MORE THAN NEWS: THE DAY MIKE RUPPERT LEFT AMERICA

MORE THAN NEWS: THE DAY MIKE RUPPERT LEFT AMERICA

It is becoming a growing trend, as I speak with more and more people that a time to depart america is becoming more imminent. Many, many people I speak to WANT TO LEAVE.
I know for me, its integral to every core aspect of my being to leave a country that has taken a very serious downward path, leaving very little for the average person in its wake.

September 18th 2006, 2:23 PM [PST] - It was Monday, July 17th, late in the morning when the phone rang in my office. I answered it as I always do with “More Than News”. The voice on the other end was Mike Ruppert. He said he had been driving since three in the morning and that he needed me to do something for him. I of course said “What is it?” You never know what it is when Mike asks you for something. It’s not like Mike asks for simple, normal things like “can you get me a newspaper?” This has never been a problem, just an observation over the years. He said he needed to get to Caracas, Venezuela and that he needed to get there immediately. Oh, OK, no problem. I asked why? He said “because it’s time”. I knew exactly what that meant. I had visited the offices in Ashland, Oregon a few weeks earlier and knew Mike was spending his last days here in this country.

After I got off the phone, I called my wonderful travel agent who had done many trips for Mike, FTW and myself in the past, AND has read cover to cover, “Crossing The Rubicon”, which I know changed his life a bit. This was the same travel agent who took care of us on trips to Toronto, Seattle, Montana, New York and Mike on trips to Germany, England, and last minute jaunts to Washington D.C. among others. Now I was asking him to pull a rabbit out of a hat for us. You see, Mike needed to leave on this journey from another country. No red flags. No credit cards. No personal cell phone calls. It was Tijuana, not Los Angeles International that Mike needed to leave from.

So, after an evening alone at the local Marriot Hotel, Mike came to my home the next morning, walked right in, was greeted by a barking dog, Molly, and by my two offspring (I can’t call someone 15 and someone 19 children any longer), hugged them both, and we were off to rent a car, to begin the journey down to Tijuana, Mexico, where Mike’s new life was going to begin.

We spoke about a lot of things on the drive south. We spoke about why he was leaving his country he could no longer believe in. We spoke about his company, From The Wilderness and how important it was to keep it alive. We spoke about what we could say and couldn’t say about his whereabouts. We spoke about all the events that had plagued FTW over the past several years. We spoke about some of the landmark, ground-breaking stories FTW had broken over the past few years. He spoke fondly of his writers, mentioning Mike Kane, Stan Goff, Carolyn Baker, and of his dear friends, Catherine Austin Fitts and Rep. Cynthia McKinney. He went through several moments of just spacing out—looking at the scenery on Interstate 5, watching everything as it passed us by and occasionally talking about how he had to leave this country. I could tell Mike was tired, the kind of tired that makes it hard to think. It seemed he had already thought about this. No need to continue. Mike and I have always had an interesting relationship. We would argue a lot, mainly because I still believed in the tooth fairy, and of course Mike didn’t, and he enjoyed proving to me why I shouldn’t. We were opposites in so many areas but the same in many others, especially music, Mike’s real passion. It was always difficult for me to believe as he did, that people could be so cruel and underhanded—that it wasn’t always as it seemed.

We stopped in San Juan Capistrano to get a bite to eat. Walked around the town and stepped into a local 50’s diner with approximately 10 children under the age of 6 for every adult, including one who had a scream that seemed it would have shattered glass. Mike thoroughly enjoyed his Kobe beef burger and milkshake. We filled the car with gas and hit the road. We were not sure about driving the rental car over the border, and we were not comfortable about having Mike take a shuttle to the Tijuana airport either. I wanted to see Mike off at the airport for myself so we decided to head straight to the airport. A sign said ‘aeropuerto’ 6 Km. It took an hour to find it, even though Mike used his Spanish speaking abilities and sign reading prowess to the max. It was a victorious moment when we finally stumbled on to the sign “Tijuana International Airport”.

I pulled into a small lot at the corner of the front of the terminal. I stopped the car and opened up the trunk. I saw Mike grab his very heavy suitcase and his carry-on with his laptop. For one quick moment I thought of things that should have taken twenty minutes to think of. Where’s all his other stuff, I thought to myself. Mike never really lived, at least since I’ve known him, with some of the luxuries and niceties a lot of us live with. But now, he was living in a home in Ashland he was quite proud of. Nice view, nice furnishings, and all the appliances and items necessary to enjoy a home life. And he was leaving it all behind. What was going to happen to all his possessions? Not enough time to think about this and ask him. Although we were early, it was easy to see Mike wanted to just get this first leg of his journey over with. It was on to Mexico City before leaving for Caracas.

We said goodbye, not a big scene, and I watched him lug his stuff until he disappeared into the terminal. Of course, not before he lit up a cigarette. I got back into the car, and made it back to the border, only to see there was at least a two-hour delay and wait to cross. Remembering what Mike had told me earlier in the day, I turned my cell phone off, and for the first time in a long time, I had some time to think. A lot of time. Thanks Mike.

U.S. bar panel raps Bush on signing statements

U.S. bar panel raps Bush on signing statements

Its about time.

WASHINGTON: The powerful American Bar Association charged president George Bush with flouting the constitution and undermining the rule of the law by assuming power to disregard selected provisions of bills he signs.

An 11-member bipartisan panel of the bar association said in a report that Bush had used the provision of "signing statements" far more than his predecessors, raising constitutional objections to over 800 provisions in more than 100 laws as they infringed on his prerogatives.

The panel said these uses of power by the president amounted to "veto" and deprived the Congress of the opportunity to override the veto.

A signing statement is a statement attached to a legislative bill when the president signs it to make it a law. Usually, such statements pertain to instructions to law enforcing agencies on how to use the law.

The panel cited laws relating to ban on torture and other national security laws, where Bush had, through the signing statements, reserved the right to disregard them.

The report described the use of signing statements as "contrary to the rule of law and our constitutional system of separation of powers." It said the president has the right to veto a bill if he feels the bill is unconstitutional, but "signing statements should not be a substitute for a presidential veto."

The report comes as a shot in the arm for a campaign being initiated by scholars and members of the Congress who seek to curb the use of signing statements.

Judiciary committee chairman and Republican Arlen Specter said on the Senate floor that he will have a bill ready by the end of the week allowing the Congress to sue the president in a federal court on the issue of using signing statements. Specter told the Senate, "We will submit legislation to the United States Senate which will ... authorize the Congress to undertake judicial review of those signing statements with the view to having the president's acts declared unconstitutional."

Specter is particularly annoyed by two signing statements challenging the provisions of the USA Patriot Act renewal, which he wrote, and legislation that bans torture of detainees.

American Bar Association president Michael Greco said the non-veto hamstrings the Congress because the Congress cannot respond to a signing statement. The practice, he said "is harming the separation of powers."

The panel said Bush has challenged about 750 statutes passed by the Congress.

The White House defended the use of signing statements, saying these are not intended to allow the administration to ignore the law. A spokesperson said a great many of those signing statements may have little statements about questions about constitutionality. "It never says, 'We're not going to enact the law.'"

A Republican Senator and a former judge, John Cornyn, said signing statements carry no legal weight because federal courts are unlikely to consider them when deciding cases that challenge the same laws. They amount of mere expressions of presidential opinion.

The panel said its recommendations should not be construed as an attack on the president. It said several previous presidents had asserted the right to disregard provisions of a law to which they objected. But, Bush had expressed his objections more forcefully, more often and more systematically, "as a strategic weapon" to influence federal agencies and judges, it felt.

The panel also found Bush’s signing statements often used the same formulaic language, with no citation of authority or detailed explanation. It urged the Congress to pass a law requiring the president to elaborately state the reasons and legal basis for any signing statement where he intended to disregard or decline to enforce a statute. The panel also recommended legislation enforcing judicial review of signing statements.