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archived: 4 - 10 Apr, 2004 Back Next RAPING THE ENVIRONMENT This is a TPJ feature that ran over a year ago but is no longer available in Archive. It is well worth rerunning given Bush’s most recent assaults on environmental protection. “The US Republican party is changing tactics on the environment, avoiding ‘frightening’ phrases such as global warming, after a confidential party memo warned that it is the domestic issue on which George Bush is most vulnerable. The memo, by the leading Republican consultant Frank Luntz, concedes the party has ‘lost the environmental communications battle’ and urges its politicians to encourage the public in the view that there is no scientific consensus on the dangers of greenhouse gases. ‘The scientific debate is closing [against us] but not yet closed. There is still a window of opportunity to challenge the science,’ Mr Luntz writes in the memo, obtained by the Environmental Working Group, a Washington-based campaigning organization. ‘Voters believe that there is no consensus about global warming within the scientific community. Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly. Therefore, you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate. The phrase ‘global warming’ should be abandoned in favor of ‘climate change’, Mr Luntz says, and the party should describe its policies as ‘conservationist’ instead of ‘environmentalist’, because ‘most people’ think environmentalists are ‘extremists’ who indulge in "some pretty bizarre behavior... that turns off many voters’.” -- Guardian Unlimited SEARCH AND SEIZURE One of the principal rights contained in the Bill of Rights is the protection of our homes from unreasonable search and seizure by the government. Indeed, the common expression that a person’s home is their castle stems from this grand principal of constitutional law. At least until the Republicans came into dominance in the Federal judiciary. It's a groundbreaking court decision that legal experts say will affect everyone: Police officers in Louisiana no longer need a search or arrest warrant to conduct a brief search of your home or business. Leaders in law enforcement say it will keep officers safe, but others argue it's a privilege that could be abused. The decision in United States v. Kelly Gould, No. 0230629cr0, was made March 24 by the New Orleans-based 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. The ruling stems from a lawsuit filed in Denham Springs in 2000, in which defendant Gould filed a motion to suppress information gleaned from a search of his home. The motion was granted by district court, and the government appealed this decision. The March 24 ruling by the 5th Circuit is an affirmation of that appeal. . . . One judge, Judge Grady Jolly, said he concurred in part and dissented in part with the majority opinion. Judge Jerry Smith, however, completely disagreed with the majority ruling, saying: "I have no doubt that the deputy sheriffs believed that they were acting reasonably and with good intentions. But the old adage warns us that 'the road to hell is paved with good intentions.'" – New Orleans Channel The neoconservatives appointed by Bush to the Federal Judiciary are determined to undermine the rights of individual Americans. The article above has received very limited main stream press. Will our rights pass in the night? Last Update: 03/23/2006 |
