DA John T. Adams of Berks County accepted $500 campaign contributions from the Flyers Victory Fund in August 2008 and August 2009, according to campaign finance reports issued by both the Pennsylvania Department of State and the Berks County Registrar of Voters.

Johnna Seeton, a certified humane society police officer for the Pennsylvania Legislative Animal Network (PLAN), says she documented what she believed were acts of animal cruelty at a pigeon shoot on Sunday, Oct. 18, 2009, sponsored by the Pike Township Sportsman’s Association near Oley, about 55 miles northwest of Philadelphia. Seeton had gone to the shoot, but had to watch the killings from public roads and driveways of nearby residents who had given her permission.

Typically, at a pigeon shoot, one bird is confined to a small box about 25–30 yards in front of the firing line. The birds are released from the spring-loaded boxes known as “traps,” and the shooter fires at five separately released birds in five separate rounds, as if firing at clay pigeons in a trap or skeet shoot. Each shooter tries to kill a total of 25 birds, each falling within a designated circle, for a perfect score. The birds, when first released from the boxes, are often dazed and confused, sometimes by lack of adequate nutrition or confinement in small cages before the shoot and within the closed box during the shoot. As many as three-fourths of all birds, according to investigators from the Humane Society of the United States, are not killed instantly, but are wounded, usually to die slow and painful deaths. At the Pikeville shoot were two separate fields, each with nine boxes that were refilled during the day. About 1,000–1,500 birds became targets. At the “state shoot” on Feb. 20 and 21, about 75–90 persons fired shotgun pellets at about 5,000 birds that were released from 27 boxes on three separate shooting fields.

The wounded or dead birds are picked up by trapper boys and girls, usually 12–16 years old, put into nets and taken to a shed, where their heads are cut off with shears. Sometimes, the trappers just wring their necks, sometimes hours after the bird is wounded. Even then, many live long enough to suffocate from being thrown into barrels. The carcasses are usually thrown into the garbage. Although most pigeon shooters claim they are ridding the state of “vermin,” calling them “winged rats,” the reality is that most of the birds are raised to be shot, captured, or brought in from out of state specifically for the shoots. The largest broker for pigeon shoots lives in Strausstown, Pa., about 30 miles northwest of Oley.

The shooters, who must be at least 12 years old, pay entry fees; many of them place illegal side bets. Drinking is common at pigeon shoots.

Pennsylvania is the only state where live pigeon shoots are still openly practiced. “Live pigeon shoots are similar to cockfighting or dog fighting, where it is largely an underground circuit of the same people who follow it around,” says Heidi Prescott, senior vice-president of the 11.6 million member Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). The Pennsylvania Council of Churches, in opposing pigeon shoots, declared, “[T]he use of live animals for target practice in a contest does not honor the integrity of God’s good creation.”

Johnna Seeton says she returned to the Pike Township site two days after the pigeon shoot, and found live wounded birds, which she took to a veterinarian for treatment. “Some had to be euthanized because of extensive injuries,” she says. Necropsies showed that pellets had hit vital organs, but the birds lived, often in extreme pain, for as many as two days. Birds that fall outside club property typically die from the pellets hitting vital organs, broken bones, internal hemorrhaging, nerve damage, or from infection, starvation, dehydration, or external parasite attacks. Seeton says she was able to rescue some because they fell onto public property. She had no legal authority to rescue the dying birds on the club’s private property.

Seeton had filed three separate animal cruelty citations with District Judge Victor Frederick IV on Dec. 10, 2009, against the Pike Township Sportsmen’s Association, charging it with animal cruelty. Four days later, she says Adams called her, said that he reviewed the charges, and said he would not allow her to prosecute the case, nor would he allow anyone else to prosecute the case.

In a 20 minute conversation, the DA demanded Seeton withdraw charges, citing what he believed were court precedents that would prohibit the filing of charges against organizers of pigeon shoots. Gordon Einhorn, Harrisburg, attorney, for the Pennsylvania Legislative Animal Network, then contacted Adams to try to understand why the DA wouldn’t allow the complaint, and to explain Pennsylvania law and relevant precedent. “It was somewhat of a heated discussion,” says Einhorn.

Adams says the law “is quite specific that pigeon shoots do not constitute cruelty to animals and that organizers of pigeon shoots do not have to have a veterinarian to care for wounded birds.” Adams, who is not a hunter, says he has no position about pigeon shoots, but that, “Although I sympathize with [those who oppose the pigeon shoots], their anger is misplaced; they must contact the Legislature” for recourse. Adams says his office can “only enforce the law; we cannot make it.” Adams, says Seeton, said that his decision not to allow prosecution and allow the court or a jury to determine the merits of the case, was final. “I wasn’t challenging the legality of pigeon shoots,” says Seeton, “only the animal cruelty for allowing wounded birds to die slow painful deaths.” On Jan. 13, 2010, in response to Adams’ demands, DJ Victor Frederick refused to allow Seeton to proceed with her charges. He withdrew the charges in front of an assistant district attorney.

To support his refusal to allow prosecution of the animal cruelty complaint, Adams cites a decision in the Berks County Court of Common Pleas in April 2002 [Seeton v. Pike Township Sportsmen's Association], which he says established that pigeon shoots are legal, and that recourse is through legislation. However, the ruling by Common Pleas Court Judge Scott E. Lash wasn’t a decision, but only a judicial memorandum to a motion for a preliminary injunction, and was not based upon evidence presented in trial. The Memorandum was the result of an appeal of a decision two months earlier. The opinion by Judge Lash was rendered before the Plaintiff had the opportunity to conduct discovery, present evidence, and examine witnesses. Because the case is still pending, and never received a final judgment, it cannot be used as legal precedent, says Einhorn. In that Memorandum, Judge Lash, who several times referred to any individual shooting at birds in a pigeon shoot as a “sportsman,” determined that there was no intent to wound birds and, thus, not a violation of the state law. He cited an 1891 case [Commonwealth v. Lewis] in which the appellant judge ruled that “the defendant has merely been punished for want of skill” by only wounding, not killing, pigeons at a shoot at the Philadelphia Gun Club in Eddington, Bucks County. That appeal had reversed a trial court case four years earlier, in which Judge Harman Yerkes had called pigeon shooting “cruel and barbarous” and a violation of animal abuse statute. However, in that reversal, the presiding judge ruled that there was no animal cruelty because the wounded bird was immediately killed.

An 1860 state law declared that animal cruelty is an “offense against public morals and decency.” However, Adams claims that pigeon shoots do not constitute a violation of Title 18, section 5511(c), the Cruelty to Animals statute. That statute, within the Pennsylvania Crimes Code, states that a person is guilty of animal cruelty if he or she “wantonly or cruelly ill treats, overloads, beats, otherwise abuses any animal, or neglects any animal as to which he has a duty of care, whether belonging to himself or otherwise, or abandons any animal, or deprives any animal of necessary sustenance, drink, shelter or veterinary care, or access to clean and sanitary shelter which will protect the animal against inclement weather and preserve the animal’s body heat and keep it dry.” Seeton says the Pike Township Sportsmen’s Association violated several provisions of that statute. The penalty for animal cruelty, a summary offense, is a fine of $50–$750 and/or up to 90 days in jail.

In 1980, the Court of Common Pleas for Monroe County ruled that persons are in violation of the animal cruelty statute if they fail to assist an animal when they “know or reasonably should know that [they have] conceivably injured [the animal." [Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Fabian]. In 1995, the Pennsylvania Superior Court determined that the manner in which injured pigeons are treated could constitute a violation of the Animal Abuse law [Mohler v. Labor Day Committee]. A Pennsylvania Superior Court decision in 2003 established that persons violate the animal cruelty statute when they commit “acts or conduct which cause pain and suffering [including] acts of omission, neglect, and the like, whereby the same kind of suffering is caused or permitted [and are] done recklessly and without regard to the consequences.” [Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Simpson].

Seeton’s charges are that the birds are usually neglected and left wounded for long periods of time. Under existing animal cruelty law, says Einhorn, “it is clear that pigeons are covered.” Nevertheless, Judge Lash in his Memorandum had determined, possibly against existing state law, that the presence of a veterinarian to treat wounded birds or to humanely euthanize those who had no hope of recovery was “impractical,” “unworkable,” and its cost was “prohibitive.”

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court, in Hulsizer v. Labor Day Committee (1999), specifically noted that at the pigeon shoot in Hegins in Schuylkill County, at that time the largest in the nation, pigeons suffered slow and painful deaths and that severely wounded birds were not given veterinary care nor were euthanized in a humane method. The Court stated the Plaintiff’s view that pigeon shoots are “cruel and moronic.” The Court did not specifically rule that pigeon shoots were illegal. However, the Court set precedent by deciding that humane society officers had authority to pursue abuse charges against all state pigeon shoots.

Although the district attorney of Berks County refused to allow prosecution of animal cruelty charges, Dauphin County District Attorney Ed Marsico, whose jurisdiction includes the state capital of Harrisburg, had no similar problem with the intent of the state’s animal cruelty laws. On March 11, in the court of District Justice Rebecca Margarum of Elizabethville, Seeton filed 23 separate charges against the Erdman Sportsmen’s Association for a pigeon shoot on June 7, 2009. She cited violation of section 5511(c), the same section she used in her complaint against the Pikeville club. Marsico, says Seeton, “not only allowed the filing but also supported it.”

Over the past two decades, several bills to ban pigeon shoots have been written by state legislators; none have passed. The House of Representatives in 1994 voted 99–93 to ban the shoot, but needed 102 votes for passage. Several other attempts to ban pigeon shoots have been blocked by House or Senate leadership or were allowed to die in committees. Forty-seven current state senators and representatives, between 2004 and the end of 2009, received $45,685 in campaign funds from the Flyers Victory Fund and the NRA Political Victory Fund, according to records of the Pennsylvania Department of State. During those years, the Flyers and the NRA campaign committees donated a total of $62,394 to 64 candidates or legislators. Rep. John M. Perzel (R-Philadelphia), House speaker from April 2003 to January 2007, received $3,500 from the NRA Political Victory Fund in 2005 and 2006. The 14 current House and Senate leaders received $14,500. H. William DeWeese (D-Greene, and parts of Fayette and Washington counties) received $9,000 from the NRA Political Victory Fund; DeWeese was House speaker 1993–1994, Democratic leader 1995–2006 and majority leader, 2007–2008. Both Perzel and DeWeese have been instrumental in blocking legislation to prohibit live pigeon shoots.

The current bills [H.R. 1411 and S.B. 843] are stalled in committee. Despite strong co-sponsor support, bills to ban live pigeon shoots have not received a vote in more than a decade, although leaders in both the House and the Senate have repeatedly promised to bring it to the floor. “This bill is an imaginary boogieman in the minds of a few legislators,” says Heidi Prescott of the HSUS. She believes “no legislator is going to lose their job for voting to end a very cruel practice with only a handful of supporters.” The cost to the Commonwealth, says Prescott “is probably a lot more to block the bill than to finally get rid of this very cruel, pitiless practice.” Prescott has been personally active for more than 20 years in her opposition to what she calls “barbaric and cruel,” but which crowds who attend pigeon shoots believe is “entertainment,” and the shooters call a “sport.”

Killing trapped pigeons isn’t a sport, according to the International Olympic Committee, which banned pigeon shooting after its only appearance in the 1900 Olympics. The reason why pigeon shooting isn’t recognized as a sport was best explained by the IOC. “It’s cruelty,” it said after thinking about the Olympics’ only bloody “sport.” Great Britain banned live pigeon shoots it in 1921, and most countries now ban the practice. Jerry Feaser, spokesman for the Pennsylvania Game Commission, agrees that pigeon shooting isn’t sport. Pigeon shoots, he told the Philadelphia Inquirer in December 2007, “are not what we would classify as fair-chase hunting,” nor are pigeons considered to be wild animals. In the Seeton v. Pike Township Sportsmen’s Association case, the Court had thrown out the Defendant’s argument that the “hunting exception” to the animal cruelty statute was an acceptable defense against animal cruelty. Four years later, in Covington Township v. Moscow Sportsmen’s Club, the Court of Common Pleas for Lackawanna County granted a preliminary injunction requested by township officials, and reaffirmed the belief that pigeons are not “game birds,” and did not fall within the hunting exception to the statute. Former State Sen. Roy Afflerbach, a lifelong sportsman who began hunting as a child, and who introduced the first Senate bill to prohibit live pigeon shoots, says “launching birds or animals from traps in front of awaiting shooters, who wound more animals than they kill, is not hunting; the hunters I know think it is nothing more than a slob blood-fest and a black eye to the image of hunting.”

There were about two dozen shoots since Sept. 5, 2009, at the Pikeville and Wing Pointe gun clubs in Berks County, and one at Erdman in Dauphin County, with one more scheduled for June 6. The Philadelphia Gun Club in Eddington (Bucks County) began hosting pigeon shoots again last year after township officials had issued a cease and desist order in May 2002, citing violations of both a township ordinance and the state law against cruelty to animals. However, in 2008, in violation of the cease and desist order, the Gun Club held another shoot. Wounded birds landed on neighbors’ property or in the Delaware River. Charges were filed against Leo A. Holt, club president, but were withdrawn in March 2009 under a “gentleman’s agreement” that the club would no long conduct pigeon shoots. The club has routinely violated that agreement. Holt, his brothers Thomas Jr. and Michael, their father, Thomas Sr., and Thomas Jr’s wife, Angela, contributed $53,300 in campaign funds to members and candidates of the Legislature between 2004 and the end of 2009, including $16,500 to House Speaker John M. Perzel between 2005 and 2008, according to records of the Pennsylvania Department of State.

There may be absolutely no cause-and-effect relationship between donations to Adams’ campaign and his stand on permitting live pigeon shoots. However, animal cruelty will probably continue to be a part of the culture of Berks County, at least as long as John T. Adams is the DA.

[Walter M. Brasch, Ph.D., is professor of mass communications and journalism at Bloomsburg University. He is an award-winning social issues columnist and the author of 17 books. He first began covering Pennsylvania's pigeon shoots in 1993. You may contact him through his website, www.walterbrasch.com]

Up to two feet of snow hit the Mid-Atlantic and New England states last week, the second storm within two weeks. Wind gusts of up to 50 miles an hour and temperatures in the 20s created severe wind chill and extreme hazardous driving conditions. Pennsylvania ordered all commercial trucks off many of its major highways and Interstates. Schools and colleges throughout the Northeast cancelled classes, many for two days.

We were warned that this would be a severe storm, because days before we received minute-by-minute predictions from TV weather persons. The snow will be two feet deep. Or maybe only 3 to 5 inches. No, wait, that was last hour’s prediction. It’s now going to be 5-9 inches. Or, maybe 10 inches. No, wait. That’s wrong, it’ll be 15 to 20 inches. It’ll bury buildings and wreak a path of destruction unlike anything seen in the past four thousand years! It might also be only a half-foot. We’ll be revising our prediction to some other number as soon as our assignment editor throws a dart at the Snow Inch Board.

Most residents, unless they were forced to work, were smart enough to stay home. Also smart enough to stay indoors were TV news directors who sent their reporters and camera crews into the middle of snow-covered roads. Deep-voiced anchors introduced us to the infotainment promotion that has become TV news: “Now, LIVE from the middle of the Interstate, and bravely facing blizzard conditions with EXCLUSIVE coverage ONLY on Eyewitless News 99, your hometown station for LIVE EXCLUSIVE weather coverage is our LIVE reporter, Sammy Snowbound.”

Reporters and meteorologists were soon entertaining us with wooden rulers, which they pushed onto snow-covered tables and snow banks to report snow accumulation, not unlike a radio reporter doing play-by-play announcing for a high school basketball contest.

The previous week, the local news stations and TV all-news networks identified a crippling snow as “Snowmageddon” and “Snowpocalyse.” This week, with its winds, we learned about “Snowicane.”

And so for two back-to-back snow-somethings, we had almost unlimited Team Coverage. The teams interviewed business owners—”So, how’s the snow affecting your business?” They interviewed residents—”So, how’s the snow affecting your plans?” They even interviewed public officials—”So, how’s the snow affecting your budget?”

If Jesus came to the Northeast, he’d be watching all-snow all-the-time coverage, and waiting in a green room for his one minute interview. “So, Jesus, how you surviving the snow?”

The problem of the extended coverage is that when there isn’t any snow, local TV news gives us a five minute weather report on the Evening News. Excluding commercials, teasers, and mindless promotion, that’s more than one-fourth of the news budget. We learn all about highs and lows, Arctic clippers, temperatures in obscure places, and the history of snowflakes. When a weather “event” occurs, TV has to ramp up its coverage, ‘lest we think we can learn what we need to know in only five minutes.

Every weather person will tell you there are no two snowflakes the same. But, we can always count on the same coverage, storm after storm, from the same flakes covering the weather. While the reporters are in the middle of a blizzard showing us snow—and how brave they are—they aren’t giving us significant information about how to prepare for and then survive a storm, which may cut off electricity for up to a week. Nor are the TV crews telling us what happens to the homeless, or how the storms are affecting everything from insects to black bears.

Long after the storm passes, we’ll still be seeing TV weather reports of about four or five minutes—”It’ll be sunny tomorrow, and here’s a history of sun.” It would be nice if local TV news would spend as much time as it does delivering semi-accurate weather reports to discuss significant governmental and social issues along with its diet of car crashes, fires, and the latest Pickle Festival.

[Walter Brasch was a reporter and editor before becoming a professor of mass communications and journalism. He is an award-winning syndicated columnist and the author of 17 books, including the recently-published third edition of Sex and the Single Beer Can: Probing the Media and American Culture.]

Sarah Palin stood before an audience of 600 at the first Tea Party convention and in her twinkly home-spun rhetoric, declared we don’t need a professor of law but a commander-in-chief. As expected, she received roaring applause. And, as expected, she was wrong.

After Dick Cheney and George W. Bush, aided by a compliant Congress and a nation largely afraid to stand up for their rights, abused the Constitution for almost eight years, what the United States needs is a leader who understands constitutional law and who is unafraid of making sure all Americans understand that the fabric that became America should not be torn apart for political convenience.

Dick Cheney and George W. Bush established policies which violated:

● The First Amendment (freedom of religion, speech, press, and assembly, and the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances)

● The Fourth Amendment (freedom from unreasonable searches)

● The Fifth Amendment (right of due process and to protect against self-incrimination)

● The Sixth Amendment (due process, the right to counsel, a speedy trial, and the right to a fair and public trial by an impartial jury)

● The Eighth Amendment (reasonable bail and freedom from cruel and unusual punishment), and

● The Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection guarantee for both citizens and non-citizens)

Bush–Cheney Administration actions also violated provisions of Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution which guarantees the right to petition the courts to issue a writ of habeas corpus to require the government to produce a prisoner or suspect in order to determine the legality of the detention. Only Congress may order a suspension of habeas corpus, and then only in “Cases of Rebellion or Invasion.” Congress did not suspend this right; nothing during or subsequent to the 9/11 attack indicated either a rebellion or invasion under terms of the Constitution.

It wasn’t just liberals who argued about Constitutional violations. Many leading conservatives argued that the Bush–Cheney Administration overreached in its lame attempt to “keep America safe.” Among those conservatives who objected were Bob Barr, Grover Norquist, Alan Caruba, and William F. Buckley, the founder of modern conservative thought. Also objecting to the wide-reaching policies of the Bush–Cheney Administration were federal courts, including the Supreme Court of the United States, which leans to the right.

In Hamdi v. Rumsfeld (2004), Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who had been nominated for the Court by Ronald Reagan, was forceful in her majority opinion, which attacked Bush–Cheney Administration policies. According to O’Connor:

It is during our most challenging and uncertain moments that our Nation’s commitment to due process is most severely tested; and it is in those times that we must preserve our commitment at home to the principles for which we fight abroad. . . . (The imperative necessity for safeguarding these rights to procedural due process under the gravest of emergencies has existed throughout our constitutional history, for it is then, under the pressing exigencies of crisis, that there is the greatest temptation to dispense with guarantees which, it is feared, will inhibit government action.) . . . (It would indeed be ironic if, in the name of national defense, we would sanction the subversion of one of those liberties, which makes the defense of the Nation worthwhile.)

A large population of misinformed citizens—including leading politicians, pundits, and blowhards—claim even if everything else was true about protecting rights during times of war, the Constitution protects only American citizens and not foreigners. The Supreme Court has several times ruled otherwise. In 1886, the Supreme Court, in its Yick Wo v. Hopkins decision, reaffirmed the principle that the Constitution protects all persons, even foreigners, in U.S. jurisdiction. More than a century later, in Boumediene v. Bush (2008), the Supreme Court ruled that the right of habeas corpus applies to all persons, even terrorists confined in Guantanamo Bay. Not one of the nine justices, or even the Bush–Cheney Administration itself, disagreed with that principle. The only dissent was that such prisoners were on foreign soil and outside the jurisdiction of the Constitution; the Supreme Court ruled that the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base was on U.S., not Cuban, soil.

And now in an interesting twist of logic come the Teabaggers, who continue to claim that not only doesn’t the Constitution apply to foreigners but that they want to impeach President Obama because he violated Constitutional rights. Alas, they can’t provide specific instances that will hold up in any federal court. But, like much of what the Tea Party zealots say, it makes good rhetoric, and the mainstream media, often without challenge, publish and air their views to a mass audience.

But Sarah Palin and the party who loves her demand that this nation get rid of its professor of constitutional law and replace him with a man who is a true blue, 100 percent all-American commander-in-chief. You know, the kind who sends American forces into Iraq to chase mythical weapons that don’t exist, and then claims at least his invasion got rid of a dictator. The kind who costs more than 4,000 American deaths and more than 30,000 injuries, many of them permanent. The kind who doesn’t give the troops the armament and protection they need while in battle, and then the rehabilitation they need when they can no longer fight.

In case Sarah Palin didn’t read the Constitution, President Barack Obama is the president of the United States and the commander-in-chief of the nation’s military. The biggest difference is that this president and commander-in-chief is just as aggressive in protecting the principles of the Constitution as he is in protecting the safety of the American people.

[Walter Brasch is the author of 17 books, including the national award-winning America's Unpatriotic Acts: The Federal Government's Violation of Constitutional and Civil Rights and Sinking the Ship of State: The Presidency of George W. Bush, available at amazon.com, bn.com, and numerous independent and chain stores. Dr. Brasch is professor of journalism at Bloomsburg University. You may contact him through his website, www.walterbrasch.com or by e-mail at brasch@bloomu.edu]

By the 1960s, liberals had become masters at developing and using not only mainstream media but also an emerging alternative media to advance a social agenda. But then they choked, sputtered, and fell into disarray.

During the past two decades, conservatives slowly, almost methodically, established a talk show base that ignited its own movement.

By 2000, with liberals more focused upon the print media and the emerging social media, and having neglected the advantages of a re-energized AM bandwidth that was more adaptable to talk than to music, the personality-drenched conservative talk radio medium filled the vacuum. The talk shows targeted the same kind of audience that the liberal ’60s alternative media had targeted—the socially and politically marginalized who distrusted Big Government and believed in individual liberties. Any emerging liberal network would be seen as merely an annoyance, rather than competition. The conservatives, embraced by Fox News and talk radio, solidified their hold upon the listeners by playing to irrational fears of their base—that the media were controlled by liberals, and that government was out to get them.

Air America had begun as a fresh challenge to the conservative talk show movement. It had a decent mix of comedy, rant, and music. Eventually, it would syndicate shows to about 100 affiliates. Air America had come into a market saturated by right-wing talk radio—and then committed suicide by incompetence. Its death was celebrated by a vitriolic rightwing mix of radio commentators and listeners.

Even facing the Recession, diminished advertising revenue, a target population that had almost abandoned radio except for niche music stations and NPR, and the dominance of conservative talk radio, the six-year-old network could have survived . . .

IF it had better investment funding . . .

IF it didn’t spend a disproportionate share of its small investment on lavish studios in a high-rent Manhattan commercial building . . .

IF it didn’t have so many management changes, and so much ineptness among senior managers. . . .

IF it could have hired more on-air personalities and off-mike producers who had significant radio experience. Even the most talented (among them Al Franken, Sam Seder, and Rachel Maddow) had minimal radio experience. In contrast, almost all of Rush Limbaugh’s career was in radio before he became the man most loathed by liberals.

Air America might have survived if it tried to evolve slowly, as had conservative talk radio, and not try to match it in salaries and personalities the first year.

It might have survived if its primary message wasn’t to attack the conservative infotainment hosts but to develop its own entertainment and issues, and to deliver a focused message. By the demise of Air America, conservative talk radio not only had a larger fan base but better websites and outreach.

But, most of all, Air America might have survived if it wasn’t so arrogant. Its hosts and producers ignored phone calls and e-mails from liberals and moderates who were not on its radar as “important.” And, it and many of its affiliates also ignored calls from many reporters who were trying to do stories about the network and its personalities. If the producers arrogantly didn’t think something mattered, then it didn’t.

In the end, Air America didn’t do for the liberal movement what the rest of talk radio did for its conservative movement—it didn’t respect its listeners enough to allow them their own voice.

[Dr. Brasch is an award-winning reporter and editor, media analyst, and author of 17 books. His latest are Sinking the Ship of State: The Presidency of George W. Bush; 'Unacceptable': The Federal Response to Hurricane Katrina; and America's Unpatriotic Acts. All are available at Amazon.cm, and other bookstores. You may contact Dr. Brasch at brasch@bloomu.edu, or through his website, www.walterbrasch.com]

These boys love noise—
It’s money in their pockets—
Cars colliding in mid air—
Huge robots firing rockets

From their fingertips, no less—
“This is what the public wants“—
A frenetic - freaked out mess—
The screams of maniacs—

Machines that burst
Into ear splitting splinters —
That shake the movie theaters—
These are the box office winners—

It’s a monumental riot—
Only the cash is quiet . . .
MARK SOIFER

[Mark Soifer's poetry has appeared in national magazines, and has been collected into several chapbooks. He is a special events coordinator, and was the long-time PR director for Ocean City, N.J.]

In reviewing the columns over the past few years, we wrote against racism and animal cruelty. But, there’s still racism and animal cruelty, so we’ll still have to speak out on these critical social issues.

We wrote about tolerance and the acceptance of all races and religions. But, a large number of Americans apparently didn’t get the message, so we’ll have to try harder this year.

We wrote about the continued destruction of the environment and of ways people are trying to save it. Environmental concern is greater, but so is the ignorant prattling of those who believe global warming is a hoax.

We wrote against government corruption, bailouts, tax advantages for the rich and their corporations, governmental waste, and corporate greed. But, since they still exist, we’ll have to continue speaking against those as well.

We wrote about the effects of laying off long-time employees and of outsourcing jobs to “maximize profits.” But until Americans realize that “cheaper” doesn’t necessarily “better,” we’ll continue to have to write why exploitation knows no geographical boundaries.

We wrote in support of the rights of workers, for better working conditions and benefits at least equal to their managers. We didn’t expect to see anything change, but we were hopeful that a small minority of business owners who do respect the worker would influence the rest. Until that happens, we’ll still have to write about labor issues.

We wrote in support of helping the unemployed, the homeless, those without adequate health coverage—and against the political lunatics who continue to deny the disenfranchised and marginalized the basics of human life. Unfortunately, not much has changed over the past few years.

For many years, we had written about the need for health reform. At the end of last year, Americans got a partial victory, but there is still much more that needs to be done.

We wrote against the media’s fixation with celebrity skanks and scandals. We doubt anything will change this year, but we’ll still comment upon the media’s neglect of what’s important—and their fascination with what isn’t.

We wrote about why newspapers and magazines died, why the rest have downsized their staffs and the quality of their news product. We doubt anything will change this year, but we still have to bring the issues to the public.

We wrote about problems in the nation’s educational system, especially the failure to encourage intellectual curiosity and respect the tenets of academic integrity. But there are still those who believe education is best served by a program manacled by teaching-to-the-test mentality.

We had written forcefully against the previous president and vice-president when they strapped on their six-shooters and sent the nation into war in a country that posed no threat to us, while failing to adequately attack a country that housed the core of the al-Qaeda movement. We wrote about the Administration’s failure to provide adequate protection for the soldiers they sent into war or adequate and sustained mental and medical care when they returned home. We wrote about the Administration’s belief in the use of torture and why it thought it was necessary to shred parts of the Constitution. Fortunately, last year, we saw a new administration that recognizes that torture is not only wrong but counter-productive to acquiring good information, and that the Constitutional fabric of the United States must be preserved, no many how many threats are made upon it. Unfortunately, at all levels of government, Constitutional violations still exist, and a new year won’t change our determination to bring to light these violations wherever and whenever they occur.

The hope we and this nation had for change we could believe in, and which we still hope will not die, has been diminished by the reality of petty politics, with the “Party of No” and its raucous Teabagger mutation blocking social change for America’s improvement.

We really want to be able to write columns about Americans who take care of each other, about leaders who concentrate upon fixing the social problems. But we know that’s only an ethereal ideal. So, we’ll just have to hope that the waters of social justice wear down, however slowly, the jagged rocks of haughty resistance.

[Dr. Walter Brasch is an award-winning social issues columnist, former newspaper investigative reporter and editor, and journalism professor. His latest book is Sinking the Ship of State: The Presidency of George W. Bush. Rosemary Brasch is a former secretary, Red Cross national disaster family services specialist, labor activist, and university instructor of labor studies.]

SUGAR NOTCH, Pa.–A regional advocate for the rights of the homeless says actions by Sugar Notch officials to deny shelter to homeless men may be based upon fear and a lack of knowledge.

About 40 homeless men were scheduled to receive temporary shelter at the Holy Family Roman Catholic church in Sugar Notch for a week beginning Jan. 11. About three dozen churches in the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton region each shelter the homeless for one or two weeks a year. Professional staff usually work with, and stay with, the homeless. However, borough zoning officer Carl Alber, apparently acting under Council direction, issued a letter that threatened the church with a $500 fine for each day it housed the homeless. Councilman Herman Balas, a member of the church, said that Council was acting for safety and citizen welfare. The Rev. Joseph Kakareska told the media he has no plans to deny shelter to the homeless for the week. Sugar Notch is a town of about 950 residents, about five miles southwest of Wilkes-Barre in northeastern Pennsylvania.

A public council meeting, Jan. 4, led to a yelling contest among the Council and members of the audience; most of the Council and residents claimed the homeless could pose “problems,” with others claiming the problem had nothing to do with the homeless but with following proper zoning ordinances. However, the church is zoned R-1 (residential) and in a residential area. Council kicked the problem to the Zoning Commission, but indicated that if the church files an appeal, with a $350 fee, it would allow the homeless to stay in the church for a week. It’s an “olive branch,” claimed council president Charlene Tarnalicki. There was no ruling that if the church loses its appeal if it would still be liable for up to a $3,500 fine.

“This is not a zoning issue, but an issue of fear by residents,” says Gary F. Clark, executive director of the Northeast Pennsylvania Homeless Alliance. “Most homeless pose absolutely no threat to any citizen,” says Clark. The homeless, says Clark, often have day jobs, and are sheltered only in evenings. Clark says that with the Recession, more persons have been laid off from jobs they may have had for several years, and have been unable to meet mortgage payments on houses. Council’s concern about the homeless, according to Balas, was that they could be violent or be drug users.

However, Clark says that while some of the homeless may have alcohol- or drug-induced problems, most are “just trying to get by.” About 3.5 million people will be homeless at some point this year, with almost half being children, according to the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty. About 16,000 Pennsylvanians are homeless on any given night, according to the Pennsylvania Interagency Council on Homelessness. About one-third of homeless men are veterans, “many with post-traumatic stress disorder that keeps them from a stable life,” Clark says. It is unlikely, he says, that they pose any threat to public safety.

Clark points out that it is unacceptable during the Winter, when snow lies on the ground and temperatures drop into the teens, to have anyone “trying to survive on our streets.” Shelter, says Clark, “is a basic human need and many more problems are created when this need is not met.” The “true measure of a society,” says Clark, “is how it treats its most needy.”

The “movable shelter program,” run by Wilkes-Barre’s non-profit VISION program, and with the support of numerous churches that give temporary shelter and meals to the homeless, has had relatively few problems, says Clark. VISION director Vince Kabacinski told Council he has offers of legal support not only from local organizations but from some as far away as Arizona. “I didn’t ask Sugar Notch to become part of the problem with the ‘not in my backyard’ ” attitude, he said.

On a sign in front of the church is the message, “Jesus was homeless, too.”

A new year turns a new page. And so, ASZ, after nearly 7 years in various incarnations, bids you farewell - at least for now.

Those who care to keep in touch can do so at allspinzone-at-yahoo-dot-com. Steve and I both occasionally twitter, and we’re both on facebook, so you can look us up there if you’d like. I’m leaving the comments open for a week or so, and then will be disabling those to prevent spam. The site will remain online for the foreseeable future, for archive and search purposes.

Who knows what the future brings? We’ll see as time passes, but we both wish our readers the best, and thank you for your comments, emails, and moral support over the years.

Thank you, thank you, from the bottom of my heart.

Richard
1/2/10

The Philadelphia Eagles honored reserve quarterback and admitted dog-killer Michael Vick with an award for courage. Yes, you read that right. “Michael Vick” and “courage” are in the same sentence.

Each of the 32 NFL teams annually honors one of its own with an Ed Block award, named for the Baltimore Colts head trainer who was an advocate for improving the lives of neglected and abused children; the Foundation says it celebrates “players of inspiration in the NFL.” Unfortunately, there is no stipulation that football players who abuse animals are ineligible receivers.

Eagles Quarterback Donovan McNabb told the Philadelphia Inquirer the award was “well deserved.” Vick, his team, and what appears to be a loyal foundation of fans who believe Vick will help lead the Eagles into a SuperBowl, all believe the man who ran Bad Newz Kennels has “seen the light,” has reformed, and is now a model citizen.

However, Vick’s own words show the humility and humbleness that he should have are still missing from his egocentric world of sweating multi-millionaires.

“It means a great deal to me,” Vick told the media, gloating that he “was voted unanimously by my teammates. They know what I’ve been through. I’ve been through a lot. It’s been great to come back and have an opportunity to play and be with a great group of guys. I’m just ecstatic about that, and I enjoy every day.” He further justified the honor by explaining, “I’ve overcome a lot, more than probably one single individual can handle or bear.” Elaborating, he declared, “You ask certain people to walk through my shoes, they probably couldn’t do. Probably 95 percent of the people in this world because nobody had to endure what I’ve been through, situations I’ve been put in, situations I put myself in and decisions I have made, whether they have been good or bad.” He said, “There’s always consequences behind certain things and repercussions behind them, too. And then you have to wake up every day and face the world, whether they perceive you in the right perspective, it’s a totally different outlook on you. You have to be strong, believe in yourself, be optimistic. That’s what I’ve been able to do. That’s what I display.” Not once in his statements to the media did Michael Vick apologize for what he did, or for the deals he cut in order to be restored to the status of a millionaire athlete. Everything he said was focused upon his own “courage,” with “I” being the prevalent word.

Perhaps Michael Vick isn’t aware that courage is not being so vacuous as to believe it was acceptable to breed and arrange for dogs to fight to the death, to allow equally malevolent “fans” to bet on the matches, and by the cruelest means possible to kill dogs who didn’t perform as well as he thought they should. Going to prison for 18 months, losing two seasons of multimillion dollar income, having to work out to get into fighting condition, and then earning about $1.6 in his first year back into the NFL, with a second year option for about $5 million, isn’t courage.

In case Michael Vick doesn’t know what courage is, here are just a few examples. There are thousands of others.

Courage is the soldier who is on 100 percent disability from combat wounds who is now working almost every hour of every day with physical therapists, social workers, and other medical personnel to try to regain even the most remote possibility of being able to walk again.

Courage is the firefighters who risk their lives to rescue people and their pets from burning buildings.

Courage is law enforcement personnel who put their lives on the line to serve and protect the people.

Courage is the “whistle blower” who risks a job and family stability to point out greed and corruption within a business, educational institution, or governmental agency.

Courage is the lone dissenter who fights for social and economic justice in a society that is determined to continue the “me generation.”

Courage is the recent graduate who delays entry into the job market, the mid-career executive who gives up the fast track, or the senior citizen who decides there is more to life than retirement, and volunteers for AmeriCorps, the Peace Corps, or any of hundreds of non-profit organizations that have taken on the burden of helping those who society has made invisible.

Courage is the parents who work two low-income service jobs, support their families, and still donate time and money to charities that help those less fortunate than they.

Courage is the family who last year had a home and job, and this year has neither but survives day to day.

Courage is the animal rights advocates who risk their lives to fight against governments that allow the killing of whales, bears, seals, wolves, and hundreds of other animals; and to humane society staff and innumerable volunteers who rescue abandoned and abused animals, and who work with them to try to give them a better life.

But most important, courage is all the people who know no matter what obstacles they overcome today, tomorrow will present the same challenges, and that they will never have any hope to be a millionaire or to receive an award for surviving against tremendous odds.

In his comments after being notified of the award, Michael Vick proved himself to be an unworthy spokesman for anything or anyone other than himself.

[Dr. Walter Brasch is an award-winning social issues columnist, former newspaper investigative reporter and editor, and journalism professor. His latest book is Sinking the Ship of State: The Presidency of George W. Bush. Rosemary Brasch is a former secretary, Red Cross national disaster family services specialist, labor activist, and university instructor of labor studies.]

Dick Wolf, who created “Law & Order” and its two successful spin-offs, “Law & Order: SVU” and “Law & Order: Criminal Intent,” should probably consider establishing a branch office in Pennsylvania.

It seems that whenever any of the New York City cops take a road trip to find a fugitive or track down a witness, they go to Pennsylvania. Apparently, New Jersey is only a buffer zone.

Part of the reason why Pennsylvania routinely figures into the hour-long dramas may be because Wolf, a New Yorker, is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania. Another possibility, although much more remote, may be because his first of three wives was named Susan Scranton.

Nevertheless, Pennsylvania has been the site of sufficient plots the past couple of years as the three TV series have increased their levels of social consciousness.

Pennsylvania’s attorney general has already issued 25 arrest warrants for state legislators and their aides of both political parties—including former House Speaker John Perzel, a Republican, and Bill DeWeese, the House Democratic majority leader. They are accused of a variety of charges, including theft, conflict of interest, obstruction, and conspiracy.

But it is northeastern Pennsylvania that is fertile ground for the writers. Luzerne County, with Wilkes-Barre as the county seat, has provided the background for an episode of “Law & Order: SVU.” The episode aired in May 2009 had a plot set in New York City but featured Pennsylvania misconduct that included an undercurrent of corrupt judges who took kickbacks for sentencing juveniles to a privately-run juvenile detention center. (An episode of ABC-TV’s “The Good Wife,” which aired in December 2009, also featured the plot about a corrupt judge who sent cases to a private detention center.) When that plot finally plays out, there are also stories to be developed about corrupt courthouse officials, corrupt school board officials and, just recently, the vice-chair of the county board of commissioners, a former pro football player, who accepted a bribe.

Nearby Schuylkill County, specifically the people of Shenandoah, played a critical part in an April 2009 “Law & Order” hate crime story about the beating and murder by teens of an undocumented Hispanic worker. In Shenandoah, 25-year-old Luis Eduardo Ramirez Zavala, an undocumented Mexican with no criminal history, was beaten by a gang of high school football players in July 2008. In the “Law & Order” episode, the victim was also an undocumented Hispanic who was targeted by a gang of high school basketball players who had anonymously made a video, “Beaner Hunt: Taking Back America One Street at a Time.” In both the Ramirez Zavala case and the fictional “Law & Order” case, a mother covers up evidence; people in the town spew racial hatred, with many claiming if the victim wasn’t an “illegal,” he would still be alive; a “windbag” TV pundit rants about illegals taking over the country; and a jury refuses to present a guilty verdict on all but the least of the charges against the teens.

The Ramirez Zavala murder is likely to provide seed for several more episodes. This past week, the FBI arrested two teens who had been convicted by an all-White jury only of simple assault, and four police officers, including the chief. Derrick Donchak, 19, and Brandon Piekarski, 18, are charged with federal hate crimes. A third teen, Colin J. Walsh, had accepted a plea bargain and is in federal prison. Among the charges against Chief Matthew Nestor, Lt. William Moyer, and Officer Jason Hayes are conspiracy to obstruct justice for allegedly manipulating and covering up the facts of the murder; Moyer was also charged with witness and evidence tampering and providing false testimony to the FBI. In an unrelated case, Nestor and Capt. James Gennarini are charged with several counts of extortion and civil rights violations in illegal gambling operations. An unindicted coconspirator is Brandon Piekarsky’s mother, Tammy, who was dating Officer Hayes. U.S. District Court judge Malachy Mannion at the arraignment said that the evidence against the officers was “strong,” and that they depict a “vile set of activities.”

Another “Law & Order” episode could focus upon the death of 18-year-old David Vega, who Shenandoah police claimed hanged himself in the town’s jail in November 2004. The police could have issued a citation to Vega, who was arguing about a Giants–Eagles football game with friends and relatives, all of whom were vocal, none of whom had attacked anyone. But, the police arrested Vega, locked him in the town jail, and then within two hours claimed he had committed suicide by hanging. A more realistic story would be the brutal beating by racist police and a subsequent cover-up, combined with the coroner accepting the police version. No charges were filed against Chief Matthew Nestor; Capt. Raymond Nestor (the chief’s father), or James Gennarini, who are alleged to have beaten Vega. Vega’s parents, however, have filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania. Attorney John P. Karoly, Allentown, says that based upon an independent investigation and several depositions, there is “significant evidence” to back up charges against the police. The suit charges that an independent second autopsy confirmed that Vega “suffered extensive, massive injuries consistent with a profound beating” and “did not die of hanging.”

Police neglect and an attack upon David N. Murphy Sr., an Afro-American, who was recovering at home from spinal fusion surgery, could be the base of another episode. In March 2009, according to a civil law suit filed by Karoly in federal court, Chief Matthew Nestor and Officer George Carado, who lied about having a warrant, arrested Murphy on a claim he was selling prescription medicine to his wife, refused to allow him to take needed medication, punched him in his back, and left him alone overnight in the police station. During the night, Murphy had a heart attack and lay on the floor several hours crying out in pain. However, before seeking medical treatment, Shenandoah police took Murphy for arraignment before a district justice. The DJ ordered the police to take Murphy to a hospital. Instead, the police, according to Karoly, who is also Murphy’s attorney, took him to the Schuylkill County prison. Only when the prison wouldn’t admit him because of his medical condition did Shenandoah police take the victim to a hospital.

In a sworn affidavit, Murphy says Nestor told him that the police “would harass me and put me in jail as soon as I come to Shenandoah if I filed a lawsuit or tried to press charges on him,” and that if Murphy filed suit, “I wouldn’t make it out of the police station’s cells next time.” The complaint further alleges that “Nestor said I could end up like the Mexican that hung himself, that tapes can be erased or edited.” (The Shenandoah police station did not have surveillance cameras at the time of Vega’s death.)

“Law & Order” writers could also look at a “suicide” in Coaldale, about 20 miles east of Shenandoah. James Hill, 17, was visiting Greg Altenbach and his parents in January 2004. A corrupt police chief performed only a cursory investigation and decided that Hill committed suicide with a .22 semi-automatic rifle. However, Police Chief Shawn Nihen rejected a coroner’s report that concluded Hill couldn’t have killed himself. Nihen, who was friends with the family in whose house Hill died, as well as Altenbach’s mother, stepfather, and a friend who witnessed the accidental shooting, had tried to cover up evidence. Nihen also had known that Shawn Becker, the stepfather, was forbidden by the courts to have a gun in the house. Nihen and Coaldale police officer Michael Weaver were later convicted of planting evidence in several cases. Altenbach later acknowledged he had fired the gun, and is now in prison after conviction for involuntary manslaughter and aggravated assault.

Future stories of “Law and Order” may continue to be “ripped from the headlines,” but in northeastern Pennsylvania, they are torn from greed and racial and cultural hatred.

[Walter M. Brasch, an award-winning former newspaper reporter and editor, is a syndicated social issues columnist, author, writer-producer, and professor of journalism at Bloomsburg University. His latest books are Sex and the Single Beer Can, a probing and humorous look at the nation's media; and Sinking the Ship of State: The Presidency of George W. Bush, with a focus upon the shredding of Constitutional protections. Both books are available at amazon.com, and other bookstores. You may contact Dr. Brasch through his website, www.walterbrasch.com.]

You see, I analyze and interpret the news, trying to find something that others haven’t touched. When there’s lots of news, I have a playground of riches. But during the past week, there were only two stories, and every reporter, columnist, commentator, pundit, bloviator, and blogger weighed in on it. There was nothing more I could add—from any perspective.

There was the Tiger Woods story. It led off the TV newscasts and took page 1 newsprint for a couple of days, and then became a featured story the rest of the week. One day, the breaking news about Tiger was that he wasn’t wearing a seat belt.

But, there was also the story of the gate crashers at the White House state dinner. Everyone covered that story. When the pundits finished blaming the Secret Service, they started on the White House staff, somehow making it seem that President Obama himself was guilty of allowing homeland security to deteriorate. Congress, always eager to take the spotlight away from Hollywood celebrities, launched an investigation. Overlooked was that although the gate crashers did get into the State Dinner, they had gone through several security checks, and the only hazard to the President was that he would have to be in the same publicity shot as a bleached blonde.

Now, some may say that the addition of 30,000 troops in Afghanistan is news. They may even claim that a recent report that concluded the Bush-Cheney administration failed to provide requested ground troops to capture a boxed-up bin Laden at the end of 2001 is news. They may claim that neglecting Afghanistan while throwing 170,000 troops into Iraq forced President Obama to beef up the forces in Afghanistan to finish the mission that was supposed to have been finished years ago. But, that’s not news. It’s not even worth commenting upon, especially when all the media resources were devoted to the Tiger Slam and the Tareq and Michaele Salahi invasion.

And that leaves me nothing to say this week. Maybe next week there may be news that 10,000 reporters, columnists, commentators, pundits, bloviators, and bloggers won’t give saturation coverage to. I sure hope so. I need the work.

[Walter M. Brasch, an award-winning former newspaper reporter and editor, is a syndicated social issues columnist, author, writer-producer, and professor of journalism at Bloomsburg University. His latest books are Sex and the Single Beer Can, a probing and humorous look at the nation's media; and Sinking the Ship of State: The Presidency of George W. Bush, with a focus upon the shredding of Constitutional protections. Both books are available at amazon.com, and other bookstores. You may contact Dr. Brasch through his website, www.walterbrasch.com.]

It wasn’t unusual that he mixed a few facts with opinion and outright lies in his three-hour daily show. Fact checking for the man who calls himself “America’s Truth Detector” is as rare as union organizers working for Walmart.

What is unusual is that Rush Limbaugh, whose web site shows a picture of him carrying a large gold-fringed American flag on a six-foot staff, spoke out against the Constitution of the United States.

Because logic and reason avoids his black-clad bouncy body, he may not have even known he was attacking the history of the United States and its Constitution. But on this Friday the 13th, the forces of evil spewed forth from his unfettered microphone mouth.

The United States had announced it was removing five persons accused of plotting the 9/11 terror from Guantanamo Bay and putting them into the federal judiciary system. Attorney General Eric Holder, at a press conference in Washington, D.C., had announced, “After eight years of delay, those allegedly responsible for the attacks of September the 11th will finally face justice. . . . I am confident in the ability of our courts to provide these defendants a fair trial just as they have for over 200 years [before] an impartial jury under long established rules and procedures.” He announced that the Department of Justice would “prosecute these cases vigorously,” and would seek the death penalty in each case. President Obama had said earlier that day he was “absolutely convinced that Khalid Sheik Mohammad [the alleged mastermind behind 9/11, and the other defendants] will be subject to the most exacting demands of justice. The American people insist on it, my administration will insist on it.”

Limbaugh called the decision a “disgusting travesty perpetuated here by Barack Obama.” That was just the beginning of his rant. Over the next few minutes, Limbaugh said the decision to bring terrorists to trial was solely “to satisfy the rabid, radical, far left that hates this country; that hates George W. Bush; that hates the U.S. military.”

Limbaugh opposed the use of lawyers; several times he branded them as leftist and Marxist, disregarding the reality that membership in the American Bar Association skews to the right. Although he came from a family of lawyers, he disregarded Constitutional guarantees that require even the most heinous of criminals to be assured their rights, including the right to be represented by an attorney. While erroneously claiming that terrorists have no rights, Limbaugh also objected to providing the defendants “fairness,” because in what he called the “new America,” fairness is something created by “a bunch of radical leftists.” He claimed that the defendants didn’t even deserve lawyers because, in the world of Rush Fairytale Logic, the lawyers would use the courts to attack the United States.

He attacked the federal judiciary, claiming, “There are a bunch of radical leftists on our federal bench,” all of whom apparently, if you believed the Mouth That Roared, are governed by such mundane and useless rules like—well—the Constitution of the United States. What Limbaugh didn’t say, possibly because the facts didn’t agree with his own distorted version of reality, is that there are more conservative judges than liberal judges in the federal judiciary. About one-third of all federal judges were appointed by George W. Bush, with a majority of all judges appointed by Ronald Reagan and the two Bushes. Limbaugh, in his deliberate distortion of facts also didn’t point out that 62 percent of all appeals court judges were appointed by Republican presidents, and that conservatives are the majority on 10 of the 13 appeals courts. He also failed to point out that six of the nine Supreme Court justices were appointed by Republican presidents. The Republican-dominated federal courts have cut down several unconstitutional provisions of the PATRIOT Act; the Republican-dominated Supreme Court has twice rebuked the Bush–Cheney Administration for procedures that are blatantly unconstitutional. In one major decision, conservative Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, speaking for the majority, ruled, “Any process in which the Executive’s factual assertions go wholly unchallenged or are simply presumed correct without any opportunity for the alleged combatant to demonstrate otherwise falls constitutionally short . . . [T]he constitutional limitations safeguarding essential liberties . . . remain vibrant even in times of security concerns.”

Like most conservative radio hosts and their teabag party followers, Limbaugh several times had blasted the Department of Justice for even thinking about bringing the terrorists onto the mainland, claiming the men were so evil that they would endanger all Americans. Unsaid by the talking mouths and empty heads was that the Department of Justice successfully prosecuted numerous gangsters, serial killers, and terrorists, and then successfully imprisoned them without danger to civilians.

For emphasis about how he thought a trial for the 9/11 terrorists would be unfair, Limbaugh threw veiled anti-Semitic attacks upon a possible jury pool. “Before it’s all said and done you’re going to find some whack nut jobs on the Upper West Side of Manhattan that are going to be on this jury,” said Limbaugh. The Upper West Side is largely identified as a community that was settled by refugee Jews, and which still has a significant percent of Jews.

Several times, Limbaugh stated that since the defendants had already “confessed,” the need for a trial was not necessary, and would only embarrass the U.S., placating those “leftists,” and exposing the entirety of the American intelligence community. This, said Limbaugh, is the “hidden agenda” of the Obama Administration. “They want the United States on trial,” Limbaugh cried out. Disregarding the absurdity of his own remarks, Limbaugh never acknowledged that the “confessions” were made only after severe torture. Bringing criminals, who have been subject to torture, to trial, who have confessed, said Limbaugh “is yet another internal assault on the fabric, the traditions, the institutions that have made this country great,” he told his equally rabid listeners.

Having attacked the President, the Attorney General, lawyers, judges, the Department of Justice, and Jews, Limbaugh put Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.) into his cross-hairs. Sestak, said Limbaugh, is “a dangerous left-wing radical ideologue.” What drew Limbaugh’s rage was that Sestak not only supported the prosecution of the 9/11 terrorists in federal court, but that on Fox News, he argued that “Most studies have shown that [torture] does not give you evidence as readily or as credible as other means.” Persons who are tortured, said Sestak, raising concerns about the legitimacy of the terrorists’ “confessions,” will often confess to anything in order to stop the torture.

What Limbaugh didn’t tell his audience was that Sestak was a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, a retired vice-admiral who had led a carrier battle group, and was the first director of the Navy’s anti-terrorism unit after 9/11. Sestak’s views are the same as John McCain’s, also a Naval Academy graduate who had led an air squadron. Listeners could now choose between two war heroes, one of whom had suffered torture as a prisoner of war, and a college drop-out who, said his mother, flunked almost all of his classes in his only year in college, was declared 4-F in the draft, and now hails on 600 radio stations as the mouthpiece for the right-wing fringe.

“We are in the process of destroying American ideals; we are in the process of subordinating America’s greatness, America’s exceptionalism,” Rush Limbaugh wailed.

The reality is that flag-waving fact-impaired Rush Limbaugh has no idea what American ideals are, nor does he have respect for the legal history of the United States or the power of the Constitution.

[Walter M. Brasch, an award-winning former newspaper reporter and editor, is a syndicated social issues columnist, author, writer-producer, and professor of journalism at Bloomsburg University. His latest books are Sex and the Single Beer Can, a probing and humorous look at the nation's media; and Sinking the Ship of State: The Presidency of George W. Bush, with a focus upon the shredding of Constitutional protections. Both books are available at amazon.com, and other bookstores. You may contact Dr. Brasch through his website, www.walterbrasch.com.]

Tenured associate professor David K. Demers filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Spokane. The defendants are Erica Austin, former interim director and dean of the Murrow program; Warwick Bayly, interim provost and executive vice president; Erich Lear, former dean of the College of Liberal Arts; and Frances McSweeney, vice provost for faculty affairs.

“The pattern of actions taken by the defendants demonstrates a concerted effort to punish Dr. Demers for creating his 7-Step Plan and for criticizing the Murrow College administrators,” the complaint states. “Publication of the 7-Step Plan was a substantial and motivating factor in the punishment Dr. Demers received from the University … .” (Note: The full complaint is available at www.Academic-Freedom.info )
Prepared by Demers’ attorney, Judith Endejan of the Seattle law firm of Graham & Dunn, the complaint asserts that Austin justified low performance reviews by falsely accusing Demers of canceling classes in 2007 and 2008. She claimed Demers violated university policies, serious charges to level against a faculty member. She then subjected Demers to an “internal audit” conducted by a WSU internal auditor whose sister worked for Austin in the Murrow office. The complaint contends that the auditor had a “patent conflict of interest.” The audit reiterated the false charges of class cancellation but found no ethical violations.

The lawsuit also contends that Austin punished Demers in his 2008 annual review for writing a book which questions the commitment that WSU and other universities have given to free speech rights of faculty and students and to solving social problems. The book, titled The Ivory Tower of Babel, also chronicles events at WSU leading up to the lawsuit. According to the complaint, these events, such as unwarranted internal audits, low performance reviews based upon false charges and the failure to correct them, demonstrates a pattern by the administration to silence or get rid of a professor who challenged them.

Demers also filed a tort claim with the Washington state Office of Financial Management, claiming he was “mobbed” by administrators and some faculty. Workplace mobbing is a form of collective behavior that social scientists say is the nonviolent adult counterpart to “playground bullying” and is prevalent at places where employees have job protection through tenure or other means. The claim seeks $2 million in damages for emotional distress and other torts.

The 7-Step Plan was first formally presented to university officials in January 2007. It recommended that the Murrow program hire a dean with substantial professional experience, seek national accreditation for the mass communication programs through the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, give more power and authority in the program to professional faculty, and remove the communication studies sequence from the program. Demers offered to donate $100,000 of his own money to the university if it implemented the plan.

“Dr. Austin and many of the faculty were angry when I opposed their ideas for changing the Murrow program and presented the 7-Step Plan directly to the provost and president of the university,” Demers says. “Many were especially angry about my call to remove the communication studies sequence, which has a lot of clout but few students in the Murrow College. But only three of the top 30 Ph.D.-granting mass communication programs in the United States have a communication studies sequence.

Demers tried for years to get the university to seek national accreditation for the programs in print journalism, broadcasting, public relations and advertising. Accreditation is the single best indicator of the quality of a program, he said, but Murrow faculty have repeatedly rejected it. The University of Washington and Western Washington University both have accredited print journalism programs.

“Edward R. Murrow would roll over in his grave if he could see what has happened to the programs that bear his name,” Demers says. “Historically, the Murrow program has been one of the most poorly funded and staffed programs of its size in the United States. We don’t even have a formal program in photography or visual communication.” Murrow, one of the most respected names in the history of broadcast journalism, attended Washington State College (as it was called then) in the late 1920s and graduated in 1930.

Demers tried to work with the WSU administration to deal with the false charges against him. In one meeting with Dean Lear, he conceded the accusation that Demers had canceled classes was false. But the administration refused to the correct the error, accusing Demers, instead, of “failing to hold classes.”

At another meeting, Provost Bayly also refused to set the record straight.

“It’s an ivory tower of Babel,” Demers said. “I have all of the quizzes and attendance records for those classes to prove I canceled no classes, but they repeatedly refused to look at the evidence.”

The lawsuit contends that Austin’s refusal “to correct provably false statements in three annual reviews (about class cancellation) demonstrates continued retaliatory intent, as does the internal audit … . Dr. Austin’s ultimate impermissible goal, sustained and condoned by Drs. Lear, McSweeney and Bayly, was to force Dr. Demers to resign or to be terminated by WSU for contrived ‘incompetence’ to rid the Murrow College of an outspoken professor who expressed unpopular views on matters of public concern.”

“All I’ve ever wanted was an apology and the official record corrected,” Demers says. “But many attorneys tell me university bureaucracies never apologize when they make mistakes. They would rather spend taxpayers’ money. Unfortunately, the taxpayers, not the administrators, are the ones who will be penalized in this case. But this case is not about the money. It’s about protecting the First Amendment rights of faculty.”

Ironically, in summer 2009, after a new dean with a strong professional background replaced Austin, the Murrow College began taking steps to implement parts of Demers’ 7-Step Plan.

“Stifling Dr. Demers’ speech regarding the 7-Step Plan promoted no state interest, such as workplace efficiency or avoiding workplace disruption,” the lawsuit states. “In fact, since the Murrow College was created and a new dean hired for it, WSU has implemented or sought to implement five parts of the 7-Step Plan, thereby demonstrating how the 7-Step Plan actually promoted the state’s interest.”

The lawsuit asks the court to expunge the annual reviews and the internal audit, make appropriate salary adjustments, pay reasonable attorney fees, and assess unspecified punitive damages. In a similar case recently in Oregon, a jury granted a public school teacher nearly $1 million in damages.

Will’s family has a number of gay friends. In recent years, Laura Phillips said, they’ve been trying to be a straight ally to the gay community, going to the pride parades and standing up for the rights of their gay and lesbian neighbors. They’ve been especially dismayed by the effort to take away the rights of homosexuals – the right to marry, and the right to adopt. Given that, Will immediately saw a problem with the pledge of allegiance.

“I’ve always tried to analyze things because I want to be lawyer,” Will said. “I really don’t feel that there’s currently liberty and justice for all.”

After asking his parents whether it was against the law not to stand for the pledge, Will decided to do something. On Monday, Oct. 5, when the other kids in his class stood up to recite the pledge of allegiance, he remained sitting down. The class had a substitute teacher that week, a retired educator from the district, who knew Will’s mother and grandmother. Though the substitute tried to make him stand up, he respectfully refused. He did it again the next day, and the next day. Each day, the substitute got a little more cross with him. On Thursday, it finally came to a head. The teacher, Will said, told him that she knew his mother and grandmother, and they would want him to stand and say the pledge.

“She got a lot more angry and raised her voice and brought my mom and my grandma up,” Will said. “I was fuming and was too furious to really pay attention to what she was saying. After a few minutes, I said, ‘With all due respect, ma’am, you can go jump off a bridge.’ ”

OK, maybe Will shouldn’t have sassed his teacher, as ignorant as she was, but the whole thing is simply brilliant for a ten year old boy. That’s what I want for my son, that he understands principles, acts based on caring for others, and doesn’t overly weigh the consequences in terms of ridicule by peers. Will Phillips has done some great things here, and hopefully his whole school has some great discussions about the ethics of what he is doing.

Will didn’t just whine when he didn’t agree with the law and the way our country treats people. He took action. The Catholic Church, on the other hand, is back to whining. In DC the Catholic Church is threatening to get out of the social services business if DC passes a sweeping anti-discrimination law protecting gay and lesbian citizens and recognizing gay marriages. Yes, the Catholic Church is willing to sweep good works under the rug because they don’t respect gay and lesbian rights. That’s a whiney ultimatum, more akin to a tantrum than to good works Catholic Charities has in the past been known for. Perhaps they should take Will Phillips as an example, since they evidently don’t have good examples of moral beahvior within the church.

Jeff Brown said Lance Cpl. Jasen Bruce, 28, had been followed into the parking garage of his Tampa apartment building about 6:30 p.m. Monday by the Rev. Alexios Marakis, who then made sexual comments and grabbed the reservist’s genitals. Brown denounced the Tampa Police Department’s account of the incident as “one-sided” and “tainted.”

“We are confident that the surveillance videos, the long 911 call, the eyewitnesses will all conclusively show that Lance Cpl. Bruce was attacked and was the victim in this case,” Brown said.

But the Tampa Police report offered a far different account, saying Marakis was lost when he followed Bruce into the garage and asked for help, then was struck with the tire iron and chased several blocks. When officers arrived, Bruce called Marakis a terrorist and said the priest had shouted “Allahu akbar!” — Arabic for “God is great.”

Tampa Police spokeswoman Laura McElroy said Bruce made no mention of a sexual attack in his 911 call, referencing it later when officers arrived, after offering other excuses for the bloodied man. “One was that he tried to rob him. The other was that he was an Arab terrorist and shouted “Allahu akbar” and he explained that ‘That’s what they say before they blow you up.’ And then he said that he grabbed his genitals and wanted to have sex with him. He gave various accounts of what happened,” she said.

Bruce was charged with aggravated battery with a deadly weapon but released from jail on bond.

I’m betting Jasen Bruce’s business is not going to do well after this attack. And I’m wondering at his fixation on testosterone. Hmm, and he seems on his Linkedin page to have dabbled in Human Growth Hormone. Could we see a roid rage whiney excuse next?

Of course, we are all proud of our veterans on this day. I showed my son the flag that was draped over my Dad’s coffin. It is a solemn day for Americans, not one that should be sullied by idiots like Jasen Bruce. One thing for sure, all veterans ought to be offended by this guys actions and by his whiney excuses.