Robalini's Note: A special farewell to Kirby Puckett, the man who inspired the name for Kirby the Konspiracy Boy. RIP. Text of Kirby Puckett's Hall of Fame plaque in Cooperstown, N.Y.: KIRBY PUCKETT MINNESOTA, A.L., 1984-1995 A proven team leader with an ever-present smile and infectious exuberance who led the Twins to World Series titles in 1987 and 1991. Over 12 seasons hit for power and average, batting .318 with 414 doubles, 207 home runs. Also a prolific run producer, scored 1,071 runs and drove in 1,085 in 1,783 games. A six-time Gold Glove winner who patrolled center field with elegance and style, routinely scaling outfield walls to take away home runs. The 10-time All-Stars career ended abruptly due to irreversible retina damage in his right eye. ***** Olbermann on O'Reilly's "Fox security" threat: "Bill thinks he has his own police" MediaMatters.org Summary: On MSNBC's Countdown, host Keith Olbermann devoted an entire segment to responding to Bill O'Reilly's threat to turn over to "Fox security" the personal information of a caller to O'Reilly's radio show because the caller mentioned Olbermann's name. Olbermann commented: "Bill thinks he has his own police." On the March 3 edition of MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann, host Keith Olbermann devoted an entire segment to responding to Fox News host Bill O'Reilly's March 2 threat to turn over to "Fox security" the personal information of a caller to O'Reilly's radio show because the caller mentioned Olbermann's name. Describing the incident as evidence of O'Reilly's "trolley coming completely off the tracks merely when my name gets mentioned," Olbermann said, "Bill thinks he has his own police." Olbermann also noted that O'Reilly's threat, made on the March 2 edition of the nationally syndicated Radio Factor and temporarily featured on the program's website, "has been expurgated, erased from the website." Olbermann was referring to the fact that, in an apparent effort to expurgate the threat, O'Reilly's website links to a audio file of the radio show purporting to represent the entire broadcast but is missing the section containing the caller who mentioned Olbermann. A Media Matters for America search turned up the unedited version on the site as well, but it can be found only by manually altering the URL of the edited version and is not linked anywhere on the site. These links are available only to "Premium Members" of billoreilly.com. Olbermann concluded: "So, now I'm expecting that soon I'll be getting a visit from the Bill O'Reilly police, armed with loofahs," an apparent reference to O'Reilly's October 2004 sexual harassment lawsuit brought by a former Fox News producer, in which the use of a loofah played a prominent role. The lawsuit was settled for an undisclosed amount of money, reportedly in the millions, on October 28, 2004. As Media Matters has noted, Olbermann has repeatedly awarded O'Reilly with Countdown's "Worst Person" awards designation. O'Reilly has responded by asserting that MSNBC "is a true ratings disaster" and has launched a petition on his website calling for the reinstatement of Phil Donahue, who previously hosted a show on MSNBC in the same 8 p.m. ET time slot as Olbermann's show -- and also the same time slot in which O'Reilly's show airs on Fox News. From the March 3 broadcast of MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann: OLBERMANN: Bill O'Reilly is now threatening callers to his radio show, at least one of whom mentioned my name. Our third story on the Countdown -- oh, here we go. First, it was the warnings to NBC chairman Robert Wright, then the phone calls to NBC president Jeff Zucker, then the petition to get me fired and Phil Donahue brought back, then the erroneous ratings information he gave out. Even in that context, though, this is pretty special. Ted Baxter telling uncooperative listeners that he'll turn their phone numbers over to Fox security, and that Fox security will in turn contact the local authorities. Bill thinks he has his own police. A caller got through to O'Reilly's radio show yesterday. He insists he used no foul language, that all he did was mention my name, compliment my show, and ask, "Why are you always smearing him, Bill?" And the host, using the dump button all talk radio shows have and the seven-second delay, cut him off. We're not certain what actually got on the air, but this was what was posted on O'Reilly's website as the air check for that part of the show. O'REILLY (audio clip): Orlando, Florida. Mike, go. CALLER: Hey, Bill, I appreciate your taking my call. O'REILLY: Sure. CALLER: I like to listen to you during the day. I think Keith Olbermann's show -- O'REILLY: There you go, Mike is -- he's a gone guy. You know, we have his -- we have your phone numbers, by the way, so if you're listening, Mike, we have your phone number. And we're going to turn it over to Fox security, and you'll be getting a little visit. E.D. HILL (co-host): Maybe Mike is from the mothership. O'REILLY: No, maybe Mike's going to get in big trouble, because we're not gonna play around. When you call us, ladies and gentlemen, just so you know, we do have your phone number. And if you say anything untoward, obscene, or anything like that, Fox security then will contact your local authorities, and you will be held accountable. Fair? HILL: That's fair. O'REILLY: So just -- all you guys who do this kind of a thing, you know, I know some shock jocks, whatever -- you will be held accountable. Believe it. We'll be right back. OLBERMANN: Fox security: Hannity and Colmes come to your house with billy clubs. Now, there is a serious part to this. What do you mean, "We have your phone numbers"? What do you mean, "You'll be getting a little visit"? It's a radio show. Even if a caller swears, it's a radio show. Radio show over here, trip to Gitmo over there. Several of the callers now claim they have been contacted by someone identifying himself as the director of Fox News security. We'll get to the legalities in a moment with a former prosecutor. First, there's this giddying aspect of seeing the host's trolley coming completely off the tracks merely when my name gets mentioned. This is how bad it is. Go to the O'Reilly website now, and the call from Mike in Orlando has been expurgated, erased from the website. O'REILLY (audio clip): We'll be right back. ANNOUNCER: You're in the "no spin zone" with Bill O'Reilly. OLBERMANN: Which raises one more thing. You may recall Shepard Smith on his afternoon newscast on Fox News on Monday: SMITH (video clip): And take a live look at the back of the newsroom. The floor mat says, "The spin stops here." And look at that. O'Reilly is schooling somebody on his staff. Turn it over to Macada (ph), his longtime assistant. And now he's asking the cameraman, "You're not putting me on television, are you?" There is ang -- No, O'Reilly's angry. Where's Olbermann? Let's just throw something at Olbermann, Bill. See you in a minute. We love you, Bill. Thank God for you. O'REILLY: She likes it, too. OLBERMANN: I wonder if Bill got Shepard Smith's phone number and turned it over to Fox security. As we mentioned, this little trip into the parallel universe of Bill O'Reilly does underscore a fascinating point: he seems to think, or wants his listeners to think, that if they don't cooperate, they can get into some kind of legal trouble with Fox security. Joining me now, former Connecticut state prosecutor Susan Filan. [...] OLBERMANN: One last thing. We all know Mr. O'Reilly cannot stop himself from responding. Fail in this business for 25 uninterrupted years, then have a success, and you do wind up a mixture of paranoia and a Napoleonic complex. So I'm going to save him the trouble. I'm going to respond for him. Bill O'Reilly answering this story: "The abuse of the airwaves is a critical problem with which the First Amendment -- MSNBC's ratings are a disaster. Nobody pays attention to them. I do. I watch, addicted, unable to change the channel. But they're a disaster. So don't pay attention to MSNBC. Nobody watch MSNBC. Nobody is watching MSNBC. If you watch, we have your phone number, by the way. I'll turn it over to Fox security. I told you I'd shoot, but you didn't believe me. Why didn't you believe me?" OK. And just so we get this ratings thing cleared up, if you want to know what this is really all about: On the air, Billy called this the key demos, and Fox owners call it the money demo. Here are the official ratings, adults 25 to 54 for Wednesday night of this week at 8 p.m. Eastern. O'Reilly, 309,000; this program, 231,000; Nancy Grace Knows What You Did Last Summer [CNN Headline News' Nancy Grace], 131,000; [CNN's] Paula Zahn Now, 81,000. Our audience was 75 percent of Ted Baxter's. It ain't perfect. Then again, he's been on for nearly 10 years, and we're still a month away from our third anniversary. So, now I'm expecting that soon I'll be getting a visit from the Bill O'Reilly police, armed with loofahs. — J.M. Posted to the web on Monday March 6, 2006 ***** Throwing Consumers to the Wolves By Howard Karger, AlterNet March 7, 2006 Frank Monroe is one pissed-off federal bankruptcy judge. Just before Christmas, Judge Monroe was forced to deny Guillermo Sosa, an Austin, Texas, house painter, and his wife, Melba Nelly Sosa, emergency bankruptcy protection to avoid foreclosure on their mobile home. While sympathetic to the Sosas, Judge Monroe's hands were tied by the new bankruptcy law. The so-called Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 (BAPCPA) required that the Sosas receive consumer credit counseling before filing for bankruptcy. Unaware of this stipulation, they had failed to do so, making them ineligible. In his angry ruling [PDF], Monroe wrote that "the parties pushing the passage of the Act had their own agenda … to make more money off the backs of the consumers in this country. … To call BAPCPA a 'consumer protection' act is the grossest of misnomers." The BAPCPA went into effect on Oct. 17, 2005. Banks and other lenders promised it would stop deadbeats from abusing the bankruptcy system, save billions, and lower interest rates for responsible borrowers. House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., predicted the bill would recoup "billions … in losses associated with profligate and abusive bankruptcy filings." That did not happen. On the contrary, Bankrate data found that the average credit card interest rate actually rose 1 percent in the six months following the passage of the Bankruptcy Act. Panicked debtors trying to beat the Oct. 17 deadline filed more than 2 million bankruptcy petitions in 2005, 32 percent more than in 2004. Some 500,000 people filed for bankruptcy in the two weeks alone before the Act took effect. This uptick in filings cost Bank of America $320 million, JP Morgan Chase predicted their credit card defaults would top $2.3 billion and Discover Card lost $180 million. On the other hand, credit card companies will undoubtedly make up this loss, and more, in the long run. Who are the "deadbeats" Congress is trying to weed out? Leslie Linfield of the Institute for Financial Literacy says, "Almost half [of bankruptcy filers] have incomes below $20,000 a year, and almost 40 percent indicate that their indebtedness is due to illness or injury." The other half may be workers pushed into an economic corner. A 2006 Federal Reserve study found that real median income dropped 6 percent from 2001 to 2004, while average family income fell by 2.3 percent. The gap between stagnant or declining wages and the rising cost of living is partly being made up by debt. For example, Americans who roll over credit card balances owe anywhere from $5,100 to $14,000, depending upon whose numbers are used. High debt levels are fueled by easy credit that helps lessen the pressures on business to increase wages. The Bankruptcy Act erected four major hurdles to deter bankruptcy. First, the Act makes it harder for people to qualify for a Chapter 7 bankruptcy that would erase most of their debt. Instead, most debtors have to file for Chapter 13, in which they face a three- to five-year court-ordered repayment plan. Second, the Act requires more documentation from filers, including pay stubs and tax returns, and subjects them to a means test based partly on their average income over the past six months. Third, the law muzzles and restrains bankruptcy attorneys -- the bane of the credit industry. Bankruptcy attorneys are labeled as "debt relief agencies," which prohibits them from dispensing certain kinds of financial advice. Other restrictions imposed on attorneys include the responsibility of vouching for the accuracy of information provided by clients. Because of these restraints, lawyers must spend more time on each case and bill more. Houston bankruptcy attorney Jeff Norman estimates that he charges 20 percent to 30 percent more due to the new law. Lastly, BAPCPA requires all filers to undergo credit counseling through a Department of Justice (DOJ) approved agency before and after filing for bankruptcy. Credit counseling agencies can provide filers with a counseling certificate after one or two sessions, or they can develop a debt management plan (DMP) based on consolidating credit card balances into a negotiated agreement with creditors. In turn, creditors may lower interest rates and forgive fees. This is an inherent conflict of interest since the majority of agency revenues come from the 8 percent to 15 percent voluntary Fair Share contribution paid by creditors on each payment they receive. Because of this arrangement, credit counseling agencies are actually soft touch collectors for credit card companies. The $40 to $100 for a compulsory credit counseling session is a burden on already destitute filers. While creditors believe that debt counseling will push 30 percent to 50 percent of bankruptcy filers into repayment plans, this just isn't happening. A survey by the National Association of Bankruptcy Attorneys (NACBA) of six DOJ approved credit counseling agencies found that 96.7 percent of their 61,335 customers were too insolvent to repay their debts. Rather than being overspending deadbeats, 79 percent were in financial trouble due to job loss, medical bills, death of a spouse or divorce. Institutional creditors are neither naive nor ill-informed. Armed with sophisticated information systems, most know they can't stop bankruptcies. Insolvent debtors simply cannot repay their debts. The primary goal of BAPCPA is to create a gauntlet of obstacles that will make filing more drawn out and complicated. The intent is to delay Chapter 7 bankruptcy filings for as long as possible, since each month a consumer is not in bankruptcy relief there's a chance they'll pay at least a portion of the payment. Delaying tens of thousands of bankruptcies for a month or two will result in millions for creditors. This partly explains why compulsory credit counseling was included in the law, even though a Visa-funded study found that 74 percent of consumers drop out before finishing their DMP. Liberal credit policies and minuscule minimum payments on credit card balances kept some cardholders in debt for decades This system ticked along nicely until federal regulatory agencies became concerned about high consumer debt and required that minimum monthly payments be raised from 2 percent to 4 percent. Overnight, monthly payments on a $9,000 (18 percent APR) credit card balance doubled from $180 to $360. This was a tipping point for some consumers with high balances. Not coincidentally, this change occurred at roughly the same time the new bankruptcy law was passed. With less possibility for a bankruptcy escape, creditors had borrowers just where they wanted them. Prudent lenders target creditworthy consumers. Conversely, they assume a greater risk when they seek out less creditworthy customers who pay higher interest rates. Higher potential profits have always been associated with greater risks. One problem with the new bankruptcy law is that it shifts the risks from the lender to the borrower without giving the borrower anything in return. For example, the high rates charged in subprime loans are less defensible now that the risk has shifted. The Act also insulates lenders from the risk of lending by not holding them liable for their credit issuance decisions. Lenders want it both ways -- extend subprime credit to borrowers with shaky credit histories and then make it impossible for them to get out of the debt. The Bankruptcy Act is an invitation to exploit the growing subprime market with less risk for lenders. Poor and moderate-income consumers are being forced into a corner by stagnant salaries, high debt and rising prices. John Rao of the National Consumer Law Center recounts that Congress was warned that bankruptcy filings were a symptom not a disease. Rao is right. Bankruptcy is not a disease, but a symptom of a society racing to the bottom in terms of wages and benefits -- an "ownership society" in which citizens own most of the risks, and a society where conservatism is anything but compassionate. Not surprisingly, BAPCPA excludes anything relating to Chapter 11 or business bankruptcies, an area where consumers desperately need protection. Judge Monroe wrote in his ruling that by passing the Bankruptcy Act, Congress ignored the scores of judges, academics and lawyers who spoke out about the flaws of the Act. "It should be obvious to the reader at this point how truly concerned Congress is for the individual consumers of this country," he wrote. "Apparently, it is not individual consumers of this country that make the donations to the members of Congress that allow them to be elected and reelected and reelected and reelected." Howard Karger is professor of social work at the University of Houston, and author of "Shortchanged: Life and Debt in the Fringe Economy" (Berrett-Koehler, 2005). ***** The Bill of No Rights Cindy Sheehan's latest arrest another signifier of nail in coffin for peaceful protest and free speech Steve Watson / Prisonplanet | March 7 2006 Cindy Sheehan, who drew international attention when she camped outside President Bush's ranch to protest the Iraq war, was arrested again yesterday during a demonstration demanding the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. Sheehan and company were participating in a march to the US mission to the United Nations in order to deliver a petition with more than 60,000 signatures urging the "withdrawal of all troops and all foreign fighters from Iraq." Ann Wright, a former U.S. Army colonel and U.S. diplomat, said in a statement issued by the Women Say No to War group that the U.S. Mission refused to send someone to meet with the women "whose lives and families have been shattered by this destructive and immoral war." The protesters refused to leave without delivering the petition, she said. So the police arrested Miss Sheehan and three other women for "criminal trespassing". Since when has standing outside a building in a peaceful protest been "criminal trespassing"? Sheehan was also arrested for "resisting arrest". In an America where the government is above the law and the people are their subjects, this is now the norm. Anyone who dares to speak out against or protest the actions of our Governments is considered to be a criminal and is arrested and silenced. Earlier this year Cindy Sheehan was also arrested in the House gallery after refusing to cover up a T-shirt bearing an anti-war slogan before President Bush's State of the Union address. In flagrant violation of the First Amendment and the Bill of Rights, Sheehan was handcuffed and held in the Capitol building until she was driven to the Capitol Police headquarters for booking. According to her blog, she was released about four hours after her arrest. Just as disturbing was the fact that , U.S. Rep. Bill Young, R-Florida, spoke on the House floor saying his wife, Beverly, had been "ordered to leave" the gallery during the speech for wearing a shirt that said, "Support Our Troops." So now you have no right to say anything or even have an opinion either way. You are the subject, the President is the ruler, how dare you pre-empt or protest anything he says or does. Cindy Sheehan was also arrested last September at a protest outside the White House for refusing to OBEY police orders to leave. Sheehan is clearly the figurehead of the anti-war movement in America now and therefore is arrested every time she attends a protest in a pathetic attempt to show others that it will get them nowhere. This despite the fact that Sheehan's views are now shared by the vast majority of Americans as multiple opinion polls have shown. This is what you get for daring to have the audacity to speak out against the killing of thousands of American soldiers in a war based on proven lies and deception. America is now a country where Homeland Security Officers target toy store owners, t-shirt sellers and kindergartners while hiring former East German Stasi heads to spy on Americans and recruiting tattle-tale squads under ‘Highway Watch’ – a program that encourages truckers, toll takers, road crews and bus drivers to watch their fellow citizens and report suspicious activity. Even people who pay bills and choose not to live in debt to the banks are considered suspicious. Secret service agents routinely question students who wear anti-Bush t-shirts or who voice protest by heckling Bill Clinton. Those in charge of Homeland Security feel it may be time to give the military powers of arrest over such dangerous members of the American public. We live in a time where in order to protest you must be within a designated "Free speech zone", how dare people like Cindy Sheehan be allowed to voice their opinions in the Non-Free speech zone that is the rest of the United States. When was the Bill of Rights replaced by the Bill of No Rights?