HAPPY 2ND BIRTHDAY NOELLE

NOELLE'S BIRTHDAY BALLOON!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MATT

NOELLE NOEL

Tonight we drove around showing Noelle the Christmas lights. There is one house a couple of miles away, just off of Camelback Rd and 44th St, that each year has the largest lights display I have ever seen - they even sell Christmas crafts and serve hot chocolate and coffee...for a donation.

Noelle enjoyed it... hope you do!

PERFECTION

ROSIE ON DAVID LETTERMAN REPEAT

For those who missed the David Letterman repeat with Rosie O'Donnell the other night - here it is for anyone interested in watching.

This initially aired in the fall of last year after a few weeks on the View and all was harmonious.

Watch her play with hands and crack her knuckles throughout. You can tell she is nervous.

CONGRESSMEN CALL FOR CHENEY'S IMPEACHMENT

Today I received an email from Democrats.com with the following message. I find the next to last paragraph extremely telling. Our national media is complicit in the Bush/Cheney crimes. Too much money is at stake and they will not report the truth.

Rep. Robert Wexler (FL-19) and two other Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee - Luis Gutierrez (IL-04) and Tammy Baldwin (WI-02) - today called on the committee to begin impeachment hearings for Vice President Cheney.

They declared, "The charges are too serious to ignore. There is credible evidence that the Vice President abused the power of his office, and not only brought us into an unnecessary war but violated the civil liberties and privacy of American citizens. It is the constitutional duty of Congress to hold impeachment hearings."

The three Democrats wrote an op-ed to announce their position, but none of the nation's leading newspapers would publish it - just as they refuse to include impeachment in their polls, and just as they refuse to publish their own investigations of the crimes of the Bush Administration. Why? Because the Corporate Media is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Republican Party, as it has been since the Reagan Revolution of 1980.

Rep. Wexler needs to collect 50,000 signatures to convince his Democratic colleagues that the American people truly support impeachment hearings. So please sign his petition: WEXLERWANTSHEARINGS

Go to Congressman Wexler's website and sign the petition and pass it on to everyone you know.

Its the right thing to do.

IS JODIE FOSTER GAY?

CNN ran this story today, "Is Jodie Foster Gay?"

How relevant is the question?

Does she need to come out?

I do not know that Jodie Foster needs to confirm or deny that she is gay. In my opinion is isn't important.

It doesn't change the fact that over 4,000 American servicemen and women have died in the Iraq War or that there are millions of Americans without health care. Homeless people are not sheltered and children do not go to bed with a full belly because she announces she is gay. Her "lesbian proclamation" doesn't give the elderly reasonably priced prescription drugs or a lower income high school senior a college education.

In my opinion, no prominent gay person is obligated to "come out" unless they wish to for their own reasons. They are under no obligation anymore than average Joe the butcher or Jane the bank teller.

It is personal - no public declarations are necessary, and I disagree with those that say they NEED to do it to become role models.

In their private lives celebrities live their lives as honestly as they choose, on their terms, not on the terms of the media or society.

Is Jodie Foster gay - Well Probably!

Does she need to shout it from a rooftop - it is her decision.

CORRESPONDENCE FROM JOHN MCCAIN

Today I received an email from John McCain. It was a response to an email I sent him last week regarding the impeachment of President Bush.

The once well respected decorated war hero with the sole conscience of the Republican Party has morphed into a has been republican lap dog and it is nearly pathetic to watch. The John McCain of today is not the same John McCain that ran for president against George Bush in 2000 and I believe it is time he retire from public life.

His letter follows:

Dear Mr. Willi:

Thank you for contacting me to express your view that President Bush should be impeached and removed from office. I'm afraid that we will have to agree to disagree on this issue.

The impeachment and removal of a President are extraordinary actions that should be taken only when the individual holding that office has been found to have committed treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors. President Bush has committed no crime and has dedicated his time in office to protecting the people of this nation to the best of his ability.

At a time when our nation is at war with radical extremists, we should all work together to secure our Nation from the very real threats it faces. Stoking partisan fires by calling for the impeachment and the removal of the President only harms our unity and our security at a time when acting as one nation is crucial.

Please know that I cherish the right of speech and dissent and, while I respect your views on this matter, I simply disagree. I thank you again for contacting me to share your thoughts.

Sincerely,

John McCain

United States Senator



JM/dkr

HILLARY INTERVIEW

I like her - don't know what it is, but I like Hillary and I think that if people would just listen to what she has to say and get past their pre-conceived, mistaken impressions of her they will find one very bright woman who will lead this country in a different direction than King George and Dick Cheney.

I still have not figured out why people don't like her:

- Is it because she is a woman in a tankful of male sharks?

- Is it because she is Bill Clinton's wife?

- Is it because she stood by Bill Clinton during his adulterous affairs?

- Is it because she is a democrat?

- Is it because she is smart and some-what tough?

- Is it because she should be home backing cookies?

I've never heard a single, valid reason why they don't like her.

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS

It was gray, cloudy and occasionally rainy all weekend here in Phoenix. Temperature only in the 50s. I HATE it.

Puts me in a funk. Days like his are few - that's why I live here.

No sleep Friday night and can't say I slept any better last night (and Noelle wasn't even here).

Spent the entire day today reading the last book of Harry Potter.

I have loved the Harry Potter books since Rosie O first had JK on her show. I have all of the books and read each one immediately after being released. For the 6th one I happened to be awake late that night and drove up to BN to pick it up at 1 am. Got home and finished it before the end of the day.

This latest one I started while in NYC in August. I read 365 pages in one setting and never got back to it until today - and today I read until the end - page 759.

I recently spoke with someone who had finished it and I started to ask the questions I believed I knew the answers to.... Was Dumbledore really alive? Did it turn out that Snape wasn't a bad guy? Harry doesn't die, right? Do Herminone and Ron get together? And how about Harry and Ginny?

I wasn't disappointed and was right about almost all of it, but I found the book cumbersome to read - too many pages and too much detail!

I found myself tearing up at a few parts - not as much as the other books. I remembered these adorable and adventurous little friends I've grown to love over the years, but when it was over, instead of feeling a need for more, I was relieved.

I was happy with the ending but felt the the final battle was anti-climatic. What happens happens and there isn't much fan fare. I think it was a paragraph.

I am sitting outside by the fire, which has now faded and the air is cooling. Tomorrow it is forecasted to rain all day long.

Was suppose to start work...but it isn't happening.

I hate it.

Perhaps I can start another book from my stack.

SWEENEY TODD - NOT WHILE I'M AROUND

Not While I'm Around is one of my all-time favorite songs. It comes from Sweeney Todd - The Demon Barber of Fleet Street - which opens in theaters December 21st.

Synopsis: Johnny Depp and Tim Burton join forces again in a big-screen adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's award-winning musical thriller "Sweeney Todd." Depp stars in the title role as a man unjustly sent to prison who vows revenge, not only for that cruel punishment, but for the devastating consequences of what happened to his wife and daughter. When he returns to reopen his barber shop, Sweeney Todd becomes the Demon Barber of Fleet Street who "shaved the heads of gentlemen who never thereafter were heard from again." Joining Depp is Helena Bonham Carter as Mrs. Lovett, Sweeney's amorous accomplice, who creates diabolical meat pies. The cast also includes Alan Rickman, who portrays the evil Judge Turpin, who sends Sweeney to prison and Timothy Spall as the Judge's wicked associate Beadle Bamford and Sacha Baron Cohen is a rival barber, the flamboyant Signor Adolfo Pirelli.

NO SLEEP FOR GPAWILLI

Today I am tired - no - I'm exhausted.

Was up over half the night with the wee one who could not sleep. Lately she doesn't like to sleep in her bed here so in with me she crawls.

Restless all night and then about 1am she started. Never really figured out what her problem was. She said she was hungry, said she was thirsty, wanted me to change her diaper. Still the whimpering continued.

Fettit took her to his bed for quite some time but she never fell alseep.... Just kept lying there awake looking at him saying "Hi Papa." Melts the heart.

He brought her back to me and at about 4am and she finally fell back to sleep. She is not fun to sleep with, always moving and kicking me.

Love the little snot too much!

By 9:30 I texted her mother, I am out of diapers. Do you want me to drop off diapers or pick up Noelle? Please come get her! I'm in a foul mood but try to keep it to myself. Never directed at her.

There is talk of trying for another one. Maybe a little boy - Christopher Sterling. How will I ever handle two?

CONGRATULATIONS BARBRA

The 2008 Grammy Award nominations were announced yesterday and the greatest voice of all time, Barbra Streisand, has received a nomination in the Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album category.

I was fortunate enough to see this concert two times...

- Once in Chicago in October 2006 with my brother, Kevin, his partner Craig (Brad), and sister Karla. It was here that Kevin and I met Rosie O'Donnell - A DREAM FULFILLED.

- Fettit and I saw Barbra in Phoenix the next month, November 2006, and our seats were so close that when I yelled out "I love you Barbra" she heard me and replied "WHY THANK YOU SIR" - acknowledgement - THE LIFELONG DREAM COME TRUE.

CONGRATULATIONS AUNT BARBRA

HUCKABEE FOUGHT TO RELEASE SERIAL RAPIST BECAUSE OF ANTI-CLINTON HYSTERIA

I was reading an article on Young Turks this morning that lead me to the following indepth article found on the Huffington Report. It is one of many articles out there regarding the subject - Mike Huckabee's presidential campaign is on the verge of imploding and he may want to consider withdrawing from the race.

One major factor in Huckabee's decision to commute the rapist/murderer's sentence was his pathological hatred for Bill Clinton.

The following article is quite long but well worth reading.

Little Rock, Ark -- As governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee aggressively pushed for the early release of a convicted rapist despite being warned by numerous women that the convict had sexually assaulted them or their family members, and would likely strike again. The convict went on to rape and murder at least one other woman.

Confidential Arkansas state government records, including letters from these women, obtained by the Huffington Post and revealed publicly for the first time, directly contradict the version of events now being put forward by Huckabee.

While on the campaign trail, Huckabee has claimed that he supported the 1999 release of Wayne Dumond because, at the time, he had no good reason to believe that the man represented a further threat to the public. Thanks to Huckabee's intervention, conducted in concert with a right-wing tabloid campaign on Dumond's behalf, Dumond was let out of prison 25 years before his sentence would have ended.

"There's nothing any of us could ever do," Huckabee said Sunday on CNN when asked to reflect on the horrific outcome caused by the prisoner's release. "None of us could've predicted what [Dumond] could've done when he got out."

But the confidential files obtained by the Huffington Post show that Huckabee was provided letters from several women who had been sexually assaulted by Dumond and who indeed predicted that he would rape again - and perhaps murder - if released.

In a letter that has never before been made public, one of Dumond's victims warned: "I feel that if he is released it is only a matter of time before he commits another crime and fear that he will not leave a witness to testify against him the next time." Before Dumond was granted parole at Huckabee's urging, records show that Huckabee's office received a copy of this letter from Arkansas' parole board.

The woman later wrote directly to Huckabee about having been raped by Dumond. In a letter obtained by the Huffington Post, she said that Dumond had raped her while holding a butcher knife to her throat, and while her then-3-year-old daughter lay in bed next to her. Also included in the files sent to Huckabee's office was a police report in which Dumond confessed to the rape. Dumond was not charged in that particular case because he later refused to sign the confession and because the woman was afraid to press charges.

Huckabee kept these and other documents secret because they were politically damaging, according to a former aide who worked for him in Arkansas. The aide has made the records available to the Huffington Post, deeply troubled by Huckabee's repeated claims that he had no reason to believe Dumond would commit other violent crimes upon his release from prison. The aide also believes that Huckabee, for political reasons, has deliberately attempted to cover up his knowledge of Dumond's other sexual assaults.

"There were no letters sent to the governor's office from any rape victims," Huckabee campaign spokesperson Alice Stewart said on Tuesday when contacted by the Huffington Post.

Subsequently, however, the campaign provided a former senior aide of Huckabee's who did remember reading at least one of the letters.

But Huckabee and his aides insist that his receipt of the letters is irrelevant because the decision to release Dumond was made by the parole board. Huckabee on Tuesday again denied allegations by former parole board members that he lobbied them to release Dumond. "I did not ask them to do anything," he said. "I did indicate [Dumond's case] was sitting at my desk and I was giving thought to it."

Charmaine Yoest, a senior adviser to the Huckabee campaign, told the Huffington Post: "I think what should be considered here is that if he [Huckabee] could have changed what happened, he would. His whole life has been about respect for life and understanding the value of each individual life. Nobody regrets the loss of life here more than him."

In 1996, as a newly elected governor who had received strong support from the Christian right, Huckabee was under intense pressure from conservative activists to pardon Dumond or commute his sentence. The activists claimed that Dumond's initial imprisonment and various other travails were due to the fact that Ashley Stevens, the high school cheerleader he had raped, was a distant cousin of Bill Clinton, and the daughter of a major Clinton campaign contributor.

The case for Dumond's innocence was championed in Arkansas by Jay Cole, a Baptist minister and radio host who was a close friend of the Huckabee family. It also became a cause for New York Post columnist Steve Dunleavy, who repeatedly argued for Dumond's release, calling his conviction "a travesty of justice." On Sept. 21, 1999, Dunleavy wrote a column headlined "Clinton's Biggest Crime - Left Innocent Man In Jail For 14 Years":

"Dumond, now 52, was given conditional parole yesterday in Arkansas after having being sentenced to 50 years in jail for the rape of Clinton's cousin," Dunleavy wrote. "That rape never happened."

A subsequent Dunleavy column quoted Huckabee saying: "There is grave doubt to the circumstances of this reported crime."

After Dumond's release from prison in September 1999, he moved to Smithville, Missouri, where he raped and suffocated to death a 39-year-old woman named Carol Sue Shields. Dumond was subsequently convicted and sentenced to life in prison for that rape and murder.

But Dumond's arrest for those crimes in June 2001 came too late for 23-year-old Sara Andrasek of Platte County, Missouri. Dumond allegedly raped and murdered her just one day before his arrest for raping and murdering Shields. Prior to the attack, Andrasek and her husband had learned that she was pregnant with their first child.

Dumond died of natural causes while in prison on September 1, 2005. At the time of his death, Missouri authorities were readying capital murder charges against Dumond for the rape and murder of Andrasek.

* * *

Huckabee has refused to release his gubernatorial administration's records on the matter, saying that he was concerned for the privacy of Dumond's victims and that the records contain sensitive law enforcement information.

The Arkansas Parole Board also refuses to make public any letters or warnings it received from Drumond's victims. "We don't release comments for or against a clemency application or a parole case," the Board's spokesperson told Huffington Post, "except when they are comments from public officials."

But most of the women assaulted by Dumond and interviewed for this story say that Huckabee could have made information public while guarding their privacy. Law enforcement authorities also scoffed at the idea that anything in the records would have harmed an ongoing investigation since Dumond is no longer alive .

The records revealed in this story -- including correspondence between Dumond's victims and Huckabee, as well as the governor's own file regarding Dumond -- were provided to me in the fall of 2002 by a Republican staffer to then-Gov. Huckabee.

I made the decision not to make the files public at that time because of concern for the privacy of the rape victims and their families. I felt that their right to privacy outweighed the public's right to know, although I understand why many people would disagree.

Now that Huckabee is running for president, and after consulting with the victims and their families, I have decided to proceed, given what his actions on the case - and his attempts to whitewash his involvement in it -- say about his judgment and integrity.

During a 2002 bid by Huckabee to be re-elected governor of Arkansas, the staffer who provided the documents attended a meeting where Huckabee and top aides expressed concerns that information in the files showing that other women had told Huckabee about being raped by Dumond might somehow become public, and thus become an issue for his opponent. The information remained secret, and Huckabee won a tight race for re-election.

The staffer said that during that same period, another senior aide to Huckabee suggested asking other state agencies, which might have portions or even the entirety of the Dumond file, to transfer their records to the governor's office. If the files were transferred, the aide to Huckabee said, they would no longer be obtainable by reporters or political opponents under the state's Freedom of Information statute.

Arkansas has one of the most progressive Freedom of Information laws in the country. People need only to make requests orally whereupon state officials have to quickly respond and make them public. Governors, in sharp contrast, have wide latitude in deciding which of their own files to make public.

"The files had to be disappeared because there just wasn't a plausible explanation for the governor's stance," the former staffer said. "I mean, what could the governor say? That he believes these women made up their stories? That women lie when they say they are raped?"

Asked on Tuesday whether Huckabee would release his file on Dumond, campaign spokesperon Alice Stewart said, "We're not the governor, we don't have the file." Asked if Huckabee would ask the current governor to release the file, she responded, "No. I don't want to see it. You apparently want to see it."

* * *

Dumond raped Ashley Stevens, Clinton's distant cousin, in 1984 when she was a 17-year-old high school student in Forest City, Arkansas.

He was convicted in 1985 and sentenced to life in prison, plus 20 years. In 1992, Jim Guy Tucker, who became governor of Arkansas after Clinton left office, reduced Dumond's sentence to 39.5 years.

Shortly after taking office in 1996, Huckabee announced his intention to commute Dumond's sentence to time served. A public outcry ensued.

Stevens, her father, and Fletcher Long, the Arkansas state prosecuting attorney who sent Dumond to prison, met with Huckabee to protest.

"'This is how close I was to Wayne Dumond,'" Stevens says she told Huckabee at the time. "'I will never forget his face. And now I don't want you ever to forget my face.'"

Stevens now says: "This isn't and was never about politics. This is about a rapist. This is about a murderer. ... I might never forget Dumond's face, but there are other women [for whom] Dumond's face was the last thing they ever saw on this earth... I would hope that Huckabee would remember the faces of his victims."

Stevens, who had been silent about her rape and not identified in the press for more than a dozen years, finally spoke out publicly in 1996 after feeling frustrated by her meeting with Huckabee. Twenty women members of the state House of Representatives protested the commutation proposal. The editorial pages of some Arkansas newspapers questioned Huckabee's judgment and suggested he reconsider.

What the public never knew, however, was that other women who had been sexually assaulted by Dumond had privately written Huckabee about their anguish. Their very private attempts at changing Huckabee's mind, they later told the Huffington Post, were based on concerns that speaking out publicly would have been too painful and traumatizing.

One such letter was from the daughter of a Dumond rape victim:

When you ran for office, one of the reasons I voted for you was the fact you are/were a Baptist preacher. I come from a very strong Baptist background... [O]ne of my grandfathers is also a preacher. I have always been a faithful church member where I am the choir director, yet this is one event that is not so easily forgiven.
I have prayed about these feelings, but once someone hurts your mother, or daughter the way this man hurt my mother I believe that you would feel the same...

Please understand that this letter is coming from my heart.... I would love to have the chance to talk to you about this matter as a daughter of a surviving rape victim.

The woman provided Huckabee with her personal phone number in hopes that he or at least someone on his staff would call. She says that she never heard back.

What was left unsaid in her letter to Huckabee was that she was three years old when, in the 1970s, Dumond raped her mother. The girl was in her mother's bed asleep when the rape occurred. Dumond held a butcher's knife to her mother's throat during the assault.

In an interview, her mother told the Huffington Post how she fought with Dumond to wrestle the knife away from him, willing to risk her own life rather than suffer at Dumond's hands.

But Dumond overcame her resistance. He pointed to her daughter sleeping next to her and threatened: "If you don't cooperate with me, she'll be next."

The woman did as she was told. As Dumond continued to violently rape her, the woman recalled, she lay consciously and deliberately silent. Even as she was being assaulted, she gently stroked her daughter's hair, praying she would not wake up.

When the assault was over, the woman said, Dumond threatened to come back and rape and kill her daughter if she told anyone.

Twenty-three years after the rape, the girl who had been protected by her mother's silence attempted to persuade Huckabee to keep Dumond behind bars. Fearing that the rapist would attack her mother again, she wrote to the governor:

Governor Huckabee, I really wish you could spend one night in my mother's home. Even though twenty years have past [sic?] she still has trouble sleeping at night. The house is never dark...
Friday afternoon when I heard the dreadful news [that Huckabee intended to commute Dumond], I was the one to tell my mother. She was on her way out of town and I didn't want her to hear this on the radio while she was driving. I wish you could have heard the emptiness in her voice.

In her own letter to Huckabee, the woman who was raped by Dumond in the 1970s wrote that she felt deep guilt over what happened later to Ashley Stevens:

I feel responsible for Ashley's years of suffering at Dumond's hands because I was so naïve as to believe that since Dumond was arrested for raping me that he had learned his lesson and would not do it again. I was raised to take a person at their word, so I believed him when he said he was sorry.

The woman said in an interview that she wrote Huckabee out of concern for him. If she felt so much guilt about what happened to Ashley Stevens, she wondered, what private Hell would Huckabee go through if he commuted Dumond's sentence, and Dumond harmed or even killed someone else?

If Huckabee had any doubt that the woman and her daughter were telling the truth, included in the materials provided to him was a police report in which Dumond confessed to authorities that he had raped the woman.

According to the report, "Wayne stated that he went upstairs to the bedroom, and that the woman was asleep when he went into the room. Wayne stated the woman woke up, and he held a knife on her while he committed the rape, and that the woman's baby was in the bed with her."

When police detectives pressed Dumond to admit his involvement in other rapes, however, he "stated that he desired not to answer any further questions" and also "refused to read, sign, or initial the statement that he had made in the presence" of police officers.

Also in the file sent to Huckabee was a letter from yet another woman who said that Dumond attempted to rape her, with some striking similarities to other accounts of Dumond's assaults.

This woman wrote that she awoke in her bed to find Dumond above her: "Standing there, yielding a butcher knife above his head was the shadow of a man..."

Startled, she asked who was there. Dumond threatened her by saying he would cut her throat. But, as the woman wrote, once Dumond's "eyes got accustomed to the darkness, he saw the figure of someone laying next to me." When Dumond saw her boyfriend, he became frightened and skittish.

"At this," the woman wrote, "Wayne realized we were not alone, jumped up from the bed, and leaped down the stairs in three bounds and I heard him go out the front door...and ran across the street into the darkness."

The woman explained in her letter why Dumond was not arrested: "I was talked out of filing charges by the city police because they said rape cases are hard to prove, that I might be able to charge him with breaking and entering, assault and battery, etc., but that the evidence was slight. I took their advice."

There was additional and compelling evidence available to then-Governor Huckabee that releasing Dumond would pose a threat to society.

Dumond had been previously arrested for violent acts and an attempted sexual assault of an underage girl.

In 1972, Dumond had been arrested for his involvement in the beating death of man in Lawton, Oklahoma. Court records showed that the man who was murdered had been dating an ex-wife of a Dumond friend named Bill Cherry. Enlisting the aid of Cherry's underage daughter to lure the man to a public park, Cherry, Dumond, and a third man bludgeoned the individual to death with a claw hammer.

Dumond was granted immunity from prosecution in the case in exchange for his testimony against the other two men. On the witness stand, Dumond admitted to beating the man repeatedly over the head with a claw hammer, but denied that he struck the fatal blows.

Dumond said that when Cherry asked him to finish off the victim, he refused, only to have one of the others do the deed. Dumond's accomplices, however, claimed that it was he who was responsible for the killing.

The following year, in 1973, Dumond was arrested again, this time for attempting to assault a teenage girl in a parking lot in Tacoma, Washington. He pleaded guilty to the charges and was sentenced to five-years probation.

In an effort to preempt scrutiny of the Dumond case, Huckabee has said that if the issue were to be raised during the '08 race, it would be because his rivals for the nomination feel threatened by his campaign. "Suddenly I seem to be in the cross hairs of every predator who is out there," Huckabee told reporters recently. "To me that seems to be a good sign of life."

When he was governor of Arkansas, Huckabee similarly attempted to deflect Dumond-related criticism by claiming that those raising the issue -- among them, members of the state's parole board, women state legislators, journalists, and even one of Dumond's victims -- were doing so for partisan political purposes.

"If he makes it about politics, he doesn't answer the hard questions about why he did what he did," says Larry Jegley, prosecuting attorney for Arkansas' sixth judicial district. Jegley is a Democrat who campaigned against Huckabee when he ran for re-election because of Huckabee's actions on the Dumond case, as well as his commutation of the sentences of other convicts who went on to commit additional crimes.

Although Huckabee has yet to give a detailed account as to why he pushed to free Dumond, he provided his fullest explanation to date in his published campaign manifesto "From Hope to Higher Ground." In the book, he wrote that he was moved to act on Dumond's behalf because he believed Dumond might have been wrongly convicted. Ashley Stevens and Fletcher Long confirmed in interviews for this story that when they met with then-Gov. Huckabee, he insisted to them that Dumond might be innocent.

Huckabee also wrote in "From Hope to Higher Ground" that he moved to act on Dumond's behalf out of compassion. He said on numerous other occasions that he felt sympathy for Dumond because Dumond was allegedly castrated while awaiting trial for raping Ashley Stevens. Dumond had claimed that unknown assailants wearing masks broke into his home, hogtied him, and then surgically removed his testicles.

Evidence has since come to light indicating that Dumond might not have been attacked but engaged in an act of self-mutilation. A physician who treated Dumond after his alleged attack told police, according to state police records, that Dumond's own wife asked him "if it was possible for Dumond to have inflicted the wound himself." The Forest City Times Herald, which published a series of articles about the Dumond controversy in 1996, quoted experts on sexual predators as saying it was not uncommon for them to engage in acts of self-mutilation to garner sympathy or because they feel guilt for what they have done.

Huckabee also wrote in his campaign book that his intervention on Dumond's behalf reflected his broad philosophy that the criminal justice system is too harsh, and that his religious faith requires him to take chances to act with compassion towards the accused.

Regarding the Dumond case, a Huckabee adviser says: "It might have been wrongheaded for him to do what he did. But his heart might have been in the right place even though the outcome was horrific. What he did was for reasons of faith and compassion."

But the daughter of one of Dumond's rape victims -- herself devoutly religious -- wrote Huckabee wondering whether his faith was leading him down the wrong path:

You were called to deliver the work of the Lord as you interpret the Bible. [But] the actions you are taking you are taking in regard to Dumond's release makes me believe that you are trying to act as the Lord. There were twelve people on the jury that convicted him of this crime. There have been numerous people on the jury that convicted him of this crime.

Huckabee has also tried to deflect criticism over his role in freeing Dumond by saying that his two immediate predecessors, Jim Guy Tucker and Bill Clinton, were responsible for Dumond's release.

Huckabee wrote in "From Hope to Higher Ground": "In 1992, while Governor Bill Clinton was out of state campaigning for president, Acting Governor Jim Guy Tucker, the lieutenant governor, commuted Dumond's sentence, making him eligible for parole... While there was speculation at the time that Governor Clinton was unaware that the commutation was going to take place, I know from my understanding of the inner workings of the process in the governor's office how impossible that would be."

Tucker, however, only reduced Dumond's initial sentence of life in prison plus 20 years to a total of 39.5 years -- which meant that Dumond was still unlikely to get out of prison until he was an elderly man, if at all.

Moreover, Tucker told the Huffington Post in an interview that, in stark contrast to Huckabee's advocacy on Dumond's behalf, he had told his parole board that he did not believe Dumond should be paroled. Tucker also said that, contrary to Huckabee's claim, Clinton had entirely recused himself from the matter because Ashley Stevens was a distant relative.

Huckabee and his aides have always denied that he secretly pressured the Arkansas parole board to free Dumond in an effort to hide his involvement and avoid political fallout.

But, in a 2002 story I wrote for the Arkansas Times about Huckabee's role in freeing Dumond, four board members -- three of who spoke on the record -- said that Huckabee lobbied and pressured board members on the matter. This included a 1996 executive meeting at which the board's recording secretary -- who ordinarily tapes the entire sessions -- was asked to leave the room. Several board members and members of the state legislature have said the secret session violated state law.

Huckabee, in turn, has said that all four parole board members have lied about his role in Dumond's release from prison.

So while Huckabee continues to rise in the polls, Dumond's victims are left with questions as to why the former Arkansas Governor did what he did.

The woman who was raped by Dumond while her 3-year-old daughter lay beside her tells the Huffington Post that one day she worked up the nerve to call Ashley Stevens to tell her how sorry she was. The two began to discuss their shared trauma.

"It was when I first began talking to Ashley that I began to heal," the woman said.

When Huckabee pushed through Dumond's parole, she says, "It was like he believed we were lying and Dumond was telling the truth. I wish he would now say in front of the entire world whether we told the truth or lied. And if he believes we told the truth, explain why he did what he did."

In 2001, the woman ran into Huckabee in her hometown. She wanted to know if he had any regrets in light of the Missouri murders.

"He was down here on a fishing trip," she recalled, "He was in one of the convenience stores and I went in to get me a Coke. And I went up and spoke to him.

"And all he said was, `How are you doing?' That was it."

PENTAGON FORCING WOUNDED SOLDIERS TO REPAY BONUSES

I found this on http://warcomeshome.org thanks to our sweet Kelly W.

Who isn't outraged by this?

Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) revealed the Pentagon is telling wounded soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan repay bonuses as big as $10,000 for not finishing their service commitment.

"They're shocked and there's a sense of betrayal," Schumer said at a news conference Sunday in Manhattan. "Everyone knows the Army is a huge agency and sometimes the left arm doesn't know what the right hand is doing but ... this one tops the cake in terms of its unbelievability."


The issue surfaced earlier this month when a soldier who was partially blinded by a roadside bomb in Iraq told media outlets that the Army asked him to repay $2,800 of his $7,500 enlistment bonus because he had only completed about a year of his three-year service.

Former Pfc. Jordan Fox, 21, of Pittsburgh, received the bill in late October and a week later received a notice that he could be charged interest if he didn't make a payment within 30 days.

The Army says Fox's case is an "isolated incident" and a simple clerical error. But at his press conference Senator Schumer said many New York veterans have called his office and reported similar problems.

Wounded veterans whose bonuses have been revoked can call the Wounded Soldier and Family Hotline at 800-984-8523.

OVER DA RIVER AND THROUGH DA WOODS

This is what happens in my house ... often.

Fettit is a comic. He (and my brother Kevin) is one of the most deranged and funny people I know. I love that he can make me laugh after 25 years.

No one else may get it... but if you only knew this crazy guy I live with......

SUNDAY BOWLING WITH NOELLE

This past Sunday we joined Noelle and her parents at the bowling alley. A brief video follows. Enjoy my little dance at the end. I have a long way to go before I become a Spielberg, Coppola, or even Fred Astaire!

STOP BUSH'S WAR MANIFESTO

President Bush was on television again today – pursuing his agenda to invade Iran and fulfill his World War III manifesto. He may have changed his verbiage some, but his stance is still the same.

In the past he has said, "If you want to avoid World War III..." and now he has changed it to "if you want to avoid a really problematic situation you need to stop Iran."

It is obvious that his use of the term "World War III" did not spin well with the US public, or the world, and his advisors must have told him to back off using the term, but the substance is the same and doesn't change his stance. He is itching to send our young people to die so he can get his hands on their oil.

He claims Iran is enriching uranium to build a nuclear bomb, but according to international law, Iran is entitled to pursue peaceful nuclear capabilities. To continue his raping rampage of the middle east, President Bush insists the country has, is, or will be attempting to develop them for non-peaceful purposes and must be stopped.

Why don’t we deal with those that have committed a crime against our country (including King George)instead of pursuing those that he thinks may harm us? Keep an eye on them, for sure, but someone needs to tell the profiteering pretender to stay the hell out of Iran and find Osama Bin Laden so our country has some closure.

The Iranians, just like the 22 million people in Iraq, must view the United States and Great Britain to a lesser degree, the same as we view Al Qaeda. They must fear the United States and see us as “terrorist.” The difference is that we were attacked by a radical Islamic group who did not invade and continue to occupy us. They did not strip us of our natural resources and divide them as they saw fit.

Iran has every right to be concerned that they will befall the same fate as Iraq.

Instead of spending $1 trillion dollars on a war that enriches his friends and creates a military industry, and continuing that in Iran, why isn’t our President pumping more money into bringing the mastermind of the apocryphal tragedy on September 11th to justice. There must not be enough money in it for him and his friends.

It is important that each of us write our senators and congressmen to tell them not to allow the Pretender in Chief to spill the blood of more young people, be they Christian, Jew, or Muslim.

To write your congressman/woman click this link: http://www.house.gov/writerep

SWEET-TART

We were invited over to the "Wiley-Conforti's" yesterday for an afternoon bbq - Josh's mom and aunt are in town - and while there Steven decided to show the world the new drink he concocted - The Sweettart!

I love Fettit's reaction at the very end....

ENJOY!!!!

WORLD AIDS DAY

I HAVE A VERY LONG MEMORY.... AND I REMEMBER IT ALL

I LOVE YOU STEVE!!!