From Russ Feingold, an amendment that would have allowed senior citizens to protect $75,000 of the value of their homes during bankruptcy proceedings.

From Ted Kennedy, an amendment focused on helping people who are forced into bankruptcy due to major medical expenses.

Also from Ted Kennedy, an amendment that would have protected $150,000 of the value of patients' homes from being seized to pay creditors.

From Daniel Akaka, an amendment to force credit card companies to disclose how long it would take a consumer to pay off his bill making minimum monthly payments, and what the interest rate would be.

From Dick Durbin, an amendment that would have exempted veterans from the most onerous provisions of the bill and prevented creditors from recovering debts from military personnel if the loans had annual percentage rates higher than 36%.

What loopholes have been left in the bill? Answer: the bill does nothing to address the growing use of "asset protection trusts," used by rich people to shield income from bankruptcy proceedings, or to rein in the unlimited use of the homestead exemption, which allows them to shield multimillion dollar homes from bankruptcy courts.

In 2001, 1.458 million American families filed for bankruptcy. To investigate medical contributors to bankruptcy, we surveyed 1,771 personal bankruptcy filers in five federal courts and subsequently completed in-depth interviews with 931 of them. About half cited medical causes, which indicates that 1.9–2.2 million Americans (filers plus dependents) experienced medical bankruptcy. Among those whose illnesses led to bankruptcy, out-of-pocket costs averaged $11,854 since the start of illness; 75.7 percent had insurance at the onset of illness. Medical debtors were 42 percent more likely than other debtors to experience lapses in coverage. Even middle-class insured families often fall prey to financial catastrophe when sick.

[snip]

More than one-quarter cited illness or injury as a specific reason for bankruptcy; a similar number reported uncovered medical bills exceeding $1,000. Some debtors cited more than one medical contributor. Nearly half (46.2 percent) (95 percent confidence interval = 43.5, 48.9) of debtors met at least one of our criteria for “major medical bankruptcy.” Slightly more than half (54.5 percent) (95 percent CI = 51.8, 57.2) met criteria for “any medical bankruptcy.”

[snip]

In our follow-up telephone interviews with 931 debtors, they reported substantial privations. During the two years before filing, 40.3 percent had lost telephone service; 19.4 percent had gone without food; 53.6 percent had gone without needed doctor or dentist visits because of the cost; and 43.0 percent had failed to fill a prescription, also because of the cost. Medical debtors experienced more problems in access to care than other debtors did; three-fifths went without a needed doctor or dentist visit, and nearly half failed to fill a prescription.

A new Social Security (news - web sites) war room inside the Treasury Department (news - web sites) is pumping out information to sell President Bush (news - web sites)'s plan, much like any political campaign might do. It's part of a coordinated effort by the Bush administration.

The internal, taxpayer-funded campaigning is backed up by television advertisements, grass-roots organizing and lobbying from business and other groups that support the Bush plan.

Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2004, Pub. L. No. 108-199, div. F, title VI, § 624, 118 Stat. 3, 356 (Jan. 23, 2004) (fiscal year 2004); Consolidated Appropriations Resolution, 2003, Pub. L. No. 108-7, div. J, title VI, § 626, 117 Stat. 11, 470 (Feb. 20, 2003) (fiscal year 2003); and Treasury and General Government Appropriations Act, 2002, Pub. L. No. 107-67, § 626, 115 Stat. 514, 552 (Nov. 12, 2001) (fiscal year 2002).

The language of these provisions is identical: "No part of any appropriation contained in this or any other Act shall be used for publicity or propaganda purposes within the United States not heretofore authorized by the Congress."

"I think that privatizing Social Security has much more to do with the enormous amount of money that corporate Wall Street poured into the President of the United States's campaign than [helping] senior citizens," Dean said. "[Social Security] was a response toward [overcoming] abject poverty...it is not meant as a retirement program...it was meant as a social safety net for people who had reached the end of their working careers and did not deserve, after a long lifetime of dignified work, to live in poverty. ... It's not supposed to be a pension."

House Democrats say they will force a vote in the House Judiciary Committee to put the Republican majority on the record with regards to investigating discredited White House correspondent Jeff Gannon who allegedly had access to confidential information, including a memorandum naming CIA operative Valerie Plame, RAW STORY has learned.

The procedure, called a Resolution of Inquiry, will be directed to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and departing Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, senior House aides say. Ridge has jurisdiction over the Secret Service, which is responsible for presidential security; Gonzales oversees the FBI, whose databases are used for criminal background checks.

The resolution requests all documents on how Gannon was personally cleared and repeatedly allowed access to the White House, aides tell RAW STORY. It also calls for any information the departments have on White House policies about how an applicant would go about getting clearance in general.

Don't let the growing cadre of dark-suited men in Westfield alarm you. President Bush is appearing at the Westfield Armory Friday morning to discuss Social Security reform, and his Secret Service agents are already showing up.

But his suited guards are probably the most you'll see of the president.

Some 1,500 audience members were hand-picked by the White House, or received invitations doled out by local office-holders and organizations.

Bush has been traveling the country to try to build support for his proposal that would allow workers to put some of their Social Security taxes into private accounts.

Rep. Michael Ferguson (R-7th Dist.), who invited Bush to Westfield, said Friday's event will be "a conversation."

"He wants to speak to, listen to and talk to residents from around the state," Ferguson said.

The lone Democrat on the town's nine-member council objected to a town hall-style meeting being run like a campaign visit, with supporters packing the crowd.

"If the event is being billed as a town hall meeting for the purpose of eliciting views on one of his policy initiatives, there would be an expectation that people having differing views may be in attendance," Councilman Lawrence Goldman said.

But the public "hasn't been informed about how individuals can be selected to attend," Goldman said.

Most of the passes are being given out by the White House, according to Ferguson.

The question I now have concerns those who own, operate and work in the retail drug establishments. What happens if a pharmacist elects not to sell the morning-after pill -- high doses of hormones that can kill the human embryo early, before it implants in the uterus. If over-the-counter sales of the drug become legal, will they be forced to provide it?

Amazingly, pharmacists across the country are already dealing with this issue because they have decided not to fill birth-control pills of any kind. Late last year, CBS News featured one such pharmacist in Louisiana, Lloyd Duplantis.

The Christian Action League recently spoke with Mr. Duplantis about his decision not to fill birth-control prescriptions. We wanted to know how the exposure on CBS News had affected him and his business. Duplantis said he had heard nothing but encouragement for his stand. "The local community has been very supportive," he said. "It's really been quite overwhelming. They seem to understand very clearly my motives are not just religious, although they're religious based, but I'm concerned that these are dangerous chemicals that can kill, maim or destroy either the person taking them or their unborn child."

"This is the same issue that's being raised about VIOXX," Duplantis added. "We don't have an issue with controlling fertility; we are just saying that the pill is destroying people."

Duplantis belongs to an organization known as Pharmacists for Life International, an association of pharmacy professionals that is exclusively pro-life. The organization's motto is: "Let the gift of medicines promote life, not destroy life."

It's unfortunate, but you can believe if Duplantis had received attention on CBS News for refusing to fill a prescription for VIOXX, because he was concerned for a patient's health, he would have been hailed as a national hero. But because he refuses to provide drugs that are dangerous abortifaciants, CBS News portrayed him as an intolerant religious bigot who forces his religious views onto health care.

Duplantis agrees the issue is politically fueled. "I'm raising this issue because it's dangerous, but they're hearing 'birth control, Catholic church, religion,'" he said. "I'm trying to say 'dangerous' while they're saying 'religious fanatic.'"

According to Pharmacists for Life's website, the organization has over 1,600 professional members and hundreds of lay supporters. Pharmacists for Life was birthed in part because of the number of pharmacists who are facing legal action for refusing to fill birth-control pills on the basis of religious and moral objections. With the morning-after pill already on the scene -- and the possibility it may soon become almost as simple to buy as aspirin -- members of the organization are deeply concerned about legal action that may be forthcoming against their colleagues, if they refuse to provide the medication.

For instance, Pharmacists for Life is currently following the case of Neil Noesen, a pharmacist in Wisconsin, who in 2002 worked as an independent contractor at a K-Mart pharmacy and refused to refill a woman's birth-control prescription because it was against his religion. Amazingly, Wisconsin responded by trying to take away Noesen's license to dispense medication in that state.

Because of such cases, and the potential for others like it, Pharmacists for Life is calling for federal and state lawmakers to pass "conscience clause" legislation that would protect the rights of pharmacists who wish to avoid dispensing hormone-containing birth-control pills, which can operate by abortive means -- that is, by taking a human life.

Hillary Clinton made it apparent where she stood on outsourcing during her India visit, in an attempt perhaps to clear the Indian misgivings received during the Kerry campaign. "There is no way to legislate against reality. Outsourcing will continue," she told an audience of Indian big-wigs. She pointed out that there were 3 billion people who feel left behind and are trying to attack the modern world in the hope of turning the clock back on globalization. "It is not far-fetched to imagine ... if the Indian miracle would be the one of choice of those who feel left behind," said Hillary.

Hillary has been at the forefront in defending free trade and outsourcing. During the height of the anti-outsourcing backlash in the US last year, she faced considerable flak for defending Indian software giant Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) for opening a center in Buffalo, New York. "We are not against all outsourcing; we are not in favor of putting up fences," Hillary said firmly, despite inevitably invoking the ire of the anti-free trade brigade.

Hillary further clarified her position during her recent visit as well as solutions that could be beneficial to both countries. She urged Indian industries to invest more in the US to allay negative outpourings over outsourcing of American jobs to India. "I have to be frank. People in my country are losing their jobs and the US policymakers need to address this issue," she said. She ruled out that the anti-India feeling was a reflexive reaction, and explained that the feeling was more because of the imbalance in trade between the two countries, which in turn caused anguish among Americans about the nature of the economic relationship.

"In 2003, US merchandise exports to India was $5 billion, while India exports to the US was $13.8 billion. Though the US understood that the economic vibrancy of India was in its own interest, there are people who feel left behind and might stir up negative feelings against India because they do not understand the economic benefits of outsourcing," Clinton remarked.

"If the feeling was to be arrested, Indian companies should invest more in the US to create a balance in trade relations," she said. Hillary added that she had personally wooed Indian companies to establish partnerships with American counterparts. "In June 2002, TCS partnered with the University of Buffalo to bring patented research to the market place. I would like to see more of such partnerships," she said.

I also saw the Republican National Convention as essentially a hyper-masculine strut-fest. The real point of the convention was to make John Kerry their woman. That’s what they wanted to do. They had already done that with John Edwards by dubbing him the “Breck girl.” And Arnold Schwarzenegger went on to proclaim that any men who were anxious about the loss of jobs under the reign of George W. Bush were, as he put it, “economic girlie-men.” The inference was that Democratic candidates who were always whining about pink slips may as well be wearing pink slips. Real men, you know, don’t worry about the losers in the new global Darwinian economy.

[snip]

BuzzFlash: To cooperate, then, is to give up one’s masculine prerogative to assert oneself as a male leader?

Stephen J. Ducat: Absolutely. In the world they live in, you’re either a top or a bottom. Mutuality, democracy, equality--that makes no sense to them.

BuzzFlash: Well, as Jon Stewart said recently in the context of the John Gannon/Jeff Guckert scandal in Washington, if you’re on top, you’re not gay. That may explain the inner circle acceptance of gays within the Republican Party, in spite of the gay-bashing national political line they give to their followers.

Stephen J. Ducat: The Republican homosexuals are not only honorary heterosexuals; they become honorary homophobes, as the most recent scandal illustrated.

BuzzFlash: Well, you know, Matt Drudge is gay and yet engages in homophobia. Ken Mehlman, who is the head of the RNC, is reportedly gay and was a leader of the homophobic charge. There are numerous Congressman who have been outed and Senators who are known as gay, and yet who stick to the homophobic line. It’s a strange permutation of anxious masculinity, but maybe, as Jon Stewart said, if you’re on top, you’re not gay.

Stephen J. Ducat: He has intuited something that is actually pervasive across cultures and across historical time--that in male-dominant cultures, homosexuality is only taboo when it’s perceived as feminizing. This has its foundation in ancient Greece, where it didn’t really matter who you had sex with. What mattered was what position you occupied in the relationship of domination. If you were a penetrator, you were an unambiguous guy. If you were penetrated, you were virtually a woman. That dynamic operates in American prisons, and it operates in Middle Eastern cultures. It’s really a question of domination.

BuzzFlash: So with Gannon, who said on his web sites, you know, that he was a military guy, a Marine, and always on top, he’s acceptable because he’s a man’s man?

Stephen J. Ducat: Yeah.

BuzzFlash: He’s not penetrated; he penetrates.

Stephen J. Ducat: That’s right. Militarystud.com.

[snip]

Stephen J. Ducat: ...Hillary Clinton has been seen alternately as a castrating woman, the engulfing mother, or a phallic, penetrating woman. Some people may feel I'm kind of going over the top with Freudian metaphors, but I’m not making it up. One of the covers of Spy Magazine actually put a penis on her.

This is why political campaigns work so hard at presenting their male candidates as phallic. But the interesting thing about the phallus as a symbol is that it moves around, unlike the penis, it isn’t really attached. This is something I document in the representations of Bill and Hillary Clinton. For a while, Hillary was literally portrayed as having the phallus. There were cartoons of her using a men’s urinal, and cartoons of her dressed as a man. The Monica Lewinsky scandal was an interesting development precisely because it shifted the phallus from Hillary to Bill. In fact, the popularity of both Bill and Hillary Clinton went up dramatically as a result of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, which may seem kind of paradoxical for some.

A George Rogers Clark High School junior arrested Tuesday for making terrorist threats told LEX 18 News Thursday that the "writings" that got him arrested are being taken out of context.

Winchester police say William Poole, 18, was taken into custody Tuesday morning. Investigators say they discovered materials at Poole's home that outline possible acts of violence aimed at students, teachers, and police.

Poole told LEX 18 that the whole incident is a big misunderstanding. He claims that what his grandparents found in his journal and turned into police was a short story he wrote for English class.

"My story is based on fiction," said Poole, who faces a second-degree felony terrorist threatening charge. "It's a fake story. I made it up. I've been working on one of my short stories, (and) the short story they found was about zombies. Yes, it did say a high school. It was about a high school over ran by zombies."

Even so, police say the nature of the story makes it a felony. "Anytime you make any threat or possess matter involving a school or function it's a felony in the state of Kentucky," said Winchester Police detective Steven Caudill.

Poole disputes that he was threatening anyone.

"It didn't mention nobody who lives in Clark County, didn't mention (George Rogers Clark High School), didn't mention no principal or cops, nothing,"
said Poole. "Half the people at high school know me. They know I'm not that stupid, that crazy."

On Thursday, a judge raised Poole's bond from one to five thousand dollars after prosecutors requested it, citing the seriousness of the charge.

Poole is being held at the Clark County Detention Center.

White supremacist Matthew Hale, 33, who was convicted in April 2004 of soliciting an undercover FBI informant to kill her, is awaiting sentencing on murder solicitation and obstruction of justice.

Prosecutors charged that Hale was angry because Lefkow ruled that he could no longer use the name World Church of the Creator for his group since another organization had a copyright on that name.

Judge Lefkow received police protection after Hale was arrested in 2003, and a spokeswoman for the U.S. Marshal's Service said at Tuesday's news conference that a special protection detail also was assigned to the judge for several weeks last year in response to an unspecified threat. The detail was removed after an investigation, the spokeswoman said.

Hale had become notorious in 1999 when a follower, Benjamin Smith, went on a deadly shooting rampage in Illinois and Indiana. Targeting minorities, Smith killed two people, including former Northwestern University basketball coach Ricky Byrdsong, and wounded nine others before killing himself as police closed in.

Arab bashing reached a new low in Washington last week when Ann Coulter, a loudmouthed, mean-spirited, pro-Bush columnist, decided to defend the White House press pass controversy over faux-reporter James Guckert (a.k.a. Jeff Gannon) by writing in her syndicated column: “Press passes can’t be that hard to come by if the White House allows that old Arab Helen Thomas to sit within yards of the president.”

Thomas, whose Hearst column is distributed by King Features Syndicate, is of Lebanese descent. The former United Press International reporter has been a journalist for nearly 60 years, and has covered every president since John F. Kennedy. She was the first female president of the White House Correspondents Association.

Even her syndicators realized the gaffe. When Coulter’s column was posted on Universal Press Syndicate’s (UPS) website, someone edited out the race-based slur “that old Arab Helen Thomas,” using instead: “that dyspeptic, old Helen Thomas.”

But the “old Arab” reference still appears the column posted on Coulter’s website: www.anncoulter.com/cgi-local/article.cgi.

Coulter was, perhaps, taking a cue from the White House, which has slighted Thomas several times since 2003. During a televised news conference, President George W. Bush deliberately snubbed several reporters he ordinarily calls upon, including journalists from the Washington Post, Newsweek, and USA Today. But the most conspicuous recipient of the Bush freeze-out was Thomas, who has barbed and grilled every president since Kennedy and almost always gets to ask a question. Bush pointedly ignored her.

Bush then dealt Thomas a second slight. By custom, Thomas concludes White House press conferences at the president’s signal by saying, “Thank you, Mr. President.” Bush instead ended the conference with his own sign off, “Thank you for your questions,” and killed a decades-old White House custom. Lastly, she was removed from her front row seat, and delegated to a back seat in the press choir.

Is this treatment due to the fact that Thomas has been critical of the Bush administration? She has condemned the terror-fighting Patriot Act and slammed Bush’s domestic and international policies. She also called the Iraq war “a violation of international policy under any circumstance,” and said it is “immoral.”

But she has never been known to mince her words to any president.

There has been disappointingly little reaction in defense of their colleague by White House journalists.

In an article entitled “Lipstick Fascism,” James Wolcott, a Vanity Fair contributing editor, writes: “I wonder what would happen if a writer, say me, were to refer in a Vanity Fair column to ‘that old Jew Norman Podhoretz’ or, naughtier still, ‘that old Jewess Lucianne Goldberg.’

White House officials are telling Republican lawmakers and allies on K Street that they must begin to overcome opposition to President Bush's proposal for changing Social Security within six weeks, GOP strategists said yesterday.

The GOP strategists stressed that the six-week goal is not a hard deadline for a political breakthrough, but they said the public's tepid view of Social Security change cannot be allowed to continue indefinitely. The directive raises the possibility that Republicans will have to reconsider whether legislation can be passed this year, as Bush wants.

Polls show widespread skepticism of Bush's proposal for creating individual Social Security investment accounts for younger workers, and Democratic lawmakers have voiced nearly uniform opposition. The Washington Post reported over the weekend that some allies of the president are focused on possible split-the-difference deals that would significantly scale back Bush's proposal, yet enable him to claim an incremental victory.

The Treasury Department yesterday announced the formation of a Social Security "war room" and the hiring of three full-time employees to help coordinate and refine the administration's message on the issue. The war room, which the administration is calling the Social Security Information Center, will track lawmakers' remarks to their local news outlets, to help the White House detect signs of Republican concern or Democratic compromise.

The center is to be headed by Mark Pfeifle, an administration veteran who has been a spokesman for the Interior Department and last summer's Republican National Convention. Working with him will be Shannon Burkhart and Jill Willis, both of whom worked on the Bush-Cheney reelection campaign. The three were hired about two weeks ago.

I still want to stop abortions. I'd rather no one had them. But you do that by treating the real cause of abortion, and not abortion itself. Republicans like to say they're the party of personal responsibility, but when it comes to abortion they're only wiling to hold the woman accountable. It takes two to tango. If a pregnant woman knew strong laws existed to force the dad to provide for the mother and child financially, maybe we'd have fewer abortions. But strangely that's not a plank in the Republican Party's platform.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Monday he would move aggressively to prosecute obscenity cases, and he laid out a broader agenda much like that of his predecessor, John Ashcroft.

In his first lengthy address since becoming attorney general in early February, Gonzales said people who distribute obscene materials do not enjoy constitutional guarantees of free speech.

"I am committed to prosecuting these crimes aggressively," he said to a Washington meeting of the California-based Hoover Institution.

The Justice Department is appealing the dismissal of an obscenity case in Pittsburgh in which a federal judge said prosecutors went too far in trying to block the sale of pornographic movies over the Internet and through the mail. The case initially was prosecuted under Ashcroft.

Bush Administration To Require U.S. AIDS Groups Take Pledge Opposing Commercial Sex Work To Gain Funding

[Feb 28, 2005]

The Bush administration is requiring that U.S. HIV/AIDS organizations seeking funding to provide services in other countries make a pledge opposing commercial sex work, and some Republican lawmakers and administration officials are pushing for a similar policy for needle-exchange programs, the Wall Street Journal reports. Under the new policy, even groups whose HIV/AIDS work in other countries has "nothing to do" with commercial sex workers will have to make a written pledge opposing commercial sex work or risk losing federal funding, according to the Journal. In addition, the Bush administration might refuse to fund HIV/AIDS groups that do not accept Bush's "social agenda" on issues such as sexual abstinence and drug use, according to the Journal.

Now, "Million Dollar Boobies": That was NOT the best movie of the year. That was the Champ, the Jackie Coogan, 1930s, gloves, tears, sweat 'n' snot classic, rewritten for a younger female and older male, who exercise their sexless intimacy through broken noses and mercy-killing. It was a solidly good film, but for me, it was like paying $325 a night to stay in a four-star hotel -- Clint, Morgan and Hilary are pretty much the Gold Standard, and if it you can't pull the wagon with those three majestic Clydesdales of the Thespian Craft, it has no wheels. That film had tasteful wallpaper, thick towels, a rose on the bedspread, and no real funk or character. But you can cry a world of hurt while watching that has nothing to do with the film itself, and I think that's why it won: It was cathartic. We're in a lot of collective pain, we're weary and confused, and Clint hit the right release valve. Big Daddy's going to put you out of your misery now, Tiger. You just rest.

In the spring of 2000 Eastwood joined forces with Rep. Mark Foley (R. FL) to support the ADA Notification Act, a bill that would require disabled people to wait yet another 90 days, requiring them to ask a business, nicely, to please make their premises accessible, before suing them under the Americans with Disabilities Act for their lack of access. Since 1992, the federal law has required access. But almost no small businesses have bothered to obey the law.

Yet, according to Eastwood in his media blitz during the spring of 2000, businesses were being picked on by "unscrupulous" lawyers out to make a fast buck.

Eastwood appeared on the talk shows Hardball and Crossfire; he was covered in a Fox News Special. The National Journal quoted him. Columnists covered his comments. Newsweek used the "Mercedes" quote on its "Perspectives" page ("What happens is these lawyers, they come along and they end up driving off in a big Mercedes," Eastwood told reporters, "and the disabled person ends up driving off in a wheelchair."),

He called himself a monster, but in 31 years of hunting the serial killer known as BTK, Wichita police made it clear they were searching for a man who appeared in every way ordinary. On Saturday, they announced they finally had caught him.

Dennis Rader, 59, a church-going family man, a Cub Scout leader, a dog-catcher for the trim suburb of Park City, is in custody on suspicion of torturing and killing seven women, one man and two children from 1974 to 1991 — including two victims linked only this week to BTK.

Authorities would not discuss the specifics of their investigation into BTK. (The "code word" the killer used to describe himself described his method: bind, torture, kill). But they have compared Rader's DNA with the semen that BTK left at several crime scenes.

They said they were confident that Rader was the man who terrorized this industrial city for decades, taunting detectives with poems, word puzzles and boastful letters — including one in which he declared that there was "no help, no cure" for his sadism, "except death or being caught and put away."

"Bottom line: BTK is arrested," Wichita Police Chief Norman Williams said at a news conference Saturday morning. "Doggone it, we did it."

[snip]

Although some of his neighbors said he was friendly — and he was well-respected enough to serve as president of his church council— others called him mean and arrogant. "He wore a badge and would swagger around the street like he was above the law. I always considered him a bully," said James Reno, 42, who has lived across the street from Rader for more than a decade.

[snip]

They all have questions they'd like to ask: How did he pick his victims? Why did he claim credit for some murders and not for others? Why did he start communicating with police again after 25 years of silence?

One question that they do not need to ask is how he eluded capture for so long.

"We always said he was invisible because he was most likely so ordinary," said Smith, the retired detective. "As it turned out, he was exactly ordinary. He went to work. He went to church. He went to Boy Scouts. He did family things. Just an ordinary guy."