It's been said that people fear public speaking more than death. I can definitely attest to that. I'm extremely nervous and inexperienced with this, so please bear with me.

My son, Evan Knappenberger, is a former Albemarle High School student and a veteran of the Iraq War. As I speak these words, he is sitting in a makeshift guard tower on the Mall in Washington DC, protesting the US military's stop-loss policy, which is the involuntary extension of soldier's active duty enlistment time.

When he joined the Army in 2003, Evan had high aspirations for serving his country and bringing comfort to the Iraqi people who had suffered under the rule of Saddam Hussein. He was looking forward to lending his talent and intellect to the fight against terrorism. My husband and I also had hopes that Army service would equip Evan with skills and experience that would serve him well in life, and money to undertake his college career.

In an interview with The Washington Post on November 11, 2003, George Soros said that removing President George W. Bush from office was the "central focus of my life" and "a matter of life and death." He said he would sacrifice his entire fortune to defeat President Bush, "if someone guaranteed it".

Again in 2006, during an interview with Charlie Rose, when Charlie asked him about that particular statement, with the following question; "You would have gladly given away ninety percent of your fortune in a minute?" Soros replied; "One hundred percent, because I think it would have made a tremendous contribution to mankind."

According to Forbes Magazine in March 2007, George Soros´s net worth stood at 8.5 billion U.S dollars and placed him as the 80th richest man in the world, surely this sum should be enough to creatively remove President Bush from office. I am surprised that in a country which prides itself on its entrepreneurship, intellect and creativity, where garage start-ups with tiny financial sums are part of the corporate culture and many have gone on to become world leading multinationals, there are no entrepreneurs available to

Michael Collins is a writer in the Washington, DC area. He got involved as a citizen journalist, outside his career, due to his concern about the dreadful series of elections that began in 2000 when, as he quotes, "the last became first." He writes for "Scoop" Independent News out of Wellington and Auckland, New Zealand. "Scoop" Director and Co-Publisher Alastair Thompson has taken a keen interest in American politics for years. "Scoop" has published the who’s who of election news and commentary found in the compendium, American Coup II. Collins describes his excellent relationship with "Scoop."

I can’t say enough positive things about Alastair and the organization. I was in online services in the '80s and early '90s and I’ve followed the net’s expansion closely since then. "Scoop" has one of the best collections of internet publishing talent around, imho [in my humble opinion].

Collins is also the editor of www.electionfraudnews.com, a web site devoted to election news.

What’s motivated you to write so extensively on voting rights and election fraud?

“I knew the situation was serious. I was shaking all over. But I was amazed by the complexity of my mind — the most clear part was just the speed and agility of my mind. I immediately began talking to him in a calm voice and engaged in eye contact. But he was not in his eyes. He was in his own world — pointing a gun at me.”

Is this a good time to address the big lie? You know, the lie about our stark, raving helplessness in the face of armed danger and malevolence? Fortress Gun Nut has the whole country hostage to the big lie that a safe America is an armed America, and yet as our stockpile of weaponry, domestic and otherwise, increases, so does our fearfulness, and so does the danger.

And the heroes are often indistinguishable from the perps. We’re all heroes in our own minds. We all watch the movies and imbibe the whack ’n’ win culture. We all learn that real justice must be delivered at the point of a sword that is terrible and swift.

"They wanted them poor niggers out of there and they ain't had no intention to allow it to be reopened to no poor niggers, you know? And that's just the bottom line."

It wasn't a pretty statement.  But I wasn't looking for pretty.  I'd taken my investigative team to New Orleans to meet with Malik Rahim.  Pretty isn't Malik's concern.

We needed an answer to a weird, puzzling and horrific discovery.  Among the miles and miles of devastated houses, rubble still there today in New Orleans, we found dry, beautiful homes.  But their residents were told by guys dressed like Ninjas wearing "Blackwater" badges:  "Try to go into your home and we'll arrest you."

These aren't just any homes.  They are the public housing projects of the city; the Lafitte Houses and others.  But unlike the cinder block monsters in the Bronx, these public units are beautiful townhouses, with wrought-iron porches and gardens right next to the tony French Quarter.

Raised up on high ground, with floors and walls of concrete, they were some of the only houses left salvageable after the Katrina flood.