New York Times Article for PUBLIC Discussion

[frank johnson]

"Frank: It is the kiss of death to characterize ODR regulars as not being Republicans with money."

So who characterized us as such? We regulars come from all kinds of political backgrounds and incomes I would assume.

"On wiretapping: I think it would be a hell of a lot more fair if the NSA did just wiretap my phone calls with foreign women, instead of actively interfering with the hello process as IMBRA unnecessarily does."

How about both? That is what we are going to get from the Bush police state regime.

"I think we should actually ask the government in a challenge to wiretap us instead."

Hear hear. By all means "you should" contact them and ask them to do so.

"If you do a study of Supreme Court rulings, you will find that nobody who distrusts politicians could ever vote Democrat at least for President of the USA."

So perhaps we should have Bush for another 8 years and more of his Supreme Court appointees?

"At least with Alito and Roberts, we have guys who take a close look at what the founding fathers wanted the country to be."

Yes, if the founding fathers were Hitler and Stalin.

"2) Frank: Can you research the speeches of our Republican allies who voted against IMRA in 2003 and before? Which specific Republicans helped defeat IMBRA in 2003 but later voted for IMBRA in 2005? This is crucial information."

"3) Frank: Please research all past "decisions of Judge Cooper". I want to be able to prove that he was contradicting himself."

You obviously have lots of spare time to do so, so by all means be my guest. While you're at it could you please research where all of Layli's tax dollar funding actually goes to as well as how much campaign contributions all of the politicians in Wash, DC get from feminist groups as kickbacks? Please go back to 1970 to get this information for previous politician's campaigns also. While you're at it, please also contact all the people in the media who would like to spread the word about IMBRA.

"When Cooper found out that we were mostly regular Republican guys...he no longer felt the political need to defend us."

How would Cooper possibly know what we are when we don't even know ourselves?

"I have contacted male Democrat journalists...which is an exercise in seeing what it is like to see a man with his manhood cut completely off surgically."

So try contacting Fox News instead. I'm sure they will jump on the anti-IMBRA bandwagon immediately.

All I know it that IMBRA was passed in the BUSH Republican administration with the help of a Republican politician (Brownback.) The Democrats are no angels in this case either so realize that BOTH parties are to blame for IMBRA. However it couldn't pass when Clinton was President. It had to take the corrupt Bush police state regime in order to sneak it in and become (temporary) law.

BOTH parties are to blame for different reasons. The Democrats have no spine. The Republicans support a police state. However not all politicians are corrupt (I hope.) Please contact the ones that aren't and have them overturn IMBRA.

Less talk about travelogs and more action please. Talk is cheap and opinions are like assholes. Everybody has one.

[VeteransAbroad]

Yes, the unseen police state agenda is a bigger danger than the leftist feminist agenda, assuming that Karl Rove hasn't consciously decided to bring all the leftist feminists into the "big tent" on purpose.

But have you seen Alito, Roberts, Scalia and the other conservative guy advocating that much lately?

Sure, Scalia tried to uphold the law that said that women over 18 could not decide for themselves whether to be in a porn movie IF they appeared to be younger than 18. That was a stretch that could be applied to foreign women having any say in whether they can broadcast their personal information to the world. He could say that "they appear to be unable to judge for themselves their own level of security."

The other guy said that the founding fathers did not consider teenagers to have 1st Amendment Speech Rights, so he wanted to uphold a law against high school students being able to wear slogans on their clothes.

People are saying that he was being a "strict constructionist"...but we can win on that because matchmaking was well known in 1789 and mostly involved British women meeting and maybe marrying American males. Nobody was claiming that not to be part of the right to assemble back then.

Then again, our constitution said that slavery was OK. 

But you cold catch Breyer and Stevens saying astonishing things as well.

Readers: Please research and comment on related decisions made by the various Supreme Court justices.

[VeteransAbroad]

The Republican Party and the American conservative media are controlled now by two eccentric billionaires: Richard Mellon Scaife of Pittsburgh and Rupert Murdoch.

Scaife is not a world traveler and not an intellectual. He has low self esteem and lets those around him set the agenda. He is now in his 70s.

He was, however, recently in a huge divorce with this wife Ritchie who was 15 years younger than he is.

So he is not a lost cause. It is just that the knew-jerk feminist enemy is well entrenched in the "conservative" clubs he funds such as the Independent Womens Forum and the Heritage Foundation.

He apparently listens to them.

Murdoch recently lost $300M to an ex-wife whom he left for a Chinese woman more than 30 years younger than he is.

So it is strange that Murdoch allows the slandering of foreign women and use of the term "mail order brides".

It doesn't make sense...except that I believe these billionaires still listen to Karl Rove and Rove mistakenly believed that American Republican males hated Bill Clinton because Monica Lewinsky was half his age, rather than because he was a hypocrite about feminism or because he "sold out to China" or whatever other, more credible, reasons there were to be politically against Clinton.

I want to stress that all reports say that Richard Scaife does not really think for himself on anything. On the issue of IMBRA, his intellect would, as the feminists intended, focus on the bizarre sound of "marriage broker" and think "such things do not deserve to exist in the 21st century". Ín addition, if someone said to Scaife "Support this law because it is the gateway to defeat the liberals on all the opposition they otherwise have for intrusive laws"...then he would, without thinking, say "OK. Sounds good to me".

Two months ago, Scaife stopped his reporter Dimitri Vassilaros from publishing a scathing attack on the government for passing IMBRA in secret.

This hasn't been discussed on ODR yet.

Frankly, we are going to want to talk reason with Scaife and not insult him because other reports say that this billionaire is a vindictive SOB.

But, ultimately, we are going to need a 3rd Billionaire to get involved in Republican Party politics and the political blogosphere.