zzwt

Inauguration 2009

2009-01-20T12:30:00.000-08:00

Barack Hussein Obama

The 44th President of the United States

New Whitehouse.gov for Obama

Deryk Schlessinger gets his own....

2009-01-12T20:26:00.000-08:00

wikipedia article... NOT!
...his proud mother isn't that proud.

He sure is under her wing.

He's even getting scrubbed from her article. Her son Deryk has been in the business for years. He worked for her magazine, was a model and did the Hooked on Phonics hook.

He's been a top role model for years
and he gets scrubbed.

Can't read image? click image to enlarge
or read the following.... Which was added after the previous post on:
Deryk Schlessinger, Laura Schlessinger, Wikipedia
Wednesday, November 12, 2008

"Trusilver" and "LegitimateAndEvenCompelling" know what's best for you... or "dr" Laura's image?

10 January 2009:
"I removed it. Let's be a clear on who this article is about. Just because something, somewhere happened involving Laura Shlessinger's son, doesn't automatically make it noteworthy to add to her article. Honestly, having read through this entire article and its past history over the last couple days, I find the agendas of several of its frequent editors to be suspiciously POV. Considering that the criticism section of this article is already bloated to the point of obnoxiousness, how about we reserve criticism for the actual subject of the article, shall we? Trusilver 06:46, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Agree. --LegitimateAndEvenCompelling (talk) 14:26, 10 January 2009 (UTC)"

Here is the scrub Deryk discussion...

"...how about we reserve criticism for the actual subject of the article, shall we?"
anyday now I suppose...

Check out her Wiki article on her "Dr" and licensing. She's sad.
She keeps saying she's licensed.
People keep referring to her as if she is a psychotheraphist, or something she is not.
Her only talent is morphing herself into a tragic comic figure of past potential.

FAKE, FAKE, FAKE doc as she does it is cr@p!

Here is James Clarke from South Africa who believes her "psychologist" bull.

"It was addressed to Dr Laura Schlessinger, psychologist and
outspoken [lying] New York talk-radio talk-show host."

SOSO
same old, same old

The Washington Post reported the results of a survey conducted by the Benchmark Co., which found that ..75 percent of Schlessinger's listeners think she is a psychologist, psychiatrist or therapist. She is nothing of the sort.

How many Schlessinger scandals survived in her Wiki article?

A Wikipedia article that is a mere tool for her propaganda spew, she's getting ready for her next assault on women. Another dreadful book and all the marketing scams.

Bring back the sluts! "dr" Laura is losing it...

The "dr" Laura slut parade is next if all she can do is scrub old Prince Derky. [She compared him to Prince Harry in “Dr. Laura to G.I. wives: No Whining." It IS NO LONGER AVAILABLE. It
now says: "We are sorry the article that you requested is no longer
available" it has been scrubbed from the Salt Lake Tribune, go figure..]

Update: Scrub Sarah Palin and "dr" Laura Schlessinger...

Troops lured by drug trade
Friday, January 2, 2009

Troops lured by drug trade

2009-01-02T23:15:00.000-08:00

Troops lured by drug trade,
report warns

Military cites 'high probability' some Canadians will become drug traffickers while in Afghanistan
Jan 02, 2009

The US military isn't talking about their troops drug trade...
or Dealing with PTSD

"The honorable Rep. Bob Filner, chairman of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs, decried that "the American people assume we (the VA) are taking care of our kids ... we are not'."

ELVIS PRESLEY was the most famous victim of the army addicted.
He started taking drugs (amphetamines) regularly while in the army.
Military service and mother's death
Rank and Insignia Date of Rank
Private Drafted
1958-03-24
Private First-Class 1958-11-27
Specialist 4 1959-06-01
Sergeant 1960-01-20
Some months later, in Germany,

"a sergeant had introduced Presley to amphetamines when they were on maneuvers at Grafenwöhr... it seemed like half the guys in the company were taking them."

Friends around Presley, like Joe Esposito, also began taking them,
"if only to keep up with Elvis, who was practically evangelical about their benefits."

"Access to illicit drugs in Afghanistan is routine"
Today: Afghans burn Bush orangutan effigy to protest US, Israel
Friday January 2, 2009

Touches body of boy killed by U.S-led troops in Kabul
His dead brother lies next to him

I will have no harvest. How will I pay back my loan?

Mexico's Drug War Death Toll: 8,463 and Counting

America Supports You.mil Bought Mainstream Media Support in violation of DOD ethics rules.
Posted on December 27, 2008 by Bob Hanafin

INVESTIGATE

2008-12-25T14:19:00.000-08:00

Thursday, December 25, 2008 . Flash Flood Watch

Christmas in Santa Barbara

hungry

The busiest days at the Santa Barbara Airport are Friday, Dec. 19 through
Sunday, Dec. 28, according to officials there.

Bad Santa

decorations ..

Annual Christmas decor . Annual Christmas Feast

Wendy McCaw, farewell Laura Schlessinger and "America Supports You"

2008-12-20T18:24:00.000-08:00

No comment Wendy....
Update:
Wendy McCaw [Santa Barbara News-Press] and Laura Schlessinger's good-bye...

? ? ?

Where is the traditional Business Wire announcement?

Is Robert Eringer replacing Schlessinger?
Investigate:
The Department of Defense Inspector General's report.
"America Supports You/Operation Family Fund" and Laura Schlessinger

[][]

Veterans Today:
Tis the Season
"Way back in May 2006, the editor of Veterans Today posted this concern about the growing number of Support Our Troop and Veterans organizations that crawled out of the woodwork to benefit and viewed as a need to well, “Support Our Troops,” given that the vast majority of Americans were (and are) either apathetic or did not really care about something they could not relate to – Our Troops."
December 06, 2008

Read the entire report by Robert L. Hanafin, Major, U.S. Air Force-Retired

News: Charities' costs sap aid for vets
May 03, 2006

KingOf*Hearts*

Laura Schlessinger's "charities" investigated for fraud

Celebrity and "America Supports You/Operation Family Fund"

Laura Schlessinger

Wendy McCaw's Santa Barbara News-Press is busy reorganizing

2008-12-17T18:40:00.000-08:00

Coincidentally, "dr" Laura Schlessinger is no longer doing her column at the News-Press [she gave a sudden notice and lame excuse on December 14, 2008]. Making Wendy look the fool again ["shackup-slut"]. McCaw clams and gives it up 100% to Schlessinger's poor manners, she's squirrely in social apropos and unprofessional. Who is in the drivers seat anyway? Where's the communication with readers and the Wendy timely 'appreciation' for Laura's kudos to the News-Press and her years as a loyalist? No farewell send off? Business Wire [protocol] announcement? These are two odd ducks. Both McCaw and Schlessinger are habitual prevaricators and refuse to be even the slightest transparent. They prefer their darkness and the rumor mill.

Schlessinger wrote:
"From me to you, adieu to Page 2 Final column: Today will be my last Page 2 column for the News-Press. All the "problems" (aka: union issues) notwithstanding, I am appreciative and proud to have had the opportunity to contribute to my community's local paper.
You folks cannot imagine all the stress and strain that the people who work for the News-Press have withstood with the constant attacks on the paper and its efforts from those with a determined political agenda. I am impressed and grateful for their courage and fortitude.
It is curious to me that there might be many in Santa Barbara who don't quite know why they're supposed to "hate" the News-Press but choose to do so because they've heard this-or-that. I encourage you to support your local newspaper so that it can grow and flourish and provide you with the information you need as a citizen and a neighbor."

"All the stress and strain that the people who work for the News-Press" ?
How often was she there? Her contacts were?

Workers struggling for their rights are not her elitist political agenda. The paper is attacked because of it's lack of integrity, for the way they divide the community and for their deaf uncaring ears.

Coincidentally, at this time "dr" Laura Schlessinger's government charity "America Supports You" is under investigation for not supporting the troops.

[ Exclusive: Pentagon Pro-Troop Group Misspent Millions ]

They did support celebrities that did PR for them.

Laura was a major "America Supports You/Operation Family Fund" celebrity.

Where's her project manager, Mike Cash, now? She did huge promotions and used the News-Press to advertise [free propaganda] these alleged support the troops pro-war rallies to solicit money for PR. Curious, the News-Press and Laura are quiet now the troops got screwed.

Supporting The Troops?

[][]

The alleged 54 year old Robert Eringer writes "the investigator" at the News-Press.

What is he investigating the week Laura abandons ship?

"Dec 13, 2008 - Some local scams are exposed The racket? Work-at-home, "mystery-shoppers" and other get-rich-quick schemes. Here's how they work: Local con men place nationwide ads offering information on work-at-home "opportunities" -- or they offer interviews for entry into a so-called "job placement program." You phone a toll-free number to inquire; their objective is to extract your credit card details -- and exact payment to "get you started" on what essentially is a non-starter."

His CIA/FBI contacts are useless? Laura Schlessinger's "America Supports You" is a big story for those who do care when the military and PR celebrities screw the troops and their families.

Why is Eringer writing in an elitist paper about scams that target
the poor and gullible?

The Department of Defense Inspector General report is far more important information for Americans to know.

Talk about "The racket?", investigate all radio celebrity "charities". KEYT TV reaches the people for smaller "get-rich-quick schemes".

Everyone, including the rich, need to know when their tax money is favoring PR over troop support.

[][]

Far more interesting is Eringer's pal, Jeff Stein, Congressional Quarterly...

The CIA and its reporter friends: Anatomy of a backlash
The backlash from the "intelligence community" over John Brennan's withdrawal -- which pro-Brennan sources are now claiming was actually forced on Brennan by the Obama team -- continues to intensify. Just marvel at how coordinated (and patently inaccurate) their messaging is, and -- more significantly -- how easily they can implant their message into establishment media outlets far and wide, which uncritically publish what they're told from their cherished "intelligence sources" and without even the pretense of verifying whether any of it is true and/or hearing any divergent views:
Jeff Stein, Congressional Quarterly, 12/5/2008:

A Note to Readers: SpyTalk has a Brand New Blog
As of this week, SpyTalk has expanded from a weekly column to a daily blog at Congressional Quarterly's new-ish CQ Politics site. I'll still be offering regular, in-depth reporting and analysis on national security issues, particularly the sprawling U.S. intelligence "community, there.

Jeff Stein wrote extensively about Eringer's work.
and will no doubt be there for Eringer's future court room drama.

[][]

Rumor Mill… Wendy McCaw and Arthur Von Weisenberger, reorganizing?

Supporting The Troops?

2008-12-15T08:07:00.000-08:00

Here's a really sad story:
Surviving spouses of war veterans have been wrongfully denied up to millions of dollars in government benefits over the past 12 years due to computer glitches that often resulted in money being seized from the elderly survivors' bank accounts.

"Twelve years of seizing last-month benefits from surviving widows and orphans, contra the law. What a racket. You really can’t blame that on “computer glitches” — it’s simple laziness, corruption, and greed." Teddy Partridge

[] [] []

The forgotten Vets...

Pentagon's Massive Fraud And Waste

"But this should be a lesson as to why we can't let those who would rather
sell a war than support a Soldier back into Washington"

UNDER INVESTIGATION: "America Supports You".. 'Honors' Laura Schlessinger, one month later Deryk Schlessinger's case was completed*. CRONIES1

INVESTIGATE LAURA SCHLESSINGER!1

"America Supports You" 'honors' Laura Schlessinger, one month later Deryk Schlessinger's case was completed*. CRONIES2

2008-12-14T21:35:00.000-08:00

More exploitation of American children...
America's Child Soldiers: US Military Recruiting Children to Serve in the Armed Forces

Recruiting children, exploiting children... How Laura Schlessinger...

She's been unyielding in her political stance. Mandatory draft, guns in school for boys, girls grow up to stay at home for the next depression.

Her next book tour for Fox news: "In Praise of Stay-at-Home Moms". We can hardly wait. She's so pleased that the current financial disaster means less young people go to college and more join the Army. Parents follow her
parenting role model for a world of "Godless crazy people like ...."

Video: PR Firms = Propaganda

*"America Supports You" 'honors' Laura Schlessinger, one month later Deryk Schlessinger's case was completed*. CRONIES1

INVESTIGATE LAURA SCHLESSINGER!1

"America Supports You" 'honors' Laura Schlessinger, one month later Deryk Schlessinger's case was completed*. CRONIES: At least $9.2 million was...

2008-12-12T22:56:00.000-08:00

"A Defense Department project, supposedly designed to support U.S. troops, was used instead to channel millions of dollars to personal friends and allies of its chief. The "America Supports You," or ASY, program was led in a

"questionable and
unregulated manner,"

according to a Department of Defense Inspector General report, obtained by Danger Room. At least $9.2 million was "inappropriately transferred" by the project's managers. Much of that money served only to further promote ASY, instead of assisting servicemembers."

Laura Schlessinger had an "America Supports You" section on her web site for a long time. There was even a nice photo of an injured soldier. I can't find much "America Supports You" now. Maybe I missed the "America Supports You" page? Or her cronies gave her a heads up. She seems to have dropped her project manager Mike Cash the last several months.

The July 30, 2007 "America Supports You" 'honor' was picture perfect.
[see photo above]
Deryk's completed investigation was announced August 31, 2007
*Deryk Schlessinger's investigation was completed. HE WAS NOT CLEARED.

Schlessinger enablers did their part with blogs like:

1. VINDICATION [there was no vindication]

2. Dr Laura Schlessinger, Deryk Schlessinger, MySpace Controversy, Progressive Democrats
Alleged Citizen Journalist, Mick, wrote a more bizarre interpretation:
What he writes about Ms. McCaw and Jerry Roberts is jaw dropping...

"DoD may appear to merge inappropriately
the public affairs and information operations functions"

While the Pentagon preps for a new administration,
a scandal from an earlier era is rearing its head.

Unfortunately, the troops being "screwed" over is not a big story, or new, for many people. Schlessinger can purge her website and go on her next book tour. There she only screws the gullible with the fake booksale schemes. And her famous "I'm a licensed psychotheraphist". For media interviews she only smoozes with dimwits who would never ask the right questions or expect ethics.

Pentagon Misspent Funds Aimed at Supporting Troops

America Supports Propaganda

Dr. Laura's Mother Found Murdered...

2008-12-10T12:49:00.000-08:00

...6 years ago this December

After decomposing several months, Yolanda Schlessinger's corpse was beyond an accurate conclusion for the cause of death, of course, heart "disease" was a part of it.

The first officials to observe the body at the Beverly Hills condo had no doubt it was a murder scene. The headlines were appropriately brutal.

Dr. Laura's Mother Found Murdered

LOS ANGELES, Dec. 21, 2002
CBS News:
"The body of Yolanda Schlessinger, 77, was found Monday in her Beverly Hills condominium. Police would say only she had been dead for a long time." [... when found December 16, 2002. "She had apparently been dead about two months, making it hard to determine injuries or trauma."]

City of Beverly Hills December 18, 2002

"On December 18, 2002, an autopsy was conducted by the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office. The autopsy disclosed that the deceased was a homicide victim."

Almost as chilling as abandoning her mother was Laura's continued lack of sanctity and respect in the following update:
"*** 1/2 UPDATE: The body of Yolanda Schlessinger sat in the Los Angeles morgue for 10 extra days before her daughter Laura claimed the 77-year-old woman's remains on December 28."
10 extra days...

Laura managed to keep the Yolanda Ceccovini Schlessinger story about a shocked grief ridden Laura. After years [20 years?] of abandoning a mentally troubled parent, Laura claimed she was "overwhelmed by sadness". Laura also claimed she is a licensed psychotherapist, marriage and family therapist. She can't stop claiming she is licensed. Her associates and advertisers don't care for the gullible or ethics and she gets by with that also.

Where's the license?

It seems her ancient MFCC, Marriage, Family and Child Counselor, was abandoned long ago. She has no active license, she's a fraud. It appears she has major unresolved abandonment, as well as chronic lying and low self-esteem issues.

Old people die sad and alone in a society like Laura Schlessinger's ilk create.
[YOLANDA]

Yolanda, Lundy [as she preferred], is an icon in her own rite. She represents the treatment of the mentally troubled and the deadly consequences when society trusts charlatan posers and frauds like Dr.John Romulus Brinkley, radio history or Laura Schlessinger.

Lundy Schlessinger's story is intriguing and important. I hope to find more time for Lundy Schlessinger and other abandoned and mentally impaired that suffer and die from neglect and/or murder.

Laura's role model example: "Just ditch those difficult parents"
Alone at the End Excerpts...

I bet Laura does want to smack a few parents...

Laura Schlessinger: Dr. Laura's Mother Found Murdered2

2008-12-05T09:35:00.000-08:00

Mother of ‘Dr. Laura’ Found Dead
By Jill Leovy and Mitchell Landsberg
December 21, 2002 in print edition B-1

Excerpts from the LA Times:
Neighbors said they had last seen Yolanda Schlessinger, 77, in September.
[3-4 months]

In a 1994 People magazine profile, Schlessinger said the estrangement dated to 1986, when her mother walked off the job as Laura’s secretary.

Neighbors described Yolanda Schlessinger as a friendly, pleasant, talkative person who seemed “quite bright,” said Edna Neidorff, a former resident of the apartment complex in the 400 block of North Palm Drive.

Neidorff said the victim was chatty with neighbors. They called her “Lundy,” the name she listed on the condo roster.

Licia Masi lived in the same building as Yolanda Schlessinger. Masi said that earlier this week, her daughter, a building manager, had called police to check on Schlessinger.

The case presents detectives with difficulties because so much time has passed, Gilmond said.

Although not a professionally trained psychotherapist, “Dr. Laura”

She has publicly acknowledged on numerous occasions that she has been estranged from her mother, who she said was “Sophia Loren-like,” since sometime in the mid-1980s.

She has said her parents fought constantly, and her father was physically and emotionally abusive.

In her show, Schlessinger frequently draws a distinction between good and bad mothers. The theme is so typical of her that she and her fans wear shirts emblazoned with “I Am My Kid’s Mom.”

Masi, the building manager’s mother, said Yolanda Schlessinger was a charming, very conversational person, who spoke English as well as Italian and dressed very elegantly.

Although she believed the blond, blue-eyed Schlessinger was in her 70s, Masi said the woman looked much younger and had a youthful, jovial manner.

“It’s so strange that she had no visitors,” Masi said. She said Schlessinger never mentioned her famous daughter.

Neidorff described her acquaintance, Schlessinger, as a “lovely lady” who seemed “very wise.”

“She was very friendly,” she said.

“But very private – an interesting combination. She had an accent that someone told me was Italian

Alone at the End

Long Estranged from Her Daughter, Dr. Laura's Mother Dies Mysteriously

By Alex Tresniowski

Excerpts:

Lundy never even met Deryk, Laura's 17-year-old son with second husband Lew Bishop, a retired professor of biology at USC. In recent years

Laura claims to have lost track of
Lundy altogether

Yet Shelley Herman, a television writer who worked with Laura in the '80s, says Laura "could have found her mother if she wanted to. Why did she have to die alone?" She remembers Lundy as a cheerful assistant who was inexplicably cut off by her daughter. "It's interesting that Laura is always bad-mouthing her mother," says Herman, "but Lundy never said a word about her to the press."

Whatever issues kept them apart will now, sadly, remain unresolved. In her last years

Lundy liked to dress in tasteful St. John outfits and occasionally drive her Cadillac to local bridge clubs. According to someone who spent time with her recently, she also listened to her daughter's radio show. "It just breaks my heart to think of her so alone," says Marcovitch.

"It's everyone's nightmare to die without
your loved ones."

Thou shalt honor
father and mother

Dr. Laura's Mother Found Murdered...

Dr. Laura's Mother Found Murdered3

2008-12-01T21:06:00.001-08:00

Is She Dr. Laura or Dr. Strange Love?

Some family values. Your 77-year-old mother lies dead and decomposing
for two months in a condominium not far from the radio complex where
you sternly hector millions about how to live a moral life while
attacking those who "deviate."

And you never bothered once to inquire how your own mom was doing? Maybe
send a minion over to knock on the door once in a while? For two months,
the mail piled up, the condo fees went unpaid, and you, successful
syndicated radio advice guru "Dr. Laura" Schlessinger, never noticed
these and other worrying signs that, as the police suggested, your
mother may have been murdered?

Of course, when you finally found out, after the building manager called
the police, you were "horrified by the tragic circumstances" of her
death.

But was it really appropriate to add, self-servingly, that she "died as
she chose to live, alone and isolated." You said, "My mother shut all
her family out of her life over the years, though we made several futile
attempts to stay connected."

Those are not kind words to speak of one's dead mother. Ties it all in a
neat little bow, doesn't it? Italian-born Yolanda Schlessinger was
"Sophia Loren-like," and you found her difficult. In a 1998 interview,
you claim a childhood "that would curl your hair."

Welcome to reality: Good family values don't come easily. Problem is,
you've made it sound as if they do. You are one of the leading
conservative sloganeers who arrogantly claim a lock on the moral high
ground while deriding those, such as homosexuals, who dare to "deviate"
from your "norm." Using the title "doctor," earned in physiology rather
than medicine or psychology, has lent a false credibility to your
depictions of homosexuality as a "biological error," a "dysfunction" and
a "deviancy" -- words that encourage hate crimes.

Worse, honoring and caring for one's parents is at the heart of your
philosophy, as spelled out in your own presumptuous 1998 book, "The 10
Commandments: The Significance of God's Laws in Everyday Life." You
wrote: "God's commandment of honoring parents is basically the message
that parents are a conduit of God. Any profanity or harm to the parent
is as if we've profaned God."

You wrote, "By honoring our parents, we learn to honor God. By honoring
God we become decent human beings."

You obviously failed that test. "Even bad parents deserve to be honored
if only at a minimal level," you wrote. Thus surely "honor thy father
and thy mother" intends something more than letting a septuagenarian
woman go months at a time without even a drive-by visit from her
daughter.

You also wrote: "There is often a profound unwillingness to give
anything to a parent perceived as being unloving or undeserving.... That
avoidance is part of the mentality that says, 'If it doesn't obviously
serve me, I won't do it and I shouldn't have to!' " Apparently, that is
your mentality.

But you, whose shallow perceptions are laced with bursts of meanness and
contempt for others, will no doubt continue as a hot media product and a
darling of the religious conservatives. "A positive voice for positive
values without equal in our time," gushed the Rev. Robert Schuller.

What can we draw from all this? That family relationships are
exceedingly complicated and often painful. That maintaining true "family
values" is not a matter simply of attending church, being heterosexual
and mouthing platitudes, but demands humility, resiliency and deep
compassion. That religious texts like the Bible can provide inspiring
lessons in the hands of sincere teachers and also can be used as clubs
by the cynical and ambitious.

And finally, that the "Dr. Laura" show typifies the dangerous hypocrisy of those who build profitable and politically potent empires on the basis of claiming a monopoly on simplistic answers to complex problems.
The guilt and shame they induce in those who might resist their nostrums
is loathsome, made more so when they themselves so casually ignore them.
[]
Yolanda Schlessinger...

Laura Schlessinger wants to smack a few parents

2008-11-30T23:20:00.000-08:00

... but she is thankful for a WSJ national holiday history lesson

"I just want to smack those few parents across the country who are causing a ruckus, attempting to eliminate Thanksgiving pageants, celebrations, and dress-up for small children because they are “offended” by the “Indian” garb (”stereotyping Indians,” they say) or the supposed whitewashing of the history of the conflict between Europeans and original natives of this land."
from Laura Schlessinger's blog and behind a paywall in the News-Press: Thanksgiving? November 26, 2008

"Thanksgiving without the history, please" [disappeared?] A commentary with another POV.

How much longer must good people endure Laura Schlessinger's malevolent, alienating, illiberal, assuming and factionalist poison?

See Robert Eringer photo here...
Does that look like a man born in 1954? He would be 54 y/o. Maybe born in 1934, claims 1954!

ch..ch..ch..ch..changes Wikipedia ?

Thanksgiving

2008-11-27T14:08:00.000-08:00

The turkey

Friday November 14, 2008

2008-11-23T23:07:00.001-08:00

Tea Fire
Thursday November 13, 2008

Tea Fire Thursday November 13, 2008

2008-11-17T09:50:00.000-08:00

SB John Wiley's photostream

Patrick Price

teafire

Santa Barbara Tea Fire Aerial Images
By: Bryant Swanstrom Black Swan Studios
Tea Fire - Nov 2008
fishgoat23
LA Times slideshow - flames shoot over high-wire powerlines

Deryk Schlessinger, Laura Schlessinger, Wikipedia

2008-11-12T10:56:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time in a far off galaxy Deryk Schlessinger had his own Wikipedia article, not for long... As the adult son of Laura Schlessinger, and former child employee or indentured servant of the "family values" gig and corporation [Take On The Day, LLC], Laura would not allow a forum for Deryk's autonomy. He is conformed and condemned to a life under parental corporation, the military or contractors [mercenary,sniper]. He was raised a warrior then trained to kill.
The symbiotic family allows a brief mention of Deryk on mommy Laura's Wikipedia page.
The following was scrubbed and later replaced with an improved but brief post.

[improved brief post scrubbed January 2009 before book marketing and bulk sales for a new book]

Deryk Schlessinger

Hey, I removed 70.188.224.207's edit to the Laura page, simply because they appear to be assumptions* ("it is far more likely that the MySpace page was created as a hoax by some third party in order to bring negative publicity to her.") And he/she was incorrect in saying that "The allegation was made by a single website with a history of criticism of Schlessinger", since the newspaper link given specifically says they "... learned of the Web page earlier this week from a former schoolmate." I agree whole heartedly that this 'story' is a bit hazy but let's keep it to what is on the record. If things change, the Wiki will keep it up-to-date.Dronester 19:03, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
ok guys, it's been about three months since the myspace story was first reported. Here are the facts: First, only one newspaper
[not correct] has ever reported on this. Second, there are no named sources anywhere. "An army spokesman" is quoted. What's his name? Nobody knows [not correct] . Third, the newspaper that reported it ran several critical [not correct], dare I say hit-pieces about Shlessinger. Last-but-not least, it's a myspace page. If anyone here is brave enough to give me your name, I promise you I will find "your" myspace page in about five minutes (because I'll go out and make one and put your name on it). [ignoring the photos that Deryk shares with friends] Is it ok if I create a wiki article about you, and write in that article that you allegedly had a myspace page with torture-fetish porn? Does that sound like a fair thing to do to you? Of course not! That's ridiculous, and likely slander as well. So why do you let that happen to someone else?? Please, I would really like to hear someone defend this. It's a made-up story. It's a lie. There is no evidence at all that the story is true. Why is it in wikipedia? 70.188.224.207 04:00, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I think scrubbing this story is a mistake. Here is a link to an August 31 2007 article in the Santa Barbara Independent by Matt Kettmann reporting that the Army investigation is closed and that the Army is not releasing the results http://www.independent.com/news/2007/aug/31/
military-investigation-dr-lauras-son-complete/ . The article quotes Lt. Col. David Accetta, Army spokesperson in Afghanistan. So 70.188.224.207's claims of "likely slander" don't seem to have much merit but are notable for the rhetoric. Being that this woman makes her living telling others how to keep their houses and affairs in order, yet may be failing in these endeavors on her own, makes it worth adding, don't you think? Dent.earl 19:40, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

I dislike Dr Laura but Wikipedia should not be used to spread unconfirmed rumors. Beyond that, common sense tells you that the most likely scenario is someone got his password and then uploaded the material. Is it more likely that
a)the son of a famous person would post illegal material using his name rather than use a pseudonym or
b)someone stole his password and posted. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.164.82.198 (talk) 04:16, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I have reinstated mention of the Deryk Schlessinger/MySpace event, which 98.162.177.7 removed. This event was reported in two newspapers; the Salt Lake Tribune and the Santa Barbara Independent. Army spokespersons Robert Tallman and David Accetta are quoted in the two articles. 98.162.177.7, you did not make any mention on the Talk page as to why you removed this content. Please explain rather than reverting. Whatever404 (talk) 15:30, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

[] [] []

Laura Schlessinger's Wikipedia page regarding Deryk [November 2008]
UPDATE: 1-12-09 DERYK WAS SCRUBBED FROM MA'S WIKIPEDIA...
Certainly, he'll get his own reinstated. She is so proud, well, she says she is.
Family issues
[edit] Mother's death

[edit] Son's MySpace page

In 2007, Schlessinger's son, Deryk was involved in a controversy surrounding the content of his MySpace page. The Salt Lake Tribune reported that Deryk, then serving in the U.S. Army in Afghanistan had a page including "cartoon depictions of rape, murder, torture and child molestation; photographs of soldiers with guns in their mouths; a photograph of a bound and blindfolded detainee captioned "My Sweet Little Habib"; accounts of illicit drug use; and a blog entry headlined by a series of obscenities and racial epithets."[14] Army spokesperson Robert Tallman referred to the content as "repulsive." A later report in the Santa Barbara Independent indicated that the US Army had investigated the case.[15] Army spokesperson David Accetta stated that he could not comment on whether Deryk Schlessinger had created the web page, but noted: "An investigation was conducted by trooper Schlessinger's chain of command and found nothing that indicated that any foreign government or enemy organization contributed to the webpage."

[] [] []

Lying by omission

The Biggest Lie About Lies -- A Lie of Omission Is Not a Lie!

All that Laura Schlessinger and Take On The Day would committ to record is all that was said about gays, greens, liberals and terrorists hacking into Deryk's MySpace, MISINFORMATION. The lies that were put out since the beginning, serve the Schlessingers. The Santa Barbara News-Press didn't report the story and they glaringly ignore the coverup. The gays, greens, liberals and terrorists 'hacking' was disputed by the Army in August 2007, but that gets little media attention or follow up.

Due to PR, media manipulations, propaganda many people believe Laura Schlessinger is a doctor and legitimate in behavior sciences or psychotheraphy. Remember, Schlessinger and Take On The Day, LLC have major connections, many make money through oil/war profiteering and the PR campaigns that promote "positive" role model hypes, like Deryk Schlessinger's "family value" image. There was a major news blackout on Deryk's investigation and only one follow up when the investigation was complete. Laura Schlessinger has an unholy relationship with the Department of Defense, it would not be surprising if the Pentagon helped squash media reports, as they did shutter all the MySpace evidence [simultaneous to blaming gays, greens, liberals and terrorists]. The media blackout was not due to "assumptions"*, it's called coverup. The evidence did exist and there are character witnesses. Laura Schlessinger knows about Deryk and has demonstrated a series of coverups, serious incidents of violence.

Military Investigation of Dr. Laura’s Son Complete
Friday, August 31, 2007 Independent

Dr. Laura’s Son Under Investigation Tuesday, May 22, 2007 Independent

Dr. Laura son linked to lurid Web page Updated: 05/23/2007
The Salt Lake Tribune
Site contained violent, sex-oriented images one official called 'repulsive'

Dr. Laura Suspends Calif. Newspaper Column Washington Post
Thursday, May 24, 2007; Page C08

"The 82nd Airborne Division in Afghanistan shuttered the pages on Friday.
The Pentagon managed to immediately cleanse all evidence of the MySpace pages, including whatever copies and cached versions were kept by Google and the Internet Archive."

"Dr. Laura has been curiously silent about her son’s bravery."
and photographs...
That is contrary to what Laura wrote [5/17/08]
As well, as increasing the significance of the photos. Of course, she'd deny that is Deryk if she thought it wasn't him.
SHE IS CONSPICUOUSLY SILENT. She's known his mode of operation and is complicit whenever she covers for him. TMZ and the Enquirer are considered to be rags by her ilk [except when they catch a former candiate in an affair] but the photos of Laura and Deryk Schlessinger are undeniable.

PATTERNS OF COVER UP...

Veterans Day 2008

2008-11-11T14:29:00.000-08:00

Headed For Afghanistan

NOLA

amy v cooper

Veterans Day at VA medical center in S.F.

Interview with Lane Anderson about overpass protester and Iraq war veteran Kyle Van Tassel

Every veteran is a hero, Vietnam survivor says

Vet's Day Sunset

. Veterns for Common Sense

Dr Laura is determined to annihilate Planned Parenthood

2008-10-30T13:28:00.000-07:00

Laura Schlessinger does have a forum and she can say what she wants, and the gullible can believe what they want.

At what point will more people stand up for what is right?

Like publically ask for a little honesty from the misguided
Dr Laura role model? If you write to the corporations you will only get an answer if you say what they want and follow strict form letter guides.

I don't try to read her A2 column in "slut" Wendy McCaw's Santa Barbara News-Press often. [redundant reminder: "slut" & "shack-up" are Schlessinger style, discriptions of boss
Citizen McCaw types]. When I did read it, it seems Schlessinger was restricted to a few topics. Abortion is predominate for her and she obesses over Planned Parenthood. There is never a discussion, it's only one sided, straight out of OLD Pravda. Shocking how old world communist her behavior can be.

Thankfully, Cheryl Rollings can speak up here:
Independent, Wednesday, October 29, 2008

"Shame on Dr. Laura"
"Planned Parenthood has provided quality reproductive health care services to the women, men and families in the tri-counties for more than 45 years. Last year alone, patients made over 61,000 visits to our five health centers where they received a broad range of services that included cancer screening and vasectomy, in addition to contraception . Contrary to what Dr. Laura asserts, abortion comprises only 6% of the services we provide. We are proud to be strong advocates for women, men and teens seeking affordable, professional health care and accurate, unbiased information regarding reproductive health. Shame on Dr. Laura for making false accusations and spreading outrageous lies about Planned Parenthood!"

Shame on Dr. Laura Shame on Dr. Laura Shame on Dr. Laura over and over for her numerous tricks and antics. She is an example of why these fake media doctors are dangerous. Shame on Dr. Laura for your role model style.

The following is from the article
"Shame on Dr. Laura" comments:

"Folks, you all missed the point. These women - pretending to be minors - did not claim rape; they posed as minors to test to see whether Planned Un-Parenthood would comply with the laws of the State of No. Carolina. According to the report mention in my SB NewsPress column, and many other such examples over the years, Planned Un-Parenthood has a history of not reporting minor girls coming for abortions who admit to having had sex with adult males. It is a shame that Cheryl Rollings, President and CEO of P U-P, would choose to criticize me rather than deal with the problems within her own organization."
Dr. Laura C. Schlessinger [unverified]

thedoc (anonymous profile) [ ? ? ]
October 30, 2008 at 6:32 a.m.

"thedoc (anonymous profile)" is anonymous. Not verified. The A2 writer hates anonymous.

This gets confusing.

An honorable professional will clear that up. Anonymous "Dr. Laura C. Schlessinger" in local media?

Laura tricks you into thinking all Planned Parenthood is 3000% wreckless abortions. Here is a chart on specifics.

Let the corporation or Laura Schlessinger know how despicable that is. It's despicable if Schlessinger is trying to have it both ways, she needs to verify. It's despicable if someone else is using her name. If the corporation,
Take On the Day, LLC, or the former
physiology student, Laura C. Schlessinger want to keep the product name, "Dr Laura" from sinking any lower... they need to clear this up. If it's Laura C. Schlessinger, verify.

If anonymous prank, Take On the Day, LLC or Laura Schlessinger be pros and say it's not you.

Smart as a fruitfly?

2008-10-25T08:26:00.000-07:00

Sarah Does Science: What a busy day for Sarah Palin. Besides giving a deposition on her role in troopergate (see: ethics, abuse of power), and dropping a hockey puck in St. Louis, she also managed to screw up her first policy speech. Via Think Progress:

MORE 10/27/08: Sarah Palin's latest swat at science
Fruit fly research is helping a booming new food industry in America -- vice presidential candidate is unaware of it.

Sarah Palin, the mother of all VP debate and Triggy Bear

2008-10-05T10:57:00.000-07:00

What has happened in the world of hockey moms?

I am baffled and bamboozled by the Palin's mixed message express... yes, she is cute and sexy, that's it. She's spawned a fertile lively family, but who can seriously get beyond her mothering stories, especially her special needs pregnancy ....
judgement? [Sarah is Trigs birth mother or grandmother?] She runs from answering most questions and John McCain leaves Vice Presidential vetting up to The National Enquirer. I agree with Dr. Laura Schlessinger, who is not a Dr.! Sarah Palin is the worst of role models [the fake Dr. Laura would know because she is also the worst of role models]. The fake Dr. Laura doesn't care that much about role modeling because she will vote for the bad role model mother ticket.

"I will still vote for Senator McCain" Dr. Laura Schlessinger,
warmonger and charlatan

"since Sarah Palin was selected for the vice-presidential nomination, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has given more press conferences than she has."

Triggy Bear in Mercede [Sadie] Johnston's MySpace. May 2008. Triggy Bear, Levi Johnston [brother], Bristol and Sarah Palin.
[click image to enlarge]

The Mommy Wars rage on...

Sarah Palin: CBS 11 doing a live interview as the legislative session comes to an end.

the baby body....

"Proof" uploaded August 31, 2008. Crazy date problems.

Sarah Palin announced her pregnancy on March 6, 2008. Trig Van Palin was born April 18, 2006.
John McCain announced her VP candidacy August 29, 2008

Anchorage Daily News March 14, 2008
Alaska governor Sarah Palin March 14, 2008

"Sarah Palin hid her pregnancy until the seventh month because she did not want it to interfere with the business of being Governor. She gave a speech about Alaska oil drilling as her amniotic fluid was leaking out. She gave birth one month early, to a Special Needs child, and returned to work three days later."

"No wonder her supposedly abstaining teenage daugther Bristol got pregnant, there are no parents in the house to truly guide her."

VIDEO: Hike with "pregnant" Governor Sarah Palin [about 4 min in]

"Why does this interview dated April 5, 2008 show her NOT PREGNANT,
walking in the snow in Alaska?"

The Lowes Don't Care About Their Kids?

2008-09-12T23:33:00.000-07:00

the ent lawyer 's crazy days and nights NO, NO, NO ROB LOWE...

Two a-holes who engage in aggressive litagation
I've decided Rob Lowe is full of crap. That is tough for me because generally I find that any client of Gloria Allred is full of crap, so I had to choose between two piles of it, and I think Rob's is worse.

Fox News obtained some of the documents filed by Rob's attorney and the allegations are pretty powerful. According to them, his nanny used the N word on a frequent basis and would often work with the kids while popping Xanax and drinking booze. OK, lets stop right there. A show of hands of who would let anyone work with their kids who did any of the three previous things while on duty. Yeah, that's what I thought. Rob and his wife didn't do a damn thing. They just let it go on and did not take any action against the nanny. So, either Rob is full of crap and this didn't happen, or he is quite possibly the worst parent ever. To knowingly let your kid be taken care of by someone who pops Xanax and drinks booze while watching your kids is close to abuse. Another theory is that he didn't mind them doing it because he was doing other things with them or wanted to. Can you think of any explanation that is plausible as to why you would let your kids be exposed to that?
continued > >

This is disgusting. Parents don't allow people like that around their children unless it is the parents. The chef was accused of stealing "medication" and having sex, but he settled. Who is the pill popper? This is too much.There were rumors before nanny-gate. It was the wife who was the most loathsome. The nannies deserve to get their last request reinstated. The Lowes had their PR machine dumping on them. Whatever happens they have no credibility. Most of all as parents. Yuk.

Sarah Palin, Veep Hottie

2008-08-30T08:05:00.000-07:00

John McCain Only Met Sarah Palin Once

America's Veep Hottie

When Choosing A Woman Might Not Be Choosing For Women

The story behind the Palin surprise

Sarah Palin, Web Invention

Palin Focus of Probe In Police Chief's Firing

Palin embraces another tried and true political tactic. The coverup

What drove McCain over the edge?

Here it is…what we in Alaska call “TrooperGate”....
Lovely Downtown Wasilla, Alaska

"Sarah Palin’s sister Molly married a guy named Mike Wooten who is an Alaska State Trooper. Mike and Molly had a rocky marriage. When the marriage broke up, there was a bitter custody fight that is still ongoing. During the custody investigation, all sorts of things were brought up about Wooten including the fact that he had illegally shot a moose (yes folks this is Alaska), driven drunk, and used a taser (on the test setting, he reminds us) on his 11-year old stepson, who supposedly had asked to see what it felt like. While Wooten has turned out to be a less than stellar figure, the fact that Palin’s father accompanied him on the infamous moose hunt, and that many of the dozens of charges brought up by the Palin family happened long before they were ever reported smacked of desperate custody fight. Wooten’s story is that he was basically stalked by the family.

After all this, Wooten was investigated and disciplined on two counts and allowed to kept his position with the troopers. Enter Walt Monegan, Palin’s appointed new chief of the Department of Public Safety and head of the troopers. Monegan was beloved by the troopers, did a bang-up job with minimal funding and suddenly got axed. Palin was out of town and Monegan got “offered another job” (aka fired) with no explanation to Alaskans. Pressure was put on the governor to give details, because rumors started to swirl around the fact that the highly respected Monegan was fired because he refused to fire the aforementioned Mike Wooten. Palin vehemently denied ever talking to Monegan or pressuring Monegan in any way to fire Wooten, or that anyone on her staff did. Over the weeks it has come out that not only was pressure applied, there were literally dozens of conversations in which pressure was applied to fire him. Monegan has testified to this fact, spurring an ongoing investigation by the Alaska state legislature. But, before this investigation got underway, Palin sent the Alaska State Attorney General out to do some investigative work of his own so she could find out in advance what the real investigation was going to find. (No, I’m not making this up). The AG interviewed several people, unbeknownst to the actual appointed investigator or the Legislature! Palin’s investigation of herself uncovered a recorded phone call retained by the Alaska State Troopers from Frank Bailey, a Palin underling, putting pressure on a trooper about the Wooten non-firing. Todd Palin (governor’s husband) even talked to Monegan himself in Palin’s office while she was away. Bailey is now on paid administrative leave.

As if this weren’t enough, Monegan’s appointed replacement Chuck Kopp, turns out to have been the center of his own little scandal. He received a letter of reprimand and was reassigned after sexual harrassment allegations by a former coworker who didn’t like all the unwanted kissing and hugging in the office. Was he vetted? Obviously not. When he was questioned about all this, his comment was that no one had asked him and he thought they all knew. Kopp, defiant, still claimed to have done nothing wrong and said to the press that there was no way he was stepping down from his new position. Twenty four hours later, he stepped down. Later it was uncovered that he received a $10,000 severance package for his two weeks on the job from Palin. Monegan got nothing.
After extensive news coverage about all this nasty behind-the-scenes scandal, which is definitely NOT squeaky clean, Palin’s approval ratings fell to 67%, still high, but a far cry from the 90% number that’s being thrown around so glibly by the Republicans today. Alaskans are quickly becoming disillusioned once again."

Laura Schlessinger: addicted to WSJ cr@p opinion...

2008-07-31T22:43:00.002-07:00

That's my opinion! ha! hells angel! A lot of the Laura Schlessinger Santa Barbara News-Press A2 columns are quotes, faux "letters", reworked recycle, blog material. She's behind a paywall that few read, but I hear schools get the News-Press for FREE. Dr. Laura and fertile minds, not good. "Dr. Laura... psycho killer.." sums it up.

She has found a way to redeem her leader, G.W. Bush. He is like a hit movie, kiddies.
Because "Long a fan of Glenn Beck...."tells her so...
Andrew Klavan What Bush and Batman Have in Common

The Batman Theory of Foreign Policy. HERE >>

The Dark Knight - a Neo-con's Battle Cry?
Posted by Bryant Daniels on 7.29.2008

"Ultimately Batman can do what no one else can because Batman is not real, and neither is the world he inhabits. So while Batman may use techniques that are unquestionably unconstitutional, but ultimately effective, the argument will still remain, "well Batman did it, so why can't we?" And that, my friends, is just batshit insane."

"Secrets Can Be Murder"

Massive wildfires and the News-Press

2008-07-07T16:09:00.000-07:00

New fire threatens Goleta as Big Sur blaze worsens

More evacuations are ordered. Fire crews are stretched thin in California.
July 3, 2008

UPDATE 1-Massive wildfires threaten two California towns

Thu Jul 3, 2008

photos July 4, 2008

Timothy N Burgess

Thursday evening, Santa Teresita Way and Francheschi Park at about 6:30 PM

from the Mission

Slippery Rock Ranch

Gap Fire At Night

One of my greatest teachers taught me,
“When in doubt, go with gratitude.”

"it's rather pathetic a major fire is burning...people are being evacuated and the santa barbara news-press' website requires you to be a paid subscriber to get the latest news on the gap fire." Skippy Sunday, July 06, 2008

July 4th Santa Barbara News-Press
editorial by Travis Armstrong is behind a paywall

more Travis opinions and cheaper shots...

Fourth of July 2008

2008-07-04T12:20:00.000-07:00

Stay Safe !

Pentagon Extends Afghan Tours After Insisting It Would Not

Flames descend canyons in Santa Barbara Co. fire

The queen of anti-SLAPP and Prince Lowe

2008-06-18T11:00:00.000-07:00

That would be pals Wendy McCaw and Rob Lowe. With their identic law firms and twin legal techniques.

Will aggressive intimidating legal techniques bring success?

The Santa Barbara News-Press [Ampersand Publishing] didn't miss a beat of the Michael Jackson trial. The D.A. photographed celebrity genitals, nothing was too sordid. Rob Lowe is no Michael Jackson in global popularity but this is the biggest celebrity trial in Santa Barbara County since Jackson.

McCaw has been handed an opportunity by her friends,
the Lowes.
The News-Press will cover celebrity legal trials with equal gusto?
Ampersand will show the world they aren't biased?

Wendy had a champagne moment when Federal Judge Stephen Wilson gave First Amendment refuge to her last May. Her celebration was short.
Lowe has been on a roller coaster. Their lawyer, Stanton "Larry" Stein, did manage a postponement for Lowe.

We'd like to see a new comic series about the news-press friends and clowns, or a tabloid format.

Not one of them belong in legit journalism.

What about the children?

What are we teaching children when friends are given special favor and clowns are treated in a serious manner? Their violations and crimes
to be scrutinized, but
none are worthy professionals.

Lowe Updates 6/19/08:

Two of Lowe Nanny's Claims Tossed From Court
Two Claims by Rob Lowe's Ex-Nanny Tossed

Links, McCaw Co chicanery:

1. McCaw “SLAPPed” Down
Appeals court dismisses News-Press suit as an attempt to silence journalist.
Friday, June 13, 2008

2. "Stanton 'Larry' Stein, the lawyer for Ampersand Publishing LLC [Rob Lowe], which publishes the News-Press, did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment."
6/13/2008

3. Justice for Wendy McCaw’s Victims
June 15th, 2008

4. Citizen McCaw Filmmakers Defy News-Press Owner
Doc About Santa Barbara Daily Newspaper’s Meltdown Will Show Despite Threats from Wendy McCaw’s Lawyers; Plus, How’s the Smart Car?
Monday, June 16, 2008

5. Citizen McCaw Screened Despite Cease and Desist
Monday Jun 16, 2008

6. "And with court reporter Kathleen Stinson having been given her walking papers last week, don't expect to see any coverage in the News-Press of the biggest court case in town right now, Rob Lowe's nanny-gate. After all, it's well known that Lowe is a 'friend of the publisher.'" 6/18/08

7. From buff to blobby: Hollywood heart-throb Rob Lowe loses his six-pack
[loses confidentiality paps]
[Rob gets a watcher?]
Daily Mail Reporter 10th June 2008

8. Will Rob Lowe Get SLAPPED Down?
Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Laura Schlessinger attracts the tackiest wackiest theatre of the absurd... her long time rancor with her sailing competitors again emerged. She also belongs to right wing groups that sell each others books and set up "awards" to give out. Uber PR associates, some who gain from the misfortune of others. Along with her distribution company and The Reputation Doctor they keep the internet enforced with her fantasy. NO word on Laura's unkept promise to keep everyone up to speed on Afghanistan or her sniper son, DerykSchlessinger/KingOf*Hearts* MySpace photos.

NO ACOUNTABILITY to date from
Deryk Schlessinger or Lew Bishop.
The only words on this are Laura's CNN lies...

The funniest part of her sailing "news" was to learn what she named her latest competitor speed boat, "Perfect".

The yellow speed boat, Perfect,

had a run about with a weather marker and flunked perfection. Creating a larger scene for the failing perfectionist. You don't name a yellow racer "Perfect" if you don't want the attention. She expects to live up to the name?

9. Did Dr. Laura Do the Right Thing?

10. The big package: Lying to go to war is no big deal....

"If you have a problem with Laura Schlessinger spreading her legs for a camera,
don't write to me - write to her and ask, 'Dr. Laura - how could you? What about the children?'" Bart

Robert Erlinger, Wendy's newest expense, is a big dud.

Eringer writes again!

2008-06-17T19:39:00.000-07:00

Eringer writes again!

...and again...

The Wendy "investigator", Robert Eringer, recylces his old product, another Laura Schlessinger repeat, copy, same, repeat, copy, same, over and over ad nauseam. That serves one purpose...

[] Eringer's recent News-Press article/column [he's also a correspondent]:
June 14, 2008
Bilderbergers are still in cahoots
Robert Eringer

They're at it again -- a confab of politicians, bankers, industrial captains and scholars from North America and Western Europe. Some say they rule the world. "They" took their name from Hotel de Bilderberg, in the Netherlands, where they first met 54 years ago and have been meeting ever since, annually, for hush-hush talks on the foreign policies and economies of nations.
Last weekend they ensconced themselves inside Westfields Marriott Hotel in Chantilly, Va., near Washington, D.C.; [] the end

More about the dog who won't hunt...
Thursday, June 12, 2008

The Bilderbergers are the conspirator's kingpins and Eringer wrote The Global Manipulators: The Bilderberg Group 1980.

Eringer is such a shady character it was possibly set up by the Bilderbergers Group. Who knows? Eringer's m.o. is to pretend he's a "friend" while working against said "friend". He might be a friend to the best money sources. Basically, he has zero credibility. So he recycles Bilderberg and has a current assessment. Who cares?

Santa Barbara cares about real estate.
Why does this clown, who has a Montecito estate, need a seldom used "private work area built for him" at the News-Press?

Now that needs to be investigated.

If he doesn't produce a worthy local investigative piece, McCaw will look like she's using him to intimidate her already intimidated, dehumanized, spied on remaining employees.
[]

Eringer

If you haven't read "The Greatest Vendetta on Earth" it is by far more insightful than anything the News-Press will tell you.

A circus spy and CIA honcho Wendy McCaw can love...

2008-06-02T23:44:00.000-07:00

"THE INVESTIGATOR" Robert Eringer, flacks for the Santa Barbara News-Press in a shameful sleeper: Secession: Coming soon to a neighborhood near you? 5/31/08 here
Without a doubt Jeff Stein's tale on "The Greatest Vendetta on Earth" shines more light in the dark life of another McCaw character. No, he's not on the good guys side, but he does keep his clothes on. He lived high on the hog with money made on the backs of circus animals and children.

Does Wendy care for circus animals?

The goofy Laura Schlessinger claimed to be so principled she refused to work for the same corporation as Howard Stern. No principles for Wendy. She booted 11 employees and gave "the investigator" office space away from his estate... knowing full well he spent 8 years on Ringling Brothers dime to prevent the truth about what it's like for animals and children. Does Schlessinger care for circus children? If Schlessinger had principles she'd at least do as she did with Dr.Seabaugh or Dear Abby.

"The Greatest Vendetta on Earth" is an interesting read:
Why would the head of Ringling Bros.-Barnum & Bailey hire a former top CIA honcho to torment a hapless freelance writer for eight years?

Excerpts:

"...Of all the strange figures that pop up in this murky tale, Robert Eringer may be the most mystifying. Eringer grew up in Beverly Hills, the son of a noted illustrator for Walt Disney who has now retired to Monaco. Despite attending four colleges without getting a degree, he became a fairly prolific author. In addition to a few magazine articles, mostly on espionage-related subjects, he published several nonfiction books, including "The Global Manipulators" (Pentacle, Bristol, England, 1980), an investigation of the so-called Bilderberg Group, a publicity-shy confederacy of top Western industrialists and officials; "Strike for Freedom: Lech Walesa and Polish Solidarity" (Dodd, Mead, 1982); and "The Conspiracy Peddlers" (1981), which one reviewer called an investigation of "researchers beavering away on ... activities of the super-rich and the intelligence community." That, of course, fit Jan Pottker to a T.

...Eringer also wrote a handful of spy novels, which were published by an obscure house called National Press Books and other even more obscure publishers in South Carolina linked to NPB. Eringer's fiction drew no attention except from a few equally obscure reviewers and publicists, at least one of whom was paid to spam the Internet with disingenuous praise for Eringer's books.

...Eringer's ties to the CIA don't end there. Former CIA director Richard Helms just happened to be Eringer's backyard neighbor in Foxhall, arguably the poshest part of Washington, until Eringer moved to California last June [2001?].

...Salon was unable to contact Eringer using the phone number in California that he left with the court. A reverse-directory check on the number in Santa Barbara, moreover, doesn't match the address he gave to the court.

..."When talk turned to the circus," they [Eringer and George] reported to Feld, "Pottker had very little to say. Why? She has no time to even think about Ringling Bros. Our projects have effectively diverted her from new investigations into Ringling Bros and from marketing her unpublished story on circus children."

...It would seem that Smith and Feld believed that they could control the media through friends in high places. Certainly the inexplicable press silence that followed Pottker's lawsuit seemed to give credence to their faith. After two years, despite court files swelling with riveting tales of corporate spying and dirty tricks; despite the curious involvement of a brand-name CIA agent with a member of the Forbes 400, who happens to own the world's largest, best known live-entertainment company; despite two suits filed by major animal rights groups; and despite the elaborate, nearly decade-long harassment of a writer swirling under the nose of the national media in Washington, not a word of her suit appeared in print or on the air.

...The 15 volumes in the basement of Superior Court are also littered with photocopies of checks that George and Eringer issued and received, not only in connection with Pottker, but in what looks like a wide spectrum of activities. All the while, they were dining out on other people's money at the Chevy Chase Club and other exclusive haunts.

"Project Preempt.".... By their own testimony, however, they admit that they ran an eight-year-long operation to divert her into different projects.

[][]

The vulgarity of spy and counter-spy...
More Wendy buffoons
"The Suspicious Nature of Rob Lowe’s Extortion Scandal"

Should Ph.D.s Be Referred To As ‘Doctor’? WTF.. Schessinger ?

2008-05-24T15:08:00.002-07:00

OVER AND OVER AGAIN THE MACHINE SPEWS...
Should Ph.D.s Be Referred To As ‘Doctor’? for faux doc Laura Schlessinger, repeat, same, same, astroturfed Laura Schlessinger, same, repeat, VULGAR Laura Schlessinger, stuck repeat,repeat, repeat, same old, repeat, stuck repeat,repeat, repeat, same, repeat, stuck repeat, same, repeat, repeat [she doesn't play a physiologist on radio. "Dr" will NEVER give her legitimacy. It enhances her QUACK FACTOR ]

She's more deceptive than the doctor farce...
Laura Schlessinger takes money from
openly blasphemous activist,
Rev Moon

Laura Schlessinger quote: "I welcome the opportunity to speak at the Washington Times 20th Anniversary dinner in Washington D.C. as an opportunity to thank the newspaper for its
fairness and honesty--rare in the world of journalism today--and for the professional courtesy and respect they have shown me in both feature and news coverage. It is one of the few publications in the country that routinely gives a voice to individuals and organizations that uphold traditional American values despite the political correctness that pervades so much of our society.My presence at that event reflects my admiration for the Washington Times and their 20-years of reporting."

The Washington Times 20th anniversary celebration

Best remembered for....
"The pictures are probably from back in her immoral college years - like that other former hairy-bushed strumpet, "Dr." Laura Schlessinger." 14 May 2008 by HalfGlassFull
'immoral college years' ... actually still married to a dentist from New York..
Laura was 28 and working to get ahead in radio. when she hooked up with the Marine and radio pioneer, Bill Ballance.

SEX4WORK AFFAIR

VULGAR

Laura Schlessinger writes about vulgarity, money, the obese global warming issue and much more..
twice weekly in,
Wendy McCaw/Baron Arthur von Wiesenberger's

SANTA BARBARA NEWS-PRESS

[ known as "co-publishers" and "shack-ups" ]

"Obese and overweight people... adds to fuel shortages and higher energy prices"

The vulgarity of spy and counter-spy...

2008-05-19T14:20:00.000-07:00

Mata Hari morsel of the day:
Maybe We Should Call Him "Snoop Dog?"

"Shack-ups"
and
"co-publishers"

Wendy McCaw and Baron Arthur von Wiesenberger
at the Santa Barbara News-Press
[after May Day lay-offs of another 10, or more employees]...

in the ruins of old cubicles... space is being allotted to Ampersands new "confidence man", poseur of investigative reporting. Robert Eringer
[ RAT ] will have special accommodations to do his sleuthing.
[ "The bio also notes that Eringer's specialty was 'infiltrating extremist groups.' ]. The University Club, Yatch Club, Birnam Wood and Aunt Tilly's bridge club must be shaking in their boots anticipating a News-Press style exposé.
From the CBS report:

[] “At that library meeting, a man named Robert Eringer introduced himself to me. He had credentials as, in business, in the writing business, in the publishing business. He said he wanted to partner with me on some topics,” says Pottker.
Who is this man called Robert Eringer?
“He's a confidence man,” says Pottker.
Eringer was certainly a confidence man in one sense.
He was hired by George to gain Pottker's confidence. []

This could be funny, if not so severely
oppressive and paranoid.

Old gossip guy, Richard Mineards wasn't enough?

Rude nude Schlessinger's short leash is a sleeper.
They let her out to do a Phyllis Schlafly
"vulgarity" piece on a 15-year-old. Other than an
occasional wtf, Schlessinger is useless. Except to
remind us Wendy McCaw is a "shack-up slut"
who won't stand up for herself. Her Baron brings in his cohorts and the CIA, Mossad factor,
but silent on the obvious opinion that labels McCaw a Schlessinger "slut".

"Some believe that either the Central Intelligence Agency or Mossad conceived the name "Robert Eringer" as an alias for an agent in an undercover operation to discredit conspiracy theorists in general,
and that "Eringer" infiltrated Liberty Lobby to expose it as a front for neo-Nazis." wikipedia

Is the Montecito Cafe where the spy cameras are installed?

UPDATE 7/1/08: Eringer investigates?

Afghanistan, Gen. Abizaid, Bush, oil

2008-05-16T21:59:00.000-07:00

"Gen. Abizaid emphasized repeatedly that the arrival of a new administration in Washington

is going to present numerous opportunities for us to change our policies and approaches in the Middle East, with a potential for positive results."

Bush Once Again Fails To ‘Jawbone’ King Abdullah At His Horse Ranch
Into Increasing Oil Production

During the 2000 presidential campaign, President Bush criticized the Clinton administration for high fuel prices and said that as president, he would take a much tougher approach — “jawbone OPEC members to lower the price“:
What I think the president ought to do [when gas prices spike] is he ought to get on the phone with the OPEC cartel and say we expect you to open your spigots…And the president of the United States must jawbone OPEC members to lower the price.

U.S. Planning Big New Prison in Afghanistan

Kandahar Journal
Hunger and Food Prices Push Afghanistan to Brink
By CARLOTTA GALL May 16, 2008

Afghanistan seeks $50 billion in aid
By FISNIK ABRASHI

U.S. detained about 2,500 juveniles in Iraq, Afghanistan and Gitmo
May 15, 2008

US warns China over weapon links in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan
5/15/08

Russia, China, India propose to create drug security belts around Afghanistan

www.chinaview.cn 2008-05-15

Contractors, insurance firms gouging taxpayers
5/15/2008

Afghanistan: Watchdog Appeals To Kabul Over 'Blasphemous' Reporter:
There's renewed international concern for Sayed Perwiz Kambakhsh, a young Afghan journalist sentenced to death for blasphemy. The press freedom group Reporters Without Borders is urging the Afghan government to cooperate with the lawyer of Kambakhsh, who remains jailed in Kabul awaiting an appeal hearing.

Nearly two months have passed since Kambakhsh was transferred to the Afghan capital from a jail in the northern city of Mazar-e Sharif. Yet the young journalism student -- who was sentenced to death at a summary trial in October for allegedly distributing information insulting to Islam -- is still languishing in a Kabul prison with no fixed date for his appeals hearing.

This week, Reporters Without Borders, the international press-freedom watchdog, once again raised its voice, appealing to the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai to cooperate with Kambakhsh's lawyer.

"Situation for the Media in Afghanistan is Getting Worse and Worse"
Yaqub Ibrahimi: www.rawa.org

Lowe household drama...

2008-04-07T15:48:00.000-07:00

update 5/15/08: Lowe farts LOUD on a cigar while his attorney seeks dismissal of some claims

Rob Lowe wrote the following premature damage control and it was prominently placed on Arianna Huffington's Huff Post. That was strange enough. The guy has bad luck, makes some bad choices or both. This could be bigger than when he was abusing his elderly neighbors over a ficus hedge.

And this comes at a time when we've just learned the Santa Barbara News-Press* A2 columnist, Laura Schlessinger, has a Call to Action on her website for people to

"Insist Your Newspaper Carry a Disclaimer
on Dear Abby Columns"
DEAR ABBY!

Both Dear Abby and Schlessinger have columns in the News-Press. Schlessinger also got rid of Dr. Michael Seabaugh when he was a columnist at the News-Press.
I get the feeling Schlessinger doesn't like to share.

Household Betrayal
by Rob Lowe
April 7, 2008
Harassment in the workplace, sexual or otherwise, is something I take very seriously. In my home and on the set, I have been surrounded for years by hardworking women (and men) whom I respect and whose rights are to be protected. But when people make false claims of harassment particularly for financial gain, it must be defended vigorously and openly, for it weakens the claims of legitimate victims.

A former employee is demanding my wife Sheryl and I pay her $1.5 million by the end of the week or she will accuse us both of a vicious laundry list of false terribles. It is an attempt to damage and humiliate not only my wife and me, but our two young sons as well. My family is devastated at this betrayal; this woman worked in our home and traveled with us off and on for seven years, without complaint. In fact, she left other jobs to return to work for us three different times. Several weeks ago she quit abruptly, leaving us without a replacement. Within days we received these texts from her explaining her sudden departure:

* * *

------ SMS Text ------
From: (phone number redacted)
Sent: Feb 25, 2008 10:29 AM
Subject: Thank you so much sheryl and I...
Thank you so much sheryl and I really am sorry. Please tell the kids it had nothing 2 do w them, they are absolutely amazing boys. It had nothing to do with you or rob either, this was me. I love you guys. Ps tell rob I'm really sorry as well
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

The entire letter here

"The conflict over ethics reached a tipping point in 2006, when McCaw named her boyfriend as co-publisher. They ordered and suppressed stories, and second-guessed those that ran. One dispute involved censorship of the paper's well-known editorial page editor's drunken-driving sentencing. Another involved publication of the address of a vacant lot where actor Rob Lowe was seeking a variance to build a 14,000-square-foot home."
4/21/08 San Francisco Chronicle review

"Citizen McCaw" is the scariest film involving journalists since "Zodiac."

* * * * * *

Both Lowe and Schlessinger have dubious connections to the *Santa Barbara News-Press via Wendy McCaw. Both Lowe and Schlessinger are most famous in Santa Barbara as pioneers of raw celebrity porn. Lowe filmed himself having sex with a minor. Schlessinger asked radio's Bill Ballance to take amateur porn shots of her, or how to misuse a PhD and launch a radio career.

The stories get stranger because of the hideous behaviors of their mutual pal, Wendy McCaw. Both Lowe and Schlessinger support McCaw, and her stance on the kiddie porn. Basically, McCaw wrongly accused the man she was suing on the front page of the once prize winning News-Press, as if he downloaded the kiddie porn to computers that were McCaw's responsibility. Schlessinger did her hatchet job for McCaw.
That was about the same time Deryk Schlessinger was outed on a MySpace, KingOf*Hearts*.

The most disturbing cartoons of murderous kiddie porn.
Pentagon, why did you destroy the evidence?

That's another unsolved mystery now. As far as I know, Schessinger has not mentioned Deryk's photos. Her hatchet pals (Bill O'Reilly, et al) blame a reputable journalist, activist gays, feminists or bin Laden. Oh yes, always "liberals".

Catch up, see the "Citizen McCaw" documentary.

August 17, 2007 "HOT naked" naughty
Monday, April 7, 2008 Lowe household drama...
Wednesday April 9, 2008 strange brew

Fotografie

2008-02-06T20:39:00.001-08:00

On the brink [ a must read ]
Afghanistan
UPDATE 3/24/08: A River Runs Backward

Northern Alliance leader,
Abdullah Abdullah
(whom Karzai unceremoniously removed from office as
foreign minister) , suddenly
showed up in the US out of nowhere after
a gap of nearly three years, meeting influential think-tankers and
American officials and leveling devastating criticism against Karzai's
leadership qualities as president.

The protagonists of the erstwhile Northern Alliance are coming out of the woodwork. But are they being encouraged to do so? Even though the presidential election is due only in end-2009, an element of uncertainty has gradually come to envelop the Afghan political landscape - the sort of haze that one associates with long sunsets.
Former Afghan Interior minister Ali Ahmad Jalali, who fell out with
Karzai, is also being lionized in Western capitals as a potential candidate in the presidential race.

The Independent newspaper of London reported on Monday that according
to Afghan intelligence sources, Britain has been talking to the
Taliban without the knowledge of the Karzai government and working on
a top-secret plan to train renegade Taliban fighters in a special camp
and set them against Mullah Omar's militia.

The training camp is to be set up outside Musa Qala in Helmand province. The Independent claims
unnamed British diplomats, the UN and other Western officials have
confirmed the outline of Britain's clandestine project. Apparently,
British agents have been paying the Taliban out of slush funds.

RECON: Reconstruction in Afghanistan
photographs are Afghanistan 2007
Celebrities:
1. Jessica Simpson character (the movie bombed)

2 No, Seriously, Condoleezza Rice, National Security Advisor

U.S.A.
infrastructure
is in dire straights

In Pictures: The Neglected War In Afghanistan

2008-01-23T21:23:00.000-08:00

Watch the trailer here:

• Taxi to the Dark Side

Fotografie

I will have no harvest. How will I pay back my loan?

Dana Rohrabacher (R - CA).with the Taliban, 1980s

82nd Airborne Collage

In Pictures: The Neglected War In Afghanistan
Huffington Post | January 23, 2008

In the years since the initial invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, the nation's attention has steadily turned away from a mission that the Bush administration billed as vital to defeating Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. Late last year, senior administration officials told the New York Times that they were conducting a top-to-bottom review of the mission in Afghanistan, believing that the effort "has begun to drift."

The Huffington Post looks at the issues that are causing alarm inside the corridors of the Pentagon and the administration, and where the mission in Afghanistan is faltering.

wilmer valderrama
that 70s show

Explosion Kills US Troop in MRAP Armoured Vehicle
Baghdad, Iraq: MRAP First Casualty

January 23, 2008

Pentagon has Ordered 15,000+ MRAP Vehicles
In 2007, the Pentagon recognised the MRAP's importance and placed a $22.4 billion order for 15,400 examples. As well as in Iraq, about 500 MRAPs also serve in Afghanistan.
Up 10 ten troops can be accommodated onboard the vehicle, which weighs approximately 18 tons and is around 12 feet in height.
Source – Armed Forces International’s US Correspondent

[][][]////][][]

The MRAP is not Resistance proof

Eric Verlo, January 23rd, 2008

It’s the critical difference between water-resistance and water-proof. Remember those watches? You could wear them near the water.

Chris Santory and Deryk Schlessinger Afghanistan 2007

McCain quick to declare victory in Iraq. Petraeus says, 6 months

2008-01-22T19:31:00.000-08:00

Petraeus:

'I Need Another Six Months To Determine Whether ‘We’ve Reached A Turning Point'

In the past few months, conservatives such as Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT) have been quick to declare victory in Iraq. In November, McCain said that “we’ve succeeded militarily.” A day later, Lieberman declared that “we are winning” because “we have made progress” in “one of the most remarkable turnarounds in modern military history.”

Gen. David Petraeus, however, appeared on NBC this morning and rebutted the declarations of mission accomplished and said that he’ll need at least another Friedman Unit before he can make a judgment:

Massacre of Afghan Children in Helmand Province

2008-01-21T21:47:00.000-08:00

HERAT, Afghanistan February 4, 2008

The people there were shocked to see gunners from the airplanes

were targeting fleeing children.

CITIZEN JOURNALIST | Muhammadzi village Afghanistan

The elders in the village asked, “can’t the Americans tell the difference between armed fighters and little children running to safety?”

SEE THIS VIDEO: Muhammadzi village Afghanistan
(http://novakeo.com/?p=1252)

A routine maneuver is for USA and NATO troops to bomb sleeping villages at
1 to 2 AM.
The video is rough quality and raw. Important to see it from the villagers POV.
Your tax money.

US-NATO Massacre of Afghan Children in Helmand Province Afghanistan

January 20, 2008

Afghan civilians–27 children were massacred by the US jets and helicopters/AC130 Gunship in Helmand Afghanistan. The people there were shocked to see gunners from the airplanes were targeting fleeing children. The elders in the village asked, “can’t the Americans tell the difference between armed fighters and little children running to safety?”

Are they Taliban?

[] [] []

"One American was killed on Dec. 9 by an improvised explosive device.
Twelve men were wounded, from shrapnel and gunfire. The U.S. forces
were supported by fighter aircraft during the battle." Jason Straziuso AP

killed: Corporal Tanner J. O’Leary
May the eagle take you on your journey

U.S. troops recuperating from battle for Musa Qala
By Les Neuhaus, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Tuesday, December 11, 2007
BAGRAM, Afghanistan — American troops wounded in the battle for a southern Afghan town this week are recuperating at a military hospital and telling of heavy fighting in the city.

Operation Zafar involves British, American and Afghan troops and seeks to take back the town of Musa Qala, known as the last sizeable Taliban-controlled town in Afghanistan.

Musa Qal'eh, Afghanistan
U.S. troops recuperating from battle for Musa Qala

'Taxi to the Dark Side'

Musa Qal'eh, Afghanistan

2008-01-21T21:46:00.001-08:00

"The people there were shocked
to see

gunners from the airplanes
were targeting fleeing children."

The MILITARY claims:

“They understand that you can’t come in here and blow up all the buildings
and kill everyone in front of you...."

“They understand.......price for entry to get in here to do what’s important,
which is earn the consent of the people toward the government...."

By Jason Straziuso - The Associated Press
Posted : Monday Jan 21, 2008 9:10:09 EST

Jason Straziuso included one sentence, "The U.S. forces were supported by fighter aircraft during the battle." to represent bombings. He is irresponsible to omit the true terror and carnage of these bombings, they bring the worst fear, damage and tragedy. Straziuso puts the civilian deaths at three. A very romanticized version of Musa Qa'leh, Helmand Province Afghanistan, December 2007, with lots of omissions.

PARATROOPERS- VS- THE TALIBAN
Posted in 82ND AIRBORNE DIV., freedom watch, military, paratrooper, special forces, terrorists on January 21, 2008 by paratrooper

excerpts
MUSA QALA, Afghanistan — Chinook helicopters dropped Capt. Don Canterna’s company of soldiers on the dusty outskirts of Musa Qala as evening fell. Loaded down with weapons, food, and water, his men walked through the night.

Musa Qala

For the 600 paratroopers who air assaulted into northern Helmand province — the world’s largest opium poppy growing region — the Dec. 8 sunrise ambush was the first volley in what battalion commander Lt. Col. Brian Mennes said was almost 72 hours of continuous fighting.

On Dec. 11, after U.S. troops had closed in on Musa Qala’s outskirts, Afghan soldiers poured into town, allowing NATO and Afghan officials to say the country’s fledgling army had retaken the Taliban-held enclave, a major symbolic victory.

But American troops still stationed in Musa Qala more than a month after the battle said they in fact did the majority of the fighting, and some chafed a bit that U.S., NATO and Afghan officials downplayed their role.

“We didn’t get credit for it, but it was a good mission,” said Capt. Jesse Smith, a 26-year-old medic from Lorton, Va. “Taking Musa Qala was the Afghans. Securing the perimeter of Musa Qala was the Americans.”

One American was killed on Dec. 9 by an improvised explosive device. Twelve men were wounded, from shrapnel and gunfire. The U.S. forces were supported by fighter aircraft during the battle.

Star Telegram
http://www.star-telegram.com/466/story/421678.html
[] []

December 18, 2007
Use of Air Strikes in Afghan Conflict 'Rising Sharply'

In Afghanistan, It's About Air Power, Too

chart

Siege: Musa Qala Afghanistan

British 'success' under siege in Afghanistan

Britain’s key weapon in Afghanistan: THE BRIBE
In allegedly trying to buy off a local Taliban leader, British officials have shown a haughty and colonial disregard for the Afghan government.
666 USA 82nd AIRBORNE
Chris . John . Deryk Schlessinger in AFGANISTAN 2007

The Massacre of Musa Qala December 16, 2007

Afghanistan

Detention Center in Afghanistan

Massacre of Afghan Children in Helmand Province

Intrigue takes Afghanistan to the brink
February 6,2008

Laura-lie returns to the scene of the crime

2008-01-11T13:07:00.000-08:00

Laura Schlessinger is in good company at Wendy "slut" McCaw's vanity press and global joke, the Santa Barbara News-Press.
Twice now, a Judge has pronounced Wendy hacks as embellishing prevaricators (scuzzy liars). Neither Editorial Page Editor Travis K. Armstrong or Associate Editor Scott Steepleton have 1% of Scuzzy Schlessinger's reputation yet. With 30 some years of experience Scuzzy is the News-Press' star prevaricator.

She's back..... Aired January 9, 2008 CNN LARRY KING LIVE
The Latest on the Race for the Presidency; Interview With Dr. Laura TRANSCRIPTS

Deja Vu: Larry King Live 2006

For some reason MISSING from TMZ is the article and photo published last May:

Did Dr. Laura's Son Have a Deathwish?

Now isn't that special?

What's up with TMZ?
[ found Deathwish?. Deryk Schlessinger ]
The Schlessingers do have connections at the

Department of Defense.

"The 82nd Airborne Division in Afghanistan shuttered the pages on Friday. The Pentagon managed to immediately cleanse all evidence of the MySpace pages, including whatever copies and cached versions were kept by Google and the Internet Archive."
Wonkette

Dr. Laura's Cretin Son Having Fun Torturing People In Afghanistan
So like the Roman Empire fell away, Let me tell you we are going the same way

Not everyone can get the Army to say "the enemy" could be to blame. At the same time destroy "the enemy" evidence on Rupert Murdoch's MySpace. Schlessinger just happens to be a mouthpiece/hitman for Rupert.

Laura Schlessinger has more important matters to attend, like advice to parents and jumping on the "Dr" to Britney Spears bandwagon.
Before "Dr" Phil there was "Dr" Laura! The following is a worthy article on these charlatan types. Not for the rabid Laura Loons. It's written by an authentic professional.

"Much of the public confusion on this point is due to the TV personality's use of the title 'Doctor'. Like Laura Schlessinger, the conservative radio pundit with a Ph.D. in physiology who calls herself.... "Dr. Laura," anyone with a doctoral degree......" Karen Franklin, Ph.D.

Thursday, January 10, 2008

"Dr. Phil" controversy highlights public confusion over psychology

Afghanistan 1/7/08

2008-01-07T20:37:00.000-08:00

Pul-e-Charkhi prison on the eastern outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan

NATO Lacks a Coherent Strategy for Afghanistan 1/7/08

Foiling U.S. Plan, Prison Expands in Afghanistan 1/7/08

Bagram: photos, more

Keeping the Prisons Tight Posted by Joshua Foust on January 7th, 2008

The news that the Bagram U.S. torture center is still operating at full capacity, and even expanding, instead of the not-really-constructed ANA facility, doesn’t bode well for the rule of law in Afghanistan. Bagram is far more spartan and less friendly than the much-heralded Guantanamo prison; yet it has received a fraction of the attention (which is unfortunately normal when it comes to Afghanistan).

They better get their act together: Mullah Naqibullah, one of the Taliban’s top commanders, has escaped from prison and given several interviews to reporters. He claims he escaped by bribing security officials—not impossible, but also quite probably calculated to undercut confidence in the Kabul government and the security forces. But it does underscore the structural problems facing Afghanistan’s internal security—the same problems that are delaying Bagram’s replacement by an Afghan-run facility.

To the Editor: thinking Afghanistan

2007-12-18T17:55:00.000-08:00

Thinking Afghanistan: We Were Sidetracked with Iraq 12/18/07 [helicopters/celebrities]

getting away with genocide

A Revealing Incident...

“As Concerns Rise, U.S. Is Reviewing Afghan Mission”

To the Editor:
What seems to be missing from this assessment is the obvious: We should have never abandoned Afghanistan, where we had full international support and the full support of the population, to go into Iraq.

Had we stayed in Afghanistan and really established the government and the infrastructure and helped make it a model of a Muslim democracy, the Taliban would not have re-emerged as they have, we wouldn’t have lost popular support, and invading Iraq would not have been necessary (if it ever was).

That was the most compelling reason not to divert our attention to Iraq. And why should other nations want to commit to helping us in Afghanistan when they’ve seen how we bungled our initial — and very short-lived — success in Iraq?

Can’t we be more forthright, even if it means admitting mistakes? We might not get immediate support, but it would go a long way to regaining some respect.

Olivia Koppell
New York, Dec. 16, 2007
•
To the Editor:
I hope that when the Bush administration and NATO conclude their analyses of the Afghanistan mission they will reach one inescapable, common-sense conclusion: that Western-style democracy cannot be militarily imposed on a culture that is based on tribal loyalties.

Maybe at that point, our nation and the world will be able to finally use our economic and human resources in a more efficient manner.

Perhaps no more young lives will be lost in a futile, vainglorious effort to export our way of life.

Bill Gottdenker
Mountainside, N.J., Dec. 16, 2007

Afghanistan

2007-12-13T21:33:00.001-08:00

Beautiful slideshow of Afghanistan on The Atlantic's website, based off of Sarah Chayes's feature story on "How the author helped Afghans build a thriving soap and body-oil business—and overcame the incompetence of America’s aid establishment" in the current issue.

voices in prayers for peace

Dec 12, 2007---New Delhi - In the heart of southern Afghanistan, hundreds of women gathered Wednesday to do something extraordinary: They raised their voices in prayers for peace.

The idea of women doing anything aside from tending to home and family is fairly shocking in provinces like Kandahar and Helmand, where the ultra-fundamentalist Taliban control most of the countryside. Yet the assembling of an estimated 1,000 women in six southern provinces is a compelling development, women's rights experts say.

From southern Afghanistan's voiceless women come 1,000 prayers for peace
At extraordinary meetings Wednesday, southern Afghan women prayed and told stories about how the war has torn their families apart.

"Taxi to the Dark Side" Los Angeles Times

Snake Oil "Dr." Laura Schlessinger

2007-12-09T19:05:00.000-08:00

Deryk Schlessinger's birthday gift

Laura Schlessinger refers to herself as "Dr." and in terms like "relationship advisor", neither have much to do with reality. More to do with marketing and bending "rules".

On 6 May 2003 at a community prayer breakfast in Battle Creek, Michigan, Laura Schlessinger reveals to the audience:

"I wasn't going to say this, but last night I spoke with my sister for the first time in 20 years. I want you to know that I have given my kid the home my sister and I did not have. But now, I will be a sister again and an aunt and my son will have cousins."

Now go do the right-wing thing!

Twisted "family value" sales...

saved by the misery and misfortune of others. Where would Dr. Schadenfreude be today without dear "believers"?

The musical: Schadenfreude! "happiness at the misfortune of others"

UPDATE 12/13/07: Some Nonprofits Shortchange Troops

Snake Oil "Dr" Laura Schlessinger scrapbook update.. "sorta":

Last week was the build up to dunkin' motorcycle Laura and fundraising Mike Cash (her good bud & 27 year employee of the Department of Defense) at the Harley-Davidson dealership in Carpinteria!
The Santa Barbara News-Press has a video [ OFF December 02, 2007 ]
and a small photo online. We later saw a large photo of Laura entering cold water, wet would have shown more fortitude but dry was a nice shot. The more genuine coverage came from
The Carpinteria blog & succinctly noted...

"Now, on to the fundraiser..actually, a teeny weeny war rally."

"There were more motorcycles than people!"

As she entered the water, Laura stated:

"I'm nuts."

December 4, 2007 live-PR.com announced:
"Henry and Dundie Schulte of the Dos Pueblos Ranch Located in Goleta, CA presented Operation Family Fund with a check for $5,000 at the December 1, 2007 event. Santa Barbara Harley-Davidson with special guest Dr. Laura Schlessinger, sponsored the motorcycle show and family fun day."

To the Schulte family, thank you.
It's great one family will have 5 grand to help.

We're still mystified with Laura Schlessinger's call to the Bill O'Reilly show where she said:

"I had my staff call the USO at least four, if not more times and volunteer me and run-arounds and rejection. They said, "You can't just come once or twice. You have to go on a specific tour of going back 18 million times or something.
Anyway, they just blew me off."

Setting the record straight?

Laura was the lead into O'Reilly's interview with USO Chief Executive Edward A.Powell.
Mr. Powell had written
‘If You Really Want To Help U.S. Troops, Set The Record Straight’

After O'Reilly's ridiculous slamming of the USO from Afghanistan.

To date the record isn't straight.

O'Reilly went on to blast Powell... getting Laura to entertain in Afghanistan put him in crisis mode, he was serious...
"...Send Dr. Laura To Meet With U.S. Troops".
Helicopters are a main source of transportation, unless Wendy McCaw is loaning hers, the military would be involved. O'Reilly's big head finally got that it's the Department of Defense that determines Afghan USO visits.

Why the big outrage over celebrity shortage and no mention of a helicopter shortage?

ATTENTION Laura Schlessinger: Helicopter Shortage Hurting Afghan Mission

"In conflicts from Afghanistan to Africa, international efforts to secure peace are being hobbled by a chronic lack of the tool vital to all modern militaries -- helicopters."

Bill O'Reilly Lectures USO President

Geraldo and O'Reilly Mislead FOX News Viewers

In step with Bill O'Reilly, Geraldo is in Afghanistan this week and doing the much needed PR work for BushCo. In the USA, Afghans have been ignored along with our troops before the sorry 6 hour Laura Bush trip. The results of these failures are complex and disastrous.

O'Reilly, Geraldo and Schlessinger are not the place to begin learning about Afghanistan and American policies. Recently, Gates was miffed at NATO for not being cowboy enough to "win" against the Taliban in Afghanistan. The time to get serious about getting the "bad guys" was 6 years ago. As everyone knows, the focus was Iraq. While the US was under-deployed and under-equipped in Afghanistan from the start. It was expected NATO would forever die as the coalition of the willing? Basically, the bombing campaigns are at the center of US tactic. That and keep it as journalist free as possible. The pentagon writes the "winning" PR (airstrikes, secret drones).
They aren't "winning" hearts and minds.

Send Dr. Laura To Meet With U.S. Troops

THINK

How do the Bill-Geraldo-Laura's keep their jobs? The home front, the private sector, church and charity, will rally civilians to support US policy and take up the slack for the shortchanged troops.

The USO does what it's done for 66 years:

"For 66 years, the USO's mission has remained the same. The USO will support U.S. troops and their families wherever they serve. Across the United States and around the world, the American military knows that the USO is there for them. By supporting the USO, Americans show their appreciation and express their gratitude to the men and women who defend us."

Why slam the USO?
Why is O'Reilly making the call for Laura?
O'Reilly and Laura knew all along to call her close associates at the DoD.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

2007-11-22T11:06:00.003-08:00

♥♥ Turkey's Day ♥♥

♥♥ Spencer gobbles.... ♥♥

[ video ]

WAR.pD

2007-11-22T11:06:00.001-08:00

Update 6/18/08: Easing of laws that led to detainee abuse hatched in secret
Update 6/18/08: General who probed Abu Ghraib says Bush officials committed war crimes
Update 6/17/08: Documents confirm U.S. hid detainees from Red Cross
Update 6/16/08: U.S. abuse of detainees was routine at Afghanistan bases

Update 1/7/08: US Prison Grows Beyond Capacity in Afghanistan, NYT
US Detention Center in Afghanistan Criticized by Red Cross

"This is a kid who'd never spent...a night away from home in his life," says writer/director Alex Gibney, "until he was taken forcibly from his taxicab, thrown into Bagram Prison, and five days later he was dead."

raw story

Update 12/30/07:
Interrogation Tapes Lived And Died To Save CIA Image

Kandahar, central prison

15 Guantanamo prisoners transferred to Afghanistan, Sudan

---Thursday Dec 13, 2007
" WASHINGTON (AFP) — Fifteen detainees at the US "war on terror" camp in Guantanamo, Cuba, have been transferred to Afghanistan and Sudan, the Pentagon said in a statement Thursday.

The US Defense Department says there are about 290 detainees still at the facility on its naval base on Cuba's southeastern tip.

Thirteen detainees were sent to Afghanistan, and two others were sent to Sudan, the statement said...."

That's not good news for the detainees. At best being detained by the U.S. in Afghanistan is mysterious, no one knows much, or no one talks.

Why the Pentagon treats Omar Khadr differently

Fifteen-year-old Omar Khadr is unique because he is the only Western citizen still imprisoned at Guantanamo.
UPDATE 2/4/08: Khadr shot by U.S. forces before capture: witness

The United Nations Optional Protocol on the Rights of the Child, which the U.S. ratified in 2002, says that people under 18 who are enlisted or conscripted into armed conflict are not adults and therefore “are entitled to special protection.”

Former US interrogator recounts torture cases in Afghanistan and Iraq
December 15, 2007

------ Tuesday December 11, 2007
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen testify before the House of Armed Services Committee.

"In Afghanistan, we do what we can,"
It was a pleasant day in Congress. A few problems acknowledged but Afghanistan is not a priority. Lack of training, helicopter and equipment issues, failed policies... more rough going for the troops. It's up to NATO to "support our troops".
Gates slams U.S. counternarcotics in Afghanistan

Cpl. Tanner J. O’Leary, 23, of Eagle Butte, S.D., died Dec. 9 in Musa Qal’eh, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, N.C.
Six luckier Army 82nd Airborne soldiers lived.
They were awarded purple hearts for their courage.
PHOTOS: Bagram’s Task Force Med, a unit comprised at Craig Joint Theater Hospital

Army blocks 'narratives' of heroism
Public cannot read medal winners' stories

Afghanistan 2007

"How long do we continue to watch this [Afghanistan] thing?" asked one senior official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "There is a desire to keep the heat on NATO and see if they will pony up the resources." But

"If they aren't willing to do that,"

the United States may have to change its policy.

Afghanistan 2007

"We need to look at our training model. We break young trainees of many other bad habits, but we reinforce the arrogance. Something wrong here. Yeah, okay, you jump out of planes and you're a bad-ass... have some humility, kid."

Afghanistan 2007

"We don't train our line units in counterinsurgency. We train them as maneuver units, and they are damned fine soldiers; the best in the world. However, they often don't play well with others. Treating your host country's forces with disdain is a huge mistake. I saw this mistake blatantly made out in The Valley by junior leaders. It made an impression on the men who I was working with, the Afghans. Everyone can tell when they are being disrespected, even in another language; and it is not a motivator. In fact, it is not a positive in any regard. To my Afghans, the American platoon making this major error did not look like a force that they wanted to emulate; they looked like assholes. Ugly Americans.

Those young Americans, even if they read this, would never put it together. They see nothing wrong with their behavior. They will go home and tell stories about how f'd-up the Afghans were. That's like making yourself look better by racing against a guy with broken legs. They will totally misrepresent the progress being made here and unwittingly perform the same function as PVT Beauchamp, degrading our efforts and calling into question the very reason why we are here."

Blogging Afghanistan
One Third And A Wakeup

WHAT AM I DOING?THE HEROIN ROADS
[click image to enlarge]

Afghanistan....they thundered around the country in Black Hawk helicopters, with little fear for their safety...

Ciara Durkin was found shot dead on Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan on Sept. 27, 2007 shortly after she told her family to investigate in the event that she died.

Afghanistan: A brief history

The U.S. military flew some of its oldest aircraft in airstrikes in Afghanistan

Afghanistan

Bagram Airbase

Robin Williams

Bush faces three major Afghanistan stumbling blocks

National Guard medic from South Carolina currently serving in Afghanistan

The war on the walls

US abuse of Afghan prisoners 'widespread'

The Dark Art of Interrogation

CIA accused of torture at Bagram base
Some captives handed to brutal foreign agencies

U.S. Troops In Their Own Hand

From Bagram to Abu Ghraib

Laura Bush joins US troops as they dine in the Dragon Chow Dining Hall on Bagram Air Base in Kabul, Afghanistan Wednesday, March 30, 2005. White House photo by Susan Sterner

Charlie Daniels Afghanistan

Afghanistan — Bagram Airbase

Bagram Airbase is located in the Parvan Province approximately 11 kilometers (7 miles) southeast of the city of Charikar and 47 Kilometers (27 miles) north of Kabul. It is served by a 10,000 foot runway built in 1976 capable of landing large cargo and bomber aircraft.

Bagram Airbase has three large hangars, a control tower, and numerous support buildings. There are over 32 acres of ramp space. There are five aircraft dispersal areas with a total of over 110 revettments. Many support buildings and base housing built by the Soviets, have been destroyed by years of fighting between the various warring Afghan factions.

Bagram Airbase played a key role during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, serving as a base of operations for troops and supplies. and Aircraft based at Bagram provided close air support for Soviet and Afghan troops in the field. Some of the Soviet forces based out of Bagram included the elite 105th Guards Airborne Division."How long do we continue to watch this [Afghanistan] thing?" asked one senior official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "There is a desire to keep the heat on NATO and see if they will pony up the resources." But he added: "If they aren't willing to do that," the United States may have to change its policy.

Laura Schlessinger funni

2007-11-22T11:05:00.001-08:00

Morris Cerullo Interviews Dr. Laura - Pt 1

Morris Cerullo Interviews Dr. Laura - Pt 2

Heaven & Hell - Morris Cerullo Interviews Bill Wiese Pt 2

Keeping it real!!

Rod attacking Davis and Denton in his Spartan suit

Black afghan Hashish from Herat*********You have to watch it

...82...

Wendy, Wendy, Wendy, nice new photos

2007-09-25T17:10:00.000-07:00

scoop
nus

Wendy McCaw* might be prepping, as she wags her sordid tail for the judge, but it's not about change or smoozing the little people. (McCaw and minions, one and the same in the De La Guerra Plaza train wreck)

Wendy's first two hours on the witness stand: this rare demeanor update is an improvement from her court dates with McCaw v. McCaw and Parker v. McCaw.
[ MORE: She's No Katherine Graham Coyotes Are Sacred But It's Open Season On News Reporters NLRB Hearing Wraps Up Now The Waiting Game Begins ]

The look is a good move, we all believe a lovely lookin' Granny. Aspirations of great leaders like Nehru is a nice touch, and not all black!
If Granny is the Bank of Libertarian Political$, all the better. She does have
her supporters. I don't see it as Republican v Democrat or even Conservative v Liberal. It is a mix, the Conservatives I know are mortified by her, but her minions wear a conservative guise. With a prize, a new City Council, under a conservative label. Is there a Libertarian Taliban?

It's Wendy McCaw's news and she can have a special way with Christians and Jews while Muslims get a different what-she-wants... Only Laura Schlessinger can say the MMB (Mayor Marty Blum) word?

The Snewz-Repeat...

"3 Muslims arrested in plot to attack U.S." is what she wants! She allowed Christians Deane and Bert Langdon a public letter and long public answer in Laura Schlessinger's "Calling a Muslim a terrorist". Why "Calling a Muslim a terrorist" disappeared is another matter.

When/if Wendy wants it online she'll have that corrected.

With ideas like:

"... I would like to hear Santa Barbara Mayor Marty Blum and the City Council take their time to debate and call for the impeachment of Osama bin Laden, who is 'suggesting' that all would be well if we would only all become Muslim." 9/13/07 A2 Laura Schlessinger

Go figure why they'd self-censor.

The "slut" (to quote Laura Schlessinger), Wendy made a pact with the
[ warning ] strict unrelenting radio "moralist". Who now has free (as in under McCaw) rein to recruit for all wars Bush/Cheney. You know, sacrifice your children, as she wrote in memory of her son, Deryk Schlessinger et al. Schlessinger (read her rules) takes the News-Press crew right on into a Taliban-like look. They view Santa Barbara as predominately liberal. How can a small minority rule the large population? Third world countries make alliances where each player gets a piece of the pie. It's not how you play the game, it's the prize you win or the barracuda you buy.

Blogosphere comment:
(Anonymous is a Schlessinger boycott, or so she says, not all friends of the Santa Barbara News-Press reject Anonymous. There are those that understand the intimidation effect)

Anonymous said...

"...And yes, you are right to say that Wendy is asserting control over her newspaper. Legally, that is her right as owner. I agree with that.

I didn't go along with the union crowd in the newsroom because I thought they couldn't win this argument. They thought they could — they mistakenly thought that Wendy would care about the quality of the paper, and would give in to their demands for "The Wall" between opinion and news before she lost her talent, her paper's institutional memory and it's reputation. But the fact of the matter is that she DOESN'T care about losing any of that. It doesn't bother her that the News-Press no longer resembles a normal daily newspaper.

But you are wrong to believe that the newspaper is now appealing to a growing audience. I can't believe that you'd write that with a straight face. I work at the newspaper and I can tell you officially that we are now the joke of journalism. I hear it from every corner of the business -- from conservative journalists to liberal journalists.

I have real problems with City Hall, too. But instead of going after City Hall with some fact-finding, investigative reporting, they just throw out insults from a bully pulpit with the teaser of "... in future editorials, we will look into blah blah blah." But there is never any meaningful follow up.

And why? Because there are no reporters left at the paper with any experience beyond journalism school except for the Lompoc reporter and a few sports writers. Wendy is spending her money on attorneys and hiring her new pimply faced reporters through a temp agency. That is a fact. Those reporters don't even know where City Hall is located (and it's right next door).

Does this News-Press really, seriously appeal to you? A News-Press that doesn't even cover government meetings anymore? we are missing SO many stories now. I talked to an official out at UCSB who said the university is relieved that this is happening because they've had several embarrassing incidents that have gone undetected and unreported in this journalistic vacuum. I'm talking about taxpayer money going down the drain. And Travis likens Wendy McCaw to Katherine Graham? Please. Nixon would have adored this News-Press.

Or maybe I'm wrong. Maybe there is this "growing constituency" that you cite which is only interested in the rantings of Dr. Laura, and yachting news, and gossip about the royal family, and who attended what party in Montecito, and the comings and goings of every freaking turtle and puppy dog in Santa Barbara AND Ventura Counties. I can't find anything else in the news pages..."

*Wendy McCaw is Craig McCaw's wealthy Xwife. She is both 100% owner of the once winning Santa Barbara News-Press, now controversial. And appointed 'co-publisher' with her lover, Nipper. "Mr. McCaw" to oooops!, Barry Cappello.

"When editorial page editor Travis Armstrong was on the witness stand he stated that the editorial board consists of owner Wendy McCaw, her boyfriend Arthur von Wiesenberger, who has the title 'co-publisher,' and Armstrong himself." C. Smith

Who's in charge?

The Snewz Repeat, Wendy, Wendy, Wendy

2007-09-24T14:22:00.000-07:00

[ click images to enlarge ]
Wendy McCaw, supreme being of the Santa Barbara News-Press (controversy and former wife of cellulars mega-bucks,
Craig Mc Caw) is musing again? The behind a pay wall editorial that few will give up $1.50 or $2.50 to read. Thanks to Craig Smith we hear she's utilizing the editorials.

"There is a belief among some journalists that proprietors should never interfere with the news judgments of reporters or editors. We don't agree with that assessment"

editorial 9/23/07 Our Opinion:
Why we publish
( your opinion is well known and repetitious)
Yes, it's void ex$ept for a price.

How many she's no Katherine Grahams can we endure? That editorial is her attitude toward the community? FU, too...sugar coatings and all, that was an insult. Have you ever heard "tell me something I don't already know."? There was more reminder of the Wendy fantasy world. A response to Wendy invoking Katherine Graham, "duh". Wendy's clueless or playing dumb? T.M. Storke died, why forsake a local dead publisher? That's sacrilege around here. Maybe she'll have better luck with the judge. Are the NLRB hearings back in session?

"When editorial page editor Travis Armstrong was on the witness stand he stated that the editorial board consists of owner Wendy McCaw, her boyfriend Arthur von Wiesenberger, who has the title 'co-publisher,' and Armstrong himself."

WTF? Just asking...

The Snewz Repeat...

All powerful editor Wendy we want to know:
WHY did 9/13/07 (Schlessinger A2 column)

"Calling a Muslim a terrorist" DISAPPEAR?

What was she doing responding to the Deane and Bert Langdon's

"3 Muslims arrested in plot to attack U.S."
letter to Editor Wendy?

Do the Langdon's, City Council and Mayor Marty Blum feel free to respond in "American newspaper", the News-Press?
Would Editor Wendy allow their response?

Or does Laura Schlessinger get the final word:

"The Langdons' concern with respect should be sent to bin Laden-not an American newspaper." proprietor interfered Santa Barbara News-Press A2 9/13/07

"Instead of hearing them constantly bash President Bush, I would like to hear Santa Barbara Mayor Marty Blum and the City Council take their time to debate and call for the impeachment of Osama bin Laden, who is 'suggesting' that all would be well if we
would only all become Muslim." proprietor interfered Santa Barbara News-Press A2 9/13/07

Are Wendy and Laura too privileged for a City Council meeting?

Who in Santa Barbara needs Schlessinger's child rearing, "family value" advice or opinion? Who would even believe that front, she's known more for her political chilling shillery. Torture, Jeezus war training, censorship et al. And now the Muslims- terrorist is verging on genocide, when you put it together with the rhetoric of "They want to kill us." and "get them all before they kill us all". And pride in an "apathetic" killer she still covers up for? egads! Schlessinger has a past of histrionic character assassination and her tacit approval of fire and bombing John Nava: Neo-Icons last year was over the top in the worst way. She looks more and more like another kinda gangsta. Too many dark secrets.

Why does Wendy McCaw associate with such unsavory characters? Especially after professing to care for victims of child porn.

Wendy's bad to leave the computers that received 15,000 illegal images unprotected.
Worse bad to not be accountable.
Many people were deeply harmed by Wendy's work place sloth and neglect .

Wendy McCaw 1-1-2007 "I will personally continue to work in 2007 to ensure that you receive the best local coverage that can be provided, not only this year, but beyond."

She can't do sh!t without restoring TRUST.
Wendy, Wendy, Wendy
check out this novel idea
Authentic columnists!

American Exceptionalism Meets Team Jesus

2007-09-18T08:53:00.001-07:00

American Exceptionalism Meets Team Jesus
Posted on Sep 17, 2007

By Tom Engelhardt
A TomDispatch Interview with James Carroll

He’s a man who knows something about the dangers of mixing religious fervor, war, and the crusading spirit, a subject he dealt with eloquently in his book Constantine’s Sword: The Church and the Jews. A former Catholic priest turned anti-war activist in the Vietnam era, James Carroll also wrote a moving memoir about his relationship to his father, the founding director of the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency. Carroll essentially grew up in that five-sided monument to American imperial power. For him, as a boy, the Pentagon was “the largest playhouse in the world” and he can still remember sliding down its ramps in his stocking feet, as he’s written in the introduction to his recent, magisterial history of that building and the institution it holds, House of War.

As a weekly columnist for the Boston Globe, he was perhaps the first media figure to notice—and warn against—a presidential “slip of the tongue” just after the assaults of 9/11, when George W. Bush referred briefly to his new Global War on Terror as a “crusade.” He was possibly the first mainstream columnist in the country to warn against the consequences of launching a war against Afghanistan in response to those attacks—now just another of the President’s missions unaccomplished; and, in September 2003, he was possibly the first to pronounce the Iraq war “lost” in print. ("The war in Iraq is lost. What will it take to face that truth this time?") His stirring columns on the early years of our President’s attempt to bring “freedom” to the world at the point of a cruise missile were collected in Crusade: Chronicles of an Unjust War. In those years, Carroll was a powerful, moral voice from—to use a very American phrase—the (media) wilderness until much of our American world finally caught up with him.

He has most recently completed, with director Oren Jacoby, a stirring documentary film, also entitled Constantine’s Sword, in which he explores the roots of religiously inspired violence in our present world. He submitted to a TomDispatch interview back in August 2005 and when, this summer, I suggested that we meet again, he agreed to discuss “American fundamentalisms,” a subject that receives remarkably less coverage and consideration than other fundamentalisms of our world.

We met on a warm day, just after a rare downpour in a dry summer, in the study of his house in Massachusetts. His many books dot the bookshelves. Out the window is a piney landscape, not quite the one the Puritans first saw when they arrived early in the seventeenth century, but beautiful nonetheless. Carroll, his hair graying, has not so much a worn, as a well inhabited face. You can see him thinking as he speaks—not so common a trait as you might imagine. As he warms up to the subject of American fundamentalisms, his voice gains the quiet, yet powerful passion that any reader of his weekly columns has come to expect, a passion that nonetheless leaves room for reason and criticism, for further thought.

I put my two small tape recorders on a modest coffee table, turn them on, ask my first question, and discover that this is an interview in name only. It’s more like being back in the most riveting classroom of my life. A single lecture, an hour’s genuine education, stretching from our first Puritan moments to George Bush’s Iraq, with hardly an interpolation needed on my part. So join me, kick back, and learn something about what’s fundamental to us.

TomDispatch: I recently heard this joke: How many neocons does it take to screw in a light bulb? The answer: Neocons don’t believe in light bulbs; they declare war on evil and set the house on fire.

(Carroll chuckles.)

TD: That’s my introduction to a discussion of American fundamentalism. Any comments?

James Carroll: Well, embedded in that joke is a central idea: that what matters is not outcome, but purity of intent. A mark of a fundamentalist mindset is that one’s own personal virtue is the ultimate value. The American fundamentalist ethos of the Cold War prepared us to destroy the world. In other words, a world absolutely devastated through nuclear war was acceptable as an outcome because it reflected the virtue of our opposition to the evil of communism. Better dead than red.

TD: A phrase I hadn’t thought about in a long time ...

Carroll: Better the world destroyed than taken over by communism. It’s profoundly nihilistic, which is also one of the marks of the fundamentalist mindset. An irony, of course, is that so much, then and now, is done in the name of realism, but this is such a profoundly unrealistic way of thinking.

TD: It’s in this sense, I suppose, that our President has been unable to learn. So, give me the basics on American fundamentalisms, as you see them.

Carroll: First of all, what is fundamentalism? The word itself was coined in the early twentieth century and applied to a particular brand of Protestantism. It comes from a determination to protect what were called, in foundational manifestos, the five fundamentals of Christian belief, particularly the inerrancy of scripture. Scripture can’t make a mistake, right? It has to be read literally.

This was a counterattack against so-called liberal religion’s embrace of the insights of the Enlightenment and the scientific age. Can you apply normal standards of historical criticism to religious belief? The fundamentalists said no, because normal standards might lead you to understand texts as having been composed in normal human circumstances, instead of inspired by God. So when you read the Gospel accounts of the birth of Jesus through the lens of historical critical method you may conclude that the three kings never actually traveled to Bethlehem, that it’s a mythical story created to make a point—a genre that the people who wrote it were comfortable with.

Fundamentalists reacted against any mitigating of the literal fact of the three kings. To read texts for their theological meaning rather than for their historical literalness would undercut the whole affirmation of the religion. The next thing, you’d be saying that Jesus didn’t rise from the dead on the third day. And if that didn’t happen, where are you?

That was then. Today, fundamentalism remains a useful point of reference in understanding the human panic that can be engendered by the uncertainties attached to Enlightenment thinking—when the world view of science tells you that nothing is dependable, that everything has to be submitted to the test of experimentation, verification.

My argument is that religious belief can mature, can be moved to a new level of sophistication by historical, critical, enlightened thinking, but a lot of people are completely threatened by it. Not to denigrate them. Human beings all over the world are dislocated—all of us are—by so many things we don’t control, the various revolutions sweeping the globe, the degradation of the environment, the challenge to the very integrity of communities.

The City on a Hill

For our conversation, fundamentalist Christianity is a perfect paradigm within which to understand what’s been happening in America, a profoundly Christian super-culture. America is also a secular nation, of course. The separation of church and state was a critical innovation, giving us this special standing as a people. The separation’s purpose was to protect the conscientious freedom of every individual by making the state neutral on questions of religious conscience. An absolutely ingenious insight.

It’s important, however, to understand the profoundly American origins of this insight. The argument began in the first generation. John Cotton, a Puritan preacher, embodied the first idea America had of itself, captured in the image his colleague John Winthrop used in defining the new settlement as “the city on a hill,” a phrase that’s fodder for political speeches every four years.

Americans don’t generally like to think this way, but the United States of America is more descended from Massachusetts than Virginia—an important distinction because the people who settled Virginia were adventurers and entrepreneurs. The people who settled Massachusetts were religious zealots who had left England as an act of dissent against the Church of England, which they considered too Popish. Their dissent was against a certain kind of religion, but not in favor of religious freedom. They came to America assuming the power of the state over the religious convictions of the civic body.

TD: They just wanted a different religion to do the coercing?

Carroll: Exactly. Of course, these folks thought of themselves as reenacting the journey of Exodus. What was the city on a hill? Jerusalem, of course—a biblical reference. They had been brought out of the slave condition of a Popish church. They were now across the water—think of “the Jordan River” as the Atlantic Ocean—in the promised land, the land flowing with milk and honey. Hello, there are Canaanites here.

Finally, after 1,600 years, the true vision of Jesus Christ was going to be realized—and there was no room for another way of looking at it, no room for what we would call dissent, and certainly no room for any tolerance of the “paganism” of the Native Americans. One of the first manifestations of the settlers’ zealotry was the religious coercion that began to mark their relationships with the Native Americans they met right here in this very place where we’re now talking. They felt empowered to offer the ancient choice of conversion or death to the people they called the Indians.

One of the members of this early party objected. His name was Roger Williams and he rejected the coercive violence he saw wielded against native peoples. He rejected the whole idea that the magistrate should be in charge of the religious impulse of the citizen. As a result, he was banished from Boston, exiled to Salem, then banished from Salem. Finally, he started his own foundation in what we call Rhode Island and organized a new kind of state in which the magistrate would have no power over the religious practice of the citizens. This is all within the first generation.

Roger Williams lost the argument in his own day, but he planted the seed of something. He was the first person to use the phrase, “wall of separation” between the magistrate and the religion. One hundred eighty years later, Thomas Jefferson picks up that phrase to describe the distinction between the church and the state.

The point here is that the initial city-on-a-hill impulse has never stopped being part of our self-understanding—the idea of America as having a mission to the world or, in biblical terms, a mission to the gentiles. “Go forth and teach all nations,” Jesus commands. This commission is implicit in George Bush’s war to establish democracy—or “freedom”—everywhere. When Americans talk about freedom, it’s our secular code word for salvation. There’s no salvation outside the church; there’s no freedom outside the American way of life. Notice how, after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the disappearance of the Soviet system, there is still something called the “Free World.” As opposed to what?

A Special Mission to Iraq—and the World

This missionizing in the name of freedom is a basic American impulse. Lincoln was the high priest of this rhetoric, “the last best hope of mankind.” The United States of America is justified by the virtue of its mission. The entire movement of American power across the continent of North America was a movement to fulfill the “manifest destiny” of a free people extending freedom. Because this is understood as a profoundly virtuous impulse, we’ve seldom criticized it. As a nation, we have begun to reckon with the crime of slavery, but we haven’t begun to reckon with the crime of genocide against the Native American peoples. That’s because we haven’t really acknowledged what was wrong with it.

Think of that phrase—“manifest destiny.” A key doctrine in what I am calling American fundamentalism. It remains an inch below the surface of the American belief system. What’s interesting is that this sense of special mission cuts across the spectrum—right wing/left wing, liberals/conservatives—because generally the liberal argument against government policies since World War II is that our wars—Vietnam then, Iraq now—represent an egregious failure to live up to America’s true calling. We’re better than this. Even anti-war critics, who begin to bang the drum, do it by appealing to an exceptional American missionizing impulse. You don’t get the sense, even from most liberals, that— no, America is a nation like other nations and we’re going to screw things up the way other nations do.

TD: That kind of realism is in short supply here.

Carroll: It hardly exists even now.

Let me make one final point about that missionizing impulse, and the way it transcends right and left. One reason we’re in Iraq today is because, in the 1990s, the left was split on the question of American violence, the proper use of American power. It was split over the issue of what was called “humanitarian intervention.” There are times, it was argued, when the forceful exercise of American power is necessary for the sake of humanitarian causes. Human rights, beginning in Jimmy Carter’s day, became a new form of American religion. If conservatives go abroad speaking the language of freedom; liberals go abroad speaking the language of human rights. And if we have to destroy a nation so that it can exercise human rights, so be it. That’s why, in the early days of the Iraq war, so many surprising people supported it.

The liberal embrace of humanitarian intervention is part of what set loose this new phenomenon of the Bush moment—an explicit appeal to religious motivation in the exercise of American power. Since George W. Bush came to power, the religious right has been set free to use overt religious language, missionizing language that actually moves from “freedom” to “salvation,” as a justification for American power. We cast ourselves against Saddam Hussein entirely in terms of a binary evil-versus-good contest. Bush’s appeals to evil were a staple of his speechmaking from the earliest days of this war. The purpose of his war was, he told us, not just to spread democracy, but to end evil. You see what’s happening. We’ve moved into specifically religious categories and that was all right in America.

Tom, here’s the thing that’s important to acknowledge: If Americans are upset with the war in Iraq today, it’s mainly because it failed. If we could have “ended evil” with this war, it would have been a good thing. It goes back to the joke you began with: If we have to destroy the world in order to purify it of evil, that’s all right. It’s the key to the apocalyptic mindset that Robert J. Lifton has written about so eloquently, in which the destruction of the Earth can be an act of purification. The destruction of Iraq was an act of purification. Even today, look at the rhetoric that’s unfolding as we begin to talk about ending the war in Iraq. It’s the Iraqis who have failed. They wouldn’t yield on their “sectarian” agendas. These people won’t get together and form a cohesive government. Now, we’re going to let them stew in their own mess. We’re going to withdraw from this war because they’re not worthy of us.

That’s the mainstream Democratic anti-war position! America is a city on a hill, exceptional; so, if we do it, by definition it must be virtuous. If we’ve gone to Iraq and all hell’s broken loose, it may be a fiasco, but in origin it can’t be our fault because we were motivated by good intentions.

Now, put all of that in the context of this astounding religious resurgence …

TD: It’s the surge …

Carroll: (laughs): Yes, the surge of overt religious claims within the United States government, people who understand themselves as fulfilling their sworn oaths to uphold the United States Constitution in the name of religion. I interviewed the chief chaplain of the U.S. Air Force, who said to me: “I have two commissions. One commission is to uphold the U.S. Constitution and the other is to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and they go hand in hand with each other.”

I grew up in the Air Force. I gotta tell ya, there was no chaplain in the Air Force in my day who would have said that. In fact, the chaplains I knew didn’t see themselves as having a commission to preach the Gospel at all. You bent over backward not to do that when you were dealing with soldiers outside of the chapel.

A Christian Defense of the Nation

TD: You have a new film, based on your book, Constantine’s Sword, in which you explore this change at, among other places, the Air Force Academy, right?

Carroll: Yes, what happened there was striking. Take just this example: A couple of years ago, Mel Gibson’s film, The Passion of the Christ rendered in profoundly fundamentalist ways, most terribly, the death of Jesus as caused by “the Jews,” not the Romans. In that movie, Pilate is a good guy; the Jewish high priest the villain. Gibson justified this by saying it was how the Gospels tell the story, which is literally true. A fundamentalist reading of the Gospel story ignores what we know from history and from scientific inquiry and analysis of the Gospels. It wasn’t “the Jews” who murdered Jesus, it was the Romans, pure and simple. There were complicated reasons why the Gospels were written that way, but a fundamentalist reading of those texts is dangerous. Gibson demonized the Jews, while celebrating grotesque violence as a mode of salvation, as willed by God.

And then that film was featured at the United States Air Force Academy. Its commanders made it clear that every one of the cadets, over 4,000 of them, was supposed to see that movie. Repeatedly over a week, every time cadets went into H. H. Arnold mess hall, they found fliers on their dinner plates announcing that this movie was being shown. I saw posters that said: “See the Passion of the Christ” and “This is an official Air Force Academy event, do not remove this poster.”

As a result of that film, there was an outbreak of pressure, practically coercion, by born-again evangelical Christians aimed at non-Christian cadets and, in a special way, at Jews. This went on for months and when the whistle was blown by a Jewish cadet and his father, the Air Force denied it, tried to cover it up. Yale University sent a team from the Yale Divinity School to investigate. They issued a devastating report. The commander at the academy was finally removed; the Air Force was forced to acknowledge that there was a problem.

In fact, the Academy had allowed itself to become a proselytizing outpost for evangelical Christian mega-churches in the Colorado Springs area. Chief among them were Ted Haggard’s and James Dobson’s, both men then in the inner circle of the Bush White House, involved in the sort of faith-based initiatives that marked the Bush administration.

In the Pentagon today, there is active proselytizing by Christian groups that is allowed by the chain of command. When your superior expects you to show up at his prayer breakfast, you may not feel free to say no. It’s not at all clear what will happen to your career. He writes your efficiency report. And the next thing you know, you have, in the culture of the Pentagon, more and more active religious outreach.

Imagine, then, a military motivated by an explicit Christian, missionizing impulse at the worst possible moment in our history, because we’re confronting an enemy—and yes, we do have an enemy: fringe, fascist, nihilist extremists coming out of the Islamic world—who define the conflict entirely in religious terms. They, too, want to see this as a new “crusade.” That’s the language that Osama bin Laden uses. For the United States of America at this moment to allow its military to begin to wear the badges of a religious movement is a disaster!

TD: What does this point to, when it comes to the future?

Carroll: Well, the best thing that’s happened, when it comes to all of this, has been the near complete political and moral collapse of the Bush administration, but that doesn’t mean this movement is going away. Bush was a sponsor of it. But look how it took off! Bush sponsored it, to take another example, in the Justice Department under Attorney General Gonzales—all those born-again Christian lawyers coming from fundamentalist Christian law schools that have no history of excellence.

We must be aware that there’s something much deeper than the Bush administration and a particular wing of the Republican Party at work here, however. This isn’t just Karl Rove, though he was ingenious at exploiting it.

Let’s go back to what kind of a nation the United States is. Here is something I read recently: Though we are officially a secular people, there are more self-identified Christians in this country than self-identified Jews in Israel in percentage terms. We commonly think of Israel as a Jewish state. Something like seventy-five percent of Israelis would identify themselves as Jewish. Eighty percent of Americans identify themselves as Christian! And we’re not a Christian nation? We have to be wary of our Christian roots and of the city-on-a-hill impulse that still lives just an inch below the surface.

Our war against the Soviet Union was a religious war. [Secretary of State] John Foster Dulles [under President Eisenhower] was practically explicit about this in his speeches, which were like sermons. Not just “communism,” but “atheistic communism.” Dwight D. Eisenhower was baptized while he was president—part of a Cold War feeling that we were involved in a Christian defense of the nation against an atheistic enemy.

Huddling Up for Team Jesus

TD: And, of course, he entitled his memoir Crusade in Europe.

Carroll: Christian points of reference came very easily in those years, but what’s made the Bush era especially dangerous is that a political party has explicitly, overtly embraced a religious movement for the political power it generates. Fundamentalists have their rights, their place, in America, but there’s no place for a political movement that aims to take control of the levers of state power in the name of religion. That’s a violation of the “wall of separation.” You can’t have military commanders giving orders down the chain of command that have religious content to them. You can’t, on the eve of battle, require your soldiers to gather in a huddle the way a coach might, and say the Lord’s Prayer.

TD: And yet it’s happening …

Carroll: It’s happening all the time! At the Air Force Academy, “Team Jesus” was one of the nicknames for the football team and one of the most vociferous evangelical Christian proselytizers was the football coach. Look at it from his point of view. What happens when he can get his huddle together and they’re all saying the Lord’s Prayer? A chief military virtue is “unit cohesion.” It can be created in any number of ways, but one shortcut is if you can get everybody into a kind of Pentecostal religious fervor. If you can get your young men and women feeling the presence of the Lord, they’re going to fight better, possibly more selflessly. That’s what’s in it for the military. Let’s think cynically. There may be some military commanders who don’t give much of a damn about God, but who see what God can do for fighting spirit. It works.

Let’s all gather around the Humvee before we head into this village. Let us pray. You can bet that’s going on in Iraq right now. Here’s the question: What happens to the kid who doesn’t want to get around that Humvee or, more to the point, to the Muslim bystanders who see American soldiers invoking God on their way into battle?

TD: Or when you loose well-armed, even nuclear-armed people eager to purify the world ...

Carroll: If I have a point to make, it’s this: The religious tradition of Christian fundamentalism is one thing; the tradition of American exceptionalism another. They both have their roots in the same experience. They were separated. Under George Bush they’ve been brought together.

TD: When it comes to the Bush administration, complete collapse or not, we know that this man, without the possibility of changing his mind, and his vice president, without the possibility of changing his mind, with whomever they can still control in their own government and military, are there until January 2009. What does it mean to have people in a fundamentalist mindset, but thoroughly embattled and on the downward slide? I wouldn’t like to write off the next year and a half. It’s a potential nightmare.

Carroll: It could indeed be. But this issue involves more than the temperament of George Bush. It involves the structure of the fundamentalist mind. One pillar is bipolarity—the understanding of reality as divided between good and evil; you’re on the side of good and they’re on the side of evil. However, they can begin by being Osama bin Laden’s band, which then becomes the Taliban, which becomes Afghanistan, which becomes all the Muslims who ever talked about the Great Satan, which becomes Iraq, and now maybe Iran, and even critics in the U.S. “They,” “they,” “they.” We see that progression in Bush. A second pillar is an absolute allergy to doubt. The fundamentalist mindset doesn’t survive once you admit doubt or self-criticism. When asked for an example of a mistake he had made, Bush surprised people two years ago by claiming he couldn’t think of one. The tragedy of Bush is, if you ask that question of him today, I’m sure he would answer the same way.

A World Religiously Aflame

Let’s just step back a minute, though. How different are the Democratic presidential candidates really? What I hear from them, too, is a world divided between the good and the bad. I also hear—this is the meaning of the new rhetoric about the failure of Iraq being the failure of Iraqis—that we Americans are not to criticize what we’ve done in any basic way. “I wouldn’t renounce my vote.” “The president lied to me; that’s why I voted the way I did.” No capacity for self-criticism, for doubt.

You know, the genius of the American system—why the Constitution is worth defending—is that our Constitution comes from Roger Williams, not John Winthrop and John Cotton. It assumes a world not divided between good and evil, but one where everybody participates in the whole mess.

What are checks and balances? The Constitution’s authors understood that even people motivated by good intentions are going to screw up. So everybody, every institution, needs to be checked. This system assumes not bipolarity but unipolarity, in the sense that we’re all capable of mistakes, that we all have to be constantly criticized. The Constitution is an ingenious structure for living in the real world.

TD: And yet, in recent years, the presidency and the Pentagon, in particular, as you’ve written in your history of the Pentagon, House of War, have seemingly grown beyond institutional checks and balances.

Carroll: The question today is whether the Constitution continues to exist as anything beyond a kind of totem, a vestige? Recent history certainly suggests that the Pentagon is now “unchecked.” And if we can end our present war by blaming the Iraqis, then the Pentagon will be immune from criticism and prepared for the next foray of American power. That’s why we must challenge this laying the blame on the Iraqi people, as if their “sectarianism” weighs more than our hubris. As of now, I fear, we’ll be getting out of this war with what brought us into it intact.

TD: People sometimes ask me about Iraq: “Well, what would you do?” It’s a question that drives me crazy. I always think: Well, why didn’t you ask me back when it mattered? Why didn’t you ask me when I could have said, “Don’t go in.” So I’m hesitant to ask you, but if you had the power to begin to organize people in some fashion, what first steps would you take to mend this world?

Carroll: Let me just say that we’ve been talking only America here, in part because I think people are attuned to the threat from what’s called “Islamic fundamentalism.” My own conviction is that a crucial twenty-first century problem is going to be Christian fundamentalism. Its global growth is an unnoticed story in the United States. Africa, Latin America and parts of Asia are now absolutely on fire with zealous belief in the saving power of Jesus, in the most intolerant of ways. A religious ideology that affirms the salvific power of violence is taking hold. It denigrates people who are not part of the saved community, permitting discrimination, and ultimately violence. Hundreds of millions of people are embracing this kind of Christianity.

So what am I doing? I’m a Christian. I’m raising this alarm from within the community. That’s why I believe, as a Roman Catholic, that my own tradition must be rescued from its current temptation to fundamentalism. There are a billion Catholics in the world. For all its problems, Roman Catholicism has reckoned with the Enlightenment, has accepted the scientific world view, has no argument with evolution, has learned to read the Bible in metaphoric ways, as opposed to literal ones. Today we have a fundamentalist Pope, but he rules from the margin. It’s hugely important that the Catholic tradition not go fundamentalist.

You ask me what I would do. I think, for one thing, that believing people, whether Jews, Muslims, or Christians, need to affirm the importance of pluralism, respect for the other, and modesty about religious claims. I could be a Jew sitting in Jerusalem and offer exactly the same argument about the Jewish zealots making claims on land in the name of God. So Jewish zealotry, Muslim zealotry, Christian zealotry, all three empowered lately, all three armed to the teeth. That’s what’s really terrifying—and, in the world of weapons of mass destruction, it’s not that hard to get armed to the teeth.

So here’s a message addressed to the participants in the TomDispatch community who may have a religious interest: Embrace it. Fight for it. Fight for a post-Enlightenment, postmodern, intelligent approach to religion. Don’t surrender religion to the wackos.

If the wackos take over religion, they’re going to take over state power and the world won’t survive the twenty-first century. And the United States of America has been at the center of this. When George W. Bush launched his war in the name of God … even more, when this nation took the 9/11 assaults as a religious war, Muslims attacking us good, virtuous—we didn’t call ourselves Christians, but we were an inch away from it—that’s when we began to make our part of this mistake.

TD: And we should have taken it as … ?

Carroll: A savage crime. Think of al-Qaida as the Mafia. When the Mafia blows up a distillery and kills 18 people in the neighborhood as part of a turf war, or goes after a hardware dealer who doesn’t pay protection money and paralyzes the neighborhood with fear, or when the Mafia takes over a whole region of a nation, as it did in Italy for most of the twentieth century, fight back; but fight back against the criminal network with a massive act of law enforcement the way the Italian government did.

It took the Italian government 50 years to break the Mafia’s hold over Sicily and they still have to keep fighting. But they never declared war on Sicily. They never went in and bombed Sicily. They gave their judges and police inspectors and detectives body armor and they went after the Mafia hit men with highly armed SWAT teams. I’m not talking about pacifism here. But keep religious ideology out of this. And keep the language of war out, too.

You know, only in going to war do humans feel the need to appeal to God. There’s no “God with us” on the belt buckles of cops. God gets invoked in war, because it’s a much more extreme state of the human condition. War always brings you very quickly to the point of “us or them.”

When somebody comes at you with a savage act of violence, go back at them with your best, most heavily armed cops. Don’t go to war against them. It’s a very basic idea. It can’t be emphasized enough. We’re going to have another terrorist attack in this country. It’s crucially important that, however horrendous, it be treated as a crime—not an act of war.

Unbuilding the Pentagon

TD: You’ve written a whole book recently about the Pentagon. In this period, it’s grown fantastically. We’ve even ended up with two Pentagons, the second being the Department of Homeland Security. Now, we have a North American Command, Northcom, for the first time …

Carroll: … And there’s another deeply troubling phenomenon: these so-called “contractors” outside the purview of the Pentagon, of the U.S. government, people paid to serve, who are not sworn officers of the government …

TD: And isn’t the all-volunteer Army itself becoming a part-mercenary army, because they’re having to pay and pay and pay to lure in reluctant recruits? My question is: Do you see a way to begin to unbuild the Pentagon? Are we stuck with the Department of Homeland Security forever?

Carroll: If any nation was ever stuck with an all-powerful, untouchable military establishment, it was the Soviet Union. By 1987, 1988, the only institution in Soviet society that was working, the only one that was funded, was the military; and it was the most reactionary wing of society.

If the Russians could get out from under that, there’s no reason in the world why we can’t get out from under our version of the same. But it takes a Gorbachev. Who knows when such a figure will come here?

Two things happened that enabled [General Secretary of the Communist Party Mikhail] Gorbachev to defeat his own military and dismantle the Soviet system. One was the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear plant, a massive, horrendous public mistake—and the mistake wasn’t just the nuclear meltdown, but the way in which the militarized establishment dealt with it. They sent hundreds of people in to shut down a poisoned reactor, saying there was no threat to their health. They were mostly all poisoned. Dead very quickly. And then the militarized establishment told the people of Ukraine and the eastern Soviet territories that there was no radioactive threat to them, and hundreds of people later came down with serious illnesses and cancers. That happened in 1986, within months of Gorbachev’s coming to power. It prepared the people for a different kind of power.

And then there was that second, wonderful incident, forgotten today. An absolute fluke, pure serendipity. These things happen in life. A young German kid named Mathias Rust flew a Piper Cub plane from Germany to Moscow and landed in Red Square, untouched. He had demonstrated in the most graphic way possible that the best-funded, most vaunted system in the Soviet Empire, the anti-aircraft defense system, a supposedly unbreachable set of defenses, could be totally fooled by a prankster. It was madness.

Anybody else would have executed that kid! But Gorbachev had him sent right home to Germany. Then he fired his entire military establishment—army and air ministers, a hundred generals—his reactionary nemesis. Rust’s flight was such an embarrassment that he could do it.

I’m saying: Don’t ever claim the system is unreformable. Clinton had a golden opportunity after the Soviet Union disappeared in 1991-1992. Les Aspin, a dove, an expert at arms reduction and arms control, was put in as secretary of Defense. And you remember who Clinton’s national security adviser was? Anthony Lake, who had resigned in an act of conscience against the invasion of Cambodia. Clinton’s motive upon coming to office was to disempower the Pentagon. I’m certain of it. He failed. Aspin was destroyed by the President’s failure to support him. The gays in the military episode was part of the story. The real “don’t-ask/don’t-tell” story of that moment, though, was the Pentagon’s: Don’t ask us about our nuclear weapons and we won’t tell you what we’re doing to maintain them.

Could we get out of this trap? Yes, but Democrats would have to be far more direct in challenging the assumptions and structures of the American military ethos.

TD: Last words?

Carroll: (pauses): Well, the last word in this conversation is: Religion and politics, religion and military power, are a deadly mix in an age of weapons of mass destruction. And, if the United States of America gets this wrong, there’s no reason to think anybody else is going to get it right. Casting an eye across the century to come, this is the issue.

[Note: To explore James Carroll’s world further, you might start by clicking here and checking out his website.]

Laura Schlessinger's computer generated trite

2007-09-04T14:22:00.000-07:00

It is not even good computer generated trite

More horrible malarkey is the last thing Laura Schlessinger needs, but it maybe all she has left. Her new low, performing with abused animals, isn't exactly how to impress the "real" McCaw. Wendy McCaw, Laura's boss at the now sad and crippled Santa Barbara News-Press.

WHAT SHE NEEDS TO WORK ON ARE HER EMBELLISHMENTS

She's used Deryk Schlessinger longer than I know, I've yet to see how it is the right thing. Would a genuine proud parent need to exaggerate reality? Look at Deryk's badge is that a Novice Parachutist? (Reminds us too much of the little used physiology degree) All else says what he actually does is infantry, like he shoots people. (People who keep secrets are not healthy)

Her sad pathology to manipulate a Dr. title into legitimacy of any sort is tragic enough. She should write about the brief time she used that physiology degree and end the massive amounts of unoriginal recycled pollution she litters about *. Her garbage alone is enough to prove her worst
GLOBAL WARMING nightmares are true.

Is she really a doctor?
Should Ph.D.’s be Referred to as "Doctor"
[ the "Should Ph.D.’s be Referred to as 'Doctor'" are disappearing, there are oceans of other computer generated hypes from faux doc ]
check out how many of them we've posted... there are many that were missed... try leaving a comment.. it's all about hooey with Laura Schlessinger

happy fun fun

By V. Berba Velasco In recent years, I’ve frequently heard people claim that individuals who hold PhDs are not “real” doctors. [ they all say the same thing ]

* wiser observations prevail:
RE: [DrLauraDiscussionGroup] My NEW blog by Our Ms. Laura

"I call bullsh*t! This is another fraud letter from someone hoping to get a
pat on the back from Laura. If you read actual pregnancy boards, you will
see that single mothers are not as prevalent. And if she is telling the
truth, I can tell you from experience that she probably went on there with a
“holier-than-thou” attitude and got stomped on by the other posters. Those
are support boards, they aren’t for people to come preaching at you.

My husband just called me. He said that he is listening to Laura and some
guy called in and said that his daughter is military and is going out on TDY
(temporary duty). Laura, Miss “I Know F*ck All About All Things Military”
said she didn’t know what TDY was. My husband, a former Airman, nearly
jumped through the radio to throttle Miss Laura. LOL!!! I guess Derick
doesn’t tell her everything. Hey, Laura, your psychopathic son is on
TDY!!!!"

[ inside the mind of the KingOf*Hearts* ]

MOVIES: KingOfHearts

2007-08-12T18:32:00.000-07:00

Last May The Salt Lake Tribune published a story on Deryk Schlessinger:

Dr. Laura son linked to lurid Web page
Site contained violent, sex-oriented images one official called 'repulsive'

KingOf*Hearts* CARTOONS

The following, "Movies Took a charter flight on a DC-10 to London....." was on a Web page, the KingOf*Hearts*, attributed to Deryk Schlessinger.
"TMZ has confirmed with an Army rep that a photo of a man holding a gun in his mouth did in fact appear on the MySpace page in question. The rep would not confirm the man's identity." The following (below), "Movies Took a...." is yet to be confirmed by an Army rep, it remains a curiosity along with the mysterious destruction of evidence. * * * Warrior training?
The photos are from the 1962 movie, The Manchurian Candidate

The following is from May 2007 the KingOf*Hearts*:
Movies "Took a charter flight on a DC-10 to London. Landed at Heathrow. Took a cab to the city center. Don't let people lie to you: hostels are for the ugly. I'm staying in Home House, the most beautiful hotel in the world. Called a friend from school who was selling hash, but she wasn't in. Met a couple of Brits who take me to, of all places, Camden Street. I flirt a bit at the Virgin Megastore, buy some CDs, then follow some girls with pink hair. I wandered around trying to get laid, until it started to rain, then went back to Home House. Ministry of Sound is dead, so I go to Remform - but it's Gay Night. I find the one hetero girl in the place and we dry hump on the dance floor. We cab it back to Home House. I strip her clothes off, suck her toes, and we fuck. I hung out for four or five days. Met the world's biggest DJ, Paul Oakenfold. Kept missing the Changing of the Guards. Wrote my mom a postcard I never sent. Bought some speed from an Italian junkie who was trying to sell me a stolen bike. Smoked a lot of hash that had too much tobacco in it. Saw the Tate. Saw Big Ben. Ate a lot of weird English food. It rained a lot, it was expensive, and I'm jonesing... So, I split for Amsterdam. The Dutch all know English, so I didn't have to speak any Dutch - which was a relief. I cruise the Red Light District. Visit a sex show. Visit a sex museum. Smoke a lot of hash. I meet a Dutch TV actress and we drink absinthe at a bar called Absinthe. The museums were cool, I guess. Lots of Van Goghs and the Vermeers were intense. Wandered around. Bought a lot of pastries. Ate some intense waffles. We bought some coke and I cruised the Red Light District, until I found some blonde with big tits that reminds me of Lara. I gave her a hundred guilders. In the end, she pulls me out, and I cum between her tits, even though I'm wearing a rubber. Afterward we made small-talk about AIDS, her Moroccan pimp, and herself. I wake to the sound of a wino singing. It's 8 AM and hot as blazes. I pretend to ice-skate around Central Station, while someone plays the sax. Trade songs with a Kiwi girl... Then split for Paris by train. Wander the Champs-Elysees. Climb the Eiffel Tower for only seven francs, because the ticket machine was broken. Got the hang of the Metro, took it everywhere. Went to a Ford model party and hooked up with a Romanian model named Karina. She chugs my cock at the Mariott Champs-Elysees, which is good. We played billiards, went shopping. I think she gave me mono. Drove a Ferrari that belonged to a member of the Saudi royal family. Made out with a Dutch model in front of the Louvre. Saw the Arc de Triomphe and almost became road-kill crossing the street... "Oakie" invites me to Dublin, so I catch an Aer Lingus flight and stay at the Morrison. Dublin rocks like you can't imagine. Oakenfold lets me spin some discs with him. Irish girls are as small as leprechauns. I swap hickeys with a drunk woman. After groping my abs and calling me "Mr. L.A.", she strips for me in the bath room of the club. Sneak into the Guinness factory and steal some stout so good my dick goes hard... I fly to Barcelona, which was a low-rent bust. Too many fat American students. Too many lame meat markets. I dropped acid at the Sagrada Familia, which was a trip to say the least. Cruise up the coast to the Museo Gala Dali, but had no more acid, which sucked. Some girl from Camden calls me on my cell, so I let her listen to the church bells in Cadaques. Canta Cruz is beautiful, but there are no girls here, just old hippies... So, I went to Switzerland where I, ironically, couldn't find anyone who had the time. Took the Glacier Express up the Schilthorn, which is beautiful in a way I can't describe... Euro Pass into Italy and ended up in Venice, where I met a hot girl who looks like Rachael Leigh Cook and speaks better English than I do. She's living for a year on only five dollars a day. We gondola around, buy some masks. She think's I'm a capitalist, because my hotel room costs more for one night than she's spending her entire trip. But she doesn't mind it so much when I pay the bills... I ditch her and hook up with a couple who obviously want a 3-some. Too much tension there, but the doofus offers to drive me to Rome, an offer I jump at. Traffic is bad and we're stopped for hours without moving. The wife turns out to be a freak. The guy starts to wig out on me. It's like a Polanski film... We stop for a while in Florence, where I see some big dome. A bomb goes off and I lose the weird couple, which is probably for the best... Ended up in Rome, which is big and hot and dirty. It was just like L.A., but with ruins. I went to the Vatican, which was ridiculously opulent. Stood for two hours to get into the Sistine Chapel, which - now that it's been cleaned - looks fake. I meet two under-age Italian girls who I try to talk into fucking each other while I jack off onto them. Bored, I buy them some ice cream instead. My hotel has a gym, so I work out. I bump into some guy from Camden who says he knows me, but I'm sure that he's a fag, so I lose him. I try to fart and instead shit my pants. Back in my hotel room, I masturbate and have a pain in my groin. That night, I dream about a beautiful girl, half in water, stretching her lean body. She asks me if I like it and I tell her she can clean fish with it. I don't know what it means, but I wake well-rested, masturbate in the shower, and check out... I make my way back to London and hang out in Piccadilly Circus. Hmm. Palakon. I swap shirts with some upper-crusty Cambridge chick. Hers was an Agnes B., mine a Costume Nationale. She acts stuffy and prudish, but is really wild underneath it all. She barely looks at my abs, though she wants to. The next day, I drop some acid and get lost in the subway for a full day and can't find my way out. I meet a cute girl who lets me jack off onto her as long as no cum gets onto her Paul Smith coat. We get stoned while listening to Michael Jackson records and the next morning I wake up talking to myself. I have a big bump on my head from flailing in my sleep. I get my stuff and barely make my plane back to the United States... I no longer know who I am and I feel like the ghost of a total stranger." KingOf*Hearts*

album

2007-07-10T00:20:00.000-07:00

the devil and the dep blah News-Press

2007-06-10T18:29:00.001-07:00

Laura Schlessinger wasn't going to be out done by Wendy McCaw's wacky wonders at the Santa Barbara News-Press (ism). Leave it to her to use tragedy and her own son, Deryk, for this astounding ? ? ? W?T?F??? ? ?? No one knows what to say, it is not human.

"The West 'must defend freedom by making the most horrific sacrifice it knows:
the death of the only son. While America is prepared to pay
with the lives of 42,000 men, women and children each year because it
needs to travel for work and pleasure, the sacrifice of 850 lives a
year to defend the principle of universal freedom has thrown America
into a state of profound introspection. Every victim represents
immeasurable grief to his parents. This is only bearable if society
as a whole supports them and comforts them in the knowledge of the
sacred common values for which their son died. This, America has
always done in the past, but looks now to give up."

"Since the start of the war in Iraq, 170,000 people have died in car
accidents in America. Remember to buckle up."

LAURA SCHLESSINGER 6/10/07

"He may talk like an idiot, and look like an idiot, but don't let that fool you: he really is an idiot..."
Groucho Marx

What friends said about this man's My Space:

"He has a quirky sense of humor."

"It was shock value."

In a moment of clarity Schlessinger wrote:
"As I wrote in last Sunday's column

(Santa Barbara News-Press 5/13/07 On the issue of computer porn )

I know all too well the impact of innuendo, spin and bias. However, when such an experience occurs, you have to be ready to come out with the clarification or rebuttal immediately and as wide spread as possible; not duck or call for attorneys."

Santa Barbara News-Press 5/17/07 "Contary to popular belief, I agree!"

WHY WON'T SHE FOLLOW HER OWN ADVICE?
* * * * *

Laura Schlessinger and PEACE

Only the Brit's?
How do these guys get overlooked?
Does the Army need better Public Relations?

What if 10 % of the rumors are true?

After no show of family unity to support Deryk, no friends that know him have come forward to insist that web site is unlike him, the "family values" gigantic image consultant almost silent and more strange behaviors make a background profile vital to end the rumors and old suspicions.

gossip, possibly untrue :

"I actually went to college with the kid. He lasted all of one semester. He was a complete and utter trust-fund baby asshole. He drove around a Cadillac Escalade on which he'd glued numerous action figures to the dashboard. People hung out with him because he threw money around like paper. Everyone else at my school despised him. The cops were always at his place...I know, because I had friends who lived in the apartment directly beneath his, and he used to drop by our parties sometimes.

Truly, he was a sadistic jerk back then too. One of the stories that went around was that some girl was giving him road-head, and he slammed on the brakes really hard. She slammed her head into the steering wheel, and he just laughed and laughed.

He went into the army because he had no other prospects.
Dr. Laura's just happy to be rid of him.

I should also add that I've rarely been around someone as poorly raised as this kid. Truly, you could just sense the evil and sadism in him. He's very messed up."

gossip, possibly true?

Should celebrity, friends and family get a pass with the law?

2007-06-07T14:56:00.000-07:00

26 year old Paris Hilton's private medical condition has everyone wanting her treatment, the great REASSIGNMENT!

Rumors say she has a rash

and the mental stress became unbearable.

What does any enabling parent do? Dr. Charles Sophy to the rescue! What a guy! He is the real deal.. psychiatrist.... that is.

In Santa Barbara that's 1,000,000s of steps above quack.
* * *
In Wendy McCaw's little town, far, far away from her Calixe dream... troubles brew for those she'll soon be leaving behind to join the Baron on the annual summer cruise.

What will this summer bring?

Goldfinch slaughtering comes easy for Rob Lowe after the he-man showdown with his anti-hedge elders. Today not even gal pal McCaw can keep the paparazzi away or his name from the news. It's not everyday you can pull off the-old-I-accidently-killed-your-official-state bird, Iowa!
L O W E

And another coup for Rob & pals very own, rockin' Love barracuda, the squirely Cappello (he gets those big buck$).

MSNBC's senior legal jingler, Susan Filan. (coincidentally, she is with Dr. Laura's Reputation Doctor at MGP & Associates PR). Susan can't contain her outrage with the social injustice when "privilege" beats the rap and "rubble" is long lingering and forgotten behind bars.

Can it be?

SOCIAL INJUSTICE

What kind of parent would be a part of that?

sex video

It only took ten days, but Dina Lohan has finally decided to visit her daughter Lindsay who will be 21 in July.

Dr. Laura Schlessinger's advice from the
Santa Barbara News-Press
May 17, 2007
"Contary to popular belief, I agree!" column:

"As I wrote in last Sunday's column
( On the issue of computer porn ),
I know all too well the impact of
innuendo, spin and bias.
However, when such an experience occurs, you have to be ready to come out with the clarification or rebuttal immediately and as wide spread as possible; not duck or call for attorneys."

A few days later her 21 year old son Deryk was in the

Salt Lake Tribune

"Dr. Laura son linked to lurid Web page"

He has not returned e-mail inquiries, she asked for privacy and Mike Paul said the My Space account under question could be fake. The Army confirmed a photo in TMZ was from the account under question.

Many blogs have been a buzz with "innuendo, spin and bias" as they await

"clarification or rebuttal". A few have something more to say.

Score One For Army OPSEC?
Paparazzi Sites and Dr. Laura
Sadbastard

"The 82nd Airborne Division in Afghanistan shuttered the pages on Friday. The Pentagon managed to immediately cleanse all evidence of the MySpace pages, including whatever copies and cached versions were kept by Google and the Internet Archive."

UPDATE: 6/8/07 Paris H*

zzwt

Inauguration 2009

Deryk Schlessinger gets his own....

Troops lured by drug trade

Wendy McCaw, farewell Laura Schlessinger and "America Supports You"

Wendy McCaw's Santa Barbara News-Press is busy reorganizing

Supporting The Troops?

"America Supports You" 'honors' Laura Schlessinger, one month later Deryk Schlessinger's case was completed*. CRONIES2

"America Supports You" 'honors' Laura Schlessinger, one month later Deryk Schlessinger's case was completed*. CRONIES: At least $9.2 million was...

Dr. Laura's Mother Found Murdered...

Laura Schlessinger: Dr. Laura's Mother Found Murdered2

Dr. Laura's Mother Found Murdered3

Laura Schlessinger wants to smack a few parents

Thanksgiving

Friday November 14, 2008

Tea Fire Thursday November 13, 2008

Deryk Schlessinger, Laura Schlessinger, Wikipedia

Veterans Day 2008

Dr Laura is determined to annihilate Planned Parenthood

Smart as a fruitfly?

Sarah Palin, the mother of all VP debate and Triggy Bear

The Lowes Don't Care About Their Kids?

Sarah Palin, Veep Hottie

Laura Schlessinger: addicted to WSJ cr@p opinion...

Massive wildfires and the News-Press

Fourth of July 2008

The queen of anti-SLAPP and Prince Lowe

Eringer writes again!

A circus spy and CIA honcho Wendy McCaw can love...

Should Ph.D.s Be Referred To As ‘Doctor’? WTF.. Schessinger ?

The vulgarity of spy and counter-spy...

Afghanistan, Gen. Abizaid, Bush, oil

Lowe household drama...

Fotografie

In Pictures: The Neglected War In Afghanistan

McCain quick to declare victory in Iraq. Petraeus says, 6 months

Petraeus:

'I Need Another Six Months To Determine Whether ‘We’ve Reached A Turning Point'

Massacre of Afghan Children in Helmand Province

Musa Qal'eh, Afghanistan

Laura-lie returns to the scene of the crime

Afghanistan 1/7/08

NATO Lacks a Coherent Strategy for Afghanistan 1/7/08

To the Editor: thinking Afghanistan

Thinking Afghanistan: We Were Sidetracked with Iraq 12/18/07 [helicopters/celebrities]

getting away with genocide

A Revealing Incident...

“As Concerns Rise, U.S. Is Reviewing Afghan Mission”

Afghanistan

Snake Oil "Dr." Laura Schlessinger

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

WAR.pD

The war on the walls

Laura Schlessinger funni

Wendy, Wendy, Wendy, nice new photos

The Snewz Repeat, Wendy, Wendy, Wendy

American Exceptionalism Meets Team Jesus

Laura Schlessinger's computer generated trite

MOVIES: KingOf*Hearts*

album

the devil and the dep blah News-Press

Should celebrity, friends and family get a pass with the law?

MOVIES: KingOfHearts