed off accusations of using torture against prisoners at that facility.

The Internal Revenue Service has warned a prominent liberal church that it could lose its tax-exempt status because of an anti-war sermon a guest preacher gave on the eve of the 2004 presidential election, according to church officials.

The Rev. George F. Regas did not urge parishioners at All Saints Episcopal Church to support either President Bush or John Kerry, but he was critical of the Iraq war and Bush's tax cuts.

The IRS warned the church in June that its tax-exempt status was in jeopardy because such organizations are prohibited from intervening in political campaigns and elections.

The church's rector, J. Edwin Bacon, told his congregation about the problem Sunday. He called the IRS threat "a direct assault on freedom of speech and freedom of religion." Some All Saints members said they feared the 3,500-member church was being singled out for its political views.

Marcus Owens, the church's tax attorney and a former head of the IRS tax-exempt section, said the agency offered to drop the proceedings if the church admitted wrongdoing. The church declined the offer, he said.

[Isn't it odd how a sermon criticizing the Illegal "war" in Iraq brings the IRS down on them but calling for political assassination goes without a word from the IRS? Wouldn't you say that calling for the assassination of a national leader would influence politics at least as much as suggesting who one should vote for? Seems like political retribution to me.]

A Christian Fascist Speaks
Calls for Political Assassination yet 501c(3) not in Danger?

Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson has suggested that

American agents assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to stop his country from becoming "a launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism."

"We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability," Robertson said Monday on the Christian Broadcast Network's "The 700 Club."

"We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator," he continued. "It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with."

Chavez has emerged as one of the most outspoken critics of President Bush, accusing the United States of conspiring to topple his government and possibly backing plots to assassinate him. U.S. officials have called the accusations ridiculous.

"You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it," Robertson said. "It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war ... and I don't think any oil shipments will stop."

NOW THE "CHRISTIAN EVANGELIST" WHO IS CALLING FOR THE ASSASSINATION OF A TWICE DULY ELECTED (BY LANDSLIDE) PRESIDENT OF A SOVEREIGN COUNTRY AND SURVIVOR OF A CIA BACKED COUP (OVERTURNED BY POPULAR UPRISING OF MILLIONS OF VENEZUELANS) IS NOW LYING ABOUT WHAT HE SAID.

(08/24/05) Robertson says, "I said our special forces could take him out. Take him out could be a number of things including kidnapping," Robertson said on his "The 700 Club" television program.

The current agenda of the US federal government is to reinstate the draft in order to staff up for a protracted war on "terrorism." Pending legislation in the House and Senate (twin bills S 89 and HR 163) would time the program so the draft could begin at early as Spring 2005 -- conveniently just after the 2004 presidential election!

Dear Friends and Family,

I urge you to read the article below on the current agenda of the federal government to reinstate the draft in order to staff up for a protracted war on "terrorism."

Pending legislation in the House and Senate (twin bills S 89 and HR 163 [HR 163 has been voted down]) would time the program so the draft could begin at early as Spring 2005 -- conveniently just after the 2004 presidential election! But the administration is quietly trying to get these bills passed NOW, so our action is needed immediately. Details and links follow.

If voters who currently support U.S. aggression abroad were confronted with the possibility that their own children or grandchildren might not have a say about whether to fight, many of these same voters might have a change of mind. (Not that it should make a difference, but this plan would among other things eliminate higher education as a shelter and would not exclude women -- and Canada is no longer an option.)

Please send this on to all the parents and teachers you know, and all the aunts and uncles, grandparents, godparents.... And let your children know -- it's their future, and they can be a powerful voice for change! Please also write to your representatives to ask them why they aren't telling their constituents about these bills -- and write to newspapers and other media outlets to ask them why they're not covering this important story.

$28 million has been added to the 2004 Selective Service System (SSS) budget to prepare for a military draft that could start as early as June 15, 2005. SSS must report to Bush on March 31, 2005 that the system, which has lain dormant for decades, is ready for activation. Please see website: http://www.sss.gov/perfplan_fy2004.html to view the SSS Annual Performance Plan - Fiscal Year 2004.

The Pentagon has quietly begun a public campaign to fill all 10,350 draft board positions and 11,070 appeals board slots nationwide.. Though this is an unpopular election year topic, military experts and influential members of Congress are suggesting that if Rumsfeld's prediction of a "long, hard slog" in Iraq and Afghanistan [and a permanent state of war on "terrorism"] proves accurate, the U.S. may have no choice but to draft.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5146.htm

Congress brought twin bills, S. 89 and H.R. 163 forward this year, entitled the Universal National Service Act of 2003, "To provide for the common defense by requiring that all young persons [age 18--26] in the United States, including women, perform a period of military service or a period of civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, and for other purposes." These active bills currently sit in the Committee on Armed Services.

Dodging the draft will be more difficult than those from the Vietnam era remember. College and Canada will not be options. In December 2001, Canada and the US signed a "Smart Border Declaration," which could be used to keep would-be draft dodgers in. Signed by Canada's Minister of Foreign Affairs, John Manley, and US Homeland Security Director, Gov. Tom Ridge, the declaration involves a 30-point plan which implements, among other things, a "pre-clearance agreement" of people entering and departing each country. Reforms aimed at making the draft more equitable along gender and class lines also eliminates higher education as a shelter. Underclassmen would only be able to postpone service until the end of their cur-rent semester. Seniors would have until the end of the academic year.