Editorial Columns - Year 2003

David Rockefeller, who has done as much as any member of the banker-corporate, fraternity elite class to undermine the sovereignty of the United States by promoting international organizations and one-world government, not only has confirmed his role, but boasted about it.

In his Memoirs, the 88-year-old retired banker and scion of the oil-monopolist John D. Rockefeller clan, wrote:

For more than a century ideological extremists at either end of the political spectrum (that’s
you and me if we disagree) have seized upon well-publicized incidents…to attack the
Rockefeller family for the inordinate influence they claim we wield over American political
and economic institutions. Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the
best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as ‘’internationalists’’ and
of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and
economic structure—one world, if you will. If that’s the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud
of it.

Proud to be a part of a secret cabal and conspiring for one world government? Rockefeller can’t make the charges from several writers and historians and his admission to them any plainer. He also offers proof throughout his nearly 500-page book about his inside government contacts such as Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski and George Kennan, not to mention his brother, Nelson, and the presidents he has known on a first name basis, and others.

In effect, Rockefeller is telling us that what’s good for J. P. Morgan Chase Bank is good for the country. We heard that back in the 50s from (Engine) Charlie Wilson about General Motors. At this writing Chase is facing charges by Senate investigators that it knowingly helped Enron deceive the investing public – a practice, if proved true, that’s not so good for the country.

Rockefeller has been a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) since 1949 and became chairman in 1970; he founded the Trilateral Commission which held its first meeting in Tokyo in 1973, and he has been a member of the Bilderbergs since its first meeting in The Netherlands in 1954. All of these organizations represent the world’s elite under different formats and overlap in membership and goals. Peons need not apply because they have no say in the direction these elites with power and money want the world to go and its resources to be used. (For more on these groups click on ‘’Terms and Organizations’’ on the home page.

He also has been involved in the formation of other organizations to advance Chase’s foreign interests and to persuade government officials in the formation of foreign policy.
He has always maintained that these organizations are no more than forums for discussion, and uses terms like ‘’extremists’’ and ‘’radicals’’ for those who oppose them That tired old label, ‘’isolationist’’ also is invoked as it has been since the bankers used it as blame for the great depression which they caused, via monetary policy.

If one supports the Constitution, sovereignty and non-intervention in foreign entanglements as the founding fathers did, then he’s either a protectionist or isolationist, according to the elite one-worlders like Rockefeller who want to not only run the globe but own its resources.

Rockefeller emphasizes that the organizations mentioned, and especially the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), have no agenda or take no position. But he fails to adequately answer why CFR is so hell-bent on infiltrating the government, banks, corporations and the media. In fact, he noted competition from research institutions, university faculties and think tanks in the 70s and necessitated the reorganization of the Council if it was to remain ‘’relevant.’’ Well, if these other institutions were available to supply additional government research, if needed, why the concern about the relevancy of the Council which would have been redundant?

The section, Terms and Organizations, on the home page supplies ample background on the organizations mentioned, and there is no need to go into defining them again. But to emphasize the Council’s influence, consider this:

Presidents Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Bush I and Clinton were all in the tent plus the CFR had support from presidents as far back as Wilson and FDR. Every secretary of state with the possible exception of James, Bernard Baruch’s man, were CFR members. So were most defense secretaries including Caspar Weinberger whose Iran Contra conviction was pardoned by CFR member George Bush I.

In taking exception to criticism of the Rockefellers, David wrote the Russians were convinced that he and his brothers were a cabal, pulling strings behind the scenes to shape U.S. foreign policy. From the lobbying of David and Nelson they had reason for this belief. Here what long-time Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin had to say about the Rockefellers after a dinner given by David to promote Brzezinski during the Ford-Carter presidential campaign:

I came away with a strong impression of the Rockefellers: they were running a virtually
no-risk political game. Irrespective of which candidate (Ford or Carter) won, they would
be able to have their views known to him (the president) through the people they supplied.
Nelson Rockefeller, the (Ford’s) vice president , was well known as (Henry) Kissinger’s
patron, and here was his brother David, the famous banker, sponsoring Brzezinski for a
high position in the Carter Administration.

Brzezinski, of course, became Carter’s national security adviser. Nelson, in a separate meeting with Dobrynin, said ‘’… Moscow could rest assured that he would support President Ford and his old friend Henry Kissinger in developing relations with the Soviet Union.’’

In his Memoirs, David laments being accused of trying to take control of Carter’s foreign policy for bringing the former president into the Trilateral Commission and having him indoctrinated in foreign policy by Brzezinski and other Council members. Now, how could anyone accuse David of such a deed?

Rockefeller mentions several instances where he relied on insider Kissinger to make his foreign policy position known or for help in formulating policy both for the interests of Chase or for Rockefeller projects, especially in South America. A few examples included China, Vietnam, South America and Chili. In regard to Chili he was concerned with the tactics of Marxist Salvador Allende who he says flatly ‘’committed suicide.’’ He doesn’t leave open the possibility Allende was eliminated by the CIA or assassinated by his own countrymen as often alleged in the media.

Rockefeller cites instances from Vietnam to Arab oil embargoes in the Middle East to Latin America and practically the entire globe where he has relied on U.S. government backing and tried to influence foreign policy.

One area in particular that is interesting is where he appears to be contradicting statements he has made previously about membership in the CFR and TC and government service. He has stated that members resign from these organizations when they enter government. But now he tells us by citing an example that this is not necessarily so.

It involves an article concerning policy toward the Soviet Union and written for a TC publication by George Kennan after World War II. It outlined the doctrine of containment which ‘’became the defining document of U. S. cold war policy,’’ wrote Rockefeller. He said it was written ‘’anonymously ‘’ because Kennan ‘’was serving in the State Department at the time.’’ Guess George forgot to check his TC membership card.

Remember, according to Rockefeller, The CFR and TC absolutely, positively, unequivocally, takes no positions on issues. Yea, right. The latest no-position is a paper outlining what the U.S. should do after it defeats Iraq and gets a regime change.

It seems the more David tries to defend the Rockefeller clan against the charges leveled against it, the more he digs himself into a hole. He seems to have confirmed more than he has credibly defended. But it’s an interesting book, and he is the first Rockefeller to take on the task of chronicling the family’s history.

He gives some interesting insight of the family and the in-fighting over wealth and prestige of the five Rockefeller brothers. He also reveals interesting information about his real estate, art and investing activities in New York City, including the Chase Bank building and the history of Rockefeller Center. He was instrumental in rejuvenating Wall Street and lower Manhattan.

The book omits some interesting information that Rockefeller is probably privy too such as his maternal grandfather’s involvement in the founding of the Federal Reserve Bank, which unconstitutionally placed the nation’s money and credit into the hands of private bankers. Sen. Nelson Aldrich, who headed the Senate Banking Committee and for whom Nelson Rockefeller is named, was a leader in the secret meeting at Jekyll Island, Ga., in 1910 with a group of New York bankers who wrote the outline of the legislation that established the central bank.

Except for a brief reference to Aldrich and the fact he was involved, Rockefeller skips the subject entirely. Aldrich has been accused by researchers of the subject to have been a front for the Rockefellers and to represent their interests in forming the central bank. It also would have been nice if he had told us how much stock the Rockefellers, or at least J.P. Morgan Chase, now own in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which controls the Fed.

David goes into his brother Nelson’s political ambitions and especially his obsession for wanting to be president. He sheds little light on the inside story or the alleged Rockefeller involvement in deposing Richard Nixon. Gary Allen in The Rockefeller File charges that an inside Rockefeller team was responsible for Nixon’s ouster. They included, Allen writes, Alexander Haig, Henry Kissinger, and Alexander Butterfield who blurted out about the Nixon tapes, even though he wasn’t asked about them. Here’s what Allen wrote:

Are we suggesting there was a deal made for Nixon to appoint Ford, get pardoned by the new
President and then have Ford select Nelson Rockefeller as Vice president? That is exactly what
we are saying,’’ Allen emphasized. He claims the Rockefeller’s realized Nelson could never be
elected and plotted other means to get him in the White House.

It is strange that Spiro Agnew was ousted on old charges that everybody in the political circle knew about; that Nixon was fingered by insiders, and that Nelson got in by appointment from an un-elected president after Nixon had refused to make him vice preaisent. Allen also recalls that two women tried to shoot Ford and that he was involved in an auto wreck. If anything had happened to Ford, of course, Nelson Rockefeller would have finally attained his dream of becoming president.

David makes everything pertaining to Nelson’s political career sound above board and thinks he should have sought the GOP nomination. He also thinks he may have won, but few shared that view at the time including Nelson himself.

David mentions he could have become at different times either Secretary of the Treasury or Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. Had he accepted the latter position, it would have been the first time since Eugene Meyer, father of the late Katherine Graham, resigned as Fed chairman in 1933 that a member of the international banking families had sat on the Board. Instead, they have chosen to work from behind the scenes.

Even Rockefeller admits he suggested Paul Volcker, former chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, with ties to the New York banking community and Wall Street, to Jimmy Carter for chairman of the Federal Reserve. Volcker who later headed the Trilateal Commission, didn’t let the bankers down, claims Eustace Mullins in the Secretes of the Federal Reserve.’’

All in all the David Rockefeller – Memoirs put together by a paid staff over a decade is well written, sheds some light, omits a lot and obscures in some areas. David Rockefeller sounds like a nice man. After reading his book one wants to believe he means well and that he kept the high moral values he claims his parents instilled in him. And he probably did, according to his thinking. He just believes the elite ought to own and rule the world and that the sovereignty of the United States and other nations is passe in an integrated world. After all, old John D. thought competition was a sin even though he was a devout Baptist.

He calls himself ‘’ambassador without portfolio,’’ but he appears to have had more credentials and clout than legitimately appointed ambassadors.

FOOTBALL CIRCUS, 1/6/03

An Essay
By Richard C. Sizemore

What is this, football or a circus? The clowns, promoters, marketers and television programmers have finally reduced football to a game just about as boring and time-consuming to watch as baseball.

It now takes more than three hours to watch a one-hour game of intermittent action. It takes a lot of patience to withstand the know-it-all analysts, the ridiculous beer ads, play challenges, yelling announcers, sideline comments of girls and retired players, timeouts by teams and refs, play reviews, and other distractions mostly unrelated to football.

The late Roone Arledge, who gave us the late Howard Cosell and who should have been horse whipped instead of praised for the deed, is largely responsible for the state of the game as it has emerged on television.

For those who still like the game, however, I have some tips on how to watch it -- a run-of-the-mill game, that is. For a game one has extra interest in because of a good match-up or inordinate loyalty to the home team, for example, then one will just have to bear the assault that the programmers will thrust upon you.

You’ve heard of background music to read, make love or go to sleep or whatever by. Now, we have football as background for whatever else amuses you because there is not enough action to keep you from being bored.

Here’s how I suggest you defense yourself against the circus assault the promoters and lime-light seekers thrust at you:

Get a good book that holds your interest but not one that’s too heavy, because you may have to look up and loose your concentration in the middle of a passage. In lieu of a book, a crossword puzzle might do it, but don’t bring any documents from work because that takes the fun out of it. After all this is supposed to be recreation time.

Turn the sound down after you learn which color the teams are wearing so that you may distinguish them. Now, sit back in your easy chair and enjoy the book and keep up with the game. You can turn it up toward the end if it’s close, otherwise don’t bother. If you don’t watch it this way, here’s what you’re liable to be subjected to:

Kickoff. Flag for block in the back by receiving team. Commercial while the teams are lining and teeing up for new kickoff. Wind blows ball off of tee. Butterfingered holder can’t seem to set it right. Kicker walks up and places the ball at the angle he wants it. Kicker returns, signals to see if other team still ready or has gone out to lunch. Finally, he kicks the ball out of bounds. The process is repeated, and the ball goes to the end zone and is brought out to the 20-yard line. Sides change. Still no action.

Good thing you brought the book. That’s 10 pages you read while all this inaction was going on.

You are bombarded by commercials but, fortunately, you’ve got the sound down and can opt for the book. Now, the real game begins with a hand-off up the middle that results in a pile up. The cameras switch to a girl you would rather see in a cheerleader’s costume but who is fully dressed and babbling. She sticks a mike in the face of an injured, hard-breathing and sweating player on the sidelines. He tells us all about his injury and vows to get back in the game, and we are ready for the second play.

MORE OF THE SAME

It’s like this all through the game. When a good play does occur, the analysts go all out with more diagrams and charts than Ross Perot trying to detail just what happened. ‘’The quarterback was here and dodged the oncoming linemen, see right there, and threw the ball to the wide-out who got by the defender.’’ The brilliant analysis with chalk and all even extends to unrelated matters on the sidelines as well as routine and simple plays. These retired so-called experts -- some of whom couldn’t stand the heat and quit or got fired for incompetence -- get a lot of money to tell us dummies about the intricacies of these various blocking schemes and passing patterns that we’ve all been seen before.

The game continues with a close play on the sidelines. Did the receiver have control of the ball? Was he out of bounds? Did the defender push him out? Heady stuff. The announcers and the analyst are busy with re-runs and opinions while the ref on the field sticks his head in curtains like old-time cameramen used to do to review the play himself. You’ve got several more pages read during this inaction, and time for another while the ref runs across the field to make his announcement. A lot of zoom camera technology is going to waste while the refs run across the field to announced their verdicts.

The time during these interruptions is taken up with the ever-present commercials. Meantime, the gal or the retired player on the sidelines are busy interviewing whoever will talk to them about the play, so they will be ready with some more expert opinion when the camera switches to them again.

Incidentally, how did Jewish girls get in the act? Not that they don’t have as much right as girls of other religions and backgrounds. It just seems to be an anomaly when Jewish girls are announcing football and Jewish boys largely, if not totally, eschew participation in the game. One doesn’t hear, ‘’my son, the football player’’ often if at all.

We continue on like this until the end of the quarter then the commercial guys really get serious and the television programmers get busy promoting what’s coming up on the network tonight and next week. They are not as bad about this as the late Howard Cosell who used to start promoting next week’s event before the one at hand got underway. And if the game or the point-spread was close in the closing minutes of the game, Cosell had no interest. He was probably interviewing a boxer or some other celebrity, while the little guy with a wager on the contest was sweating the outcome he couldn’t even see.

Finally, we come to half time. With the advent of the sideline girls, we don’t see as much of the cheerleaders (no reference to attire) as we used to. What we get is the sideline girls interviewing coaches who promise harder tackling and better offensive execution in the second half. Usually, the inform us ‘’we’ve just not getting the job done and have to do better.‘’ We still have 30 minutes of football. Maybe so, but it will take an hour and a half to finish that 30 minutes.

We even have clowns in the broadcast booths now along with the announcers and motor-mouth analysts. Of course, we’ve had buffoons in the booths all along, but now they have paid comedians by trade.

It doesn’t seem too far-fetched to predict that they will probably have animal and other small circus acts in the booths before long. Why not turn it into an Ed Sullivan or Here’s Johnny variety show? It would only take about a half hour extension at half time. Then, there would be something for the whole family and not just football. After all when you go to a race track now it’s not just for horse races. It’s more like a Las Vegas Casino with slot machines, poker games and before long, maybe, dancing girls.

Consider that with the announcers yelling, analysts drawing, clowns trying to be funny, girls asking stupid questions and not much attention being paid to where the ball is, who has it, what down it is, and how much time is left. This information is just not important anymore. Contrast this with baseball, which only has an organ in the background, scratching and spitting by players and coaches, and occasional run-ins with the umpires as its highlight attractions.

FAN EXCITEMENT

With the boring presentations being foisted upon football fans, it was refreshing to get a little excited about a particular game in Cleveland on Dec. 16, 2001 against South Carolina. The referees obviously blew an important call and tried to cover their back sides by reviewing a decision after another play had been executed -- by rule a no-no.

The irate Cleveland fans, whose team may have lost the game because of the decision, expressed themselves with a barrage of plastic beer bottles. A couple of weeks later I even read in a Dallas paper where the staid Big-D fans vented their emotions with a couple of beer bottles. The local paper buried this information, and it passed with little ado.

Anyway, the Cleveland fans must have been highly irate because they don’t usually give up their beer for light causes. The incident led to closing the bar after the third quarter in future games and led one football wit to suggests tossed bottles ought to be only those bought in the same quarter in which they are thrown. He didn’t explain why, but it sounds like a good idea. At least the patrons wouldn’t be able to build up an arsenal.

Do not get me wrong. I do not endorse throwing beer bottles at football or other sports contests. But I also do not endorse bottles of any kind being sold when paper cups will suffice.

And when one takes into account the high prices charged for the games, the food and beverages, plus the transportation and parking costs, the fan is entitled to some emotional expression. He is a captive audience to all the above inanity mentioned that the producers of the contest throw at him. He certainly is entitled to a level playing field and competent officiating, and perhaps a little venting.

These are professionals he is paying to see. They make more money in a year than the average fan may make in a lifetime. They are fair game for being booed for a poor performance as well as praised for a good one. College and high school games are different. The athletes are not paid for their performances, although I think college players should be able to share to some extent in the loot they produce and still maintain their amateur status.

I submit that the programmers are ruining football just as they did boxing and the day may not be far off when the piper will have to be paid. The game is about as boring now as it can get. But again, I’m talking strictly about professional football and not college where youth and enthusiasm, bands and mascots are all part of the show and should be.

Unfortunately, the programmers are also intruding and trying to get in the act of college contests, especially the corporate advertisers and loud announcers and analysts. As an example, all of the bowl names are now preceded by a corporate name.

BOWL SELECTIONS

College football is still exciting because of the enthusiasm and youthful energy involved in the game, but the method of selecting bowl match-ups and deciding who ought to be ranked where by coach and reporter polls is in bad need of overhaul. College football has long needed a playoff scheme similar to that of March Madness that decides who’s best in basketball by tournament play.

It could easily be done in football and then we wouldn’t have to guess.

The twenty-eight 2002-2003 bowl games featured some match-ups that were ridiculous with teams having 7-7 or 7-6 that should entitle them to go no where but the practice field. The average winning score was 15.6 and the most absurd match was between a 7-6 team, Clemson, which lost to Texas Tech in the Tangerine Bowl by 40 points. Thirteen favored teams lost.

All in all it was the dullest bowl season in recent memory, although there were a few exciting games including the Miami-Ohio State Fiestas Bowl contest. But that doesn’t alter the fact that a major restructuring is long overdue.

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BANNING GOD 3/10/03

An Essay
By Richard C. Sizemore

It's time for the self-appointed guardian of everybody's First Amendment rights according to its own agenda to swing into action again. That would, of course, be the anti-religious American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which is trying to rid the nation of any vestige of religion in public.

The siren for action was sounded by the President of the United States, one George W. Bush, who had the audacity to invoke prayer and quote from the Judaeo-Christian Bible while lamenting the loss of seven brave astronauts aboard the spaceship Columbia.

What's more, the President did this on government property -- the White House -- which outside of Old Glory, and possibly the Capitol, is arguably the second most visual symbol of the people and Government of the United States.

The President quoted the prophet Isaiah: ''Lift your eyes and look to the heavens. Who created all these? He (God) who brings out the starry hosts, one by one, and calls them each by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.'' Bush also prayed: ''The crew of the shuttle Columbia did not return safely to earth, yet we can pray that all are safely home.''

That, of course, would mean life after death and no omniscient humanist or atheist can't help but be offended about such emanations being intoned on government property. The President chose a quote from the Old Testament. Whether this was done because one crew member of the Columbia was of the Jewish faith and whether he thought a quote from the Old Testament would be more appropriate is not known.

But had he invoked the name of Jesus Christ, he may have rung the bell of the old ACLU even louder. For the anti-religious nazi patrol is now involved in a dispute with the city of Elsinore, Calif., over that very issue. In fact, the mere threat from an ACLU member caused the City Council to not only eliminate the invocation of Jesus Christ's name from the traditional opening prayer but to eliminate the prayer altogether.

According to published reports '' this brought the threat of another suit from the nonprofit United States Justice Foundation (USJF.), which charges the city was deceived by the ACLU when one of their attorneys wrote a letter to the city warning it could face legal troubles if it did not quit using the name of Jesus Christ in its invocations. So, the city eliminated the prayer and substituted a moment of silence instead.

According to the news reports, an attorney for USJF told the city it had been misled by the ACLU '' into believing that there is a solid wall of separation between you and the public that you serve. In our considered opinion, the ACLU is extorting you into violating the rights of your citizens.''

The California case is just the latest of dozens of anti-religious suits the ACLU has been involved in since it hit the mother lode of exposure by jumping to defend John Scopes in the famous monkey trial in Dayton, Tenn. in 1925. Scopes was convicted for teaching evolution in defiance of Tennessee law, but the conviction was reversed on a technicality and was never appealed. The ACLU never actually gained total victory in the case since the law was not repealed until 58 years later in 1967.

It did get a lot of publicity, however, when men of national repute such as H. L. Mencken, Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan participated in the trial.

OTHER CASES

Other cases the nazi anti-religious patrol has been involved in recently includes suits filed in several Kentucky counties against the posting of the Ten Commandments ( see ACLU essay on this site). It has been leading a relentless fight for more than seven decades to remove religion, religious symbolism and prayer from public schools and government property.

A few days after the President's White House lament, a religious service was held for the heroic astronauts on the grounds of the Johnson Space Center in Houston in which two Navy Chaplains read the 23rd psalm in Hebrew and English. Another reference from the Old Testament. That Psalm, of course, ends ''…and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.''

That also means life after death that is a strong tenet in the Judaeo-Christian religion. So, are we to expect the ACLU, which has helped establish secularism as the national creed, to pick up the cudgel?

It would be good if it did. Or is it too timid to take on the President and the White House and instead bring suits or threats all over the nation in local jurisdictions? Why not go after the President and the White House? Then the case of religion in public might get settled once and for all, if the Supreme Court has backbone and common sense enough to issue a verdict that will put the issue to rest.

So far, however, it has been unable to get the meaning straight of a couple of clauses in the First Amendment of the Constitution that the average truck driver could probably get right after the first reading:

''Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…''

Now, what's so difficult about that? What can't the so-called learned judges understand about that? Does allowing a creche at Christmas time, or a Menorah during Jewish religious holidays, or the symbol of any other religion constitute ''the establishment of religion'' by government? The amendment says it takes a law by Congress to do that. And the second clause clearly states that Congress cannot prohibit the free exercise of religion. It doesn't say where and it certainly doesn't outlaw it from government property.

The amendment also restricts the religion clauses to Congress. But the Supreme Court has applied them to the states in two different cases. So that got the usurping Court into the business of regulating state-sponsored activity such as school prayer or Bible readings and Christmas or religious symbols on public property.

I submit that my reading of the famous religion clauses is as logical as the Court's, even though I am no lawyer. But critics such as Judge Robert Bork, a former Yale law professor and victim of liberals who kept him off the Court for political reasons, also disagree with the High Court. Bork writes the Supreme Court ''…has adopted a rigidly secularist view of the establishment clauses and has, ''quite unnecessarily, effectively banished religious symbolism from our public life.'' He adds: ''The Court has, in fact, read the two religion clauses so expansively as to bring the prohibition of the establishment of religion into direct conflict with the guarantee of free exercise.''

But that's what you get when you have judges who adhere to the so-called ''living Constitution'' instead of those who stick to original intent. The document can mean anything that the social engineers and legislators on the bench want it to mean. Liberal vs. strict constructionist judges is why some presidents like Bush II can't get their judicial appointments passed the liberals in the Senate.

An example of how far out judges can get on the issue of religion is the ruling by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, which has refused to rehear a two-judge ruling that the Pledge of Allegianc is unconstitutional because it contains the words ''under God.''

Nine of the 24 judges favored a rehearing and six judges called the ruling ''very wrong'' in their written dissent. They said the pledge is not a religious act and ''…cannot possibly be an 'establishment of religion' under any reasonable interpretation of the Constitution. Judge Ferdinand F. Fernandez wrote: ''..such phrases as 'in God We Trust,' or 'under God' have no tendency to establish a religion in this country or to suppress anyone's exercise, or non-exercise, of religion, except in the fevered eye of persons who most fervently would like to drive all tincture of religion out of the public life.''

The six judges also said the original two-judge rule would consign ''to the chopping block'' the Gettysburg Address, the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the fourth verse of the National Anthem. They might have added any reference to religion and the use of government-paid chaplains in Congress and the military. In other words all of the strong underpinnings on which the nation was formed and evolved.

DARWINSIM

The anti-religious organizations such as the ACLU, People for the American Way, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, the American Humanist Assn. and outright atheists all rely heavily on Darwin to support their positions. They often do so with a false pretense of superior knowledge and snobbery that seems to be meant to convey that believers are either ignorant or at least intellectually inferior.

They want the Darwin theory of evolution to be taught as fact, not theory, and they want the teaching of creationism and other Biblical beliefs prohibited entirely. This activity over more than half a century has resulted in humanism becoming the national creed and religion almost driven from the public arena.

But Darwin's theory of the origin of humans and animals is still just a theory, and it is no more close to unequivocal proof than religion. The theory is coming under more and more scrutiny and criticism by accredited scientists.

Some of these scientists embrace the new ''intelligent design theory.'' This school accepts that the earth is billions of years old and not just thousands, which is suggested by a literal reading of the Bible. But it also questions Darwin's idea of natural selection to explain the complexity of the evolution of plants and animal.

Advocates of the intelligent design theory also include some creationists and is gaining respect since many of its advocates have mainstream scientific credentials.

To illustrate the aggressiveness and arrogance of the anti-religionists, a biology professor at Texas Tech University refuses to write letters of recommendation to students who don't believe in the human evolutionary theory. The professor - Michael Dini - doesn't believe any one should practice in a biology-related field without accepting what he calls ''the most important theory in biology.''

Critic Marvin Olasky accuses Dini of ''arrogance and ignorance'' and points out that his bookshelf is stocked with critiques of evolution by professional scientists. He adds: ''…Prof. Dini is denying others the right to believe differently than he does on a question that the scientific method is helpless to answer…''

Incidentally, Dini is being sued by a group in Plano, Tx., called the Liberty Legal Institute. All sides - evolutionists and religionists and intelligent designers - will be watching the case closely. One other point about Darwinism. When it is taught as fact and creationism is not taught at all, it tends to turn would-be believers away from religion at an early age.

One of the arguments against Christianity in schools is that it may harm students of other faiths and ruin them for life. I would like for the ACLU or those of other religions to present a victim of such teaching, rather than parents' and lawyers' theories about it. Teaching evolution as fact without explaining other views, however, does tend to mold the mind of young people away from religion.

While creationists are getting support from scientists who believe in the intelligent design theory, atheists picked up some support recently from another scientific corner. Recent headlines proclaimed that scientists have developed a new ''sky map'' from satellite information giving them more insight about the ''big bang'' theory of the origin of the universe. The new data confirm many theories about how the universe began and evolved, the scientists claim.

But they admit they have a long way to go before they can even begin to confirm the ultimate question of the origin of the universe. In other words, they don't have a clue as to who lit the fuse that set off the big bang, if indeed that's the way it all started. But don't expect this to throttle the anti-religionists.

INTOLLERANCE

It has always seemed an exercise in futility to me for one advocacy group to claim it has all the answers and they should be taught in public schools and have freedom to be aired in public while different beliefs should not.

I go along with the inscription on the Jefferson Monument in Washington: ''I have sworn on the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.''

In other words, teach everything - evolution, creationism, the intelligent design theory, the history of the great religions, the thinking of the great philosophers and other thinkers and even the poets who showed great insight into life and the human condition. That's the purpose of education, isn't it?

Alexander Pope's couplet sums it up: ''A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep or touch not the Pierian spring. Or as Benjamin Franklin said: ''A learned blockhead is a greater blockhead than an ignorant one.'' In other words, it would be better for all to wade deeper in the well of epistemology before claiming the answer to the riddle of the origin and destiny of man and the universe.

The fact that no one has the answer, which must be largely based on faith is not to disparage the great people who have given their lives in trying to find the answer. All the great philosophers and scientists who have explored the subject, some giving their lives to it, are due reverence. Man most probably is just not mentally equipped to come to grips with ultimate knowledge. That shouldn't keep him from trying.

But the bigoted, supercilious, arrogant, know-it-all anti-religionists who try to use science and the current advancement of knowledge to support their case need to use more tolerance in degrading religion. They are not any closer to answering the riddle than anyone else.

So, wipe off the smirk and quell the pretentious fear, there are too many religions for any one to seize government and form a theocracy. And that's the way the founding fathers, including Jefferson and Madison, wanted it. The more the better, including but not giving exclusivity to, secular humanism.

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Gulf War II 4/4/03

An Essay
By Richard C. Sizemore

Whatever the outcome of the war against Iraq, there was positive fallout from events leading up to it. If President Bush had called it quits right there he already would have struck a positive blow for U.S. sovereignty and put a throttle on the march toward one-world government.

These positive results may still be present after the war, but whether Bush's decision was the right one or not may depend on the final cost in lives and resources as well as the good or ill will we will reap from Iraqi occupation. The positive results included:

· A clear reason for returning to U.S. sovereignty and avoidance of foreign entanglements as George Washington advised, and recent presidents have ignored.

· Bringing out the true colors of our so-called allies such as France and Germany, although France belatedly said it would supply troops if Iraq used chemical weapons, and Germany is softning its stance now that the war is apparently a military success. France also wants a seat at the table of reconstruction and does not want the United States and Britain to dominate. In other words, France wants in on any gravy reconstruction may provide. It is complaining already about not getting any reconstruction contracts. Iran, one of the evil axis countries, also wants a seat along with Saudi Arabia and other countries. Saudi Arabia and Jordan have both called for a cease fire in order to give diplomacy a chance. The United States has rejected. Both countries have left-handely supported the U. S. war effort and may be offering their proposals mainly to mitigate any retailation by Arab militant groups.

· Proof that the United Nations is not a viable peace-keeping organization and should be abolished, or at least, the U.S. should withdraw its membership and payment of a fourth of its bills. If the U. N. does continue, it should be more realistically constituted. Its pretense as a peace-keeping body is a joke. Several countries have proposed the U. N. handle reconstruction, and the United States and Britain are leaning that way. But initially the two countries will be in charge, according to Secretary of State Colin Powell.

· NATO has outlived it usefulness and should have been dissolved after the cold war instead of having been extended. As British historian Paul Johnson put it the NATO alliance is an ''anachronism.'' Even Henry Kissinger agrees NATO is not functioning now and will have to be restored under a new framework, if at all. Kissinger also thinks that France and Germany should be left out of Iraqi reconstruction.

· Coalitions are not dependable or workable except for some country's own agenda or interests as witnessed in the First Gulf War.

· Pressure brought on Saddam Hussein had already exposed his machinations for all the world to see and put a damper on his operations. The British already claim to have uncovered weapons of mass destruction (wmd's). U.S. troups also have found thousands of boxes of white power, nerve agent antidote and Arabic documents on how to engage in chemical warfare at an industrial site near Baghdad. Other proof will probably be found as the war progresses. The president has been criticized for diplomacy blunders in seeking alliances and U .N. resolutions. But these tactics leading up to he war also served to put Saddam in checkmate. Any open aggression on his part after that would have brought immediate world condemnation and given the world clear cause for retaliation. That leaves open the question whether the war will be worth the price.

But if it can be proved that Iraq aided the terrorists in the 9/11 attack on New York then the war was not only just but necessary at most any price.

With more than enough time to present his case before Congress and ask for a constitutional declaration of war, Bush, like his father, declined to do so. That decision has just about nullified the constitutional provision for a Congressional declaration in order for the country to go to war. Resolutions and executive orders have replaced the declaration mandate and given presidents ever more power to conduct war. Congress doesn't protest.

A U.S. appeals court rejected a legal bid to keep President Bush from invading Iraq without a formal Congressional declaration. The court held it was the wrong time for the judicial branch to intervene since there was no conflict between the president and Congress at the time of the suit. Whether the suit could be brought at a different time was not clear.

There also are a couple of movements afoot to have impeachment proceedings brought against the president on grounds that a pre-emptive strike against Iraq constituted ''high crimes and misdemeanors.'' Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) leads one faction and Ramsey Clark, former attorney general, another. But Conyers now seems to be distancing himself from the effort, according to news accounts.

In view of the passing of an approval resolution and the historical support of presidents by Congress in war-time, it is doubtful anything will come of the impeachment efforts. Add to that the fact that Congress appears more than willing to abdicate its responsibilities in this area.

On another front, there have been suggestions that the global court which has just opened for business at The Hague may hold accountable those who proceed to war without permission of the U. N. Security Council. That implied President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair. The United States fiercely objected to the court, and any condemnation of Bush and Blair would undoubtedly be strongly contested bringing more dissent among nations.

SOVEREIGNTY

Bush has probably taken a more protective stance for U.S. sovereignty than any president since Teddy Roosevelt with the exception of Ronald Reagan. He abandoned the Kyoto protocol on global warming; rejected the World Court, as mentioned; withdrew from the Antiballistic Missile Treaty with Russia and has not only pronounced a pre-emptive strike strategy if the United States security is threatened but has now inaugurated the policy.

Bush's first mistake, if he was dead certain Iraq was a threat to the security of the United States, was inaction and failure to use the pre-emptive strategy he endorsed before seeking world approval. He already had not only U. N. authority but also constitutional authority if indeed Iraq was tied to al-Qaeda and the 9/11 terrorists. That would have been a strike on the United States comparable to Pearl Harbor, and no approval from anybody except Congress would have been necessary for retaliation
.
Bush, however, apparently on the advice of Former Secretary of State James Baker (remember Bush 41's fetish for alliances), decided to ask the United Nations for additional authority. That opened the door for France's President Jacques Chirac to grandstand as the leader of Europe, which he isn't; Germany's socialists Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder to join the opposition, and China and Russia also to object. All of the nation's mentioned are suspect suppliers of illicit weapons to Iraq.

That's why the United States should ask for condemnation of the illicit trading with Iraq of the nation's mentioned as well as strict enforcement of the trade sanctions. It already has protested to Russia for arms sales to Iraq and blames France for the U. N. impasse. One note of caution, however, when it comes to illicit arms trading, the boys in the U.S. diplomatic core do not have clean hands.

In addition to trade, France and Russia are also owed money by Iraq and had ulterior motives for opposing an invasion that might jeopardize the debt payments. France and China and some other countries might also be embarrassed by the labels on some of Iraq's WMD's.

Bush could have avoided the international debating society and the threat of vetoes by nations selling to Iraq by laying his case before Congress and asking for a declaration of war - in other words acting the constitutional way. He should have struck before going back to the U. N. But, as stated, some good has come of it. Hopefully it will restore our sovereignty and squelch the move toward a one-world government.

If it can be proved that Iraq aided the 9/11 terrorists, and it probably can, then Bush took the right action even if belatedly and even with some possible diplomatic fumbling. In that event he is on firm ground.

In his book, The Clash of Civilizations published in 1996, former Harvard professor Samuel P. Huntington divided the world at that time into nine different civilizations Western, Latin American, African, Islamic, Sinic, Hindu, Orthodox, Buddhist and Japanese. He correctly predicted that the West's next confrontation would be with the Muslin world He also concluded that it was the West against the rest. The West consisted of the United States, Canada, Europe, including Great Britain, the Scandinavian countries, Australia, New Zealand and some others on the fringe.

Well, the West isn't the West now as it was 10 years ago with France not to be trusted in any alliance and Germany wavering. It may come down to us and the countries named without France and Germany against the rest. The post-Iraqi world will not look the same.

The United Nations and present alliances will look different. If the U. N. is to continue, it certainly should be reorganized both as to membership groups and it power structure. Some pundits are already suggesting that France's permanent membership be replaced by India, the world's most populous democracy, or even Japan or possibly Indonesia or Brazil.

Even top officials of the World Trade Organization are concerned that the Bush pull-back to sovereignty and a go-it-alone policy might change the international trade picture. That would be another plus for the United States, especially if it would curtail the shipment of our technology to conniving nations and make U.S. trade less lop-sided.

English historian Paul Johnson thinks the United States should stop rewarding its hating ''allies'' with economic aid for use of their bases and instead take to the seas. The oceans, he points out, ''offer a home and a friendly environment to its forces and do not change with the treacherous winds of opinion.'' Johnson also thinks ''America should always have the means to act alone..'' ''The National Security Strategy for the United States'' sent to Congress earlier this year establishes right.

THE UNSOLVABLE PROBLEM

Even after the ouster of Hussein, the problem of peace with Islam will not have been solved. There remains the militant terrorist groups and their hatred of the United States that will probably grow with our renewed presence on what they consider Islamic soil. Then there's the Israeli-Palestinian problem that has been with us since the United States under the leadership of President Harry Truman became the first nation to recognize the new State of Israel in 1948.

Although the Iraqi and the Israeli-Palestinian problems may not be directly related, they are related to overall peace in the Middle East. Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal already has claimed the war threatens to spread hatred between the Arab world and the West. Mohammed Khatami, Iran's so-called reformist president, issued a similar warning.

U.S. so-called foreign policy experts and pseudo-diplomats have been compounding foreign policy mistakes in the Middle East for more than 50 years and still are not close to a solution of the problem. Maybe it is not solvable until Israel voluntarily opts to vacate Palestine. But that has as much chance of happening as Yasser Arafat converting to Judiasm. And since the United States has vowed not to let Israel be destroyed, the thickened plot continues.

With Islam led by clerics who condone or even advocate the actions of the radicals, a solution is all the more difficult. The radicals hate the United States second to Israel, and our presence on their soil and influence on their culture is cause for igniting even more hatred. They recognize the long-term bias of the U.S. foreign policy toward Israel in its Middle East policy.

Trying to work out a solution on the basis of the Oslo Accords for about a decade has proved an exercise in futility. The United States and Israel have finally realized they cannot deal with Yasser Arafat as a leader of the Palestinians. As Yossef Bodansky pointed out in The High Cost of Peace'' ''Washington's Middle East policy (has) America vulnerable to terrorism.''

Bodansky, director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, claims that Arafat and other Arab leaders secretly conspire with terrorists for their ultimate goal: ''The complete annihilation of the Israeli State.''

Palestine now has a new prime minister -- Mahmoud Abbas -- a so-called moderate, but Arafat retains control of security forces and has a final say on peace negotiations. This doesn't appear to meet President Bush's proviso for a Palestinian prime minister with ''real authority.''

Bush's new Israeli-Palestinian plan - the ''road map'' for Mideast peace - will be pursued once the Iraqi conflict is settled. It calls for a truce between Israel and Palestine and creation of an independent Palestinian state by 2005 -- a policy very similar to the Oslo Accords.

The Arabs may concede in negotiations long enough to get their Palestinian state. But as Bodansky points out, their goal is Israel's ultimate extinction. That apparently means that the Israeli presence is non-negotiable with the militant Arabs.

Total victory and reconstruction success in Iraq doesn't spell settlement of the long-term problem in the Middle East. It may take some time to tell if the Second Gulf War helped alleviate or exacerbated the problem.

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TRIPLE CROWN

An Essay
By Richard C. Sizemore

Even before the major prep races for the Kentucky Derby were run, not to mention the Derby itself, news about thoroughbred racing was focused on the Triple Crown. There were 446 nominees for the Triple Crown (TC), and, since the Derby is the first leg of the so-called crown jewel, there also were a like number nominated for it.

But that appears to be secondary to the big news, and the Derby is apparently reduced to just another race as one-third of an entity. All the headlines are about the road to the Triple Crown. The Derby is just another race.

Horses need not run in the Derby to rest up for entry in the other two Triple Crown (TC) races, if their owners want to pay the supplemental price. In that event, of course, they can't win the TC but can crash to the party.

And that brings to mind one of the most hilarious stories in the folklore of horse racing, which, in my opinion, is analogous to the fresh horses who enter the Preakness and Belmont.

It involved the winning aspirations of a jockey with an overactive imagination about how to succeed in wrong-doing at the Fair Grounds in New Orleans. It was a foggy day in the Crescent City and perfect for the jockey's scheme, so he thought. He positioned his mount at the top of the stretch run to wait for the rest of the horses to come round. When they did, he entered the race and won.

But, alas, poor ambitious and cunning soul, he forgot to take modern technology into account and was caught in his misdeed. You can imagine the rest of the story.

The second place finish of the second leg of the much touted Triple Crown in 2002, the Preakness, was won by a home course horse, Magic Weisner, who had skipped the Kentucky Derby. Thus he had evaded the rigors of prepping for the Derby and competing with the best three year olds in the country before entering the Preakness well rested.

Magic Weisner denied Wayne Lucas' Proud Citizen, a horse that had faced all the obstacles, second place money and probably would have caught War Emblem, the winner, had the race been longer. He petered out, however, in the Belmont three weeks later and wound up fourth, which was clear proof that he was not a TC prospect in the first place and shouldn't have been in the Preakness after not running in the Derby.

The point is he almost upset War Emblem's TC chances, which that horse did for himself three weeks later while coming out of the gate. But at least War Emblem paid the price for a shot at the prize.

In the Belmont another well rested horse, Sarava, won the race in 2002 after War Emblem stumbled at the start and may have won it anyway. Never mind that he never entered the Derby because of a shortage of qualifying earnings. The fact is he was able to skip the wear and tear of other Triple Crown contenders who had suffered the strains of the Derby and Preakness and other preps leading up to the Belmont.

IS THE TC OVERRATED?

This leads to my contention that the Triple Crown is overrated, both from a historical and current perspective - the former because it has no historical significance, and the latter because of present rules that don't restrict entries to the three races. To paraphrase the great bard, there is too much ado about an over-hyped event.

I'm not talking about the individual races but about the Triple Crown hoopla. After all Man O' War didn't even enter the Derby, and there are those who think that Risen Star may have been a TC winner if he had had different connections. Native Dancer was clearly the best three year old in 1953, although a bad trip cost him the Derby and no TC. Burgoo King and Bold Venture also skipped the Belmont after winning the Derby and Preakness.

Does that signify that the 11 horses who have won the Triple Crown since Sir Barton did it first in 1919 are not necessarily the best in the 84 years since that time? Not necessarily, but it suggests that others, and perhaps at least 11 more, might have accomplished the feat under different circumstances.

The three races, of course, have not always been recognized as a series. The phrase, ''Triple Crown,'' was coined by Daily Racing Form's Charles Hatton in 1930, the year Gallant Fox won the event, according to Scott Gilman, Webmaster of Derby Post.Com. Later, money was added as a promotional lure and a prize for the three-race event.

By my count, which is probably inaccurate but close enough to make my point, 94 Belmont winners didn't run in the Preakness and 98 Preakness winners didn't run in the Belmont for whatever reason. So, there is no Triple Crown tradidition there.

If there has to be a series, why not extend it to the Travers when the horses that have had time to mend and mature and hook up after a summer's rest? Then we would have the Quadruple Crown. Or, take it on to the Breeders' Cup and we'd have a Pentathlon Crown.

If the three races are to be run as a series as they are now, then isn't it logical that the series should be closed only to horses that run in all three contests?

As it now stands, horses can get into the last two races of the TC if the supplemental fee is paid. But this is not fair to the horses who have run in all the races and have undergone the strenuous training it takes to run those races, as well as the preps leading up to them in order to obtain the necessary earnings to qualify. To skip or ignore the process by simply paying the supplemental fee does not level the playing field.

If the Derby qualifications were changed to place less emphasis on earnings, it might negate some of the pressure to enter the preps, rather than training and aiming for the big race, the Kentucky Derby.

Those old guys that originated the Derby and finally honed it to three year olds that could go a mile and a quarter the first Saturday in May knew what they were doing. That was the original main qualification. But the preps leading up to the Derby now offer such huge purses that they are becoming main attractions in themselves. I'm talking about such graded races as the San Anita and Florida Derbies, the Bluegrass Stakes, the Wood Memorial, the Lexington Stakes and the Arkansas and Louisiana Derbies.

Some trainers like Wayne Lucas have complained the Derby is too long and would like to see it shortened. Breeders are placing more emphasis on speed for shorter races rather than endurance for longer races, and even more emphasis is placed on getting horses to the breeding shed than racing them.

Consider the quick exit from the track of Spain in 2002. She raced two times pregnant and was retired by her owners to be a brood mare at the peak of her racing career. Even minor or faked injuries after a big win often sends horses to the shed. In other words, they are not placing the proper emphasis on racing but going for the top bucks in breeding. It's supposed to be the sport of kings, isn't it? .

SARAVA, FOR EXAMPLE

Sarava is a good example of a horse that crashed the big party. The 70-1 shot not only had never won a stakes race he never even had entered one going into the Belmont, and the only horse in the Belmont he had ever run against was Wiseman's Ferry, certainly not Triple Crown threat. Sarava had never run at a mile and an eighth much less a mile and a half. His top Byer speed rating of 99 compared with 107 for Medaglia d'Oro, who came in second, and 114 for War Emblem.

The big name pundits in racing were just as stunned as the rail birds in not picking him, and they were justified. There wasn't anything to indicate the horse could top the others in the race. Andy Byer, the speed worshiper, was more philosophical in his Belmont analysis before the race than he was helpful to any of his followers. So were others who were assessing War Emblem's chances to win the big prize.

Poor Andy. He missed War Emblem who had the speed ratings in the Derby and Preakness and then came up short in the Belmont when he half-heartedly got on him. And that reminds me of a wit's saying about ''there are lies, damn lies and statistics.'' I still say class is the name of the game. The speed ratings, while useful, are too hard to come by with the different track conditions geographically, the changing local conditions, the weather, the different distances, the competition in the race.

A horse does not have to run at top speed in all races to win. So, how can we tell why he got a 109 rating in one race and a 101 in another? Keep working on it, Andy, and others. Like philosophers who have never come up with the answer to the riddle of life, I still have to admire them for devoting their lives to the task.

But back to the Triple Crown and the races that comprise it. I sometimes see promotions or hear arguments by ardent fans about which of the three races is the oldest. It's really not a valid argument for several reasons, although on a consistent basis - that is from the same location and time - I guess the winner would be the Belmont and the Derby in that order, although the Preakness was actually run in Baltimore two years before the Derby and six years after the first equivalent of the Belmont Stakes.

But the Preakness never settled on its current date of two weeks after the Derby until the 1930s, according to Thoroughbred Times. The race was shifted to New York in 1890 and was run off and on there for several years before returning to Maryland. The distances also has been changed from 1-1/2 miles originally to 1-1/8 miles and to the present 1-3/16 miles in 1925, according to the Times.

OLDEST STAKES

Saratoga Springs is the oldest existing race track in America and the Travers the oldest stakes race (1864) named for W. R. Travers who was instrumental in getting the track started, although the financing is said to have come from John Morrissey, a gambler and prizefighter. John Hunter also was a partner. The track began to degenerate until W. C. Whitney took it over after a few years and upgraded it and put in on the course it has reached through the years.

Both the Belmont and the Derby originators wanted to pattern their race after the European models. The idea for the Belmont came from Leonard Jerome whose daughter, Jenny, became the mother of Winston Churchill, whose father was the subject of some debate and sneekering. (Although this has nothing to do with the Triple Crown, except that Leonard Jerome was one of the earliest promoters of thoroughbred racing in America, I can't resist throwing this in. I have always been amused by Chruchill's reputed reply to the double-entendres about his forebears. He said ''While I was there for the occasion (his birth), I had nothing to do with events leading up to it.''

August Belmont, a surrogate for the banking Rothschilds of Europe whose sons did not want to leave European luxury for the hinterland, soon took over the track whose name was changed from Jerome Park to Belmont. Belmont with Rothschild money behind him was a leader of New York society and an autocrat where his influence counted.

Merriweather Lewis Clark wanted the Kentucky Derby patterned after England's Epsom Derby and after visiting England established the Derby. It was first run on May 17, 1875 and was upgraded by Col. Matt J. Winn in 1902. The Derby has been run at 1-1/4 miles since 1895. It originally was run and a mile and a half. The date also was fixed as the first Saturday in May.

So, the races though somewhat different as to time and distance and place have similar origins. All were started not long after the Civil War. But they all have a history unto themselves and do not need to be linked to other races. Why detract from their tradition? Why not run the races as separate entities.

A prize, monetary or whatever, could be awarded for the best three year old of the year. Otherwise, why not a promotional prize for the preps which are adding more money to their purses all the time. How about the TC Preps? They might include the Florida and San Anita Derbies, the Wood Memorial, and the Blue Grass Stakes. But where does the Travers fit for recognition? Maybe by happenstance it's the only one left to stand as an entity of its own..

There's just too much hoopla about the Triple Crown. The Derby should not be downgraded as just a part of an entity. The Derby is the Derby. Let it remain that way, and the same for the Preakness and Belmont. They don't need to be linked. It's an insult to each race to do so.

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The two men who arguably played the most important roles in the creation of our nation -- John Adams and Thomas Jefferson -- believed in exuberent, all-out celebrations of the historic day Congress approved the Declaration of Independence document on July 4, 1776.

The American colonies actually declared independence two days before, and John Adams originally thought that July 2 would be the day of celebration.

In the half century of their long lives following the passage of the historic document both Adams and Jefferson participated annually in marking the anniversay of the achievement. But on the 50th anniversay of the great event, they respectively declined several invitations from various cities, including Washington, to attend their festivities.

They were both too feeble to attend and had a date with death. Although they had no way of knowing exactly when the end would come, providentially or coincidentally, the date was July 4, 1826 that both men died.

As an example of how important he thought the occassion was, Adams, in a letter to his wife, Abigail, wrote, according to his recent biographer, David McCullough:

The second day of July 1776 (when independence was declared but not the approval of
the actual document which was two days later) will be the most memorable epocha in
the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding gen-
erations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the Day of
Deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized
with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illumina-
tions from one end of the continent to the other from this time forward forever more.

Just before his final illness in late June, Jefferson was invited to attend a celebration commerating the 50th anniversay of the Declaration on July 4, 1826. He gathered enough energy to issue a statement, which ended, according to Joseph J. Ellis, his recent biographer: ''...let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights (expressed in the Declaration), and an undiminished devotion to them.''

Controversy has arisen from time to time over whether Jefferson actually wrote the document as opposing sides quote the Declaration to support their various agendas, many ignorant of what Jefferson's views actually were, and others willing to distort them for their own purposes. Even Jefferson and Adams had differences about the writing of the Declaration and what the Constitution, adopted eleven years later, actually ment in correspondence and personal opinions years after the fact. There is no controversey among historians, however, that Jefferson was the author of the Declaration of Independence.

There also is no question that he borrowed from other writers as well as his own writings and those of John Adams. He openly admitted this. But Jefferson's idealism as well as his writing style are clearly evident in the Declaration, historians agree

Here's some background on how the writing came about, some facts which have been widely known for years and others revealed by either McCullough or Ellis in their recent biographies, John Adams and American Sphinx, respectively.

The movement for a separation had been ongoing for some time throughout the colonies and especially by New Englanders led by John Adams. It had proceeded so far that on June 7, 1776, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia rose to state, according to McCullough, ''That these United Colonies are, and of a right ought to be free and independent states...'' John Adams seconded the motion, and the debate began the next day.

A vote was delayed for 20 days to give delegates from some colonies time to send for new instructions from their states. But it was agreed that a declaration should be prepared, and a five-man commitee was appointed for the task. It included Jefferson, Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Robert Livingston and Roger Sherman. Jefferson was chosen to write the draft.

How that came about even Adams and Jefferson disagreed as they recalled it in later years. The war was already under way, and Adams had a full plate of committee duties including those of conducting the war. He said Jefferson proposed that Adams write it. But Adams declined because he said he wanted a Virginian to write it and claimed that he, Adams, was unpopular and also said Jefferson was a better writer.

Jefferson, according to McCollough, didn't recall this and said, as he understood it, he was simply chosen unaminously to write it. He also insisted that he acted alone.

But, according to Ellis, Jefferson disavowed any pretense of philosophical originality in writing it, and quoted Madison as saying Jefferson's goal ''...was to assert not to discover truths, and to make them the basis of the Revolutionary Act.''

Jefferson had only recently written the Virginia Constitution and a declaration proclaming the state's independence. While he claimed that he had no books at hand in writting the U.S. Declaration, he, of course, was familar with political thinkers from acients like Cicero and Plato to English and Scottish writers such as John Locke, David Hume, and Francis Hutcheson as well as recent works of Adams and George Mason, his own writings and those of others.

In any event Jefferson's idealism and political philosophy radiates thoughout the document which was edited by Congress. About a fourth of what he wrote was cut out, and this was a sore spot with him to his dying day. Most of the revision of his draft focused on a long bill of indictment of George III whom he accused of a list of crimes including the establishment of slavery in North America.

The writing of the document was not considered important at the time with other matters more pressing facing Congress including getting independence itself declared. As years passed both Jefferson and Adams recognized, as Ellis points out, the symbolic significance the Declaration had achieved and how much their places in history depended upon their association with the creation of it.

Most delates regarded the Declaration as a ceremonial confirmation of what had already occurred, Ellis relates and quotes Adams as saying, ''No one of the Continential Congress regarded the language of the Declaration as anything more than eloquent propaganda.''

Where the most contention came from between the two founders was the meaning of the Revolution. Jefferson insisted it meant individual freedom and social equality but Adams disagreed. Jefferson, ever the states-rights advocate, detested the central power of the Federal Government, as well as the independent Supreme Court

Jefferson was in Paris during the debates over the Constitution but was kept informed by Virginia delegates including Madison, who persuaded him to endorse it. He was not happy with the document when he returned from France and saw the concentration of power at the federal level at the expense of the states.

Judge Robert Bork in his The Tempting of America, said Jefferson had an extreme version of state sovereignty for a time. He viewed the Constitution as a mere compact among the states, leaving each state with the right to decide for itself whether actions of the national government were unconstitutional.

Jefferson's view of the Constitution, some historians and jurists such as Bork think, would have made the national government unworkable.

In any event, Jefferson attacked both the Constitution and the judicial system which Adams left in control of the Federalists by appointing Federalist judges, including Marshall his former secretary of state, just before he left office.

Jefferson attacked the Constitution and used it or ignored it to press his own agenda, including the attempted conviction of Aaron Burr on trumped up charges of treason. Counsin John Marshall ruled Burr innocent of the charge, which he said did not include the facts to convict under constitutional provisions for treason.

The Virginia sage also usurped authoity not provided in the Constitution for the Louisiana Purchase from Napoleon, which turned out not only to be a huge bargain for the United States in terms of land acquired, but also was critical to expansion of the nation from sea to shinning sea.

Jefferson chose impeachment as a weapon to reduce the Federalists' stronghold in the judiciary. He began with John Pickering, a federal judge from New Hampshire who was insane and a drunk. It was an easy case for the House of Representatives to decide.

Then he went after Samuel Chase, a justice of the Surpreme Court for his views on the Constitution, but could not get the two-thirds majority required in the House.

Marshall also won the contest with Jefferson in the famous Marbury case that rationalized the Supeme court's power of judicial review. More than a decade before the high Court had already asserted this right, but it gave no extensive explanation, Judge Bork points out. Marshall spelled it out in Marbury.

Whatever the differences in their views, it is clear that Adams was a strong force in getting both the Declaration and the Constitution passed by Congress. He also was instrumental in getting Washington to head the Continental Army and Jefferson to write the Declaration.

But ever since the time of Jefferson, there have been assaults on the Constitution by presidents, courts and interests groups. It was Wilson, for example, who gave us the unconstitutional income tax and the Federal Reserve System that usurped the people's money and credit. And it was FDR who tried to stack the Supreme Court, just as Adams had done, and gave us unconstitutional social legislation.

It is ironic that FDR held Jefferson up as an icon of the Democratic Party. Jefferson would have detested Roosevelt's concentration of power at the federal level.

Despite the assaults on the Constitution and the loss of civil liberties which is ongoing, there still is enough left of the original document to make us proud and to proclaim the United States the undisputed, greatest country on earth.

And the Declaration still echoes those ideal sentiments of Jefferson such as: ''We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain un-alienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.''

So, as Adams admonished, let's have some parades, some games, ring some bells, and set some bonfires, shoot some (controlled) fireworks, and yes, say some prayers to celebrate.

But be careful and don't overdo the latter. The old ACLU and other liberal organizations may be watching. They want to rewrite the Constitution via the obliging courts in the guise of protecting the Bill of Rights -- not pushing their anti-religious agenda -- NEVER! Perish the thought.

The time won't be long when the clowns in the Senate will take center stage and go through the phony but entertaining (if the outcome wasn't so serious) proceess of ''objectively'' selecting an associate justice or justices to fill expected vacancies on the Supreme Court.

It has been about a decade and a half since the Senate Judiciary Committee made a mockery of objectivity and qualification in favor of a highly political smear campaign in slaughterning the judicial career of Judge Robert Bork.

We can thank the fibbers and the cribbers -- Sens. Joseph Biden and Ted Kennedy, to name the top two in this category -- along with liberal organizations such as the ACLU, People For the American Way (People For), the National Organization for Women (NOW); Americans United for the Separation of Church and State and other liberal organizations for shafting Judge Bork.

The tactics they used to keep this able and well-qualified jurist off of the High Court did more than just destroy the career of one man, however. They placed the selection of justices to the highest bench in the purely political arena. That's where it now stands, and court nominees who believe in the historical Constitution had better not apply because left wing social engineers are in vogue.

This Senate approval process inhibits the public writings and decisions of prospective justices and encourages them to keep their records pristine if they have any ambition to reach the highest court. That inhibits and weakens their ability to administer the law as meant by the Constitution in favor of politics and current prevailing sentiment, even foreign court decisions.

In short, the process invites jurists of less ability with conniving agendas and less respect for the Constitution to vie for and be more apt to get a seat on the court.

President Bush may soon have the opportunity to name one, two or even three justices to the Court as three members are rumored near retirement either for age or intent. They are Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, 78, and Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, 73, (she says she isn't leaveing and the other two are noncommital at this writing) and John Paul Stevens, 83. Although everyone is standing pat, the political infighting has already begun.

Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, has pulled his dormant tactic first used in the Clarence Thomas hearings out of the bag again. He has urged President Bush, as he had done to his father before, to consult with him and other leading Democrates before choosing a nominee. He has done this even before a vacancy has occurred.

There is nothing in the Constitution that calls for prior consultation with Congress before the President submits his nominee. There also are no constitutional qualifications for the nominee although it's generally understood he or she must be a lawyer. All justices have been, although many have not attended law school.

In additon to there being no qualification for sharing the nominating process with Senators before submitting nominees, there also is none to consult the American Bar Association, and Richard Nixon discontinued the practice at one time. That might have been a good idea in view of the ABA's political stance.

Kate Michelman, president of Naral Pro-Choice America, said any ''nominee must commit to upholding Roe'' and she wants the nominee to answer the question beforehand. If the nominees must answer on Roe, why shouldn't they have to answer their positions on a list of subjects? Then we would know the outcome of cases before the court ever formally rules. In short, interest groups would be deciding the cases via the selection process.

James Bopp Jr., general counsel for the national Right to Life Committee, said the Pro-Life position ''is not just politicizing the judiciary, it's the destruction of an independent judiciary.''

Democrats already have blocked votes on two federal appeals court nominations of President Bush's with filibusters. As a result, Republicans are trying to change the rules on filibusters. They claim that Democrats are obstructing the will of the president's and have unfairly created the need for a 60-vote majority to break a filibuster to confirm judges.

Republicans only have 51 seats in the Senate compared with 48 for Democrats plus one independent. In other words, they don't have enough votes to end a filibuster.

Democrats also have lauched an E-mail cartoon lampooing the president as Dr. Frankenstein who wants to name a monster to the Supreme Court, even before he has named one.

As the ads were being cranked up, former President Clinton was admonishing a Jesse Jackson convention: ''Let us never demonize or give up on those who disagree with us. We don't want to become like the right-wing talk-show hosts, hammering our adversaries into cartoon characters and denying their humanity.'' Yea, right, Bill.

Democrats should not get too far out on court profiling. Conservatives might want to craft a justice out of ''But is it Right?'' Earl Warren; Justice William O. Douglas, who was so far out of it he wanted to obtain standing-to-sue status for rivers, trees and mountains; and swinging Sandra Day O'Connor. Douglas was the liberal who was instrumental in engineering Roe v. Wade, which still can't be found in the Constitution.

There have been controversies over Supreme Court nominations ever since John Adams stacked the judiciary with Federalists just before he left office, including Chief Justice John Marshall, cousin of Thomas Jefferson who would have loved to have had him impeached. In fact, Jefferson used that tactic successfully on one federal judge but failed on another and gave up.

Everyone knows about the attempted stacking of the court by FDR who wanted his socialist legislation held legal. Judges have bought their positions in some jurisdictions and many states elect them instead of having their legislatures approve them.

The present undisputed politicizing of the confirmation process was demonstrated for all to see in the shameful conduct of members of the Senate Judiciary Committee in the mid 80s in the hearings of President Ronald Reagan's nominee, Robert Bork.

Democrats announced their vehement opposition to Bork before the hearings began as they are doing now before a nominee has been selected or a vacancy has occurred. In the Bork case a majority of senators announced they would vote against him before the debate started. How's that for open, unbiased hearings based on the facts?

False accusations were made against Bork, and Sen. Ted Kennedy even charged racism and sexism and tried to arouse blacks with distoritions of Bork's record, which Bork wrote were ''lies.'' So far there hasn't been any libel suit that I am aware of.

Judge Bork in his book, The Tempting of America, pointed out that the liberal group, sometimes referred to as the Kennedy-Biden gang, wanted judges who would give them what he called ''super legislatures'' in the courts because they couldn't get their agendas enacted in the legislatures.

A former law professor at Yale University, Judge Bork believes in the original intent of the Constitution and that judges should not legislate from the bench or from opinion polls or public or personal sentiment, as they did in the recent sodomy case, Lawrence v. Texas. He believes that changing the law should be left to the legislatures.

Contrast this position with the one of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor in writing the majority opinion confirming affirmative action in admitting law school students. She wrote: ''We hold that the law school has a 'compelling' interest in attaining a diverse student body.''

And who decides compelling interest? Is there a compelling interest to abolish discrimination of all kinds in this country? Judges decide from public opinion polls and, as O'Connor cited, the views of corporate, military and academic leaders. But The Washington Post quoted Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center, as being struck by how closely the court's opinion in the affirmative action case, resembled public sentiment.

This, of course, has nothing to do with the Constitution or the intrepretation of it. And if the court is going to decide cases on the basis of public opinion and not constitutional law, then why appoint judges and legal scholars to it? Why not butchers, bakers and candlestick makers as well as members of the legal profession? Maybe sociologists should have more sway than lawyers in nominations to the high court.

The Court and the nomination process have come to a lamentable pass. It's time to get back to the Constitution and learned legal scholars who intrepret the grand old domument in the light it was intended.

The Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on the nomination of Clarence Thomas triggered a re-examination of the confirmation process and suggestions of how to improve it from several corners. Thomas found himself in much the same situation as Bork, and had he not been black may have been rejected for his conservative views.

Although liberals have had their way on the court at least since Earl Warren's stewardship, Republicans are also guilty of trying to influence its membership. As an example, 19 GOP senators issued a statement on the day of the nomination of Abe Fortas by President Lyndon Johnson opposing any nominees for court vacancies by the incumbent president until after the November elections of that year.

In 1991 Republicans complained that 100 days were to long for consideration of a nominee while in 1968 they wanted a seven-months delay to even begin considerations of a nominee. And a minority of senators defeated the Fortas nomination by a, you guessed it, filibuster after they uncovered some of his financial dealings. Fortas subsequently resigned.

The search for something against Fortas, however, was similar to what happened to Judge Bork and Judge Thomas and some others. You can bet the search will be all out by interests groups once Bush tips his hand on any new nominee.

They already are looking into the background of Alberto R. Gonzales, the White House counsel. He is considered to be high on Bush's nomination list. Gonzales, 47, is a long-time associate of Bush's from his Texas days and would be a plus for him in trying to gain support from liberal Hispanics, although Gonzales is less liberal than some of his bretheren.

There is no doubt that the hearing processs has taken on the trappings of a political campaign. Bush 41, after the Thomas fiasco, suggested limiting the hearing consideration to six weeks and welcomed closer consultation with lawmakers. Leahy, as mentioned, called on presidents to seek Senate advice beforehand and has renewed that position.

Judge bork suggested one way to improve the process would be to take the tv cameras out of the hearing room ''so sober judgements could be made.'' Senators, ever in search of publicity, are not about to let that happen. So, the show will go on.

Let us hope that this time around, liberal organizations such as People For won't resort to smearing nominees like Judge Bork and Thomas for their views on the ''original interpretation'' of the Constitution. People For would approve of judges issuing their own moral and sentimental views as happened during the Warren-Court era and beyond. It, and other groups such as the ACLU and NARAL, tend to believe the Constitution is passe.

A president who wants to avoid a battle like
mine...is likely to nominate men and women
who have not written much, and certainly
nothing that could be regarded as contro-
versial by left-leaning senators and groups.

In other words, we are likely to get more candidates like O'Connor and less like Bork, mediocrity vs. brillance. The liberals have decreed it so. The affirmative action opinion by O'Connor and the other liberal judges will help make it so.

Under O'Connor's reasoning all polls have to do is tell the court what kind of society they want and, voila, the court will engineer it for them. And O'Connor, the swinger, and her ilk will jump to majority side of a split court to get the job done.

So, let the hearings begin. Old Jawls (Kennedy) and baldy with the toothpase smile (Biden) will still be there to provide distortions of the facts and whine for liberals, and Arlen Specter will probably continue masquerading as a constitutional expert, which he isn't, and there will be plenty of grandstanding and vying for tv prime-time space by Leahy and most of the others involved.

It should be another good show. Unfortunately, the people will not get the unbiased and impartial judiciary to which they are entitled, and the country will suffer because of it. But politics must go on. Somehow we survive.

The three members of the Supreme Court who also belong to the Council on Foreign Relations, which has long supported one-world government over U.S. sovereignty, are now open advocates of globalism.

Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Sandra Day O'Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg have recently used either television appearances or speaking engagements to endorse reliance on foreign court decisions in deciding court cases.

Justice Anthony Kennedy cited a 1981 gay rights opinion by the European Court of Human Rights in reaching the court's decision in Lawrence v. Texas, which nullified a law in Texas and several other states against sodomy.

He and O'Connor appeared on a television program in which Justice Breyer noted that the foreign court's view that gay men and lesbians had a fundamental right to privacy in their sexual behavior showed that the Supreme Court's prior decision to the contrary ''was unfounded in the Western tradition.''

Western Tradition? When did the historical Western tradition endorse homosexuality? And why cite foreign courts when 12 other states besides Texas have laws against sodomy? Why not look at those laws instead of the opinion of a European court? Must we base our morals on those of France or Sweeden, as an exaple?

Justice Ginsburg also used the speaking circuit to promote reliance on foreign courts to decide cases such as the death penalty, gay rights and others.

She was quoted by the Associated Press as telling the American Constitution Society, a liberal lawyers group, that ''our island or lone ranger mentality is beginning to change.'' Does that mean that we are now going to become followers instead of leaders? And how about the one-world mentality of the Supreme Court Justices, while we are on the subject?

The AP story quoted David Rivkin Jr., a conservative Washington attorney, as saying judges should not rely on foriegn trends when interpreting the Constitution and that that should be left to legislatures. And remember Justice Scalia's dissenting statement in Lawrence v. Texas that the court should not ''impose foreign moods, fads, or fashions on Americans.''

Members of the court should be relying on the Constitution and the precepts on which the nation was founded and not on foreign courts and fads. Didn't our forefathers study the other European laws and constitutions and ways of government before writing our Constitution?

Last month, Justices Breyer, O'Connor and Ginsburg discussed the death penalty and terrorism with French President Jacques Chirac during a European tour. Should we be taking cues from Chirac, that paragon of virtue on how to run our government? If we must rely on France for anything it certainly should not be morals?

Here is a country that has never won a major war and which could not even conduct a revolution. It had to import a midget Corsican to lead it out of its misdirected, so-called enlightment and chaos. And our far-out liberal Supreme Court justices are seeking guidance from its leaders?

Perhaps they should have been touring several states in the United States where their next case challenges are coming from on morals and religion rather than heading to Europe for guidance. They also should be relying on our Constitution, which they apparently have tossed aside.

Justice Bryer said: ''Through commerce, through globalization, through the spread of democratic institutions, through immigration to America, it's becoming more and more one world of many different kinds of people. And how they are going to live together across the world will be the challenge, and whether our Constitution and how it fits into the governing documents of other nations, I think, will be a challenge for the next generations.''

It will not be a challenge if the President and Senate put judges on the court who will ignore foreign court decisions and interpret the Constitution as it was intended and meant to be and not some so-called ''living constitution'' that can be bent to the whims or morals of individual judges.

Justice Breyer seems to think the Constitution is passe. He thinks words used then don't mean the same as now. I quote: ''...look at a word like 'interstate commerce,' which they (founders) didn't have automobiles in mind, or they didn't have airplances in mind, or telephones, or the internet, or you look at a word like 'liberty,' and they didn't have in mind at that time the problems of privacy brought about, for example, by the internet and computers. You realize that the framers intended those words to maintian constant values, but values that would change in their applications as society changed.''

As for the changes in words, sure, the founding fathers didn't have automobiles and airplanes and the internet and, admittedly, there are problems with these innovations that they couldn't address specifically. But the basic idea of how they would address them in 'interstate commerce' and what they had in mind are still there.

And take the word ''liberty'' as it applies to privacy. They didn't address privacy and that's why it is not in the Constitution and had to be invented by justices such as William O. Douglas, Breyer and others. This problem should be addressed by the Congress and the state legislatures and not by judges making their own law that has nothing to do with the Constitution.

And to infer that our founders like Benjamin Frankling, John Adams, George Mason, John Jay, James Madison, and Thomas Jefferson, to name a few, were not considering the future or the past in founding this nation is absurd.

Were the present Supreme Court justices living in the day of these intellectual giants, they would be consigned clerk roles, if that.

The Supreme Court justices also would do well to stay out of foreign policy. The Constitution spells out who should run foreign policy, and it is not the usurping Supreme Court. Incidentally, most of the court's powers were delegated to it by itself, including the power of judicial review, and were not spelled out in the Constitution.

But back to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), which has been running foreign policy in the country since the time of Wilson, FDR and possibly before. Remember, Justices Breyer, O'Connor and Ginsburg belong to this group and seem to be advocating globalism at the expense of U. S. sovereignty which they have no business doing.

The CFR was founded in 1921 and was regarded by the Royal Institute of International Affairs (RIIA) as its American branch, according to the late historian, Carroll Quigley. The RIIA was a branch of the Rhodes, Milner or Round Table groups formed by Cecil Rhodes, who exploited the African gold mines.

The CFR has become active in planning the U.S. future in foreign affairs and global economics and was supported early on with Rockfeller money. It clearly supports globalization and the so-called New World Order instead of U.S. sovereignty. It has infiltrated the grovenment from the time of it inception, and its membership reads like a ''Who's Who'' in government, politics, corporations and the news media.

In the present Bush Administration, as an example, those in key policy-making positions are also CFR members and include: Secretary of State Colin Powell, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfield and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. (see terms and organizations on home page for more on CFR).

In the post-Iraqi war we have L. Paul Bremer as U.S. administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority running Iraq. You guessed it. Bremer is a member in good standing of the Council on Foreign Relations. Suprise?

Advocating a world view in interpreting laws of the United States and our Constitution by Supreme Court justices poses the question of whether their views should necessitate them recusing themselves from certain cases that come before the court.

As an example, suppose an American business or individual has a grievance because of the U.S. entry into the World Trade Organization or NAFTA and it reaches the court? The individual or business can't ask for redress from their congressmen or senators because the WTC rules prevail. Now, the justices with biased and outspoken globalistic leanings get the case. Shouldn't they recuse themselves?

Justice O'Connor suggested on the same tv program with Justice Breyer that the Constitution was far from the final word in governing America, according to the AP. She said, ''...you always have the power of entering into treaties with other nations which also become part of the law of the land, but I can't see the day when we won't have a constitution in our nation.'' Don't treaties have to be constitutional? And can't the court review them for their constitutionality? The WTC pact delegates all kinds of our constitutional rights to a world body, even Congress' right to levy taxes, and that's clearly unconstitutional.

Based on a previous court ruling on the subject (but that doesn't seem to matter to the court any more except for expediency), the court would be bound to rule the WTC pact unconstitutional because Congress cannot delegate these constitutional powers.

Now, the fact that Justice O'Connor thinks there may always be a U.S. Constitution is a generous view coming from a justice who has sworn to uphold and see that the Constitution remains the constitution of our land, isn't it?

With justices like the three mentioned and the constant bombardment against the grand old document, we may always have the Constitution, but if we have to go to foreign courts and the whims of justices who won't interpret it in its original intent, it won't mean much more than a national heirloom.

It's amusing how these justices speak out to gain support for their own viewpoints after they get on the bench. But before they get that life-time tenure, they are timid and stealthy.

And even after they make appearances they hide behind their robes from reporters' questions and interviews. The present court is out of control, but Congress won't do anything about it through either the power of the purse or its legislative authority.

''If I only had a brain,'' the scarecrow bemoaned in Wizard of Oz. ''If Congress only had a spine,'' mere citizens have a right to bemoan. If it did it could rein in the free-wheeling Supreme Court that has sided with the left-side elites in the ongoing cultural war.

The Court has also usurped powers granted in the Constitution to the legislative and executive branches of government. Congress has constitutional powers to check it, if it would only do so.

As examples of the Court's questionable if not unconstitutional decisions against majority values, it has:

Driven religion from the public arena and made secular humanism the national creed; pulled the right of unspecified privacy out of a hat in defiance of the Constitution and legitimized sodomy; made baby killing legal; reversed explicit Congressional intent by approving affirmative action in the nation's colleges and universities; and relied on foreign court rulings to interpret our own Constitution.

Other examples could be cited, but this should suffice to make the point that the libeals are getting their agenda passed via the courts and not the legislatures.

There is a faint impression that a Congressional spine exists, however, as witnessed in its recent re-enactment of a law banning unsolicited marketing calls that was overruled by two appelate court judges. After Congress re-enacted the law to make clear its explicit intent, one congressman quipped this shows ''we really, really mean it.''

Maybe that phrase should have been added to a lot of legislation such as the 1964 Civil Rights Act that outlawed racial discrimination. The Court overturned that law on what Justice William J. Brennan jr., speaking for the majority of five, termed the ''spirit'' rather than the letter of the law.

Out of that decision and another by Justice Lewis Powell we got affirmative action by constiutionalizing consideration of race as a plus in education admissions. Recently, the Court held not too much but just the right amount of racial discrimination was all right at the University of Michigan and other universities in the name of diversity.

Of course, it decided the right amount, and it also guessed this should go on for about 25 more years.

The point is that Congress has shown what it can do to harness the activist justices if it will only act.

For background, a U.S. District Court judge in Oklahoma City held the law unconstitutional on grounds the Federal Trade Commission lacked authority to run the registry containing more than 50 million telephone numbers of people who don't want to be annoyed by telemarketers. So, Congress re-enacted the legislation to make it explicit that it had delegated the proper authority to the FTC, and President Bush signed it.

But it still is entangled in the courts. Another U.S. District Court judge held that the do-not-call list is unconstitutional on the grounds of free speech discrimination. It permits such calls to charities and politicians but denies them to businesses. That ruling may have merit, but we'll have to wait for the outcome.

Meanwhile, another government agency -- the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) -- has taken a role in enforcing the list. Last summer the FCC joined the FTC to be sure the list applies to all industries.

A three-judge federal appeals court panel in Denver denied a request from telemarketers who wanted to block the FCC's role in the registry. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer refused to block that decision. The full appeals court has agreed to hear the case, which may take some time to decide.

Meanwhile, everybody is confused from enforcers to consumers and telemarkerters.

So, the fight is not over, but Congress has shown that it can rein in the judges if it will only act. Don't get your hopes up too high though. The do-not-call case has 50 million numbers and is growing, so congressmen have little to fear from constituents if they fight the courts.

There are several ways that the Congress can check the courts. First it has power to limit the jurisdiction of lower federal courts. And in his book Coercing Virtue, Judge Robert Bork also contends that Congress has power to make exceptions to the Supreme Court's appellate jurisdiction.

Bork questions whether this would be a good thing in cases such as abortion, for instance. If the Congress removed the Court's appellate juristiction over abortion, he points out it would leave the decision to the states, and there may be 50 diffent constitutional laws over which Congress would have no constitutional juristiction.

That may not be such a bad idea, however, in the case of abortion, sodomy, affirmative action, and especially the religion clauses of the Constitution. In the first place, it may not be as severe with 50 different laws as Judge Bork suggests, and the state legislators would be better at deciding such issues. They would be responsible to their constituents while the Court is responsible to no one.

In his book Justices, Presidents, and Senators, Henry J. Abraham writes:
''..ultimately, they (the justices) do not have the power to enforce their decisions, for the purse is in the hands of the legislature and the sword in those of the executive; and the Court may be reversed by legislative action (such as the no-call-list law) or by constitutional amendment.

As for the latter, it could be done on individual cases such as abortion or same-sex marraige, but it is a slow and cumbersome process. There have been suggestions for a constitutional amendment that would give either the full Congress or the Senate power to overrule Supreme Court decisions. Judge Bork points out, however, that such suggestions have never been taken seriously.

Other ways to curb the Court is to appoint justices who will rely on the original understanting of Constitutional principles, but with the liberal elite members of the Senate and the various lobbying groups, the outlook for this is bleak.

Judge Bork notes that no help can be expected from the American Bar Association which was ''once a professional group, (but is) now a liberal political faction.''

With the outlook dim that Congress will act to overturn the Court on controversial subjects, an irate public with the power of the petition just might nudge the lawmakers in the right direction in the cultural war. Maybe this would put some spine in the congressmen who have abdicated their Constitutional responsibilities, and in so-doing also put some manners on a free-wheeling Court.

The Court could be jolted back in the path of constitutional democracy. If Congress only had a spine.

The Supreme Court, which has openly demonstrated hostility to religion, has conditionally decided to rule on the constitutionality of saying the pledge of allegiance to the flag in public schools.

It wouldn't even be getting the case, except for its own tinkering with the Constitution in the first place. It changed the law relating to a litigant's standing to sue in a case titled Flast v. Cohen back in 1968, and that's why just about anybody can sue in religious cases.

Traditionally, in order to have standing to sue a person had to demonstrate some impact of personal loss or injury.

In the Flast v. Cohen case, however, the Court ruled that taxpayers, or individuals, can sue to prohibit federal money from aiding religious schools under the establishment clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution. In his book Coercing Virtue, Judge Robert Bork pointed out that ''the Court refused to allow similar suits to be brought under other parts of the Constitution.''

This case clearly ''illustrates the place of religion on the Court's scale of values,'' Judge Bork concludes. If that isn't enough to show the Court's religious bias, then this observation by Bork ought to make it clear:

''...every single provision of the Constitution, from Article 1
section 1, to the Twenty-Seventh Amendment, except one,
is immune from taxpayer or citizen enforcement---and that
exception is the one used to attack public manifestations of
religion.''

In other words, if it were not for this lone exception Michael A. Newdow, whose specious claim about harm to his illegitimate daughter from reciting the pledge, would never have come to the Federal District Court in Sacramento in the first place. He would not have had standing to bring the suit.

He probably doesn't have standing anyway. The High Court instructed the parties to the case to discuss whether Newdow has standing, according to the New York Times.

Newdow never married his 9-year-old daughter's mother who has custody of the child. The mother told a federal appeals court she did not object to the pledge and wanted her daughter to recite it.

The Elk Grove School District and the Bush administration have both challenged Newdow's standing. Newdow said he has since obtained a modified custody order that clarified his rights. A California court has given him joint custody, but details of the order are not clear.

So the Supreme Court may not hear the case after all -- if Newdow can't pass the standing test -- unless it just arbritrarily wants to decide the case. But if it delays the issue, it will be just a matter of time before another person will bring such a suit. The ACLU and other non-religious organizations will probably be standing by to assist.

The Court seemed overly anxious to receive the case considering it could simply rule that Newdow doesn't have standing, since it knew his standing is highly questionable. The law has existed for a half century, and no one has mentioned any harm to any child from it to the extent that Newdow's imagination takes him in his claim.

People supporting religion and the constitutionality of the pledge will be playing against a stacked deck if the Court decides the case. In addition to its recent bias against religion, one justice who almost certainly would have voted in favor of the pledge has recused himself.

The absense of Justice Antonin Scalia could lead to a 4-4 tie which would let the California court's decision against the pledge stand. The Supreme Court's recent religious decisions also does not bode well for even a tie.

Even Chief Justice William Rehnquist has said ''It (the Court) bristles with hostility to all things religious in public life.''

It has driven all symbolism of religion from the public arena, prayer from public schools, and even ruled that the practice of organized, student-led prayer at a public high school football game, consisted of an unconstitutional establishment of religion.

Despite the fact that the pledge law has been in effect for nearly 50 years with no apparent ill results, the Court is likely to overturn it because of its religious bias and, unfortunately, because it is an act of Congress. That could be construed as an establishment of religion. The Court has ruled unfavorably on other religious cases that are clearly not an act of Congress.

The Court has also previously held that public schools may not ''compel'' students to recide the pledge, and Elk Grove School does not force students to do so. That may be a plus but not decisive for defenders of the pledge.

Six federal appellate court judges considered the original California court ruling ''very wrong'' in their written dissent. They contended the pledge is not a religious act.

Judge Ferdinand F. Fernandez wrote ''such phrases as ''in God We Trust,'' or ''under God'' have no tendency to establish a religion in this country or to supress anyone's exercise, or non-exercise, of religion, except in the fevered eye of persons who most fervently woud like to drive all tincture of religion out of the public life.

If the Court does rule the pledge unconstitutional as it now stands, what happens to other references to God and religion in many of the documents defining the nation's historical background?

Could the Gettysburg Address, the Declaration of Independence, or the oath of office for president as stated by George Washington be read in public schools? An how about the National Anthem? Could these lines from the fourth verse of the anthem be sung in school?

''Blest with vict'r and peace, may the heav'n rescued land
Praise the power that hath made and preserved us as a nation!

Or this line in the same verse: ''An this be our motto: ''In God is our Trust!''

Then we get to paid chaplains in Congress and the military; prayer opening Congress and even the frieze at the High Court, which starts off each session with, ''God save the United States and this honorable court,'' or ''in God We Trust'' on U.S. currency and Thanksgiving Day proclamations by presidents.

Maybe the Court might even consider removing ''Year of Our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty seven'' from the ending of the Constitution.

Examples of what the founders thought about religion and had no intention of outlawing it, and the fact that the nation is grounded in religion are too numerous to even mention.

I say to the Court what I heard a man shout at a horse he had just bet the rent money on. ''Git yo head straight!''

With Pope John Paul II aged and ailing the time is near when white smoke emanating from the Sistine Chapel in Rome will announce a new pope of the Roman Catholic Church.

Both liberals and conservatives of the Church as well as others who will be affected by the new pope's stance on a myriad of controversial moral subjects will be waiting to see who the assembled cardinals select.

If Pope John Paul has the election set up the way he wants it, then the odds favor another conservative pope. In any event, it is reasonable to assume that the new pope will certainly not be as liberal as Pope John XXIII, who called the Second Vatican Council, or as absolutist as John Paul II himself.

Odds are the new pope will be closer to John Paul II than to John XXIII in observing age-old tenents of the Church and resistance to change. That's because John Paul chose all but five of the global cardinals who will be making the papal choice.

In his book Vicars of Christ, Peter de Rosa said ''John Paul is the last of the absolute monarchs.'' He reversed the liberalism of his predessors on such issues as priest celibacy and other trends toward easing Church dogma.

Even so, he supported sainthood for John XXIII, who de Rosa claimed ''was probably the most liberal, or truly catholic, pope in the history of the Church.'' John Paul is one of the toughest popes on Church policy

He repeatedly quashed progressive and liberal hopes on the ordination of women as priests, the end of celibacy for priests, and has stood firm in opposing artificial birth control and vehemently opposed same-sex marriages.

He also has staunchly opposed abortion, divorce, denounced homosexuality, and contraception. During his papacy, millions have fled the Church, and many of those who have stayed have ignored the pope's hardline stance on such policies.

John Paul also ratified previous Vatican views concerning voluntary organ donations. He endorsed them and laid down conditions for morally acceptable donations and transplant procedures. This impacted Catholics who have been adverse to both transplants and cremation for reasons having to do with keeping the body intact for resurrection.

To the chagrin of Jews, John Paul championed sainthood for Pope Pius IX who called the First Vatican Council to canonize what he and some other popes already had been practicing - infallibility.

John Paul ignored the bitter protests of Jews who pointed out the 19th century first infallible pope confined Jews to Rome's ghetto, referred to Jews as ''dogs,'' and advised one country to deny Jewish doctors the right to practice medicine. Pius IX also presided over the church's seizure of a Jewish boy who was raised as a Catholic against his parents wishes.

Under John Paul's leadership, however, the Vatican formally recognized the State of Israel in 1993. Also from him came a ''confession of sins against the people of Israel,'' and the easing of relations with Anglicans and Christians.

John Paul has named more Catholics to sainthood, (close to a thousand) than any other pope in history. They included Mother Teresa as well as one controversial figure -- Archbisohp Javier Echevarria, founder of Opus Dei.

Opus Dei is reported to be ''a secretive international Roman Catholic order dedicated to getting its membership into high political, corporate, and religious offices in various lands to various ends,'' according to Gore Vidal in Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace. John Paul mentioned Opus Dei in an address praising its founder but did not mention the purpose of the organization.

Vidal wrote there are two Supreme Court members who belong to Opus Dei although he did not name them, he did rule out Justice Scalia. Vidal cites a Washington newspaper story naming former FBI Director Louis Freeh and Russian spy Robert Hanssen, an FBI director, as members of the same Opus Dei chapter in suburban Virginia.

John Paul is the former Cadinal Karol Wojtyla of Poland and is the first non-Italian to hold the office of pope in more than 450 years. During his quarter-century tenure he apologized for some of the Church's past trangressions, including the condemnation of Jews and astronomer Galileo.

Galileo was condemned during the Inquisition for embracing and trying to prove Copernicus' theory that the sun and not the earth is the center of the universe. John Paul after all these years said the Church erred.

The widespread sexual abuses by priests came to light on John Paul's watch, and the Church has been bombarded by criticism and suits. Priests were shielded and transferred, but little was done to correct the flagrant abuses revealed by victims who finally came forward. Priest celibacy is blamed for much of the problem.

As an indication of how unpopular the doctrine of priest celibacy is, more than 160 priests in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee signed a letter in August 2003 supporting married men for the priesthood. If the new pope is conservative as expected, no relief of this edict is expected.

The Catholic Church has always been into politics, and that involvement did not abate any on John Paul's watch. As de Rosa points out ''the Catholic Church is the only religious body in existence that is both church and political organization.'' It exchanges diplomatic representatives and claims recognition as an independent member of the community of nations, he adds.

John Paul's last big involvement in politics was to launch a global campaign against gay marriages and to admonish Catholic politicians that they have a ''moral duty'' to publicly oppose laws granting recognition to homosexual unions and to vote against them.

If laws are already on the books, politicians must speak out against them, work to repeal them and try to limit their impact on socieity. The Vatican document said ''to vote in favor of a law so harmful to the common good is gravely immoral.'' Is that a veiled threat of excommunication?

The Vatican's open entry into American politics evoked a sharp retort from Sen. John F. Kerry who said Rome should have more respect for America's long-held separation of church and state. A Catholic himself, Kerry, a presidential hopeful, said:

''It is important not to have the church instructing politicians. That is an inappropriate crossing of the line in this country. President Kennedy drew that line very clearly in 1960 and I believe we need to stand up for that line today.'' (President Kennedy took his stand as noted under one of the most liberal popes in the history of the Church.)

Patrick Kennedy (D, R. I.) criticized the Church's position and called opposition to ''same-sex marriages or unions, whatever you call it, as bigotry or discrimination,'' according to the Associated Press.

Why some Catholic politicians so vehemently condemned the pope for the latest intrusion into politics on the subject of homosexuality is surprising because they have had several opportunities for condemnation before and done nothing.

In 1980, for example, two priests declined to run for re-election to Congress because of opposition by John Paul. Both priests -- Robert F. Drinan (d-Mass.) and Robert J. Cornell (d-Wis.) -- were liberals.

Pope John Paul was petitioned in 1981 by pro-life Catholics to chastise 27 politicians and public figures for their stand on abortion. The list included former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo, Ted Kennedy, Sen. George Mitchell (d-Maine) and former Haouse Speaker Tom Foley (d-Wash.). John Paul never acted on the petition.

But two Catholic bishops and the late Cardinal John O'connor challenged Cuomo on his abortion stand. Cuomo contended O'Connor ''came dangerously close to interference in politics.''

Although John Paul has been adamant in his stance on the above named issues and instructed politicians about them, there may be some good in it for Christians, protestants as well as Catholics.

There has been for the past 60-to-70 years an assualt on religion in this country from elite liberals and organizations such as the ACLU, the liberal-led Supreme Court and others. Religion has been practically removed from the public arena.

John Paul and the Christian Right in particular have not taken it sitting down. They have fought the trend, and John Paul's successor is likely to continue to do so. If the two religions unite on these issues, they have the clout to send anti-religionists packing.

That would resurrect religion from the underground and place it back in the public arena where it belongs. No hand-wringing and fear of a theocracy from atheists, secular humanists and left-wing elites is necessary. It is not going to happen, and they know it.

So, you thought that the Supreme Court was the only body that could reverse laws made by Congress outside of a presidential veto? Wrong. International bureaucrats can do it, too.

That's because the United States has entangled itself in such global organizations as the United Nations, the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the North American Free Trade Association (NAFTA). The bureaucrats in the WTO are already telling us how to write our tax laws. How long will it be before they meddle in our environmental laws and other domestic affairs?

It seems that all the globalists are getting into the act. Pascal Lamy, the French socialist, and Trade Commissioner of the European Union (EU) visited this country in the fall of 2003 to lobby Congress on tax laws suitable to the EU.

Congressman Ron Paul said ''in effect he is a foreign bureaucrat acting as a shadow legislator by intervening in our lawmaking process.''

Alan Greenspan, the globalist head of the Federal Reserve Board (FED) and card-carrying member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), is also getting into the act. He is jawboning President Bush to reverse what he calls 'creeping protectionism'' for Bush's imposition of steel quotas, plus quotas on Chinese textiles as well as a 2002 farm bill that provides subsidies to agricultural producers.

Greenspan complained that foreign countries may be reluctant to purchase American securities if we protect our industries and thereby upset ''the flexibility of the global economy.'' He didn't mention the upset the U.S. economy has already suffered such as job losses and other ill effects resulting from the record and soaring trade deficit. Nor did he mention the boost that our huge trade deficits with China are giving to that Communist country's war machine.

Greenspan has long been involved in matters beyond his purview as Fed chairman and often jawbones Congress and the president on fiscal policies, such as taxes, social security and domestic economic policy. He gets away with it because neither Congress nor the President will put him in his place.

For the first time in the history of the Republic, Congress in 2000 voted
to change our domestic laws because the WTO told it to do so. The WTO had ruled that U.S. taxes relating to Foreign Sales Corporations (FSCs) amounted to a tax subsidy, a charge made by the European Union (EU).

Congressman Paul of Texas pointed out at the time that no subsidy was involved and that only a small part of income earned abroad by FSC's was exempt from taxes. Furthermore, Paul noted, most EU countries do not even tax their corporations on any income earned abroad. He advocates legislation to exempt the taxation of foreign income.

Although Congress changed the law and replaced it with an indirect tax break for the corporations, the WTO was not satisfied and authorized the EU sanctions against U.S. imports.

The EU is now threatening to phase in the sanctions on certain U.S. imports in retaliation for the so-called export tax break for U.S. corporations.

EU's Lamy met with Senate, House and Bush administration leaders as well as Trade Representative Robert Zoellick to have the current law changed. Don't be surprised if he is successful. Congress has caved in before.

The current law allows U.S. companies to exclude from federal income tax 15 percent of their net income from the export of U.S. goods. As stated, the Europeans don't tax income earned abroad.

In another case, the WTO has upheld an earlier ruling that it was illegal for the United States to impose tariffs on imported steel. President Bush imposed three-year duties on up to 30 percent on imported steel in March 2002. The President said the tariffs were necessary to protect domestic steel producers.

Trade experts fear that Europe and the United States may become engaged in a prolonged trade war. Europe's trade officials threatened trade sanctions of up to $6 billion if Bush failed to lift the steel tariffs. Bush caved in to pressure and dropped the steel tariffs. So, the WTO and EU not only try to regulate our taxes, but our presidential policy as well.

In addition to the EU, several other countries also filed complaints against the United States. They include Japan, South Korea, Norway, Switzerland, New Zealand and Brazil.

China, the world's largest steel producer, also warned it would take strong action if the tariffs remain in place. Japan also said it would take retaliatory action. China rang up a $103 billion trade surplus with the United States last year, and it is growing so far this year with a record $12.7 billion in September. Japan ran second with a $70 billion surplus in 2002 followed by Canada $50 billion and Mexico $37 billion. The latter two figures show NAFTA resulting in an $87 billion deficit for the United States.

Still, the Bush administration is hell bent on expanding NAFTA to cover the entire Western Hemisphere. It's worth mentioning that Brazil, the largest member of that group, signed a pact with $200 million with Cuba in new business deals in September, 2003. Does that mean individual countries may sign trade agreements with Cuba if the U.S. extends NAFTA to them?

Contrary to government propaganda, trade pacts do not raise all boats. They sink some, and if ours isn’t sinking somebody ought to check for leaks. The United States ran a $435 billion overall trade deficit last year, and it will be larger this year. Yet, it is still trying to sell new agreements.

Current efforts are directed toward lining up an organization that would expand NAFTA called the Free Trade Area of the Americas involving more than 30 countries. Amid protests in Miami in November ministers from 34 nations abruptly ended a meeting which accomplished little more than an agreement to keep talking in the future.

Congressman Paul has labeled the European tax sanctions ''an affront to our sovereignty'' and called for the United States to resign from the WTO to avoid further international meddling in U.S. domestic affairs.

He pointed out that under the Constitution, Congress ''..cannot cede even a small part of that (tax and trade) authority to the WTO or any other international body, nor can the President legally sign any treaty which purports to do so.''

Former President Clinton signed the WTO and was supported by former Presidents and Bush and Carter. Paul states:

America's founders never intended for our nation to become entangled
in international trade agreements, and they certainly never intended to
have our laws overridden by international bureaucrats. Congress may
not object to being pushed around by the WTO, but the majority of
Americans do.

In his most recent criticism of what he called ''trade schemes,'' Paul said ''Organizations like the WTO and NAFTA represent government-managed trade schemes, not free trade.'' He added, ''We've sacrificed national sovereignty by changing domestic laws...yet we still face trade wars.''

The sad part is Americans have nothing to say about it. If they complain to their representatives they will be told they cannot do anything because it is in the hands of the WTO by treaty. And the determinations of WTO bureaucratic tribunals become automatically binding.

Under WTO rules any member country can challenge another member country that it believes deprives it of benefits it expected to receive from the new WTO rules. As an example, U.S. regulations on such matters as recycling laws, use of carcinogenic food additives, auto safety requirements, bans on toxic substances, labeling, and meat inspection could be subject to challenge.

Thus, our laws would have to be changed to meet lower standards or be subject to perpetual fines or trade sanctions as in the present EU case.

As stated, no need to call your congressman; your constitutional rights have been usurped by an unconstitutional trade agreement. And even if you could get standing to question the constitutionality of the WTO trade agreement before the Supreme Court, it is unlikely you would get any relief. That is because the Court is going more global in its decisions.

In addition, three justices of the Court -- O'Connor, Breyer and Ginsburg -- are advocating more reliance on international court opinions to reach Supreme Court decisions. The three justices are members of the Council on Foreign Relations, which supports globalization.

If you protest about these trade arrangements that usurp your constitutional rights, you will likely be called a myopic protectionist by the one-worlders. They still falsely claim the Smoot-Hawley tariff law caused the stock market crash of 1929, although the law was not enacted until 1930.

The only apparent recourse Americans have is to put pressure on their elected representatives to support resignation from these bureaucratic world organizations. They should send them packing if they don't.

With Congress either abdicating or delegating its authority and meekly accepting the encroachment of its powers by the executive and judicial branches, the people have no representation. But they still have the power of the ballot.

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