The Council on Foreign Relations

I got a curious envelope today with a CFR return address. Hmm... Inside was an advertisement asking me to subscribe to their magazine, Foreign Affairs. Here's my responding letter, which I've sent in the pre-paid envelope they so graciously provided:


January 8, 2005

Foreign Affairs
Subscriber Services
PO Box 420190
Palm Coast, FL 32142-9970

Dear Foreign Affairs (aka The Council on Foreign Relations);

I received your offer to subscribe to your magazine today. Sadly, I cannot pay you to receive this publication as I view you and your ilk to be among the top enemies of our nation, the United States of America.

I won’t re-iterate all of the things the CFR has done to sabotage and dismantle this great nation through your New World Order visions and underhanded, political subterfuge and tactics. You are the ones doing it, so you should obviously know what it is you’ve done.

Were I to have my way, first thing in the morning (Sunday or not), America would do the following:

• Drop all support of foreign nations that is not mutually beneficial: this means no more foreign aid, no more open-ended credit, no more military intervention of any type, and no more preferential treatment for any reason. Private interests in America are free to raise money and send it wherever they’d like for whatever purpose they feel is just. The federal government, however, will not.
  
• Give the United Nations thirty days to relocate their buildings, personnel, etc. off of American soil. At that time, the facilities will be auctioned off to the highest bidder and the profits kept by the federal government, which funded all of it anyway and therefore has ownership. This money will be used in the public interest of the American people. As with foreign aid, all aid to the UN will be removed completely and the UN will be left free to fend for itself without our help. We’ll keep Yellowstone for ourselves, thank you: find a “World Heritage Site” somewhere else.
  
• Rescind the “Federal Reserve” and the Acts which created this monstrosity of money-control over our nation. The current owners and operators of that institution will be left free to attempt to collect their debts from US in any way they think they can. We will, of course, retain our right to defend ourselves and our sovereignty as a nation. Good luck.

For demanding these things, of course, I’m labeled a “right wing extremist,” a “racist,” and a “war monger.” Fine. Label me all you want. I’m still right.

Sincerely,


Aaron Turpen

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Cartoons of Truth

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Not One Damn Dime Day

THURSDAY, JANUARY 20th, 2005 is INAUGURATION DAY. A NATIONAL BOYCOTT IN CONSUMER SPENDING IS PLANNED FOR THAT DAY.

PLEASE READ BELOW AND PASS ALONG TO EVERYONE IN YOUR ADDRESS BOOK.

Please join this major boycott that will send a message around the world that Americans do actually care about things our president apparently does not comprehend.

Not One Damn Dime Day - Jan 20, 2005

Since our religious leaders will not speak out against the war in Iraq, since our political leaders don't have the moral courage to oppose it, Inauguration Day, Thursday, January 20th, 2005 is "Not One Damn Dime Day" in America.

On "Not One Damn Dime Day" those who oppose what is happening in our name in Iraq can speak up with a 24-hour national boycott of all forms of consumer spending.

During "Not One! Damn Dime Day" please don't spend money. Not one damn dime for gasoline. Not one damn dime for necessities or for impulse purchases. Not one damn dime for nothing for 24 hours.

On "Not One Damn Dime Day," please boycott Wal-Mart, Kmart, Target.. Please don't go to the mall or the local convenience store. Please don't buy any fast food (or any groceries at all for that matter). For 24 hours, please do what you can to shut the retail economy down.

The object is simple. Remind the people in power that the war in Iraq is immoral and illegal; that they are responsible for starting it and that it is their responsibility to stop it.

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Questions Over Torture Memo Threaten Gonzales' Nomination

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article 5954.shtml
By Staff and Wire Reports
Jan 4, 2005

Attorney General nominee Alberto Gonzales' confirmation hearing this week may become more contentious because the White House has refused to provide copies of his memos on the questioning of terror suspects.

"We go into the hearing with some knowledge of what has occurred because of press reports or leaks but without the hard evidence that will either exonerate or implicate Judge Gonzales in this policy," complained Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois, the Senate's No. 2 Democrat, on Monday.

Durbin and other Democrats plan to question Gonzales on his involvement in the crafting of policies concerning questioning - policies that the Justice Department has backed away from.

Still, the issue probably won't be enough to stop Republicans from confirming Gonzales as the first Hispanic attorney general.

Republicans hold 55 seats in the new Senate, while Democrats control 44 seats and there is a Democratic-leaning independent. The Democrats have not yet decided whether to try to block Gonzales' confirmation.

"I think the hearing will be contentious, but in the end Judge Gonzales will be confirmed because he deserves to be confirmed," said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who will introduce Gonzales at the confirmation hearing.

The Justice Department in 2002 asserted that President Bush's wartime powers superseded anti-torture laws and treaties like the Geneva Conventions. Gonzales, while at the White House, also wrote a memo to President Bush on January 25, 2002, arguing that the war on terrorism "renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions."

Gonzales also received several memos on the subject, including one from then-Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee arguing that the president has the power to issue orders that violate the Geneva Conventions as well as international and U.S. laws prohibiting torture.

Durbin, who sits on the Judiciary Committee, says the White House has refused to give those memos to Democrats so they can determine exactly how the policies were crafted.

"We asked them to produce the memos that they have and can release that were given to Judge Gonzales or were generated by him, and so far they have not claimed executive privilege but have refused to produce this documentation," Durbin said.

The White House says it has shared several documents with the committee's ranking Democrat, Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, and plans on working with Democrats to see if their questions can be resolved.

The Justice memos have since been disavowed and the White House says the United States has always operated under the spirit of the Geneva Conventions that prohibit violence, torture and humiliating treatment.

But critics say the original documents set up a legal framework that led to abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, in Afghanistan and at the U.S. prison camp for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"What they're trying to do is continue their attacks on President Bush because of his policies since 9/11 that the people didn't buy on Nov. 2," Cornyn said. "They also are trying to muddy the water to make it harder for the president to nominate him for the Supreme Court later on."

On New Year's Eve, the Justice Department made public a new policy backing off those memos.

"The fact that officials in this administration's own Justice Department felt compelled to repudiate an earlier torture memo approved by Mr. Gonzales should itself be sufficient to persuade the senators that he is not fit to be the top law enforcement official in the land," said Ron Daniels, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights.

© Copyright 2004 by Capitol Hill Blue

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Utah's "Gay Marriage Amendment" Doesn't Work...

The following is from Accountability Utah (AccountabilityUtah.org) and was published in today's issue of the Utah Freedom Activist Newsletter.

Judge Grants Rights to Homosexual Partner... Despite Amendment 3

On December 7, third district court judge Timothy Hanson granted visitation rights to, and required child support from, a non-birth partner. The former couple in question were joined under a Vermont "same sex" union arrangement. One partner, Cheryl Barlow, decided to end the arrangement and has sought sole legal and physical custody.

As predicted in our analysis of Constitutional Amendment 3, judges can twist the law, ignore Amendment 3, and rule according to their personal persuasions. This particular judge stretched "in loco parentis" (essentially the concept where the person is considered equivalent to being a parent) as follows:

"The court sees no legal reason to discriminate in applying the doctrine… to a couple who are in a committed lesbian relationship. The heterosexual or homosexual relationship between the two adults is irrelevant to the doctrine of in loco parentis."
Source: "Judge says girl is better off with two mothers," Elizabeth Neff, Salt Lake Tribune, 12/8/2004.

In other words, this judge is attempting to grant equal status and rights to non-birth partners in relationships — be those partners heterosexual or homosexual.

Dangerous precedents like these are commonplace in Utah courtrooms. Amendment 3 proponents are particularly up in arms over this ruling. But they, including Barlow’s attorney, Frank Mylar, also a legal advisor for "Yes! For Marriage", were given ample notice that there were fatal flaws in their approach.

We also warned Mylar specifically that it is possible for natural birth parents like Ms. Barlow to actually lose rights under Amendment 3, rather than gain rights.

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