6th Anniversary for my Blog

May is a special month for me for a number of reasons. It is my anniversary month for starting many things. However today I celebrate the fact that it is also the anniversary of this Blog which I started on May 11th, 2005. My first post was titled, "Judicial Nominations: Do common people really care? " (You can click on the name at it will take you to my first Blog post) At that time I was getting upset and wanted my voice to be added to the debate of the day about the Supreme Court and other stately topics of concern about our country, like having John Bolton as U.S Ambassador, which I did not believe was in the best interests of our country after such great men as Henry Cabot Lodge. So I voiced my concerns back then. And here I am today, having completed 6 years of writing.

The site has morphed into something on politics and the stock market, but that is where my interests lie these days. This week I mark the milestone of over 69,000 visitors to my site over these 6 years and they have read over 110,000 of my Blog pages. If you have been one of those who have glanced at my writings, either by mistake or by deliberate intentions, thank you.

When I started writing my Blog, my purpose was to get as many to read and hear my words as possible. From those beginning posts my purpose for writing has changed. I now write to document my points of views as a historical legacy of my time here on earth and where was my brain activity focusing on. I am not sure it was the wisest use of my time, but it is what it is. I wonder if I am addicted to writing my Blog and can't stop, but clearly I can as I took off about 10 days to go back east and felt no compulsion to write here at all. :)

I realize there are many who visit here from doing a search of key words and because I have written for such a long time I must have covered what you are looking for at least once, with those key words I entered in my tags.

Well, whatever the reason you ventured here, I hope it wasn't a total waste of your time. I know we are all connected here on mother earth and throughout the Universe. We are connected to everything and everyone we like and dislike, but through this technology, these connections are made more aware to us. We are connected to athletes around the world, to uprisings throughout the world, dictators and common people throughout the world, and to those in the world who call themselves "Anonymous." Thanks to you all. Now go do something more important! :)

The end of America as we knew it. Blame the Supreme Court

What a week this has been. Today, the Supreme Court erased all restrictions on Corporations for contributions to elections in the form of money, which, according to the Court equates to allowing free speech. They can't give a direct contribution to a candidate (yet!), but can run as many ads and make any documentaries they like, on any campaign issue or about any candidate like the Swift Boat ads were against Sen. Kerry. God, you know what that means? It means that, as of today, Corporations own the vote and your vote is no longer valid. They can spend as much money as they want, to fund anyone's campaign and outspend any person or group of persons. That infers they can buy the votes more easily than they have. Forget about America's Freedoms. You don't have any freedoms left except to leave the country except to hope that we can appoint new Supreme Court Justices who will over rule this decision. But the Corporations will now control much as to who runs and gets elected and will support candidates that favor continuation of this ruling. We're screwed! This is a new form of slavery in my view.

The last hope we had was to remove corporations and their lobbyists from elections and influencing politicians. Now the Supreme Court has opened the door wide. I am sick over this! Don't tell me it doesn't matter who is on the Supreme Court and who gets to fill the open seats. It is the most important decision of a Presidency and Bush got to name 2, Alito and Roberts, both who voted in favor of this ruling along with Scalia, Thomas and Kennedy

Yes voters will be even more mad than they were in Tuesday's election in Massachusetts for the former Senate seat of Ted Kennedy. This morning I got this from someone I love and respect there and they speak for many. Here is their take on the election:

"The bank tax will be a good idea, but the people of Mass just heard about it when the president came to visit.

Maybe I can give you little background on why the people here voted for Brown. It all started when we were never aloud to vote for what constitutes a marriage. How do they know how the liberal state of Mass would have voted, but the legislature wouldn't give us a chance. Is this America or what!!! We have health care for 90% of our people and the health cost in our state are astronomical. Most young families have a $5000.00 deductable. We don't know if the new health care plan is any good because there is no transparency. Our unemployment is high and our housing market is a mess....No one feels secure, not even at our airport. Our tax dollars are going to protect terrorist instead of everyday people. I could go on but I will just say, Brown even won in Ted Kennedy's district.

I don't believe people think the president is arrogant, but he should have kept his compaign promise of transparency. "

That sums it up from this individual and speaks for many in Massachusetts. Add this action by the Supreme Court today and people will feel even more powerless. The worst thing that ever happened was giving Corporations the status on individuals, except no bad Corporation can go to jail, like individuals can.

Catholic Bishops are hypocrites!

This from today's news on President Obama giving commencement speech at Notre Dame, quoting Bloomberg News, "The president’s appearance at Notre Dame returned to the forefront a national debate over abortion and other social issues that shadowed his two predecessors and that Obama largely has sidestepped. It likely will escalate again with Obama’s nomination in the coming weeks of a new U.S. Supreme Court justice to replace Justice David Souter, who is retiring.

Anti-abortion demonstrators have staged protests almost daily, and more than 74 bishops have publicly criticized the university’s decision" (referring to the University inviting President Obama to give the commencement given his pro choice stand).

Can we all agree that the U.S. Bishops are hypocrites and political as well. They allowed sexual matters between Priests and children parishioners to go on, while they knew about it and did little to nothing, until forced to do so through lawsuits. They incite demonstrations and are counterproductive to finding solutions which divide Americans. Instead of working with President Obama on how to prevent teen pregnancies, they rather have their dominions protest and try to embarrass the Notre Dame University leadership and the students, as well as the President. Seems like they need a little confession soon, which they say can heal the heart. Clergy, heal they self! Let's face it, we all would rather see more adoptions and less unwanted pregnancies, and the Catholic Church is against contraception. Go figure! They are trying to increase the Catholic population, so they have more eventual contributors to the Church. It is all about self interest and money! I'm glad I switched and left the Catholic Church behind.

Ann Woolner lays bare the Guantanamo ruling by the Supreme Court

This news and commentary is worth the read. I have been saying this for years. See what the Court has said about Guantanamo detaineees. It is posted on Bloomberg and written by Ann Woolner. Here it is and the link:

Don't Believe Me About Guantanamo Bay, Read This: Ann Woolner
Commentary by Ann Woolner

July 7 (Bloomberg) -- Because of the close, ideologically divided vote, you may give slim credit to last month's 5-4 Supreme Court decision slamming the U.S. handling of suspected enemy combatants.

You might write off as knee-jerk liberal, Sept. 10 naïveté the commentary (like mine) that says even in time of war it's un-American to imprison people indefinitely with no real chance to show they were mistakenly nabbed.

If you believe the U.S. military is doing a sufficiently OK job sorting enemy from friend at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, I have a court ruling for you.

The federal appeals court in Washington D.C., the first court to look into the facts behind a specific Gitmo detention, decided the military had no credible evidence to label a man an enemy combatant and keep him locked up for six and a half years.

``It is undisputed that he is not a member of al-Qaeda or the Taliban, and that he has never participated in any hostile action against the United States or its allies,'' the court said.

Made public last week, the ruling found not a shred of credible evidence to support the government's claim that Huzaifa Parhat had anything at all to do with America's enemies, whether through combat or support or association with a group that may have associated with them.

One of Many

Parhat is one of 13 Chinese Muslims held at Guantanamo who fled persecution in China, camped in Afghanistan and wound up in Pakistan, where authorities handed him over to the U.S. His case is essentially identical to the dozen other detainees who are all members of the Uighur ethnic group. (That's pronounced WEE- gur.)

Beyond those 13 cases, the Parhat decision shows how little it takes to get labeled an enemy combatant and imprisoned for years on end.

You can't slough this one off as some nutty ruling by a bunch of ACLU-loving, Democratic-appointed activist judges. The three judges on this panel, which ruled unanimously, were appointed by Presidents Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

They include the Chief Judge of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, David Sentelle, protégé of former North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms and one of the federal judiciary's most conservative members. During his time on the bench, Sentelle has voted to set aside the Iran-Contra convictions of Oliver North and John Poindexter and, at Helms's urging, named Kenneth Starr to lead the Whitewater investigation. He has also ruled in favor of the Bush administration on another Guantanamo issue.

No Hotbed

And then there's Thomas Griffith, whom Bush appointed to the bench in 2005, when Griffith was general counsel to Brigham Young University in Utah, hardly a hotbed of liberalism.

The Clinton nominee on the panel is Merrick Garland, who clerked for the late and liberal Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, worked in the Justice Department during the Clinton years and wrote the opinion in the Parhat case.

And yet, on this matter, they all agreed.

It's not as if the judges reached their conclusions using a defense-friendly, beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt examination.

They abided by standards Congress set in 2005, which are so stacked in favor of the government that the Supreme Court ruled on June 12 that they don't afford necessary constitutional protections.

While awaiting that decision, the D.C. Court of Appeals used the standards, anyway, because Parhat's lawyers -- eager for a quick decision and confident of the outcome using any rules -- agreed to go along with them.

Flimsy, Unattributed Evidence

Sure enough, the court said the evidence against Parhat is so flimsy, so unattributed that it's impossible to assess, much less rely on.

``To affirm the tribunal's determination under such circumstances would be to place a judicial imprimatur on an act of essentially unreviewable executive discretion,'' the judges said.

``We won in their court, on their statute, before judges that are not predisposed to our side,'' says Sabin Willett, a Boston lawyer representing Parhat.

The worst the government could say about Parhat was that in 2001 he lived in an Afghan camp run by a leader of a Uighur independence group who trained him in weapons.

That group, the East Turkistan Islamic Movement, may or may not associate with al-Qaeda and the Taliban, which Parhat may or may not have realized because there's no evidence he's a member of the group, anyway, the government acknowledged.

Thinly Sourced

It's hard to pin down whether the military believes its own accusations, the court said. Even its classified information is so thinly sourced and so poorly presented that the prosecution couched allegations in terms like ``said to be'' and ``apparently.''

Parhat swore to the Combatant Status Military Tribunal that China was his only enemy, not the U.S. He denied membership in the Uighur independence group or any knowledge it might be connected to America's enemies.

He attributed at least some of the accusations against him to Chinese authorities, hardly credible informants when it comes to dissidents.

If Parhat's right, China is using the U.S. to carry out its persecution of the Uighurs. Nice, eh?

The appeals court ordered the government to either release Parhat or grant him a speedy new tribunal hearing. It also suggested he seek release through a habeas corpus petition in federal court, which Willett says he is pursuing.

``We need a remedy,'' says Willett, ``a real honest-to- goodness remedy and an end to all this appellate badminton.''

The administration says it has been looking for a place to send the Uighurs, even while insisting they are enemy combatants.

Why keep them in prison, why keep them fighting in court? Why not give them their freedom in the U.S., which robbed them of it in the first place?

At the very least, admit we did wrong, stop fighting every single issue in court and look for a real solution to the self- inflicted disaster that is Guantanamo Bay.

(Ann Woolner is a Bloomberg news columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.)

Ann did a great job not letting this story die away, as many wish she had. Bravo Ann!

Headline reads: Nader announces new run for President!

Here comes the spoiler to cast his permanent legacy in stone. Ralph Nader has an egomaniacal predilection with trying to be President. This modern day Don Quixote was responsible single handedly for allowing President Bush to be elected instead of Al Gore. Look what happened over the past years as a result. Nader sees the outcome of that election as Gore lost it, rather than Nader lost it for Democrats. His running in 2000 required the Supreme Court to decide the election in favor of Bush. However this time no such thing will happen.

Nader in doing this is actually not acting in his supposed long term interests for the country. In a way it's too bad he doesn't get it. If the media and the voters are smarter this time around, they will leave Nader to obscurity, as this will become his final legacy to his family and his country. Ego is a devilish thing to overcome and for Nader, who many years ago was ahead of the curve in concerns for the environment, has now put his own Ego need fulfillment over his country's needs. His lack of concern about his direct impact on the election of 2000, allowed a President Bush to start the Iraq war. If Nader really thought about this, it was the worse possible outcome for the environment. More bombs have been exploded, more poor Energy policy by the Administration cuddling up to big Oil companies, resulted in more green house gases than all the good Nader has done for the environment in his lifetime. Shame on you Mr. Nader. You have grown so much smaller in later years. You once had a good name. Today you are the beginning of its destruction for all the historians to record.

This election is Obama's to win.

For the entire Headline news article click here.

Genarlow Wilson: A young man of courage and principle wins in Georgia

After many years fighting charges he incurred by a zealous District Attorney relentless prosecution in Georgia of this 17 year old young man, the Georgia Supreme Court ruled to day that he must be set free. Free at last, free at last, thank God he will be free at last!

As a 17 year old, Genarlow had consensual oral sex with a 15 year old. But when they put him in jail he would not cop a plea on a lesser charge and get only a 1 year term, as he didn't want his life labeled as a sex offender. He has been fighting the charges on principle. He has been in jail on a 10 year sentence and is now 21 years old. The Georgia Supreme Court ruled in favor of this young man and in their ruling said he had faced cruel and unusual punishment for this so called crime at the time he was 17. Amen! I am hoping his attorney files charges against the State and gets this young man millions of dollars in compensation and to teach local officials there is a cost for this inappropriate prosecution.

Watch Rush Limbaugh say on his radio show he should have stayed in jail and that the prosecution was correct because it was a split decision.

Supreme Court again whacks the Bush Administration

The Supreme Court today ruled against the Bush Administration again, this time on car pollution and the role of the EPA in setting limits on pollution. Even with the Supreme Court rigged with Conservatives, the 5-4 decision is a setback for both Bush and Cheney and their big Oil friends. They rebuked the Administration for inaction on global warming!

The court's four conservative justices — Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas — dissented.

Those rebuking the Administration's position were Justices John Stevens, Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Ruth Ginsburg and Steven Breyer. To read the compete news report click here.

In my humble opinion, this Administration should have been taken to Court over their record on Katrina too.

Background of Supreme Court appointments:

Of the 9 Supreme Court Justices 7 have been appointed by Republican Presidents and only 2 by a Democratic President.

Justice Stephen Breyer appointed by Clinton
Justice Ruth Ginsburg appointed by Clinton
Justice John Stevens appointed by Ford
Justice Anthony Kennedy appointed by Reagan
Justice Anthony Scalia appointed by Reagan
Justice Clarence Thomas appointed by Bush 1
Justice David Souter appointed by Bush 1
Justice Sam Alito appointed by Bush 2
Chief Justice John Roberts appointed by Bush 2