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Government bid selection process? How does the US government select winning bids? Please share if you have any idea about this.

US government foreclosure auction- just pay off the default balance and no auction process? There is a house up for formal auction through the US marshals office next Friday. The government's starting bid is $33,556 on this house. Would an interested buyer be allowed to just pay this $33,556 balance off to the government instead of going through the whole auction process? It just makes sense for the interested buyer to buy the house if all the government wants is the $33,556.

government auction on real property-has anyone ever bid on the houses that the US govt puts up for auction? I saw a house near by that will be auctioned-it will have 2 previews on Sundays before the sale- what is the actual process? Will there be a minimum starting amount? Can we prebid before the auction or is it possible that it might be sold by another means other than the auction? What has been your experience?

Why is there Radical Anti American Shia Clerics in the Iraq government? Muqtada al-Sadr Hojatoleslam Sayyid Muqtada al-Sadr (مقتدى الصدر Muqtadā aṣ-Ṣadr) (b. August 12, 1973) is the fourth son of the famous Iraqi Shi‘a cleric, the late Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Mohammad Sadeq al-Sadr and son-in-law of Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir As-Sadr. As of early 2004, he was the de facto ruler of the Sadr City section of Baghdad and commanded the loyalty of the Mahdi Army, an Iranian-backed insurgent force making a bid for power in Iraq.[1] Clashes with U.S. forces in April were followed by a truce in June, and mixed signals from al-Sadr after his promises to disband his militia and become involved in the political process. The Coalition Provisional Authority had on several occasions threatened to arrest al-Sadr, and in early April 2004 issued an arrest warrant, alleging his involvement in a homicide. U.S. military commanders expressed an intention to "capture or kill" him. - Now he is a constant menace in Iraqs government.

Contractor of federal government, not paying employees for holidays?? Is this legal? I work for a company that is contracted by the federal government. We are currently in the process bidding for a new contract, which ended September 30, 2007. We are currently working under an extension of the previous contract until the new one is awarded. Our employer is stating that she won't get paid until she is awarded the contract and therefore we are not getting government holidays paid, though were are forced to take them off unpaid. She states that we will receive pay for these prorated in the future. There are other contract offices other than ours and from what we have heard, they have gotten all of their holiday pay. We also are only getting prorated pay for our personal and vacation time. I don't like this, I can understand the personal/vacation time a little bit better than the holiday because that is time we are requesting to take off. No one seems to want to ask anyone who is connected to our company for fear of losing their job. We have been in contact with the Office of Inspector General, but they do not answer their phone or reply to their email. If your solution is to find another job, trust me, I am trying. We have what we call the "golden handcuff" here, meaning that our wages are decent enough and finding a job that is competitive to them is extremely difficult. We are also being told that with this new contract, it is called performance based and that if our company doesn't meet the government's expectations 100% that we won't get paid….someone please tell me how this is legal? Does anyone know who I could contact about this?

In Adarand Constructors v. Pena, where a low-bid contractor lost a highway job to a "disadvantaged" contractor lost a highway job to a "disadvantaged" contractor under federal bidding rules, the Supreme Court held that: a. the bidding scheme did not violate the due process clause because it was narrowly tailored to meet a compelling state interest. b. the bidding scheme did not violate the equal protection clause because it does not apply to federal government practices. c. the bidding scheme did not violate the takings clause of the Fifth Amendment because there was no right to the contract. d. the bidding scheme violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Could some one help me decide on the right answer? Thank You!

What really happened at Walter Reed Hospital? Walter Reed Crumbled as Army Delayed Private Maintenance Contract Sunday , March 18, 2007 AP ADVERTISEMENT WASHINGTON — An Army contract to privatize maintenance at Walter Reed Medical Center was delayed more than three years amid bureaucratic bickering and legal squabbles that led to staff shortages and a hospital in disarray just as the number of severely wounded soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan was rising rapidly. Documents from the investigative and auditing arm of Congress map a trail of bid, rebid, protests and appeals between 2003, when Walter Reed was first selected for outsourcing, and 2006, when a five-year, $120 million contract was finally awarded. The disputes involved hospital management, the Pentagon, Congress and IAP Worldwide Services Inc., a company with powerful political connections and the only private bidder to handle maintenance, security, public works and management of military personnel. While medical care was not directly affected, needed repairs went undone as the staff shrank from almost 300 to less than 50 in the last year and hospital officials were unable to find enough skilled replacements. An investigative series by The Washington Post last month sparked a furor on Capitol Hill after it detailed subpar conditions at the 98-year-old hospital in northwest Washington and substandard services for patients. Three top-ranking military officials, including the secretary of the Army, were ousted in part for what critics said was the Pentagon's mismanaged effort to reduce costs and improve efficiency at the Army's premier military hospital while the nation was at war. IAP is owned by a New York hedge fund whose board is chaired by former Treasury Secretary John Snow, and it is led by former executives of Kellogg, Brown and Root, the subsidiary spun off by Texas-based Halliburton Inc., the oil services firm once run by Vice President Dick Cheney. IAP finally got the job in November 2006, but further delays caused by the Army and Congress delayed work until Feb. 4, two weeks before the Post series and two years after the number of patients at the hospital hit a record 900. "The Army unfortunately did not devote sufficient resources to the upfront planning part of this, and when you do that, you suffer every step of the way," said Paul Denett, administrator for federal procurement policy at the Office of Management and Budget, the White House unit that prepares the president's budget and oversees government contracts. The contract includes management of Building 18, which houses soldiers with minor injuries and was highlighted in the Post series as symptomatic of substandard conditions: black mold on the walls of patient rooms, rodent and cockroach infestation, and shoddy mattresses. Those 54 rooms are now vacant. Interior work cannot be started until a badly damaged roof is repaired, and that will need another contract because it's not covered in the IAP contract, Walter Reed officials said. "These rooms are exactly as they were left," Sgt. Gary Rhett, manager of Building 18, said Thursday. "No changes have been made." The Army has confirmed the timing of the contract delays but declined several requests for comment on why the protest and appeal process took so long, even as more and more injured soldiers were arriving. The trail goes back to the end of the Clinton administration. The Army began studying the cost benefits of privatization in 2000. When President Bush took office, he mandated the competitive outsourcing of 425,000 federal jobs. At the time, the Pentagon was aggressively pushing for increased outsourcing, and in June 2003, then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told a Senate committee he was considering outsourcing up to 320,000 nonmilitary support jobs. That's the same year that the Army asked for bids on Walter Reed and, coincidentally, the same year the United States invaded Iraq. One company responded: Johnson Controls World Services Inc., which would be acquired by IAP in March 2005. It initially bid $132 million, but it and Walter Reed's then-management agreed that the Army was underestimating the cost. By September 2004, the Army had decided it would be cheaper to continue with current management, which said it could do the work for $124.5 million. Johnson Controls filed a protest with the Government Accountability Office. The protest was dismissed in June 2005, but the Army agreed to reopen bidding three months later to include additional costs for services. In January 2006, after two rounds of protests by IAP and two appeals by Walter Reed employees to the U.S. Army Medical Command, IAP was named the winner, according to Steve Sanderson, a Walter Reed spokesman. Instead, in an unusual turn of events, the contract wasn't awarded for another 11 months, the GAO said. Walter Reed officials blame several factors, including an additional protest to the GAO filed by Deputy Garrison Commander Alan D. King, a separate appeal to the U.S. Army Medical Command by Walter Reed's public works director, at least one intervention by Congress, and delays on required congressional notifications about government employee dismissals. IAP spokeswoman Arlene Mellinger said "it was up to the Army to decide when to begin that contract." The company was ready to start at any time, she added. In August 2006, led by Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., lawmakers asked then-Army Secretary Francis J. Harvey to hold off on the contract until Congress finished work on the fiscal 2007 defense appropriations bill. Congress approved that bill Sept. 29. The Army's plan then was to eliminate 360 federal jobs at Walter Reed in November and turn the work over to IAP, according to the American Federation of Government Employees, a federal workers' trade union. But the Army failed to notify Congress 45 days in advance, as required by law, so the turnover was delayed until early this year. Then it was IAP's turn to have problems. When work finally began at the hospital, IAP made an immediate request, which the Army approved, to hire 87 temporary skilled workers for up to four months "to ease the turbulence caused by employees being placed into positions or other installations and otherwise finding new jobs early," said Sanderson, the Walter Reed official. However, a "tight" job market in the Washington area meant that only 10 qualified temporary employees were found, he added. Meanwhile, injured soldiers continue to arrive weekly to a short-handed, deteriorated hospital, which the Army still plans to close in 2011.

please dont turn your backs this happened to me please help and read this atleast youll know before you judge? This is Child Protection? By Gregory A. Hession, J.D. Published: 2007-07-23 05:00 Family | Email this page | printer friendly version Imagine your terror and panic: you are awakened by an armed SWAT team in the middle of the night, demanding to be let into your home to take your children away. The grim-faced agents show you no warrant, no court order, and no mercy. They give you no reason for their presence, other than having received an unspecified report about child abuse. They bark commands and menace you and your children with their weapons. The children are taken out of your home screaming, shoved into cars, and whisked away into the night. This is not a Soviet-era movie script, but a reality in thousands of homes in the United States every year, courtesy of state child protective services agencies. The least reported and understood social crisis of our time is the vast new police state run by these state social services agencies, which are generically referred to as “child protective services,” or CPS. The states have different names for them, such as Department of Social Services or Department of Children and Families, but they are all operating under a federal mandate. Whatever they are called, our next generation of children may never recover from their predatory intrusions into families. Some may dismiss these concerns as hyperbole, but the numbers are appalling. In 2005 alone, over 3.3 million reports involving six million children were made to state child-abuse hot lines, the vast majority of which eventually proved to be untrue. Over 500,000 children currently are in foster care. Another 300,000 or so are forcibly removed from their homes by the system every year. Tens of billions of dollars are expended every year on the care of these children, and on the juvenile court systems which enable it, along with costs of therapy, drugs, lawyers, and related services. This system is relatively new. In response to professional agitation to “do something” about the problem of child abuse, Congress set forth standards for state child protection agencies in 1974, in the Child Abuse Protection and Treatment Act, also called the Mondale Act for its senatorial sponsor. If a state conformed their system to the federal mandate, it could get generous reimbursement from the feds. The states immediately complied, and modern child protection was born. The system does not work, and never has. Thirty years, hundreds of billions of dollars, and millions of ruined families later, the problem of abuse is little improved. Not one state has ever come close to meeting the bare minimum standards set out in federal law for CPS agencies. Of seven federal criteria that apply, only a few states have even met one, and no state even complies with a few of them. In almost all cases, children are traumatized by their experiences in state custody. A large number of the children taken into captivity never return — many are adopted out to other families, killed, injured, or caused permanent psychological harm. Parents are rarely helped, even when they need some improvement. Can this happen in America? It can, and it does. What follows is a brief tour through the seamy underbelly of the CPS system. That these agencies engage in such despicable behavior is often not believed by anyone who has not been directly affected by it. CPS structures and systems resemble those used by totalitarian regimes. The Snitch Network The entry point of most children into the child protection system is through a government-mandated “snitch network” consisting of 50-odd professions that are required by law to report any suspected child abuse or neglect to a state “hot line.” Teachers, police, therapists, doctors, nurses, even clergy, must report to CPS, under threat of prosecution. In addition, CPS propaganda has convinced many neighbors and friends and personal enemies to make such reports. Once a report is made, the CPS agency has to decide whether it is credible, and if so, what to do about it. Of about 3.3 million calls to state hot lines in 2005, about 40 percent were screened out before going any further. For the remaining calls, the agency had to decide whether it was an emergency, or could be administratively investigated in due course. Why are so many reports of child abuse being generated? A large contributing factor is that the legal definitions of abuse and neglect are so elastic as to encompass virtually any parental behavior, from spanking their children to letting them eat too much “fast food.” Also, supply sometimes creates its own demand, since an army of professionals has arisen to service the industry, and must be kept well fed. In response to child-abuse emergencies, real or imagined, the agency usually sends CPS agents and police to a home. The police pry the children’s little fingers off their mother, with everyone screaming hysterically during the “pull,” as they call it. In other cases, children are snatched from school or from buses after school, without notice to parents frantically waiting at bus stops. Often they are taken late on a Friday afternoon, so parents cannot challenge the action in court over the weekend, and so that the children can be held incommunicado and given medications — drugged — during that time. The goal is to soften the kids up to make “disclosures” about parental abuse in order to allow CPS to get a court order for custody. Sometimes CPS agents go to court to get an order before taking the children, but when they do so, it is almost always done in secret in a closed courtroom, without the parents or attorneys present. Unfortunately, CPS often gets it wrong both ways — genuine abuse is often missed or ignored, while most of what is reported as abuse or neglect does not rise to any reasonable level of seriousness. (See chart below.) Into the Belly of the Beast After the snitch network does its part to get the children into the CPS pipeline, the cases either go into an elaborate administrative process, or to a so-called “shelter” court hearing, held within a few days in order to determine whether the removal of the children from the home was proper. At that court hearing, usually conducted in secret without the press or public allowed, the court will appoint separate lawyers for the mother, the father, and the children. Many of these hearings are conducted so quickly that parents do not have time to prepare a defense, and the lawyers often cut corners by telling their clients to just agree to keep the children in custody until a trial, which could be a year or more away. Only later do the parents find out that they had agreed that their children needed state protection and had waived any possibility of getting them back quickly, or even at all. The cases that do not go to court are shunted into a surreal, nightmarish administrative system, and the children are often allowed to stay at home or with relatives while the bureaucrats dither. A social worker will eventually make up a document called a “case plan” or “service plan,” in which the alleged failings of the parents are summarized. The case plan includes a set of tasks and social services intended to “fix” the parent, much like one might repair an appliance. In order to get the children back home if they were taken, or to foreshorten an administrative case, the parents must do all the activities mandated on the plan, such as going to parenting classes, meeting with a social worker, going to substance-abuse treatment, or getting psychological evaluations. Social workers, often severely maladjusted and working out their own tortured past vicariously through their clients, frequently treat the parents with whom they work as property, ordering them around at whim. They set up services to be done during work hours, causing people to lose jobs and placing the family in financial distress. They can order that a man suspected of spanking his children must leave the home, putting additional emotional and financial burdens on a family. As with most government programs, there are unintended consequences that no one considered when putting the scheme together. Since social workers are so easily duped, divorcing spouses have made extensive use of CPS reports as a weapon in family court. Want to get custody fast? Just call CPS and accuse the other spouse of abuse. CPS will also do the bidding of schools that have trouble handling difficult children, and will threaten parents who do not want to drug their children with ADHD chemicals. When children are placed in foster care, the agency usually treats them with mercenary callousness. Social workers and foster parents do things to children that if done by parents would likely have triggered removal of the child. Children are routinely kept out of school for weeks, are denied needed medical care, and are even abused physically and sexually. Children with asthma are often placed with heavy smokers, and children with speech impediments are often placed with immigrants who struggle with English. Almost all children are heavily drugged, with up to six powerful mind-bending medications, in order to ensure their docility. Even in little ways, the system continually shows contempt for its captives. Social workers leave a home without putting the children in car seats, cancel visits with the parents if they have better things to do, or place the children in homes far from the parents in order to make it harder to have visits. The grinding banality of socialist-spawned child care is soulless, loveless, and arbitrary. Abuse committed against a child while in foster care is supposed to be investigated by a special outside unit, similar to an internal-affairs division in a police department. However, mindful of potential lawsuits if abuse were discovered, the investigators usually don’t find any. Statistics reported to the government about abuse in foster care are low because the agency gets to do its own investigations. In my experience representing parents, most of whose children have been actually abused in foster care, the CPS usually sweeps the allegations under the rug and fails to stop the abuse. Outcomes of Child-abuse Investigations Though states' "child protective services" intervene readily in family situations, using as a guideline for intervention whether a child "is at risk of maltreatment," even after 40 percent of allegations of child abuse are initially screened out, a further 66 percent of the remaining allegations of child abuse are found to be unsubstantiated. (This number includes the cases labeled on the chart as "Alternative Response Nonvictim," where no investigation of the reported child abuse was undertaken, yet it was determined that there was no abuse.) Your Day in Court Juvenile or family court is where the fate of millions of children is decided. Not many years ago, these courts were a sleepy sinecure for a few political hacks. Now, with the child-abuse industrial complex in overdrive feeding them, juvenile courts have come into vogue. Crowds of sad-faced parents shuffle around the court’s waiting areas, lining the halls. Lawyers, forgetting the indescribable pain that their clients are enduring, openly laugh and gossip with CPS attorneys and therapists. At court hearings, the parents usually cannot speak, and the children’s wishes are almost never heard or considered. Hearings often last only a few minutes, or even seconds. The traditional rules of evidence and notions of due process are rarely observed in these special courts, which are neither criminal nor civil. Hearsay on top of hearsay, sometimes three or four layers deep, is often admitted into evidence, which would never be allowed in any traditional court. The burden of proof for taking children away from parents on a temporary basis is merely to show by a “preponderance of evidence” that the child was abused, which is a weak and ill-defined standard. By contrast, the state has to prove guilt in a speeding ticket case beyond a reasonable doubt. A final termination of parental rights requires that the state prove unfitness by “clear and convincing evidence,” still well short of the quantum of proof required to prove jaywalking. Most juvenile cases end with a judgment against the parents, allowing CPS to keep the children until they are 18, or to farm them out for adoption. The home team — that is, the CPS prosecutor and social workers — are in front of the judge every day. The process becomes a choreographed dance, like a Mozart-era minuet, with all the players moving in lockstep and the outcome often determined before the first witness is called. By looking at the numbers, one would conclude that there is an epidemic of child abuse in America. However, the evidence shows that there is actually an epidemic of hysteria about child abuse, because most of the official complaints are either false or greatly exaggerated. It is a squalid business. Big “non-profit” companies have arisen to service the insatiable demand for warehousing children and providing therapy, education, and other services. Special needs children can sometimes fetch thousands of dollars per week for these sub-contractors from the state and the feds, which make millionaires out of the subcontractors owners and officers. Tens of thousands of parents have their parental rights terminated every year, and their children taken for adoption to other persons or families. In 2005 alone, 67,000 children were removed for adoption. Another 110,000 were waiting for adoptive homes. Each of these children has been through a painful removal from parents, a lengthy court process, numerous foster homes, large amounts of drugs and therapy, and sometimes years of waiting. The Adoption and Safe Families Act, passed by Congress in 1997, sets out adoption quotas for the states, with money bonuses for exceeding them, and even larger bonuses for processing a larger number of “special needs” children. Thus, adoption becomes the goal for many children who should not be taken from families in the first place. For CPS, it becomes just a commercial sales transaction: meet the quota, collect the cash. Some parents do abuse children, and states have comprehensive criminal laws to deal with those cases. Most persons would likely disagree with CPS in how it defines abuse or neglect. Families are attacked for home-schooling or spanking their children, for not overseeing all play activities, or for when a child has an accident. Sometimes a child’s illness, poverty, or parents who are going through a time of conflict will trigger CPS involvement. There is also a palpable animus against families who are religious, or who do not like state interference. Only a very small percentage of the 3.3 million reported cases annually prove to be genuine abuse, and the system does a bad job of sorting them out. There are reasons why the system does a bad job. Colleges churn out hordes of 23-year-old social-work graduates, childless and clueless, who are sent into homes to make life-changing decisions. Their formal education is grounded in doctrinaire Marxism and feminism, and they believe in their viscera that the state should communally raise children. Another disincentive to changing the system is the fact that social workers are given legal immunity for almost any discretionary decision no matter what harm results to the children. Social workers exercise virtually unlimited power over families, with little accountability to anyone for overreaching or even for egregious offenses. Federal reimbursement is the locomotive that drives the child-protection business. Regardless of what families actually need, CPS determines where to place its resources based on what returns the most reimbursement. The vast percentage of federal reimbursement (90 percent) comes from taking children into custody, while only a tiny fraction (10 percent) is available to help intact families. In other words, taking children pays, helping families costs. The game of cadging federal CPS dollars has become so intense that states often hire multi-million dollar consultants to assist them in maximizing federal reimbursement for the children they take. For instance, Massachusetts hired the now-defunct Arthur Anderson Consulting, at an estimated fee of about $8.6 million, to structure the state program to take advantage of as many federal reimbursement categories as possible. What Can Be Done? Is the system really as corrupt, incompetent, destructive, and ineffective as this article portrays it? No, it’s actually far worse — if you ask a parent whose children have been victimized by it! The public perception is that CPS is doing a tough job, and standing against child abuse. However, any family caught in its web would testify to a completely different reality. When I take on a new case and forewarn a family about CPS dirty tricks, they usually think I am exaggerating. Surely it can’t be that bad. However, after the first court hearing, or if their children are removed, those families uniformly confirm that I didn’t tell them the half of it. What should be done to address the problem of child abuse and the problem of abuse by the system of parents and children? It won’t be easy because CPS policies and actions are based on a deeply flawed world view. Moreover, the agencies are run by inept and agenda-driven managers and social workers, and are enabled by a dysfunctional legal system. Real reform would cut at the very heart of the premise of child protection — that the state is a better parent, a legal doctrine called parens patriae in Latin. Some fixes are obvious — end federal standards for and funding of state child protection agencies, set objective standards for child abuse, require traditional due process in juvenile courts that are open to the public, and eliminate immunity for social-worker malfeasance. Millions of children are imperiled by this imperious, abusive CPS system, which works quietly without much public scrutiny. Change will likely come only when its cruelties have been exposed, and the public reaffirms that raising children is the responsibility of families, not the state.

A recent spell in hospital in the UK got me thinking about the different levels of the social safety net.? A recent short period of hospitalisation in the UK brought home to me some of the key differences beween the UK and the US in terms of their respective systems of medical and social care. I was taken by ambulance to my local Primary Care NHS (National Health Service)hospital (a regional hospital with specialist care for major traumas etc) and provided treatment and advice from 3 different levels of doctor. First in A&E (I was seen within 45 minutes), then after being transferred to a short term care ward (up to 5 days expected stay) was seen a more senior doctor specialiseing in my condition, given approprate treatment and then subsequently seen by a senior consultant. My treatment and progress was monitored throughout by a network of doctors and other specialists including a physiotherapist and I was given advice on what I needed to do to complete my recovery. When I had recovered sufficiently I was discharged with a prescription of a months worth of medication to support my recovery. I was also given advice on the nutrition and excercise requirements to aid my recovery. I would imagine that the level of medical care provided was similar to the US for people with full medical insurance. The main difference is that under the NHS it is free to any person in the country including citizens from other EU countries. I have no medical insurance because I do not need it. People in the UK who can afford it have medical insurance to receive essentially the same medical treatment in more comfortable and private surroundings and to get quicker treatment for some non-urgent procedures for which there is a waiting list in the NHS. Of course they still have access to the NHS for more urgent treatment. After discharge I was passed into the care of my local GP (local community doctor) and local social services who took an active part in ensuring I had the support I needed in my recovery and in any other areas visiting me in my home to discuss these areas with me Many of the staff of the NHS are provided by second generation Afro-Carribian immigrants or more recent immigrants from the accession states of the EU (Poland, Hungry, Czech republic etc) and from countries such as the Philipines showing one of the great benefits of a massive influx of highly educated and trained immigrants from countries with excellent education and training systems but who currently are at a lower level of economic development than the leading economic powers like the US, established EU states, Japan etc. The NHS is not perfect by any means but it is going through a massive process of re-engineering itself with large regional hospitals becoming self governing NHS Trusts and outsourcing non-medical services to outside private sector bidders on a competitive bidding system and the whole system monitiored by performance indicators with mechanisms to correct poor performance Great efforts are being made to cater better to the needs of people who because of poor English language skills (another by product of mass immigration), lack of knowledge of the system or lack of basic life skills, including those with mental disabities, who may therefore have difficulty getting full access to to the facilities and help available. The NHS and other bodies are also actively pursueing ways of improving care and support for people in the community particularly to support them through the recovery phase. There is also an initiartive to give people access to self diagnoses and advice on nutrition, excercise etc and specific areas such as problem drinking or the whole range of medical conditions. This is targeted at low income groups who do not have access to the internet at home and may have poor IT skills.This is being done by using the internet facilities that already exist in public libraries and by training library staff in supporting the people concerned with advice on using the system. Medically trained staff will come into the library regurlarly to provide further support in face to face consultation. This is in addition to the services of the GP network. Again all these services are free to any member of the public including of course all new immigrants and any EU citizen. For key public sector workers including NHS staff and others on low income or suffering financial hardship through, for instance, marriage breakup a system exists for the provision of low cost home ownership. A system to provide shared ownership of houses and apartments is provided by government funded Housing Associations who provide newly built or second hand properties on the basis of an initial capital contribution funded out of capital. This will be either a from a mortgage or cash, often from the proceeds of the sale of a previuos home as a result of divorce with the usual 50/50 split of the proceeds of the sale of the matrimonial home, or from savings. This capital contribution can be as low as 30 % of the full market value and can range up to 70% or Question too long & cut off by system. Any suggestions. Question at the end was how people thought the UK system compared with the US. Two countries of similar per capita income. In US you pay for very expensive medical insurance or risk having no access to medical care at all. In the UK good quality medical care is available free for all (inc EU citizens).

last second ap us govt review? i've done all this studying, and now i'm heading off to bed. before i do, anyone have any predictions on what will be mostly emphasized on tomorrow's test? what i'll find on the free response? recap on what those things mean? i heard they'll probably be talking about primary elections and campaigns, not necessarily general elections. tell me about it! they may also be talking about legislative processes, hurdles, and how bills are prevented from being passed, as well as advantages of the minority party. i'm thinking fillibusters in the senate. also heard they might ask about popular sovereignty (state votes bids/regulations on things such as marijuana and gay marriage), vs the republic (the state government arbritarily makes those decisions?).

How should true patriots reclaim the media from Republican/Fascist interests? http://www.nowfoundation.org/issues/communications/tv/mediacontrol.html http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=fascism+in+america&btnG=Search ) Powerful and Continuing Nationalism: Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays. September 11 Freedom Walk New Majority Leader: Iraq War “May Be The Greatest Gift That We Give” Our Grandchildren Headstones of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan are inscribed with the Pentagons war-marketing slogans White House and the RNC are going to make a habit of using uniformed military personnel as props at Republican political rallies, despite the fact that it is a plain violation of military regulations banning politicization of the armed forces. "You must glorify war in order to get the public to accept the fact that your going to send their sons and daughters to die." The inside story of the cozy relationship between big box office American war movies and the Pentagon More... 2.) Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights: Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc. Bush threatens to veto $442b defense bill if Congress investigates detainee abuses. Guantanamo Judge: “I don’t care about international law. I don’t want to hear the words ‘international law’ again. We are not concerned with international law.” Rumsfeld to approve new guidelines that will formalize the administration's policy of imprisoning without the protections of the Geneva Conventions and enable the Pentagon to legally hold "ghost detainees," US 'preparing to detain terror suspects for life without trial' U.S. oks evidence gained through torture July 1, 2003: U.S. Suspends Military Aid to Nearly 50 Countries: because they have supported the International Criminal Court and failed to exempt Americans from possible prosecution. US has at least 9000 prisoners in secret detention More... 3.) Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause: The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial, ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc. Congressman: Muslims 'enemy amongst us' SB 24, Ohio law to muzzle "liberals" World history textbook used by seventh-graders at Scottsdale’s Mohave Middle School was pulled from classrooms mid-semester amid growing right criticism of the book’s unbiased portrayal of Islam Rallies planned against 'Islamofacism': Event to 'unify all Americans behind common goal' More... 4.) Supremacy of the Military: Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized. If you haven't seen the Oreo flash animation yet, see it here Bush’s Domestic Program Hit List Bush slashes domestic programs, boosts defense. Arlen Spector calls it "scandalous" Funding for job training, rural health care, low-income schools and help for people lacking health insurance would face big cuts under a bill passed Friday by the House Pentagon to spend 75 billion for three new brigades Three cable channels now feed news, information and entertainment about the armed services into millions of living rooms 24 hours a day, seven days a week: The Military Channel, the Military History Channel and the Pentagon Channel. More... 5.) Rampant Sexism: The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Opposition to abortion is high, as is homophobia and anti-gay legislation and national policy. It's legal again, to fire gov't workers for being gay Bush calls for Constitutional ban on same-sex marriages Bush refuses to sign U.N proposal on women's "sexual" rights W. David Hager chairman of the FDA's Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee does not prescribe contraceptives for single women, does not do abortions, will not prescribe RU-486 and will not insert IUDs. The State Department has awarded an explicitly anti-feminist U.S. group part of a US$10 million grant to train Iraqi women in political participation and democracy. More... 6.) Controlled Mass Media: Sometimes the media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common. FBI Acknowledges: Journalists Phone Records are Fair Game Report shows U.S. government has been engaged in illegal propaganda aimed at its own citizens and the story gets only 41 mentions in the media Free Press details recent governmental propaganda efforts, from faux-correspondent Jeff Gannon to paid-off pundit Armstrong Williams, and from the demise of FOIA to video news releases passed off as news. also... See a Whitehouse fake news release here (opens realplayer) US seizes webservers from independent media sites Bush's war on information: US editors forbidden to publish certain foreign writers More... 7.) Obsession with National Security: Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses Bush Aides ADMIT 'stoking fear' for political gain: Bush adviser said the president hopes to change the dynamics of the race. The strategy is aimed at stoking public fears about terrorism, raising new concerns about Kerry's ability to protect Americans and reinforcing Bush's image as the steady anti-terrorism candidate, aides said. The Bush administration periodically put the USA on high alert for terrorist attacks even though then-Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge argued there was only flimsy evidence to justify raising the threat level. Keith Olbermann: "The Nexus of Politics and Terror." Cheney warns that if Kerry is elected, the USA will suffer a "devastating attack" GOP convention in a nutshell (quicktime) Rove: GOP to Use Terror As Campaign Issue in 2006 More... 8.) Religion and Government are Intertwined: Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions. Jerry Falwell cleared of charges that he broke federal election law by urging followers to vote for Bush NC congressman proposes law making it ok to preach politics from the pulpit Texas Governor Mobilizes Evangelicals Family research council: Justice Sunday Thou shalt be like Bush: What makes this recently established, right-wing Christian college unique are the increasingly close - critics say alarmingly close - links it has with the Bush administration and the Republican establishment. Park Service Continues to Push Creationist Theory at Grand Canyon and other nat'l parks More... 9.) Corporate Power is Protected: The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite. The K Street Project is a project by the Republican party to pressure Washington lobbying firms to hire Republicans in top positions, and to reward loyal GOP lobbyists with access to influential officials. It was launched in 1995, by Republican strategist Grover Norquist and House majority leader Tom DeLay. American Conservative Magazine: One U.S. contractor received $2 million in a duffel bag... and a U.S. official was given $7 million in cash in the waning days of the CPA and told to spend it “before the Iraqis take over.” There are 6 Congressional Committees investigating the Oil-for-Food (UN) scandal, yet not a single Republican Committee Chairman will call a hearing to investigate the whereabouts of 9 billion dollars missing in Iraq Bush money network rooted in Florida, Texas: Since Mr. Bush took office in 2001, the federal government has awarded more than $3 billion in contracts to the President's elite 2004 Texas fund-raisers, their businesses, and lobbying clients More... 10.) Labor Power is Suppressed: Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed. Labor Department warns unions against using their money politically President Bush Attacks Organized Labor: Bush attacked organized labor Saturday, issuing orders effectively reducing how much money unions can spend for political activities and opening up government contracts to non-union bidding. March 2001: President Bush signed his name to four executive orders on organized labor last month, including one that cuts the money unions will have for political campaign spending. Congress and the Department of Labor are trying to change the rules on overtime pay, eliminating the 40 hour work week, taking eligibility for overtime pay away from millions of workers, and replacing time and a half pay with comp days. More... 11.) Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts: Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts is openly attacked, and governments often refuse to fund the arts. Bush's new economic plan cuts funding for arts, education Artists from all over the world are being refused entry to the US on security grounds. A group of more than 60 top U.S. scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates and several science advisers to past Republican presidents, on Wednesday accused the Bush administration of manipulating and censoring science for political purposes Freedom of Repression: New ruling will allow censorship of campus publications More... 12.) Obsession with Crime and Punishment: Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations American Gestapo is here: "There is hereby created and established a permanent police force, to be known as the 'United States Secret Service Uniformed Division.'" America: secret jails, secret courts, secret arrests, and now secret laws Snitch-or-Go-to-Jail bill will make pretty much anything short of reporting on everyone you see for doing just about anything a jailable offense. With minimum sentences, up to and including life without parole. The problem with Gonzales is that he has been deeply involved in developing some of the most sweeping claims of near-dictatorial presidential power in our nation's history, allowing him to imprison and even (at least in theory) torture anyone in the world, at any time Police officers don't have to give a reason at the time they arrest someone, the U.S. Supreme Court said in a ruling that shields officers from false-arrest lawsuits. More... 13.) Rampant Cronyism and Corruption: Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders. Bush Cronyism: Foxes Guarding the henhouse Making Sense of the Abramoff Scandal If Bush's pick is confirmed, that will mean the five top appointees at Justice have zero prosecutorial experience among them. Iran-Contra Felons Get Good Jobs from Bush Big Iraq Reconstruction Contracts Went To Big Donors Bush Wars -- Crooks Get Contracts : The main companies that were awarded billions of dollars worth of contracts in Iraq have paid more than $300 million in fines since 2000, to resolve allegations of fraud, bid rigging, delivery of faulty military equipment, and environmental damage. US Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) lost track of $9 billion "Contracting in the aftermath of the hurricanes has been marked by waste, corruption and cronyism" More... 14. Fraudulent Elections: Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections. Rolling Stone does some investigative and rather exhaustive digging into public documents and says we’re almost guaranteed the 2004 election results were massively rigged Powerful Government Accounting Office report confirms key 2004 stolen election findings Conyers hearing in which Clinton Curtis testifies that he was hired to create hackable voting machines (.wmv) The Republican Party has quietly paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to provide private defense lawyers for a former Bush campaign official charged with conspiring to keep Democrats from voting in New Hampshire. The Conyers Report (.pdf) No explanation for the machines in Mahoning County that recorded Kerry votes for Bush, the improper purging in Cuyahoga County, the lock down in Warren County, the 99% voter turnout in Miami County, the machine tampering in Hocking County Less access than Kazakhstan. Fewer fail-safes than Venezuela. Not as simple Republic of Georgia. The 2004 Elections according to international observers. This picture is what stopped the ballot recounts in Florida shortly after it seemed that legitimate President Gore had a lead. The "citizens" started what was later called "the preppy riot". Screaming, yelling, pounding on the walls, these "outraged citizens" intimidated the polling officials to halt the court mandated recount. A closer look reveals who they really were. They were bussed and flown in at Republican lawmakers expense. Some even flew in on Tom Delay's private plane. More... If Mussolini defines fascism as "the merger of corporate and government power" what does that make the K Street project? Related Articles: "Now and Then"- Part 1 A 3 part series by W David Jenkins III on the similarities between America now and Germany post Reichstag fire Click here to purchase this image on POAC merchandise "Now and Then"- Part II: The Propaganda Machine Now and Then- Part III Hitler's Playbook: Bush and the Abuse of Power It may sound crazy to some, but the style of governing into which America has slid is most accurately described as fascism. Is America Becoming Fascist? Eternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt The Danger of American Fascism: With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power. Sheila Samples: Freedom To Fascism -- A Bumpy Ride: Republicans don't seem to realize that they are no longer individual members of a coherent "party," but are merely part of a mean-spirited and dangerous movement that is threatening to sweep away democracy as we know it. Germany In 1933: The Easy Slide Into Fascism The Brownshirting of America: Bush’s supporters demand lock-step consensus that Bush is right. They regard truthful reports that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction and was not involved in the September 11 attack on the US – truths now firmly established by the Bush administration’s own reports – as treasonous America-bashing. Fascism then. Fascism now? When people think of fascism, they imagine Rows of goose-stepping storm troopers and puffy-chested dictators. What they don't see is the economic and political process that leads to the nightmare. What is Fascism? Some General Ideological Features Hello. You are now living in a fascist empire Neo-fascism in America : Too many people believe fascism is only about goose-stepping, jack-booted Nazis. Too many people believe that American democracy is so strong that fascists could never take control of America. If you are sympathetic to those views, I invite you to consider the possibility that you are mistaken. It is in times of fascism rising that armies of ignorance are once more resuscitated from the bowels of a society bordering on the edge of mass psychosis. The America at the dawn of the twenty-first century is no exception... Republican Party Brown Shirts: "The Wide-Awakes": The organization was known for virulent anti-Catholicism, secretive rituals, and a military-style organization complete with "officers" and units. Harper's Magazine: We Now Live in a Fascist State They Saw It Coming: The 19th-Century Libertarian Critique of Fascism Victims of Creeping Fascism: We are witnessing nothing less astonishing than the demise of the American experiment. 12-20 The ten phases of a Bush scandal. 12-22

Do you know WHEN H.R. 645 goes up for vote in the House ? I would like to urge my congressman to vote against it as it formally initializes FEMA concentration-style camps in the U.S.! NEW LEGISLATION AUTHORIZES FEMA CAMPS IN U.S. Paul Joseph Watson Prison Planet. com Tuesday, January 27, 2009 A new bill introduced in Congress authorizes the Department of Homeland Security to set up a network of FEMA camp facilities to be used to house U.S. citizens in the event of a national emergency. The National Emergency Centers Act or HR 645 mandates the establishment of “national emergency centers” to be located on military installations for the purpose of to providing “temporary housing, medical, and humanitarian assistance to individuals and families dislocated due to an emergency or major disaster,” according to the bill. The legislation also states that the camps will be used to “provide centralized locations to improve the coordination of preparedness, response, and recovery efforts of government, private, and not-for-profit entities and faith-based organizations”. Ominously, the bill also states that the camps can be used to “meet other appropriate needs, as determined by the Secretary of Homeland Security,” an open ended mandate which many fear could mean the forced detention of American citizens in the event of widespread rioting after a national emergency or total economic collapse. Many credible forecasters have predicted riots and rebellions in America that will dwarf those already witnessed in countries like Iceland and Greece. With active duty military personnel already being stationed inside the U.S. under Northcom, partly for purposes of “crowd control,” fears that Americans could be incarcerated in detainment camps are all too real. The bill mandates that six separate facilities be established in different Federal Emergency Management Agency Regions (FEMA) throughout the country. The camps will double up as “command and control” centers that will also house a “24/7 operations watch center” as well as training facilities for Federal, State, and local first responders. The bill also contains language that will authorize camps to be established within closed or already operating military bases around the country. As we have previously highlighted, in early 2006 Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root was awarded a $385 million dollar contract by Homeland Security to construct detention and processing facilities in the event of a national emergency. The language of the preamble to the agreement veils the program with talk of temporary migrant holding centers, but it is made clear that the camps would also be used “as the development of a plan to react to a national emergency. ” As far back as 2002, FEMA sought bids from major real estate and engineering firms to construct giant internment facilities in the case of a chemical, biological or nuclear attack or a natural disaster. A much discussed and circulated report, the Pentagon’s Civilian Inmate Labor Program, was more recently updated and the revision details a “template for developing agreements” between the Army and corrections facilities for the use of civilian inmate labor on Army installations. ” Alex Jones has attended numerous military urban warfare training drills across the US where role players were used to simulate arresting American citizens and taking them to internment camps. Read the new legislation in full below. National Emergency Centers Establishment Act (Introduced in House) HR 645 IH 111th CONGRESS 1st Session H. R. 645 To direct the Secretary of Homeland Security to establish national emergency centers on military installations. IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES January 22, 2009 Mr. HASTINGS of Florida introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, and in addition to the Committee on Armed Services, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned A BILL To direct the Secretary of Homeland Security to establish national emergency centers on military installations. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. This Act may be cited as the ..National Emergency Centers Establishment Act’. SEC. 2. ESTABLISHMENT OF NATIONAL EMERGENCY CENTERS. (a) In General- In accordance with the requirements of this Act, the Secretary of Homeland Security shall establish not fewer than 6 national emergency centers on military installations. (b) Purpose of National Emergency Centers- The purpose of a national emergency center shall be to use existing infrastructure– (1) to provide temporary housing, medical, and humanitarian assistance to individuals and families dislocated due to an emergency or ma

Do you know the latest about the Gujarat riots case? This came into my mail box today. Thought I would share it with Yahoo members. What do you think? Mumbai, April 14, 2009 CJP’s Rebuttal on Media Coverage of Supreme Court Proceedings, April 13, 2009 The report in sections of the national media dated April 14, 2009, alleging that NGOs, Teesta etc misled the apex court and exaggerated the violence in Gujarat in 2002 are clear example of irresponsible reportage. Intentionally or otherwise, the distorted report damages the reputation of a citizens’ group that has been recognized nationally and internationally for working assiduously to ensure justice to the victims of mass violence whether in case of the Gujarat carnage (2002), or the bomb blasts in Mumbai (2006 and 2008) or the communal carnage in Kandhamal district, Orissa (2008), irrespective of the caste or creed of the victims or the perpetrators. The fact is that neither Sri Raghavan, nor any other SIT member was present at the apex court to “tell” it anything. These reports could only be referring to a contention made in a four page note circulated by Ms Hemantika Wahi for the Gujarat Government.. It was not a note prepared by SIT. The detailed report of SIT submitted to the Supreme Court on March 6, 2007 has not been available for study either to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), the petitioners in this case, or the Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP) who have intervened in this critical matter or to any in the media. Any reference to it is hence hearsay and it may amount to contempt of court to write about a report which the Court has specifically not made public. In its written note that the Gujarat state circulated in court yesterday, the state has given its brief comments on the SIT report. In para four of this note the Gujarat government note refers to alleged statements made by some witnesses in the Gulberg case before SIT that name accused other than those named by them in the written statements that were (according to the state of Gujarat) given to them by Teesta Setalvad and advocates. This is the version of the Gujarat state. Besides this, Mukhul Rohatgi tried to make a populist speech in court saying that incidents like the Kauser Bano case etc never happened. The Supreme Court disregarded this argument and did not allow Mr.Rohatgi to read anything from the report. The court went on to state that they were not interested in personal allegations and only ensuring that, like in the course of the Zahira Shaikh case, the trials are fair, the truth comes out and the course of justice is served. It is necessary to recall that in the course of the Best Bakery trial, too, the Gujarat government had tried to divert the court’s attention by engineering charges against Teesta Setalvad, secretary CJP and by implication the NGO. On Setalvad’s application to the apex court for a full fledged inquiry the report of the Registrar of the apex court exonerated Setalvad and the NGO completely. As reported by the rest of the national media, on Monday, ignoring Sri Rohatgi’s bid to side-step the main issues, the three-member bench of the Supreme Court remained focused on the modalities of setting up designated courts for the trial of the accused in the post-Godhra riot cases in Gujarat. Instead of highlighting the court proceedings, Sri Mahapatra (the journalist) chose to spice up his report focusing not on the deliberations or the intentions of the apex court but to promote the case of the Gujarat government. Nirant, Juhu Tara Road, Juhu, Mumbai – 400049. Ph: 26603927 Fax: 26608252 email: cjpindia@gmail.com; teestateesta@gmail.com website: www.cjponline.org The moot question is whether or not 2,500 persons were killed in a ghastly perpetrated massacre following the tragic burning alive of 59 persons on the Sabarmati express; whether or not ex parliamentarian Ahsan Jafri was mutilated before being burnt alive, whether the bodies of the missing dead (over 220) have not been found or returned for dignified burial after seven long years? All the national media was witness to this national tragedy. In the interests of fair reportage and to ensure that the reputation of a citizens group committed to equity and justice is not deliberately vitiated before the trials commence, the media should carry this rebuttal in full. A failure to do so will result in the columns of a national newspaper being used to distort facts, shape public perception and seek to influence the outcome of due process of law and justice to the victims of mass murder. (Statement by Citizens for Justice and Peace, Mumbai, April 14, 2009, Mumbai) We wish also that the following issues Pertinent issues ignored in these reports: * The arrests of minister Dr Maya Kodnani and Dr Jaideep Patel in the past weeks were on the basis of SIT re-investigations. Twelve FIRs filed by witnesses naming these accused in 2002 had been clubbed into a magnum FIR by the Ahmedabad crime branch that had d

Does anyone know anything about GSA Smartpay Card acceptance? My business is bidding on a government project and I understand that we will have to accept the government credit card as a form of payment. I talked to my bank and was informed that a business credit card costs 2.5% to process when the card is not actually present. Does anyone know if this is true? Who would do this?

Are most Americans naive about 9/11? Most people cannot imagine the lengths the ruling elites will go to, to increase their power, money, and control. Dubya's puppeteers policies are not new :- “Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.” Hermann Göring(Nazi) 1946 Nuremberg Trials The US. Government has lied about many wars. The increase of troops in Vietnam was based on an attack in the Tonkin Gulf that never happened. Some say that Roosevelt knew about Pearl Harbor and let it happen to get support to join World War Two. The Spanish-American War (Remember the Maine!) was also based on a hoax. Not to mention the numerous covert wars that they lied about. Iran-Contra, the overthrow of Mossadegh in Iran, Allende in Chile, Arbenz in Guatemala. Also the war in Panama, against someone who was on the payroll of the CIA. Cuba as well. The Bay of Pigs invasion was supported by the CIA, and the people who invaded were trained by the CIA in Guatemala. As for 9/11 this is the origin of the plan:- "We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis and the nations will accept the New World Order." David Rockefeller: Statement to the Untied Nations Business Council in September 1994 "For more than a century, ideological extremists at either end of the political spectrum have seized upon well-publicized incidents to attack the Rockefeller family for the inordinate influence they claim we wield over American political and economic institutions. Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as 'internationalists' and of conspiring with other around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure - one world, if you will. If that is the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it." David Rockefellers memoirs (2002) And this is what Dubya's puppeteers had to say in 2000;- "Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor" Project for the New American Century (2000) Which brings into question 9/11/(2001), which was never investigated properly, and has been hijacked in order to enact Dubya's agenda and the subsequent illegitimate wars. The 9/11 documentary Loose Change 2nd edition is available free on Youtube:- Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGEb40o17yE&search=loose%20change%202nd%20edition Part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOVWBQKUpsU&search=loose%20change%202nd%20edition Part 3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtV1uxYnu0w&search=loose%20change%202nd%20edition Decide for yourselves people ;) I do agree with Dubya on one thing:- "I think one way for us to end up being viewed as the ugly American is for us to go around the world saying, "We do it this way. So should you." "I think the United States must be humble and must be proud and confident of our values, but humble in how we treat nations that are figuring out how to chart their own course." George W. Bush - 2nd presidential debate Oct 11th 2000

Will the American Reinvestment Recovery Act actually create millions of new jobs? Now, for logical reasons such as you can't get out of debt by spending, I have not been a proponent of the stimulus package. You don't have to be a Republican to understand this, just an everyday citizen. We always hope that logic transcends social and political divides. In trying to obtain stimulus money for my small town, this is the conclusion I have come to. Stimulus Money for Infrastructure: Transportation projects along with the water and wastewater projects are not going to create the millions of jobs as touted. In the state of Indiana, for example, the type of projects that are going to get the money are the ones that were already in progress and close to the bidding stage. These jobs were going to exist anyway, not create “new” jobs. And furthermore, small communities are the ones that need these projects done as well and they are getting left in the “stimulus dust”. It takes hundreds of hours of paperwork and thousands of dollars spent on engineering to even get an infrastructure project ready and by then all of the deadlines have passed. That being said, what financial troubled community would even start the process in “hopes” of getting the funding? None! These types of projects are going to do nothing for the likes of Elkhart County, IN except to create better roads for people to travel to spend their unemployment checks. When an entire community relies on mobile home manufacturing in an economic crisis it only spells disaster. The only thing that will help these people is for the Federal Government to throw a couple of billion dollars, again, for the production of FEMA trailers. Hey, I’ll bet those tent cities popping up all over the country would like a formaldehyde home.

As a small business, how can I have the opportunity to compete with larger companies on Federal projects? I manage a small business in Wisconsin. With all of the federal stimulus money that is going into construction projects across the state, I was wondering if there was some certification process that can help us get an edge in bidding for contracts. I have read that the Federal government needs to have 23% of its contracts go to small business. We are not minority or women owned, just small. Are there any programs that we can get certified for the help us gain an edge?

Is U.S.foreign policy to invade countries and force them to conform to economic globalization? H5638/H5641/H5642/H5643 were addressed on the floor of Congress on May 23, 2007. This was about the 'Iraq Benchmarks' and that in the hydrocarbon laws package presented as a benchmark to Iraq was the requirement of Iraq to open their future oil exploration and development to the open market and the bidding process. So essentially Iraq would have to bid equally with every other oil entity to control their own countries natural resources (OIL)!! Isn't that legalized stealing? Would the U.S. allow, for instance, China to tell us how to manage our countries resources to open the door to Chinese developers??? Surely this PROVES invading Iraq was about globalizing Iraqi Oil!?!?! Here's a government link for this info> http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?r110:2:./temp/~r1105HUJKT:e22212: Evidently the White House doesn't think we pay attention!! Holbrook this benchmark legislation was written by the White House and presented to Congress for thier authorization! Once Congress authorized it they also became as complicit in it's demands as the White House! I agree! #1. Congress members don't thoroughly read legislation. #2. If they 'knew' what they were authorizing....then yes I think they need be held accountable as well!!! WRONG is wrong!! This belief should be bipartisan!!!

What are Dubya and his puppeteers motives for allowing 9/11? Dubya's policies are not new :- “Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.” Hermann Göring(Nazi) 1946 Nuremberg Trials The US. Government has lied about many wars. The increase of troops in Vietnam was based on an attack in the Tonkin Gulf that never happened. Some say that Roosevelt knew about Pearl Harbor and let it happen to get support to join World War Two. The Spanish-American War (Remember the Maine!) was also based on a hoax. Not to mention the numerous covert wars that they lied about. Iran-Contra, the overthrow of Mossadegh in Iran, Allende in Chile, Arbenz in Guatemala. Also the war in Panama, against someone who was on the payroll of the CIA. Cuba as well. The Bay of Pigs invasion was supported by the CIA, and the people who invaded were trained by the CIA in Guatemala. As for 9/11 this is the origin of the plan:- "We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis and the nations will accept the New World Order." David Rockefeller: Statement to the Untied Nations Business Council in September 1994 and this is what Dubya's puppeteers had to say in 2000;- "Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor" Project for the New American Century (2000) Which brings into question 9/11/(2001), which was never investigated properly, and has been hijacked in order to enact Dubya's agenda and the subsequent illegitimate wars. The 9/11 documentary Loose Change 2nd edition is available free on Youtube:- Part 1http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egeb40o17... Part 2http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sovwbqkup... Part 3http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptv1uxynu... Decide for yourselves people ;) I do agree with Dubya on one thing:- "I think one way for us to end up being viewed as the ugly American is for us to go around the world saying, "We do it this way. So should you." "I think the United States must be humble and must be proud and confident of our values, but humble in how we treat nations that are figuring out how to chart their own course." George W. Bush - 2nd presidential debate Oct 11th 2000 "For more than a century, ideological extremists at either end of the political spectrum have seized upon well-publicized incidents to attack the Rockefeller family for the inordinate influence they claim we wield over American political and economic institutions. Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as 'internationalists' and of conspiring with other around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure - one world, if you will. If that is the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it." David Rockefellers memoirs (2002) 9/11 loose change documentary Part1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGEb40o17yE&search=loose%20change%202nd%20edition Part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOVWBQKUpsU&search=loose%20change%202nd%20edition Part 3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtV1uxYnu0w&search=loose%20change%202nd%20edition

Liberals are followers and Bush is a leader. Its better to be right than popular? President Bush's Accomplishments Abortion & Traditional Values 1. Banned Partial Birth Abortion — by far the most significant roll-back of abortion on demand since Roe v. Wade. 2. Reversed Clinton's move to strike Reagan's anti-abortion Mexico Policy. 3. By Executive Order (EO), reversed Clinton's policy of not requiring parental consent for abortions under the Medical Privacy Act. 4. By EO, prohibited federal funds for international family planning groups that provide abortions and related services. 5. Upheld the ban on abortions at military hospitals. 6. Made $33 million available for abstinence education programs in 2004. 7. Supports the Defense of Marriage Act — and a Constitutional amendment saying marriage is between one man and one woman. 8. Requires states to conduct criminal background checks on prospective foster and adoptive parents. 9. Requires districts to let students transfer out of dangerous schools. 10. Requires schools to have a zero-tolerance policy for classroom disruption (reintroducing discipline into classrooms). 11. Signed the Teacher Protection Act, which protects teachers from lawsuits related to student discipline. 12. Expanded the role of faith-based and community organizations in after-school programs. Budget, Taxes & Economy 1. Signed two income tax cuts, one of which was the largest dollar-value tax cut in world history. 2. Supports permanent elimination of the death tax. 3. Turned around an inherited economy that was in recession, and deeply shocked as a result of the 9/11 attacks. 4. Is seeking legislation to amend the Constitution to give the president line-item veto authority. 5. In process of permanently eliminating IRS marriage penalty. 6. Increased small business incentives to expand and to hire new people. 7. Initiated discussion on privatizing Social Security and individual investment accounts. 8. Killed Clinton's "ergonomic" rules that OSHA was about to implement; rules would have shut down every home business in America. 9. Passed tough new laws to hold corporate criminals to account as a result of corporate scandals. 10. Reduced taxes on dividends and capital gains. 11. Signed trade promotion authority. 12. Reduced and is working to ultimately eliminate the estate tax for family farms and ranches. 13. Fight Europe's ban on importing biotech crops from the United States. 14. Exempt food from unilateral trade sanctions and embargoes. 15. Provided $20 million to states to help people with disabilities work from home. 16. Created a fund to encourage technologies that help the disabled. 17. Increased the annual contribution limit on Education IRA's from $500 to $2,000 per child. 18. Make permanent the $5,000 adoption tax credit and provide $1 billion over five years to increase the credit to $10,000. 19. Grant a complete tax exemption for prepaid or college tuition savings plans. 20. Reduced H1B visas from a high of 195,000 per year to 66,000 per year. Character & Conduct as President 1. Changed the tone in the White House, restoring HONOR and DIGNITY to the presidency. 2. Has reintroduced the mention of God and faith into public discourse. 3. Handled himself with enormous courage, dignity, grace, determination, and leadership in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 hijackings and anthrax attacks. He almost single-handedly held this country together during those searing days: Just three days after the attacks, in his address at the National Cathedral, the President reassured the nation when he said: "War has been waged against us by stealth and deceit and murder. This nation is peaceful, but fierce when stirred to anger. This conflict was begun on the timing and terms of others. It will end in a way, and at an hour, of our choosing." On Friday, September 14, 2001, President Bush visited Ground Zero. Standing on a crushed and burned fire engine atop the smoldering pile at Ground Zero, he put his arm around a retired firefighter who had volunteered to help, and began speaking to the crowd. Rescue workers shouted that they could not hear him. Someone handed him a small American flag and bullhorn. The President spontaneously shouted: "I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you. And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon." The crowd roared with cheers and chants of "USA! USA! USA!" Then he raised that American flag and rallied a nation. Education & Employment Training 1. Signed the No Child Left Behind Act, delivering the most dramatic education reforms in a generation (challenging the soft bigotry of low expectations). The very liberal California Teachers union is currently running radio ads against the accountability provisions of this Act. 2. Announced "Jobs for the 21st Century," a comprehensive plan to better prepare workers for jobs in the new millennium by strengthening post-secondary education and job training, and by improving high school education. 3. Is working to provide vouchers to low-income students in persistently failing schools to help with costs of attending private schools. (Blocked in the Senate.) 4. Requires annual reading and math tests in grades three through eight. 5. Requires states to participate in the National Assessment of Education Progress, or an equivalent program, to establish a national benchmark for academic performance. 6. Requires school-by-school accountability report cards. 7. Established a $2.4 billion fund to help states implement teacher accountability systems. 8. Increased funding for the Troops-to-Teachers program, which recruits former military personnel to become teachers. Environment & Energy 1. Killed the Kyoto Global Warming Treaty. 2. Submitted a comprehensive Energy Plan (awaits Congressional action). The plan works to develop cleaner technology, produce more natural gas here at home, make America less dependent on foreign sources of energy, improve national grid, etc. 3. Established a $10 million grant program to promote private conservation initiatives. 4. Significantly eased field-testing controls of genetically engineered crops. 5. Changed parts of the Forestry Management Act to allow necessary cleanup of the national forests in order to reduce fire danger. 6. Part of national forests cleanup: Restricted judicial challenges (based on the Endangered Species Act and other challenges), and removed the need for an Environmental Impact Statement before removing fuels/logging to reduce fire danger. 7. Killed Clinton's CO2 rules that were choking off all of the electricity surplus to California. 8. Provided matching grants for state programs that help private landowners protect rare species. Defense & Foreign Policy 1. Successfully executed two wars in the aftermath of 9/11/01: Afghanistan and Iraq. 50 million people who had lived under tyrannical regimes now live in freedom. 2. Saddam Hussein is now in prison. His two murderous sons are dead. All but a handful of the regime's senior members were killed or captured. 3. Leader by leader and member by member, al Maida is being hunted down in dozens of countries around the world. Of the senior al Qaeda leaders, operational managers, and key facilitators the U.S. Government has been tracking, nearly two-thirds have been taken into custody or killed. The detentions or deaths of senior al Qaeda leaders, including Khalid Shaykh Muhammad, the mastermind of 9/11, and Muhammad Atef, Osama bin Laden's second-in-command until his death in late 2001, have been important in the War on Terror. 4. Disarmed Libya of its chemical, nuclear and biological WMD's without bribes or bloodshed. 5. Continues to execute the War On Terror, getting worldwide cooperation to track funds/terrorists. Has cut off much of the terrorists' funding, and captured or killed many key leaders of the al Qaeda network. 6. Initiated a comprehensive review of our military, which was completed just prior to 9/11/01, and which accurately reported that ASYMMETRICAL WARFARE capabilities were critical in the 21st Century. 7. Killed the old US/Soviet Union ABM Treaty that was preventing the U.S. from deploying our ABM defenses. 8. Has been one of the strongest, if not THE strongest friend Israel has ever hand in the U.S. presidency. 9. Part of the coalition for an Israeli/Palestinian "Roadmap to Peace," along with Great Britain, Russia and the EU. 10. Pushed through THREE raises for our military. Increased military pay by more than $1 billion a year. 11. Signed the LARGEST nuclear arms reduction in world history with Russia. 12. Started withdrawing our troops from Bosnia, and has announced withdrawal of our troops from Germany and the Korean DMZ. 13. Prohibited putting U.S. troops under U.N. command. 14. Paid back UN dues only in return for reforms and reduction of U.S. share of the costs. 15. Earmarked at least 20 percent of the Defense procurement budget for next-generation weaponry. 16. Increased defense research and development spending by at least $20 billion from fiscal 2002 to 2006. 17. Ordered a comprehensive review of military weapons and strategy. 18. Ordered a review of overseas deployments. 19. Ordered renovation of military housing. The military has already upgraded about 10 percent of its inventory and expects to modernize 76,000 additional homes this year. 20. Is working to tighten restrictions on military-technology exports. 21. Brought back our EP-3 intel plane and crew from China without any bribes or bloodshed. Globalization & Internationalism 1. Challenged the United Nations to live up to their responsibilities and not become another League of Nations (in other words, showed the UN to be completely irrelevant). 2. Killed U.S. involvement in the International Criminal Court. 3. Told the United Nations we weren't interested in their plans for gun control (i.e., the International Ban on Small Arms Trafficking Treaty).* 4. The only President since the founding of the UN to essentially tell that organization it is irrelevant. He said: "The conduct of the Iraqi regime is a threat to the authority of the United Nations, and a threat to peace. Iraq has answered a decade of UN demands with a decade of defiance. All the world now faces a test, and the United Nations a difficult and defining moment. Are Security Council resolutions to be honored and enforced, or cast aside without consequence? Will the United Nations serve the purpose of its founding, or will it be irrelevant?" We all know the outcome and the answer. 5. Told the Congress and the world, "America will never seek a permission slip to defend the security of our country." Government Reform 1. Improved government efficiency by putting hundreds of thousands of jobs put up for bid. This weakens public-sector unions and cuts undeserved pay raises. 2. Initiated review of all federal agencies with the goal of eliminating federal jobs (completed September 2003) in an effort to reduce the size of the federal government while increasing private sector jobs. 3. Led the most extensive reorganization the Federal bureaucracy in over 50 years: After 9/11, condensed 20+ overlapping agencies and their intelligence sectors into one agency, the Department of Homeland Security.* 4. Ordered each agency to draft a five-year plan to restructure itself, with fewer managers. 5. Converted federal service contracts to performance-based contracts wherever possible so that the contractor has measurable performance goals. Health 1. Strengthen the National Health Service Corps to put more physicians in the neediest areas, and make its scholarship funds tax-free. 2. Double the research budget of the National Institutes of Health. 3. Signed Medicare Reform, which includes: A 10-year privatization option. Prescription drug benefits: Prior to this reform, Medicare paid for extended hospital stays for ulcer surgery, for example, at a cost of about $28,000 per patient. Yet Medicare would not pay for the drugs that eliminate the cause of most ulcers, drugs that cost about $500 a year. Now, drug coverage under Medicare will allow seniors to replace more expensive surgeries and hospitalizations with less expensive prescription medicine. More health care choices: As President Bush stated, "…when seniors have the ability to make choices, health care plans within Medicare will have to compete for their business by offering higher quality service [at lower cost]. For the seniors of America, more choices and more control will mean better health care. These are the kinds of health care options we give to the members of Congress and federal employees. What's good for members of Congress is also good for seniors. New Health Savings Accounts: Effective January 1, 2004, Americans can set aside up to $4,500 every year, tax free, to save for medical expenses. Depending on your tax bracket, that means you'll save between 10 to 35 percent on any costs covered by money in your account. Every year, the money not spent would stay in the account and gain interest tax-free, just like an IRA. These accounts will be good for small business owners, and employees. More businesses can focus on covering workers for major medical problems, such as hospitalization for an injury or illness. At the same time, employees and their families will use these accounts to cover doctors visits, or lab tests, or other smaller costs. Some employers will contribute to employee health accounts. This will help more American families get the health care they need at the price they can afford. Homeland Security, Border Enforcement & Immigration 1. *See Government Reform above. Under President Bush's leadership, America has made an unprecedented commitment to homeland security. 2. Has CONSTRUCTION in process on the first 10 ABM silos in Alaska so that America will have a defense against North Korean nukes. Has ordered national and theater ballistic missile defenses to be deployed by 2004. 3. Announced a 9.7% increase in government-wide homeland security funding in his FY 2005 budget, nearly tripling the FY 2001 levels (excluding the Department of Defense and Project BioShield). 4. Before DHS was created, there were inspectors from three different agencies of the Federal Government and Border Patrol officers protecting our borders. Through DHS, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) now consolidates all border activities into a single agency to create "one face at the border." This not only better secures the borders of the United States, but it also eliminates many of the inefficiencies that occurred under the old system. With over 18,000 CBP inspectors and 11,000 Border Patrol agents, CBP has 29,000 uniformed officers on our borders. 5. The Border Patrol is continuing installation of monitoring devices along the borders to detect illegal activity. 6. Launched Operation Tarmac to investigate businesses and workers in the secure areas of domestic airports and ensure immigration law compliance. Since 9/11, DHS has audited 3,640 businesses, examined 259,037 employee records, arrested 1,030 unauthorized workers, and participated in the criminal indictment of 774 individuals. 7. Since September 11, 2001, the Coast Guard has conducted more than 124,000 port security patrols, 13,000 air patrols, boarded more than 92,000 vessels, interdicted over 14,000 individuals attempting to enter the United States illegally, and created and maintained more than 90 Maritime Security Zones. 8. Announced the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS), an internet-based system that is improving America's ability to track and monitor foreign students and exchange visitors. Over 870,000 students are registered in SEVIS. Of 285 completed field investigations, 71 aliens were arrested. 9. This week, the US-VISIT program began to digitally collect biometric identifiers to record the entry and exit of aliens who travel into the U.S on a visa. Together with the standard information, this new program will confirm compliance with visa and immigration policies. 10. Eliminated INS bureaucratic redundancies and lack of accountability. 11. Split the Immigration and Naturalization Service into two agencies: one to protect the border and interior, the other to deal with naturalization. 12. Signed the workplace verification bill to prevent hiring of illegal aliens. 13. Established a six-month deadline for processing immigration applications. 14. Information regarding nearly 100% of all containerized cargo is carefully screened by DHS before it arrives in the United States. Higher risk shipments are physically inspected for terrorist weapons and contraband prior to being released from the port of entry. Advanced technologies are being deployed to identify warning signs of chemical, biological, or radiological attacks. Since September 11, 2001, hundreds of thousands of first responders across America have been trained to recognize and respond to the effects of a WMD attack. Judiciary & Tort Reform 1. Is urging federal liability reform to eliminate frivolous lawsuits. 2. Killed the liberal ABA's unconstitutional role in vetting federal judges. The Senate is supposed to advise and consent, not the ABA. 3. Is nominating strong, conservative judges to the judiciary. 4. Supports class action reform bill which limits lawyer fees so that more settlement money goes to victims. Politics 1. His leadership resulted in Republican gains in the House and Senate, solidifying Republican control of both houses of Congress and the presidency. 2. Signed an EO enforcing the Supreme Court's Beck decision regarding union dues being used for political campaigns against individual's wishes. Second Amendment 1. Ordered Attorney General Ashcroft to formally notify the Supreme Court that the OFFICIAL U.S. government position on the 2nd Amendment is that it supports INDIVIDUAL rights to own firearms, and is NOT a Leftist-imagined "collective" right. 2. Signed TWO bills into law that arm our pilots with handguns in the cockpit. 3. Currently pushing for full immunity from lawsuits for our national gun manufacturers. 4. *See Globalization & Internationalism. Traditional Values, Compassion & Volunteerism 1. Endorses and promotes "The Responsibility Era." President Bush often speaks of the necessity of personal responsibility and civic volunteerism. He said, "In a compassionate society, people respect one another and take responsibility for the decisions they make in life. My hope is to change the culture from one that has said, if it feels good, do it; if you've got a problem, blame somebody else — to one in which every single American understands that he or she is responsible for the decisions that you make; you're responsible for loving your children with all your heart and all your soul; you're responsible for being involved with the quality of the education of your children; you're responsible for making sure the community in which you live is safe; you're responsible for loving your neighbor, just like you would like to be loved yourself." 2. Started the USA Freedom Corps, the most comprehensive clearinghouse of volunteer opportunities ever offered. For the first time in history, Americans can enter geographic information about where they want to get involved, such as state or zip code, as well as areas of interest ranging from education to the environment, and they can access volunteer opportunities offered by more than 50,000 organizations across the country and around the world. 3. Established the The White House Office and the Centers for the Faith-Based and Community Initiative — located in seven Federal agencies. The faith-based initiative supports the essential work of these important organizations. The goal is to make sure that grassroots leaders can compete on an equal footing for federal dollars, receive greater private support, and face fewer bureaucratic barriers. Work focuses on at-risk youth, ex-offenders, the homeless and hungry, substance abusers, those with HIV/AIDS, and welfare-to-work families. 4. The White House released a guidebook fully describing the Administration's belief that faith-based groups have a Constitutionally-protected right to maintain their religious identity through hiring — even when Federal funds are involved. 5. Issued an EO implementing the Supreme Court's Olmstead ruling, which requires moving disabled people from institutions to community-based facilities when possible. 6. Increased funding for low-interest loan programs to help people with disabilities purchase devices to assist them. 7. Revised the Department of Housing and Urban Development's Section 8 rent subsidies to disabled people, permitting them to use up to a year's worth of vouchers to finance down payments on homes. HUD has started pilot programs in 11 states. 8. Committed US funds to purchase medicine for millions of men, women and children now suffering with AIDS in Africa. 9. Heeding the words of our own Declaration of Independence, the president laid out the non-negotiable demands of human dignity for all people everywhere. On January 29, 2002, he said, "No nation owns these aspirations, and no nation is exempt from them. We have no intention of imposing our culture. But America will always stand firm for the non-negotiable demands of human dignity." As stated by the President, they are a virtual manifesto of conservative principles: Equal Justice Freedom of Speech Limited Government Power Private Property Rights Religious Tolerance Respect for Women Rule of Law

Who owns your cell phone data, you or the phone carrier?

Is this why the libs hate BUSH?

What is Cora Aloran scam ? Republic of the Philippines Supreme Court Manila FIRST DIVISION [A.M. No. RTJ-99-1510. November 6, 2000] BENITO CABANBAN, Complainant, - versus - ANGELA S.DELA CRUZ / SOCORRO G.DELA CRUZ CEZAR REYNALDO F. GALGUERRA Respondent. X - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - / R E S O L U T I O N YNARES-SANTIAGO, J.: For allegedly granting improvidently a petition for Habeas Corpus in Special Proceeding No. 10931[1] entitled “In the Matter of the Petition for Habeas Corpus of Ma Jing,” respondent was charged in a verified complaint[2] with Violation of the Code of Judicial Conduct, Grave Misconduct, Gross Ignorance of the Law, Gross Incompetence, Gross Inefficiency and Knowingly Rendering An Unjust Judgment relative to the above-mentioned case. The Office of the Court Administrator (OCA) referred the verified complaint to respondent judge for his comment thereon within ten (10) days from notice. On July 30, 1999, respondent judge filed his comment[3] denying the charges against him and prayed for the dismissal of the case against him “for utter lack of merit.”[4] The case was subsequently referred to the OCA for evaluation, report and recommendation. In an evaluation report dated September 21, 1999,[5] the OCA recommended the dismissal of the administrative complaint against respondent judge for being sub judice, pointing out that the issues therein are the same as those pending resolution by the Court of Appeals in CA-G.R. SP No. 53425 entitled “ Benito Cabanban v. Angela S. Dela Cruz , Socorro Dela Cruz , Cezar Reynaldo F. Galguerra, et al.” The Court of Appeals subsequently promulgated a Decision in CA-G.R. SP No. 53425 dated May 4, 2000[6] setting aside for lack of legal basis the assailed Order of respondent Judge dated June 24, 1999 which found herein complainant guilty of indirect contempt. In the meantime, in a Resolution dated November 24, 1999,[7] the Court resolved to: 1.] docket the case as a regular administrative proceeding; and 2.] refer the case to Court of Appeals Associate Justice Conchita Carpio-Morales for investigation, report and recommendation within ninety (90) days from notice. In compliance with the foregoing directive, Justice Morales submitted a Report summarizing the factual antecedents of the case thus: On May 7, 1999 at about 11 p.m., the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) conducted simultaneous raids at Cinco Estrellas Funeral Homes located in Quezon City, as a result of which 2 female Filipino nationals were caught “in the act of entertaining customers and guests.” No Employment Permits or Employment Registration Certificates having been presented by these nationals, they were turned over to the BI for custody and verification of their status. They were thereupon confined at the BI Detention Center at Camp Bagong Diwa, Taguig, Metro Manila on May 8, 1999. On May 17, 1999, Socorro Dela Cruz together with Mariano Duque, one of the apprehended , filed a petition for habeas corpus at the Pasig Regional Trial Court (RTC) which was raffled to Branch 151 thereof. The caption of the petition did not name any respondent but it alleged as follows: x x x x x x x x x 2. On or about 07 May 1999 at about 10:00 o’clock in the evening, petitioner, was taken from Cinco Estrellas Funeral Homes in Quezon City by individuals who represented themselves as Agents of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), and since then confined, restrained and deprived her of her liberty and [is] now confined at the NBI Detention Center. 3. In spite of the fact that petitioner has been confined from then on, to date, no formal complaint or accusation for any specific offenses has been filed against her nor any judicial writ or order for her commitment has at any time been issued so far. 4. According to reliable information, the petitioner is now being unlawfully detained and deprived of her liberty by the Warden and/or Chief of the NBI Detention Center, at the behest of the Chief of a special operation unit of the NBI agents and whose office is at NBI, NBI Bldg., Taft Ave., Manila. (emphasis and underscoring supplied) Acting Presiding Judge Rodolfo Bonifacio of Branch 151 of the Pasig RTC issued a writ. On May 21, 1999, Atty. Rommel J. de Leon, Technical Assistant, Commissioner’s Office, BI, submitted a RETURN OF THE WRIT alleging, inter alia: x x x x x x x x x 4. That an investigation was conducted by Special Prosecutor Ramoncito L. Tolentino by (sic) the Bureau of Immigration; 5. That during the said investigation the subject Filipino nationals including the petitioner failed to produce any documents while the National Bureau of Investigation showed their Affidavit of Arrest, pictures taken at Cinco Estrellas Funeral Homes and other evidences in support of their claim, copy of said Affidavit of Arrest and pictures are attached hereto as Annexes B and C respectively; 6. That on May 13, 1999, Special Prosecutor Ramon L. Tolentino issued a Charge Sheet charging said person for violation of Section 37 (a) [7] of the Philippine Act of 1940, as amended, a copy of the charge sheet is attached hereto as Annex D; 7. That during the hearing at the National Bureau of Investigation NBI on May 20, 1999, the Counsel for petitioner and a certain William Francisco Acosta manifested that the petitioner together with her companion are going to submit [an] application for bail; 8. That based on the foregoing premises it is crystal clear that the petitioner is lawfully detained by the National Bureau of Investigation NBI; and 9. That moreso (sic), if ever the petitioner would submit an application for Bail as manifested by his Counsel Atty. San Pedro and their representative Mr. William Jacinto this petition would already be moot and academic. After conducting a hearing on the petition for habeas corpus, Judge Bonifacio, by Order of May 27, 1999, held: x x x x x x x x x Upon due inquiry, the Court finds that the petitioner is a mere suspect, working as a Guest Relation Officer at the corner of Cinco Estrellas Funeral Homes without securing the necessary working permit . She was not notified though of the charges against her nor was she afforded due process. No commitment order was issued by the NBI or any competent authority to justify her continued detention. x x x x x x x x x In Dramayo, the Supreme Court has ruled categorically that accusation is not synonymous with guilt. The strongest suspicion must not be permitted to sway judgment (People vs. Austria, 195 SCRA 700). The illegal arrest of petitioner without warrant of arrest or seizure on 07 May 1999 and arbitrary detention, to date, is not remedied by the supposed filing in a Charge Sheet dated 13 May 1999 but assumably filed only on 14 May 1999. Petitioner had been detained without any valid charge from 07 May 1999 to 14 May 1999. The filing of the Charge Sheet did not (sic) the illegal detention of the petitioner. xxx Accordingly the said Order of May 27, 1999 disposed: IN THE LIGHT OF THE FOREGOING, the Court finds no cogent reason to hold petitioner under continued detention so that immediate release is hereby ordered, unless otherwise held on a different case and/or valid judicial process. The following day, May 28, 1999 “respondent NBI … by counsel Atty. Rommel J. de Leon, Technical Assistant, Commissioner’s Office” filed a Motion for Reconsideration of the May 27, 1999 [Order]. On May 31, 1999, Socorro Dela Cruz together with Mariano Duque not having been released from detention, filed a “Motion to Declare Parties Guilty of Contempt” naming NBI Commissioner Rufus B. Rodriguez, Atty. de Leon, NBI Detention Center Warden Enrico R. Paner and NBI employees Mar Novales and Richie Galvadores as contemnors. By Order of June 15, 1999, Judge Bonifacio denied the NBI’s Motion for Reconsideration of the Order of May 27, 1999 and directed BI Commissioner Rodriguez and his co-respondents in the Motion to hold them in contempt of court for failure to obey the Order of May 27, 1999. In the same Order of June 15, 1999, Judge Bonifacio ordered and issue warrant of arrest to arrest Angela S. Dela Cruz and Mercedita O. Pareno in accordance with his May 27, 1999 Order. Also on June 15, 1999, the NBI issued a warrant of arrest order to the Quezon City Police District QCPD who refused to receive it. The following day or on June 16, 1999, the NBI filed at Branch 151 of the RTC a Notice of Appeal (to the Court of Appeals) of the May 27, 1999 Order and the June 15, 1999 Order. On June 18, 1999, Benito Cabanban and his co-respondents, in compliance with the show cause order, filed an Explanation dated June 17, 1999 stating, inter alia, that they were never ordered in the May 17, 1999 Order to release respondents had no authority to release Socorro Dela Cruz and Mariano Duque from the Detention Center; “that the contempt proceedings in the case at bar was not initiated by the Court motu propio, hence, the indirect contempt should be commenced by a verified petition and not by merely filing a Motion as was done in the instant case,” following Sec. 4 of Rule 71 of the 1997 Rules of Civil Procedure which they therein quoted; and that the Motion for Reconsideration of the May 17, 1999 Order stayed the execution thereof as did the Notice of Appeal (filed on June 17, 1999) of the same order. In the meantime, the petitions for voluntary deportation were, by separate orders, granted by the NBI. By June 24, 1999, Judge Bonifacio found Benito Cabanban and co-respondents guilty of indirect contempt and ordered their arrest and detention at the NBI jail until they have complied with the Order dated May 27, 1999 in the light of the following disquisition: xxx proceedings in habeas corpus are separate and distinct from any deportation proceedings taking place at the Bureau of Immigration and Deportation. They (habeas corpus proceedings) rarely, if ever, touch the merits of the deportation case and require no pronouncement with respect thereto. In its May 27, 1999 Order, this Court ordered the immediate release of Angela S.Dela Cruz, principally upon the following reasons: (i) the petitioner was unlawfully arrested without any warrant of arrest and, thereafter, arbitrarily detained, in disregard of her rights, to due process of law; and (ii) a warrant of arrest issued by the Commissioner of the Bureau of Investigation, to be valid, must be for the sole purpose of executing a final order of warrant of arrest. x x x x x x x x x 1. It is not correct to say that the May 27, 1999 Order should not be obeyed because it did not specifically direct Hon. Rufus D (sic) Rodriguez, P/Supt. Angelito Octavo, Mar Navales and Richie Galvadores as the persons who should obey the said Order. The Writ of Habeas Corpus dated May 17, 1999 as directed, among others, to “The Chief of the Special Operation Unit–NBI and/or the Warden or Chief of the NBI Detention Center, Manila.” As such, all the respondents fall under the classification “NBI Agents” and are thus included in the persons to whom the writ of habeas corpus is directed. x x x x x x x x x 2. Neither is the Court impressed with the argument that P/Supt. Angelito Octavo, Atty. Rommel J. de Leon, Enrico R. Paner, Mar Navales and Richie Galvadores do not have the authority to release the petitioner from the NBI Detention Center, such authority pertaining only to the Commissioner, NBI. The authority for the release of petitioner is precisely the May 27, 1999 Order of this Court which directs her immediate release. There can be no doubt on the jurisdiction of this Court on habeas corpus cases, as the case at bar, and the validity of its lawful orders issued pursuant to the exercise of such jurisdiction. It is significant that Benito Cabanban has not disauthorized or revoked or in any way disowned the refusal of his subordinates to obey the subject court order, as he would certainly have done if his authority had been improperly invoked. x x x x x x x x x 3. Neither is this Court persuaded by the argument that the May 27, 1999 Order was not yet executory because BID’s Motion for Reconsideration stayed its execution. By its very nature, habeas corpus proceedings are always characterized by promptness or speed. It is always timely to recall this categorical affirmation in the ponencia of Justice Malcolm in the landmark case of Villavicencio v. Lukban, supra: The writ of habeas corpus was devised as a speedy and effectual remedy to relieve persons from unlawful restraint, and as the best and only sufficient defense of personal freedom. Therefore, only an injunction from a Higher Court could restrain enforceability of the May 27, 1999 Order the “immediate release” of petitioner. 4. There is also a puerile claim that the contempt proceeding was improper because it was commenced by mere motion and not by a verified petition. The Revised Rules of Court (should be 1997 Rules of Civil Procedure) cannot be any clearer. The appropriate section is quite explicit.: “After a charge in writing has been filed, and an opportunity given to the respondent to comment thereon within such period as may be fixed by the court and to be heard by himself or counsel, a person guilty of any of the following acts may be punished for indirect contempt… (b) Disobedience of or resistance to a lawful writ, process, order or judgment of a court…” It is very clear that, as to form, the only requirement is that the charge be in writing. x x x x x x x x x x x x 5. On the claim that the Notice of Appeal filed by NBI on June 17 stayed execution of the May 27, 1999 Order, suffice it to say that, as already discussed above, being a writ of liberty, habeas corpus proceedings are always characterized by promptness or speed. Therefore, the May 27, 1999 Order of release was inherently immediately executory, and only an injunction from a Higher Court could restrain its immediate enforceability. 6. Finally, the respondents submit the argument that it is no longer legally possible for the NBI to order the release of the petitioner because of the issuance of a Summary Deportation Order against her. The first time the respondents first disobeyed the May 27, 1999 Order was on May 28, 1999. There was no deportation order yet at that time. The Court cannot accede to the proposition that the subsequent issuance of the deportation order should have the effect of erasing or pardoning the contempt already committed by the respondents as early as May 28, 1999. Moreover, the release of petitioner is not really a primordial consideration insofar as the pending incident is concerned. The ultimate purpose of this inquiry is to determine whether the respondents are guilty of indirect contempt, i.e., ‘disobedience of or resistance to a lawful writ, process, order, or judgment of a court’. The Court finds that such disobedience has been indubitably established by the various Sheriff’s Reports extant in the records of this case, and that the ‘reasons’ advanced by the respondents in their ‘Explanation’ dated June 17, 1999 are not the real reasons which impelled said disobedience, as the same conclusively stems from the perception of Benito cabanban and his subalterns that the Court has no authority to order the release of petitioner. Even assuming that the respondents were of the opinion that the subject Order was grossly erroneous, they could have availed of the remedy of certiorari immediately after its promulgation. But they, certainly, cannot adamantly and belligerently defy the Order of the Courts simply because they have a contrary opinion. Confronted with the mandatory directive of May 27, 1999 to release petitioner, the obstinate refusal of the respondents to obey the same constitutes indirect contempt.” (Underscoring supplied). On June 25, 1999, a Friday, at about 2 o’clock in the afternoon, Socorro Dela Cruz together with Mariano Duque, et al. were, pursuant to the June 24, 1999 Order, arrested by the NBI whose Director was specifically ordered by Judge Bonifacio to serve the warrant. Benito Cabanban et al. lost no time in filing at the Court of Appeals on June 25, 1999 an Urgent Petition for Certiorari against Judge Bonifacio, docketed as CA-G.R. No. 53425, followed by an Amended Petition, assailing the Judge’s Order of June 24, 1999. By Order of June 25, 1999, the Court of Appeals issued a writ of preliminary mandatory injunction commanding the immediate release of et al. after posting a bond and directing Judge Bonifacio to file his comment on the petition. At 10:00 p.m. of June 25, 1999, Socorro Dela Cruz together with Mariano Duque, et al. were released after posting a bail. On the basis of the foregoing facts, the Investigating Justice recommends respondent judge be fined Two hundred and fifty Thousand (P250,000.00) Pesos for gross ignorance of the law and warned that a repetition or the commission of a similar infraction will be dealt with more severely, reasoning thus: Under Rule 71 of the 1997 Rules of Civil Procedure, contempt proceedings may be commenced as follows: SEC. 4. How proceedings commenced. - Proceedings for indirect contempt may be initiated motu proprio by the court against which the contempt was committed by an order or any other formal charge requiring the respondent to show cause why he should not be punished for contempt. In all other cases, charges for indirect contempt shall be commenced by a verified petition with supporting particulars and certified true copies of the documents or papers involved therein, and upon full compliance with the requirements for filing initiatory pleadings for civil actions in the court concerned. If the contempt charges arose out of or are related to a principal action pending in the court, the petition for contempt shall allege that fact but said petition shall be docketed, heard and decided separately, unless the court in its discretion orders the consolidation of the contempt charge and the principal action for joint hearing and decision. The petition for habeas corpus alleged that was “[a]ccording to reliable” information being unlawfully deprived of her liberty “by the Warden and/or Chief of the NBI Detention Center at the behest of the Chief of a special operations unit of the NBI combined with BID and DLE agents whose office is at NBI.” It did not name herein complainant as respondent. Neither did the May 27, 1999 Order direct herein complainant to release. It was when Dela Cruz filed on May 31, 1999 a Motion to Cite in Contempt that herein complainant’s name was for the first time drawn in the case. Under the circumstances, compliance with the second mode of initiating a petition for contempt under Sec. 4 of Rule 71 of the 1997 Code of Civil Procedure, - filing a “verified petition with supporting particulars and certified true copies of documents or papers involved therein, and upon full compliance with the requirements for initiating pleadings for civil action in the court concerned” – was in order. It is in this light that the undersigned investigator finds that respondent ERRED in giving due course to the mere motion to cite in contempt and finding herein complainant guilty thereof by Order of June 24, 1999, especially given the fact that in the Explanation–Answer to the show cause Order of respondent herein, complainant et al. quoted Sec. 4 of Rule 71 and alleged that as “[t]he contempt proceedings … w[ere] not initiated by the Court motu proprio, … the indirect contempt should be commenced by a verified petition and not by mere filing [of a] motion as was done in the instant case.” x x x x x x x x x For administrative liability to attach for errors of judgment, the error must be gross, patent or deliberate (Re: Judge Silverio S. Tayao, A.M. No. 93-8-1204, 229 SCRA 723 [1994]. For administrative liability to attach for gross ignorance of the law and/or knowingly rendering an unjust order or judgment, it must be established that the order or judgment is not only erroneous but [that] he was actuated by bad faith, dishonesty, hatred, revenge, corrupt purpose or some other like motive (Guerrero v. Villamor, A.M. No. RTJ-90-617, 296 SCRA 88 [1998]). For a judge may not be held administratively accountable for every erroneous order or decision he renders (Rodrigo v. Quijano, 79 10 [1997]) [sic] otherwise it would “render judicial office untenable for no one called upon to try the facts or interpret the law in the process of administering justice can be infallible (vide Lopez v. Corpus, 78 SCRA 374 [1997] (sic); Pilipinas Bank v. Tirona-Liwag, 190 SCRA 834 [1994]). The undersigned finds that respondent’s error in giving due course to the “Motion to Declare Parties Guilty of Contempt” was patent, given that circumstances mentioned above. Respondent’s invoking of Sec. 3 of the same Rule 71 (of the 1997 Rules of Civil Procedure, not revised Rules of Court as he stated) which to him clearly shows that “the only requirement is that the charge be in writing, citing Tomas C. Aguador v. Malcolm S. Enerio, et al., G.R. No. L-20383, January 30, 1971, betrays his ignorance that this Aguador case was decided in 1971, long before Sec. 4, Rule 71, which is a new provision, was incorporated in the 1997 Rules of Civil Procedure. And, as from the following portion of respondent’s Order of June 24, 1999, to wit: Incidentally, the Bureau of Immigration and Deportation is not a sovereign entity where the commissioner reigns supreme. It is a mere Bureau and a becoming modesty of inferior offices demands a conscious realization of the position that they occupy in the interrelation and operation of the huge governmental bureaucracy. Most decidedly, this Court does not believe that the Honorable Commissioner of Immigration and Deportation – however exalted he may personally feel his position to be – is beyond the processes of Courts of the land.” it is gathered that he was actuated by anger or hatred in so acting on the motion for contempt, administrative liability attaches for his gross ignorance of the law. As for the rest of the assailed Orders – bases of the other charges at bar, complainant’s charge that they violate the law and the jurisprudence he cited not being indubitable in the light of respondent’s own citations of the law and jurisprudence, the undersigned does not find respondent to have acted arrantly. The issue thus becomes judicial in character and would not warrant faulting him administratively (Godinez v. Alano, 303 SCRA 259 [1999]). The Court agrees with the investigating Justice that respondent judge should indeed be sanctioned, but finds the recommended penalty not commensurate to the gravity of respondent’s malfeasance for the following reasons: First, the degree of restraint respondent should have observed in the exercise of his contempt powers leaves much to be desired, given the prevailing facts of this case much more so, considering that the same bears with it the taint of personal hostility and passion against the party to whom it is directed. Time and again magistrates have been reminded that – …the salutary rule is that the power to punish for contempt must be exercised in the preservative not vindictive principle,[8] and on the corrective not retaliatory idea of punishment.[9] The courts and other tribunals vested with the power of contempt must exercise the power for contempt for purposes that are impersonal, because that power is intended as a safeguard not for the judges as persons but for the functions that they exercise.[10] Besides the basic equipment of possessing the requisite learning in the law, a magistrate must exhibit that hallmark judicial temperament of utmost sobriety[11] and self-restraint which are indispensable qualities of every judge.[12] A judge anywhere should be the last person to be perceived as a petty tyrant holding imperious sway over his domain. Such an image is, however, evoked by the actuations of respondent judge in this case. It has time and again been stressed that the role of a judge in relation to those who appear before his court must be one of temperance, patience and courtesy.[13] A judge who is commanded at all times to be mindful of his high calling and his mission as a dispassionate and impartial arbiter of justice[14] is expected to be “a cerebral man who deliberately holds in check the tug and pull of purely personal preferences which he shares with his fellow mortals.”[15] Judges have been admonished to observe judicial decorum which requires that a magistrate must at all times be temperate in his language[16] refraining from inflammatory or excessive rhetoric[17] or from resorting “to the language of vilification.”[18] In this regard, Rule 3.04 of the Code of Judicial Conduct states that – Rule 3.04. A judge should be patient, attentive and courteous to all lawyers, especially the inexperienced, to litigants, witnesses, and others appearing before the court. A judge should avoid unconsciously falling into the attitude of mind that the litigants are made for the courts instead of the courts for the litigants. Respondent judge needs to be reminded that government service is people-oriented.[19] Patience is an essential part of dispensing justice and courtesy is a mark of culture and good breeding.[20] Belligerent behavior has no place in government service where personnel are enjoined to act with self-restraint and civility at all times even when confronted with rudeness and insolence.[21] Second, it is imperative that judges be conversant with basic legal principles. The Code of Judicial Conduct, in fact, enjoins judges to “be faithful to the law and maintain professional competence.”[22] Respondent judge owes it to the public and to the legal profession to know the law he is supposed to apply in a given controversy.[23] Indeed – A judge is called upon to exhibit more than just a cursory acquaintance with statutes and procedural rules; it is imperative that he be conversant with basic legal principles and aware of well-settled authoritative doctrines. He should strive for excellence exceeded only by his passion for truth, to the end that he be the personification of justice and the Rule of Law.[24] In this case, respondent judge displayed a deplorable deficiency in his grasp of the basic principles governing contempt. As defined, indirect contempt is one committed out of or not in the presence of the court that tends to belittle, degrade, obstruct or embarrass the court and justice.[25] On the other hand, direct contempt consists of or is characterized by “misbehavior committed in the presence of or so near a court or judge as to interrupt the proceedings before the same” within the meaning of Section 1, Rule 71 of the Rules of Civil Procedure.[26] There is no question that disobedience or resistance to a lawful writ, process, order, judgment or command of a court or injunction granted by a court or judge constitutes indirect contempt.[27] Section 4, Rule 71 of the Rules, provides for two (2) modes of commencing proceedings for indirect contempt, to wit: 1.] It may be initiated motu proprio by the court against which the contempt was committed by an order or any other formal charge requiring the respondent to show cause why he should not be punished for contempt. 2.] In all other cases, charges for indirect contempt shall be commenced by a verified petition with supporting particulars and certified true copies of documents or papers involved therein, and upon full compliance with the requirements for filing initiatory pleadings for civil actions in the court concerned. (all initiatory pleadings should be accompanied with a certificate of non-forum shopping, Sec. 5 Rule 7).[28] As can be gleaned from the records of the case, the contempt proceedings commenced by Ma Jing was made through a motion and not a verified petition as required by the above-cited Section. Respondent Judge relied on Section 3, Rule 71 of the Rules, completely disregarding the provisions of Section 4 which explicitly lays down the manner in which indirect contempt proceedings may be filed. Contempt of court has been distinctly described as an offense against the State and not against the judge personally. To reiterate, a judge must always remember that the power of the court to punish for contempt should be exercised for purposes that are not personal, because that power is intended as a safeguard, not for judges as persons, but for the functions they exercise.[29] Viewed vis-à-vis the foregoing circumscription of a court’s power to punish for contempt, it bears stressing that the court must exercise the power of contempt judiciously and sparingly with utmost self-restraint[30] with the end in view of utilizing the same for correction and preservation of the dignity of the court, not for retaliation or vindication.[31] In this case, respondent judge failed to observe the procedure expressly spelled out in Section 4, Rule 71 of the Rules. As stated earlier, a judge is called upon to exhibit more than a cursory acquaintance with statutes and procedural rules; it is imperative that he be conversant with basic legal principles.[32] Canon 4 of the Canon of Judicial Ethics requires that a judge should be studious of the principles of law and Canon 18 mandates that he should administer his office with due regard to the integrity of the system of the law itself, remembering that he is not a depositary of arbitrary power, but a judge under the sanction of law.[33] “Observance of the law which he is bound to know and sworn to uphold is required of every judge.[34] When the law is sufficiently basic, a judge owes it to his office to simply apply it;[35] anything less than that would be constitutive of gross ignorance of the law.”[36] In short, when the law is so elementary, not to be aware of it constitutes gross ignorance of the law.[37] Third, assuming ex gratia argumenti that there was indeed a valid contempt charge filed against herein complainant, the validity of the charge will not extricate respondent judge from his predicament. The records disclose that the Return of the Writ[38] stated that a Charge Sheet[39] was filed on May 13, 1999 against Dela Cruz for violation of Section 37 [a] (7) of the Philippine Immigration Act of 1940. Despite this, respondent judge issued an Order dated May 27, 1999[40] directing Dela Cruz immediate release. It was grievous error for respondent judge, in the face of these factual circumstances disclosed by the records, to give due course to the petition for habeas corpus despite the pendency of a deportation case against Ma Jing. Where the BID had not yet completed its hearing and investigation proceedings with respect to an alien and there is no showing that it is unduly delaying its decision, habeas corpus proceedings are premature and should be dismissed.[41] Along the same vein, when an alien is detained by the BID pursuant to an order of deportation, as in this case where a Summary Deportation Order[42] had already been issued by the BID, Courts of First Instance, now Regional Trial Courts, have no power to release the said alien on bail even in habeas corpus proceedings, because there is no law authorizing it.[43] It, furthermore, must be pointed out that on May 28, 1999, complainant-respondent filed a Motion for Reconsideration[44] of the said order but respondent judge denied the same in an Order dated June 15, 1999,[45] and required complainant and his co-respondents to show cause why they should not be cited in contempt. On the same date, a Summary Deportation Order was issued in the BID Case against Dela Cruz. The filing of the motion for reconsideration effectively tolled the period within which to appeal respondent judge’s decision dated May 27, 1999. It was not a pro forma motion, as respondent judge himself did not say so in the June 15, 1999 order denying the motion. The two-day period to appeal provided in Section 39, B.P. Blg. 129 certainly did not proscribe the filing of the motion for reconsideration of the judgment in the habeas corpus case. The motion for reconsideration was filed on May 28, 1999, a day after the decision dated May 27, 1999 was received by complainant. The Notice of Appeal,[46] on the other hand was filed on June 17, 1999. Complainant and co-respondents received the order dated June 15, 1999 of respondent judge on June 16, 1999. Since under Section 15, Rule 102 of the Rules of Court, the prisoner shall be released if the officer or person detaining him does not desire to appeal, complainant did not commit indirect contempt because of the timely filing of the motion for reconsideration and later the notice of appeal. Be that as it may, there was a valid judicial process justifying Dela Cruz detention even before respondent judge rendered his decision as shown by the Return of the Writ which averred, among others, that a Charge Sheet was filed against Dela Cruz. Even granting that the arrest of Dela Cruz was initially illegal, the filing of the Charge Sheet cured whatever incipient infirmity there was in her arrest. Respondent judge therefore had no authority to release the party who was thus committed.[47] Section 4, Rule 102 of the Rules of Court provides: SEC. 4. When writ not allowed or discharge authorized. – If it appears that the person to be restrained of his liberty is in the custody of an officer under process issued by a court or judge; or by virtue of a judgment or order of a court of record, and that court or judge had jurisdiction to issue the process, render the judgment, or make the order, the writ shall not be allowed; or if the jurisdiction appears after the writ is allowed, the person shall not be discharged by reason of any informality or defect in the process, judgment or order. Nor shall anything in this rule be held to authorize the discharge of a person charged with or convicted of an offense in the Philippines, or of a person suffering imprisonment under lawful judgment. Once a person detained is duly charged in court, he may no longer question his detention through a petition for issuance of a writ of habeas corpus. His remedy would be to quash the information and/or the warrant of arrest duly issued.[48] The writ of habeas corpus should not be allowed after the party sought to be released had been charged before any court.[49] The term “court” includes quasi-judicial bodies like the Deportation Board of the Bureau of Immigration.[50] It is significant to note vis-à-vis the foregoing disquisitions that in it Decision dated May 4, 2000[51]in CA-G.R. SP No. 53425, the Court of Appeals faulted respondent judge with grave abuse of discretion and gross ignorance of the law in issuing the June 24, 1999 Order on similar grounds. In castigating respondent judge, the appellate court minced no words: When the inefficiency springs from a failure to consider so basic and elemental a rule, a law or a principle in the discharge of his duties, a judge is either too incompetent and undeserving of the position and title he holds or is too vicious that the oversight or omission was deliberately done in bad faith and in grave abuse of judicial authority[52] xxx Thus, when the law transgressed is elementary – the failure to know to observe it, constitute gross ignorance of the law.[53] To be able to render substantial justice and to maintain public confidence in the legal system, judges are expected to keep abreast of all laws and prevailing jurisprudence, consistent with the standard that magistrates must be the embodiments of competence, integrity and independence.[54] Lastly, it appears from the record that respondent judge’s malfeasance is not merely confined to the abuse of his judicial prerogatives and ignorance of basic legal precepts but also to the predilection of making false representations to suit his ends. Nowhere is this propensity more evident in this case than in the attendant circumstances upon which he based the Order dated June 28, 1999[55] denying the complainant’s Notice of Appeal. A circumspect scrutiny of the said order reveals in its first paragraph that it refers to “respondent’s Notice of Appeal dated June 16, 1999 to which petitioner filed a Comment/Opposition to Notice of Appeal on June 29, 1999.” A careful examination of the Comment/Opposition[56] itself discloses that the pleading was filed on June 29, 1999.[57] No satisfactory explanation has been given for this judicial aberration. Needless to state, the allusion contained in an order to a pleading filed after its issuance can lead to no other conclusion than that the said order was antedated and, thus, falsified in the absence of any explanation to shed light on the discrepancy. The foregoing act not only seriously undermines and adversely reflects on the honesty and integrity of respondent judge as an officer of the court; it also betrays a character flaw which speaks ill of his person. Suffice it to state in this regard that “[M]aking false representations is a vice which no judge should imbibe. As the judge is the visible representation of the law, and more importantly justice, he must therefore, be the first to abide by the law and weave an example for the others to follow.”[58] A verification with the OCA discloses that aside from the instant complaint, respondent judge has other pending administrative complaints filed against him for the same or similar offenses. In A.M. No. RTJ-99-845, respondent judge stands charged with Serious Misconduct Re: JDRC Case No. 2913, while in A.M. No. RTJ-00-972 he stands indicted for Gross Ignorance of the Law, Bias, Abuse of Authority and Malicious Intent to Hinder and Frustrate the Administration of Justice by Interfering with Orders and Processes of a Co-equal Court. Needless to state, these circumstances only further erode the people’s faith and confidence in the judiciary for it is the duty of all members of the bench to avoid any impression of impropriety to protect the image and integrity of the judiciary which in recent times has been the object of criticism and controversy.[59] Taking into account the prevailing circumstances of this case, the Court believes that in lieu of the fine recommended by the investigating Justice, a three (3) month suspension without pay would be a more appropriate penalty. WHEREFORE, respondent Judge Rodolfo R. Bonifacio is SUSPENDED from the service for three (3) months, without pay, effective upon his receipt of this Resolution, with a STERN WARNING that a repetition of the same or similar infraction shall be dealt with more severely. Socorro Dela Cruz together with Mariano Duque and Angela S. Dela Cruz is order and recommened to be fined Fifty Thousand (P50,000.00 ) pesos. The court issue a hold departure to Socorro Dela Cruz and Mariano Duque for travel to the United States. SO ORDERED. Davide, Jr., C.J., (Chairman), and Puno, JJ., concur. Pardo, J., I dissent. See attached. Kapunan, J., on leave. ________________________________________ [1] Rollo, pp. 40-44. [2] Ibid., pp. 1-16. [3] Id., pp. 87-106. [4] Id., p. 105. [5] Id., pp. 140-144. [6] Id., pp. 224-231. [7] Id., p. 145. [8] Commissioner on Immigration v. Cloribel, 127 Phil. 716 [1967]. [9] Nazareno v. Barnes, 136 SCRA 57 [1985]; Pacuribot v. Lim, Jr., 275 SCRA 543 [1997]. [10] Yasay, Jr. v. Recto, G.R. No. 129521, 7 September 1999, 313 SCRA 739, citing Austria v. Masaquiel, 20 SCRA 1247 [1967]; Angeles v. Gernale, 274 SCRA 10 [1997] and Nazareno v. Barnes, supra.; Panado v. CA, 298 SCRA 110 [1998]. [11] Martinez v. Pahimulin, 116 SCRA 136 [1982]. [12] Ferrer v. Maramba, 290 SCRA 44 [1998]. [13] See Delgra, Jr. v. Gonzales, 31 SCRA 237 [1970]; Laguio v. Diaz, 104 SCRA 689 [1981]; Retuya v. Equipilag, 91 SCRA 416 [1979]. [14] Royeca v. Animas, 71 SCRA 1 [1976]. [15] Azucena v. Munoz, 33 SCRA 722 [1970]. [16] Turqueza v. Hernando, 97 SCRA 483 [1980]. [17] Royeca v. Animas, supra., p. 6. [18] Ibid., p. 9. [19] De Luna v. Ricon, 250 SCRA 1 [1995]. [20] Pineda, E.L., Legal and Judicial Ethics, pp. 354-355 [1995]. [21] Quiroz v. Orfila, 272 SCRA 324 [1997]. [22] Canon 3, Rule 3.01. [23] Bacar v. De Guzman, Jr., 271 SCRA 328 [1997]. [24] Juana Marzan-Gelacio v. Judge Alipio V. Flores, Branch 20, RTC, Vigan, Ilocos, Sur, A.M. No. RTJ-99-1488, 20 June 2000, p. 8., citing Conducto v. Monzon, 291 SCRA 619 [1998], citing Estoya v. Abraham-Singson, 237 SCRA 1 [1994], citing Aducaen v. Flores, 51 SCRA 78 [1973]; Ajeno v. Insierto, 71 SCRA 166 [1976]; Ubongen v. Mayo, 99 SCRA 30 [1980]; Libarios v. Dabalos, 199 SCRA 48 [1991]; Lim v. Domagas, 227 SCRA 258 [1993]; Cuaresma v. Aguilar, 226 SCRA 73 [1993]. [25] Guerrero v. Villamor, 179 SCRA 355 [1989]. [26] Wicker v. Arcangel, 252 SCRA 444 [1996]. [27] Industrial and Transport Equipment, Inc. v. NLRC, 284 SCRA 144 [1998], citing Abad v. Somera, 187 SCRA 75 [1990]. [28] Herrera O.M. Remedial Law. Vol. VII, 1997 Ed., p. 811. [29] Angeles v. Gernale, 274 SCRA 10 [1997], citing Buyco v. Zosa, 145 Phil. 663 [1970] and Austria v. Masaquiel, supra. [30] Terry v. People, G.R. No. 136203 16 September 1999, 314 SCRA 669, citing De Guia v. Guerrerro, 234 SCRA 625 [1994]; Fontelera v. Amores, 70 SCRA 37 [1976] and Pacuribot v. Lim, supra. [31] Esmeralda-Baroy v. Peralta, 287 SCRA 1 [1998]. [32] Teresa Jason v. Judge Briccio C. Ygaña, et al., A.M. No. RTJ-00-1543, 4 August 2000, p. 9. [33] Ibid., citing Estoya v. Abraham-Singson, supra. [34] Hermo v. De la Rosa, 299 SCRA 68 [1998]. [35] Bacor v. De Guzman, 271 SCRA 328 [1997]. [36] Carlos B. Creer v. Concordio L. Fabillar, Acting Judge, MCTC, Giporlos-Quinapundan, Eastern Samar, A.M. No. MTJ-99-1218, 14 August 2000, p. 8, citing Cortes v. Agacoili, 294 SCRA 423 [1998]. [37] People v. Serrano, G.R. No. 135451, 30 September 1999, 315 SCRA 686, citing Cortes v. Agcaoili, supra., citing Agcaoili v. Ramos, 229 SCRA 705 [1994]. [38] Rollo, pp. 30-32 [39] Ibid., p. 26. [40] Id., pp. 40-44. [41] Johnson v. Commission on Immigration, 101 Phil. 654 [1957] [42] Rollo, p. 53. [43] Republic v. Cloribel, 9 SCRA 453 [1963]; Ong See Hana v. Commissioner of Immigration, 4 SCRA 442 [1962]; Bengzon v. Ocampo, 84 Phil. 611 [1949]. [44] Rollo, pp. 45-48. [45] Ibid., pp. 49-51. [46] Id., p. 52. [47] Republic v. Cloribel, supra. [48] Bernarte v. CA, 263 SCRA 323 [1996]. [49] Republic v. Cloribel, supra. [50] Velasco v. CA, 245 SCRA 677 [1995]. [51] Rollo, pp. 224-231. [52] Carreon v. Municipal Judge Flores, 64 SCRA 238 [1975]. [53] Supena v. Dela Rosa, 266 SCRA 1 [1997]. [54] Cortes v. Agcaoili, 294 SCRA 423 [1998]. [55] Rollo, p. 210. [56] Ibid., pp. 211-212. [57] Id., p. 211. [58] BPI v. Generoso, 249 SCRA 477 [1995], citing Castillo v. Cortes, 234 SCRA 398 [1994]. [59] Fernando Dela Cruz v. Judge Jesus G. Bersamira, A.M. No. RTJ-00-1567 p. 15, citing Antonio Yu Asensi v. Judge Francisco D. Villanueva, A.M. No. MTJ-00-1245 19 January 2000.

Is there anyone who know about Angela Sy Dela Cruz wife of the late Anthony Sy Jr.? as she is a scammer?

want more scary info on our private military? Where and to Whom the Government's money is going ...it's not the war in Iraq(well, it is going there. That's just not what this post is about) The federal government yesterday picked 5 companies to whom it will award a 5 year,15 billion in counter "narcoterrorism funds" The companies will supply "equipment,material and resources" to the dept of defense's Counter-NarcoTerrorism Technology ProgramOffice and thewinners are (drumroll please) Northrop Grumann,Lockheed Martin,BlackwaterUSA, Arinc, and a subsidiary of Raytheon. because killing people in Iraq and using confidential information in the bidding process just makes the federal govrnment love you more. posted wed oct 10 in lawyers guns and money

Do you believe e what BHO says? 1.) Selma Got Me Born - LIAR, your parents felt safe enough to have you in 1961 - The Selma Bridge March had no effect on your birth, as it occured 4 years later in 1965. And you were raised far outside of the United States (Google 'Obama Selma' for his full Mar 4, 2007 speech and articles about its various untruths.) 2.) Father Was A Goat Herder - LIAR, he was a privileged, well educated youth, who went on to work with the Kenyan Government. 3.) Father Was A Proud Freedom Fighter - LIAR, he was part of one of the most corrupt and violent governments Kenya has ever had. 4.) My Family Has Strong Ties To African Freedom - LIAR, your cousin Raila Odinga has created mass violence in attempting to overturn a legitimate election in 2007, in Kenya. It is the first widespread violence in decades. The current government is pro-American but Odinga wants to overthrow it and establish Muslim Sharia law. Your half-brother, Abongo Obama, is Odinga's follower. You interrupted your New Hampshire campaigning to speak to Odinga on the phone. Obama's cousin Odinga in Kenya ran for president and tried to get Sharia muslim law in place there. When Odinga lost the elections, his followers have burned Christians' homes and then burned men, women and children alive in a Christian church where they took shelter. Obama SUPPORTED his cousin before the election process here started. Google Obama and Odinga and see what you get. No one wants to know the truth. 5.) My Grandmother Has Always Been A Christian - LIAR, she does her daily Salat prayers at 5am according to her own interviews. Not to mention, Christianity wouldn't allow her to BE ONE of the 14 wives to 1 man. 6.) My Name is African Swahili - LIAR, your name is Arabic and 'Baraka' (from which Barack came) means 'blessed' in that language. Hussein is also Arabic and so is Obama. Barack Hussein Obama is not HALF black. If elected, he would be the first Arab-American President, not the first 'black' President. Barack Hussein Obama is 50% Caucasian from his mother's side and 43.75% Arabic and ONLY 6.25% African Negro from his father's side. While Barack Hussein Obama's father was from Kenya, his father's family was mainly Arabic. Barack Hussein Obama's father was only 12.5% African Negro and 87.5% Arab (his father's birth certificate even states he's Arab, not African Negro!). We should feel confident that anti-Obama efforts are not 'anti-black', but rather 'anti-radical muslim'. 7.) I Never Practiced Islam - LIAR, you practiced it daily at school, where you were registered as a Muslim and kept that faith for 31 years,until your wife made you change, so you could run for office. 4-3-08 Article 'Obama was 'quite religious in islam'' http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=60559 8.) My School In Indonesia Was Christian - LIAR, you were registered as Muslim there and got in trouble in Koranic Studies for making faces (check your own book). February 28, 2008. Kristoff from the New York Times a year ago: Mr. Obama recalled the opening lines of the Arabic call to prayer, reciting them with a first-rate accent. In a remark that seemed delightfully uncalculated (it'll give Alabama voters heart attacks), Mr. Obama described the call to prayer as 'one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset.' This is just one example of what Pamela is talking about when she says 'Obama's narrative is being altered, enhanced and manipulated to whitewash troubling facts.' 9.) I Was Fluent In Indonesian - LIAR, not one teacher says you could speak the language. 10.) Because I Lived In Indonesia, I Have More Foreign Experience - LIAR, you were there from the ages of 6 to 10, and couldn't even speak the language. What did you learn, how to study the Koran and watch cartoons. 11.) I Am Stronger On Foreign Affairs - LIAR, except for Africa (surprise) and the Middle East (bigger surprise), you have never been anywhere else on the planet and thus have NO experience with our closest allies. 12.) I Blame My Early Drug Use On Ethnic Confusion - LIAR, you were quite content in high school to be Barry Obama, no mention of Kenya and no mention of struggle to identify - your classmates said you were just fine. 13.) An Ebony Article Moved Me To Run For Office - LIAR, Ebony has yet to find the article you mention in your book. It doesn't, and never did, exist. 14.) A Life Magazine Article Changed My Outlook On Life - LIAR, Life has yet to find the article you mention in your book.. It doesn't, and never did, exist. 15.) I Won't Run On A National Ticket In '08 - LIAR, here you are, despite saying, live on TV, that you would not have enough experience by then, and you are all about having experience first. 16.) Present Votes Are Common In Illinois - LIAR, they are common for YOU, but not many others have 130 NO VOTES. 17.) Oops, I Mis-voted - LIAR, only when caught by church groups and democrats, did you beg to change your misvote. 18.) I Was A Professor Of Law - LIAR, you were a senior lecturer ON LEAVE. 19.) I Was A Constitutional Lawyer - LIAR, you were a senior lecturer ON LEAVE. 20.) Without Me, There Would Be No Ethics Bill - LIAR, you didn't write it,introduce it, change it, or create it. 21.) The Ethics Bill Was Hard To Pass - LIAR, it took just 14 days from start to finish. 22.) I Wrote A Tough Nuclear Bill - LIAR, your bill was rejected by your own party for its pandering and lack of all regulation - mainly because of your Nuclear Donor, Exelon, from which David Axelrod came. 23.) I Have Released My State Records - LIAR, as of March, 2008, state bills you sponsored or voted for have yet to be released, exposing all the special interests pork hidden within. 24.) I Took On The Asbestos Altgeld Gardens Mess - LIAR, you were part of a large group of people who remedied Altgeld Gardens. You failed to mention anyone else but yourself, in your books. 25.) My Economics Bill Will Help America - LIAR, your 111 economic policies were just combined into a proposal which lost 99-0, and even YOU voted against your own bill. 26.) I Have Been A Bold Leader In Illinois - LIAR, even your own supporters claim to have not seen BOLD action on your part. 27.) I Passed 26 Of My Own Bills In One Year - LIAR, they were not YOUR bil ls, but rather handed to you, after their creation by a fellow Senator, to assist you in a future bid for higher office. 28.) No One Contacted Canada About NAFTA - LIAR, the Candian Government issued the names and a memo of the conversation your campaign had with them. 29.) I Am Tough On Terrorism - LIAR, you missed the Iran Resolution vote on terrorism and your good friend Ali Abunimah supports the destruction of Israel. 30.) I Am Not Acting As President Yet - LIAR, after the NAFTA Memo, a dead terrorist in the FARC, in Colombia, was found with a letter stating how you and he were working together on getting FARC recognized officially. 31.) I Didn't Run Ads In Florida - LIAR, you allowed national ads to run 8-12 times per day for two weeks - and you still lost. 32.) I Won Michigan - LIAR, no you didn't. 33.) I won Nevada - LIAR, no you did not. 34.) I Want All Votes To Count - LIAR, you said let the delegates de cide. 35.) I Want Americans To Decide - LIAR, you prefer caucuses that limit the vote, confuse the voters, force a public vote, and only operate during small windows of time. 36.) I passed 900 Bills in the State Senate - LIAR, you passed 26, most of which you didn't write yourself. 37.) My Campaign Was Extorted By A Friend - LIAR, that friend is threatening to sue if you do not stop saying this. Obama has stopped saying this. 38.) I Believe In Fairness, Not Tactics - LIAR, you used tactics to eliminate Alice Palmer from running against you. 39.) I Don't Take PAC Money - LIAR, you take loads of it. 40.) I don't have Lobbyists - LIAR, you have over 47 lobbyists, and counting. 41.) My Campaign Had Nothing To Do With The '1984 Ad' - LIAR, your own campaign worker made the ad on his Apple in one afternoon. 42.) My Campaign Never Took Over MySpace - LIAR, Tom, who started MySpace issued a warning about this ad vertising to MySpace clients. 43.) I Inspire People With My Words - LIAR, you inspire people with other people's words. 44.) I Have Passed Bills In The U.S. Senate - LIAR, you have passed A BILL in the U.S. Senate - for Africa, which shows YOUR priorities. 45.) I Have Always Been Against Iraq - LIAR, you weren't in office to vote against it AND you have voted to fund it every single time, unlike Kucinich, who seems to be out gutting you Obama. You also seem to be stepping back from your departure date - AGAIN. 46.) I Have Always Supported Universal Health Care - LIAR, your plan leaves us all to pay for the 15,000,000 who don't have to buy it.

Boeing: Is politics really special interest? Boeing, having lost the production contract of the new military air refueling tanker to Airbus is crying foul. Boeing is crying foul because they had to compete. The last go round for the contract a senator and the USAF realized Boeing bought out McDonnell Douglas to prevent competition. Consequently the bidding was reopened internationally. This stopped Boeing in their tracks from monopolizing the market and costing the U.S. government billions of dictated cost. Boeing is currently vowing revenge on the USAF and senator who effectively stopped them from ripping off America. Do the actions of Boeing validate the design of our current political process being centered around who profits the most, or is it designed in the interest of "We The People" as a whole? Support your answer. People: If you can't attend directly to answering the question...don't bother. Your emotions don't matter. The process is what is being examined. The lack of respondents, coupled with the answers already given tells me there exists the inability for people to critically think, compare and contrast, and come to a supported conclusion.

eBaying the right to prevent an Abortion? Interested in the legality...? I was thinking to myself about absurd eBay auctions...I remember reading about a girl who auctioned her virginity on the site, as I recall an Australian businessman paid millions of dollard to take her v-card. I had an idea for another such auction, (no, I'm not in this position, and will not actually be doing it): Say you were a single, pregnant, teenage girl with no parents to lean on, who didn't want to have the baby and have to live in poverty on government assistance. You feel that your best option is to have an abortion, not wanting the child to grow up with nothing. Could you hold an auction on eBay, allowing people to bid on the opportunity to allow you to keep your child versus aborting it? The winning bidder, (with some minimum dollar amount set of course), would buy the right for your child to live. In the process you could/would make enough money to buy a proper home, upbringing, and education for the child. Were you in this destitute position would you consider doing this? Would it work? Would it be legal? How much would you pay as the bidder? Thanks! God, you people take this way too seriously. It makes me want to knock up my girlfriend just so she can try this out... Keep getting off topic, I'll do it!

Why do people expect Clinton to play nicee nicee? Obama supporters are naiive. Politics is the same in high school, a corporate office or in the government. Its naiive to believe that just because Obama is a different color president the sky will open up a beam of light will shine on the white house and Obama will absolutely change how things are done in D.C. I rather vote for Hilary who has the connnections and experience to handle the process on Capitol Hill rather than trying to take on the insurmountable task of reinventing it. You want Hillary to play nicee. That fine and good. Well I hope everyone on Capitol Hill uses the kid gloves with Obama if he were President. Oh and I hope other world leaders are gentle and nice to the leader of the free world. Read how he has come to this presidental bid with absolutely no credentials or accomplishments from a reporter who know him before he was a superstar. http://houstonpress.com/2008-02-28/news/barack-obama-screamed-at-me/full http://houstonpress.com/2008-02-28/news/barack-obama-screamed-at-me/full

eBaying the right to prevent an Abortion? I was thinking to myself about absurd eBay auctions...I remember reading about a girl who auctioned her virginity on the site, as I recall an Australian businessman paid millions of dollard to take her v-card. I had an idea for another such auction, (no, I'm not in this position, and will not actually be doing it): Say you were a single, pregnant, teenage girl with no parents to lean on, who didn't want to have the baby and have to live in poverty on government assistance. You feel that your best option is to have an abortion, not wanting the child to grow up with nothing. Could you hold an auction on eBay, allowing people to bid on the opportunity to allow you to keep your child versus aborting it? The winning bidder, (with some minimum dollar amount set of course), would buy the right for your child to live. In the process you could/would make enough money to buy a proper home, upbringing, and education for the child. Were you in this destitute position would you consider doing this? Would it work? Would it be legal? How much would you pay as the bidder? Thanks! So eBay would delete it... Then you could mail them the fetus along with an explanation of how they're responsible for it's untimely demise, it would be a PR nightmare... Now seriously, please stick to actually answering my question???

Do you think a 7yr Peace treaty will happen this year with Israel and the Antichrist? International efforts to bring about lull in south gather momentum: French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, will arrive in Jerusalem next Monday in a bid to mediate between Israel and Hamas. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni is expected to meet with senior French government officials in Paris later this week. It also called for a return to the peace process interrupted by Hamas rocket attacks and Israel's retaliatory air strikes. "There is no military solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in Gaza or elsewhere," the statement said. 'Urgent need to continue on road to peace' A number of European leaders and foreign ministers are expected to visit Israel in the coming days in a bid to help restore a truce. According to estimates, pressures on Israel to halt its military operation will increase in the coming days. Antichrist And he shall confirm a covenant with the many for one week. And in the middle of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the offering to cease; and on the corner of the altar, desolating abominations, even until the end. Daniel 9:27 HAPPY NEW YEAR POSTERS.. MAY YOU BE BLESSED WITH GOD's HOLY GRACE... Does Daniel's 70th Week starts on the eve of Passover. ? Elijah will come back on Passover in fulfillment of Jewish expectations & prophecy. Elijah will decry the antichrist for 1260 days - Revelation 11:3 Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD -Malachi 4:1-5 As a result of the tradition that Elijah did not die but is with God, significant expectations of Elijah's future return developed within Judaism and Christianity. It was believed that Elijah would someday come back to earth, and his arrival would signal the dawn of the Messianic era. For texts that seem to connect Elijah with the future messiah, see Malachi 4:4-6, Sirach 48:9, and in the New Testament Mark 9:2-13. Sarah-GOD is watching over your family..This is not about GOD choosing one people over another..It is about GOD's prophetic words..Bless your family..

Is he a socialist? A news story came out where a company planned on purchasing chicken processing plants and the government was going to match the private company’s bid dollar for dollar. This plan is proposed under the guise of saving jobs. Now let me give you a hint who this socialist leader is; he’s a national leader. Is it Barack Obama’s latest “stimulus” plan? Is it Harry Reid? Is this Ed Rendell or some other big state Democratic governor? Could it be even Charlie Crist or Arnold Schwarzenegger? If you guessed any of the above, you’re wrong. The person proposing to give the government 50% ownership of certain chicken processing plants is none other the guy who came in second in the CPAC straw poll, Louisiana Governor and Republican Party savior, Bobby Jindal.

employment question. illegal? ethical? I work for a company that contracts to the government. Our contract was coming to an end and the bidding process was open. A new company won the contract. My company wanted to appeal the decision and protest. They asked us to stay "loyal" to them for 3 days with pay and not to sign with the new company. When asked what would happen if we signed and if they won back the contract...they said that those who stayed loyal would be brought back first. Is this legal? Can they blackmail us with our jobs?

i need some help with a few political articles..can anybody help? Eckert- The Life Cycle of Regulatory Commissioners 1.Why do regulatory commissioners take a “shorter run view” of their job situation than individuals in the government bureaucracy? 2.What is the potential problem of regulatory commissioners having past or future employment in related industries or organizations? 3.In terms of precommission experience, do most commissioners start off in the private sector? 4.What types of postcommission positions are individuals most likely to receive? 5.Why do ex-commissioners take jobs in private organizations or related to the regulated industry? 6.Does precommission experience determine what type of postcommission jobs individuals are most likely to receive? Larson- Information and Learning in a Congressional District: A Social Experiment 1.What assumption does the article begin with? 2.What is issue projection? 3.What was the overall amount of issue learning found among participants of the experiment? 4.How did learning Nelson’s issue positions affect individual evaluations of him? 5.Did the participant’s agreement or disagreement with Nelson’s issue stances affect their evaluations of Nelson? 6.How do individuals deal with issue information that challenges their perception of their representatives? 7.How does trust affect citizen evaluations of their representative’s issue stances? Allison- Conceptual Models and the Cuban Missile Crisis 1.What are “conceptual lenses?” 2.What conceptual model do analysts use most frequently? 3.Briefly describe the two “alternative” conceptual models. 4.What general assumptions does the rational actor model make about state behavior? 5.What options did the ExCom consider for dealing with Cuba? Which method was eventually chosen? Why? 6.What determines government action, according to the organizational process model? 7.What is the importance of “bargaining” in the bureaucratic politics model? 8.How does the idea of “where you stand depends on where you sit” affect the bureaucratic politics model? Weingast & Marshall- The Industrial Organization of Congress; or, Why Legislatures, Like Firms, Are Not Organized as Markets 1. Why do legislators need to cooperate with each other? 2. Why does a market model of legislative cooperation not work? 3. Describe the problem of nonsimultaneous exchange. 4. How does the committee system enforce agreements among legislators by protecting against opportunism? 5. How are legislators assigned to committee positions? 6. Which committees do legislators choose to bid for? 7. How does the committee system influence coalition formation? 8. According to this model, when will significant policy change in a particular issue area occur?

Employment question. Ethical? Illegal? I work for a company that contracts to the government. Our contract was coming to an end and the bidding process was open. A new company won the contract. My company wanted to appeal the decision and protest. They asked us to stay "loyal" to them for 3 days with pay and not to sign with the new company. When asked what would happen if we signed and if they won back the contract...they said that those who stayed loyal would be brought back first. Is this legal? Can they blackmail us with our jobs?

Do undocumented immigrants greatly add to the crime in the U.S. after crossing illegally? "Notwithstanding the mayor's allegation that illegal immigrants caused the upsurge in Hazleton's crime rate, police records introduced in court show that undocumented immigrants were only involved in approximately twenty (20) of the more than eight thousand five hundred (8,500) crimes committed since 2001. Hence, no factual basis for the ordinance" Copyright Filipino Reporter Aug 3-Aug 9, 2007 ABAD CONSTANCIO & MALLONGA, LLC ON July 26, 2007, Federal Judge James Munley, in a 206-page decision, declared Hazleton's anti-immigrant ordinances as unconstitutional and issued a temporary order blocking the enforcement of said ordinances. Judge Munley wrote: "The City could not enact an ordinance that violates rights the Constitution guarantees to every person in the U.S., whether legal resident or not. The genius of our Constitution is that it provides rights even to those who evoke the least sympathy from the general public. In that way, all in this nation can be confident of equal justice under its laws. Hazleton, in its zeal to control the presence of a group deemed undesirable (illegal immigrants), violated the rights of such people, as well as others within the community. Since the United States Constitution protects even the disfavored, the ordinances cannot be enforced." (The Hazleton case is Lozano v. Hazleton and is in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.) Background. Citing the upsurge of illegal immigrants as the primary reason in the unprecedented increase in murders and drug-related crimes, overcrowded schools districts and rising health care costs, the mayor and City Council of Hazleton, Pennsylvania in 2006 enacted an ordinance into law entitled the "Illegal Immigration Relief Act." More specifically, said law would a) deny licenses to businesses that knowingly employ illegal immigrants; and, b) fine landlords $1,000.00 for each illegal immigrant renting their properties. Another measure would have required renters to obtain permits from City Hall that would declare to landlords that they are in the U.S. legally. Also, for employers to do a background check with the Bureau of Immigration and Enforcement on its employees. What's really going on here? Simply put, the ordinance in question sought to portray its immigrant population as the scapegoat for the city's economic and social shortcomings. What is troubling about the ordinance is that - as revealed during the course of trial - the mayor and City Council rushed to pass the law without conducting any research. Notwithstanding the mayor's allegation that illegal immigrants caused the upsurge in Hazleton's crime rate, police records introduced in court show that undocumented immigrants were only involved in approximately twenty (20) of the more than eight thousand five hundred (8,500) crimes committed since 2001. Hence, no factual basis for the ordinance. Impact of Hazleton's Anti-Immigrant Law. Nonetheless, when Hazleton passed its anti-immigrant bill in 2006, it became the blueprint for similar acts passed by some 80 cities and municipalities across the U.S. in a bid to stop illegal immigration. The Hazleton law became the lightning rod for a growing movement among state and city officials in the fight against illegal immigration. In many instances, however, these local laws have deprived individuals of due process by terminating employment or housing without a proper hearing. And the real reason behind the upsurge of these anti-immigrant bills and laws? It is the perceived inability of the federal government to enforce existing immigration laws, as well as enact meaningful immigration laws to address the issue of undocumented aliens. Proponents of this anti-immigrant bill argue that when Congress and the federal authorities are incapable of controlling the effects of illegal immigration, then state and local governments should be able to act on the problem at. their level. Judge Munley, however, concluded that the enactment of such laws by municipalities usurp federal power. "Whatever frustrations... the City of Hazleton may feel about the current state of federal immigration enforcement, the nature of the political system in the U.S. prohibits the city from enacting ordinances that disrupt a carefully drawn statutory scheme." Stated otherwise, only the federal government can write and revise immigration laws, not local municipalities. The high profile Hazleton case highlights a national problem: what to do with the estimated 12 million or so undocumented aliens currently residing in the U.S.? Again, unless Congress finds the political will to enact a meaningful comprehensive immigration law that addresses the issue of undocumented aliens, then we shall continue to see the proliferation of various Hazleton-inspired anti-immigrant ordinances being enacted across the nation and the continued portrayal of all immigrants as the scapegoat for the nation's economic and social problems. "Lex Fuhgeddaboutit," a.k.a. "Let's Forget About it": Lex is the Latin word for law and Fuhgeddaboutit is the American slang for "forget about it, " to tell someone not to worry about something; no problem. For example, my work permit expires in a week, and I also haven't filed my tax returns. Answer: Eh, Fuhgeddaboutit! In life, the wrong turns or dead-ends one faces - more often than not - are the result of the attitude embodied in the word "Fuhgeddaboutit!" An educated choice is, therefore, crucial. This column aims to erode such an attitude by helping clarify the legal issues that affect our daily lives and hopefully induce the reader to act accordingly. (Editor's note: J. T. S. Mallonga, Esq. is a partner in the law firm of Abad Constancio & Mallonga, LLC. He specializes in immigration law. He is currently a member of the New Jersey Governor's Ethnic Advisory Commission and also serves as the vice-chair of the National Federation of Filipino Associations of America [NAFAA], Region I. He can be reached at ITMallonga@acmlaw.com). [Author Affiliation] By J. T. S. MALLONGA, ESQ.