Bill Gothard PhD, Founder/President The Institute in Basic Life Principles Oak Brook, IL

Dear Dr. Gothard:

For the past couple years, my colleague, the Dean of Cincinnati, has been writing articles about you and your various enterprises. Before then I'd never even heard of you, your institute, your "character-building" seminars, your unaccredited medical school, your unaccredited law school, your nursing program , your Children's Institute, your bible-centered paramilitary boot camp, your music school , your culinary arts program, your Institute of Photographic Studies, your resort-style training center in Guadalaja, your upholstery training program, your hair design program, etc. As you know, I'm just scratching the surface - the list keeps just on going and according to this 2006 In These Times cover story, The Cult of Character, business is booming:

Dear Free Press and freepress.org subscribers and supporters,
With the 2008 presidential primaries a little more than a week away, it is more important than ever to keep the all-volunteer Free Press in business, so we can continue our efforts to ensure free and fair elections - not only in Ohio and throughout the nation.

• Since the 2004 election, CICJ co-produced with EON the “Help America Vote on Paper”18-minute informational video documenting the perils of privatized vote counting to corporations using proprietary voting machines and software. The CICJ and EON presented the video at many events and distributed DVD copies nationwide.

• Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman wrote and promoted “What Happened in Ohio? A documentary record of theft and fraud in the 2004 election” (New Press). The book contains actual public records from the 2004 election and outlines for the readers the massive voting irregularities in Ohio. The book concludes with a calculation showing that if the votes had been properly counted, John Kerry would have won Ohio as the exit polls predicted.

It is obvious that none of the major Presidential candidates of either the Democratic or Republican Parties are supporting the right approach to providing universal healthcare. Frankly, all the Republican candidates are going to be major obstacles to achieving this national goal. While the top Democratic candidates (Clinton, Edwards and Obama) do support the concept, they are all offering Band-Aid approaches for a life-threatening economic and health crisis in America.

A bill has already been introduced in The House by Congressman John Conyers that effectively addresses the issue. H.R. 676 expands Medicare to cover all citizens.

The scope of the healthcare crisis in America is huge. It has very serious economic and moral implications. It is crippling our nation in terms of protecting American manufacturing, competing in the global economy and undermines our national security. It reflects badly on us as a just and moral society. It is literally killing Americans in huge numbers.

Of course we've long since established that they do not hate us for the reasons they say they hate us. For example, our military bases in their countries have nothing to do with it. When I mention to people in the U.S. that Italians or Czechs or Germans or Koreans are protesting new U.S. bases, the response is usually along the lines of:

"What are we building a base in Italy for? Are we at war with Italy now?"

Therefore the bases we have already built all over Italy and in 80 percent of the nations on earth, most of which nations we are not at war with, do not exist. Mention them, and the billions of dollars U.S. taxpayers spend on them, and the response is usually:

"Oh, really? That's terrible. Hey, are you going to watch the game tonight?"

Therefore, the reason they hate us must be something else. But it is obviously not the financial or trade policies we impose on other countries making it harder for people to earn a living. We know this because when people flee these policies and come here to try to earn a living we can tell by looking at them that it's entirely their own fault.

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Rebellious voters defied Thailand's 15-month-old military coup, and cast their ballots overwhelmingly for a politician who supports ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, despite the junta's tribunals which indicted Mr. Thaksin for alleged massive corruption.

By opposing the coup, this Buddhist-majority, U.S. ally in Southeast Asia has returned to the stark confrontational days of 2006 when Mr. Thaksin's impoverished, rural supporters challenged an authoritarian, urban elite and its military protectors.

Sunday's (Dec. 23) vote proved that the coup leaders failed in their impromptu, menacing effort to destroy Mr. Thaksin and his brand of tricky, monopolistic, usurping politics.

Mr. Thaksin's victorious, self-described "nominee" candidate, Samak Sundaravej, captured at least 228 seats in Sunday's (Dec. 23) nationwide election for parliament's 480 positions.

Mr. Samak spent Monday (Dec. 24) luring smaller parties to join his new People Power Party (PPP), amid hopes they could form a majority coalition with Mr. Samak as Thailand's new prime minister.