Posts Made By: Ronald Durall

I just received this from a friend and thought I would share it.

Samuel Thompson wrote: "I don't believe in Santa Claus, but I'm not going to sue somebody for singing a Ho-Ho-Ho song in December."
I don't agree with Darwin, but I didn't go out and hire a lawyer when my high school teacher taught his theory of evolution.
Life, liberty or your pursuit of happiness will not be endangered because someone says a 30-second prayer before a football game.
So what's the big deal? It's not like somebody is up there reading the entire book of Acts. They're just talking to a God they believe in and
asking him to grant safety to the players on the field and the fans going home from the game. "But it's a Christian prayer," some will argue.
Yes, and this is the United States of America, a country founded on Christian principles. And we are in the Bible Belt. According to our very own phone book, Christian churches outnumber all others better than 200-to-1. So what would you expect-somebody chanting Hare Krishna?
If I went to a football game in Jerusalem, I would expect to hear a Jewish prayer.
If I went to a soccer game in Baghdad, I would expect to hear a Muslim prayer.
If I went to a ping pong match in China, I would expect to hear someone pray to Buddha.
And I wouldn't be offended. It wouldn't bother me one bit. When in Rome...
"But what about the atheists?" is another argument. What about them? Nobody is asking them to be baptized. We're not going to pass the collection plate. Just humor us for 30 seconds. If that's asking too much, bring a Walkman or a pair of earplugs. Go to the bathroom. Visit the concession stand. Call your lawyer. Unfortunately, one or two will make that call. One or two will tell thousands what they can and cannot do. I don't think a short prayer at a football game is going to shake the world's foundations.
Christians are just sick and tired of turning the other cheek while our courts strip us of all our rights. Our parents and grandparents taught us to pray before eating, to pray before we go to sleep. Our Bible tells us just to pray without ceasing. Now a handful of people and their lawyers are telling us to cease praying. God, help us.
And if that last sentence offends you, well...just sue me.
The silent majority has been silent too long... it's time we let that one or two who scream loud enough to be heard, that the vast majority don't care what they want...it is time the majority rules!
It's time we tell them, you don't have to pray, you don't have to say the pledge of allegiance, you don't have to believe in God or attend services that honor Him. That is your right, and we will honor your right... but by golly you are no longer going to take our rights away .we are fighting back...and we WILL WIN! After all, the God you have the right to denounce is on our side!
God bless us one and all, especially those who denounce Him.
God bless America, despite all her faults. still the greatest nation of all...
God bless our servicemen who are fighting to protect our right to pray and worship God...

May 2004 be the year the silent majority is heard and we put God back as the foundation of our families and institutions.
Keep looking up... In God We Trust.

I have been having trouble staying logged in. Once I leave AM I have to log in every time I come back. I used to never have to do this. Has something changed or is it my computer. Other sites I visit are not doing that. My cookies are enabled.

http://www.scaryjohnkerry.com/vietnam.htm

You know my father always said it's hard to tell the same lie twice. Sounds like Kerry is having trouble with his stories.

Kerry's campaign now says is possible first Purple Heart was awarded for unintentional self-inflicted wound. He received a Purple Heart for wounds suffered on 12/2/68 and now in Kerry's own journal written 9 days later, he writes he and his crew, quote, 'hadn't been shot at yet'.

Perhaps the Swift boat veterans are correct in what they write. If they were not Kerry would not need to keep changing his storys.

THE BOOS THAT ROCKED THE VOTE: KERRY DAUGHTERS RECEIVE RUDE AWAKENING AT MTV AWARDS
Sun Aug 29 2004 23:36:31 ET

MTV, ROLLING STONE and the rock and roll establishment -- past and present -- have cast their vote, and their man is John Kerry.

So on Sunday night when John Kerry's daughters were announced to speak at the annual MTV VIDEO MUSIC AWARDS, the MTV youth were expected to welcome his daughter's as pop culture princesses.

Instead, in an era of the unexpected, the daughters of the Democratic candidate were met with cheers -- AND JEERS -- during the live broadcast in Miami.

From the moment Alexandra and Vanessa started speaking, the boos outweighed anything close to cheers, and the reaction turned worse when the daughters asked the VIACOM youth to vote for their father. So shocked by the reaction, the taller of the two daughters tried to 'shhhhhh' her peers to no avail.

Whether you love him or hate him you have to admit he sure gave one powerful speech. Very impressive. Too bad he's not running for president, I'd vote for him.

September 15, 2004, 5:52 a.m.
The First Rathergate
The CBS anchor’s precarious relationship with the truth.

By Anne Morse
Critics are calling the media scandal over the Jerry Killian forgeries "Rathergate." But to thousands of Vietnam veterans, the real Rathergate took place 16 years ago when Dan Rather successfully foisted a fraud onto the American people. Then, unlike now, there was no blogosphere to expose him.

On June 2, 1988, CBS aired an hour-long special titled CBS Reports: The Wall Within, which CBS trumpeted as the "rebirth of the TV documentary." It purported to tell the true story of Vietnam through the eyes of six of the men who fought there. And what terrible stories they had to tell.
"I think I was one of the highest trained, underpaid, eighteen-cent-an-hour assassins ever put together by a team of people who knew exactly what they were looking for," said Steve Southards, a Navy SEAL who told Rather he had escaped society to live in the forests of Washington state. Under Rather's gentle coaxing, Southards described slaughtering Vietnamese civilians, making his work appear to be that of the North Vietnamese.
"You're telling me that you went into the village, killed people, burned part of the village, then made it appear that the other side had done this?" Rather asked.
"Yeah," Steve replied. "It was kill VC, and I was good at what I did."
Steve arrived home "in a straitjacket, addicted to alcohol and drugs" knowing that "combat had made him different," Rather intoned. "He asked for help; that's unusual, many vets don't. They hold back until they explode."
Rather then moved on to suicidal veteran named George Grule, who was stationed on the aircraft carrier Ticonderoga off the coast of Vietnam during a secret mission. Grule described the horror of watching a friend walk into the spinning propeller of a plane, which chopped him to pieces and sprayed Grule with his blood. The memory of this trauma left Grule, like Steve, unable to function in normal society.
Neither could Mikal Rice, who broke down as he described a grenade attack at Cam Ranh Bay, which blew in half the body of a buddy, "Sergeant Call." "He died in my arms," Rice tearfully recalled. Rice described how the sound of thunder and cars backfiring would regularly trigger his terrible memories.
Most horrific of all were the memories of Terry Bradley, a "fighting sergeant" who told Rather he had skinned alive 50 Vietnamese men, women, and children in one hour and stacked their bodies in piles. "Could you do this for one hour of your life, you stack up every way a body could be mangled, up into a body, an arm, a tit, an eyeball . . . Imagine us over there for a year and doing it intensely," Bradley said. "That is sick."
"You've got to be angry about it," Rather replied. "I'm suicidal about it," Bradley responded.
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, drug abuse, alcoholism, joblessness, homelessness, suicidal thoughts: These tattered warriors suffered from them all.
The The Wall Within was hailed by critics who — like the Washington Post's Tom Shales — gushed that the documentary was "extraordinarily powerful." There was just one problem: Almost none of it was true.
The truth was uncovered by B.G. Burkett, a Vietnam veteran and author of Stolen Valor: How the Vietnam Generation Was Robbed of its Heroes and its History (with Glenna Whitley). Burkett discovered that only one of the vets had actually served in combat. Steve Southards, who'd claimed to be a 16-year-old Navy SEAL assassin, had actually served as an equipment repairman stationed far from combat. Later transferred to Subic Bay in the Philippines, Steve spent most of his time in the brig for repeatedly going AWOL.
And George Gruel, who claimed he was traumatized by the sight of his friend being chopped to pieces by a propeller? Navy records reveal that a propeller accident did take place on the Ticonderoga when Gruel was aboard — but that he wasn't around when it happened. During Gruel's tour, the ship had been converted to an antisubmarine warfare carrier which operated, not on "secret mission" along the Vietnam coast, but on training missions off the California coastline. Nevertheless, Burkett notes, Gruel receives $1,952 a month from the Veterans Administration for "psychological trauma" related to an event he only heard about.
Mikal Rice — the anguished vet who claimed to have cradled his dying buddy in his arms — actually spent his tour as a guard with an MP company at Cam Ranh Bay. He never saw combat. Neither did Terry Bradley, who was not the "fighting sergeant" he'd claimed to be. Instead, military records reveal he served as an ammo handler in the 25th Infantry Division and spent nearly a year in the stockade for being AWOL. That's good news for the hundreds of Vietnamese civilians Bradley claimed to have slaughtered. But it doesn't say much for Dan Rather's credibility.
As Burkett notes, the records of all of these vets were easily checkable through Freedom of Information Act requests of their military records — something Rather and his producers simply didn't bother to do. They accepted at face value the lurid tales of atrocities committed in Vietnam and the stories of criminal behavior, drug addiction, and despair at home.
Perhaps that's because this is what they wanted to believe. Says Burkett: The Wall Within "precisely fit what Americans have grown to believe about the Vietnam War and its veterans: They routinely committed war crimes. They came home from an immoral war traumatized, vilified, then pitied. Jobless, homeless, addicted, suicidal, they remain afflicted by inner conflicts, stranded on the fringes of society."
Burkett, who did check the records of the vets Rather interviewed, shared his discoveries with CBS. So did Thomas Turnage, then administrator of the Veterans Administration, who was appalled by Rather's use of bogus statistics on the rates of suicide, homelessness, and mental illness among Vietnam veterans — statistics that can also be easily checked. Rather initially refused to comment, and CBS spokeswoman Kim Akhtar said, "The producers stand behind their story. They had enough proof of who they are." For his part, CBS president Howard Stringer defended the network with irrelevancies. "Your criticisms were not shared by a vast majority of our viewers," he sniffed, adding that "CBS News and its affiliates received acclaim from most quarters . . . In sum, this was a broadcast of which we at CBS News and I personally am proud. There are no apologies to make."
Sarah Lee Pilley, who ran a restaurant in Colville, Washington where the CBS crew dined while filming The Wall Within, would not agree. The wife of a retired Marine lieutenant colonel who saw combat in Vietnam, Pilley, said she "got the distinct feeling that CBS had a story they had decided on before they left New York." After interviewing 87 Vietnam veterans, CBS chose the "four or five saddest cases to put on the film," Pilley said. "The factual part of it didn't seem to matter as long as they captured the high drama and emotion that these few individuals offered. We felt all along that CBS committed tremendous exploitation of some very sick individuals."
Why would Dan Rather do such a thing? Partly because the stories of deranged, trip-wire vets is much more dramatic than the true story: That most Vietnam veterans came home to live normal, productive, happy lives. Second, Rather apparently wanted the story of whacked-out Vietnam veterans to be true — just as he now wants the Jerry Killian story to be true.
Or maybe — despite a preponderance of the evidence — he considered the sources of these tales of Vietnam atrocities "unimpeachable." As angry Vietnam veterans began calling CBS to complain about the factual inaccuracies of The Wall Within, Perry Wolff, the executive producer who wrote the documentary, claimed that "No one has attacked us on the facts." Despite the growing evidence that he'd been had, Rather also continued to defend the documentary — which is now part of CBS's video history series on the Vietnam War.
Perhaps Vietnam veterans ought to take a page out of the book of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and air television ads exposing Rather's deceits — something along the lines of: "Dan Rather lied about his Vietnam documentary. I know. I was there. I saw what happened. When the chips were down, you could not count on Dan Rather."
Certainly, we cannot count on him for the truth. During a 1993 speech to the Radio and Television News Directors Association, Rather criticized his colleagues for competing with entertainment shows for "dead bodies, mayhem, and lurid tales." "We should all be ashamed of what we have and have not done, measured against what we could do," Rather said.
Thousands of Vietnam veterans — not to mention the Bush campaign — would agree.

Police officers endorse Bush; news media silent

By Jim Kouri

The nation's largest police union, the Fraternal Order of Police, announced in September that they enthusiastically endorse President George W. Bush for reelection. More than 300,000 police officers are members of the FOP. Yet, the news media intentionally or unintentionally ignored this important endorsement by our nation's law enforcement community, which shows the trust American cops have in Bush's ability to wage a war on terrorism and his resolve to protect the homeland.

When the international firefighters union endorsed John Kerry (largely because he believes buying more fire engines will protect us from terrorists), the news media could hardly hold back their excitement when making the announcement of that endorsement to the American people. Of course, they never mentioned that the New York City firefighters endorsed Bush -- and let's be honest, they are the guys who charged into the burning twin towers on September 11, 2001. Many of them laid down their lives -- along with NYPD and Port Authority cops -- to save the victims of the worst terrorist attack in our nation's history.

In addition, other police unions including New York City police organizations endorse President Bush. Most recently, the NYPD's Sergeants Benevolent Association added their wholehearted endorsement of our Commander-in-Chief. Yet the media's silence over these important endorsements is deafening.

But why are the mainstream media ignoring these announcements by our nation's cops? There may be several reasons: Perhaps they only wish to run news stories that question Bush's leadership or paint him as a draft-dodger, such as the recent 60 Minutes hatchet-job regarding the President's National Guard service; or perhaps they are only interested in covering news of various union endorsements of Senator John Kerry; or perhaps the story isn't sexy enough for the mere 30 seconds or so it would take to inform the American people that their protectors support their President. The cynic in me says that the news media have very little use for cops to begin with, except when they serve as anonymous sources or help them in their coverage of an important story. Usually, the coverage of police by the mainstream media involves allegations of police brutality, their alleged use of excessive deadly force or stories of police corruption. And of course there's the old Liberal standby: police racism or racially-motivated police abuse.

On the same day that the Fraternal Order of Police made their decision to support President Bush for reelection, Senator Tom Harkin, a fierce Kerry supporter, was all over the news shows and cable news networks calling Bush a liar about his military service. His allegations rang hollow and displayed on his part hypocrisy which knows no bounds. For it is indeed Senator Harkin who lied about his military record. In 1992, during his own presidential bid, Harkin advanced the myth that he flew fighter missions over Vietnam. It turned out that he never saw action in Vietnam. He was never a Vietnam veteran. Yet here is a liar calling the Commander-in-Chief a liar. Only in politics. So the news media, who are -- or should be -- aware of Harkin's fabrications lavish extraordinary airtime on him, while ignoring honest cops supporting someone they believe is an honest leader.

Is there any wonder that in a recent poll taken by the 14,000-member National Association of Chiefs of Police, 92 percent of the police commanders and sheriffs responding said they believe the media (print and broadcast) were not fair and impartial in their coverage. Ninety-two percent! And the arrogant minions of our nation's newsrooms even ignored that poll. Are you surprised?

http://www.enterstageright.com/archive/articles/0904/0904cops.htm

By Admiral Roy Hoffmann

Almost overnight, it has become an article of faith among members of the mainstream media that the charges leveled against Sen. John Kerry by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth have been proven to be untrue. David Broder, the dean of Washington columnists, got into the act this week with a column that appeared in the Herald in which he dismissed the Swift Vets as a group peddling a scurrilous and largely inaccurate attack on the Vietnam service of John Kerry.

How can the media discount Kerry's betrayal of all U.S. forces fighting in Vietnam, when he testified before the U.S. Congress in 1971, that all U.S. armed forces including his own shipmates committed unspeakable atrocities on a "day to day basis with the participation of all levels of command?" That is simply a lie. Not one alleged atrocity or even a specific accusation has been documented by John Kerry or anyone else to our knowledge.
Now that the memos that called into question President Bush's fulfillment of his National Guard obligations have been discredited, reporters and columnists have seemingly made a tacit bargain to treat the stories as two sides of a single coin. Its a tidy story, one summed up by Kerry's official biographer, Douglas Brinkley, "Every American now knows that there's something really screwy about George Bush and the National Guard, and they know that John Kerry was not the war hero we thought he was."

The only problem is that it's not that simple. Consider the facts.

John Kerry claimed on numerous occasions, including during a speech on the floor of the U.S. Senate, to have spent Christmas Eve of 1968 in Cambodia: "I remember Christmas of 1968 sitting on a gunboat in Cambodia. I have that memory which is seared - seared - in me." When the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth challenged Kerry on this story, he was forced to backpedal. His spokespersons now claim, without proof, that Kerry crossed the border on one occasion, but they have conceded that he was not there on Christmas as he claimed.

And yet, in the looking glass world of today's media, Kerry, who lied, is being unfairly attacked, while the Swift Boat Vets, who told the truth, are dishonest.

The Swift Boat Vets have also called attention to the first of Kerry's three Purple Hearts. As an officer-in-training, Kerry took part in a patrol mission that resulted in a brief firefight between Kerry's boat and suspected Viet Cong forces on shore. The problems for Kerry's account of that mission, of course, are that there was no report of any hostile fire that day (as would be required), nor do the records at Cam Ranh Bay reveal any such hostile fire. There is also no casualty report, as would have been required had there actually been a casualty. In addition, no one else on the mission, including Kerry, claim the presence of enemy fire.

This is why Kerry initially was refused the Purple Heart by his commanding officer. It was only after he re-filed three months later, after the individuals involved had all moved on to other duty stations, that his request for a Purple Heart was granted.

In fact, Kerry's injury that day was consistent with shrapnel from an M-79 grenade launcher that he fired at the shoreline too close to his own boat not enemy fire. Kerry's campaign now has even admitted that it is possible this first Purple Heart was awarded for a self-inflicted wound.

So once again, Kerry was forced to change his story in response to questions raised by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. But Kerry's self-aggrandizing, medal-hunting behavior is somehow beyond reproach while the Swift Vets are blasted by media critics.

Whets most striking is that these are not isolated incidents. As stories like whether or not Kerry actually threw his (or someone else's) medals (or ribbons) over the White House fence make clear, this is a man not, strictly speaking, wedded to a single truth.

Hoffmann is a retired Navy rear admiral. As the commander of the Coastal Surveillance Force Vietnam in 1968-1969, Hoffman was the overall commander of U.S. Swift Boats during the period of Kerry's Vietnam coastal service.

Ending voter fraud
By Bruce Walker

Voter fraud is an unnecessary problem. Not only is voter fraud easy to solve, but ending voter fraud forever would actually make it easier for people to vote and end the need for poll watchers, election lawyers, and vote registration campaigns. How? Abolish the secret ballot.
The stakes could not be higher for America. Democrats steal elections all over the Republic from mayoral races in cities like Philadelphia and gubernatorial elections in states like Maryland and senatorial races in states like Louisiana to presidential elections themselves.
Almost all serious historians agree that the shenanigans of Democrat bosses stole the 1960 presidential election for John Kennedy. The risk to America, however, was slight. John Kennedy was an imperfect man but a decent president, certainly a patriot and someone who sought to inspire American greatness, whether it was in defending freedom or in landing on the Moon.
Venal, pampered Leftist politicians like Gore and Kerry are not Kennedy. Stealing elections for men like that is simply business as usual. This risks making the American Republic the equivalent of any of the myriad other Democrat machines - Tammany Hall, Boss Daley, Boss Hague or the KKK South - which have corrupted state and local governments within America.
The Australian ballot (or secret ballot) was when the dominion democracies of Australia adopted it in the 19th Century. Even at its inception, there were obvious problems with a secret ballot. When representative democratic bodies, like Congress, state legislatures or city councils vote, we rightly insist that the votes be public, not secret.
Part of the reason for that is so that our representatives can be held accountable, but another equally important reason is to make sure that voter fraud in those assemblies does not occur. Consider how Democrats would react if Senate votes on cloture for judicial nominations were all cast secretly and Vice President Cheney, as President of the Senate, announced cloture had passed by a margin of 62 to 38. Does anyone doubt Democrats would cry "Foul!"?

The key to voter fraud: the secret ballot
What makes it certain that votes are not stolen in the United States Senate, the Nebraska Legislature or the Topeka City Council? Votes are publicly cast. Votes publicly cast can be publicly counted and publicly accounted. That certainty is vital to a healthy democracy.
Many parts of America, those dominated by Democrat machines, produce results that reflect crimes much worse than stolen votes. Assume the Vice President Cheney, after a secret ballot vote of the United States Senate on cloture for judicial appointments, announced that cloture had passed by a margin of 75 to 50, the requisite third thirds majority.
Because there are only 100 votes in the Senate, but 125 votes were cast, there was obviously fraud, but the fraud was not stolen votes but invented voted. Places in key states now have more hypothetical "voters" registered to vote than citizens in the area. Who doubts that the same Democrat operatives who register fictitious persons will cast those fictitious ballots for Democrats?
If there was no secret ballot, then hanging chads, dimpled chads and the like would all be irrelevant. An individual could simply be asked, if there was any question at all, what he intended by a particular vote. More to the point, each registered voter could have his vote available as a matter of public record and correct it, if it was not properly recorded.
Eligibility to vote could also be much easier to determine. Assume, for example, that a state had a thirty day residency requirement and a mailing address requirement and nothing more. If someone registered to vote and voted in violation to those requirements, not only could the illegal voter be prosecuted - along with any party hacks who aided him - but the particular illegal vote could also be identified and cast out as well.
What about the great dread of intimidation? That did not prevent the United States from having a very vigorous, closely competitive system of elections during the decades leading up to the gradual adoption of the secret ballot. Intimidation works very poorly when it is difficult to predict who which candidate or party will have power. The very close division of party power in America, and the vigorous two party system in every state, make genuine voter intimidation a very bad gamble.
Not only are their many more laws to protect voters against intimidation or discrimination than when America had a flourishing democracy and a public ballot, but actual voter intimidation would also certainly backfire catastrophically into the faces of those who tried it. What are Democrats doing right now? Preemptively alleging voter intimidation!
Consider that already the vast majority of Americans voluntarily chose to register as a member of one of the two major political parties, rather than as independents. Are they not effectively and publicly declaring their political allegiance?
Consider that everyone considers that secret campaign contributions are a corrupting influence in politics, and that supporting a party or a candidate with contributions is considered essential to be public.
Consider that any good statistician can predict with about ninety-five percent probability how a particular individual will vote based upon his race, his sex, his religion, his income, his residence and one or two other factors.
Now consider the alternative to abolishing the secret ballot: elections by fraud, election results by litigation, elected officials operating under a cloud of doubt. Most people, wrongly, assume that the secret ballot is guaranteed in the Constitution. It is not even guaranteed by federal law. If the is a mess in Florida and in Ohio, those two states - both of which have Republican legislatures and Republican governors - should enact genuine election reform in January 2005: make the registration and recording of votes simple, clear, easy - and public.