Republican Leader

Tom DeLay Indicted

Tom DeLay was indicted in Texas today in a campaign finance scandal. He was indicted on the charge of consipracy along with two associates. This indictment is not related to the Jack Abramoff scandals which DeLay is also tightly aligned with.

A Texas grand jury on Wednesday charged Rep.Tom DeLay and two political associates with conspiracy in a campaign finance scheme, an indictment that could force him to step down as House majority leader.

DeLay attorney Steve Brittain said DeLay was accused of a criminal conspiracy along with two associates, John Colyandro, former executive director of a Texas political action committee formed by DeLay, and Jim Ellis, who heads DeLay's national political committee.

The indictment against the second-ranking, and most assertive Republican leader came on the final day of the grand jury's term. It followed earlier indictments of a state political action committee founded by DeLay and three of his political associates.

The grand jury action is expected to have immediate consequences in the House, where DeLay is largely responsible for winning passage of the Republican legislative program. House Republican Party rules require leaders who are indicted to temporarily step aside from their leadership posts.

Senator Bill Frist - Republican Majority Leader - Tennessee -  is also under investigation for selling stock in his family's hospital just before the price fell.

Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr., said, "Representative DeLay wields tremendous power in Congress.  He rules the Republican House with an iron fist. But as the old saying warns, 'power corrupts but absolute power corrupts absolutely". "DeLays indictment proves that no one, no matter how powerful, is above the law.  DeLay should resign his office for the good of Congress and the country", Jackson concluded.

CHOICE AMERICA NETWORK

 

The Quiet Before The Storm

"Giving all honor, thanks and praises to God for courage and wisdom, this is a very important rally. I'd like to thank you for allowing me to share my thoughts, feelings and concerns regarding a tremendous problem that we are currently facing. This problem is universal, transcending race, economic background, religion, and culture, and this problem is none other than the current administration which has set up shop in the White House.

In fact, I'd like to take some of these cats on a field trip. I want to get big yellow buses with no air conditioner and no seatbelts and round up Bill O'Reilly, Pat Buchanan, Trent Lott, Sean Hannity, Dick Cheney, Jeb Bush, Bush Jr. and Bush Sr., John Ashcroft, Giuliani, Ed Gillespie, Katherine Harris, that little bow-tied Tucker Carlson and any other right-wing conservative Republicans I can think of, and take them all on a trip to the 'hood. Not to do no 30-minute documentary. I mean, I want to drop them off and leave them there, let them become one with the other side of the tracks, get them four mouths to feed and no welfare, have scare tactics run through them like a laxative, criticizing them for needing assistance.

I'd show them working families that make too much to receive welfare but not enough to make ends meet. I'd employ them with jobs with little security, let them know how it feels to be an employee at will, able to be fired at the drop of a hat. I'd take away their opportunities, then try their children as adults, sending their 13-year-old babies to life in prison. I'd sell them dreams of hopelessness while spoon-feeding their young with a daily dose of inferior education. I'd tell them no child shall be left behind, then take more money out of their schools, tell them to show and prove themselves on standardized exams testing their knowledge on things that they haven't been taught, and then I'd call them inferior.

I'd soak into their interior notions of endless possibilities. I'd paint pictures of assisted productivity if they only agreed to be all they can be, dress them up with fatigues and boots with promises of pots of gold at the end of rainbows, free education to waste terrain on those who finish their bid. Then I'd close the lid on that barrel of fool's gold by starting a war, sending their children into the midst of a hostile situation, and while they're worried about their babies being murdered and slain in foreign lands, I'd grace them with the pain of being sick and unable to get medicine.

Give them health benefits that barely cover the common cold. John Q. would become their reality as HMOs introduce them to the world of inferior care, filling their lungs with inadequate air, penny pinching at the expense of patients, doctors practicing medicine in an intricate web of rationing and regulations. Patients wander the maze of managed bureaucracy, costs rise and quality quickly deteriorates, but they say that managed care is cheaper. They'll say that free choice in medicine will defeat the overall productivity, and as co-payments are steadily rising, I'll make their grandparents have to choose between buying their medicine and paying their rent.

Then I'd feed them hypocritical lines of being pro-life as the only Christian way to be. Then very contradictingly, I'd fight for the spread of the death penalty, as if thou shall not kill applies to babies but not to criminals.

Then I'd introduce them to those sworn to protect and serve, creating a curb in their trust in the law. I'd show them the nightsticks and plungers, the pepper spray and stun guns, the mace and magnums that they'd soon become acquainted with, the shakedowns and illegal search and seizures, the planted evidence, being stopped for no reason. Harassment ain't even the half of it. Forty-one shots to two raised hands, cell phones and wallets that are confused with illegal contrabands. I'd introduce them to pigs who love making their guns click like wine glasses. Everlasting targets surrounded by bullets, making them a walking bull's eye, a living piñata, held at the mercy of police brutality, and then we'll see if they finally weren't aware of the truth, if their eyes weren't finally open like a box of Pandora.

I'd show them how the other side of the tracks carries the weight of the world on our shoulders and how society seems to be holding us down with the force of a boulder. The bird of democracy flew the coop back in Florida. See, for some, and justice comes in packs like wolves in sheep's clothing. T.K.O.'d by the right hooks of life, many are left staggering under the weight of the day, leaning against the ropes of hope. When your dreams have fallen on barren ground, it becomes difficult to keep pushing yourself forward like a train, administering pain like a doctor with a needle, their sequels continue more lethal than injections.

They keep telling us all is equal. I'd tell them that instead of giving tax breaks to the rich, financing corporate mergers and leading us into unnecessary wars and under-table dealings with Enron and Halliburton, maybe they can work on making society more peaceful. Instead, they take more and more money out of inner city schools, give up on the idea of rehabilitation and build more prisons for poor people. With unemployment continuing to rise like a deficit, it's no wonder why so many think that crime pays.

Maybe this trip will make them see the error of their ways. Or maybe next time, we'll just all get out and vote. And as far as their stay in the White House, tell them that numbered are their days."

Ethan Thomas

September 24, 2005

Washington D.C.

CHOICE AMERICA NETWORK

My fellow Americans:

Three days from now, after half a century in the service of our country, I shall lay down the responsibilities of office as, in traditional and solemn ceremony, the authority of the Presidency is vested in my successor.

This evening I come to you with a message of leave-taking and farewell, and to share a few final thoughts with you, my countrymen.

Like every other citizen, I wish the new President, and all who will labor with him, Godspeed. I pray that the coming years will be blessed with peace and prosperity for all.

Our people expect their President and the Congress to find essential agreement on issues of great moment, the wise resolution of which will better shape the future of the Nation.

My own relations with the Congress, which began on a remote and tenuous basis when, long ago, a member of the Senate appointed me to West Point, have since ranged to the intimate during the war and immediate post-war period, and, finally, to the mutually interdependent during these past eight years.

In this final relationship, the Congress and the Administration have, on most vital issues, cooperated well, to serve the national good rather than mere partisanship, and so have assured that the business of the Nation should go forward. So, my official relationship with the Congress ends in a feeling, on my part, of gratitude that we have been able to do so much together.

II.

We now stand ten years past the midpoint of a century that has witnessed four major wars among great nations. Three of these involved our own country. Despite these holocausts America is today the strongest, the most influential and most productive nation in the world. Understandably proud of this pre-eminence, we yet realize that America's leadership and prestige depend, not merely upon our unmatched material progress, riches and military strength, but on how we use our power in the interests of world peace and human betterment.

III.

Throughout America's adventure in free government, our basic purposes have been to keep the peace; to foster progress in human achievement, and to enhance liberty, dignity and integrity among people and among nations. To strive for less would be unworthy of a free and religious people. Any failure traceable to arrogance, or our lack of comprehension or readiness to sacrifice would inflict upon us grievous hurt both at home and abroad.

Progress toward these noble goals is persistently threatened by the conflict now engulfing the world. It commands our whole attention, absorbs our very beings. We face a hostile ideology -- global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose, and insidious in method. Unhappily the danger is poses promises to be of indefinite duration. To meet it successfully, there is called for, not so much the emotional and transitory sacrifices of crisis, but rather those which enable us to carry forward steadily, surely, and without complaint the burdens of a prolonged and complex struggle -- with liberty the stake. Only thus shall we remain, despite every provocation, on our charted course toward permanent peace and human betterment.

Crises there will continue to be. In meeting them, whether foreign or domestic, great or small, there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties. A huge increase in newer elements of our defense; development of unrealistic programs to cure every ill in agriculture; a dramatic expansion in basic and applied research -- these and many other possibilities, each possibly promising in itself, may be suggested as the only way to the road we wish to travel.

But each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs -- balance between the private and the public economy, balance between cost and hoped for advantage -- balance between the clearly necessary and the comfortably desirable; balance between our essential requirements as a nation and the duties imposed by the nation upon the individual; balance between actions of the moment and the national welfare of the future. Good judgment seeks balance and progress; lack of it eventually finds imbalance and frustration.

The record of many decades stands as proof that our people and their government have, in the main, understood these truths and have responded to them well, in the face of stress and threat. But threats, new in kind or degree, constantly arise. I mention two only.

IV.

A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction.

Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.

In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.

Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.

The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present

• and is gravely to be regarded.

Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientifictechnological elite.

It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system -- ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.

V.

Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society's future, we -- you and I, and our government -- must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.

VI.

Down the long lane of the history yet to be written America knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.

Such a confederation must be one of equals. The weakest must come to the conference table with the same confidence as do we, protected as we are by our moral, economic, and military strength. That table, though scarred by many past frustrations, cannot be abandoned for the certain agony of the battlefield.

Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative. Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose. Because this need is so sharp and apparent I confess that I lay down my official responsibilities in this field with a definite sense of disappointment. As one who has witnessed the horror and the lingering sadness of war -- as one who knows that another war could utterly destroy this civilization which has been so slowly and painfully built over thousands of years -- I wish I could say tonight that a lasting peace is in sight.

Happily, I can say that war has been avoided. Steady progress toward our ultimate goal has been made. But, so much remains to be done. As a private citizen, I shall never cease to do what little I can to help the world advance along that road.

VII.

So -- in this my last good night to you as your President -- I thank you for the many opportunities you have given me for public service in war and peace. I trust that in that service you find some things worthy; as for the rest of it, I know you will find ways to improve performance in the future.

You and I -- my fellow citizens -- need to be strong in our faith that all nations, under God, will reach the goal of peace with justice. May we be ever unswerving in devotion to principle, confident but humble with power, diligent in pursuit of the Nation's great goals.

To all the peoples of the world, I once more give expression to America's prayerful and continuing aspiration:

We pray that peoples of all faiths, all races, all nations, may have their great human needs satisfied; that those now denied opportunity shall come to enjoy it to the full; that all who yearn for freedom may experience its spiritual blessings; that those who have freedom will understand, also, its heavy responsibilities; that all who are insensitive to the needs of others will learn charity; that the scourges of poverty, disease and ignorance will be made to disappear from the earth, and that, in the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and love.

CHOICE AMERICA NETWORK

THE ENEMY FROM WITHIN

Part III of V

PTSD

POSTTRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER

 AND THE

 CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY

BY DAVID FRIEDMAN

We all have it. The capacity to hate, the capacity for anger.  It is born out of chaos, and it requires years of experiences with comments made in anger, actions created by hateful reactions, people we care about hurt before we learn to control this enemy.  Some of us will never learn.  Some of us will never be in a position to see what the passion that comes in anger can do to another human being.  

The worst chaos imaginable, WAR, has the power to bring this anger and hate to a place where it can no longer be controlled, no matter how strong we are.  And the strongest of us, when the time for "hating the enemy" is over, in many instances turn our anger on ourselves, for what we have become – for what it was that we allowed to control us.

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a complex health condition that can develop in response to a traumatic experience – a life-threatening or extremely distressing situation that causes a person to feel intense fear, horror or a sense of helplessness.

Soldiers returning from combat in Iraq face a high risk of suffering from PTSD, due to the unprecedented need for vigilance, not only regarding their own safety, but also for the safety of civilians in the midst of non-stop guerilla warfare.

If the soldiers who suffer from PTSD are not given the care they need, if they are not given the time and the calm places in which to heal, they will be driven deeper into their anger, and eventually pushed over the edge. 

A crime against humanity, and sadly, the worst crime of all for the citizens of this country who continue to support war, for it is against those who have made the sacrifice to defend us, who have trusted their leadership to respect them because of the significance of that sacrifice.   They have been, and continue to be, let down and disrespected at every level.

Where is the leadership that understands the significance of what these soldiers have given???  More importantly, when will the people of this country see that the sacrifice hasn't been given, it has been taken, by leaders who believe they deserve complete servitude; that our soldiers give up all humanity when they VOLUNTEER to defend what our constitution stands for. 

There is nothing worse than blind indifference to the pain of those who give all that they have for lies; those who know that they cannot get out of the madness without the help of people who just can't wake up to see the anguish our soldiers are in.  This sense of violation is the final straw that will push these soldiers over the edge.  When they reach out for help and their leaders tell them they are "malingering;" they need to "get back to the front and back into battle to keep the adrenalin flowing," to cure their lack of confidence, or the people they count on will not listen when they try to express their concerns, the people they reach out to are disregarding the needs of fellow human beings. 

CRIMES… we are all complicit until we see war for what it is, and take a stand to stop the madness. 

Where are the leaders?  When will those responsible be held accountable for what they have done, and continue to do, in the name of an illusion? 

These leaders have not been at Ft. Stewart, Georgia.  The 3^rd Infantry Division has a history of ensuring that every soldier is "in the fight" regardless of what the fight does to the soldier.  The popular creed these days seems to be "Mission First.  Take care of the soldiers by completing the mission, at all cost.  We'll get more soldiers.  They're just kids, a dime a dozen.  They're just fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters.  We can throw them away.  Oil matters, egos matter, the illusion of leadership matters, POWER, CONTROL, not letting anyone see the incompetence, all matter more than the humanity of our soldiers."  THIS.. is leadership????? 

At Ft. Stewart, soldiers must go to war, no matter what their humanity says differently. 

One soldier requested compassionate reassignment because a brother, their only sibling, was dying.  The command of Ft. Stewart turned down this request, citing that "105% of all military personnel were needed in Iraq, so no compassionate reassignments were being considered."  It took months of letters, hounding the administration, and this soldier deployed.  Finally, months into the deployment this soldier received word that they had been given their reassignment.  By this time, it was not much longer before they redeployed home.  Why do we have to apply that much pressure to get a "leader" to do the right thing? 

Soldiers on medical profile were treated as "malingering," or came face to face with a physician who was willing to tear up medical profiles and re-write them to show that soldiers who had never received treatment for their conditions had miraculously become deployable. 

One of the soldiers at Ft. Stewart was on medical profile for a condition that caused him to be deaf.  He had his records, and was scheduled to report for treatment and a medical discharge.  One night, this young soldier was wakened by his sergeant barreling into his barracks room ordering him to get up and get his equipment.  He would be deploying with his unit, or he would face 11 years in jail.  In the night, hearing impaired, and young, what is a soldier to do?

A soldier attempted suicide on the morning of deployment.  For months after his return from Iraq, this soldier requested treatment from the mental health counselors.  His commanders refused to listen, saying that he was "malingering."  Rather than give him the help he needed, and asked for, they threatened him, abused him emotionally, and the abuse took its toll.  He was taken to a local hospital, but the command didn't want his story to be told, so they hastily moved him to the Army hospital, refusing entry to his spouse.  He went AWOL, and then returned after his Rear Detachment commander made promises of help. When the mental health counselors informed his commander that this soldier required treatment under their care for at least 5 weeks, the commander ignored the recommendation and sent this soldier to Iraq, back to the same command that disregarded his health to begin with. 

On the night before his deployment, another Ft. Stewart soldier grabbed a bottle of prescription medication and a gun.  He got into his vehicle, drove off post to a highway not far away, pulled over to the side of the road and swallowed the pills in the bottle.  As the pills began to take effect, this soldier, a veteran of the invasion, then got out of his vehicle with his gun and walked along the edge of the highway away from his car.  The medication worked, in more ways than one, and he passed out along the side of the road before he could use the gun. 

This soldier was placed in the Psych unit of the Army hospital, where he was observed throughout the following week.  Doctors in the Psych unit told him that he was "malingering" and threatened with jail time.  He was ordered to deploy, and was sent to Iraq less than two weeks after he had attempted suicide.  Why did he take the pills?  He was scheduled to leave the military that same month, but the Army stop/lossed him, and rather than getting out, he was looking forward to another year and 4 months in combat, never having had his emotional condition addressed. 

There are uncounted cases of these stories on Ft. Stewart.  Doctors and commanders, self-proclaimed leaders who care about their soldiers, give the illusion, but actions present a different perspective.  Soldiers have gone AWOL, 12 from one unit, and have stayed away for so long they were dropped from the rolls.  Where is the accounting?  How many more have suffered that will never be known, because leaders chose to hide the truth, to cover the facts, to distort reality? 

Many in America want to know why more soldiers don't speak out against war, and the atrocities from it, if indeed they exist.  They do exist, and soldiers are speaking.  Their actions are telling us so much more than their words ever could.  But no one can hear because their voices are being muffled by those who claim to lead them. No one can hear because the outcry of these soldiers has been turned off with rhetoric, documents lost and access to the installations cut off for civilians who could make a difference if they knew the truth. 

PTSD manifests itself in so many ways.  Every aspect displays itself in the emotional turmoil that exists within each soldier.  But just as a soldier is an individual, the outward demonstrations of PTSD are as well.  There are many victims when a soldier suffers. 

On a small grassy median just in front of the Ft. Stewart PX complex, was a memorial that stood for 2 months.  One hundred and ninety one small blue pinwheels spun in the breezes during the spring months.  On a poster behind the pinwheels words read, "A memorial to the 191 confirmed cases of child abuse in the 3^rd ID, on Ft. Stewart and Hunter Army Airfield, in the last year." 

"Am I therefore

become your enemy

 because I tell you the truth?"

Anti-War/Impeach Bush  

Now the Majority Sentiment in America

Unfolding developments over the past several weeks have made it clear that the September 24 demonstrations in Washington DC, San Francisco and Los Angeles will be the largest outpouring of Anti-War/Impeach Bush sentiment since the illegal invasion of Iraq in March 2003. The Anti-War/Impeach Bush movement has gained full momentum, and a successful mass mobilization on Sept. 24 can be the key element in transforming that momentum into a powerful political force.

The Impeach Bush and Anti-War sentiment in the United States has now become the majority sentiment. Polls now show that Bush's approval rating regarding Iraq has fallen to under 40 percent. The American people know that they have been lied to and they no longer believe in the propaganda that is pumped out of the White House. The reach of the Anti-War/Impeach Bush movement has become broad and deep and includes segments of the population that had never before participated in protest activities.

Huge numbers will come from every major city on the East Coast, Midwest and South - New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Boston, Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, Atlanta, Birmingham, Charlotte and elsewhere - and from many smaller cities. Gulfport, Mississippi; Eau Claire, Wisconsin; and Des Moines, Iowa are just a few of the cities organizing for this demonstration. Buses will be coming from as far as Albuquerque, New Mexico - a 28 hour drive to DC.

The September 24 Impeach Bush and Anti-War demonstration will be making a direct and vivid connection between Bush's illegal war in Iraq and its inability and refusal to meet human needs as evidenced by the government's incompetent and criminal handling of the crisis in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. It is ironic and pitiful that the Bush White House can find limitless resources to wage war in Iraq - currently about $200 million a day or 1.4 billion each week - and plan the destruction of a whole city (Fallujah) in meticulous detail, but when confronted with the need to save a city the same government showed apathy, lethargy and criminal neglect, especially when it came to working class and African American communities. Moreover, in their pursuit of "endless war" the Bush Administration in 2003 and 2004 diverted large amounts of funding slated for Louisiana hurricane and flood rescue and response efforts to the Iraq war.

The Bush Administration is also facing Indictments which have been reported to be handed down within the coming weeks. Speculation that Bush, facing charges far worse than Nixon did in WaterGate, could resign.  The majority of America has had enough of the lies and corruption of the Bush Administration and a Blank Check Congress and September 24th will be the beginning to the end of the nightmare America has suffered from since 2000 according to demonstration organizers, speakers, historians and participants.  America marches on Washington September 24th.

CHOICE AMERICA NETWORK