Organizations based in the United States

"Listening to Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) speak is like having a real life history lesson. Mr. Conyers is the second-longest serving member of Congress, having been in office for nearly 50 years. After participating in the March on Washington in 1963, he entered Congress in the middle of the fight for civil rights and, as a leading civil rights activist himself, has played a key role in passing, protecting and expanding our nation’s most vital civil rights laws. Today is the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This landmark law made it illegal to discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, and gender. It began to provide equal opportunities in areas like employment, voting, public accommodations, and education. Many know it better as the law that integrated lunch counters and created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to protect American workers from discriminatory workplace practices."

"Many people don’t remember how violent and dangerous it was in the South at that time. This bill was the culmination of a long list of incidents going on all over America, particularly in the South... Many people, if not most people in the country, were tired of and embarrassed by the violence that accompanied resistance to ending segregation. ... There were two schools of thought in American politics during that time. There were those who were not willing to throw in the towel and agree that we were coming into a new era. The Southern senators—who were then Democrats—were going to resist to the bitter end bringing about any kind of social equality, and they meant it... This [division] wasn’t over because we passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. These were very turbulent times... D.C. itself was still in the process of fully desegregating. It was very clear to a lot of people that this was something that had to change... couldn’t go on any longer. But it also meant that there were a large number of people that weren’t for the change. It’s become clear that this struggle isn’t over. Much of the violence is gone, which provoked and embarrassed so many people, but we’re still trying to make sure that we aren’t losing rights. Traditional civil rights groups [like] the NAACP [and] the ACLU are making sure we continue this and we don’t let the Act be treated as a bit of unsavory history in that past."

"It is easy to defend freedom of speech when the message is something many people find at least reasonable. But the defense of freedom of speech is most critical when the message is one most people find repulsive. That was true when the Nazis marched in Skokie. It remains true today."

"The ACLU has long argued that veterans and their families should be free to choose religious symbols on military headstones — whether Crosses, Stars of David, Pentacles, or other symbols — and that the government should not be permitted to restrict such religious expression in federal cemeteries."

"Members of the military have a right to pray or not pray as they personally see fit, and that right is protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution. It is one of the fundamental rights they put their lives on the line to defend in service to their country. But the government should not be in the business of compelling religious observance, particularly in military academies, where students can feel coerced by senior students and officials and risk the loss of leadership opportunities for following their conscience."

"The ACLU is devoted to some very controversial principles — like the principle that everyone who is arrested should enjoy the same constitutional rights, regardless of their alleged crime or their character. We don't take that position to irritate people; we take that position because we believe in it. We believe in it, in part, in a spirit of enlightened self-interest, because the rights of each one of us are co-extensive with the rights of everyone who is arrested and prosecuted in the criminal courts. If we all don't enjoy the same rights, then no one enjoys any rights at all; some of us merely enjoy privilege."

"Even the American Civil Liberties Union, set up specifically to defend the liberties of Communists and all other political groups, began to wilt in the cold war atmosphere. It had already started in this direction back in 1940 when it expelled one of its charter members, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, because she was a member of the Communist party. In the fifties, the ACLU was hesitant to defend Corliss Lamont, its own board member, and Owen Lattimore, when both were under attack. It was reluctant to defend publicly the Communist leaders during the first Smith Act trial, and kept completely out of the Rosenberg case, saying no civil liberties issues were involved."

"We are a bronze people with a bronze culture. Before the world, before all of North America, before all our brothers in the bronze continent."

"Economic control of our lives and our communities can only come about by driving the exploiter out of our communities, our pueblos, and our lands and by controlling and developing our own talents, sweat, and resources."

"Economic ties of responsibility must be secured by nationalism and the Chicano defense units."

"For the very young there will no longer be acts of juvenile delinquency, but revolutionary acts."

"September 16, on the birthdate of Mexican Independence, a national walk-out by all Chicanos of all colleges and schools to be sustained until the complete revision of the educational system: its policy makers, administration, its curriculum, and its personnel to meet the needs of our community."

"Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán (M.E.Ch.A.) is a student organization that promotes higher education, cultura [culture], and historia [history]. M.E.Ch.A. was founded on the principles of self-determination for the liberation of our people. We believe that political involvement and education is the avenue for change in our society."

"Thus, a Chicana/Chicano Nation is a necessity defined as an educational, socio-economic, and empowered Chicana/Chicano community."

"Our fundamental drive is to organize and challenge Chicana/Chicano estudiantes [students] to maintain self-respect and dignity to overcome historical prejudices and discrimination against the Chicana and Chicano Gente [people]. The historic mission of M.E.Ch.A. involves an educational plan of action that builds an educational ladder for the advancement of our people. Recognizing that the strength of our movement is rooted in our barrios, M.E.Ch.A. pledges itself to reach out to the community and schools, to establish new educational opportunities. We also recognize that our M.E.Ch.A. chapters are much stronger when they are rooted in and accountable to the Chicana/Chicano community. Consequently, We, Mechistas commit ourselves to return to our community and contribute to the development of the Chicana/Chicano Nation."

"As M.E.Ch.A., we must accept the challenge to combat all forms of oppression, and manifestations as experienced through racism, sexism, and homophobia, both inside and outside of our Movement."

"Advocating an educational revolution, we recognize that our bullets are our books and our victories are an increase in Chicana/Chicano graduates committed to our people's progress."

"I did participate in the Chicano Movement. Actually, I started out with MECHA, a Mexican American youth organization. Also I was involved with different farm worker activities in South Texas and later in Indiana."

"For the benefit of all."

"The Congress hereby declares that it is the policy of the United States that activities in space should be devoted to peaceful purposes for the benefit of all mankind."

"To improve life here. To extend life to there. To find life beyond."

"To understand and protect our home planet, To explore the universe and search for life, To inspire the next generation of explorers."

"Shaping the Future: Launching New Endeavors to Inspire the Next Generation of Explorers."

"Since 1970 or thereabouts going to space has not been part of our national agenda. NASA has kept complete control over space. But since 1970 NASA has produced paper, not spaceships."

"NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Where else but in Texas would men set up to administer space?"

"We lack any sort of device that can... detect life. We don't have a life meter. ...We don't have a general pupose life meter that can detect life as we don't know it. Obviously, if it's life as we know it, there are all sorts of features. ...NASA plans a mission to... ... which has a plume of organic material spewing out, and they want to fly through that plume... The question is, what are they going to put onboard that would return a result "Yes, we have found life"... How would you do that? What exactly do you measure?"

"It [Traveling to Mars] is important for our future. If the dinosaurs had a space program, they'd still be here."

"There's been a lot of discussion about NASA culture and changing that. I think our culture has always been one of trying to do a very difficult job and do it well."

"HERE MEN FROM THE PLANET EARTH FIRST SET FOOT UPON THE MOON JULY 1969, A.D. WE CAME IN PEACE FOR ALL MANKIND."

"Well, today physicists peering into the infinitely small realms of subatomic particles find reaffirmations of religious faith. Astronomers build a space telescope that can see to the edge of the universe and possibly back to the moment of creation. So, yes, this nation remains fully committed to America's space program. We're going forward with our shuttle flights. We're going forward to build our space station. And we are going forward with research on a new Orient Express that could, by the end of the next decade, take off from Dulles Airport, accelerate up to 25 times the speed of sound, attaining low Earth orbit or flying to Tokyo within 2 hours. And the same technology transforming our lives can solve the greatest problem of the 20th century. A security shield can one day render nuclear weapons obsolete and free mankind from the prison of nuclear terror. America met one historic challenge and went to the Moon. Now America must meet another: to make our strategic defense real for all the citizens of planet Earth."

"With Artemis missions, NASA will land the first woman and first person of color on the Moon, using innovative technologies to explore more of the lunar surface than ever before. We will collaborate with commercial and international partners and establish the first long-term presence on the Moon. Then, we will use what we learn on and around the Moon to take the next giant leap: sending the first astronauts to Mars."

"We’re going back to the Moon for scientific discovery, economic benefits, and inspiration for a new generation of explorers: the Artemis Generation. While maintaining American leadership in exploration, we will build a global alliance and explore deep space for the benefit of all."

"We will build an Artemis Base Camp on the surface and the Gateway in lunar orbit. These elements will allow our robots and astronauts to explore more and conduct more science than ever before."

"All that we build, all that we study, all that we do, prepares us to go."

"OUR SUCCESS WILL CHANGE THE WORLD"

"To be overwhelmingly clear, we did not stretch out our timeline or delay anything. What we did is insert additional missions, standardized, so we can actually achieve the national policy that President Trump set out to return American astronauts to the Moon, and build an enduring presence to stay. Artemis II, we're going to launch in a matter of weeks [and] go around the Moon," Isaacman explained. "Artemis III will launch by mid 2027 with the aim to buy down risk and low Earth orbit for subsequent [Moon] landing attempts in 2028."

"We're going to get there in steps, continue to take down risk as we learn more and we roll that information into subsequent designs. We've got to get back to basics."

"You know the internet is a very dangerous place to be, and it's being marketed right now as being this neat toy that everybody should come play with and get online today, and you don't get any warning when you log online. You don't get a warning that says look, you are opening yourself up to these possible ways of being exploited. So it is, in my opinion, a dark situation, and like I said, I think that the only way to deal with that is user education. - Sir Dystic"

"The cDc is sort of like the Skull & Bones of hacking. It's easier for Sinéad O'Connor to get a date with the Pope than for anyone else to get into the cDc. - Oxblood Ruffin"

"And when ye shall hear of warez and rumors of warez, be ye not troubled: for [such things] must needs be; but the end [shall] not [be] yet."

"But all these things are merely the beginning of birth pains.all that i need is fuck"

"Back Orifice is a Rorschach for Microsoft credibility. Microsoft's own official response to us was issued as a marketing bulletin! Does anybody else besides cDc find it disturbing that the Marketing Department is running the show over there?"

""CULT OF THE DEAD COW?!...These guys are a bunch of Sickos!" - Geraldo Rivera"

""I can attest to the fact that cDc is the sexiest group of computer hackers there ever was. You may think this silly, but it's the God's honest truth." - Jane Pratt of Sassy and Jane magazines"

""LOVE YOU SEXTY [sic] HACKERS" - Traci Lords"

""These d00dz are dangerous!" - Happy Mutant's Guide to the Fringes of the Net"

""The group is laying the footings for a global empire based on a desire to control and command those who would oppose them." - The Association of Research Libraries"

""[cDc] are like a bunch of drunks huddled behind the dumpster of the internet." - GOBBLES"

""cDc, CULT OF THE DEAD COW, is a nation of psychic signal jammers." - Suzanne d'Fault and Quaker State Tapioca Rupture, Mondo 2000"

""The CULT OF THE DEAD COW is a cadre of hackers and subversive types..." - NETGUIDE'S BEST OF THE WEB"

""The Elite of the Elite, The Cult of the Dead Cow. They know what's up." - Diogenes Osborne, Editor, 'Internet Cryptography Resource Guide"

""cDc never IPO'ed. 'nuff said." - whocares, Slashdot user"

""The cDc is one of those groups...who one feels has 'underworld connections.'" - Harlan Ellison"

""I did not know how all-pervading and powerful you really were." - Neil Gaiman"

""The brilliant and controversial bad boys of telecom, Lubbock's own Cult of the Dead Cow..." - Jaffo"

""I know these guys, they've been around a long time." - Diogenes Osborne, Editor, Internet Cryptography Resource Guide"

""Fedland doesn't like them, the media tries to either use or glorify them, and some religious folk would like to strap 'em to a stake and have a cookout." - Diogenes Osborne, Editor, Internet Cryptography Resource Guide"

""Some people call them digital outlaws, some people call them satanists. The really misguided ones refer to them as 'malicious hackers.'" - Diogenes Osborne, Editor, Internet Cryptography Resource Guide"

""...it's pointless to compare LoD to the cDc... it's like comparing Albert Einstein to Charles Manson... Both were geniuses in their respective genre." - Erik Bloodaxe of LoD"

""Do you think 800 lumens is enough to project the cDc logo out a window of the Luxor onto an adjoining building?" - Delchi"

""They raped my mother, killed my father in cold blood, burnt my village to the ground, slaughtered every inhabitant, and then salted they earth so nothing could ever grow there again. Consequently, they had to leave, having no grass to eat." - Abner"

""cDc? I'd have to vote them 'Most Likely to Pillage the Global Village.'" - Bruce Sterling"

""I am like Ward Cleaver compared to cDc...'June, those cDc boys are outrageous, we shouldn't let the Beave play with them!'" - SuperNigger of MoD"

""cDc. Punks with computers. You've been warned." - R.U. Serius, Publisher of Mondo 2000"

""cDc has wrinkles that date longer than most e-zines." - Newark, NJ _The Star Ledger_"

""cDc is a spew of bilious rant, cultural commentary, psychological purgation, and twisted fun." - Newark, NJ The Star Ledger"

""...they're out to titillate the Internet community with social commentaries and insights."- PC Computing"

""Read the textfiles, there's a lot you can pick up from something like 'Screwdriver Flippin' ' that you won't get in public school." - punkle"

""I wish those CDC guys would spend less time writing textfiles, and more time in the lab curing diseases!" - Emmanuel Goldstein of 2600"

""If it's illegal, immoral or revolting, cDc has a file about it -- and possibly three of them." - Michael Hoy, Loompanics Unlimited"

""the cDc provides a real service to the BBS community by confusing the hell out of the feds." - Suzanne d'Fault and Quaker State Tapioca Rupture, Mondo 2000"

""Get 'em. Read 'em. Trade 'em with mutant kids on local BBSes. Make your reputation as a hacker god." - Happy Mutant's Guide to the Fringes of the Net"

""...definitely cooler than the Legion of Doom." - NETGUIDE'S BEST OF THE WEB"

""Even if you don't care about any of that other stuff, they have a really cool ASCII logo." - The Internet Yellow Pages by Harley Hahn and Rick Stout"

""This group of cyberpunk misfits has created over 300 text files, distributed internationally, and are setting new standards of humor and obscenity." - Jaffo"

""The language and situations in these files are extremely harsh and not for the faint of heart." - Jaffo"

""...if you're willing to read them, you'll find yourself looking straight into the eyes of Genius. And it's not always a pretty sight." - Jaffo"

""...this is like trying to raise awareness about the dangers of nuclear weapons by building some and handing them out on the street!" - Hack Proofing Your Web Applications by Jeff Forristal"

"The friendship between Israel and the United States is a great asset to our country. And AIPAC is a great advocate for this vital relationship."

"Congress is 'terrorized' by AIPAC... In practice, the lobby groups function as an informal extension of the Israeli government."

"Perhaps the most apt description of the power of AIPAC has been provided by , who argues: Without a doubt, AIPAC is the most powerful ethnic lobby to emerge in recent American history."

"Thank you for being here. AIPAC's work on behalf of America and Israel is valuable and important. With friends like you, Israel, and American interests in the Middle East, are well served. Thank you."

"AIPAC has a long and commendable record of promoting the unique relationship that exists between the United States and Israel. Both countries are better for your efforts, and so I thank and congratulate you for all you have done over the years."

"The American Israeli [sic] Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) exists for the purpose of lobbying Congress to support Israeli governmental policies and actions. These oligarchies have persistently reduced Israel to their ideological preferences by ignoring its critical opposition."

"There are probably as many as a hundred colored brethren on the Watch Tower lists, some of them very clear in the truth, and very earnest in its service, financially and otherwise. We have received letters from several of these, who had intended engaging in the volunteer work, expressing surprise that in the call for volunteers in the March 1st issue we restricted the inquiry to the white Protestant churches. They rightly realized that we have not the slightest of race prejudice, and that we love the colored brethren with just the same warmth of heart that we love the white, and they queries therefore why such a distinction should be made in the call. The reason is that so far as we are able to judge, colored people have less education that whites - many of them quite insufficient to permit them to profit by such reading as we have to give forth. Our conclusion therefore is based upon the supposition that reading matter distributed to a colored congregation would more than half of it be utterly wasted, and a very small percentage indeed likely to yield good results. We advise, therefore, that where Watch Tower literature is introduced to colored people it be not by promiscuous circulation, but only to those who give evidence of some ear for the truth."

"While it is true that the white race exhibits some qualities of superiority over any other, we are to remember that there are wide differences in the same Caucasian (Semitic and Aryan) family; and also we should remember that some of the qualities which have given this branch of the human family its preeminence in the world are not such as can be pointed to as in all respects admirable... The secret of the greater intelligence and aptitude of the Caucasian undoubtedly in great measure is to be attributed to the commingling of blood amongst its various branches; and this was evidently forced in large measure by circumstances under divine control."

""Can the Ethiopian change his skin?" We answer, No. But all will admit that what the Ethiopian cannot do for himself God could readily do for him. The difference between the races of men and the differences between their languages have long been arguments against the solidarity of the human family. The doctrine of restitution has also raised the question. How could all men be brought to perfection and which color of skin was the original? The answer now provided. God can change the Ethiopian's skin in his own due time."

"If nature favors the colored brethren and sisters in the exercise of humility it is that much to their advantage, if they are rightly exercised by it. A little while, and our humility will work out for our good. A little while, and those who shall have been faithful to their Covenant of Sacrifice will be granted new bodies, spiritual beyond the veil, where color and sex distinctions will be no more. A little while, and the Millennial Kingdom will be inaugurated, which will bring restitution to all mankind - restitution to the perfection of mind and body, feature and color, to the grand original standard, which God declared "very good," and which was lost for a time through sin, but which is soon to be restored by the powerful kingdom of Messiah."

"From a criminal viewpoint the desirability of sobering the southern negro speaks volumes for national prohibition."

"We know that the days of divine inspiration are over. They ended when John gave to the church a record of the wonderful visions of Patmos. But Satan has at intervals thrust upon the world during the centuries following works claiming divine origin. A good modern example is Mrs. Eddy's "Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures". Not one single book of the Bible was written by a woman."

"Centuries before, anticipating the settlement of North America by a liberty-loving people, and the founding of a government favorable to enlightenment, Satan had sought to forestall it through the voyages of Columbus and the resulting effort to people it with Spaniards and other backward races under the influence of Rome. This undertaking failed."

"[The medical profession is] an institution founded on ignorance, error, and superstition. Some day so-called medical science will discover that all its "discoveries" have disclosed nothing but its own ignorance."

"It is generally believed that the curse which Noah pronounced upon Canaan was the origin of the Black race. Certain it is that when Noah said, "Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren," he pictured the future of the Colored race. They have been and are a race of servants, but now in the dawn of the twentieth century, we are all coming to see this matter of service in its true light and to find that the only real joy in life is in serving others; not bossing them. There is no servant in the world as good as a good Colored servant, and the joy that he gets from rendering faithful service is one of the purest joys there is in the world."

"It is falsely charged by our enemies that we have received financial support for our work from the Jews. Nothing is farther from the truth. Up to this hour there never has been the slightest bit of money contributed to our work by Jews. We are the faithful followers of Christ Jesus and beheve upon Him as the Savior of the world, whereas the Jews entirely reject Jesus Christ and emphatically deny that he is the Savior of the world sent of God for man's good. This of itself should be sufficient proof to show that we receive no support from Jews and that therefore the charges against us are maliciously false and could proceed only from Satan, our great enemy."

"The greatest and the most oppressive empire on earth is the Anglo-American empire. By that is meant the British Empire, of which the United States of America forms a part. It has been the commercial Jews of the British-American empire that have built up and carried on Big Business as a means of exploiting and oppressing the people of many nations."

"For many years our organization has put forth an unselfish and persistent effort to do good to the people. Our American brethren have greatly assisted in the work in Germany, and with money freely contributed, and that at a time when all Germany was in dire distress. Now because it appears that Germany may soon be free from oppression and that the people may be lifted up, Satan, the great enemy, puts forth his endeavors to destroy that benevolent work in this land."

"Let us remind the government and the people of Germany that it was the League of Nations compact that laid upon the shoulders of the German people the great unjust and unbearable burdens."

"The people of Germany have suffered great misery since 1914 and have been the victims of much injustice practiced upon them by others. The Nationalists have declared themselves against all such unrighteousness and announced that 'Our relationship to God is high and holy'. Since our organization fully endorses these righteous principles and is engaged solely in carrying forth the work of enlightening the people concerning the Word of Jehovah God, Satan by subtilty endeavors to set the government against our work and destroy it because we magnify the importance of knowing and serving God."

"Thinking people would rather have smallpox than vaccination, because the latter sows the seed of syphilis, cancers, eczema, erysipelas, scrofula, consumption, even leprosy and many other loathsome affections. Hence the practice of vaccination is a crime, an outrage and a delusion."

""It clearly appears that Jehovah by Christ Jesus is doing his work on earth among his people and hence is guiding his people in the right way according to his promise... Thus the Lord declares he has entrusted his people with the privilege and obligation of telling his message... Jehovah having thus favored his people, they must be true to him and speak his word to others... The Lord does not say to speak the words of wisdom of man, nor to be influenced or guided by the word of man. Those who are convinced that The Watchtower is publishing the opinion or expression of a man should not waste time in looking at it at all, because a man's opinion proves nothing except when that opinion is based wholly upon the Word of God. Those who believe that God uses The Watchtower as a means of communicating to his people, or of calling their attention to his prophecies, should study The Watchtower with thankfulness of heart and give Jehovah God and Christ Jesus all the honor and credit and give neither honor nor credit to any man. The prophecy of Obadiah shows clearly that the identity of the persons or individuals engaged in God's service is not now material."

"Any saving of life accomplished by transfusion is short-lived. And doing it in disobedience of God's commands could cost one eternal life. No temporary good done could justify this permanent great loss."

"The matter of vaccination is one for the individual that has to face it to decide for himself. Each individual has to take the consequences for whatever position and action he takes toward a case of compulsory vaccination, doing so according to his own conscience and his appreciation of what is for good health and the interests of advancing God's work. And our Society cannot afford to be drawn into the affair legally or take the responsibility for the way the case turns out. After consideration of the matter, it does not appear to us to be in violation of the everlasting covenant made with Noah, as set down in Genesis 9:4, nor contrary to God's related commandment at Leviticus 17:10-14... Hence all objection to vaccination on Scriptural grounds seems to be lacking."

"What happened to the perfect fleshly body of Jesus after his death? Was it preserved so that in time men will look upon it in worship? or does Jesus still have this fleshly body in the heavens, "spiritualized" so that it can be seen and worshipped? Neither. The Scriptures answer: It was disposed of by Jehovah God, dissolved into its constituent elements or atoms... The Devil wanted to obtain the fleshly body of Jesus after his death to induce some to worship it and use it for indecent false religious purposes, thus reproaching Jehovah God... So God caused Jesus' body to disappear, but not corrupt, meaning that it was dissolved, disintegrated back into the elements from which all human bodies are made."

"The first essential for study is the right condition of mind and heart, appreciating that Jehovah grants understanding only to the meek, and not to the stiff-necked. If we have love for Jehovah and for the organization of his people we shall not be suspicious, but shall, as the Bible says, 'believe all things,' all the things that The Watchtower brings out, inasmuch as it has been faithful in giving us a knowledge of God's purposes and guiding us in the way of peace, safety and truth from its inception to this present day."

"In recent years in many lands a beard or long hair on a man attracts immediate notice and may, in the minds of the majority, classify such a person undesirably with extremists or as rebels against society. God's ministers want to avoid making any impression that would take attention away from their ministry or hinder anyone from listening to the truth. They know that people are watching true Christians very critically and that to a great extent they judge the entire congregation and the good news by the minister's appearance as a representative of the congregation."

"Those who submit to such operations [organ transplants] are thus living off the flesh of another human. This is cannibalistic... Jehovah God did not grant permission for humans to try to perpetuate their lives by cannibalistically taking into their bodies human flesh, whether chewed or in the form of whole organs or body parts taken from others."

"The features as noted about this "strong angel" combine to indicate that he represents or stands for the glorified Lord Jesus Christ, who before his human birth was the archangel Michael... Is there any question as to who is this Michael the archangel? He is no one else but Jesus Christ the only-begotten Son of God! He is the one who, before our Common Era began, was the heavenly prince of Jehovah's people, including Daniel. Never did he renounce the right to that heavenly name, even when he became a perfect man here on earth in order to work for the interests of God's Messianic kingdom and to ransom all mankind by offering himself to God for a perfect human sacrifice. After his resurrection from the dead and his return to heaven, he resumed that heavenly name."

"Extreme hair styles can easily lead one into a trap of the Devil also, and cause others to stumble. For example, a young man in the United States was making fine progress in his study of the Bible, and he was moved to share with an experienced Witness in preaching to others about the good things he was learning from the Bible. From early youth he had let his beard grow, and since some in the business community wore beards, he felt that his wearing one in preaching to others would be acceptable generally. But in speaking to a lady he was unable to do more than introduce himself, when she said: "I'm sorry, young man, I do not want to become involved in student revolt." No amount of explanation after this sufficed to clear up the misimpression. After the conversation ended with the closing of the door, he asked the experienced Witness what had happened. He was invited to consider his appearance in relation to what he claimed to be, a servant of God. Not wanting to be responsible for even one person's being stumbled so as to miss the way to everlasting life, this new Kingdom publisher shaved off his beard. Would you be willing to do the same or to make similar adjustments if your appearance gave the wrong impression in a certain community?"

"Avoid independent thinking... questioning the counsel that is provided by God's visible organization."

"The disgusting idolatry of the religions of Christendom and pagandom has been set aside by Jehovah's restored people. Their worship is not distributed to three gods in one, the so-called godhead of some mysterious Trinity, but they are united as the one people who worship the one God, Jehovah."

"It may be argued, too, that organ transplants are different from cannibalism since the "donor" is not killed to supply food... While the Bible specifically forbids consuming blood, there is no Biblical command pointedly forbidding the taking in of other human tissue. For this reason, each individual faced with making a decision on this matter should carefully and prayerfully weigh matters and then decide conscientiously what he or she could or could not do before God."

"Why have Jehovah's Witnesses disfellowshipped (excommunicated) for apostasy some who still profess belief in God, the Bible, and Jesus Christ? […] Approved association with Jehovah's Witnesses requires accepting the entire range of the true teachings of the Bible, including those Scriptural beliefs that are unique to Jehovah's Witnesses. What do such beliefs include? That the great issue before humankind is the rightfulness of Jehovah's sovereignty, which is why he has allowed wickedness so long. (Ezekiel 25:17) That Jesus Christ had a prehuman existence and is subordinate to his heavenly Father. (John 14:28) That there is a "faithful and discreet slave" upon earth today 'entrusted with all of Jesus' earthly interests,' which slave is associated with the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses. (Matthew 24:45-47) That 1914 marked the end of the Gentile Times and the establishment of the Kingdom of God in the heavens, as well as the time for Christ's foretold presence. (Luke 21:7-24; Revelation 11:15-12:10) That only 144,000 Christians will receive the heavenly reward. (Revelation 14:1, 3) That Armageddon, referring to the battle of the great day of God the Almighty, is near. (Revelation 16:14, 16; 19:11-21) That it will be followed by Christ's Millennial Reign, which will restore an earth-wide paradise. That the first to enjoy it will be the present "great crowd" of Jesus' "other sheep."-John 10:16; Revelation 7:9-17; 21:3, 4."

"When the dinosaurs had fulfilled their purpose, God ended their life. But the Bible is silent on how he did that or when. We can be sure that dinosaurs were created by Jehovah for a purpose, even if we do not fully understand that purpose at this time. They were no mistake, no product of evolution. That they suddenly appear in the fossil record unconnected to any fossil ancestors, and also disappear without leaving connecting fossil links, is evidence against the view that such animals gradually evolved over millions of years of time. Thus, the fossil record does not support the evolution theory. Instead, it harmonizes with the Bible’s view of creative acts of God."

"TV creates a world wherein actions are blissfully free of consequences. The laws of conscience, of morality, and of self-control are replaced by the law of instant gratification."

"TV not only defines what is reality, but much more importantly and disturbingly, TV obliterates the very distinction, the very line, between reality and unreality.”"

"These words may sound alarmist to those who think they are impervious to television’s influence. ‘I don’t believe everything I see,’ argue some. Granted, we may tend to distrust TV. But experts warn that this knee-jerk brand of skepticism may not protect us from the subtle ways TV plays on our emotions. As one writer put it: “One of TV’s best tricks is to never let on just how much it affects our psychic mechanisms.”"

"In former times thousands of youths died for putting God first. They are still doing it, only today the drama is played out in hospitals and courtrooms, with blood transfusions the issue."

"Neuroscientists say that during our present life span, we use just a small part of our potential brain power, only about 1/10,000, or 1/100 of 1 percent, according to one estimate. Think about it. Is it reasonable that we would be given a brain with such miraculous possibilities if it was never to be used fully? Is it not reasonable that humans, with the capacity for endless learning, were actually designed to live forever?"

"Jehovah's Witnesses have been targets of false accusations - barefaced lies and twisted presentations of their beliefs... The accusation that numerous children of Jehovah's Witnesses die each year as a result of refusing blood transfusions is totally unfounded."

"Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that they have successfully reestablished first-century Christianity, the form of Christianity that Jesus’ apostles practiced."

"As noted earlier, some religions teach that if a person lives a bad life, after death he will go to a place of fiery torment to suffer forever. This teaching dishonors God. Jehovah is a God of love and would never make people suffer in this way. (Read 1 John 4:8.) How would you feel about a man who punished a disobedient child by holding his hands in a fire? Would you respect such a man? In fact, would you even want to get to know him? Definitely not! You would likely think that he was very cruel. Yet, Satan wants us to believe that Jehovah tortures people in fire forever - for countless billions of years!"

"These 144,000 Christians, including Jesus' faithful apostles, are raised to life in heaven. When does their resurrection take place? The apostle Paul wrote that it would occur during the time of Christ's presence. (1 Corinthians 15:23) As you will learn in Chapter 9, we are now living in that time. So those few remaining ones of the 144,000 who die in our day are instantly resurrected to life in heaven. (1 Corinthians 15:51-55) The vast majority of mankind, however, have the prospect of being resurrected in the future to life in Paradise on earth."

"Here is another truth about God's Kingdom: Jesus will not rule alone. He will have corulers. For example, the apostle Paul told Timothy: "If we go on enduring, we will also rule together as kings." (2 Timothy 2:12 Yes, Paul, Timothy, and other faithful ones who have been selected by God will rule together with Jesus in the heavenly Kingdom."

"Since the days of the apostles, God has been selecting faithful Christians in order to complete the number 144,000."

"During the 19th and 20th centuries, sincere Bible students progressively discerned that the waiting period would end in 1914... World events that began in 1914 confirm that the understanding of these sincere Bible students was correct. The fulfillment of Bible prophecy shows that in 1914, Christ became King and God's heavenly Kingdom began to rule. Hence, we are living in the "short period of time" that Satan has left."

"Today, angels no longer appear visibly to God's people on earth. Although invisible to human eyes, God's powerful angels still protect his people, especially from anything spiritually harmful."

"Although [demons] are now unable to take on human bodies, they still exercise a very bad influence over humans. In fact, with the help of these demons, Satan "is misleading the entire inhabited earth.""

"To mislead people, the demons use spiritism. The practice of spiritism is the involvement with the demons, both in a direct way and through a human medium. The Bible condemns spiritism and warns us to keep free from everything connected with it."

"Although many people think that practicing divination is harmless, the Bible shows that fortune-tellers and wicked spirits work together."

"Wicked spirits not only mislead people but also frighten them. Today, Satan and his demons know that they have only "a short period of time" left before they are put out of action, and they are now more vicious than ever."

"People who want to serve Jehovah need to get rid of everything related to spiritism. That includes books, magazines, movies, posters, and music recordings that encourage the practice of spiritism and make it seem appealing and exciting."

"What about the life of an unborn child? Well, according to the Mosaic Law, causing the death of a baby in its mother's womb was wrong. Yes, even such a life is precious to Jehovah. (Read Exodus 21:22, 23; Psalm 127:3.) This means that abortion is wrong."

"Does the command to abstain from blood include blood transfusions? Yes. To illustrate: Suppose a doctor were to tell you to abstain from alcoholic beverages. Would that simply mean that you should not drink alcohol but that you could have it injected in your veins? Of course not! Likewise, abstaining from blood means not taking it into our bodies at all. So the command to abstain from blood means that we would not allow anyone to transfuse blood into our veins."

"Because of the connections that Christmas has with false religion, however, those who want to please God do not celebrate it or any other holiday that has its roots in pagan worship."

"Maybe you feel that the origins of holidays have little to do with how they are celebrated today. Do origins really matter? Yes! To illustrate: Suppose you saw a piece of candy lying in the gutter. Would you pick up that candy and eat it? Of course not! That candy is unclean. Like that candy, holidays may seem sweet, but they have been picked up from unclean places. To take a stand for true worship, we need to have a viewpoint like that of the prophet Isiah, who told true worshipers: "Touch nothing unclean!" - Isiah 52:11."

"Jesus himself set the example by being baptized in water. He was not sprinkled with water, and he did not just have some water poured over his head. (Matthew 3:16) The word "baptize" comes from a Greek term meaning "dip under water". Christian baptism therefore means being fully dipped, or immersed, in water."

"In replacing God's name with titles, Bible translators make a serious mistake. They make God seem remote and impersonal, whereas the Bible urges humans to cultivate "close friendship with Jehovah". (Psalm 25:14)"

"Clearly, the name Jehovah belongs in the Bible. Knowing its meaning and using it freely in our worship are powerful aids in drawing closer to our heavenly Father Jehovah."

"When the experts accuse Jehovah’s Witnesses for their teachings, they do not realize that they are actually making accusations against the Bible."

"They would choose to die rather than kill someone. Consequently, I am sure if only Jehovah’s Witnesses lived on the earth then wars would not break out anywhere."

"They do not abuse alcohol, they do not smoke, they are not money hungry, they do not break their promises, nor give false witness . . . It is not a mysterious sect, but law-abiding citizens. [They] are respectable, happy people, interested in history, literature, art, and life in all its aspects. To alter Voltaire’s words, we could say that if Jehovah’s Witnesses did not exist, we would do well to invent them."

"Jehovah’s Witnesses inculcate in their children high moral principles. They teach their children to avoid behavior, actions and even attitudes that, [while] considered in today’s world as normal, can be harmful to the children themselves and others. Therefore they warn their children about the dangers of using drugs, smoking and the abuse of alcohol. They recognize the importance of honesty and hard work. . . . Jehovah’s Witnesses teach their children moral qualities, to respect the authorities, other individuals and their property and to be law abiding citizens."

"When they read in the Bible, they believe God is talking to them. Whenever problems appear in their lives, they take God’s Word and search in it for a solution. . . . For them, God’s Word is still alive."

"I often say that the best prevention for AIDS is for one to become one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, for the members of that religion are neither homosexuals nor bisexuals, they are loyal to their marriage—they associate it with reproduction—don’t use drugs and, to complete the picture, they don’t accept blood transfusions."

"The conventions and arrangements they have are almost perfect in their form and order. Nothing is left to chance. The success of sports teams and youth-group projects is often dependent on the willingness of each member to lend a hand. These should take note of the way Jehovah’s Witnesses organize their projects. Much can be learned by observing the willing spirit they display. It is almost unbelievable."

"No Jehovah’s Witness will ever go to war. . . . If everyone in the world in position of power had been of this faith, [World War II] would never have happened."

"It ought to be said that Jehovah’s Witnesses are the first to live the faith they preach: They don’t get angry, they don’t smoke, they don’t accumulate riches, they keep out of political discussions, . . . they pay the taxes, they follow a virtuous and honest life-style, they are happy and obliging. All of this has made them well liked."

"Jehovah’s Witnesses were persecuted for who they were. The Witnesses were persecuted wholly for their religious beliefs and because they did not believe in racism, in swearing allegiance to an evil, worldly dictator. And they didn’t believe in fighting his war. . . . Jews struggled to maintain their values and their faith against tremendous opposition. The museum celebrates such spiritual resistance. For that reason, this institution also acknowledges and admires the faith of Jehovah’s Witnesses during the Nazi era."

"Big mother is alive and well and living in Brooklyn, New York! Her "children" live with the constant reminder of that fact. While the Christian is taught to have faith in Jesus Christ, Jehovah's Witnesses are told to put faith in an organization. An individual Witness has no direct personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Their hope of eternal life depends not upon Jesus alone but upon a chain of salvation in which the organization is an essential link."

"A Witness who dies either naturally or at the battle of Armageddon without reconciliation with the organization goes immediately into eternal death, along with all mankind who do not come to God's true spirit-directed organization."

"Truth, as understood by Jehovah's Witnesses, changes continually as "new light shines forth." They are conditioned to expect and accept change as a normal consequence of advancing or progressive truth. Witnesses accept this phenomenon even thought the change may reverse a belief long held dear and may be very costly to the individual Witness. As with the Ministry of Truth in Orwell's society, the Watch Tower organization sanitizes its history and eliminates anything that discredits it. These adjustments by the "faithful slave" organization are made continually and are passed off as increasing "light" or a refinement of understanding."

"When a person is disfellowshipped from the organization, he is treated like a leper. He must be totally shunned by Witnesses. He cannot even be greeted on the street. Should a Witness decide to ignore this rule and associate withe the disfellowshipped friend or relative, he in turn will be disfellowshipped."

"Jesus never taught that God's kingdom was a government composed of Himself and 144,000 co-rulers from the earth. He never taught a two-stage coming with a protracted invisible presence culminating in a destructive cataclysm. He never taught that His heavenly bride of associates would engage in a cleansing and perfecting of manking. He did not teach that there would be two classes of believers- heavenly and earthly. He certainly never taught that God's kingdom rule would not have His personal visible oversight here on the planet but instead would be ruled by Witness elders or "princes" during the millennial reign. And He most certainly did not suggest that people would be separated into two classes of sheep and goats based on a parabolic faithful and discreet slave's spiritual food as offered and served by door-to-door consumer/publishers."

"A person who is initially exploring the Witnesses will not immediately learn what is really believed about Jesus. The use of familiar Christian terminology might lead some to believe that the Witnesses' Jesus is the same as the traditional Jesus. But that is not the case. The Jesus of the Watch Tower is actually Michael the archangel!"

"... to Jehovah's Witnesses, there is a strange preoccupation with anything remotely related to demons. Persons who oppose the Watch Tower are referred to as "demonized". Should a Witness develop a nervous condition, the demons are immediately suspect. Demons continually come up in normal conversation among Witnesses. Their literature and discourses also make reference to demons on a continual basis. In the Watch Tower Publications Index, published in 1986, there are approximately 5000 references to the occult."

"The New American Standard Bible renders the verse "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." This verse is one of the strong statements in the Bible concerning the deity of Jesus Christ, and all legitimate, recognized translations have a similar rendering. However, the Watch Tower renders the last phrase "and the Word was a god." In other words, he is a lesser god - one of many. This effectively denigrates Christ's deity."

"The really important question is: Do Jehovah's Witnesses refuse blood on scriptural grounds or because the Watch Tower organization tells them to? We believe that if the organization published a different interpretation of the Bible verses which they use in support of their stand on blood, Jehovah's Witnesses would agree to take blood transfusions without any hesitation. Why do we say this? Because as soon as the Watch Tower leadership reversed its teaching on vaccination, organ transplants, and blood serums and fractions, thousands of Witnesses abandoned their conscientious refusal. They were really following the changeable Watch Tower organization's instructions rather than the Scriptures, which never change."

"If blood is essentially an organ transplant, and organ transplants are now permissible for Jehovah's Witnesses, does it follow that perhaps the Governing Body will eventually change their rules on blood transfusion? Unfortunately, we feel they will not. They have dug themselves into a deep hole with this teaching. The Watch Tower leadership will never directly say that taking blood is up to the individual's conscience, because of the serious reaction they would receive from members who have let a loved one die. Parents would realize that their children had died needlessly and might be tempted to storm the doors of Watchtower headquarters."

"In many ways the Witnesses have become ossified. For many decades now they have pursued the same missionary techniques with little adjustment for either societal or technological changes. More and more they have become hostile to new intellectual developments, the intellectual world, and to independent-minded intellectuals in their own ranks. And more significantly, their leadership has become a self-perpetuating caste which refuses to open itself to new and constructive criticism of any sort."

"At first congregational judicial committees acted largely against persons who disagreed openly with the society's teachings and policies. Such were those who "created divisions" or "promoted sects" as described by Romans 16:17, 18 and Titus 3:10, 11. However, this focus changed from 1952 forward for many years. What the society became primarily concerned with from that date until the late 1970s was "keeping the organization clean." Consequently, through congregational committees, it began to disfellowship fornicators, adulterers, drunkards, and persons guilty of other immoral practices. As time went by, it broadened the number of offences for which one could be cast out of the Witness community. For example, associating with a disfellowshipped person was, for a dedicated Jehovah's Witness, declared a ground for disfellowshipment as was the taking of a blood transfusion after 1961. Disfellowshipment became a terrible weapon. Witnesses in good standing were not to speak to disfellowshipped persons or even to greet them. In business dealings, they were to relate to them as little as possible. When they died, they were not to attend their funerals. To all intents and purposes they were regarded as eternally damned."

"There is nothing in the English-speaking world to compare with the system presented in the books for error. The great heretical leaders of the early centuries were not more daring, more blasphemous or more destructive than is the author of these books. They contradict almost every fundamental of evangelical faith by a bold denial of the proper deity, incarnation, resurrection, ascension and high priestly intercession of Jesus Christ."

"Steven Novella, MD: You can't reason someone out of an opinion they didn't reason themselves into in the first place."

"The amount of years that she will live longer than us because of her diet is directly proportional to the horror of her life."

"Rebecca Watson :What's unique about this is that he's combining 2 balls of crap together to make one huge ball of crap."

"Jay Novella: What logical fallacy is "Oh yeah?!""

"Jay Novella: If aromatherapy really worked then my own farts would kill me."

"Perry DeAngelis: All ornithologists are misanthropes."

"Perry DeAngelis:Any monkey worth his salt would give any bird a beak-flip."

"Perry DeAngelis: And remember, Chi spelled backward is crap."

"Perry DeAngelis: Thank god my skepticism has saved me from miracles."

"Evan Bernstein: What did we learn here? Sometimes you go with your gut. Except when you don't."

"Rebecca Watson:I won't mate with any of the true believers."

"Podcast #65"

"Robert Novella: We might be outcasts but we're not misinformed."

"Steven Novella, MD: This is pure pseudoscience. This is slick marketing. And you can tell your mommy and daddy that I said so."

"Perry DeAngelis: Astrology is as vacuous as the space it worships."

"Steven Novella, MD: Science does not make statements about proof or disproof. Rather, science is a constantly evolving model or reality that builds upon statements such as — this model of reality makes these predictions, that have either been confirmed or refuted, etc. We say things are probable or likely to be true in science if the predictions that flow from them have been confirmed. We say things are likely to be untrue if they make predictions that turned out to be false. We can further say that certain things are impossible if they create a logical contradiction. If you make a claim, however, that does not make any predictions that can be either confirmed or falsified, then science can say nothing about it. That is agnosticism. That is the difference. It can't say whether or not the "unfalsifiable hypothesis" is true, it cannot make any statements about probability, it cannot say anything — except that it makes no testable predictions. That's it. Anything else is philosophy, ideology, or wishful thinking."

"College students have always shown a more or less marked tendency to form themselves into societies."

"In the earlier days when the 'college secret societies' were tabooed, the undergraduate members wore no pins or concealed them. Now these are worn constantly over the members' hearts."

"Alcohol is the No. 1 issue on every college campus I've been on. [But] it isn't just the No. 1 issue in fraternities and sororities. It's the number one issue for all students."

"Brothers, I have received medals and honors from every civilized country, but I feel this honor above all, due to the fact that this is given to me by a group of university bandsmen who are furthering the great work to which I have dedicated my life. The ideals as set forth by the Fraternity could not help but make better men and better college band musicians."

"The very name "fraternity" breathes friendship and communion of souls and I am very proud of my membership in Kappa Kappa Psi. … We, as I have repeated before, must look in the future for talent from the college and high school bands and surely a great many excellent players will no doubt grow out of the instruction received by bright American college men."

"Let us ever strive for the best and highest there is in us and in wishing every Kappa Kappa Psi the most bountiful success in all that he undertakes, let me venture this for our watchword: "Let every worthy group of College bandsmen in the country know about our ideals so that they too may be admitted into our Fraternal circles.""

"Kappa Kappa Psi operates principally as a service-recognition society whose chief aim is to assist the Director in developing the leadership and enthusiasm that he requires of his band. Our goals are to not only provide the band with organized and concentrated service activities, but to give our membership valid and wholesome experiences in organization, leadership, and social contacts. The honorary nature of membership is based on our premise that "it is an honor to be selected to serve"—this band, its department of music, its sponsoring institution and the cause of band music in the nation's colleges and universities..."

"This ol' guitar taught me how to score, Right there on that Lambda Chi porch, Mary Ann taught me a little more, About wanting what you can't have."

"The advent of other Greek letter fraternities met the social needs or supposed needs of underclass men and left Phi Beta Kappa to give sole concern to scholarly affairs."

"I got a great education when I was an undergraduate many years ago, and I think being a member of Phi Kappa Psi Maryland Alpha chapter was a part of that. Its something that's helped form my life. Dealings with my family, my dealings with my friends, my dealings with all my business associates. It was a great experience and I can say nothing but good things about Phi Kappa Psi."

"I can remember laughter and a lot of it, and the warmth of friendships and a lot of it, and it never went away."

"Let us be what we say we are: a fraternity, not a club, run by men, and not boys, and based on ideals, not expediency."

"I certainly didn't have the high school background, in math for example, to be in engineering school. and yet a couple of my fraternity brothers, who were brilliant scholars - electrical engineers, sort of took me under their wing, and without that personal tutoring and help, I wouldn't have gotten out of Valpo."

"...One of the things that the Phi Kappa Psi has to offer a young man is not to feel like you're ever going to be a cookie-cut stamped out sort of figure...To have that wonderful kind of anchor of a fraternal group is a great help to a undergraduate student trying to find his way in this tough and rather impersonal world today."

"I don't think that college would be the same to me if I didn't have the backing and the help of the people in the Fraternity... I was a Phi Psi when I got here, and I left a Phi Psi."

"The spirit of our oldest chapters, combined with the vigor of our youngest who join each year, should inspire all of us to maintain our faith in the principles which unite us, our determination to live by them, and our intention to continue to be the very best fraternity in the greek letter world."

"Fraternities and the fraternity system are a distinctive and praiseworthy feature of American college life. Both as a fraternity man and as an educator, I firmly believe in the value of fraternities when they are properly managed and under good leadership."

"Today, the American people, perhaps as never before, are in need of the unusual, the distinctive, the uncommon man and leader — men and women of character and courage who have undergone the disciplines and the experiences which develop their highest potentials. I sincerely believe that college fraternities are important institutions contributing to the development of such men and women."

"I shall never be able to compensate my fraternity for all that it has done for me, no matter what service I may be allowed to give. In it I have found my most intimate friends. As undergraduate chapter president, I gained broad administrative experience, and from my fraternity I have derived my most cherished ideals of conduct."

"My chapter house was a place where deep friendships were formed. The bond of brotherhood within the chapters was always a sustaining force and an urge to do a better job scholastically and otherwise in campus life. The traits of character which were nurtured there ripened and increased my sense of being useful in later life."

"In my judgment the college fraternity has been of inestimable value in making men across the years... It is natural for men to come together in compatible, mutual friendship, and when they do so under the high ideals of a fraternity, it proves to be most beneficial."

"I took a great deal more from my fraternity than I gave — but what I took was a very great deal — companionship of the highest order, self-confidence born of belonging to a group of which I was proud, enrichment of my personal life, which gave all my college career added dimension, and even an extra bond to several life-long friendships that already existed."

"I found in my chapter companionship and guidance from older men, discipline and true fellowship. The fraternity is more than just a boarding house. It is a temple of good will, of mutual assistance and enlightenment. The benefits derived are constant companions with alert fellow students in all activities of university life, and it tends to create more mature, responsible and intelligent citizens."

"Tau Epsilon Phi has a sweetheart so shy, She's a dream, what a dream of a girl. Each brother she holds as the emeralds unfold In her heart she's as pure as a pearl."

"[D]edicated to the study of the English language in North America, and of other languages, or dialects of other languages, influencing it or influenced by it."

"Today, if somebody comes up with a new phrase or word, it is spread instantly. Instead of weeks and months, now it takes milliseconds. It doesn't mean these terms will last forever, just that they're suddenly here."

"You'd have to ask Bill Clinton or Bob Dole why it was so important. We are merely recognizing its importance."

"The term goes back 50 years, but you can't turn on the radio or television without hearing about 'weapons of mass destruction'."

"There is no scientific method of determining which words or phrases will be named words-of-the-year. It's kind of like Time magazine determining the whistle-blowers were the person-of-the-year. There is no objective way of determining it. It's all done with a show of hands."

"Language changes, and you cannot stop it. It's just like any other part of human culture."

"We dismissed one potential problem—that newspapers wouldn't print the term if it won—on the grounds that we shouldn't censor ourselves. And indeed, in the afternoon's voting, santorum did win, but many newspapers simply skipped this category in their coverage. So much for academic freedom."

"When you have investment companies losing billions of dollars over something like bundled subprime loans, then you have to consider whether it's important. You probably also want to think about paying off that third mortgage."

"Yeah, that was a surprise to me. I thought it might be something like texting or blog, but people decided that Google - and the argument from the floor from one of our members was that a lot of people blog, millions of people blog, but everybody googles, young and old. It's so generic that people go to Yahoo and google. So, it's google with a lower-case G."

"It's a very old word, but over the course of just a few months it took on another life and moved in new and unexpected directions, thanks to a national and global movement. The movement itself was powered by the word."

"Systematic American dialect research began with the formation of the American Dialect Society in 1889."

"Since 1990, the American Dialect Society has included in its annual meeting a vote on Words of the Year, the words that were most notable, prominent, and characteristic of the discourse of the year just past."

"The American Dialect Society was founded in 1889 with the goal of compiling a dialect dictionary of the United States."

"The initial hope of the American Dialect Society was to provide a body of data from which a dialect dictionary or series of linguistic maps might be derived."

"Since 1889, dialectologists in English-speaking North America have affiliated themselves with the American Dialect Society, an association which in its first constitution defined its object as "the investigation of the spoken English of the United States and Canada, and incidentally of other non-aboriginal dialects spoken in the same countries.""

"Flexitarian was voted Most Useful Word in 2003 by the American Dialect Society, a fact widely publicized in the press."

"Members of the American Dialect Society (www.americandialect.org) study English language use among people living in North America. They analyze how other languages influence English-speaking North Americans, and how, in turn, North Americans influence speakers of other languages."

"The early work of the American Dialect Society reflects the wide reach and the overlapping linguistic and literary interests centered on language study at the end of the century."

"Serious wordinistas will be waiting for the linguistic Oscars, when the American Dialect Society makes its selection in January."

"While astrophysicists were downgrading the cosmic object we call Pluto, the American Dialect Society, which is more than a century old, was upgrading the status of the word Pluto to a verb, making it their 17th annual 'Word of the Year' for 2006."

"The American Dialect Society (ADS; americandialect.org), identifies the most influential words of the year. For example, ADS members voted tweet as the Word of the Year for 2009 and google as the word of the decade. Ten years earlier, Y2K was the top choice, web was the word of the decade, and jazz was the word of the century."

"I would like to state at this time that I am not now and have never been... a member of the Boy Scouts of America. Their motto is, as you know, "Be Prepared!" and that is the name of this song."

""A hundred years from now it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in, or the kind of car I drove. But the world may be different, because I was important in the life of a boy."

"The only problem with Boy Scouts is, there aren't enough of them."

"The scouting movement celebrated the frontier, but it was actually a movement for boys in the metropole. Here it took its place in a long series of attempts to foster particular forms of masculinity among boys. Other moments in this history include the nineteenth-century reform of the British elite public school, in the period after Dr Arnold; the Church of England Boys' Brigade directed at working-class youth; the German youth movement at the turn of the century; the Hitler Youth, turned into a mass institution when the Nazis came to power in Germany; and widespread attempts at military training of secondary school boys through army cadet corps, still operating in Australia when I was in high school in 1960."

"I was the all-American boy, the Eagle Scout. I remember I was at my girlfriend's apartment, and there were these strange publications like The Nation and The New Republic. I started looking at them and thought, "Gee, this is weird; people saying things against America?" It was an awakening. On the East Coast, I'd never even heard of conscientious objectors."

"The Institute for Advanced Study is one of the few institutions in the world where the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake is the ultimate raison d’être. Speculative research, the kind that is fundamental to the advancement of human understanding of the world of nature and of humanity, is not a product that can be made to order. Rather, like artistic creativity, it benefits from a special environment."

"While practical benefits often result from pure academic research at the most fundamental level, such benefits are not guaranteed and cannot be predicted; nor need they be seen as the ultimate goal. Ventures into unknown territory inevitably involve an element of risk, and scientists and scholars are rarely motivated by the thought of an end product. Rather, they are moved by a creative curiosity that is the hallmark of academic inquiry."

"The Institute is an interesting Paradise. But in an ideal society, when you remove all the everyday frictions, the frictions that are created to take their place are so much more cruel."

"The Institute for Advanced Study is devoted to the encouragement, support and patronage of learning–of science, in the old broad, undifferentiated sense of the word. The Institute partakes of the character both of a university and of a research institute; but it also differs in significant ways from both. It is unlike a university, for instance, in its small size... It is unlike a university in that it has no formal curriculum, no scheduled courses of instruction... It is unlike a research institute in that its purposes are broader; it supports many separate fields of study... The Institute, in short, is devoted to learning, in the double sense of the continued education of the individual and of the intellectual enterprise on which he is embarked."

"Like a traditional university it was devoted to the promotion of learning, but its scale was smaller and it did not offer formal instruction. Nor did it have large laboratories. It was to be a place for the most highly specialised research, yet it provided an atmosphere open to intellectual exchange across all disciplinary boundaries."

"There really isn’t anywhere like the Institute. Because of its very strong postdoctoral programs in astrophysics, physics, mathematics, and other disciplines, it has been a kind of funnel through which a large fraction of all of the most productive researchers in many of the physical sciences have passed."

"My life was fashioned by the Institute. There is no question that my whole career would have been completely different if I had not had the remarkable opportunity of participating in a place that is so single-mindedly determined to let your own imagination flourish."

"I am not unaware of the fact that I have sketched an educational Utopia. I have deliberately hitched the Institute to a star; it would be wrong to begin with any other ambition or aspiration."

"There has been no other place in the world from which, scholar for scholar and square foot for square foot, more and finer scholarship has emerged over these past forty years than from these surrounding walls."

"The Institute for Advanced Study has achieved a position that is unrivaled in the world of science and scholarship. In all fields where it has been engaged, its contributions have set the standards against which other contributions may be measured."

"I entered Princeton University as a graduate student in 1959, when the Department of Mathematics was housed in the old Fine Hall. This legendary facility was marvellous in stimulating interaction among the graduate students and between the graduate students and the faculty. The faculty offered few formal courses, and essentially none of them were at the beginning graduate level. Instead the students were expected to learn the necessary background material by reading books and papers and by organising seminars among themselves. It was a stimulating environment but not an easy one for a student like me, who had come with only a spotty background. Fortunately I had an excellent group of classmates, and in retrospect I think the "Princeton method" of that period was quite effective."

"If the U.S. government had prosecuted Bush administration officials for their war crimes during the “war on terror,” the ICC would not now take jurisdiction. But after Barack Obama said, “Generally speaking, I’m more interested in looking forward than I am in looking backwards,” his administration refused to prosecute those implicated in the torture and willful killings of detainees during the Bush administration."

"The United States is on pace to spend over $7 trillion over the next ten years for the Pentagon. To put that number in perspective, the U.S. spends more each year on the military than China, Russia, India, the U.K., Germany, France, Japan, South Korea and Australia combined. While Republicans and Democrats are in sharp disagreements over the much smaller Build Back Better legislation, there is largely a bipartisan consensus when it comes to the military budget and foreign military intervention..."

"This government cannot much longer play a game in which it stakes all, and its enemies stake nothing. Those enemies must understand that they cannot experiment for ten years trying to destroy the government, and if they fail still come back into the Union unhurt."

"We find ourselves under the government of a system of political institutions, conducing more essentially to the ends of civil and religious liberty, than any of which the history of former times tells us. We, when mounting the stage of existence, found ourselves the legal inheritors of these fundamental blessings. We toiled not in the acquirement or establishment of them; they are a legacy bequeathed us by a once hardy, brave, and patriotic, but now lamented and departed, race of ancestors. Theirs was the task (and nobly they performed it) to possess themselves, and through themselves us, of this goodly land, and to uprear upon its hills and its valleys a political edifice of liberty and equal rights; 'tis ours only to transmit these — the former unprofaned by the foot of an invader, the latter undecayed by the lapse of time and untorn by usurpation — to the latest generation that fate shall permit the world to know. This task gratitude to our fathers, justice to ourselves, duty to posterity, and love for our species in general, all imperatively require us faithfully to perform."

"Let us then turn this Government back into the channel in which the framers of the Constitution originally placed it."

"Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the Government nor of dungeons to ourselves."

"Without the Constitution and the Union, we could not have attained the result; but even these, are not the primary cause of our great prosperity. There is something back of these, entwining itself more closely about the human heart. That something, is the principle of "Liberty to all" — the principle that clears the path for all — gives hope to all — and, by consequence, enterprize, and industry to all. The expression of that principle, in our Declaration of Independence, was most happy, and fortunate. Without this, as well as with it, we could have declared our independence of Great Britain; but without it, we could not, I think, have secured our free government, and consequent prosperity."

"[T]here will be no blood shed unless it be forced' upon the Government. The Government will not use force unless force is used against it... This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing Government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it... The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and defend it"."

"One of the greatest perplexities of the Government is to avoid receiving troops faster than it can provide for them. In a word, the people will save their Government if the Government itself will do its part only indifferently well... This is essentially a people's contest. On the side of the Union it is a struggle for maintaining in the world that form and substance of government whose leading object is to elevate the condition of men; to lift artificial weights from all shoulders; to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all; to afford all an unfettered start and a fair chance in the race of life. Yielding to partial and temporary departures, from necessity, this is the leading object of the Government for whose existence we contend... Our popular Government has often been called an experiment. Two points in it our people have already settled — the successful establishing and the successful administering of it. One still remains — its successful maintenance against a formidable internal attempt to overthrow it."

"I am a patient man — always willing to forgive on the Christian terms of repentance; and also to give ample time for repentance. Still I must save this government if possible."

"It is the duty of every government to give protection to its citizens, of whatever class, color, or condition, and especially to those who are duly organized as soldiers in the public service. The law of nations and the usages and customs of war as carried on by civilized powers, permit no distinction as to color in the treatment of prisoners of war as public enemies. To sell or enslave any captured person, on account of his color, and for no offence against the laws of war, is a relapse into barbarism and a crime against the civilization of the age. The government of the United States will give the same protection to all its soldiers, and if the enemy shall sell or enslave anyone because of his color, the offense shall be punished by retaliation upon the enemy's prisoners in our possession. It is therefore ordered that for every soldier of the United States killed in violation of the laws of war, a rebel soldier shall be executed; and for every one enslaved by the enemy or sold into slavery, a rebel soldier shall be placed at hard labor on the public works and continued at such labor until the other shall be released and receive the treatment due to a prisoner of war."

"We have, as all will agree, a free Government, where every man has a right to be equal with every other man... [T]here may be mistakes made sometimes; things may be done wrong while the officers of the Government do all they can to prevent mistakes. But I beg of you, as citizens of this great Republic, not to let your minds to carried off... [R]ise up to the height of a generation of men worthy of a free Government..."

"It is vain and foolish to arraign this man or that for the part he has taken, or has not taken, and to hold the government responsible for his acts. In no administration can there be perfect equality of action and uniform satisfaction rendered by all. But this government must be preserved in spite of the acts of any man or set of men. It is worthy your every effort. Nowhere in the world is presented a government of so much liberty and equality. To the humblest and poorest amongst us are held out the highest privileges and positions. The present moment finds me at the White House, yet there is as good a chance for your children as there was for my father's."

"The man who is possessed of wealth, who lolls on his sofa or rolls in his carriage, cannot judge the wants or feelings of the day-laborer. The government we mean to erect is intended to last for ages. The landed interest, at present, is prevalent; but in process of time, when we approximate to the states and kingdoms of Europe, — when the number of landholders shall be comparatively small, through the various means of trade and manufactures, will not the landed interest be overbalanced in future elections, and unless wisely provided against, what will become of your government? In England, at this day, if elections were open to all classes of people, the property of landed proprietors would be insecure. An agrarian law would soon take place. If these observations be just, our government ought to secure the permanent interests of the country against innovation. Landholders ought to have a share in the government, to support these invaluable interests, and to balance and check the other. They ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority. The senate, therefore, ought to be this body; and to answer these purposes, they ought to have permanency and stability."

"In our Governments, the real power lies in the majority of the Community, and the invasion of private rights is chiefly to be apprehended, not from the acts of Government contrary to the sense of its constituents, but from acts in which the Government is the mere instrument of the major number of the constituents."

"The government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like the state governments, whose powers are more general. Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government."

"The Government Rules by Force, Fraud and Deception. The information blockade starts with the military itself. The military purposely restricts information plus its immense size and bureaucratic complexity means that it is so hard to grasp that political leaders cannot themselves understand the institution they are supposed to command. You want proof? Just try reading the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) 2016 report which could not figure out just how much oil the military burns. The GAO concluded: “[C]ongress does not have full visibility over the amount of fuel volume the military services require on an annual basis for their activities…” This should not come as a surprise. Since its inception in 1950 or so the modern military has resisted any accounting of costs in violation of Article I, Section 9, of the US Constitution. In 2018 the Pentagon failed its first ever audit. It’s not just about the missing 6.5 trillions dollars, (although that really matters too) it’s that the opaque accounting system is armor — a defensive weapon used to neutralize anyone that wants to understand, let alone oppose, the US government."

"This very big, very dirty secret — that war drives climate change — is carefully guarded. To keep things hush-hush the military is excused from oversight or obligation. This exception to the rule of law has always been the practice but G.W. Bush formalized it demanding language to that effect in the 1997 Kyoto Accords, which he later refused to sign anyway...The complete U.S. military exemption from greenhouse gas emissions calculations includes more than 1,000 U.S. bases in more than 130 countries around the world, it’s 6,000 facilities in the U.S., its aircraft carriers and jet aircraft. Also excluded are its weapons testing and all multilateral operations such as the giant U.S. commanded NATO military alliance and AFRICOM, the U.S. military alliance now blanketing Africa. The provision also exempts U.S./UN-sanctioned activities of “peacekeeping” and “humanitarian relief.”"

"It is within this context of 70 long years of secrecy, special legal exemptions, deception, fraud, lies by omission, non-binding agreements — and the global role of militarism as climate crisis multiplier — that we can best evaluate the Democratic Party’s version of the Green New Deal (GND).... The GND now has overwhelming public support and that is truly a great accomplishment. The Democrat’s version has many fine ideas linking inequality and social justice to efforts to fight climate change — and those ideas are all true... In its current form the plan also uses the language of market solutions and technical fixes that sadly repeat the weakest features of failed climate “action” already offered by elites. But most important, the Democrat’s GND — once again — omits the US government and military as a cause of climate disaster. The other — almost unbelievable omission — is the failure of the Democrat’s GND to explicitly call for dramatic reductions in the use of fossil fuels. In fact, the words “oil” “gas” “coal” or “fossil fuels” do not even appear in the final document that established the committee... The Democrat’s GND remains a vague non-binding wish. The 2050 deadlines are standard political dodge-ball. When faced with crisis, corporate politicians always want to ‘kick the can down the road” — postponing real action until the damage is already done and someone else takes the blame. Adaptation to disaster and management of the crisis rather than prevention of climate chaos is the hidden but actual program of the Democrat’s GND."

"These vaccines were created through public money — nearly $500 million of German public money from taxpayers to BioNTech, nearly a billion dollars in money from U.S. taxpayers through the government to Moderna, several billions of dollars after that in exchange for buying back vaccines at high prices. So these are very much the people’s vaccines. It’s just that they are private property.... when the Moderna CEO says, “Oh, anyone can make the Moderna vaccine,” he’s being a bit disingenuous... It’s not really possible to do that. The way vaccines work and the way regulation around vaccines work is that they need to be made with authorization and a license. Moderna and Pfizer or BioNTech... need to authorize companies to make their vaccine... to share an instruction manual as to how to do it... The problem is... it loosens Moderna and Pfizer and BioNTech’s stranglehold on these vaccines... It undercuts the massive tens of billions of dollars of profit and revenue that they can earn off selling to poor countries in the next couple of years, once they’re done with rich countries... which is why we’re asking the U.S. and German governments instead to say, “Look, in the face of this intransigence, it’s time to use emergency laws... that you can use, that you have the moral and legal power to put into effect, and end this pandemic for us and bring us out of this incredible cycle of hell."

"The government is us; we are the government, you and I."

"Most of our political leaders are not engineers or scientists and do not listen to engineers or scientists. Today a letter from Einstein would get lost in the White House mail room, and the Manhattan Project would not even get started; it certainly could never be completed in three years. I am not aware of a single political leader in the U.S., either Democrat or Republican, who would cut health-care spending in order to free up money for biotechnology research — or, more generally, who would make serious cuts to the welfare state in order to free up serious money for major engineering projects."

"Our obligations and loyalty should not be to a government that will not take care of our needs. Our obligations and loyalty should not be to a government that has proven time and time again that it is the enemy of the people unless the people are rich in dollars."

"The Earth gives us life, not the American government. The earth gives us life, not the multi-national corporate government. The Earth gives us life. We need to have the Earth. We must have it, otherwise our life will be no more. So we must resist what they do."

"Such being the impressions under which I have, in obedience to the public summons, repaired to the present station; it would be peculiarly improper to omit in this first official Act, my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the Universe, who presides in the Councils of Nations, and whose providential aids can supply every human defect, that his benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the People of the United States, a Government instituted by themselves for these essential purposes: and may enable every instrument employed in its administration to execute with success, the functions allotted to his charge."

"The establishment of our new Government seemed to be the last great experiment, for promoting human happiness, by reasonable compact, in civil Society. It was to be, in the first instance, in a considerable degree, a government of accomodation as well as a government of Laws. Much was to be done by prudence, much by conciliation, much by firmness. Few, who are not philosophical spectators, can realize the difficult and delicate part, which a man in my situation had to act. All see, and most admire, the glare which hovers round the external happiness of elevated office. To me there is nothing in it beyond the lustre, which may be reflected from its connection with a power of promoting human felicity."

"The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for giving to Mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support."

"To the efficacy and permanency of your Union, a Government for the whole is indispensable. No alliances, however strict, between the parts can be an adequate substitute; they must inevitably experience the infractions and interruptions, which all alliances in all times have experienced. Sensible of this momentous truth, you have improved upon your first essay, by the adoption of a Constitution of Government better calculated than your former for an intimate Union, and for the efficacious management of your common concerns... The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their Constitutions of Government. But the Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish Government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established Government."

"Sometimes anti-Autistic propaganda is set forth by groups that purport to assist people. For example, the charity Autism Speaks promotes the Tragedy Model of Autism, which is the idea that a diagnosis of autism means certain, unbearable, financial and emotional hardship for the family of the Autistic. A promotional video called “Autism Every Day” includes former executive vice president of Autism Speaks, Alison Tepper Singer, voicing her fantasy to drive her daughter and herself off of the George Washington Bridge. ..."

"Reuters routinely buries information that would badly damage the reputation of US allies in the Americas. Whether those allies are bureaucrats from the Organization of American States and the dictatorship they helped install in Bolivia (FAIR.org, 12/17/19), violent protesters in Nicaragua (FAIR.org, 8/23/18) or Venezuelan politicians who support lethal US sanctions on their own country (FAIR.org, 6/14/19), the London-based news service can be counted on to cover for them. In the case of Ecuador, a servile US ally since President Lenín Moreno took office in 2017, Reuters has ignored efforts to prevent Moreno’s strongest opponents from participating in the presidential and legislative elections scheduled for 2021."

"Why would the US government care so much about such a seemingly innocuous app? The reasons for Trump’s rage are at once comical and frightening. On the one hand, Trump has found what might appear to be a random media issue to deflect from his various problems (plummeting poll numbers, rising Covid cases, slumping economy), a phenomenon that lends itself to ribbing from satirists and talkshow hosts. But the deeper problem is that he is leveraging his executive position to fight and try to take control of a media group with the excuse of its being foreign, which is both a threat to free speech and free press, and adds to his administration’s pugnacious Sinophobia... The reason he has fixated on TikTok, it seems clear, is because of its reported use by young online activists to organize spurious reservations to his Tulsa rally—contributing to his humiliation when the sparse attendance failed to match his boastful expectations. Trump’s use of the power of the federal government to punish media outlets he perceives as having crossed him is part of a disturbing pattern of contempt for the First Amendment’s protection of the press..."

"In order to have a legal arrest, you need probable cause to believe that the person committed a crime. And these snatches, by unidentified federal officials in unmarked vehicles, snatching peaceful protesters off the streets, transporting them to unknown locations without informing them of why they’re being arrested, and later releasing them with no record of their arrest, violates the law. And this “proactive” arrest that the Department of Homeland Security is intending to carry out, violates the Fourth Amendment, which requires that, as I said, an arrest be supported by probable cause.... There is nothing in the law that allows “proactive arrest.”"

"It’s the power of the people, and people are in the streets—hundreds of thousands of people in the streets in US cities, and in cities around the world—in support of the Movement for Black Lives, and against police brutality... we can’t rely on the legal system, but it’s a tool that we have to use... my organization, the National Lawyers Guild, is front and center in the middle of legal defense for the protesters... to witness what the police are doing... they have been the target of police brutality and violence... there is an ACLU lawsuit... asking for an injunction against these federal agents targeting legal observers, and targeting journalists as well, because the last thing in the world that the Trump administration and his goons want are witnesses, are media that are witnessing what’s happening... there are lawsuits being filed in support of the real power, and that is the power of the people."

"Whatever inflammatory rhetoric North Korean officials may or may not use in the face of perceived attacks on the country, journalists ought to remind their audiences that North Korean government officials are no more suicidal than any other country’s leaders."

"Despite the fact that the anonymous accusations were far from proven, and that both the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal included categorical denials from all those involved, including the White House, the Taliban and Moscow, much of corporate media treated the story as an established fact."

"In their zeal to once again expose Trump as an all-around bad man, corporate media have elevated someone who should be condemned by a civilized society."

"Election Focus 2020: The obvious questions the endorsement raises are how it might influence Biden’s military policy, and perhaps whether such an endorsement would be demotivating for antiwar voters in Biden’s voter base."

"The New York Times purported to explain how the Taliban managed to “outlast a superpower through nearly 19 years of grinding war,” without examining at all how the US contributed to reviving and sustaining the Taliban insurgency."

"After Curfew, Detroit Police Act Aggressively to Disperse Protesters Who Refused to Leave” (Detroit Free Press, 5/31/20) “Minneapolis Officers Use More Aggressive Tactics Against Protesters as Rallies Flare Around US” (NBC News, 5/31/20) “An Agitated Trump Encourages Governors to Use Aggressive Tactics on Protesters” (CNN, 6/1/20)“An “Police Turn More Aggressive Against Protesters and Bystanders Alike, Adding to Disorder” (Washington Post, 5/31/20) “After Curfew, Protesters Are Again Met With Strong Police Response in New York City” (New York Times, 6/4/20)..."

"More people are coming to consider that racist policing cannot be ‘reformed’ with an occasional lawsuit and some implicit-bias classes."

"It’s easy enough to find reporting in major US news outlets describing the hardships many Americans are facing. But lamenting inequality is one thing, and acknowledging—or, God forbid, highlighting—efforts to rectify it are very much another for corporate media."

"It’s critically important that media provide accurate reporting on what our governments are choosing to do, and what price we are likely to pay for their choices. Instead, Newsweek is giving us the latest fashion reports on the emperor’s new clothes."

"In addition to whitewashing Áñez, corporate journalists have sought to sanitize the image of the figure widely considered to be the real force behind the coup: Christian fundamentalist multimillionaire Luis Fernando Camacho."

"Camacho is quite literally a fascist who got his political start in the sieg-heiling Santa Cruz Youth Union, an ultra-right paramilitary outfit that was instrumental in the Santa Cruz oligarchy’s 2008 US-backed secessionist plot which ultimately failed."

"But none of this appears to matter to the Western media, which have portrayed Camacho as a “conservative protest leader” (BBC, 11/13/19), “a firebrand Christian” (Financial Times, 11/12/19) and a “civic leader” (Reuters, 11/7/19)."

"WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange should never have been punished for working with a whistleblower to expose war crimes.... The material exposed atrocities perpetrated by the US military, as well as other disgraceful acts—like US diplomats strategizing on how to undermine elected governments out of favor with Washington, spying on official US allies and bullying poor countries into paying wildly exorbitant prices for life-saving drugs... The point of journalism is to expose horrific crimes like this so that the powerful people who order them pay legal consequences, not the ones who expose them."

"...We live in a society where some people have a great deal of power, and most people have very little. And that this works out well for the few and not so well for the many. This plays out in the political realm with the few using their power to support candidates who would maintain that power. In the past..[news] outlets told us very little about which candidates were beholden to whose interests,,, ensuring that few people outside the donor class were aware of who was doing the donating. A funny thing happened in the 21st century: The development of digital technologies made it much cheaper to create and distribute information... this ability allows us to have conversations about politics that we’ve always needed and never have had until now... These discussions of candidates’ financial and policy histories can look like negativity—because it’s seldom good news when a line can be drawn between where politicians gets their resources and how they do their jobs. But the possibility of picking nominees based on who can best serve the interests of voters rather than donors is really one of the most positive developments in modern politics."

"Though it was not their intention, Ilhan Omar’s critics did her a favor: They proved the very point she made at the Progressive Issues Town Hall at Busboys and Poets bookstore in Washington, DC, last week. ...Omar’s points: The United States’ allegiance to Israel, right or wrong, is unwavering, and any questioning of Israeli policy and the Palestinian plight is “unacceptable” and will be linked to antisemitism in order to squash debate... Journalists wore their bias on their sleeve. At the Washington Post (3/4/19), Dana Milbank likened Omar’s bigotry to that of Donald Trump, accusing her of “using President Trump’s playbook.” And Henry Olson, who (3/4/19) likened her to Rep. Steve King (R.-Iowa), the congressmember who embraces white nationalism, demanded that Omar be punished even if she had done nothing wrong..."

"It’s vital to have a discussion of such abuses, backed by $3 billion in annual US military aid to Israel. Instead, we got another debate on how to label Ilhan Omar. Which was exactly her point."

"International opinion largely opposes Donald Trump’s current and threatened intervention in Venezuela, but that’s not the impression you get US corporate news media, who appear to be all-in with Trump’s push for the ouster of democratically elected President Nicolás Maduro... In reality, 75 percent of the world’s countries reject the US anointing of Juan Guaidó—whom most Venezuelans hadn’t heard of when Trump declared him their leader. And the UN has formally condemned US sanctions on Venezuela, which a special rapporteur compared to a “medieval siege.”...Corporate media’s fealty to the idea that the United States has the right if not the duty to overthrow other countries’ leadership to suit our—some of our—interests doesn’t begin and end with Venezuela. But the history of coverage of the country is especially illustrative of what it looks like when elite media work strenuously to maintain the storyline on an “official enemy.”"

"While the New York Times has been sandbagging Sen. Bernie Sanders (Ind.–Vermont) for years (Rolling Stone, 3/15/16), last weekend’s headline: “Bernie Sanders Is Making Changes for 2020, but His Desire for Control Remains” (3/1/19) is a particularly overt example... Unless one reads past the headline, which most Americans don’t, one is left wondering about what exactly Sanders desires to “control.” Is it the country? The media? When one actually digs into the Times’ article, written by Sydney Ember and Jonathan Martin, one quickly discovers that what Sanders desires to control is his own campaign, and that his oppressed victims were his highly paid media consultants, who quit because Sanders was “not willing to empower them.” Left unreported by the Times were statements by the consultants themselves (CNBC, 2/26/19) claiming that they were leaving on a “very positive note” over “differences in a creative vision,” and that they would be happy to assist his campaign again in the future. In the Times version, instead, we’re given anonymous sources described as “Democrats directly familiar with the episode” who give the impression the consultants were “enraged” over their “humiliation.”"

"Abrams’ public record in Latin America and elsewhere, as an official under Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, ought to be central in any reporting on his current Venezuelan adventure. But it only really got on media’s front burner when Abrams’ was confronted with it by Rep. Ilhan Omar in a House Foreign Affairs Committee meeting, an exchange then subsumed in media’s “Hot Controversy of the Day” framework. After the exchange with Representative Omar, Elliott Abrams sent a message to the Washington Post that described his role in the Reagan administration, saying, “It’s a remarkable record of support for Latin democracy, of which Representative Omar is obviously unaware and in which she is uninterested.” And he added, “That was clear from her conduct, which constituted attacking rather than questioning a witness.” The idea that Omar was speaking from ignorance—set aside her purported incivility as the conduct with which we should be concerned—but the idea that she was factually wrong, that she doesn’t know her history; for reporters to let that stand, as if to say, “who’s right depends on who you like”—it feels like an abdication of duty."

"...1995. Abrams was on the Charlie Rose Show with Allan Nairn, who is one of the best and most knowledgeable reporters about US foreign policy. And Nairn said that George Bush I—this was, again, 1995—had talked about putting Saddam Hussein on trial for crimes against humanity. And Nairn said, like, “That’s a good idea, but if you’re serious, you’re going to have to be even-handed, and so you’re going to have to prosecute people like this guy that I’m on the show with, Elliott Abrams.” And Elliott Abrams found this idea preposterous, and chuckled about it, and said, like, “Well, you know, if you want to do that, that would mean putting all the American officials who won the Cold War in the dock.” And that actually is a pretty fair point from Abrams. It’s not like he somehow fooled Ronald Reagan, that he fooled George W. Bush. I mean, they knew what he was doing. He was doing what they wanted him to do. And this is US foreign policy; this is what it’s like. There are doves and there are hawks, but the difference between them is not that great. And if you were going to put the hawks on trial, if you’re going to be honest about it, you’re going to have to put a lot of the doves there, too."

"...viral video company... In the Now, was taken off Facebook because of its indirect connection to the Russian government... The Facebook page of Voice of America, the US government’s main broadcast outlet... doesn’t seem to be any acknowledgement at all that VoA is connected to the US government—just the slogan, “The news may be good or bad. We shall tell you the truth”...” If you’re thinking that Facebook—90 percent of whose customers are not in the United States—should treat Russian-backed outlets differently than US-backed outlets because the US supports peace and democracy, or doesn’t use social media to try to manipulate other nations…. Well, this is why it’s important to get your information from a variety of sources."

"But it’s not just US outlets that get to conceal their government funding on Facebook. The BBC doesn’t mention that it’s controlled and funded by the British government—only that its “mission is to enrich your life. To inform, educate and entertain.” At Al Jazeera English’s Facebook page, you learn, “We are the voice of the voiceless”—not that they are owned by the monarchy of Qatar. *Facebook needs to have one rule for whether government-funded outlets need to disclose their connections. And it needs to apply that rule consistently."

"Alfred de Zayas, the first UN special rapporteur to visit Venezuela in 21 years, told the Independent (1/26/19) that US, Canadian and European Union “economic warfare” has killed Venezuelans, noting that the sanctions fall most heavily on the poorest people and demonstrably cause death through food and medicine shortages, lead to violations of human rights and are aimed at coercing economic change in a “sister democracy.” ...Given that de Zayas is the first UN special rapporteur to report on Venezuela in more than two decades, one might expect the media to regard his findings as an important part of the Venezuela narrative, but his name does not appear in a single article ever published in the Post; the Times has mentioned him once, but not in relation to Venezuela. Sanctions have kept the Venezuelan government from accessing financing and dealing with its debt while hamstringing its most important industry. Given that US media are writing for a principally US audience, the damage done by Washington and its partners’ sanctions should be front and center in their coverage. Exactly the opposite is the case. Thus, the US government acknowledges that it is knowingly, consciously driving the Venezuelan economy into the ground, but US media make no such acknowledgment, which sends the message that the problems in Venezuela are entirely the fault of the government, and that the US is a neutral arbiter that wants to help Venezuelans. Call this elision what it is: war propaganda."

"The Trump administration in April began enforcing a “zero-tolerance” immigration policy that has resulted in thousands of immigrant children being separated from their families. On June 18, ProPublica released an audio recording from inside a Border Patrol detention facility; children separated from parents and family members could be heard crying in the background, while a six-year-old girl from El Salvador begged for someone to let her call her aunt. The recording reminded the public of the undeniable reality that immigration policy has deep and lasting effects on actual people. However, as corporate media dove into this story, the voices of those impacted most by immigration policy were drowned out by soundbites from congress members and Trump administration officials... The few immigrants and civil rights advocates who were cited often expressed the crucial point that those coming into the United States are generally trying to escape imminent violence or political instability... Corporate TV news programs amplified the voices of the federal government while neglecting to show the lives and tell the stories of those affected by federal policy. The programs framed the story as whether or not families who try to cross the US/Mexico border should be separated, rather than exploring the causes and consequences of the current situation. In their coverage, the lived experiences of these immigrants are reduced to leverage for US politicians."

"In major-paper opinion coverage of the Singapore summit, the people with the most to lose and gain from the summit, the people whose nation was actually being discussed—Koreans—were almost uniformly ignored. Three major US papers—the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal—had only one Korean-authored op-ed out of 41 opinion pieces on the subject of the Korean peace talks.... The Post had 23 total opinion pieces, the Times had 16 and the Journal four. The only op-ed by a Korean was a pro-summit piece on June 12 by Moon Chung-in, an aide to South Korean President Moon Jae-in. Of the 41 editorials or op-eds only four (9 percent), were broadly positive about the Trump/Kim summit, 29 (70 percent) were negative and eight (21 percent) were mixed or ambiguous. The full list, current as of June 19, is here.... As FAIR noted in May (5/7/18), there’s a huge chasm between how recent peace efforts are being received in ostensible US ally South Korea and how they’re being covered in US media."

"The three most prominent US newspapers haven’t run a critical investigative piece on Jeff Bezos’ company Amazon in almost two years, a FAIR survey finds. A review of 190 articles from the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and the Bezos-owned Washington Post over the past year paints a picture of almost uniformly uncritical–ofttimes boosterish–coverage. None of the articles were investigative exposes, 6 percent leaned negative, 54 percent were straight reporting or neutral in tone, and 40 percent were positive, mostly with a fawning or even press release–like tone."

"The menacing threat has been repeated endlessly in U.S. corporate media in recent years: Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called for Israel to be “wiped off the map.” “Iran,” “Israel” and “wipe” in one form or another occur together in more than 17,000 articles in the Nexis news database over the last seven years. It plays a critical role in the case for pre-emptive war against Iran. There’s just one problem: It never happened."

"The New York Times reports: “Israelis May Have Committed Crimes Against Humanity in Gaza Protests, U.N. says.... Israeli security forces committed serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law,” Santiago Canton, the head of the United Nations independent commission of inquiry, stated on Thursday. “These violations clearly warrant criminal investigation and prosecution,” he added."

"Daniel Ellsberg exposed the Pentagon Papers. He just released a statement regarding Chelsea Manning, who was jailed Friday by the U.S. government for refusing to comply with a subpoena to testify in front of a grand jury believed to be investigating WikiLeaks’s publishing activities. Manning revealed information that WikiLeaks made public, including the “Collateral Murder” video: collateralmurder.wikileaks.org. “Chelsea Manning is again acting heroically in the name of press freedom, and it’s a travesty that she has been sent back to jail for refusing to testify to a grand jury. An investigation into WikiLeaks for publishing is a grave threat to all journalists’ rights, and Chelsea is doing us all a service for fighting it. She has already been tortured, spent years in jail, and has suffered more than enough. She should be released immediately.”"

"The Center for Economic and Policy Research just released an investigation... summarizes the findings: “The seven U.S.-based security contractors arrested in Port-au-Prince last month have ties to Haitian elites and politicians.” The investigation raises questions about why the U.S. government “broke with diplomatic procedures in getting the contractors — who were arrested a few blocks from the Central Bank with an array of weapons and driving in unmarked vehicles — out of Haiti, and why they have yet to be charged with any crimes in either the U.S. or Haiti."

"You should have stood up for me. I am a son of your people. I’m one of you. And I’ve expressed a slightly out-of-normal-position political opinion, and you’ve thrown me by the wayside for it. And that is why your system will fail."

"He was fired from Holy Cross immediately after his affiliation with the "alt-right" came to my attention. Prior to his firing, he was successfully using an alternate identity in his work with this atrocious group. As for his potential impact on our girls, I conducted an investigation at the time of his firing and determined there was no reason to think that he negatively influenced any of our girls with his philosophy."

"The War Resisters League affirms that all war is a crime against humanity. We therefore are determined not to support any kind of war, international or civil, and to strive nonviolently for the removal of the causes of war, including racism, sexism, and all forms of human exploitation."

"When educator Jesse Wallace Hughan founded the War Resisters League in 1923 in the wake of WWI, her focus was on ending armed conflict. Ninety-five years later, the WRL is still resisting war, but its core strategies have changed. Today’s WRL is zeroing in on underlying causes of military tension—including economic inequality, unequal access to resources, imperialism, and racism. “We’re acknowledging the many ways militarization shows up in our lives and neighborhoods,” Tory Smith... explains. Smith describes the reorientation as a cultural shift: “we want to be intersectional, international, and intergenerational.” Raul Ramos, explains that the group’s current focus is on youth and other “frontline” communities—the people most impacted by military spending, as well as on the growing militarization of law enforcement agencies and police violence. This is in addition to the WRL’s signature work: training activists in nonviolent resistance and countering military recruitment in high schools. What’s more, its No SWAT Zone program opposes trainings and sales of military equipment to police forces throughout the country. More recently, the group has begun to address ways war has changed from ground combat to aerial bombings, and how that impacts civilians. Lastly, WRL’s “Forgotten Wars” project spotlights conflicts that have fallen off the radar of mainstream media."

"Contemporary concerns include how militarism propagates racism, patriarchy, sexism, and homophobia, issues that newer staff see as intertwined. The WRL wants its reach to be as broad as possible, which is why staff and supporters have met with people living in conflict zones throughout the world. For example, in 2016 a group of U.S.-based anti-war activists originally from southwest Asia and North Africa traveled with WRL support to Greece and spent a month working with Afghani and Syrian refugees, interviewing them and subsequently sharing their stories with domestic audiences. Closer to home, the group’s No SWAT Zone campaign has, for the past four years, addressed the nexus between police violence and police militarization. “The SWAT trainings always include more than 200 vendors who want to sell equipment to police forces in our communities. They are often the same people who sell bombs for use abroad,” Smith says. WRL has worked hard to expose the connection between militarizing the police and police violence. One of the biggest trainings, called Urban Shield, takes place in the San Francisco Bay area. “We’ve worked hard to connect militarism to police brutality and violence,” Smith says. “We did a lot of the background research to identify Islamophobic speakers and hate groups that play a role in these gatherings.” The effort paid off. This year, The Stop Urban Shield Coalition pushed the host city, Richmond, California, to deny Urban Shield a meeting place."

"The Institute of the Black World is a gathering of black intellectuals who are convinced that the gifts of their minds are meant to be fully used in the service of the black community."

"This scheme had no sooner been propagated, than the old and leading colored men of Philadelphia, Pa., with Richard Allen, James Forten, and others at their head, true to their trust and the cause of their brethren, summoned the colored people together, and then and there, in language and with voices pointed and loud, protested against the scheme as an outrage, having no other object in view, than the benefit of the slave-holding interests of the country"

"The American Negro Academy believes that upon those of the race who have had the advantage of higher education and culture, rests the responsibility of taking concerted steps for the employment of these agencies to uplift the race to higher planes of thought and action"

"During the last two decades of the nineteenth century black Americans experienced a relentless attack on their social, political, and economic rights. This resulted in a decline the their status throughout the United States and especially in the South, where slightly less than 90 percent of them lived. Beginning in 1890, measures designed to disfranchise blacks began to be written into the constitutions of southern states; and, by 1910, most blacks had been eliminated as voters. It was in this same period that racial segregation, or Jim Crow ideas, began to be translated into law and steadily extended to all areas of life in the South."

"By the mid-1880s blacks of all classes, in the North as well as the South, were coming to feel that the intense and implacable hostility of whites left them no alternative but to accept a separate existence apart from the larger American community. Many continued to protest and agitate for all their rights as citizens, but the impossibility of halting their exclusion had to be acknowledged. Confronted with this situation black Americans began to pour their energies into the creation of cultural, welfare, religious, educational, economic, and social institutions that would be counterparts to the ones from which whites barred them."

"The most general statement of our politics at the present time would be that we are actively committed to struggling against racial, sexual, heterosexual, and class oppression, and see as our particular task the development of integrated analysis and practice based upon the fact that the major systems of oppression are interlocking. The synthesis of these oppressions creates the conditions of our lives. As Black women, we see Black feminism as the logical political movement to combat the manifold and simultaneous oppressions that all women of color face."

"Although we are feminists and Lesbians, we feel solidarity with progressive Black men and do not advocate the fractionalization that white women who are separatists demand. Our situation as Black people necessitates that we have solidarity around the fact of race, which white women of course do not need to have with white men, unless it is their negative solidarity as racial oppressors. We struggle together with Black men against racism, while we also struggle with Black men about sexism."

"Liberation of all oppressed peoples necessitates the destruction of the political-economic systems of capitalism and imperialism as well as patriarchy. We are socialists because we believe that work must be organized for the collective benefit of those who do the work and create the products, and not for the profit of the bosses. Material resources must be equally distributed among those who create these resources. We are not convinced, however, that a socialist revolution that is not also a feminist and anti-racist revolution will guarantee our liberation."

"If Black women were free, it would mean that everyone else would have to be free since our freedom would necessitate the destruction of all the systems of oppression."

"We discussed the ways in which our early intellectual interests had been attacked by our peers, particularly Black males. We discovered that all of us, because we were "smart" had also been considered "ugly," i.e., "smart-ugly." "Smart-ugly" crystallized the way in which most of us had been forced to develop our intellects at great cost to our "social" lives. The sanctions In the Black and white communities against Black women thinkers is comparatively much higher than for white women, particularly ones from the educated middle and upper classes."

"Many Black women have a good understanding of both sexism and racism, but because of the everyday constrictions of their lives, cannot risk struggling against them both."

"Accusations that Black feminism divides the Black struggle are powerful deterrents to the growth of an autonomous Black women's movement."

"As Black feminists we are made constantly and painfully aware of how little effort white women have made to understand and combat their racism, which requires among other things that they have a more than superficial comprehension of race, color, and Black history and culture. Eliminating racism in the white women's movement is by definition work for white women to do, but we will continue to speak to and demand accountability on this issue."

"I. June 1967 F. Therapeutic Abortion ....This report is addressed only to the medical aspects of therapeutic abortion. It is in no way related or intended to cope with the problem of criminal abortion. The Committee believes that the frequency of criminal abortions would not be reduced at all if the recommendations contained in this report were implemented on a national scale. The Committee on Human Reproduction is unequivocally opposed to any relaxation of the criminal abortion statutes.... Conclusions The Committee on Human Reproduction is of the opinion that the American Medical Association should have a policy statement on therapeutic abortion in keeping with modern scientific knowledge and medical practice. The Committee realizes, however, that no policy by the AMA on this subject will prove to be acceptable to all physicians. There are some practitioners who honestly believe that there are no circumstances which warrant therapeutic abortion. There are also those equally conscientious physicians who believe that all women should be masters of their own reproductive destinies and that the interruption of an unwanted pregnancy, no matter what the circumstances, should be solely an individual matter between the patient and her doctor."

"The policy which the Committee advocates is designed to afford ethical physicians the right to exercise their sound medical judgment concerning therapeutic abortion just as they do in reaching any other medical decision. The Committee on Human Reproduction is aware that one major religious group opposes abortion under any circumstances. The Committee respects the right of this group to express and practice its belief. However, the Committee believes that physicians who hold other views should be legally able to exercise sound medical judgment which they and their colleagues feel to be in the best interest of the patient. In making recommendations on this subject, the Committee does not intend to raise the question of rightness or wrongness of therapeutic abortion. This is a personal and moral consideration which in all cases must be faced according to the dictates of the conscience of the patient and her physician...."

"Physicians’ and pharmacists’ first and foremost ethical obligation in situations of epidemic, disaster or terrorism is to provide urgent medical care and ensure availability and appropriate use of necessary medications. This requires close coordination with the entire health care team to help ensure patients receive the testing, treatments, follow-up care and medications they need. We applaud the innumerable selfless acts by health care professionals across the nation who are putting themselves in harm’s way to provide care to America’s patients."

"We are issuing this joint statement to highlight the important role that physicians, pharmacists and health systems play in being just stewards of health care resources during times of emergency and national disaster. We are aware that some physicians and others are prophylactically prescribing medications currently identified as potential treatments for COVID-19 (e.g., or hydroxychloroquine, ) for themselves, their families, or their colleagues; and that some pharmacies and hospitals have been purchasing excessive amounts of these medications in anticipation of potentially using them for COVID-19 prevention and treatment. We strongly oppose these actions. At the same time, we caution hospitals, health systems, and individual practitioners that no medication has been FDA-approved for use in COVID-19 patients, and there is no incontrovertible evidence to support of medications for COVID-19. Stockpiling these medications—or depleting supplies with excessive, anticipatory orders—can have grave consequences for patients with conditions such as or if the drugs are not available in the community. The health care community must collectively balance the needs of patients taking medications on a regular basis for an existing condition with new prescriptions that may be needed for patients diagnosed with COVID-19. Being just stewards of limited resources is essential."

"We are further concerned by the confusion that may result from various state government agencies and boards issuing emergency rules limiting or restricting access to chloroquine, hydroxychloroquine or other emerging therapies or requiring new procedures for physicians and other healthcare professionals and patients. If these bodies promulgate new rules, we urge that they emphasize professional responsibility and leave room for professional judgment. We further urge that patients already on these medications should not be impacted by new laws, rules or other guidance. In a time of national pandemic, now is not the time for states to issue conflicting guidance, however well-intentioned, that could lead to unintended consequences."

"We applaud the ongoing efforts to conduct to conduct clinical trials and generate evidence related to these and other medications during a time of pandemic. We are also encouraged that some pharmaceutical manufacturers are increasing production of high-demand medications as well as supplying them for use in clinical trials. The nation’s physicians and pharmacists continue to demonstrate remarkable leadership on a daily basis. We are confident in physicians’ and pharmacists’ judgment to make the right decisions for their patients, communities and the health care system overall."

"During the period from 1840 to 1880, abortion became much more widely practiced and visible than it had been before, chiefly among upper-class Protestant women. During this same period, doctors-particularly through the newly formed American Medical Association-came to dominate the process of abortion legislation in a virtual crusade to outlaw the practice at all stages of pregnancy. The doctors’ rallying cry was a moral claim about fetal life, which perhaps stemmed from their knowledge that the quickening distinction had no basis in science. The motivations behind the physicians crusade, though, surely were more numerous and probably included: the desire to eliminate their nonprofessional competition; the drive to develop a legal code of ethics to further the process of professionalization; the desire to attain status as an important policymaking group; the desire to promote racial purity by fighting the increase in abortion among wealthy, white women; and the tendency to perpetuate a paternalistic social order that pushed women into the childbearing role. The latter two goals likely resulted simply from physicians being members of a society and class that shared certain views of women and minorities."

"The American Medical Association (AMA) was established in 1847 and began organizing opposition to lay healers and herbalists who provided medical care. Herbalists competed with physicians for patients and were believed by the physicians to be incompetent."

"Abortion was an expedient way to frame their campaign to create monopolies on women’s bodies for male doctors. The American Medical Association explicitly contributed to this cause through its exclusion of women and Black people. Today, as people debate whether anti-abortion platforms benefit Black women, the clear answer is no. The U.S. leads the developed world in maternal and infant mortality. The U.S. ranks around 50th in the world for maternal safety. Nationally, for Black women, the maternal death rate is nearly four times that of white women, and 10 to 17 times worse in some states."

"To better understand racial injustice in the anti-abortion movement, remember that American hospitals barred the admission of African Americans both in terms of practice and as patients. And, the American Medical Association (AMA) barred women and Black people from membership. The AMA, founded in 1847, refused to admit Black doctors, informing them, “You come from groups and schools that admit women and that admit irregular practitioners.” For this reason, Black doctors formed the National Medical Association in 1895."

"The development of nineteenth century medical ethics seems to parallel the legal principles of Blackstone. Very influential during the early nineteenth century was Thomas Percival's Medical Ethics in which the following was written: "To extinguish the first spark of life is a crime of the same nature, both against our maker and society, as to destroy an infant, a child, or a man. '" These views explain in part the condemnation of abortion as the destruction of "human life" by the American Medical Association at its 1859 annual meeting."

"When the medical establishment undertook a campaign against abortion in the second half of the nineteenth century, its very vehemence served as a further indication of the prevalence of illegal abortions. In 1857 the American medical Association (AMA) initiated a formal investigation of the frequency of abortion. Seven years later the AMA offered a prize for the best popular antiabortion tract. Medical attacks on abortion grew in number and virulence until, by the 1870s, both professional and popular journals were virtually saturated with the issue. Physicians bemoaned the widespread lay acceptance of abortion before quickening; in order to break that sympathy, they adopted a new vocabulary that described abortion in terms designed to shock and repel, such as “antenatal infanticide.” Physicians attempted to frighten women away from abortion by emphasizing its dangers. Their common assertion that there was “no” safe abortion may have betrayed ignorance, but more likely it was an exaggeration justified by what they believed was a higher moral purpose. Yet occasionally even antiabortion doctors allowed the truth to slip out, revealing despite themselves why their campaign remained ineffective. It is such a simple and comparatively safe matter for a skillful and aseptic operator to interrupt an undesirable pregnancy at an early date,” wrote Dr. A. L. Benedict of Buffalo, New York, an opponent of abortion, “That the natural temptation is to comply with the request."

"The American Medical Association, which played a central role in the criminalization of abortion in the 19th century, began reconsidering its position in the mid-1960s. Its first steps were tentative, as shown by the policy statement adopted by the organization’s House of Delegates at its annual meeting in June 1967. The delegates adopted a proposal for therapeutic abortion that followed the American Law Institute’s Model Penal Code. The recommendation and its accompanying report made clear that the delegates envisioned nothing more than a modest step that would apply to “an occasional obstetric patient.” The report disavowed any effort to loosen the legal restrictions on abortions that lacked therapeutic indications, noting that “the Committee on Human Reproduction is unequivocally opposed to any relaxation of the criminal abortion statutes....” The report also acknowledged strong opposition from Catholic members to any relaxation of abortion restrictions. The tone of the AMA’s next effort, a new policy adopted at the June 1970 annual meeting, is very different. The organization was now willing to leave the abortion question to the “sound clinical judgment” of its members, without the definitional strictures of the earlier policy. Taken together, the two documents present a portrait of a profession—like the society it served—on the cusp of change. Justice Harry A. Blackmun had both documents, in manuscript form, in his file when he was working on his opinion in Roe v. Wade, with check marks indicating that he read them closely."

"Evidence of American standards of medical practice respecting induced abortion is found in the policy statements of professional organizations. Both the American Medical Association and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists have set standards of professional practice in recent years. ACOG policy sanctions therapeutic and elective abortion “to safeguard the patient’s health or improve her family life situation.” ACOG recognizes that “abortion may be performed at the patient’s request....” A very similar position was taken by the American Medical Association. The AMA at one time had followed the A.L.I. model, listing four or five vaguely defined situations for sanctioned abortion. This proved unworkable, and the policy was changed in order not to limit the physicians’ traditional responsibility for evaluating “the merits of each individual case....”"

"At the Founding and until 1821, when Connecticut passed a law criminalizing abortion, abortion was legal throughout the United States if performed before quickening. In the mid-nineteenth century, however, doctors establishing the American Medical Association (AMA) led a campaign to criminalize abortion, except when necessary to save a pregnant woman’s life, and by the century’s end, all states banned abortion and subjected contraception to a variety of criminal sanctions. By the mid-twentieth century, the tide began to shift again. In the late 1950s, a group of professionals—primarily lawyers, doctors, and clergy—began to question whether abortion ought to be prohibited in all cases. Just as nineteenth-century advocates for criminalizing access to abortion had appealed to medical authority, so, too, did twentieth-century advocates for liberalizing access to abortion. Soon others joined the cause of reform—and by the 1960s, Americans were debating abortion as a problem concerning poverty, population control, sexual freedom, and women’s equal citizenship. These new ways of talking about abortion were of sufficient persuasive power that states haltingly began to enact legislation that allowed women lawful access to the procedure in certain tightly prescribed circumstances. With the meaning and justifications for liberalizing access to abortion in flux, public support for reform rapidly grew."

"Abortion itself only became a serious criminal offense in the period between 1860 and 1880. And the criminalization of abortion did not result from moral outrage. The roots of the new law came from the newly established physicians’ trade organization, the American Medical Association. Doctors decided that abortion practitioners were unwanted competition and went about eliminating that competition. The Catholic Church joined the doctors in condemning the practice. By the turn of the century, all states had laws against abortion, but for the most part they were rarely enforced and women with money had no problem terminating pregnancies if they wished. It wasn’t until the late 1930s that abortion laws were enforced. Subsequent crackdowns led to a reform movement that succeeded in lifting abortion restrictions in California and New York even before the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade."

"Until the late 19th century, abortion was legal in the United States before “quickening,” the point at which a woman could first feel movements of the fetus, typically around the fourth month of pregnancy. Some of the early regulations related to abortion were enacted in the 1820s and 1830s and dealt with the sale of dangerous drugs that women used to induce abortions. Despite these regulations and the fact that the drugs sometimes proved fatal to women, they continued to be advertised and sold. In the late 1850s, the newly established American Medical Association began calling for the criminalization of abortion, partly in an effort to eliminate doctors’ competitors such as midwives and homeopaths. Additionally, some nativists, alarmed by the country’s growing population of immigrants, were anti-abortion because they feared declining birth rates among white, American-born, Protestant women. In 1869, the Catholic Church banned abortion at any stage of pregnancy, while in 1873, Congress passed the Comstock law, which made it illegal to distribute contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs through the U.S. mail. By the 1880s, abortion was outlawed across most of the country."

"Blackmun noted that the anti-abortion mood in the “late” nineteenth century was shared by the medical profession and that “the attitude of the profession may have played a significant role in the enactment of stringent criminal abortion legislation during that period.” He observed that the American Medical Association (AMA) appointed a Committee on Criminal Abortion in 1857 which in its report two years later deplored abortion and its frequency which it felt was due, first, to a wide- spread belief that the fetus was not alive until quickening; second, to the fact that doctors themselves were often supposed to be careless of fetal life; and, third, to the “grave defects” of both common and statute laws in recognizing the fetus and its inherent rights for civil purposes but in failing to recognize it, and denying it all protection, when “personally and as criminally affected.” He added that the AMA adopted its committee’s resolutions which protested against “such unwarrantable destruction of human life” and which called upon state legislatures to tighten their abortion laws."

"“Nineteenth-century abortion restrictions sought to promote objectives that are today plainly either inapplicable or constitutionally impermissible.” A major source relied on by the Brief to support this proposition was Professor James Mohr’s Abortion in America.52 Since its publication in 1978 this has been widely regarded as the leading work on the statutory restriction of the abortion law in nineteenth century America (though, as we shall see below, it has been subjected to serious criticism, not least by Professor Dellapenna’s recent book Dispelling the Myths of Abortion History.)53 Quoting Mohr the Brief stated, accurately, that between 1850 and 1880 the American Medical Association (AMA) became the “single most important factor in altering the legal policies toward abortion in this country.” It then stated, inaccurately, that the anti-abortion legislation enacted in the nineteenth century did not have fetal protection as even one of its purposes. The four purposes alleged by the Brief were as follows: * “From 1820 -1860, abortion regulation in the states rejected broader English restrictions and sought to protect women from particularly dangerous forms of abortion.” * “From the mid-nineteenth century, a central purpose of abortion regulation was to define who should be allowed to control medical practice.” * “Enforcement of sharply-differentiated concepts of the roles and choices of men and women underlay regulation of abortion and contraception in the nineteenth century.” * “Nineteenth-century contraception and abortion regulation also reflected ethnocentric fears about the relative birthrates of immigrants and Yankee Protestants.”"

"Notwithstanding involvement on the part of Catholic and Protestant clergy and others, physicians were the leading force in the campaign to criminalize abortion in the USA. The American Medical Association (AMA), founded in 1847, argued that abortion was both immoral and dangerous, given the incompetence of many practitioners at that time. According to a number of scholars, the AMA’s drive against abortion formed part of a larger and ultimately successful strategy that sought to put “regular” or university-trained physicians in a position of professional dominance over the wide range of “irregular” clinicians who practiced freely during the first half of the 19th century. What followed was a “century of criminalization” characterized by a widespread culture of illegal abortion provision. Thousands of women died or sustained serious injuries at the hands of the infamous “back alley butchers” of that period, and encountering these victims in hospital emergency rooms became a nearly universal experience for US medical residents. However, safe abortions were available to some women, performed by highly skilled laypersons and physicians with successful mainstream practices who were motivated primarily by the desperate situations of their patients. These “physicians of conscience” were instrumental in convincing their medical colleagues of the necessity to decriminalize abortion. By 1970, the AMA reversed its earlier stance and called for the legalization of abortion."

"The Means–Blackmun narrative’s claim that protection of unborn children played no part in the enactment of increasingly restrictive 19th-century abortion laws blatantly defies a clear historical record. At its May 1859 meeting, for example, the American Medical Association (AMA) heard a report that rejected the “mistaken and exploded medical dogma” that the unborn child has no “independent and actual existence...as a living being.” The AMA unanimously adopted a resolution that condemned the “unwarrantable destruction of human life”38 and “the slaughter of countless children” and sought “the zealous co-operation of the various state Medical Societies” in pressing for laws prohibiting abortion, “at every period of gestation,” except when necessary to save the mother’s life."

"In one of the many curious twists that mark the history of abortion, the campaign to criminalize it was waged by the same professional group that, a century later, would play an important role in legalization: physicians. The American Medical Association's crusade against abortion was partly a professional move, to establish the supremacy of "regular" physicians over midwives and homeopaths. More broadly, anti-abortion sentiment was connected to nativism, anti-Catholicism, and, as it is today, anti-feminism. Immigration, especially by Catholics and nonwhites, was increasing, while birth rates among white native-born Protestants were declining. (Unlike the typical abortion patient of today, that of the nineteenth century was a middle- or upper-class white married woman.) Would the West "be filled by our own children or by those of aliens?" the physician and anti-abortion leader Horatio R. Storer asked in 1868. "This is a question our women must answer; upon their loins depends the future destiny of the nation." (It should be mentioned that the nineteenth-century women's movement also opposed abortion, having pinned its hopes on "voluntary motherhood"—the right of wives to control the frequency and timing of sex with their husbands.) Nonetheless, having achieved their legal goal, many doctors—including prominent members of the AMA—went right on providing abortions. Some late-nineteenth-century observers estimated that two million were performed annually (which would mean that in Victorian America the number of abortions per capita was seven or eight times as high as it is today). Reagan argues persuasively that our image of nineteenth-century medicine is too monolithically hierarchical: while medical journals inveighed against abortion (and contraception), women were often able to make doctors listen to their needs and even lower their fees. And because, in the era before the widespread use of hospitals, women chose the doctors who would attend their whole families through many lucrative illnesses, medical men had self-interest as well as compassion for a motive. Thus in an 1888 exposé undercover reporters for the Chicago Times obtained an abortion referral from no less a personage than the head of the Chicago Medical Society. (He claimed he was conducting his own investigation.) Unless a woman died, doctors were rarely arrested and even more rarely convicted. Even midwives—whom doctors continued to try to drive out of business by portraying them, unfairly, as dangerous abortion quacks—practiced largely unmolested."

"Reagan's discussion of "dying declarations" makes particularly chilling reading: because the words of the dying are legally admissible in court, women on their deathbeds were informed by police or doctors of their imminent demise and harassed until they admitted to their abortions and named the people connected with them—including, if the woman was unwed, the man responsible for the pregnancy, who could be arrested and even sent to prison. In 1902 the editors of the Journal of the American Medical Association endorsed the by then common policy of denying a woman suffering from abortion complications medical care until she "confessed"—a practice that, Reagan shows, kept women from seeking timely treatment, sometimes with fatal results. In the late 1920s some 15,000 women a year died from abortions."

"As the sociologist Carole Joffe has noted, most of the nation’s leading medical organizations failed to issue any significant guidelines on abortion immediately after Roe was decided. That reticence reflected the conflicted feelings many doctors had about a procedure that some linked to infamous back-alley “butchers,” and that others associated with feminists who were claiming authority over their bodies in ways that made many male doctors uncomfortable. (Notably, although the American Medical Association asserted in a 1970 resolution that the principles of medical ethics “do not prohibit a physician from performing an abortion,” the document stated that abortion procedures should be determined by the “sound clinical judgment” of medical professionals, not “mere acquiescence to the patient’s demand.”) Some doctors also believed that abortion was morally wrong. In subsequent decades, professional associations such as the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists “danced around the issue” of abortion for fear of alienating members who might not support abortion rights, said Doug Laube, an abortion provider who served as ACOG’s president from 2006-2007. Though the organization is formally pro-choice, Dr. Laube told me that during his tenure as president he observed that the stigma associated with abortion made ACOG reluctant to “advocate for abortion services as regular, normal medical care.”"

"The American Medical Association endorsed legalized abortion in 1967. Medical professionals reported that each year they were treating thousands of women who had obtained illegal abortions and had been injured as a consequence. Believing that abortions were inevitable in American society, they argued that legalizing the practice would allow trained medical staffs to perform safe procedures in medical facilities. Religious leaders in more liberal Christian denominations also became advocates. These included the United Church of Christ, the United Methodist Church, the Episcopalian Church, and the United Presbyterian Church. The anti-abortion movement also began to grow in the 1960s and became a leading opponent of the Roe v. Wade ruling. The Roman Catholic Church became a powerful voice in opposition to abortion in the 1960s, when the National Conference of Catholic Bishops organized the Family Life Division (FLD). After 1973, leaders of the FLD formed the National Right to Life Committee, which became the largest-antiabortion organization. Led by John Wilke, the group fought for changes to abortion laws at the legislative level through lobbying and sponsored publication of anti-abortion materials for distribution to voters."

"To avoid the social disaster of single motherhood, turn-of-the century physicians and women’s charity groups urged unwed women to bear their children in maternity homes. Some homes arranged for adoption of illegitimate infants; others insisted that the new mothers keep them. The Journal of the American Medical Association viewed these homes as a way “to combat the crime of induced abortion.” Yet many homes refused African American women. One African American physician established a hospital in Louisville, Kentucky, in order to provide a place where unmarried African American women could deliver their babies and give them up for adoption instead of having abortions. The policies of unwed mother’s homes could be oppressive. Maternity homes expected mothers to repent and required them to stay long periods of time, perform domestic tasks and participate in religious services. State agencies and private charities required the women, whether keeping or giving up their newborns, to breast-feed for several months. Some women surely concluded that an abortion, though illegal, could be a simpler solution to a pregnancy out of wedlock. Regina Kunzel has found that many women in maternity homes had tried but failed to abort their pregnancies. One maternity home inmate gave her new friends at the home valuable information for the future; she described how to do their own abortions."

"”Roe” ultimately gives physicians, not pregnant women, the ability to determine whether and when abortion is warranted. In the nineteenth century, women of all social classes could legally procure abortion, often using herbal abortifacients. As “regular” physicians distinguished themselves from midwives and homeopaths, many lobbied state legislatures to criminalize induced abortion. Shortly after its formation in 1847, the American Medical Association (AMA) declared human life to begin at conception and not, as women apparently believed, at “quickening,” midway through gestation, when a woman first feels fetal movement in the womb. In taking an anti-abortion stance, physicians not only professionalized but moralized their practice through association with saving lives. By end of century, abortion was criminalized throughout the United States and recognized to be a medical issue. It is an historic irony that abortion was medicalized to restrict its practice, only to be legalized a century later precisely based on its status as medical procedure, a private matter between patient and doctor."

"The American Medical Association’s Code of Ethics states that “[a] physician, as a member of a profession dedicated to preserving life when there is hope of doing so, should not be a participant in a legally authorized execution.”"

"In Roe and Lawrence, the Court found facts more favorable to the proposed due process rights. In Roe, the Court found some support for an abortion right in the limited evidence of a trend toward legalization—a stronger trend toward legalization than anything the Glucksberg Court could find, but hardly an overwhelming one. The Court noted that “about one-third” of the states had recently changed their abortion laws to make them “less stringent.” The Roe Court also emphasized the official positions of American professional associations. For over 100 years, the American Medical Association maintained the position that abortion should generally be illegal and doctors should not participate in the procedure before finally changing its position in 1970 to support abortion.222 Similarly, in 1970 the American Public Health Association adopted new “Standards for Abortion Services” calling for abortion referral to be easily available, and the American Bar Association called for abortion to be largely unrestricted in the first twenty weeks of pregnancy. Though the Court did not explicitly rest its holding on these professional associations’ positions, they did support its reasoning, and the Court spent six pages of the majority opinion discussing them."

"[T]he best example of contemporary trends and consensus in favor of a right not to kill comes in the abortion context, where protection of conscience has been almost universal and has all occurred within the last fifty years. In the years prior to Roe, at least fourteen states had already liberalized their abortion laws. These pre-Roe liberalization laws frequently came with the creation of express statutory protection for physicians and other healthcare personnel and institutions that refused to participate in abortions. Likewise, when it decided in 1970 to support greater access to abortion, the American Medical Association also resolved that “[n]either physician, hospital, nor hospital personnel shall be required to perform any act violative of personally-held moral principles.” Once the Court’s decision in Roe established a constitutional right to abortion, state and federal legislatures acted quickly and decisively to confirm that no physician could be forced to provide an abortion. At both the state and federal levels, legislators quickly enacted conscience statutes to protect individuals and institutional healthcare providers from being forced to participate in abortions. These laws were not limited solely to the direct performance of abortion. Instead, they protected against compulsion to participate even indirectly, including by referral or providing space. The speed and near unanimity of these legislative actions confirm that the right not to be forced by the government to perform abortions is implicit in the concept of ordered liberty. For decades, abortion has been the most divisive political, social, and ethical issue in the country. Yet amidst this widespread, heated, and seemingly endless disagreement, we see something remarkable: essentially unanimous agreement from state and federal governments that providers should not be forced to participate in abortions. Moreover, this widespread agreement has occurred in the past fifty years—the time period the Lawrence Court deemed most important."

"Today, abortion practitioner in the United States are targeted and reviled by the radical right and isolated by their communities. Many wear bulletproof vests in public, and almost all have unlisted home telephone numbers. The need for such precautions is relatively recent. During the illegal era (from the mid-nineteenth century until 1973), abortion practitioners operated with varying degrees of secrecy, but they did not fear for their lives. In fact, a number of abortionists in the illegal era provided their services for years-twenty, thirty, forty years, and more-completely unimpeded by the law. In many communities, the local abortion practitioner’s name and address were well known, not only to women who might require the service but also to police and politicians, who generally regarded the presence of a good abortionist a public health asset. For decades after the American Medical Association worked with state legislatures in the nineteenth century to outlaw abortion, abortion prosecutions were rare relative to the number of abortions performed. In most communities an unwritten agreement prevailed between law enforcement and practitioners: no death, no prosecution. But after World War II the old agreement was rather suddenly canceled, and practitioners-chiefly the female ones (presumed by law enforcement to be unskilled, untrained, and unprotected in comparison to their male counterparts, and therefore more likely to be convicted)-were arrested, convicted, and sent to jail in unprecedented numbers, even when there was no evidence of a botched abortion. Many of these practitioners were highly skilled and experienced, having performed twenty some abortions a day, year after year."

"Most states criminalized abortion at the time of Roe v Wade. Although abortion performed before ‘quickening’ had been legal at the nation’s founding (‘quickening’ refers to the time when the mother can first feel fetal movement), the American Medical Association, starting in the 1850s, promoted the criminalization of abortion, except to save the mother’s life (Greenhouse and Siegel 2035). Texas, the state whose law was challenged in Roe v Wade, made abortion criminal in 1854, and a majority of US states had similar laws at the time the Supreme Court decided Roe v Wade (Roe v Wade 118 n.2; Doe v Bolton 181–82). Consequently, prior to the decision, illegal abortions were common in the United States, with estimates of 1,000,000 a year or ‘one to every four births’ (Calderone 950). The danger of the procedure differed by class. Many doctors ‘secretly performed abortions for women whom they knew and who could pay’, while other women were relegated to ‘unsafe circumstances’ (Garrow (1999) 834)."

"We do need to acknowledge that we are in a very serious situation we see an increase in [COVID-19] cases"

"The data speak for themselves - we had a superspreader event in the White House, and it was in a situation where people were crowded together and were not wearing masks"

"Mr Vice President we already have over a million kits, of both the kits that we need for the Pfizer vaccine as well as the Moderna, different (interjection by Pence) s'cuse me, 100 million kits. Thank you."

"When the Vice President first asked me to help on the task force with different tasks, I asked the President what he expected from the task force and how I can best serve him and the task force. What the President asked is that all of the recommendations that we make be based on data. He wanted us to be very rigorous, to make sure that we were studying the data, collecting data. A lot of things in this country were happening very quickly, and we wanted to make sure that we were trying to keep updating our models and making sure that we were making informed decisions and informed recommendations to him based on the data that we were able to collect and put together."

"One thing I will say, just based on data, is that we’ve been getting a lot of data from different governors and from different mayors and from different cities. One thing I’ve seen FEMA do very, very well, over the last week or so, is now we’re getting real-time data from a lot of cities. People who have requests for different products and supplies, a lot of them are doing it based on projections, which are not the realistic projections. The projections change every day as we see the cases, as we see the impacts of the "stop the spread" effort that this task force recommended and the President has been pushing forward. So I do think that we’ll see that. Hopefully, there’ll be impact of that. And the task force has been working very hard, through the FEMA group, with Admiral Polowczyk to make sure that we’re getting the supplies to people before they run out, and making sure that we’re doing it in a proper way."

"And what they’ve done over the last 13 days has been really extraordinary. We’ve done things that the government has never done before, quicker than they’ve ever done it before. And what we’re seeing now is we found a lot of supplies in the country. We’ve been distributing them where we anticipate there will be needs, and also trying to make sure that we’re hitting places where there are needs. So I can tell you the people on the — in the task force, they’re working day and night. You’ve got a lot of people in the government. We recognize the challenge that America faces right now. We know what a lot of the people on the frontlines are facing, the fear that they have that they won’t have the supplies they need. And our goal is to work as hard as we can to make sure that we don’t let them down."

"That White House Coronavirus Task Force met today. It was reported to us that, at this moment, more than 746,000 Americans have tested positive for the coronavirus. Fortunately, more than 68,000 Americans have fully recovered. But sadly, more than 41,000 Americans have lost their lives to the coronavirus. And we always want to express our deepest sympathies to the families in their loss, as well as to all the families who have loved ones that are struggling with this disease."

"Today, we’ve seen encouraging news again about our progress as a nation. President Trump reflected on those momentarily. But the coronavirus White House Task Force today learned that our large metro areas continue to stabilize and even see progress. The New York metro area, including New Jersey, New York, Long Island, Connecticut, and Rhode Island all appear to be past their peak. The Detroit metro area also appears to be past its peak and is stable. New Orleans metro area actually is the most stable of all areas where we had a major metropolitan outbreak. And the Denver metro area is stable. We’re dealing in Colorado with a meatpacking plant issue. And, of course, California and Washington remain low and steady. Areas that we continue to watch carefully on the task force include the Chicago metro area, Boston metro, and the Philadelphia metropolitan area. The progress that we are making is a tribute to the — the American people. It’s a tribute to state and local leaders in all of these areas and the partnership that our President has forged. But we just want to encourage every American, as we see this progress, to continue to heed your state and local authorities. I think the American people know no one wants to reopen America more than President Donald Trump. But I want to assure you we’re going to continue to work with governors of every state, with the President's Guidelines for Opening Up America Again. And we’re going to work in a way that we can consolidate the progress that we have made and help move our states toward reopening our country."

"It really is remarkable to think about the progress the American people have made over the last several months. When the president tapped me to lead the White House Coronavirus Task Force, he gave us the first objective is to save lives. And to focus on slowing the spread, bending the curve. And because of the extraordinary efforts of the American people, we continue to see every day evidence that cases are declining, hospitalizations are declining. That's a tribute to the American people. Frankly, it's a tribute to all of those governors, governors in both parties across the country who put these mitigation efforts into effect."

"I also created a White House virus task force. It’s a big thing, a virus task force. I requested 2.5 billion dollars to ensure we have the resources we need. The Democrats said, "That’s terrible. He’s doing the wrong thing. He needs eight and a half billion, not two and a half." I’ve never had that before. I ask for two and a half, they want to give me eight and a half, so I said, "I’ll take it." Does that make me a bad… I’ll take it. I’ll take it. I never had that before. I never had it. We want two and a half million. That’s plenty. We demand you take eight and a half. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. We want eight and a half. These people are crazy. We must understand that border security is also health security. And you’ve all seen the wall has gone up like magic. It’s gone up like magic. You think that was an easy one? That was not an easy one. It’s going up great and we’re up now 132 miles and this is the exact wall that border security, water, everything."

"The flood of newcomers, vividly different from earlier migrants in faiths, tongues, and habits, aroused powerful anxieties about the capacity of American society to accommodate them. Some of that anxiety found virulent expression in a revived Ku Klux Klan, reborn in all its Reconstruction-era paraphernalia at Stone Mountain, Georgia, in 1915. Klan nightriders now rode cars, not horses, and they directed their venom as much at immigrant Jews and Catholics as at blacks. But the new Klan no less than the old represented a peculiarly American response to cultural upheaval. By the early 1920s the Klan claimed some five million members, and for a time it dominated the politics of Indiana and Oregon. The nativist sentiment that the Klan helped to nurture found statutory expression in 1924, when Congress choked the immigrant stream to a trickle, closing the era of virtually unlimited entry to the United States. The ethnic neighborhoods that had mushroomed in the preceding generation would grow no more through further inflows from abroad. America’s many ethnic communities now began to stabilize. Millions of immigrants awaited the day when they might become American at last."

"They were common folk, and their commonness radiated from them like heat from a stove….The wheelbarrow handle, it was plain, was more familiar to the men in that long line than the golf-stick, and the washtub had engaged the women far oftener than the lipstick. But what of it? The klan is not a club for snobs, it is a device for organizing inferiorities into a mystical superiority."

"The KKK took my baby away They took her away Away from me"

"The Chicago Fraternal Order of Police is the most rabid, racist body of criminal lawlessness by police in the land. It stands shoulder to shoulder with the Ku Klux Klan then and the Ku Klux Klan now."

"We must remember that the KKK was a white terrorist organization that intimidated and killed African Americans to prevent their participation in the democratic process and to keep them in what would become debt peonage. The KKK enforced racial control and white dominance through well-publicized violence. The Lost Cause and Margaret Mitchell would have us believe that the great threat to the South was the freedmen and the U.S. Army. Yet the four million recently freed ex-slaves suffered from violence far more. Thousands died trying to vote at the hands of white terror groups, not only the Klan, but also its many imitators. The Lost Cause myth propagated by Mitchell and bought by white southerners for a hundred years served as the ideological underpinning of a violently racist society."

"With Knowles' testimony, an Alabama jury convicted Henry Hays of first-degree murder and sentenced him to life in prison, but the judge, in a nearly unprecedented move, overruled the jury's verdict and sentenced him to die. On June 6, 1997, the state of Alabama executed Hays in Yellow Mama for the murder of Michael Donald. The first white person to die for murdering an African American in Alabama since 1913. Then the Southern Poverty Law Center sued the United Klans of America (UKA) for conspiracy in the murder of Michael Donald. An all-white jury found the UKA guilty and ordered them to pay $7 million to Donald's mother. The successful lawsuit bankrupted the UKA. The New York Times trumpeted, "The Woman Who Beat the Klan.""

"If Hindutva is Hinduism then the Ku Klux Klan is Christianity"

"SEVEN-YEAR-OLD Stetson Kennedy took a seat on the curb on Main Street in downtown Jacksonville, Florida. The air was warm, the crowd was festive, and the parade was about to begin. Crooking his neck for a better view, he immediately became engrossed in the spectacle. First came a row of men wearing white robes and hoods and mounted on great white stallions. Even the horses were bedecked with flowing saddle covers and ornamental hoods. When the riders pulled on the reins, the steeds rose up on their hind legs, whinnied, snorted, and furiously pawed the air. Following the riders were dozens of robed and hooded men marching four or five abreast. As Kennedy recalls, One of the mounted knights of the KKK bore a flaming fiery cross, while the other blew long, mournful blows on a bugle.” Kennedy was awestruck. This was his introduction to the Ku Klux Klan."

"Kennedy was born in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1916. He grew up in the 14-room, white-columned house owned by his traditional southern family. The Kennedy’s boasted blood ties to Confederate war heroes and wealthy cotton planters and prided themselves on carrying on the southern way of life. Kennedy’s mother taught her children traditional values and manners and dutifully attended meetings of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. His father ran a furniture store and served as chairman of the board of deacons at the First Baptist Church of Jacksonville. Insatiably curious, energetic and, and sensitive as a boy, Kennedy earned a reputation as the free spirit of the family. His grandmother used to offer him two cents to sit still for two minutes and almost never had to pay him the pennies. The oldest of five children, Kennedy spent much of his free time exploring the surrounding woods, creeks, orchards, and orange groves. He loved to write stories and poems about the birds, animals, trees and waterways that defined rural North Florida. In time he began to contemplate the lives of the people who lived on the ramshackle farms and in the small towns in the area. Sensing an injustice in the poverty that gripped the lives of so many, he began to feel a burning passion to do something about it. He was particularly disturbed by the prevailing view that “colored folk” were to be treated as subservient to white people. Although he couldn’t quite understand why, that pervasive racism got under his skin. It happened early,” Kenned would recall later in his life. “Whatever it was.” Still, he saw his family as “no more, no less, racist than the norm, par for the course, southern white.”"

"Shortly after attending that Ku Klux Klan parade, Kennedy began to see the truth about the men in hoods and robes. He had thought that the KKK was a club for grown-ups who got to dress up in Halloween costumes year-round until his mother told him that the organization actually kept the folks in “colored town” in line. But his real lesson occurred at the bedside of his family’s African-American housekeeper, whom Klansmen had beaten for the offense of talking back to a white streetcar operator who had shortchanged her. Hearing the woman describe the brutal attack, Kennedy realized that the men behind the masks were bullies who terrorized innocent black people. He began to detest the ingrained racism that infected the world around him and to feel out of step with those who accepted it. “I’ve always felt like an alien in the land of my birth,” he recalled later.]]"

"IN 1940 STETSON KENNEDY left his folklore-collecting job. He planned to concentrate more on his writing. He could use the information and insight gained from his childhood encounters with the poor, hi studies at the university, and his experience as a folklorist to expose deep-seated racism and the threat posed by the Ku Klux Klan. As a folklorist Kennedy knew that the Klan used its invented rituals, concocted language, and biased belief system to imbue otherwise weak men with a sense of mastery and power Kennedy knew the typical Klansman felt like a bigger man after taking part in mysterious rituals, speaking in a secret language, or attacking people judged to be inferior. Kennedy wanted to sweep away the mystique-to show the Klan as nothing more than a violent hate group selling a fantasy of the past. He wanted to expose the KKK’s false premises, bogus beliefs, secrets, and fake mysticism and to let ridicule, rejection, and scorn “melt the cultural glue” that held the club together. “The main idea was to make bigotry obnoxious.” He attacked the Klan with confidence and zeal. Naturally Kennedy was just a person who had no superpowers, but we has well aware of the power of words. His friend and frequent house guest Woodie Guthrie—the famed folksinger who wrote “This Land is Your Land” – often used a one-line answer to friends who asked, “Where’s Stet?” Guthrie would reply that Kennedy was making more ammo with his typewriter upstairs in the attic. Using that ammo, Kennedy embarked on a campaign to correct the historic and journalistic record of the KKK. He told himself to write as much as possible, focusing on exposes that revealed the real inner workings of the Klan. More newspaper articles. His pieces countered those of mainstream journalists who described KKK ceremonies with such terms as “mystic,” “eerie,” and “awesome.” More magazine articles. He criticized journalists who presented the KKK side of the story as a valid point of view in the contemporary political debate. More exposes. He criticized respected encyclopedias that described the secret order as a legitimate political organization comprised of white protestant men dedicated to protecting the white Christian race from the threat of negro uprising, Jewish dominance, and widespread immorality. He knew the Klan would fight back. After all, it had been silencing its critics for a long time."

"OVER THE YEARS historians have contended that the original Ku Klux Klan was a joke. Literally. Drawn mainly from the work of southern writers who were close to the secret society’s founders and often repeated to this day, the story goes like this: The original Klan began as a social club for a handful of men with time on their hands, a taste for the absurd, and a penchant for harmless mischief. In the spring of 1866, in the town of Pulaski, Tennessee, a half dozen men met at the office a prominent attorney to dream up a diversion from the doldrums of small-town-life. Just back from the Civil War with no immediate plans for the future, the former Confederate officers decided to form a social society much like the student fraternities gaining popularity on college campuses. The founders struggled to come up with a name until one man threw out the word “kuklos” –Greek for “circle” or “band.” His fellow brainstormers quickly added the word “clan” but started it with a K to harden the alliteration and to add a touch of mystery. After a bit of back and forth the founders had their name: Ku Klux Klan. They liked the sound of it. It felt like bones rattling in the closet. Building on the mysterious name, the “circle of brothers” added weird wardrobes, unusual rituals, mysterious code words, and absolute secrecy to the group. Members were required to wear handmade robes that flowed to the floor and high, pointed hoods that added two or three feet to their height. The officers were given titles drawn from mythology or just made up on the spot. The chief officer was the Grand Cyclops, his assistant was the Grand Magi, and the rank and file were Ghouls. After outgrowing their original meeting place, as local lore has it, the Klan moved to a more alluring venue: the ruins of an old farmhouse that had been decimated by a storm, engulfed with fallen trees, and rumored to be haunted. In strange midnight ceremonies the men donned their ghostly garb, recited their rambling incantations, pledged vows of secrecy, and indoctrinated new recruits. In time, the robed and hooded figures, masquerading as ghosts of Confederate soldiers returning from the battlefield, mounted horses and rode through neighboring farms and villages. The ghastly, ghostly figures told shocked onlookers that they had not had a drink since the Battle of Shiloh and had rode twice around the world since suppertime. Soon dozens of new dens had formed throughout the region, and sighting of hooded night riders were commonplace. Major newspapers speculated that this mysterious secret order must have a greater mission-for good or evil."

"BY THE BEGINNING OF 1867, with the movement spreading beyond the control of its founders, the first Klansmen invited all known dens to a secret convention in Nashville to elect a leader, to draft a constitution, and to set a course for the future. The convention elected former Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest as Grand Wizard (supreme leader) and designated the entire South as the territory of the new Invisible Empire. The empire was divided into reams that generally corresponded with states, dominions that corresponded with congressional districts, and dens that would serve as local chapters. Former military officers were bestowed with such titles as Grand Dragon, Grand titan, and Grant Giant, and the rank and file remained the Ghouls. The Klan constitution-or prescript-expressed allegiance to the U.S. government but also asserted the power to interpret and enforce the law. In effect this declaration made the KKK, the judge, jury, and executioner of its own version of law and order. KKK leaders also positioned the organization as the front line of opposition to Reconstruction, the federal effort to repair the damage caused by the Civil War. The South had just lost the war, and the vast majority of white Southerners were furious about the new Reconstruction Act of 1868, which mandated northern military occupation of much of the South, invalidated most of the region’s state governments, and decreed that the rights of newly freed slaves would be guaranteed-by force if necessary. The opponents of Reconstruction dubbed the northern intruders as carpetbaggers, their southern supporters as scalawags, and African Americans as inferiors. They vowed to resist what they saw as the unfair trampling of their rights. The KKK would become their army. In the weeks after the convention general Forrest’s old soldiers transformed themselves into terrorists, forming paramilitary units to wage a guerrilla war against carpetbaggers, scalawags, and Negroes. Cloaked in white robes and hoods and armed with rifles, whips and swords, the ex-Rebel troops took their places as the foot soldiers of the KKK. The Ghouls set out on raiding parties that targeted supporters of Reconstruction, white or black. They lashed white teachers at Negro schools with bullwhips and burned their schoolhouses to the ground. Freed slaves who spoke out for equality were dragged from their homes and beaten-even burned-in front of their children. Black men charged with crimes were broken out of jail and hanged in plain view without a trial. In remote areas raiders tarred and feathered their victims. Once the tar cooled it struck to the victim’s skin, and removing it left survivors scarred for life. Many newspapers characterized the raids as acts of self-defense on behalf of the entire white race. The apologists of the Klan recast its atrocities as heroics and spread fanciful myths about its origins and purpose. For example, most white Southerners believed that the club chose the name Ku Klux Klan not because of its mysterious sound but because it simulated the sound of cocking and discharging a firearm."

"By 1870 KKK atrocities had grown so extreme that editors of respected newspapers were denouncing the violence and national political leaders were demanding an end to it. In the South prominent citizens began dropping out of the organization-although common thugs filled their places and used the robes and hoods as cover for crimes ranging from chicken theft to bank robbery. Fearful of being prosecuted, General Forrest finally declared that the organization had been “perverted” and ordered his followers to stand down. He ordered that hoods and masks be burned, records be destroyed, and night-riding violence be halted. A few heeded the call. Most did not. In the end Congress launched a massive investigation, filling 11 volumes with evidence of an unprecedented reign of floggings, beatings, burnings, shootings, hangings, and torture over a four-year span. In 1872 Congress passé a law allowing Klansmen to be tried in federal court, and government troops moved in to mop up the diehards. By the mid-1880s the Klan was mostly gone-but so were the carpetbaggers and scalawags. The Reconstruction program, mired in scandal, steeped in controversy, and exhausted by struggle, was largely abandoned. The federal government let the South deal with its own problems. The old white ruling class regained power and restored white supremacy as a rule of law. Black people were essentially denied the vote, forced into servitude, and persecuted for even questioning the system. Historians generally glossed over the old KKK atrocities, while southern novelists romanticized them with elaborate tales of a valiant masked and hooded army that rode at night to save the downtrodden white race from the dual horrors of northern tyranny and black rule. As the nation moved toward a new century, the Klan remained much as it had started-shrouded in mystery."

"THE PRIME MOVER of the next rising of the KKK was William J. Simmons, the son of Civil War veteran from the Deep South. His father had ridden with the original night riders during Reconstruction. As a boy growing up on his family’s farm in the hamlet of Harpersville, Alabama, Simmons first heard the romanticize accounts of valiant, hooded night riders and saw the fear of the eyes of blacks servants and field hands who had felt their wrath. As a young man Simmons let the farm, served an undistinguished tour of duty in the Spanish-American War, and returned home to make his mark. He trained to be a minister and took to the preaching circuit, only to be drummed out of the Southern Methodist Episcopal Church for “ineffectiveness and moral failings.” Still searching for a life path Simmons moved to Atlanta, Georgia, and found work as a salesman and college lecturer before taking a job promoting fraternal organizations much like today’s Elks, Masons and Shriners. Rising to the rank of colonel in the Woodmen of the World, Simmons proudly told friends and associated that he was now a professional “fraternalist”-and he dreamed of resurrecting the fraternity of the KKK."

"After being injured in a car accident, Simmons spent a three-month recuperation period remaking the secret order as a modern association of white, native-born, protestant men. He saw nostalgia, romance, and dollar signs in the prospect and threw himself into the task. Simmons tracked down a copy of the original Klan Prescript and repackaged it as a 54-page, novel-size handbook entitled “The Kloran”. He embellished the standard white robe and redesigned the hood to be less showy and more menacing, down to two narrow slits for the eyes. He reworded the membership oath, revise the initiation ceremony, devised hand signs and code words, restored old titles, and devised new ones. He began concocting a language that emphasized the infamous K sound. The local meeting place became the Klavern the regional convention became the Klonvocation, and the art of being a Klansman became Klancraft. The new Klan would charge $10 for membership and $6.50 for a cheap robe and hood, and it would even offer option life insurance policies. Finally,, with the flair of an artist, the diminutive promoter added the piece de resistance-the final flourish. Borrowing a literary device from the pro-Klan novel “The Clansman”, he created a central role for the burning cross. The original Klan had not used the faming cross, but it would become the ever-resent fiery symbol of the new one. After lining up more than a dozen influential men to serve in the upper ranks, Simmons copyrighted his enhancements and secured an official charter from the state of Georgia. The new Invisible Empire of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan was established as a benevolent, nonprofit, fraternal organization-at first more of a force uniting white protestant men than for attacking their perceived enemies With the pieces in place, the founder-now known as the Little Colonel-set out to dramatize the mystery of his restored empire."

"On the eve of Thanksgiving 1915, Simmons invited a group of his influential friends to a meeting at the Piedmont Hotel in Atlanta. Afterward, 16 believers climbed into a tour bus and set out an eight-mile drive to Stone Mountain a slab of pure granite that climbs 800 feet above the surrounding area. Brandishing flashlights, the expedition party made its way to a ledge near the summit. There, as a cold night wind whipped, the robed and hooded men built a makeshift altar from flagstones, draped it with an American flag, and decorated it with a Bible, a canteen of baptismal water, and a sword. Simmons and his followers erected a rag-covered wooden cross, doused it with kerosene, and set it ablaze. In the light of the ceremonial fire the Ku Klux Klan was called back from the dead. THE CEREMONY on Stone Mountain reawakened the sleeping giant. Now it was time to fire up the masses. Simmons had that figured out too. He planned the public announcement to coincide with the Atlanta premier of “The Birth of a Nation”, a two-hour silent-film spectacular set in the South during the tumultuous aftermath of the Civil War. Filmmaker D. W. Griffith had used state-of-the-art cinematic techniques to drive home his controversial message that white vigilantes has saved decent white families. Simmons reserved space for ads introducing “The Greatest Fraternal Organization on Earth” adjacent to the movie promotion in the “Atlanta Constitution”. Then he waited."

"On December 6, 1915,at 8.p.m.-two weeks after the Stone Mountain ritual-“The Birth of a Nation” debuted to a standing-room crowd at the majestic, red carpeted Atlanta Theater. The love scenes were presented in dramatic close ups. The epic battle scenes appear in sweeping panorama. A 30-piece orchestra performed a swelling musical score. The audience was spellbound. A graying Civil War veteran wiped a tear as the camera scanned the desolate smoldering wasteland of his defeated homeland. A middle-age woman cringed as a band of lustful, ravenous Negroes clawed at the door of a remote cabin in pursuit of an innocent, terrified white girl. A teenage boy slapped the back of a man in front of him as a bugle blast rose form the orchestra pit and a long line of hooded riders thundered onto the screen, their path illuminated by a burning cross. The entire audience cheered as the Ku Klux Klan rode to the rescue of white womanhood, white power, and white supremacy. Finally the crowd breathed a final sigh of relief as the robed avengers dispensed with the threat by castrating and lynching the black villain. And the show did not end with the final scene. As the audience filed out of the theater, a bonus scene awaited them on Peachtree Street. More than a hundred men in white robes and hoods stood in military-style formation, rifles raised into the air. Thanks to the Little Colonel, the Ku Klux Klan was back-and this was no movie."

"IN THE SPRING OF 1920 Simmons walked into the offices of the Southern Publicity Association in Atlanta. The leaders of this pioneering firm had built its reputation by devising successful publicity and fundraising programs for clients ranging from the Anti-Saloon League to the Red Cross. The firm’s inseparable male and female partners were also becoming known for their creativity, connections, and can-do spirit- even if their close personal relationship was raising eyebrows. Bessie Tyler provided the passion for the company. She stood close to six feet tall, swore like a sailor, and usually dressed in black, from her patent0leather pumps to her broad, flowing cape. Tyler knew how to make people sit up and take notice-and how to turn adversity into advantage. Her partner was Edward Young Clarke, the business brains of the outfit. Clarke was a spin doctor before the term existed, a master of deception who never let the truth get in the way of his client’s needs. Clarke knew how to turn negative publicity into positive headlines-and how to turn controversy into cash."

"After hearing out Simmons, Tyler and Clarke made a round of calls to newspaper and magazine editors across the country to test the waters. To their happy astonishment, most of the newsmen were more than open to running stories about the new Ku Klux Klan. Even better for the publicity mavens, the interest from the press was not limited of the South. Editors from the Northeast, Midwest, and West Coast asked for regular released about the revived Klan too. Tyler and Clarke were confident that a bold new message-coupled with an aggressive membership campaign-could drive growth nationwide. Their challenge was to make the job lucrative enough for themselves-particularly sine working for the Klan would mean the loss of their Jewish clientele. Over a two-week period in 1920, Tyler and Clarke worked out an astounding contract with Simmons. The public relations duo would get four of every five dollars in new membership fees plus profits from merchandise sales for the life of the campaign. Seeing dollar signs, Tyler and Clarke went to work. THE FIRST STEP was to refocus the Klan’s message for the modern world. It was the aftermath of World War I, and change was in the air. Immigrants were pouring into the country and taking good jobs at low wages. Women had won the ote and were demanding more influence in public affairs. Black men were mustering out of the military and pressing for equality in their own country. Morals were changing too, as the focus of American life shifted from the small town to the city. Young people flocked to nightclubs nd speakeasies, whiskey flowed like water, jazz played on the radio, and divorce became more of an option for unhappy couples. Many white men feared that their traditional place atop the social order-even their status as heads of their own households-was endangered. The Klan had to speak to those people and tap into their fear. So, to the well-known goal of stamping down blacks and Jews, Tyler and Clarke added new targets: Catholics, Asians, Mexicans, labor unionists, socialists, and greedy Wall Street tycoons. To the Klan’s historic opposition to racial integration and religious tolerance, they added the evils of dope, booze, sex, corruption, nightclubs, roadhouses, and violations of the Sabbath. Seeking to differentiate the Klan from other fraternal organizations, they positioned it as the most militant enforcer of morality and decency in communities across the country. Then they pushed the new message through the media. The PR team persuaded newsreel producers to make short, pro—Klan films for movie theaters. They hired a Chicago advertising agency to design newspaper ads and billboards and placed them coast-to-coast. They organized elaborate Klan ceremonies, speeches, and rallies that drew hundreds of new recruits and thousands of onlookers. Tyler coached Simmons to talk less about white brotherhood and more about black inferiority, Jewish greed, and the plans of the Roman Catholic Church to dominate America. Simmons delivered the expanded message in interviews with major newspapers and in crowded meeting halls full of potential members. At one event he stepped forward to deliver his message to a group of influential men who could serve in important roles in his organization. Standing behind a bare table in the front of the room, Simmons at first said nothing. Then he placed his Colt automatic on the table. Then he placed his revolver on the table. Then he placed his ammunition belt on the table. Then he plunged his bowie knife into the tabletop. Then he said, “Now let the Niggers, Catholics, [and] Jews…come on.” THE TACTICS PROVED a stunning success. A year into the campaign, more than 100,000 men had paid their ten-dollar Klektoken )initiation fee)-and all the taking were tax-free because the KKK was chartered as a charitable organization. Traveling promoters called Kleagles were offered a cut of the dues to sign up new members. Driven more by the money than the message, most Kleagles targeted any white protestant man willing to part with ten dollars. As one journalist put it, the prospect list included “the poor, the romantic, the short-witted, the bored, the vindictive the bigoted and the ambitious."

"As dues poured into Klan bank accounts, merchandise poured out of its warehouses. The new mandate was sell, sell, sell. The product line included more than 40 newsletters, bottles of initiation water, and a pocketknife-“a 100-percent knife for 100 percent Americans.” Sell more! For the romantic Klansman there was even a gift for the wife or girlfriend: a jewel-studded pendant in the form of a fiery cross. Sell more! The demand for robes and hoods became so great that a dedicated roe factory had to be set up in Atlanta to fill the orders. Sell more! Within a few short years of the Tyler-Clarke campaign, more than four million Americans had joined the KKK, and revenues topped $75 million. Despite the success, Simmons would soon be ousted in a contentious coup led by his number two man, Hiram Evans. In exchange for grudgingly turning the organization over to Evans, Simmons retired with a $146,500 buy out and a house dubbed Klan Krest. Now that the Klan had the muscle of a huge membership and vast income, Evans wanted to make the organization more than just a hate-mongering money machine. By staking out positions on political issues and placing Klansmen in government offices, the KKK could become apolitical powerhouse. In August 1925, 40,000 Klansmen marched down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., as a show of strength during the Democratic National Convention. By then the KKK controlled dozens of mayors, judges, police chiefs, state legislators, congressmen, and senators."

"Surprisingly, the biggest growth of the KKK did not occur in the South. The smooth-talking Grand Dragon of the Realm of Indiana, David Curtis Stephenson, built membership in his state to more than 450,000, and the organization tapped him to recruit new followers in 20 other states. Stephenson increased the ranks to more than 300,000 in neighboring Ohio, where he owned a vacation home on Buckeye Lake in rural Licking Country. More than 75,000 people turned out to hear him speak at a KKK Konklave on the lake in 1923, and an equal came back for the 1925 gathering. The Klavern in Akron, Ohio, claimed 52,000 members, making it the largest local chapter in the country."

"By expanding the ranks of the Invisible Empire in the Midwest, Stephenson amassed a personal fortune of more than $3 million from his cut of dues and merchandise sales In short order he owned a lavish mansion outside Indianapolis, a yacht on Lake Michigan, a private railroad car, and an airplane. Backed by his own private police force-the Horse Thief Detective Association-Stephenson virtually took control of Indiana’s state government. “I am the law in Indiana,” he liked to brag. In his public speeches he defended Prohibition and the sanctity of womanhood. In private he was an alcoholic and a womanizer. BUT TH WEALTHY ORGANIZERS at the top had a problem. Rank-and-file members in cities and towns across the country were taking the vicious, antiblack, anti-Jewish, anti-Catholic rhetoric to heart. As had happened during the first rising of the Klan after the Civil War, violence was drawing negative attention to the organization. Klan raiding parties flogged black political candidates in North Carolina, harassed Jewish businessmen in New Jersey, attacked Catholics in Oregon, and used acid to burn the initials KKK into the foreheads of victims in Texas. And not all the victims were black, brown, Jewish, or Catholic. KKK members also targeted white protestant families for alleged immoral behavior or supposedly betraying their race or gender. In Alabama perpetrators flogged a white divorcee with two children for the crime of remarrying. In Oklahoma Ghouls lashed teenage girls for riding in cars with young men. When newspapers exposed the violence, public support began to wane. Political leaders condemned the attacks, and antimask laws went on the books to deter hooded gatherings. By the late 1920s Klan membership was falling as fast as it had risen But the kiss of death proved to be the hypocrisy of their leadership. Newspapers were having a field day with stories o the duplicity. After all, how could a fraternal organization that stood for law and order resort to vigilante violence? How could a handful of promoters become rich while the rank and file worked for nothing? How could people with questionable morals run a militant enforcer of strict morality? That question arose following news accounts of sexual escapades by Klan leaders. Even the intrepid Clarke and Tyler, the PR duo who had sparked the membership spike, made salacious headlines. The two were arrested-with alcohol on their breath and their clothes on the floor-in a suspected house of prostitution. The most infamous sex scandal involved the high-flying Grand Dragon in Indiana, David Curtis Stephenson, who had not responded well to a young woman’s rejection of his marriage proposal. Stephenson had his thugs kidnap the woman from her home and deliver her to his waiting train. As the train sped toward his hideaway in Chicago, Stephenson viciously beat, raped, and mauled her. Then his henchmen took her, near death, back home to Indianapolis. Two weeks later, the battered woman died from an overdose of pills, and Stephenson was charged with murder. In a highly publicized trial he was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. KKK membership went into a nose dive."

"As the anti-comic book crusaders railed against fictional characters a far more sinister force was stepping out of the shadows in the real world. The Ku Klux Klan was talking of revival and aligning itself with other racist hate groups. The sleeping giant was stirring again. FOLLOWING THEIR RISE to influence in the 1920s, the national Ku Klux Klan leadership had found themselves steeped in controversy with the federal government breathing down their necks. So the secret order of hooded vigilantes employed the approach it always turned to in times of trouble: It played possum. In the 1930s the national organization dissolves its charter, shut down the Imperial Palace, and told the world it was out of business. The KKK leaders hunkered down to operate in the shadows and keep the flame of hate and bigotry alive in the United States. While many Ku Klux Klan chapters did shut down, others continued operating as independent local groups still dedicated to white supremacy, Christian dominance, and rigid morality. While many continued to use the KKK name, language and garb proudly, others adopted new names to obscure their identities. As the White Cross Clan pressed its racist agenda in Oakland, California, other Klan front groups attacked minorities and preached hate in other cities. By maintaining only loose ties with national KKK leaders, these local groups avoided possible prosecution in federal court as well as the requirement to pay federal taxes. Like-minded local politicians often protected the newly named chapters. Even as the national press wrote the KKK’s obituary, local newspapers were writing about radical racist groups operating in their midst. Then, in the summer of 1940, a bizarre and frightening development took place. As Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime flexed its muscles far away in Europe, resurgent Ku Klux Klan factions began flirting with a new breed of Nazi hate groups in the United States. The Klan was cozying up to the German American Bund, an association led by Nazi sympathizers who praised Hitler, preached fascism, wore Nazi uniforms, and snapped off stiff-armed salutes to flags decorated with a swastika. The powerful and resilient New Jersey Klan led the negotiations with the Bund and arranged a joint rally at a Bund training camp outside Andover, New Jersey. On August 14, 1940, more than a thousand robed and hooded Klansmen and several hundred gray-shirted Bundsman assembled on the grounds of Camp Nordland for a day of anti-Semitic speeches and Negro bashing. As the Bundesfuhrer moved to center stage and proclaimed, “The principles of the Bund and the principles of the Klan are the same,” the KKK Grand Giant from New Jersey stepped forward and clasped the Bundsman’s hand in a show of unity. After the speeches a Klan wedding was held beneath a fiery cross, as if to symbolize a new union between the international and American forms of fascism. As the event reached a crescendo, hundreds of incensed citizens from nearby Andover decided they had had enough of the Nazis and the Klan in their own backyards. The mob gathered at the camp gate and screamed chants like “Burn Hitler on your cross.” The forces of hate were threatening to get out of control."

"THERE were many other important voices rising up against the Klan, and many of those voices emanated from the KKK stronghold of Atlanta. Taking on the KKK with the power of his pen, Ralph McGill, the crusading editor of the “Atlanta Journal-Constitution”, often wrote to his readers in the tone of a parent assuring his children that their fears and prejudices were unwarranted: There are not many Catholics in Georgia which is a pity in a way because they are almost invariably good Christians, good citizens and worthwhile members of the community., something which has not been possible to say because of all the members of the Ku Klux Klan klaverns in the state .. There are not many Jews in Georgia either but they, too, are good citizens. Their contribution is one of hard work and decency. There is no reason to have an organization formed to promote hate and antagonism to Catholics, Jews, foreign-born citizens or any minority groups…If you could get through all the mumbo jumbo business of the kleagels, Cyclops, nighthawks and al the claptrap, you would still find it to be silly, unchristian and dangerous to the peace and dignity of the people”. Assistant Attorney General Daniel Duke of Georgia also took on the Ku Klux Klan in Atlanta. The hard-charging prosecutor had sent a number of Klansmen to prison for violent attacks against blacks and accused moral backsliders in the 1930s and early 1940s, and he was determined to see the guilty parties serve out their sentences. Late in 1941 Georgia governor Eugene Talmadge suggested granting clemency to the convicted floggers. This triggered a showdown between the fiery prosecutor and the race-baiting governor, who had long pandered for votes from KKK leaders and their followers. At a public hearing on the proposed pardons, Duke held up two leather whips with KKK etched into the handles and waved them in Talmadge’s face while making the point that the Klan’s weapon of choice could stop a bull elephant. Unmoved by the argument, Talmadge stated that he was familiar with such whips because he had once used one on a black man. Talmadge would go on to curry votes from the Klan and Duke would stand against them for years to come."

"THE EVENTS OF MAY 9, 1946, in Atlanta were not fantasy. Late that night-a 300-foot-tall wooden cross burned on a granite butte near the top of Stone Mountain. The lames cast a glow over more than a thousand men clad in white robes and hoods. Distinguished by his flowing green robe, Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragon Samuel Green presides from a makeshift altar made of flagstones, draped with an American flag, and bedecked with an unsheathed sword, a canteen of water, an a Bible open to Romans 12: The Christian Life. As plumes of flame leaped into the night and a half moon rose in the distant sky, the Grand Dragon delivered a blistering call to arms in defense of white rule Bringing his racist rant to a crescendo, he cast his gaze on several dozen men kneeling before him in plain clothes. After leading the new recruits in the sacred oath of initiation, he declared them knight of the Ku Klux Klan. He also warned that betrayal of the organization’s secrets would result in the ultimate punishment: death at the hands of a brother. As the ceremony ended Green cried, “We are revived!” Grand Dragon Green was elated with the Stone Mountain coming-our party. More than 200 new recruits had been initiated that night, and more than a thousand spectators had trekked up the mountain to witness the event Major newspapers, national wire services, and a nationally circulated magazine had covered it, and most reporters had used adjectives like “eerie,” mysterious,” “awesome,” and “haunting” to describe the goings-on. In fact, the next issue of LIFE magazine featured a four-page photo spread under the headline “Ku Klux Klan Tries a Comeback. It Pledges Initiated in a Mystic Pageant on Georgia’s Stone Mountain. “Now millions of readers across the country had the message that Green wanted them to have: the LL was rising again. Green-a 54-year old physician with wire-frame spectacles and a small, bushy white moustache-planned to follow the public relations coup with a highly organized national membership drive that would attract legions of new followers to the reviving order. A longtime Klansman and dedicated follower of the late colonel William Simmons Doc Green planned to apply the historic philosophies, rituals, and methods of the Klan to the emerging social conditions of post-World War II America."

"In preparation for the revival, Green had done his homework. Traveling the country to test public sentiment, he had found reason to believe that millions of white protestant men from Connecticut to California, from Michigan to Mississippi, would respond to the call With black military veterans mustering out of the service and seeking equal rights in the country they had fought for, Green wanted to tap in to white fear. To avoid potential entanglements with the federal government, he named his organization the Association of Georgia Klans, and he accepted the role of Grand Dragon of the Georgia Realm (as opposed to Imperial Wizard of the entire empire) for the time being. At the same time, he began strengthening ties to KKK realms in Tennessee, Oregon, California, New Jersey, and many other states. After pulling together Klan groups across the country, he planned to reestablish Atlanta as the imperial capital and reign over the entire organization. There was evidence the revival was taking hold. In Mississippi, Hodding Carter, crusading editor of the Delta Democrat-Time”, warned that the Invisible Empire was “sloshing over like an overfull cesspool from its stronghold in Georgia.” What Green didn’t fully understand was that his organization had been badly compromised. The Georgia Department of Law had placed undercover agents inside Klavern No. I, and the FBI was watching and listening too."

"DESPITE KENEDY’S best efforts to infiltrate, however, the author and activist was only going to get so far inside the Klan He needed help. By the spring of 1946, Kennedy had the help he needed to forge a direct pipeline into the deepest secrets of the Atlanta Klan. As part of his services to the ANL and ADL, Kennedy worked as the handler for a top-secret, deeply embedded mole who was operating under the alias John Brown. “This worker is joining the Klan for me,” Kennedy wrote in one memo to his employers in early 1946. “I am certain that he can be relied on.” Brown was a former Klansman who had committed himself to lifting the cover off its violent actions and conspiracies. He still had the complete trust of the KKK leadership, and he used it to burrow deep into the inner sanctum o the infamous Nathan Bedford Forrest Klavern No. 1, which met every Monday night at a cavernous union hall at 1981/2 Whitehall street. Brown’s reports detailed KKK plans for the major revival that took place a year later on Stone Mountain, attacks on Negroes moving into white neighborhoods, and the involvement of Atlanta police officers in KKK violence. By Brown’s own count, 83 of the 200 men in Klavern No. 1 were Atlanta police officers, many of who regularly directed traffic and provided security at cross burnings. Brown’s reports were chilling. In a dispatch dated April 29, 1946, he reported that Grand Dragon Samuel Green was advised to “write a letter of appreciation to a policeman named ‘Itchy Trigger Finger’ Nash … in connection with the slaying of a Negro he has killed in his line of duty. It seems that Dr. GGreen would like to decorate these policemen who kill Negroes with the Klan.” Brown even infiltrated the paramilitary flog squad that carried out midnight whippings, beatings, and murders of selected targets. Or, as handler Kennedy reported to the ANL on May 6, 1946, “our informant is now a member of the Klan’s inner circle, and Klavalier Klub.” Kennedy went on to note, “”[O]ur informant has learned that Green is an honorary members and bears card No. 000 … Obviously the Klavalier lub is the Storm Trooper arm of the Klan and there is some effort to divorce the regular Klan officials from responsibility of its actions.” Brown even got inside the secret subunit of the Klavalier Klub that called itself the Ass Tearers and printed on its calling card the image of a corkscrew-its implement of choice for torturing and disemboweling its victims. The infiltrators’ reports painted a haunting picture of KKK conspiracies and violence, as well as the paranoid mentality that pervaded the Klavern. The reports detail hit lists targeting anti-Klan journalists and even plots to steal weapons caches from government stockpiles to use in an all-out onslaught against African Americans. Even the mundane matters described in the reports are eye-opening, from membership drives and publicity campaigns to ham dinners put on by the ladies’ auxiliary to raise money for their husbands’ work. The moles centered much of their attention on Grand Dragon Green and his top henchmen of the Associated Klans of Georgia. An overseer of Klavern No. 1, Green had virtually invited the scrutiny of investigators with his militant call for white protestant men across the country to rise up and take the antion back from the Negroes, Jews, Catholics, and liberals. While Green insisted the Klan was breaking no laws, the undercover operatives knew that beyond the violent raids that the KKK was varying out, Green and company were also acting as the central players in a resurgent national KKK movement, coordinating with Klaverns in other states and even supplying them with membership forms and propaganda pamphlets printed in Atlanta. If the Klan busters could prove that the Atlanta Klavern was acting as the center of a national program, they could push Georgia to revoke the organization’s state charter, thus leaving Green and company open to federal income tax debt and possible prosecution in federal court. And to top it all off, a kids’ radio show was about to lift the mask off the KKK for a generation of children."

"In time the Anti-Defamation League stepped forward to make sure its man on the scene-or behind the scene-got credit. The “ADL Bulletin” of February 1947 reported, “It is now revealed that Superman’s informant was Stetson Kennedy, brilliant young Southern liberal who had joined the Klan and the (neo Nazi) Columbians under the assumed name of John S. Perkins. Nowadays Kennedy is telling the whole ugly story of racism in the South and its dollar hungry peddlers, who charged him $10 for a moth-eaten, second hand Klan uniform.” Kennedy even held a press conference in full KKK garb at the ADL offices in New York. His antics apparently did not sit well with Grand Dragon Green. An April 7, 1947 report by an unnamed KKK informant claimed that Green “circulated a picture of Kennedy and said his ass is worth $1,000 per pound.” And in response to the rank and file’s criticism of “failing to provide floggings, crossburnings, etc in ’47,” the Grand Dragon promised “a hot year in ’48 if they could catch the spies.” In the years that followed, Kennedy and other infiltrators redoubled their efforts, and the negative press continued to flow. By 1948 the Klan had become a kicking dog for a host of enemies. The governor of Florida responded to a KKK parade by calling the marchers “hooded hoodlums and sheeted jerks.” And “Time” magazine reported that “a bigoted little obstetrician named Samuel Green’ was becoming desperate to “prove to everybody that his movement wasn’t on the skids.” “Time” also noted that Green was under withering attack from such powerful opponents as the Junior Chamber of Commerce and a local group of churchwomen. Despite a 1,500-guest birthday party for Samuel Green and despite Green’s claims (reported by infiltrators) that he had 5,000 requests from all over the country to open KKK chapters, the talk of revival turned out to be just that-talk. The secret order was riddled with infiltrators, hounded by investigators, buried in bad press, and out of step with the modern mainstream of America."

"I hope so. :-) Although the wiki process sometimes strikes people as being inherently favoring egalitarianism or anarchy, there is a certain sense in which the wiki editing tool is neutral to social structures. As a matter of simple description, it does turn out that users who do quality work end up having a lot more power than users who do bad work. So in that sense, yes, it is a meritocracy, but an informal one."

"The fact that the banner is still up there means that Wikimedia is okay with it. That they allow the use of their brand assets in this way, including their logo and the virtual 'real estate' used by the banner outside the defined article content, means a tacit endorsement. This is especially striking, as organizations are usually very protective of their brand assets and don't normally allow their use in this manner."

"KLOBUCHAR: Well, there was -- I just noted that just today, a reporting in The Washington Post, that on Monday, a complaint was filed against a member of the Proud Boys in Washington State, where federal prosecutors alleged that, in fact, there were plans made for many different entries into the Capitol, is that correct? WRAY: Yes. There have been a growing number of charges as we continue to build out the investigation. Either individuals who are now starting to get arrested that involved charges more things, like planning and coordination or in some instances individuals who were charged with more simple offenses but now we're superseding as we build out more of an understanding of what people were involved. And there were clearly some individuals involved which I would consider the most dangerous, most serious cases among the group, who did have plans and intentions and some level of coordination. KLOBUCHAR: And I think you've arrested now twenty members of that group or -- is that right? WRAY: I don't know the number off the top of my head. Yes. KLOBUCHAR: Well, so what I was thinking when Senator Graham was talking is that if, and they show up in this complaint with encrypted two-way Chinese radios and military gear, that you must -- there must be moments where you think if we would have known, if we could have infiltrated this group or found out what they were doing, and that -- you have those moments? WRAY: Absolutely. I will tell you, Senator, and this is something I feel passionately about, that any time there is an attack, our standard at the FBI is we aim to bat a thousand, right? And we aim to thwart every attack that is out there. So any time there is an attack, especially one that's this horrific, that strikes right at the heart of our system the government, right at the time of transfer of power is being discussed, you can be darn tooting that we are focused very, very hard on how could we get better sources, better information, better analysis so that we can make sure that something that what happened on January 6th never happens again."

"A member of the far-right Proud Boys texted his F.B.I. handler during the assault"

"Beyond barring the description of the men Rittenhouse shot as “victims,” Schroeder has ruled that prosecutors cannot bring up Rittenhouse’s connections to the Proud Boys, a white nationalist organization that has a history of inciting violence at protests. Schroeder... said that Rittenhouse’s association with the Proud Boys wasn’t relevant to the case — despite the fact that shortly after the fatal shootings last year, Rittenhouse flashed a hate symbol and posed for pictures with the group in a Wisconsin bar."

"I haven’t seen Justice Hans Linde in more than a decade, but I thought of him last Saturday, when I found myself locked in a science museum with frightened parents and children while thugs marched by. Hans was a child in Weimar Germany; I suspect he would have known how I was feeling. The museum was the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, in Portland. The occasion was a rally organized by the , an all-male group that exalts “Western values” and promotes Islamophobia. Other affiliated groups joined in—a loose conglomeration of racists, chauvinists, and just plain thugs. Some of them were connected to the in , two years ago, at which a marcher drove his car into a crowd of counterprotesters, killing a woman named . The Proud Boys aren’t from Portland, but they have selected the Rose City as the site for their rallies, threats, and clashes with local “antifa,” or activists. The rally Saturday was nominally to demand that Portland suppress the antifa groups so that the Proud Boys can march unopposed whenever they choose. [...] What has this to do with Hans Linde? Hans was born in 1924 to a prosperous Jewish family in Berlin. He once told me that his first clear memory was of watching from the family apartment while Nazis in brown shirts brawled with Communists on the below. When Jewish life in Germany became untenable, the Lindes relocated to Denmark, and then, by good fortune, obtained U.S. visas. The Lindes settled in Portland; Hans attended Oregon public schools, and then Reed College, in the city’s Eastmoreland neighborhood. He served in the Army, attended law school at UC Berkeley, and began a brilliant career as a U.S. Supreme Court clerk, a Senate aide, a law professor, and finally the greatest justice ever to serve on the Oregon Supreme Court. I came to know Linde because, many years ago, I wrote a profile of him."

"Since the Saturday demonstration, the Proud Boys have announced that they will be back every month until the City suppresses the antifa movement, whom they call “domestic terrorists.” The impudence is striking. The Proud Boys are threatening violence to achieve political change. That is the textbook definition of terrorism. Moreover, even before Charlottesville, domestic terrorism had emerged as a danger from people motivated by the far-right ideology—that is, from the political forces (if not the actual individuals) now demanding that the government crush their enemies so that they can own the streets. Consider a very partial list of horrendous crimes motivated by right-wing racism, misogyny, and anti-Semitism: a mass killing at an African American church in Charleston, South Carolina; pipe bombs sent to public figures who oppose Donald Trump; a massacre at a Pittsburgh synagogue; and 20 people—mostly Latino—gunned down at an El Paso Walmart."

"Welcome to the IRS. Live telephone assistance is not available at this time. Normal operations will resume as soon as possible"

"We thank the Treasury and IRS employees who have been working diligently to ensure the system is processing these returns efficiently"

"More than 9 out of 10 refunds are issued in less than 21 days"

"The Taxpayer Certainty and Disaster Tax Relief Act of 2020, enacted December 27, 2020, made a number of changes to the employee retention tax credits previously made available under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act), including modifying and extending the Employee Retention Credit (ERC), for six months through June 30, 2021. Several of the changes apply only to 2021, while others apply to both 2020 and 2021."

"When Should You Call the IRS?"

"The question must be answered by all taxpayers, not just taxpayers who engaged in a transaction involving virtual currency. Do not leave this field blank"

"Refunds have been a source of abuse recently, but we need to make sure taxpayers have proper due process when the IRS decides to freeze a refund. [Taxpayers] can't effectively challenge the IRS' actions."

"I’m actually very confident that they’re going to be able to identify that type of talent and bring that talent in the door. Because this is going to be an IRS that for the first time in its history actually has the tools that it needs to fight this David and Goliath tax battle against wealthy tax evaders and large corporations."

"Democracy involves the right of the people freely to determine their own destiny. The exercise of this right requires a system that guarantees freedom of expression, belief and association, free and competitive elections, respect for the inalienable rights of individuals and minorities, free communications media, and the rule of law."

"It was Reagan who began the realignment of American politics, making the Republicans into internationalist Jeffersonians with his speech in London at the Palace of Westminster in 1982, which led to the creation of the National Endowment for Democracy and the emergence of democracy promotion as a central goal of United States foreign policy."

"The U.S. employed all its traditional tactics leading up to the coup in 2014. The U.S. National Endowment for Democracy (NED) has partially taken over the CIA's role in grooming opposition candidates, parties and political movements, with an annual budget of $100 million to spend in countries around the world. The NED made no secret of targeting Ukraine as a top priority, funding 65 projects there, more than in any other country. The NED's neoconservative president, Carl Gershman, called Ukraine "the biggest prize" in a Washington Post op-ed in September 2013, as the U.S. operation there prepared to move into its next phase."

"National Endowment for Democracy President Carl Gershman took to the op-ed page of The Washington Post in late September 2013 to declare that Ukraine was now “the biggest prize” and represented an important interim step toward eventually toppling Putin in Russia. Gershman, who is essentially a neocon paymaster dispensing $100 million a year in U.S. taxpayers’ money to activists, journalists and various other operatives, wrote: “Russians, too, face a choice, and Putin may find himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad but within Russia itself.”"

"Trump’s budget for the coming fiscal year proposes to gut the National Endowment for Democracy by cutting two-thirds of its budget. The endowment is one of the main instruments by which the United States subverts and undermines foreign governments. In a less Orwellian world, it might be called the “National Endowment for Attacking Democracy.” Cutting the budget would signal that we are re-thinking our policy of relentlessly interfering in the politics of other countries."

"The empire for its part was working away in secret. For several years the CIA and its “legal” arm, the International Agency for Development (USAID), were training cadres and organizing groups inside the various dissident sectors in Nicaraguan society. The object was to attack, discredit and defeat the Sandinista government. They were working through organizations like National Endowment for Democracy (NED), Freedom House, Heritage Foundation, and the Albert Einstein Institute. They wanted to show the world and particularly our America that being revolutionary is a venal sin. Similarly, acting on behalf of masses of people is a crime against humanity."

"Under the definition of 'in behalf of,' it is not necessary that the criminal acts actually benefit the corporation. But an agent's acts are not 'in behalf of' a corporation if they were undertaken solely to advance the agents own interest. Put another way, if the agent’s acts were taken merely for personal gain, they were not ‘in behalf of’ the corporation.”"

"I worked with musicians. I worked with artists. I worked with designers. I worked with scientists. I worked with engineers. And it struck me at one point that we were … bringing these very divergent technologies together. I came up with this idea that I wanted to do a conference, but I didn’t know how to do a conference."

"World Vision and similar missionary groups operate as external factors, which do not work for the local community respecting its organizational identity and its religiosity. . . . Its ideological mechanism constitutes a powerful tool which tends not only to accompany the process of real subsumption of peasant economies to capitalism, but also provokes a sudden atomization of the community, hastening a massive implantation of capitalist relations of productions in circumstances in which the development of the capitalist system in the country will never be able to absorb the de-peasantized labor force."

"Between 1979 and 1985, World Vision provided more than $4.7 million in aid to Ecuador. . . . World Vision was also granted Ecuadorian government contracts during the 1980s for reforestation, water, rural electrification and small production projects in Ecuador’s Indian highlands. . . . State officials complained that World Vision outbid their programs, conditioned community aid on a monopoly of presence, and even induced villagers to destroy competing projects. . . . Funds were generally given to Indian evangelical congregations or emerging Protestant political associations to distribute. In several cases World Vision employees held simultaneous posts in municipal administration. This led to conflicts between traditional and evangelical sectors of Indian communities, including destruction of project property and even violence along with widespread maladministration of funds."

"World Vision has, on a number of occasions, functioned as an intelligence-gathering arm of the US government. In the 1970s World Vision was charged with having collected field data for the CIA in Vietnam. After US troops left the region, World Vision played a major role in the administration of refugee camps. . . . World Vision also became a crucial player in the ‘yellow rain’ campaign to discredit the Soviet Union. . . . World Vision was drawn into the plot when the US embassy in Bangkok requested that the relief agency send medical samples taken from among refugees who claimed to have been poisoned by ‘yellow rain’. According to a missionary working with the refugees in Thailand, World Vision’s dependence on US grant money obliged it to comply with requests that refugee blood samples be sent to the US embassy rather than to more impartial investigators."

"World Vision played a role in the deaths of three Salvadoran refugees. The World Vision camp-coordinator took them to the local Honduran army post, where they were immediately arrested. After a short time, Honduran soldiers entered the camp and arrested two other refugees. World Vision administrators did not report the incident to the other relief agencies. Next day, one of the refugees was released, but three days later the bodies of the three others were found, [who were] shot to death on the Salvadoran side of the border. Aside from these ‘bad apples’, World Vision—as a policy—maintained records on all Salvadoran aid recipients and filed daily reports by telephone and telex with the World Vision office in Costa Rica. World Vision’s extensive information-gathering procedures bolstered charges that the group was collaborating with the CIA."

"In India, World Vision (WV) projects itself as a ‘Christian relief and development agency with more than foroty years’ experience in working with the poorest of the poor in India without respect to race, region, religion, gender or caste.’ However, Tehelka has in its possession US-based WV Inc.’s financial statement filed before the Internal Revenue Service, wherein, it is classified as a Church ministry. . . . The Confederate of Indian Industries (CII) in its 2003 financial report states that ‘the Rural Development Department of the Government of Assam recognized WV India as a leading development agency in the state and has recommended that WV be the choice for receiving bilateral funds. The government has also sought WV’s assistance in creating a proposal for US$ 80 million for development work in the state.’ The income and expenditure account for the year ended 30 September 2002 shows that its total income was Rs 95.5 crores, which included foreign contribution of Rs 87.8 crores. For an organisation that claims to be only involved in development and relief work, it is quite stealthy about its positioning and exact nature of activities. Though none of the literature published by WV India even mentions its evangelization missions, foreign publications of WV India proudly proclaim its ‘spiritual’ component. . . . In Mayurbhanj, again in Orissa, World Vision (WV) regularly organises spiritual development programmes as part of its ADP package. The WV report says: ‘Opposition to Christian workers and organisations flares up occasionally in this area, generally from those with vested interests in tribal people remaining illiterate and powerless. WV supports local churches by organising leadership courses for pastors and church leaders.’ World Vision India is active in Bhil tribal areas and openly admits its evangelical intentions: ‘The Bhil people worship ancestral spirits but also celebrate all the Hindu festivals. Their superstitions about evil spirits make them suspicious of change, which hinders community development. ADP staff live among the Bhil people they work with, gaining the villagers’ trust and showing their Christian love for the people by their actions and commitment.’"

"[In Sri Lanka, the activities of World Vision raised a strong alarm. Lt Col A.S. Amarasekera of Sri Lanka writes:] After George Bush Jr became the president of the United States, he made a speech in which he said that he would no longer support the developing third-world countries through their respective governments but would channel American aid through the American Christian Relief Organizations in these countries. World Vision is one such organization. Based on the evidence led at the Presidential Commission of inquiry on Non Governmental Organizations, it was proved beyond reasonable doubt that World Vision was an American funded manipulative Christian evangelical organization, which was surreptitiously trying to convert Sinhalese Buddhists to Christianity through a program of work that was identified as ‘The Mustard Seed Project’. After they were thus exposed, they wound up the project and remained dormant for several years but have now recommenced their activities with renewed vigor."

"In the Gajapati ADP, situated in Gumma Block of Orissa’s Gajapati district, a World Vision report admits that “Canadian missionaries have worked in the area for just over 50 years and today 85-90 per cent of the community is Christian. However, local church leaders had little understanding of the importance of their role in community development. ADP staff build relationships with these leaders to improve church cooperation and participation in development initiatives.” Here World Vision organised two training camps for local church leaders in holistic development. In Mayurbhanj, again in Orissa, World Vision regularly organises spiritual development programmes as part of its ADP package. The World Vision report says: “Opposition to Christian workers and organisations flares up occasionally in this area, generally from those with vested interests in tribal people remaining illiterate and powerless. World Vision supports local churches by organising leadership courses for pastors and church leaders.” In India, World Vision is active in Bhil tribal areas and openly admits its evangelical intentions: “The Bhil people worship ancestral spirits but also celebrate all the Hindu festivals. Their superstitions about evil spirits make them suspicious of change, which hinders community development. ADP staff live among the Bhil people they work with, gaining the villagers’ trust and showing their Christian love for the people by their actions and commitment.”"

"Most of the major evangelical corporations (like World Vision, Campus Crusade, Youth with a Mission, and Samaritan’s Purse) operate in partnership with the US government in its pursuit of foreign policy goals. World Vision, which is effectively an arm of the State Department, is perhaps the most notable example of this. There is also the benefit of custom-built legislation, with the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 providing necessary sanction to bring errant nations into line."

"As the founder of both World Vision and Samaritan’s Purse, Bob Pierce may rank as the leading religious philanthropist of the twentieth century. He first visited China as an evangelist in 1947. Upon his arrival, a Dutch Reformed missionary, Tena Hoelkeboer, invited him to preach to her school of four hundred Chinese girls. Pierce agreed, but, the day after his short evangelistic sermon, one of Hoelkeboer’s students, White Jade, informed her father that she had converted to Christianity. Her father’s response was to throw her out of the house. Hoelkeboer, distressed at the prospect of taking on yet another orphan, demanded of Pierce, “What are you going to do about it? Pierce gave Hoelkeboer ten dollars, all the money he had, and promised to send more each month on his return to the United States. After his return home, Pierce recounted the story to his American audiences, and it continues to be retold as the origin of both World Vision and Samaritan’s Purse. Pierce’s initial overseas encounter changed him. He had gone as a young American evangelist but returned as a missionary ambassador, bringing both the spiritual and physical needs of the world to the attention of American evangelicals. Pierce soon founded World Vision in 1950 as a small American evangelical agency with a simple mission of evangelism and child care in Asia."

"After SNCC came into existence, of course, it opened up a new era of struggle."

"there were major problems within SNCC, especially around the role of women. The same thing happened with the BPP. It was in that context that I joined the Communist Party, precisely at that time. (TP: Because of gender and sexism and other internal problems going on in these organizations?) AD: Yes, but also because I felt the need to be a part of an organization that addressed class as well as race and gender."

"there were also very strong sexist tendencies in the Black movement. In the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), for example, we women were running the office, but when the time came to publicly represent the organization at press conferences and rallies, the men would appear, taking credit for our work. We knew that something was wrong!"

"Today most political commentators or historians still do not want to give full credit to the effectiveness of SNCC, but many of the most powerful and successful struggles of the Civil rights movement were initiated and won by SNCC, including most of the voting rights struggles and the Mississippi phase of the freedom movement."

"Along with the economic exploitation that the whole state of Mississippi inflicts upon the Negro, there was the ever-present problem of physical violence. As we rode along the dusty roads of the Delta country, our companions cited unbelievable cases of police brutality and incidents of Negroes being brutally murdered by white mobs. In spite of this, there was a ray of hope. This ray of hope was seen in the new determination of the Negroes themselves to be free. Under the leadership of Bob Moses, a team of more than a thousand Northern white students and local Negro citizens had instituted a program of voter registration and political action that was one of the most creative attempts I had seen to radically change the oppressive life of the Negro in that entire state and possibly the entire nation. The Negroes in Mississippi had begun to learn that change would come in that lawless, brutal police state only as Negroes reformed the political structure of the area. They had begun this reform in 1964 through the Freedom Democratic Party. The enormity of the task was inescapable. We would have had to put the field staffs of SCLC, NAACP, CORE, SNCC, and a few other agencies to work in the Delta alone. However, no matter how big and difficult a task it was, we began. We encouraged our people in Mississippi to rise up by the hundreds and thousands and demand their freedom-now!"

"Increasing numbers of black leaders wanted to fight segregation with segregation, imposing a black-only social order that at least paid lip service to excluding even white reporters from press briefings. In 1966 Carmichael became head of SNCC, replacing John Lewis, a soft-spoken southerner who advocated nonviolence. Carmichael turned SNCC into an aggressive Black Power organization, and in so doing Black Power became a national movement. In May 1967 Hubert “Rap” Brown, who had not been a well-known figure in the civil rights movement, replaced Carmichael as the head of SNCC, which by now was nonviolent in name only. In that summer of bloody riots, Brown said at a press conference, “I say you better get a gun. Violence is necessary—it is as American as cherry pie.”"

"In the present era of devalued dreams and mocked hopes, we need to confront immoral power with moral power. That was the message of SNCC founder Ella Baker and the essence of the 1960s movements."

"In the Black civil rights movement, as in the Chicano, Asian/Pacific American, Puerto Rican, and Native American movements of those years, youth led the way in fighting oppression. Before that, the Black struggle in this century had usually centered on professionals or community leaders and middle-class or working class adults, often profoundly brave, persistent and self-sacrificing people. Young activists were everywhere but not the base of rebellion and not the recognized leadership. All that changed in the 1960s. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), which initiated the Mississippi Summer Project, had all the hallmarks of youth. Its young black field secretaries and other staff set a tone and style of work that celebrated boldness, energy, untraditional creativity, informality, democratic procedure, and sometimes breathtaking courage. Another reason for today's youthful interest in that era probably rises from the idea of "black and white together, we shall overcome." No matter how complicated or flawed, that goal resonated powerfully through the southern freedom struggle. As an ideal, black/white unity inspired thousands of people from north to south who dreamed of equal rights and opportunity won by joint struggle. The Mississippi Summer Project thereby continued a historic tradition of white anti-racist activism that stands as an alternative to the tradition of white racist activism. Such an alternative does exist and whites can choose to join an honorable tradition or a hateful one. Such a choice demands to be made yesterday, today, and at all times every day."

"1968 was also the year when the whole picture with SNCC was kind of beginning to decline. SNCC was talking about forming an alliance with the Black Panther Party, which didn’t work out very well for various reasons that you probably know about, and Eldridge Cleaver and so forth and so on. And so it was a whole lot of ideological confusion, confusion about where do we go from here, and there was a group in Atlanta that was very much more inclined towards Islamic beliefs and having nothing do with white folks, and Jim Forman was saying we need to study Marxism, and took a group to Africa. I mean, there was different pulls, but there was no one clear vision that prevailed at that time, and the only thing that some people were clear about was getting rid of the white folks in SNCC, but even doing that didn’t (unclear). So they didn’t know what me and Maria Varela were — nobody quite knew. Neither did we. I was just SNCC, you know? That’s all. I’m SNCC. That’s what I am. I wasn’t even thinking any other way. And I don’t think she was either, to tell you the truth. So nobody kicked us out, but nobody kicked us in, either. I don’t know. (laughs) We weren’t black; we weren’t white. At that time, as you know, there was no — the racial definition in this country was strictly black and white."

"Ella Baker was really sort of the godmother for SNCC. I met Ella in the summer of 1960. And in the spring of 1960, she had taken the initiative to get the student sit-in energy at Shaw, her alma mater, and held off on the big civil rights leaders, to say, “Look, the kids ought to have the opportunity to manage their own insurgency,” right? And so, SNCC was the encapsulation of the sit-in movement, the energy of the sit-in movement, right? And so, that — and SNCC took that energy into the Freedom Rides, because it was the SNCC energy which said to the president of the United States and the attorney general, “It doesn’t matter what you’re saying, that, you know, there’s some danger here. Our lives are in danger, but we’ve decided that, with our lives, this is what we want to do.” Right? And so, SNCC, really, and those students became the example for students all over the country — right? — the idea that students should draw a line in the sand and say, “Look, that’s it. That’s enough. We don’t want to live in this country unless we can change it...There are a lot of young people that came out of SNCC, and not just came out of SNCC, but people who came down in to work in the Freedom Summer and spread out into the country — Mario Savio, right? — people in a lot of the different movements in the country. Bernice Reagon, who also came out of SNCC, and Sweet Honey in the Rock, that group of singers, all those were inspired by SNCC. And Bernice says the civil rights movement was the “borning movement,” right? It was — and SNCC was right at the heart of that borning movement."

"Going south gave northern Jewish women an opportunity to create existential meaning in their lives through moral action. Going south also provided adventure, "authentic" experience (in which theory and practice were linked), a sense of community, and escape from boring jobs, difficult families, and the prospect of marriage and life in suburbia. The movement offered these women the chance to learn from some of the most exciting activist/theorists in the country-people who worked with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) such as Ella Baker, Bob Moses, Fannie Lou Hamer, James Forman, Charles McDew, Stokely Carmichael, and a host of unsung local heroes."

"I idolize Fannie Lou Hamer and Ella Baker. And they are supreme examples of what being freedom fighters, principled, fearless — or at least courageous. There’s a difference between being fearless and being courageous. Courageous is actually better, because everyone should have some fear about what might actually harm them. And, of course, Fannie Lou Hamer paid a huge price for wanting to do something as seemingly ordinary as vote. But in the Jim Crow South of that era, Black people, virtually none of them were allowed to vote. She paid a permanent price because of the beating that she received. And I just found out yesterday, if you can believe it, after all these years, that she actually was blinded in one eye. She is known for having worked with SNCC, doing voter organizing and other kinds of antiracist organizing during that Jim Crow era, and then, of course, speaking out so powerfully at the 1964 Democratic convention about what went on in Mississippi, and asking the very, very, very relevant question: “Is this America?”...I actually had the great, great pleasure and honor of meeting Fannie Lou Hamer when I was a teenager in Cleveland in 1965 and was very involved in the civil rights movement as a young person."

"In 1969, Ella Baker, SNCC’s great mentor, pointed us in the direction of meaningful action when she said, “In order for us as poor and oppressed people to become a part of a society that is meaningful, the system under which we now exist has to be radically changed.” This means that we are going to have to learn to think in radical terms. I use the term radical in its original meaning – getting down to and understanding the root cause. Baker continued, “It means facing a system that does not lend itself to your needs and devising means by which you change that system.”"

"What SNCC taught me was that I needed to act in my own community. It took me some time to put all of this together but finally, eleven years ago, I went to Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza for the first time. Based on what I saw with my own eyes and the anguish I felt in my own heart I became a Jewish activist against Israeli governmental policies of injustice and inequality."

"With $800 of SCLC money, the prestige of Martin Luther King, the organizing wisdom of Ella Baker, and the enthusiasm of the rare young people who were leading the new student movement, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee was born."

"For the first time in our history a major social movement, shaking the nation to its bones, is being led by youngsters. This is not to deny the inspirational leadership of a handful of adults (Martin Luther King and James Farmer), the organizational direction by veterans in the struggle (Roy Wilkins and A. Philip Randolph), or the participation of hundreds of thousands of older people in the current Negro revolt. But that revolt, a long time marching out of the American past, its way suddenly lit up by the Supreme Court decision, and beginning to rumble in earnest when thousands of people took to the streets of Montgomery in the bus boycott, first flared into a national excitement with the sit-ins by college students that started the decade of the 1960's. And since then, those same youngsters, hardened by countless jailings and beatings, now out of school and living in ramshackle headquarters all over the Deep South, have been striking the sparks, again and again, for that fire of change spreading through the South and searing the whole country. These young rebels call themselves the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, but they are more a movement than an organization, for no bureaucratized structure can contain their spirit, no printed program capture the fierce and elusive quality of their thinking. And while they have no famous leaders, very little money, no inner access to the seats of national authority, they are clearly the front line of the Negro assault on the moral comfort of white America."

"All Americans owe them a debt for-if nothing else-releasing the idealism locked so long inside a nation that has not recently tasted the drama of a social upheaval. And for making us look on the young people of the country with a new respect. Theirs was the silent generation until they spoke, the complacent generation until they marched and sang, the money-seeking generation until they renounced comfort and security to fight for justice in the dank and dangerous hamlets of the Black Belt."

"By early 1964, the number was up to 150. In the most heated days of abolitionism before the Civil War, there were never that many dedicated people who turned their backs on ordinary pursuits and gave their lives wholly to the movement. There were William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips and Theodore Weld and Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth and a handful of others, and there were hundreds of part-time abolitionists and thousands of followers. But for 150 youngsters today to turn on their pasts, to decide to live and work twenty-four hours a day in the most dangerous region of the United States, is cause for wonder. And wherever they have come from the Negro colleges of the South, the Ivy League universities of the North, the small and medium colleges all over the country-they have left ripples of astonishment behind. This college generation as a whole is not committed, by any means. But it has been shaken."

"There is another striking contrast to Garrison and Phillips, Lewis Tappan and Theodore Weld: these young people are not middle-class reformers who became somehow concerned about others. They come themselves from the ranks of the victims, not just because they are mostly Negroes, but because for the most part their fathers are janitors and laborers, their mothers maids and factory workers."

"there is no doubt about it: we have in this country today a movement which will take its place alongside that of the abolitionists, the Populists, the Progressives-and may outdo them all."

"They are happy warriors, a refreshing contrast to the revolutionaries of old. They smile and wave while being taken off in paddy wagons; they laugh and sing behind bars. Yet they are the most serious social force in the nation today."

"They are radical, but not dogmatic; thoughtful, but not ideological. Their thinking is undisciplined; it is fresh, and it is new."

"To visit SNCC field headquarters in these rural outposts of the Deep South is like visiting a combat station in wartime...Over every one of these headquarters in the field, whether a "Freedom House" rented by SNCC, or a home or office donated by a local supporter, there hangs the constant threat of violence. The first SNCC headquarters in Selma was burned down; in Greenwood, two SNCC workers found themselves under siege by a mob of armed men and had to make their way over rooftops to safety; in Danville, police simply marched into the SNCC office and arrested everyone in sight."

"These are young radicals; the word "revolution" occurs again and again in their speech. Yet they have no party, no ideology, no creed. They have no clear idea of a blueprint for a future society. But they do know clearly that the values of present American society and this goes beyond racism to class distinction, to commercialism, to profit-seeking, to the setting of religious or national barriers against human contact-are not for them."

"Next to the phrase "nonviolence," however, what you hear most often among SNCC workers is "direct action." They believe, without inflicting violence, and while opening themselves to attack, in confronting a community boldly with the sounds and sights of protest. When it is argued that this will inevitably bring trouble, even violence, the answer is likely to be that given by James Bevel, who in his activity with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference works closely with SNCC in Alabama and Mississippi: "Maybe the Devil has got to come out of these people before we will have peace....""

"these people are living, hour by hour, the ideals which this country has often thought about, but not yet managed to practice: they are courageous, though afraid; they live and work together in a brotherhood of black and white. Southerner and Northerner, Jew and Christian and agnostic, the likes of which this country has not yet seen. They are creating new definitions of success, of happiness, of democracy. It is just possible that the momentum created by their enormous energy-now directed against racial separation-may surge, before it can be contained, against other barriers which keep people apart in the world: poverty, and nationalism, and all tyranny over the minds and bodies of men. If so, the United States may truly be on the verge of a revolution-nonviolent, but sweeping in its consequences and led by those who, perhaps, are most dependable in a revolution: the young."

"SNCC workers have found that F.B.I. men in the South often share the segregationist views of the people around them; this is reflected in the lack of enthusiasm which F.B.I. men show in handling civil rights cases. Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer once told an F.B.I. agent, "If I get to heaven and I see you there, I will tell St. Peter to send me on back to Mississippi!""

"A lot of these allegations crop up again and again over history. I think it's statistically unrealistic to think it isn't given the vastness of the universe."

"AARO has found no credible evidence thus far of extraterrestrial activity, off-world technology, or objects that defy the known laws of physics. In the event sufficient scientific data were ever obtained that a UAP encounter can only be explained by extraterrestrial origin, we are committed to working with our interagency partners at NASA."

"AARO is working with the military departments and the joint staff to normalize, integrate, and expand UAP reporting beyond the aviators to all service members, including mariners, submariners, and our space guardians. AARO is working to take in more UAP reporting and analysis from the interagency, FAA, NOAA Coast Guard and the Department of Energy to name a few."

"The China adversary is not waiting. They are advancing and they are advancing quickly. They are less risk averse at technical advancement than we are. They are just willing to try things and see if it works."

"[A]nd when I'm in Detroit, I be balling like a Piston."

"Way I'm dripping, bitch, I'm balling like the Pistons."

"The EF-5 rating was mainly arrived at by the total destruction of vehicles of various sizes and weight. Some vehicles were tossed several blocks, and owners were never able to locate their vehicles. Also, parking stops weighing over 300 pounds and re-barred into asphalt were tossed from 20 to 60 yards. Other factors included was the deflection, deformed and tossing of reinforced concrete porches and slabs, and the fact the St. John’s hospital building structure and foundation were compromised and will need to be torn down, were probably caused by winds speed at or exceeding 200 mph."

"A few of 's assemblages became fully dimensional sculptures. Some were outspoken expressions of social protest. Child, a grotesquely gnarled, life-sized figure in black was placed in a real , was inspired by the execution of the convicted rapist , who for years had made appeals for clemency from . It scandalized viewers when it was exhibited in a San Francisco Art Association Annual at the ."

"Much of San Francisco's artistic and bohemian life revolved around the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art and the San Francisco Art Association. The institute converted ground-flour salons and drawing rooms into exhibition galleries and classrooms, using many of the spacious chambers on the top floors as studies. Major art exhibitions were scheduled twice each year in the spring and fall. Every winter the students hosted one of San Francisco's major social events of the season, the colorful and not always sedate ball. Everyone appeared in costume, including , who once came dressed as , a high point for the revelers, arriving with the crowning of King and Queen of Bohemia at midnight."

"The San Francisco Art Association has a distinguished record for encouraging the development of modern art. ... The San Francisco Museum of Art, originally under the administration of the Art Association, was installed in the in 1935, under the directorship of ... One of the unique features of the SFAA is the Artists' Council, which nominates the yearly juries for the annual show."

"One of the most important benefits of the Sea Cadet Program is that it provides participating youth a peer structure and environment that places maximum empha-sis on a drug and gang free environment."