Three small-town eighth-graders in Minnesota were suspended by their principal for not standing Thursday morning for the Pledge o Allegiance, violating a district policy that the principal now say may soon be rewarded to protect free speech rights.

The head of the Minnesota American Civil Liberties Union said that the school’s actions against the students are unconstitutional and his office has informed the district of that today in a strongly worded letter. “The school can’t do that; that’s illegal, “said Chuck Samuelson, the civil liberties group executive director. “Wow.”

Samuelson said that numerous U.S. Court rulings dating back to the 1940s say in “well-settled constitutional law” that students who refuse to participate in the pledge cannot be punished for refusing to participate.” STORY>>>

Anna Jarvis was never married and never had a child. But, like all of us, she had a mother. As a child, Anna sat through a Sunday School series where her mother taught on the subject, “Mothers of the Bible.” At The close of the series she heard her mother pray: “I hope someone, sometime will found a memorial day commemorating her for the matchless service she renders to humanity in every field of life. She is entitled to it.”

After her mother died in 1905, Anna Channeled her grief in a constructive manner to fulfill her mothers prayer. She launched a nationwide effort to establish an annual day for honoring mothers. In 1908, Mothers Day became a fixture in most states.

The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that there are 83 million mothers in the United States. The number of single-mother households has tripled to more than 10 million since 1970. ARTICLE>>>

BERLIN, GERMANY — A Soviet soldier heroically waves the red flag, the hammer and sickle billow above the Reichstag. Yevgeny Khaldei photographed one of the iconic images of the 20th century. But the legendary image was manipulated to conceal the fact that the Soviet soldiers were looting. An exhibition of Khaldei’s work opens in Berlin this week.

It was early on the morning of May 2, 1945 and Yevgeny Khaldei had gone to the Reichstag, the German parliament building in the center of Berlin. Three hours earlier the last German commander left in the capital had capitulated, but there was still sporadic fighting going on. Khaldei had his Leica camera with him–and a Soviet flag. MORE>>>>>

DENVER (cbs4) — A man ran through a third-floor window of the Denver City & County Building Wednesday morning as he was set to appear before a judge on assault charges. he was handcuffed at the time and fell to the ground below.

Witnesses said Josephus Haynes, 43, landed on his head. STORY>>>

By 2035, there will be about 1.96 million active Muslims in Britain, compared with 1.63 million church-going Christians, according to calculations by Christian Research, a think-tank. The think-tank has warned that 4,000 churches could close by 2020 if congregations continue to shrink at current rates. MORE>>>

A young women was attacked, brutally beaten, raped, sodomized, robbed, left bound and gagged, bleeding to death, naked and unconscious in Central Park, Manhattan by a group of blacks and Latinos out on a night of, what was then casually referred to as “wilding.” The victim was not expected to survive. She did, but was permanently damaged. When the trial began, the victim needed protection, in part because of the media circus, that was obvious, but what was not, was that the “jogger” and the prosecution had been threatened with violence, even death. Whenever the prosecutor (Elizabeth Lederer) crossed the street from her office to the courtroom she had to run a gauntlet of protesters who insisted it was a racist trial, the white establishment against blacks; they threatened her life constantly, yelling threats and obscenities and spitting at her. The year was 1989.

The following site provides many more details. PRESS HERE>>>>

CENTRAL PARK JOGGER: THE HEALING CONTINUES — (April 19, 2008) — (WCCO) Nineteen years ago this week the story of a New York woman broke the hearts of Americans and outraged a nation that was fed up with senseless violent crime. The Central Park jogger’s real name was Trisha Meili. She was savagely raped. Suffering numerous injuries, including severe brain injury, Meili was in a coma for nearly two weeks. “I (still) have some physical deficits like no sense of smell and some double vision,” Meili said. MORE>>>

Brewski. Suds. Cold one. Pint. Cerveza. Call it what you will, beer may well be the world’s most traditional beverage. First brewed in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia over 8,000 years ago, it rates a mention in the epic of Gilgamesh, and its earliest chemical traces — from 3500 BC –have been found in the Godin Tepe in the Zagros mountains in present day Iran.

On Wednesday, Germans mark their own contribution to the history of beer, the Reinheitsgebot, or purity law, which strictly regulated the price and ingredients of beer at the start of the 16th century.

Brought forth by Duke Wilhelm IV in the Bavarian city of Ingolstadt in 1516, the law stated: “In all cities, markets and in the country, the only ingredients used for the brewing of beer must be Barley, Hops and Water. Whosoever knowingly disregards or transgresses upon this ordinance, shall be punished by the Court authorities’ confiscating such barrels of beer, without fail.” STORY>>>

New York, April 23 (UPI) — Experts on crime and punishment say the United States has the harshest sentences and the most prisoners of any country in the World. Records kept at King’s College in London reveal that with 2.3 million people behind bars, the United States has almost a quarter of the world’s prisoners even though it has less than 5 percent of the population, The New York Times reported Wednesday.(nytimesArticle>>)

China, which has four times as many citizens, is a distant second to the United States with 1.6 million prisoners, the report said. Finish Article>>>

A 5-by-5 foot trolley resembling those used by mechanics to slide under cars was put to a very different use over the weekend. Border Patrol agents spotted it resting between two support beams in the underbelly of the Bridge of the Americas during a routine check Sunday afternoon.

The agents Sunday also found a man, lying on top of one of the beams over the eastbound lanes of the Border Highway, near the cart. They brought him down with the help of the El Paso Fire Department.

Fingerprint checks found he was a sex offender registered in Dade County, Fla. and that he had been deported from the United States. MORE>>>

PENTAGON (AP) — A top military officer says the Army’s “stop-loss” program will remain in place at least until the fall of next year. Lieutenant General James Thurman, the deputy chief of staff for Army operations, says he hopes to see demand for troops drop enough by the fall of 2009 that the controversial program will end.

Thurman says there are currently 12,000 troops who have been forced to stay in the service beyond their retirement or re-enlistment dates. Critics call “stop-loss” a “backdoor draft.” SOURCE>>>

A group of German politicians cut their visit to the West Bank short due to threats from Jewish settlers. Israel should curb the fanaticism of Jewish settlers, said the delegation. The committee members had said that Israeli security forces were unwilling to intervene when Hebron residents began hurling insults and threats at them and that their visit could not be continued.

“Many of us lost German roots and family members during the holocaust,” said David Wilder, (spokesman for the Jewish community). “When Germans come to Hebron, they should at least meet with members of the community.”

Jerzy Montag (a parliamentarian for the German Green Party) called this a “grotesque twisting of the truth.” he said he was willing to talk with the settlers, but not after being insulted and threatened. SOURCE>>>

Almost two-thirds of people in Britain fear race relations are so poor tensions are likely to spill over into violence, a BBC poll has suggested. Of tho 1,000 people asked, 60% said the UK had too many immigrants and half wanted foreigners encouraged to leave.

Equality and Human Rights Commission head Trevor Phillips said the findings were “alarming.” SOURCE>>>

PHILADELPHIA — Pennsylvania sportsmen aren’t “bitter” about their guns and balk at what they call Sen. Barack Obama’s double-talk in courting their support. In a state that boasts one of the country’s highest per capita rates of membership in the National Rifle association (NRA) , Mr. Obama’s stance that Second Amendment gun rights are compatible with new tough gun laws falls flat.

And it didn’t help when he said the state’s “bitter” small-town voters hurt by the economy were not supporting him because they “cling” to religion, guns and anti-immigrant views. MORE>>>>

The investigation into the polygamist sect has drawn some comparisons to another controversial church raided by federal agents 15 years ago. Paster Charles Pace walked CBS 42 through the churchyard turned graveyard where as many as 80 people died when a 51-day standoff with federal agents culminated in a fiery blaze. “To go in and take 416 children, that’s ridiculous. I mean, were they all being abused? That’s what they’re going to have to find out now. I don’t think it’s fair. I don’t think the government has a right to do that. They came in here too defending the children, but they ended up killing them,” Pace said. STORY>>>

THE DAVIDIAN RAID 15 YEARS LATER (OPINION)

APRIL 19th will mark the fifteenth anniversary of one of America’s most shameful events: the murders of dozens of helpless victims, including two pregnant women and twenty -one children, at the Branch Davidian compound assault in 1993. While at the time the FBI repeatedly insisted, even under oath, that they used no incendiary devices nor fired any gunshots, overwhelming evidence since the raid has proven that the FBI and BATF were directly responsible not only for the destruction of the Davidian buildings, but also for shooting unarmed Davidians, then using their official positions to conceal and destroy evidence of their crimes. READ MORE>>

LONDON, U.K. — A father has described his anger after he and his son were refused entry to their local swimming pool because they weren’t Muslims. David Toube and Harry, five, were turned away by staff from the men-only session.

“I asked whether my son and I could go as we were both male. I was told that the session was for Muslims only and that we could not be admitted.”

The council has now admitted that workers at Clissold Leisure Centre in Hackney, north London, made a mistake and offered the family an apology. SOURCE>>>

U.S.A. — AS THE VALUE OF THE U.S. dollar declines, investing in U.S. defense firms becomes more attractive to foreign companies. That worries Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calf., who fears more foreign ownership will mean more pilfered defense technology secrets.

“We’ve got people with lots of cash” in the rest of the world and American companies “that are desperate for cash.” The increase of foreign entities buying U.S. defense companies “is going to be a problem for years to come,” Hunter said.

It’s not as bad as it was two years ago, said Kathy Watson, director of the DEFENSE SECURITY SERVICE. But improvements are coming slowly. The DSS is a little-known agency within the Defense Department that determines which companies qualify for access to classified information. It awards clearances to company officials and evaluates “foreign ownership, control or influence over U.S. defense companies. SOURCE>>>>>>>

Guadalupe, Arizona — An Illegal immigrant has been arrested on suspicion of raping and kidnapping a 15-year-old girl at her Guadalupe home, Maricopa County sheriff’s deputies said. The MCSO Special Victims Unit arrested Jose Dolores Montoya sanchez, 24. MORE>>>

Senator Obama counts among the writers who have influenced his thinking two giants of Jewish American letters, Saul Bellow and Philip Roth. The Democratic presidential hopeful shared his admiration for the two authors yesterday at a meeting with Philadelphia-area Jewish leaders, addressing the crowd from the bima as his campaign passed out buttons with the candidate’s name spelled in Hebrew letters, according to a pool report released by the campaign.

…he went out of his way to accent his support for the Jewish state. For the first time, he pledged explicitly that if he won the presidency he would appoint an ambassador to the United Nations who would veto any anti-Semitic resolutions against Israel. “Part of the task, I think, of the United States and part of–part of the leadership I think I can prove is, I think I can be a powerful voice on the world stage in saying, ‘Let’s stop with the nonsense with respect to Israel,” he said. FULL ARTICLE>>>

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — Henry Carroll got into trouble with the county when he agreed to look after his son Adam’s two dogs. Carroll’s son is overseas fighting in Iraq. The soldier is scheduled to return home in December, and his father says he is determined to make sure that when his son returns from his tour of duty, the dogs are waiting for him.

Carroll already had three dogs of his own. With five dogs, the county said he had two dogs too many.

Carroll got the army to write a letter saying two of the dogs belonged to his son, but county officials didn’t buy it. They said, “Since Adam didn’t sign it, it really might not be valid because it was signed by his platoon leader.” STORY>>>

Art major Aliza Shvarts ‘08 wants to make a statement.

Beginning next Tuesday, Shvarts will be displaying her senior art project, a documentation of a nine-month process during which she artificially inseminated herself “as often as possible” while periodically taking abortifacient drugs to induce miscarriages. Her exhibition will feature video recordings of these forced miscarriages as well as preserved collections of the blood from the process. MORE>>>

The initial logo of the Information Awareness Office of the Pentagon was an all-seeing eye fixed on the world. The office’s purpose was to fight terrorism by creating and integrating technologies that would allow for the “total information awareness” of all electronic data generated domestically. That data include Americans’ personal information in areas such as finances, travel and communications. It would then be sifted to find suspicious patterns. The program never got off the ground — or so we thought.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported the data-mining effort was merely shifted to the National Security Agency, a sprawling yet highly secret part of the federal government whose mission is to spy internationally.

According to the Journal, the spy agency now monitors “huge volumes of records of domestic e-mails and Internet searches as well as bank transfers, credit-card transactions, travel and telephone records. “This information is analyzed by computer programs to look for anomalous patterns that could be used for terrorism leads. Apparently, none of it has been done with a court order or judicial oversight. ARTICLE>>>

In a recent interview, Alicia Keys revealed her conspiracy theory that blames the creation of gangsta rap music on the U.S. government. In the May issue of Blender magazine - which hits stores tomorrow (April 15) - the Grammy award winning star said she believes the government created gangsta rap as a “ploy to convince black people to kill each other.

Keys also said the government perpetuated the bi-costal hip-hop feud that snuffed the lives of rap greats Tupac and the Notorious B.I.G. , “to stop another great black leader from existing.” This is the side of the artist fans haven’t really seen.The side that sports a gold AK-47 charm around her neck which says symbolizes, “strength, power, and killing ‘em dead.” SOURCE>>>

A PAST association with a former terrorist has returned to haunt Barack Obama as the battle for the democratic presidential nomination nears its end game. Republicans are turning on Obama for his connection with William Ayers, once a member of the Weather Underground, a terrorist group that bombed the Capital, the Pentagon and the State Department in the 1970s.

Two police officers were killed in 1981, when members of the Weatherman and Black Liberation Army stole $1m from an amoured car. It was their last action.

Ayers, 63, turned himself in to police that year, when charges against him were dropped because of mishandled FBI surveillance. He is now a professor of education at the University of Illinois in Chicago and is admired in progressive political and educational circles. FULL STORY>>>

A Texas sergeant and his son recently found themselves separated not only by an eight-hour time difference, several bodies of water, thousands of miles and a war, but by a high school official who suspended the boy for answering his dad’s call during class.

Cove High School in Texas, where half the students have at least one parent deployed, justified the punishment against Branden Hill by saying he had violated the no-cell phone policy when he took the call from his father, who is serving in Iraq. SOURCE>>>

The Academic General by Charley Reese

I mean no disrespect, but Gen. David Petraeus is overrated. I don’t for a second question his intelligence, patriotism or courage. He just has had the misfortune of coming along at a time when the Pentagon hands out generals’ stars and decorations like Mardi Gras beads.

He has medals (commonly called a “fruit salad”) from his collarbone almost to his bellybutton, yet he has seen very, very little combat. If you read his resume, he has been mostly a desk jockey. Again, the medals aren’t his fault. The politicians in Washington, those in and those out of uniform, have cheapened them all by too generously handing them out for too little in the way of accomplishments.

..Last week, he went before the sycophants in Congress, resplendent with four stars and all his medals, telling them that when the Iraqi army is trained and able to take over … WHOA! Stop the tape. How long have we been hearing this? No army in the world has been trained longer than the Iraqi army. If Iraqi soldiers don’t take the field pretty soon, they will all be too old. READ ARTICLE>>>>>>>>>

GERMANY’S Sinti and Roma Community (Gypsies) is up in arms over soccer fan paraphernalia, particularly scarves, printed with insulting slogans used by the Nazis. They’ve demanded that eBay remove the items immediately.

The offensive fan paraphernalia, available on eBay’s German and Austria auction sites, contains the phrase, “Zick Zack Zigeunerpack” one of several slurs chanted by far-right soccer fans. Stemming from the Nazi era, the slogan refers to the Roma minority as “Gypsy scum.” STORY>>>

WAR IN IRAQ By Bob Finch

There is no such thing as an American empire. America does not have an empire. On the contrary, America has become part of the Jewish empire which dictates America’s domestic and foreign policies. The policies that America is pursuing in the middle east have nothing to do with America’s national interests — on the contrary, over the last four decades it has been forced to fight the wars on behalf of its Jewish master.

READ MORE>>>

In a sit down interview with the “gay” magazine the Advocate, Sen. Barack Hussein Obama shares his views on important and pressing issues such as transgender lifestyles and homosexuality.

ARTICLE>>>

Five years ago, the US government presented what it said was proof that Iraq harbored biological weapons. The information came from a source developed by German intelligence — and it turned out to be disastrously wrong. But to this day Germany denies any responsibility.

If your looking to hide out from the rest of the world, the grayish white residential block in this southern German city would be a good place to be. Six families live here, most of them with children, and the building blends inconspicuously into the dull suburban skyline. A green toy tractor is parked out front, the bicycles have baby trailers, one of them complete with an American flag fluttering in the breeze. On a mailbox hanging outside the building’s entrance, the name Rafed has been scrawled in pale green handwriting — difficult to read , but decipherable from up close. FULL STORY>>>

A leading U.S. civil rights organization says anti-immigrant sentiment is fueling a nationwide increase in hate groups and hate crimes against Latinos.

A new report says 888 hate groups operated in the United States last year, an increase of 48 percent since 2000. It cites FBI statistics showing a 35 percent increase in reported anti-Latino hate crimes between 2003 and 2006. The report says the increase is linked to anti-immigrant activism.

The report’s co-author Mark Potok says a large increase in anti-immigration groups appeared in the southern border states of California, Arizona and Texas, where illegal immigration is a volatile political issue.

Among the largest categories of hate groups cataloged in the report are neo-Nazi and White Nationalist organizations, racist skinheads, Ku Klux Klan groups, black separatists and general hate groups, including anti-gay organizations. ARTICLE>>>

I must confess I lose patience with groups who try to cure ills in life and in movies with hollow slogans. I lose patience with those who utter or give credence to clever, nice-sounding ideas or concepts while patting themselves on the back for residing on the side of the angels.

“No Child Left Behind” comes to mind. So does the famous (or infamous) Nancy Reagan plea to “Just Say No” to drugs. These kind of slogans only serve to remind us that in times of crisis, empty words replace or obfuscate real panaceas, most which take millions that an administration is not willing to spend.

Alas, in America, where we are by nature comitted to a standard of artificial cheerfulness, we bring so much pain upon ourselves by assuming that the family across the street or in the Disney movie is so gosh-darn happy, while we suffer with an unpleasant secret.

The bumper sticker “Hate Is Not a Family Value” may be stating the universal ideal, but it is not a family reality. Indeed, temporary hate is quite a common emotion in many families, and I hasten to add that there are countless situations in which “hate” is a necessary path to a deeper, more lasting and more valuable kind of love. ARTICLE>>>

When U.S. officials announce the arrest of a notorious arms dealer and drug-runner this afternoon, the fact that his planes flew U.S. supply missions in Iraq will likely go unmentioned.

Intelligence officials had considered Mr Bout one of the greatest threats to U.S. interests, in the same league as al Qaeda kingpin Osama bin Laden. Interpol had issued a warrant for his arrest; the United Nations Security Council had restricted his travel.

But that did not stop U.S. government contractors paying Bout-controlled firms roughly $60 million to fly supplies into Iraq in support of the U.S. war effort, according to a book released last year by two reporters who investigated Bout. And it didn’t prevent the U.S. military from giving Bout millions of dollars in free airplane fuel while they were flying U.S. supply flights. ARTICLE>>>

“It all depends on whose bull is being gored”

The first paragraph of an article in The Jan. 2 Pocono Record caught my attention. “A mob torched a church where hundreds had sought refuge Tuesday, and witnesses said dozens of people — including children — were burned alive.”

My immediate thoughts were: the Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms has done it again. Referring of course to when, in February 1993, that rogue department instigated the incineration of 82 civilians, including dozens of innocent mothers and their babies at Waco, Texas, while expert sniper Lon Horiuchi was posted at the rear of that compound to shoot any man, woman or child attempting to escape. This was the same sniper that in another BATF rogue operation at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in August 1992 shot Vicky Weaver in the head as she was holding her 10-month-old daughter, Elisheba, in her arms.

Fortunately, this present day massacre occurred on foreign soil, Nairobi, Kenya. FINISH ARTICLE>>>

Americans fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan already have it tough. They don’t need the presidents lawyers fighting them too.

Roadside bombs are ripping apart U.S. soldiers and marines. Snipers ambush patrols and kill young men and women. Troops must now spend 15 months in the crosshairs of death under tour extensions ordered because the military is under the strain. Thousands of civilian-soldiers are serving a third and forth tour overseas, because this president ordered National Guard troops into combat for the first time since the Korean war. In six years more than 1.5 million Americans have served in either Iraq or Afghanistan. Over 4,400 Americans are dead and more than 28,000 suffer lifetime physical wounds.

A soldier who starts on patrol may finish it as a veteran, airlifted home given a stack of complicated forms for medical care while military officials demand repayment of signing bonus paid out upon reenlistment. Even when an issue like mental health services catches fire, this president believes he alone is empowered to subvert overwhelming will over the congress. ARTICLE>>>

Veterans have no legal right to specific types of medical care, the Bush administration argues in a lawsuit accusing the government of illegally denying mental health treatment to some troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

The suit accuses the Veterans Administration of arbitrarily denying care and benefits to wounded veterans, of forcing them to wait months for treatment and years for benefits, and of failing to provide fair procedures for appealing decisions against them. The plaintiffs say that the department has a backlog of more than 600,000 disability claims and that 120 veterans a week commit suicide. MORE>>>

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