Coffee and Me
Fonda Protest Missing -- Tour Nowhere in Sight
November 27, 2006
What Jane Fonda meant by people power was interesting. Thomas Kiernan, writes, “as they made the long drive…across the South [Jane and Elizabeth] had time to reflect.” As a French Communist, Elizabeth Vailland was loyal to the Soviet Union. “The Russians had started it all, Vailland convinced Jane.” Fonda soon said the Pentagon was “getting rich off this war” on “billions worth of property.” There was that evil capitalist institution again—private property. How she connected the Army’s collectively owned property to private holdings is hardly puzzling. Jane was merely parroting Stalinist lines of script--malappropriately. Back on the road she appeared at Oleo Strut Coffee House Group at Fort Hood, Texas. Fonda declared she was not Bob Hope. Jane did not “glamorize war or to urge young men to fight.” Actually she would later urge U.S. troops to malinger, desert, mutiny. At the University of Maryland, Jane proclaimed, like John Kerry, that “It’s normal to throw prisoners out of helicopters ... [to] ... make them talk.” A claim much investigated and never found according to most accounts, as we shall see in upcoming episodes. Expelled from Fort Meade, Maryland, Fonda screamed out to her press groupies below “We are being searched ... We’re going to get them on a charge of brutality....” In Jane’s two-month tour she had visited about 10 bases. In New York, she said, “when I left the West Coast I was a liberal. When I landed in New York I was a revolutionary.” One politically naive journalist quipped, “she may well be the only revolutionary with her own PR man.” [1] Her publicist was Steve Jaffe. SOURCES: printed only in a reply to a reader’s challenge of accuracy Kiernan pp 2, 224; Andersen pp. 219-221; Frock, p. 53. (These columns are based upon a book manuscript by Roger Canfield who can be reached at rogercan@pacbell.net )
Preparing for her anti-war tour in 2006, Jane Fonda is now dusting off her old anti-war credentials. She says she loves the troops and hates the war. Fonda has a very strange way of showing solidarity with the men and women of the U.S. armed forces. In 1970 Jane Fonda helped finance the Servicemen’s Fund, a front for the antiwar GI Coffee House movement. The left considered GI Coffee Houses outposts of revolution in the belly of the beast, U.S. military bases. Stirring dissent among the ranks, she said that blacks in the post’s stockade, jail, were there merely for “giving the peace sign and saying that they are sick of the war.” She uttered this absurdity at Fort Carson in Colorado Springs. At the Home Front coffee house, Fonda said that the USA was in Vietnam to protect $160 million in property. Kind of costly for so little property? Jane said the Vietnamese were fighting “for the same reason the French Underground fought the Nazis.” Ye gads. Democrat and Republican Nazis? Fonda said, “the majority of the rural population of Vietnam are in concentration camps, and we put them there.” Huh! (millions) “They are tortured and killed.” It was America that did bad things. Henceforth, she was silent about millions of refugees, hundreds of thousands in reeducation camps, tens of thousands executed by the conquering Communists after South Vietnam fell in 1975. She never mentioned genocide in Cambodia’s “killing fields.” Meanwhile back at Fort Carson, Fonda caught the attention of the Military Police who hauled her off for release outside the gates of the base. In Vietnam Jane would have qualified for the stockade, but there was no room at the Inn. Besides Jane had many places to see. SOURCES: printed only in a reply to a reader’s challenge of accuracy Andersen, pp. 217-218. (These columns are based upon a book manuscript by Roger Canfield who can be reached at rogercan@pacbell.net )
Jane Fonda’s promise of a national anti-war tour next spring brings to mind her 1970 tour thirty-six years ago. Jane Fonda spent a two and a half months on a cross-country tour of GI Coffee Houses, college campuses, and Indian confabs. Seeking some quick political advice, Jane turned to unusual sources. In a crash course that might be called Politics for Dummies Fonda found inspiration from: Roger Vadim’s friend and a French Communist, Elizabeth Vailland; Black Panther leader, drug runner, street thug and accused murderer, Huey Newton; and UC Professor and America Communist Party leader Angela Davis. Elizabeth Vialland gave Jane the refresher course as a ride-along lecturer in Jane’s car. Fonda, an accomplished actor, would read her Marxist-Leninist lines very well. Visiting Piute Indians at Pyramid Lake in Nevada, a long time bulimic Jane observed that many Indians, heavy beer drinkers, had pot bellies. She saw instead the distended bellies of the starving and the oppressed. In Blackfoot Idaho, Fonda called Indians tribal customs, “negative, anti-progressive, and anti-revolutionary.” Interrupting her agitprop tour to attend the 1970 Academy Awards for her film depiction of a Depression era victim, They Shoot Horses Don’t They?, Jane called the film about marathon dancing, “a very forceful condemnation of the capitalist system.” So when we saw Jane sitting giggling in that Communist North Vietnamese shooters chair in 1972, she was not having a momentary lapse of judgment. She was quite comfortable at that gun site taking aim at American targets—capitalist, anti-progressive, imperialist. Advocate of the oppressed and critic of capitalism, very rich Jane Fonda arrived at the Awards by limousine attired in mink and a Chanel gown. At curbside, she returned the Black Panther’s clenched fist salute to her radical groupies. The next day she wrote a large check for the Black Panthers. SOURCES: printed only in a reply to a reader’s challenge of accuracy. Andersen, Christopher, Citizen Jane, pp. 126, 188, 216; [1][1] Kiernan, p. 22, 221-222; Dan Flynn, FrontPageMagazine.com | April 23, 2002; Horowitz, David, Jewish World Review Dec. 28, 1999 (These columns are based upon a book manuscript by Roger Canfield who can be reached at rogercan@pacbell.net )
Academy Award winning actress and political activist Jane Fonda is leading a cross-county tour protesting the war in Iraq. Her train will depart in March 2006 and be fueled by vegetable oil. Only the oil is new. Protests are the career highlights of the star of Barbarella and They Shoot Horses. Who can forget the giggling Jane sitting in the shooter’s chair of a North Vietnamese gun battery aimed at American airmen? That was only the signature event. What will she do or say in March 2006? Perhaps the answer is in the exciting days of her yesteryears when Fonda crossed the globe in search of peace for the world…and herself. We begin.
Jane Fonda celebrated New Years’ 1964 in Paris with French director Roger Vadim--also known as Roger Vladimir Plemiannikov. Vadim wore the uniform of a Soviet Red Army officer. That spring Roger took Jane to the annual May Day Parade in Red Square in Moscow. As tanks and missiles flowed past, Jane felt only peace, freedom and humanity.
Jane’s observational skills have not improved over the years, as our subsequent episodes will show. She later found joy in Vietnam, China, Palestine, and Cuba and among America’s homegrown radicals and revolutionaries. Follow the story of Jane Fonda’s long cavort across the planet. It’s history and a wild ride. No PC stuff. Just the words that came out of her mouth, the people she met and the places she visited. Don’t miss it. We’ll be back soon. The ride ought to be fun and maybe even a little enlightening. (These columns are based upon a book manuscript by Roger Canfield who can be reached at )
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ane called President Nixon a “warmonger” for sending U.S. troops against the Vietnamese in their sanctuary of Cambodia. Nixon replied that Fonda and kind were “a bunch of bums.” At a Washington rally Fonda welcomed her “fellow bums,” clenched her fist and declared “Power to the people.”
Seven lawmakers who initially refused raise later took it.
By Jim Sanders - Bee Capitol Bureau
Published 12:00 am PST Sunday, November 26, 2006
Seven of the 19 California lawmakers who rejected a nearly $12,000 pay increase last year quietly changed their mind after the spotlight shifted, state records show.
Termed-out Assemblyman Juan Vargas, D-San Diego, had his salary boosted from $99,000 to $110,880 less than three weeks after losing the June 6 congressional primary to Rep. Bob Filner.
Assemblywoman Gloria Negrete McLeod, D-Chino, sought the higher pay shortly after surviving a contentious Democratic primary against fellow Assemblyman Joe Baca Jr., D-Rialto, for an open Senate seat. She ran unopposed in the general election.
Assemblyman Hector De La Torre began receiving the sweeter salary Nov. 9, two days after the Democrat won re-election to his South Gate seat.
Others who turned down the 12 percent raise but later requested it were Assembly members Mimi Walters, R-Laguna Niguel; Todd Spitzer, R-Orange; George Plescia, R-La Jolla; and Sally Lieber, D-Mountain View.
Ted Costa, executive director of People's Advocate, a political watchdog group that launched the recall drive against former Gov. Gray Davis, said he's not surprised that politicians would try to score points with voters by rejecting a pay increase -- then rescinding their request months later.
"It's par for the course," Costa said. "It makes people skeptical, and it hurts (legislators) when it comes to trust."
But Tim Hodson, executive director of the Center for California Studies at California State University, Sacramento, said legislators deserve their salary of $110,880 per year -- rising by 2 percent next month -- in a state with 36 million people, an incredibly complex economy and "work hours that even a junior member of a law firm would not find acceptable," he said.
"It's certainly a demanding job, and we shouldn't treat legislators like somebody flipping burgers at McDonald's who doesn't expect to stay on the job more than a few weeks," he said.
An eighth legislator, termed-out Sen. Jackie Speier, D-Hillsborough, had her paycheck hiked four weeks after losing the Democratic primary for lieutenant governor. But Speier's restoration stemmed from a voluntary 5 percent pay cut, not last year's $11,880 pay hike, which she accepted, records show.
Speier's move could sweeten her future pension benefits by about $275 per month, according to the formula used by the state's Legislators' Retirement System. California provides legislative pensions only for lawmakers, including Speier, who held office before term limits took effect in 1990.
Hodson said he doesn't fault Speier, either, for seeking her full salary in qualifying for a state pension.
"How many people would say, 'No, I'll retire at a lower salary than I am legally entitled to?' " Hodson asked.
Speier honored her voluntary pay cut for more than three years before rescinding it.
Many state bureaucrats earn far more than legislators: More than 3,700 full-time state employees earned more than $110,880 as of March 2006.
Salaries of legislators and statewide elected officials are set by an independent commission whose members are appointed by the governor.
The 2005 pay hike of nearly $12,000 for legislators took effect last Dec. 1, marking the first boost in seven years.
The salary increase came while the state was fighting a multibillion-dollar budget deficit, the Legislature's approval rating was plummeting and an election year loomed.
All 19 legislators who initially turned down the pay hike were running for re-election or for other state offices this year.
Lawmakers were not entitled to retroactive pay after opting for a smaller salary, said Russell Lopez, spokesman for state Controller Steve Westly.
Twenty Assembly and 19 Senate members were not on this year's ballot -- and all quickly accepted the $1,000-a-month raise.
Lieber rejected the pay increase for 11 months before embracing it six days before her Nov. 7 election to a third term.
Lieber said she accepted the pay hike to appease her husband, who felt it was warranted, given the late hours and weekends she works.
"To preserve the peace of the household, I decided to take that (raise)," Lieber said, adding that the decision was made easier by this year's reduction in the state budget deficit.
Negrete McLeod said that neither politics nor Baca's challenge in the June primary affected her decision on higher pay.
She said she accepted the raise only after the state's financial outlook brightened and a new state budget was signed June 30. Her pay was restored one day later, records show.
Voters have not objected, she said.
"In my district, nobody has ever said to me, 'You make too much money,' or 'You don't make enough money,' or 'You did something because of money,' " Negrete McLeod said.
De La Torre and Spitzer said they initially turned down the raise because it came in midterm. They felt obligated to serve under the pay scale in effect when voters elected them to office, they said.
"My reasoning was quite simple," De La Torre said. "It's a two-year job and you get paid a certain salary for those two years."
De La Torre restored his pay after the Nov. 7 general election, at which he received only token opposition, and Spitzer accepted full salary after the June 6 primary, in which he ran unopposed.
"I made it very clear when I refused (the raise) that I would accept it if I became the Republican nominee," Spitzer said. "I made it very clear what I was going to do. I made a promise and I kept it."
Plescia had his salary increased April 17 and Walters on June 29, records show. Neither returned a call seeking comment.
Sacramento-area Assemblymen Roger Niello, R-Fair Oaks, and Alan Nakanishi, R-Lodi, were among 12 legislators who balked at the 2005 pay increase and still receive the lower $99,000 salary.
Niello, like De La Torre and Spitzer, said he objected to a mid-term pay hike. He plans to accept the higher pay scale approved by the independent commission now that he has been re-elected, he said.
Nakanishi said he will continue to work at the reduced rate.
"We still have a budget deficit; we still have a health insurance crisis," he said. "My mantra is that government should be more efficient. It would be very difficult for me to accept the money."
Rejection of the 2005 pay increase will become moot Dec. 4. Legislative salaries automatically will rise to $113,097, a 2 percent jump, unless a lawmaker asks to be exempted.
Thus far, only one of the 120 legislators has notified the state that she won't accept the new pay hike: Assemblywoman Nicole Parra, a Hanford Democrat who narrowly won re-election after one of the state's most contentious Assembly races.
Nakanishi said that he, too, plans to reject the salary increase."
-> Posted by Douglas Jones / Nov 27, 2006
BY HENRY MARK HOLZER
FRONTPAGEMAGAZINE.COM
OCTOBER 13, 2006
In a stunning reversal of United States policy that has been in place since the end of World War II, turncoat citizen Adam Gadahn has been indicted for the constitutional crime of treason. {The second count of the indictment charges him with the crime of providing material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization.}
Eight treason indictments and convictions of Americans came out of World War II. One resulted from mistreatment of prisoners of war held in Japan. Two arose from spying activities in the United States. Four, including a case against the infamous Axis Sally, were for making propaganda broadcasts on behalf of the Nazis. The fifth was for similar broadcasts by the equally infamous Tokyo Rose.
All eight indictments and convictions were based on Article III, Section 3, Paragraph 1, of the Constitution of the United States: "Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying War against them, or, in adhering to their Enemies, giving them aid and comfort."
The "aid and comfort" prong of treason has been interpreted by the Supreme Court of the United States to require proof of four elements:
1.An intent to betray the United States (which can be inferred from);
2.an overt act;
3.witnessed by two people; and
4.that provides aid and comfort to an enemy of the United States.
5.After World War II, a notorious example of treason was Jane Fonda’s 1972 trip to Hanoi. As Erika Holzer and I proved conclusively in our "Aid and Comfort": Jane Fonda in North Vietnam, Hanoi Jane was indictable for, and could have been convicted of, treason because of her activities. Regrettably, Fonda was not indicted because of political calculations made at the highest level of the Nixon administration—just as other kinds of political reasons since 1972 prevented treason charges from being brought against a host of other traitors since then. For example, charges other than treason were brought against Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Navy spies in the Walker family, renegade CIA and FBI agents Aldrich and Miller, and Taliban John Walker. And, as of today at least, no charges of any kind have been leveled against The New York Times and other newspapers for their treasonous exposure of three highly secret government programs that served as integral parts of America’s war against Islamic terrorists.
The October 11th indictment of Gadahn in the federal District Court for the Central District of California, however, suggests that political considerations no longer trump the loud dictates of justice.
The Gadahn indictment, only nine pages long, has been brought under 18 United States Code, Section 2381, which is a codification of the constitutional treason provision. The indictment is spare, but powerful.
The government begins with a recitation of the nature of al-Qaeda. It then alleges that bin Laden and al-Zawahiri have admitted they are the organization’s leaders, and that al-Zarqawi proclaimed he was the al-Qaeda leader in Iraq.
The indictment’s next paragraphs allege that the United States was attacked on September 11, 2001; that bin Laden admitted the attacks were al-Qaeda operations; that the organization is at war with the United States; that Congress authorized the President to use all necessary and proper force against the perpetrators of the attacks; that in July 2006 bombs were exploded in a London subway station; and that al-Zawahiri admitted those explosions were the work of al-Qaeda. He further admitted that Shehzad Tanweer was one of their operatives.
These allegations are designed to lay a factual basis for the charges that follow. In sum, the indictment alleges that al-Qaeda is a terrorist organization, that its leaders are terrorists, and that the United States is at war with them.
Paragraph 8 contains the indictment’s core allegation:
Beginning on a date unknown and continuing to at least September 11, 2006, defendant ADAM GADAHN, also known as "Azzam al-Ameriki" ("GADAHN"), a citizen of the United States, whose last known place of residence was in Orange County, within the Central District of California, owing allegiance to the United States, knowingly adhered to an enemy of the United States, namely, al-Qaeda, and gave al-Qaeda aid and comfort, within the United States and elsewhere, with intent to betray the United States. In so doing, GADAHN committed the following overt acts witnessed by two or more witnesses.
All the requisite allegations for indictment/conviction of treason appear in this one paragraph: intent to betray the United States, by overt acts, witnessed by two or more people, giving and comfort to the enemy.
As to the requisite overt acts, the indictment sets forth five al-Qaeda video broadcasts made by Gadahn. In the October 27, 2004, video, Gadahn acknowledged that he "has joined a movement waging war on America and killing large numbers of Americans." He also made the following statements:
1.
earlier as "the blessed raids on New York and Washington." He also made the following statements:
"These communiques have been released to explain and propound the nature and goals of the world wide jihad against America and the crusaders and convey our legitimate demands to friend and foe alike, so that the former may join us on this honorable and blessed path, and so that the latter may acknowledge his crimes...."
"The call has gone out and the era of jihad and resistance has dawned in all its glory. As Sheik Usama has told you repeatedly, your security is dependent on our security."
"Yesterday, London and Madrid. Tomorrow, Los Angeles and Melbourne, Allah willing. And this time, don’t count on us demonstrating restraint or compassion."
"We love peace, but when the enemy violates that peace or prevents us from achieving it, then we love nothing better than the heat of battle, the echo of explosions, and slitting the throats of the infidels."
"When it comes to defending our religion, our freedom, and our brothers in faith, every one of us is Mohammed Atta, every one of us is Jamaal Lindsay, and every one of us is Mohammed Boyeri."
In the July 7, 2006, video, there were statements by Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, AbuMusab al-Zarqawi, and Shehzad Tanweer. In that video, Gadahn referred to the recent capture and execution of two American servicemen in Iraq. He also made the following statements:
1."So after all the atrocities committed by America...why should we target their military only?"
2."It’s hard to imagine that any compassionate person could see pictures, just pictures, of what the Crusaders did to those children, and not want to go on a shooting spree at the Marines’ housing facilities at Camp Pendleton."
3."When we bomb their cities and civilians like they bomb ours, or destroy their infrastructure and means of transportation like they destroy ours, or kidnap their non-combatants like they kidnap ours, no sane Muslim should shed tears for them. And they should blame no one but themselves."
In the September 2, 2006, video, Ayman al-Zawahiri also appeared and addressed "the American people in particular and all Western peoples in general." Al-Zawahiri introduced Gadahn as "our brother Azzam the American" and explained that Gadahn "talks to you as one concerned about the fate which awaits his people." Al-Zawahiri urged Americans to listen to Gadahn "because what he is talking to you about is serious and significant. He is talking to you about the fate which awaits every human, an extremely grave issue in which there is no joking, procrastination, or backtracking." Gadahn also made the following statements:
1."So if you want to be on the winning side in this life and the next, and if you want your resistance to Crusader tyranny to truly count, then take the simple step I have just outlined...We send a special invitation to all of you fighting ... in Afghanistan…You know the war can’t be won and that the condition of America’s war machine is going from bad to worse."
2."You know you’re considered...as nothing more than expendable cannon fodder, a means to an end...You know they couldn’t care less about your safety and well being and that the only thing that upsets your leaders when American forces suffer casualties is the damage these casualties do to their popularity and the popularity of the wars they started."
3."Escape from the unbelieving army and join the winning side. Time is running out, so make the right choice before it’s too late and you meet the dismal fate of thousands before you."
In the September 11, 2006, video, there were statements by Osama bin Laden and video footage of the World Trade Center attack in 2001. The pictures of the World Trade Center attack were accompanied by the written statement:
"The word is the word of the sword until the wrongs are righted." In that video, Gadahn referred to the United States as "enemy soil" and made the following statements:
1."All the brothers who took part in the raids on America were dedicated, strong-willed, highly motivated individuals with a burning concern for Islam and Muslims."
2."Look at the pilots, Mohammed Atta, Marwan Shehhi, Ziad Jarrah, Hani Hanjour. All of them had lived and studied in the West. All of them had the world within their reach, if they had wanted it. But how could they live with themselves, if they were to enjoy this worldly life while their Ummah burns."
3."In hind sight, everything that al-Qaeda was doing was preparation for the Manhattan and Washington raids, and the expected crusader invasion."
This indictment speaks volumes in what it says and in what it doesn’t say.
The essential allegations are there: A jury could find from Gadahn’s express statements (overt acts), or infer from those statements, that he intended to betray the United States, and that in making them he gave aid and comfort to the enemies of the United States. (Obviously, the two-witness rule is easily satisfied.) In those allegations we see little more than a boilerplate treason indictment.
Not so readily apparent, however, is that like the four German (Chandler, Gillars, Best, Burgman) and one Japanese (D’Aquino) propaganda broadcasters, the Gadahn indictment does not allege any overt "acts" other than broadcasting. (As indicated in "Aid and Comfort": Jane Fonda in North Vietnam, she did much more in Hanoi than merely make propaganda broadcasts.)
This is significant because one defense in those prosecutions (one that Tom Hayden unsuccessfully tried to use against me on the O’Reilly TV show) was that the broadcasters were protected by their First Amendment right of free speech—a defense that was, correctly, rejected in the World War II cases, especially Chandler v. United States and Gillars v. United States.
Chandler had argued that the overt acts charged in the indictment should not have been allowed to go to the jury. In a defense that would reappear in later broadcast treason cases, Chandler maintained that "mere words, the expression of opinions and ideas for the purpose of influencing people, cannot constitute an overt act of treason; that [he] had a right to broadcast, or otherwise disseminate to the American people, the ideas which coincided with the Nazi propaganda line; and that therefore his preliminary steps to that end – his attendance at conferences of commentators, his preparation of commentaries, his speaking into a microphone to make recordings – cannot be treasonable acts."
The First Circuit Court of Appeals rejected this argument:
There are occasional statements to be found in the books to the effect that mere words cannot amount to an overt act of treason. * * * That is true in the sense that the mere utterance of disloyal sentiments is not treason; aid and comfort must be given to the enemy. But the communication of an idea, whether by speech or writing, is as much as act as is throwing a brick, though different muscles are used to achieve different effects. One may commit treason by conveying military intelligence to the enemy, though the only overt act is the speaking of words. * * * The significant thing is not so much the character of the act which in fact gives aid and comfort to the enemy, but whether the act is done with an intent to betray. In Cramer v. United States the Court said:
On the other hand, a citizen may take actions which do aid and comfort the enemy – and making a speech critical of the government or opposing its measures, profiteering, striking in defense plants or essential work, and the hundred other things which impair our cohesion and diminish our strength – but if there is no adherence to the enemy in this, if there is no intent to betray, there is no treason.
The Court of Appeals firmly pointed out that this was not what Chandler was up to in World War II Nazi Germany:
In the present case, however, it cannot be said that what Chandler did was merely exercising his right of free speech in the normal processes of domestic political opposition. He trafficked with the enemy and as their paid agent collaborated in the execution of a program of psychological warfare designed by the enemy to weaken the power of the United States to wage war successfully. We have found no indication of reluctance on the part of the framers of the Constitution to punish as treason any breach of allegiance involving actual dealings with the enemy, provided the case is established by the required two-witnesses proof. It is preposterous to talk about freedom of speech in this connection; the case cannot be blown up into a great issue of civil liberties.
In Gillars [Axis Sally], the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit observed that Gillars had taken "part in psychological warfare against [the] United States by participating in recording of radio drama." The court then added:
While the crime [of treason] is not committed by mere expressions of opinion or criticism, words spoken as part of a program of propaganda warfare, in the course of employment by the enemy in its conduct of war against the United States, to which the accused owes allegiance, may be an integral part of the crime. There is evidence in this case of a course of conduct on behalf of the enemy in the prosecution of its war against the United States. The use of speech to this end, as the evidence permitted the jury to believe, made acts of words. * * * ... words which reasonably viewed constitute acts in furtherance of a program of an enemy to which the speaker adheres and to which he gives aid with intent to betray his own country, are not rid of criminal character merely because they are words.
In light of Chandler, Gillars, and some of the other treason cases, the Justice Department is on solid ground in charging Gadahn’s broadcasts alone as treasonous overt acts.
Another significant fact about the Gadahn indictment relates to an argument made against the Holzers’ "indictment" of Jane Fonda in "Aid and Comfort":
that Vietnam was not a declared war. However, in our book, we proved that a formal declaration of war is unnecessary before a charge of treason can be laid. Here again, the Justice Department is on solid ground in its indictment of Gadahn even though there has been no formal declaration of war by Congress against al-Qaeda.
If Gadahn is found and returned to the United States for trial, he will learn that neither the "free speech" nor the "declaration of war" defense, or any others, will help him—even though we may expect the legal left’s lawyers to defend Gadahn with every dirty weapon in their armory.
It will do them no good. If the United States gets its hands on Adam Gadahn—American spokesman for terrorists, accomplice to mass murderers, traitor to the United States—he will either be convicted by a jury of Americans, or, like that spoiled brat Taliban John Walker, make a plea bargain so as to avoid risking the much deserved death penalty.
And while the case of Islamic Adam is unfolding, we can hope that since the treason taboo has finally been lifted, other indictments will soon follow against those who recently have betrayed America’s secrets, surveillance, secret prisons, terrorist money trails—and who, with the requisite intent and overt acts, have provided "aid and comfort" to the enemies of the United States."
{I logged on to whitehouse.gov and thanked the President for taking this action and I feel quite secure that others will follow Mr. Adam Gadahn.}"
-> Posted by Douglas Jones / Oct 26, 2006
Lincoln never said this. Ever. This quote is a fabrication of Dr. J. Michael Waller, a long time Republican pundit, who first wrote it in a Moonie publication, Insight Magazine on December 23, 2003 shortly before the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth gave it life in 2004.
I have two original King & Baird pamphlets in my collection, the identical pamphlet Waller sites as his proof, “TRUTH FROM AN HONEST MAN”. Lincoln never wrote anything like this … here, or anywhere else.
How pathetic has the Republican Party become that it insults the reputation of America’s finest Republican president for their political gain?
Cliff Hancuff
The World of Journalism Is Flat, Too"
-> Posted by chancuff / Aug 15, 2006
IS MARKETING EVIL
APRIL 28, 2006
BY DAVID KUPELIAN
© 2006 WORLDNETDAILY.COM
Many people are asking why virtually the entire faculty of a midwest university would support two openly homosexual professors in their outrageous effort to brand a librarian a "sexual harasser" solely because he recommended my book, "The Marketing of Evil," as required reading for freshmen.
MOST PEOPLE, WHEN THEY FIRST HEAR THIS STORY, ASSUME SOMETHING ELSE MUST HAVE HAPPENED TO INSTIGATE A FORMAL SEXUAL HARASSMENT INVESTIGATION. SURELY, THEY THINK, THE LIBRARIAN MUST HAVE GROPED A COLLEAGUE OR MADE A LEWD COMMENT TO A STUDENT. BUT NO, HE WAS ACCUSED OF BEING A SEXUAL HARASSER JUST BECAUSE HE DID WHAT LIBRARIANS DO – THEY RECOMMEND BOOKS, IN THIS CASE MINE. AND FOR THAT, HIS PERSECUTION WAS RATIFIED BY A 21-0 FACULTY VOTE.
There is a real reason for this near-unanimous faculty support for such an obviously indefensible and hurtful action, and we'll get to that in a minute.
But first, for those who missed it, here's the story in a nutshell:
Scott Savage is a sincere and devout Christian – a Quaker to be precise – who works as head research librarian at the Ohio State University's Mansfield, Ohio, campus. As a member of the "First Year Reading Experience Committee," Scott suggested four books be considered as required reading for incoming freshmen: "The Marketing of Evil" by yours truly, "The Professors" by David Horowitz, "Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis" by Bat Ye'or, and "It Takes a Family" by Sen. Rick Santorum.
However, three faculty members – including two openly homosexual English profs – viciously attacked "The Marketing of Evil" as "hate literature," "homophobic tripe" and other bad words. Fine, names don't bother me.
But then they did the unthinkable: They brought a sexual harassment complaint against Scott Savage, insisting his suggestion that freshmen read my book was an act of "harassment due to sexual orientation."
Professor J.F. Buckley, one of the gay profs agitated by my book, wrote in a March 9 inter-faculty e-mail that he was "deeply saddened – and THREATENED (sic) – that such mindless folks" as Savage existed "on this great campus." Then he set up his intended harassment complaint: "You have made me fearful and uneasy being a gay man on this campus. I am, in fact, notifying the OSU-M campus, and Ohio State University in general, that I no longer feel safe doing my job. I am being harassed."
"Harassed" – by a book? And in a modern university environment that daily trumpets "academic freedom," "free speech" and "tolerance" from the rooftops?
Last week, facing not only legal pressure from the Alliance Defense Fund, but also the bright light of national media exposure (after WorldNetDaily broke the story, Sean Hannity, MSNBC, Fox News, the New York Post, Human Events, and dozens of bloggers and talk hosts picked up on the story), the university caved in and dropped the charges. The struggle may not be over, however, as Savage and his ADF attorneys are seriously considering a lawsuit against the university.
But now, the question: Why would a modern university faculty join in an obvious witch burning? After all, there are few things worse, in today's climate, than being branded a "sexual harasser."
I'll tell you why I think some faculty members are afraid of a book. If you just crack open "The Marketing of Evil" and read the very first chapter, you'll encounter a vivid and detailed exposé of exactly the sort of "evil marketing" that is occurring at Ohio State University.
Ready to take a "marketing of evil" tour?
Big 'jam' on campus
OSU Mansfield, a small campus within the entire Ohio State University system, is a typical secular college environment. But peer just beneath the surface, past all the hustle and bustle of university life, and a powerful climate of indoctrination and manipulation comes into view.
But first, just what do I mean by the "marketing of evil?"
The hated book of that name explains exactly how America has been transformed over the last few decades from a beautiful, unified, Judeo-Christian culture into a divided, confused and contentious society increasingly hostile to its own core values. It shows how millions of Americans have been induced to accept beliefs and behaviors that would have horrified our parents and grandparents, and to call it progress. And it documents how this profound change has been accomplished, through a series of brilliant marketing campaigns – programs of persuasion and manipulation calculated to radically alter the way we think and feel about many of life's jugular issues like abortion, homosexuality, the Constitution, divorce, the news media, church, sex, and so on – often using the very words of the "marketers" themselves.
Today nowhere is this marketing juggernaut more brazen than on our nation's college campuses.
To prepare you for what we'll encounter at OSU – and at most any other school today – let me introduce you to two experts on the selling of homosexuality to America; in fact, they wrote the book. Harvard-educated marketing professionals Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen authored the acknowledged PR bible of the gay-rights movement, "After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the '90s."
The sophisticated strategy Kirk and Madsen lay out for changing the way Americans think about homosexuality boasts three phases: "Desensitization," "Jamming" and "Conversion."
"Desensitization," these two gay marketing gurus tell us, consists of inundating the public in a "continuous flood of gay-related advertising, presented in the least offensive fashion possible. If straights can't shut off the shower, they may at least eventually get used to being wet."
"The main thing," they confide, "is to talk about gayness until the issue becomes thoroughly tiresome," adding: "Seek desensitization and nothing more. … If you can get [straights] to think [homosexuality] is just another thing – meriting no more than a shrug of the shoulders – then your battle for legal and social rights is virtually won."
So, let's say you're a freshman at OSU-Mansfield. It's probably the first time you've left your parents' nest for an extended period. You're excited. You want to do well in college. You want, as Ferris Bueller told his parents, to "have a fruitful life." And you want to have fun, to be accepted, even loved.
Now it just so happens that during the first quarter of your freshman year, you are required – yep, it's mandatory – to attend a "diversity seminar." If you've somehow made it to college without already having swallowed the secular culture's "celebrate diversity" Kool-Aid, you are about to be force-fed. Basically, "diversity seminars" are "re-education" events wherein attendees are manipulated, guilt-tripped and – let's just say it, brainwashed – into accepting the belief that homosexuality is a minority characteristic, exactly the same as being Jewish or black, and that thinking or feeling otherwise means you're bigoted, judgmental and hateful.
Before seminar day, students are invited to search online a "dictionary of terms related to diversity," to "Test your knowledge of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender (GLBT)" and to "Take a test at Project Implicit’s website."
What's the test all about? Well, as the OSU website explains: "Even though we believe we see and treat people as equals, hidden biases may still influence our perceptions and actions. Psychologists at Harvard, the University of Virginia and the University of Washington created 'Project Implicit' to develop Hidden Bias Tests. After taking a test, read Tolerance.org’s tutorial to learn more about stereotypes and prejudice and the societal effects of bias."
You'll never guess what "bias" this test is designed to unearth and to make you feel guilty about.
As the father of one current OSU-Mansfield freshman told WorldNetDaily recently, after actually sitting in on the compulsory indoctrination session: "It is required that incoming freshman must attend a diversity seminar, where the homosexual lifestyle is celebrated, and the students are put on a 'guilt trip' for having negative feelings and/or moral judgments about the behavior of these people."
I won't go into all the powerfully manipulative and psychologically abusive "exercises" these kids are put through during the two-to-three-hour seminar, but you can read about them here. LET'S JUST SAY THE SOPHISTICATED USE OF GROUP PRESSURE, AND "EXERCISES" LIKE "CROSSING THE LINE" – WHERE PEOPLE ARE FORCED TO "OUT" THEMSELVES PUBLICLY BY ANSWERING PROGRESSIVELY MORE PERSONAL AND INVASIVE QUESTIONS – ARE CLASSIC MASS MANIPULATION TECHNIQUES. In fact, as World magazine's Lynn Vincent writes in her report on such campus "orientation" events, the strategy of forcing kids to expose publicly their beliefs and "biases" to strangers is not new: "Mao Tse-Tung used it 're-educate' Chinese university students and pry them loose from their parents' political moorings."
OK, so first they desensitize these youngsters in highly manipulative re-education sessions. Then what?
Specifically, what if someone on campus just doesn't "get the message" and dares to challenge the pro-gay orthodoxy? That's where phase two steamrolls into action: Dissenters are subjected to merciless "jamming" – otherwise known as intimidation, threats and worse – which is exactly what they've been doing to Scott Savage.
"Jamming," explains marketing expert Paul E. Rondeau of Regent University, in his comprehensive study "Selling Homosexuality to America," "is psychological terrorism meant to silence expression of or even support for dissenting opinion." Radio counselor and psychologist Dr. Laura Schlessinger experienced big-time jamming during the run-up to her planned television show. Outraged over a single comment critical of homosexuals she had made on her radio program, activists launched a massive intimidation campaign against the television program's advertisers. As a result, the new show was stillborn.
"After the Ball" tries to inspire potential jammers by providing a juicy list of negative associations with which opponents, usually Christians, are to be smeared. They include: "Klansmen demanding that gays be slaughtered or castrated," "hysterical backwoods preachers, drooling with hate," "menacing punks, thugs and convicts who speak coolly about the 'fags' they have bashed," and a "tour of Nazi concentration camps where homosexuals were tortured and gassed."
In my case, the jamming professors got so colorful I actually learned a few new words. Professor Buckley, for example, assessed my credentials this way:
Rather than waste your time with the paucity of intellectual rigor that Kupelian brings to the table, I encourage you to visit his website, and see for yourself his unmitigated homophobia and xenophobia. In short, he is a pontificating, phobic, cultural atavism bemoaning the loss of an (Anglo) America that only existed on such shows as "The Lone Ranger."
Question: If I'm a "pontificating, phobic, cultural atavism" for writing "The Marketing of Evil," what do you call an English professor like J.F. Buckley who writes "The Social Critic: The Rise of Queer Performance Within the Demise of Transcendentalism"?
On a more serious note, I'm not the least disturbed or surprised that a homosexual activist professor doesn't like my book. But what is tremendously disturbing – and the reason this situation became a national story – is the near-unanimous faculty support for such a frivolous and mean-spirited attack on a librarian just for recommending good books.
Obviously, all 21 of the faculty "yes" votes either agreed with the harassment charge, or they were afraid to oppose it. But what about the nine faculty members who abstained from voting? Let me make an educated guess: They had to know the charges of sexual harassment against this poor librarian were ridiculous and that they couldn't vote yes. But they also didn't want to be accused by the rest of the faculty of being homophobes and bigots, so they couldn't vote no. So they didn't vote. The entire faculty – those who voted yes, and those who abstained from voting – wanted to be certain they were not tarred as haters, Neanderthals or "pontificating, phobic, cultural atavisms." In other words, they didn't want to be "jammed."
Those nine abstentions are just one more proof that the OSU Mansfield campus is a place of fear and intimidation, not one of openness, robust inquiry and free speech as the faculty members imagine.
By the way, you'll be interested in knowing, now that the charges against Savage have been dropped, it's time for some good old-fashioned "re-education."
"What colleges normally do in this situation," explained David French, the Alliance Defense Fund's lead attorney on this case, "is to first do what is necessary to defuse the immediate crisis. Then they go into the’re-education process,' where they bring in the experts to discuss how hurtful and painful it is when people discuss Judeo-Christian morality on campus."
Indeed, the letter Savage received from the university, informing him the charges had been dropped, included several "Recommendations," including this one:
Promote frank, open and respectful discussion among faculty and library staff, in particular and among all staff in general. Dr. Jones had indicated that maybe he could be a liaison person to spearhead this effort.
And who is this "Dr. Jones"? That would be Assistant English Professor Norman Jones – the other gay prof who had just gotten through falsely accusing Savage of sexual harassment and had strongly attacked my book. And now the powers-that-be are floating him as the point man responsible for leading the faculty in "open and respectful discussion" of differences? Is that upside-down or what? I think I'll make a book suggestion myself: "Alice in Wonderland."
CONVERSION
If these 18-year-old kids are "desensitized," confused and peer-pressured into going along with the "gay-is-good" orthodoxy at the diversity seminar; and if trouble-makers like Scott Savage and me are intimidated and "jammed" for daring to suggest that millennia of Western Judeo-Christian civilization might actually be right on this homosexuality issue; then what about "conversion"? How does that fit in to all of this?
For the inside scoop on the meaning of conversion, let's check in with our gay brainwashing experts, Kirk and Madsen:
We mean conversion of the average American’s emotions, mind, and will, through a planned psychological attack, in the form of propaganda fed to the nation via the media. We mean "subverting" the mechanism of prejudice to our own ends – using the very processes that made America hate us to turn their hatred into warm regard – whether they like it or not.
Wow, that's hardcore. And here's something else I'll bet you didn't know: Transforming another person’s hatred into love ("warm regard") is precisely the object of classic brainwashing. As Kirk and Madsen themselves explain:
In Conversion, we mimic the natural process of stereotype-learning, with the following effect: We take the bigot's good feelings about all-right guys, and attach them to the label "gay," either weakening or, eventually, replacing his bad feelings toward the label and the prior stereotype. … Whereas in Jamming the target is shown a bigot being rejected by his crowd for his prejudice against gays, in Conversion the target is shown his crowd actually associating with gays in good fellowship. Once again, it's very difficult for the average person, who, by nature and training, almost invariably feels what he sees his fellows feeling, not to respond in this knee-jerk fashion to a sufficiently calculated advertisement.
This last paragraph describes chillingly what goes on not only at OSU – which is on the hot seat right now only because of the Savage case – but throughout America in colleges and universities large and small. OSU is neither better nor worse in this regard than many other schools. If desensitization softens you up, and jamming shows you by example what happens to dissenters, conversion results when all of your old, negative associations toward homosexuality have been successfully replaced with positive associations.
For young, college-age adults – smart, energetic, idealistic, but also inexperienced, immature and insecure, and with a powerful emotional need for acceptance – this is so very easy to accomplish. As a student, once you've spent a few months watching dissenting Christians portrayed as maniacal skinheads or drooling extra-X-chromosome fundamentalists, after you've been assailed with in-your-face appeals to "fairness" and "tolerance" toward behavior you once knew was wrong, and upon realizing that you too will be reviled and persecuted – and made to fail in class, and thus in life – if you dare utter the moral convictions you once held, you change. You could call it adaptation for the purpose of survival, and it's usually unconscious, because you rationalize your conversion as "the right thing to do."
You develop a new, more "tolerant" identity, one for which you are rewarded and loved. You're no longer in danger of being called "homophobic" or "judgmental." You find yourself looking down on those still clinging to traditional, biblical values as ignorant at best, dangerous or evil at worst. You've been brainwashed – and your parents have paid tens of thousands of hard-earned, after-tax dollars for this "service" of turning you against them.
Before we end our "marketing of evil" tour at OSU, let's look at one more powerful manipulation technique that's very evident in the Savage case: "Accuse Others of the Evil You Do."
The OSU profs complained that the librarian made the Mansfield campus "threatening" and "unsafe" by recommending a few bestselling books. In reality, it is no one but they themselves that made the campus "threatening" and "unsafe" – and not just for Scott Savage. What about the other librarians on the Mansfield campus? Do you think they will ever dare speak their mind on this subject if their views tend toward the traditional? What about the other faculty, and the students? What about librarians at other universities? One veteran librarian wrote last week: "I've asked my colleagues in the Virginia Tech library whether they have become fearful of actually purchasing books for the Tech libraries, given what happened to Mr. Savage for merely recommending a book for a reading list." The answer, obviously, is yes.
The truth is, Scott Savage didn't harass anyone. But it is the faux victims, those who would, if they could, silence everyone who champions the Judeo-Christian moral values that America is founded upon – they are the ones who have made OSU and most of America's college campuses "unsafe" and "threatening." But then, this is exactly the desired effect of desensitization and jamming. After all, the "marketers of evil" will convert as many people as they can. But if they can't convert you – the next best thing is to shut you up."
-> Posted by Douglas Jones / Apr 29, 2006
I'm also pleased to know that the Horns prevailed over a team that had two 'H' members - Hook 'em"
-> Posted by Douglas Jones / Mar 09, 2006
-> Posted by Douglas Jones / Feb 14, 2006
-> Posted by Douglas Jones / Feb 11, 2006
"in my opion jane fonda, should be charged with treasen"
Well, I'm sure in your opinion, we should probably wrap ourselves in the flag and burn the Constitution. I, however, am more comfortable seeing people burning the flag and wrapping themselves in the Constitution. Jane Fonda, as an American, has as much right to freedom of speech as anyone else. To suggest that she should be murdered for what she says (charged with treason) is just plain old facism."
-> Posted by Greling Jackson / Feb 11, 2006
-> Posted by J WYZER / Feb 03, 2006
-> Posted by Douglas Jones / Feb 02, 2006
Umm, well sir, IF you were in Korea, being in the brig doesn't count. IF, you were in Korea, MacAurther made no such claim that the war was UNwinable.
Short of your mistaken view on life, I see besides your dribble ( you must be hacking the site to post at such length ), this twit of a story's still here."
-> Posted by Leo of Sacramento / Feb 02, 2006
TRUTH OUT ABOUT IRS SCANDAL
ROBERT NOVAK
THURSDAY, JAN. 19, 2006
THE LONG-AWAITED final report by Independent Counsel David Barrett to be released today was severely censored by court order but not enough to sufficiently obscure its importance. As long forecast, it alleges serious corruption in the Clinton administration’s Justice Department and Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The question is what was contained in 120 pages removed by the judges.
These allegations explain why Barrett finally has closed down after 10 years the last prosecution under the lapsed independent counsel statute. Its target, Henry Cisneros, long ago resigned as secretary of Housing and Urban Development in a plea bargain after admitting he lied to FBI interrogators to gain Senate confirmation. What kept Barrett in business was what he and his prosecutors contend is a Clinton administration cover-up of income tax evasion charges against Cisneros.
Not only Barrett’s stubbornness but also a tip from an IRS whistle-blower in San Antonio, Texas, meant the case did not end with Cisneros’s per-sonal disgrace. But for now, the cover-up has succeeded. No tax pro-secution was brought against Cisneros, and IRS conduct has not been questioned. Friends describe Barrett, a Republican lawyer from Washington, as feeling at age 68 that he has failed fully to uncover the scandal and that it is now up to Congress to uncover the truth.
This probably would have been just another undiscovered scandal had the whistle not been blown by John J. Filan, chief of the IRS’s Criminal Investigation Division in the South Texas District. In a March 31, 1997, memo, Filan expressed outrage that the IRS chief counsel’s office in Washington on Jan. 15 had pulled a tax evasion case out of San Antonio because it required “centralized review.” Told to “box up” his evidence and send it to Washington, Filan wrote: “I am not aware of any other criminal tax cases that have been pulled from experienced District Counsel attorneys.”
With the case now in Washington, the IRS declined to prosecute. In a second memo on April 25, Filan said IRS Assistant Chief Counsel Barry Finkelstein’s conclusions “are just plain wrong.” Payments to Cisneros’s former mistress and money spent for other purposes exceeded declared income, said the whistle-blower, and “clearly proves Cisneros knowingly and willingly signed and filed false and fraudulent income tax returns” for 1991, 1992 and 1993.
That launched Barrett on four frustrating years of attempting tax evasion prosecution in the face of Attorney General Janet Reno’s obstructions. Permitted by Reno to focus on only one year, the independent counsel could not make the case of extended tax evasion.
According to people with access to Barrett’s draft, it goes into intense detail about this obstruction and on the unprecedented seizure of the Cisneros tax case by the IRS in Washington. That much in the 400-page report has survived the three senior federal appellate judges with super-vising authority over the independent counsel.
Nevertheless, the question remains what three judges — David Sentelle (D.C.), Thomas Reavley (Texas) and Peter Fay (Florida) — blacked out in 120 pages worth of redactions. Even after the report is released, Barrett and his lawyers would face judicial sanctions if they disclosed anything that was redacted.
The three judges have lawyer-like arguments in favor of suppressing so much material. For example, they claim the Barrett report on Cisneros should not contain evidence that was collected after the plea bargain with Cisneros.
However, the judges have established an exception, or rather 535 exceptions, to the rule that nobody can see what has been redacted. Any member of Congress can read it merely by asking. Any such lawmaker, who believes American taxpayers should see the product of $23 million in expenditures, presumably could then publish the material without fear of legal sanction.
But will any senator or House member do it? Nobody is interested in further prosecution of Henry Cisneros, an exceptional public figure who might well have become the first Hispanic-American governor of Texas and perhaps even President of the United States. Rather, an unredacted Barrett report is an opportunity to observe how the Internal Revenue Service decides when to prosecute, a place where Congress until now has feared to venture."
-> Posted by Douglas Jones / Jan 23, 2006
-> Posted by Douglas Jones / Jan 14, 2006
That's why even today I have problems with republicans."
-> Posted by Walter E. Wallis / Jan 10, 2006
-> Posted by Douglas Jones / Jan 10, 2006
society and hopefully will remain that way forever. For you so called educated liberal leftist ya sure are stoopid! Jane Fonda was a traitor then and now,should've been hanged during "wartime" hey we're at war now .........I'll get the rope!"
-> Posted by cagerg / Dec 31, 2005
-> Posted by Douglas Jones / Dec 28, 2005
-> Posted by Walter E. Wallis / Dec 27, 2005
-> Posted by M.Brache / Dec 27, 2005
-> Posted by Walter E. Wallis / Dec 27, 2005
-> Posted by Douglas Jones / Dec 27, 2005
-> Posted by jbh / Dec 27, 2005
-> Posted by Douglas Jones / Dec 23, 2005
-> Posted by Donna / Dec 23, 2005
CLINTON BLOOD SCANDAL
EXPOSED IN NEW FILM
OCTOBER 30, 2005
BY JOSEPH FARAH
©WORLDNETDAILY
DOCUMENTARY TYING ARKANSAS GUV TO SPREAD OF AIDS GOES TO SCREEN IN HOLLYWOOD NEXT WEEK
WASHINGTON – A documentary seven years in the making tying BILL CLINTON TO AN ARKANSAS PRISON BLOOD SCANDAL THAT SPREAD AIDS TO THOUSANDS AROUND THE WORLD IS SET TO SCREEN IN HOLLYWOOD NEXT WEEK─RENEWING CONTROVERSY ABOUT THE LONG-FORGOTTEN STORY.
The film, which premieres at the prestigious American Film Institute film festival next Tuesday, reportedly uncovers fresh evidence about how thousands in Europe contracted AIDS and hepatitis through tainted blood deliberately shipped even after widespread problems were discovered in Canada where some 10,000 had already been infected.
"FACTOR 8: THE ARKANSAS PRISON BLOOD SCANDAL," made by Kelly Duda, an Arkansas native, WILL REVEAL NEW DETAILS ABOUT HOW INMATES AT AN ARKANSAS PRISON WERE PAID TO DONATE BLOOD DESPITE AUTHORITIES KNOWING VAST AMOUNTS OF THE BLOOD WAS CONTAMINATED WITH AIDS AND HEPATITIS.
THE DOCUMENTARY SHOWS HOW SENIOR FIGURES IN THE STATE PRISON SYSTEM ALTERED PRISONERS' MEDICAL RECORDS TO MAKE IT LOOK LIKE THEY WERE NOT CARRYING THE DEADLY DISEASES.
KELLY DUDA
"While making this documentary, I lost several things. I lost my president, my home state, my family, many friends, and my innocence," says Duda.
The film reveals how for more than two decades, the Arkansas prison system profited from selling blood plasma from inmates infected with viral hepatitis and AIDS. Thousands of unwitting victims who received transfusions of a product called "Factor 8" made from this blood died as a result.
Duda interviews victims in Canada who contracted the diseases, state prison officials, former employees, high-ranking Arkansas politicians, and inmate donors.
"In the early days of AIDS, we at the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) were surprised that the hemophiliac community was infected so rapidly," said Dr. Donald Francis, former head of the AID Laboratory for the CDC. "This shocking documentary tells why."
Duda, who has worked with CNN, the Canadian Broadcasting Company and Associated Press Television in their coverage of the blood-scandal story, says he was followed, sued, burglarized, then had his tires slashed while working on the documentary. He was also part of the team for Fuji-TV that produced "THE HEPATITIS C EPIDEMIC: A 15-YEAR GOVERNMENT COVER-UP." The program won a George Foster Peabody Award in 2003 and was watched by more than 12 million viewers in Japan.
He also worked as a consultant in two major class-action lawsuits in Europe and Japan where plasma from the Arkansas' prison system showed up. He also assisted the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in its investigation of the Arkansas prison plasma sales. He has also been in talks with the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI about a possible investigation in the United States.
"Kelly Duda's film screams to be known about," says William Gazecki, producer-director of "WACO: The Rules of Engagement." "The blatant abuse of power, the criminal subjugation of prison inmates, and the complete absence of government oversight and accountability make for a compelling, must-see story."
"Prior to the making of 'Factor 8,' I never considered myself an investi gative journalist," says Duda. "In fact, I had never written a newspaper article before in my life. I was an aspiring filmmaker who had a story thrown into his lap. Actually, it wasn't even a story at the time but a series of events that allegedly took place in my home state in the 1980s. It was a tale I didn't want to tell, but the more I looked into it, the more I found. It didn't take long before I realized that regardless of the cost and sacrifice, the story you're about to see which is a complicated one had to be told. There where quite literally lives at stake. I felt a moral response- bility, a civic duty to do something."
LAST MAY, THE CANADIAN RED CROSS PLEADED GUILTY TO DISTRIBUTING BLOOD TAINTED WITH HIV AND HEPATITIS C IN A HEALTH DISASTER THAT KILLED MORE THAN 3,000 PEOPLE.
The organization, which distributed the blood in the 1980s, paid a fine of $4,000 for causing more than 1,000 Canadians to contract blood-borne HIV and as many as 20,000 to become infected with hepatitis C.
As part of the plea deal, Canadian Red Cross Secretary General Dr. Pierre Duplessis issued a public apology via videotape that was played in the courtroom to survivors of the victims.
As WorldNetDaily reported, BILL CLINTON WAS AT THE CENTER OF A SCANDAL IN ARKANSAS IN THE 1980S INVOLVING THE SALE OF AIDS-TAINTED BLOOD TO CANADA, WHICH WAS DISTRIBUTED THROUGH THE RED CROSS.
As governor of Arkansas, Clinton awarded a contract to Health Manage-ment Associates to provide medical care to the state's prisoners. The president of the company was a long-time friend and political ally of Clinton and later was appointed by him to the Arkansas Industrial Development Commission. Later, he was among the senior members of Clinton's 1990 gubernatorial re-election team.
The death toll from the tainted blood has grown since the figure of 3,000 was calculated in 1997, but recent estimates are not available, the Associated Press reported.
Duplessis said the organization accepted responsibility for "having distributed harmful products for those who rely on us for their health."
Prosecutors dropped criminal charges, including criminal negligence and common nuisance.
The Canadian Red Cross already has paid victims $55 MILLION in a separate fund. Along with the fine, the charity will set aside $1.2 million for scholarships for family members of victims.
The Arkansas connection to Canada's blood scandal began with a deal Health Management Associates struck with the state allowing collection and sale of prisoners' blood in addition to treatment.
Because of the exploding AIDS crisis, U.S. regulations did not permit the sale of prisoners' blood within the United States.
But HMA found a willing buyer in Montreal, which brokered a deal with Connaught, a Toronto blood-fractionator, which didn't know the source of the supplies.
Sales continued until 1983, when HMA revealed that some of the plasma might be contaminated with the AIDS virus and hepatitis. The blood was also marketed overseas.
Michael Galster, who conducted orthopedic clinics in the Arkansas prison system during the period the blood was collected, charged HMA officials knew the blood was tainted as they sold it to Canada and a half-dozen other foreign countries. He also alleged Clinton knew of the scheme and likely benefited from it financially.
"It may sound sensational, but I assure you it's true. In the process of making 'Factor 8,' I received strange phone calls, I was followed, my house was broken into, my tires slashed, and sensitive information – including my personal notes – mysteriously appeared on the Internet," recounts Duda. "I also had a gun pointed at the back of my head, there was a murder, and a key inmate informant was whisked out of state and put into isolation."
He says when he went looking for Clinton's governor's papers to find state documents relevant to his investigation, he was told that 4,000 boxes had been hidden away in private storage and could not be found.
"WHEN I WENT TO THE ARKANSAS STATE HEALTH DEPARTMENT TO REQUEST RECORDS REGARDING DISEASE RATES AT THE PRISON AND ANYTHING ABOUT THE PLASMA PROGRAM, I WAS STONEWALLED," HE SAID. "I ACTUALLY HAD TO SUE THE STATE AGENCY JUST TO GET ACCESS TO ITS FILES THAT BY LAW ARE SUPPOSED TO BE A MATTER OF PUBLIC RECORD. WHEN I WENT TO THE ARKANSAS STATE POLICE HEADQUARTERS KEY DOCUMENTS HAD DISAPPEARED. WHEN COMPLETE STRANGERS SHOWED UP OUT OF THE BLUE ASKING ME WHAT I WAS DOING AND WITH WHOM DID I WORK FOR, I HAD TO ASK MYSELF, 'WHAT'S GOING ON HERE?
One thing is for certain, if I had a dollar for every time someone (in the past seven years I've been investigating this story) told me to "be careful!" I could have paid my rent several times over."
Duda says in 2004 he was sued shortly before "FACTOR 8" was to screen in Park City, Utah. A federal judge blocked the premiere. The case was eventually dismissed, but set his project back nearly two years.
Suzi Parker, writing in the Arkansas Times, described how the scandal unfolded: "At the Cummins Unit of the Arkansas penal system during the 1980s, while President Clinton was still governor, inmates would regularly cross the prison hospital's threshold to give blood, lured by the prospect of receiving $7 a pint. The ritual was creepy to behold: Platoons of prisoners lying supine on rows of cots, waiting for the needle-wielding prisoner orderly to puncture a vein and watch the clear bags fill with blood. Administrators than sold the blood to brokers, who in turned shipped it to other states and to Japan, Italy, Spain and Canada. Despite repeated warnings from the Food and Drug Administration, Arkansas kept its prison plasma program running until 1994 when it became the very last state to cease selling its prisoners' plasma."
While working at the White House, LINDA TRIPP – THE FORMER ASSISTANT TO BOTH VINCENT FOSTER AND BERNARD NUSSBAUM – SAID SHE RECEIVED A PHONE CALL FROM SOMEONE WHO MENTIONED THE "TAINTED BLOOD ISSUE." THE PHONE CALL CAME JUST AFTER FOSTER'S MYSTERIOUS DEATH. The phrase meant nothing to Tripp and when she tried to find out more from a White House computer, the database denied her access. Testifying in a Judicial Watch deposition, Tripp said, "IT HAD BEEN ALARMING TO ME THAT WHEN I TRIED TO ENTER DATA FROM A CALLER THAT I WAS WORKING WITH ON A TAINTED BLOOD ISSUE, THAT EVERY TIME I ENTERED A WORD THAT HAD TO DO WITH THIS PARTICULAR ISSUE, IT WOULD FLASH UP EITHER THE WORD 'ENCRYPTED' OR 'PASSWORD REQUIRED' OR SOMETHING TO INDICATE THE FILE WAS LOCKED."
The Ottawa Citizen reported attorney VINCE FOSTER [CLINTON BUDDY] had defended a lawsuit against HMA, the Arkansas firm shipping tainted blood from prison inmates.
[THIS IS DISGUSTING ▬ AND I DO NOT UNDERSTAND HOW THIS MAN CAN BRUSH HIS TEETH AND THEN GO TO BED AND SLEEP THE NIGHT THROUGH. I WOULD LIKE TO SEE THIS MOVIE. PAY THE COPY WRITE AND PRINT IT! SENT TO THE NEW YORK TIMES AND OTHER NEWSPAPERS. I ALSO CONTEND THAT WHEN THE DOOR WAS CLOSED ON ADOLPH HITLER AFTER HE WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR KILLING MILLIONS, THE GOVERNOR OF ARKANSAS KNOCK ON THAT SAME DOOR AND LITERALLY AUTHORIZED THE MAIMING AND DEATH OF THOUSANDS]"
-> Posted by Douglas Jones / Dec 23, 2005
[Are you the one with the Red nose?]"
-> Posted by Walter E. Wallis / Dec 23, 2005
-> Posted by Adolfo / Dec 23, 2005
ABRAHAM LINCOLN"
-> Posted by Douglas Jones / Dec 17, 2005
-> Posted by Walter E. Wallis / Dec 17, 2005
-> Posted by Douglas Jones / Dec 17, 2005
-> Posted by Carl samek / Dec 14, 2005
-> Posted by Waspmajor / Dec 08, 2005
-> Posted by BIG DAVE / Dec 07, 2005
-> Posted by rogerrabbitt / Nov 13, 2005
-> Posted by Mike / Nov 13, 2005
-> Posted by Arnoldstein'sRINO / Nov 12, 2005
-> Posted by Hokey from Salinas / Nov 11, 2005
-> Posted by eric / Nov 07, 2005
-> Posted by bigot / Oct 22, 2005
-> Posted by Walter E. Wallis / Oct 18, 2005
-> Posted by reality bites / Oct 15, 2005
-> Posted by vicki / Oct 13, 2005
-> Posted by Andrew / Oct 07, 2005
-> Posted by rogerrabbit / Oct 01, 2005
-> Posted by Adolfo / Oct 01, 2005
-> Posted by rogerrabbit / Sep 30, 2005
-> Posted by Goo Back / Sep 26, 2005
-> Posted by George from merced / Sep 25, 2005
-> Posted by rogerrabbit / Sep 12, 2005
-> Posted by Jose / Sep 10, 2005
-> Posted by a veteran / Sep 10, 2005
She should have been jailed then.
What that tramp ( for lack of the better description ) IS doing or DOES, is inconsequential.
When she passes on, she'll always be remembered as "Hanoi Jane Fonda" sitting with the enemy on an Anti-Aircraft gun."
-> Posted by Leo of Sacramento / Sep 09, 2005
-> Posted by phantomn / Sep 09, 2005