text: Marvel Comics maintained a high level of creative control over the series, with Stan Lee (co-creator of both Spider-Man and Iceman) working with the screenwriters and involving himself in the casting and animation.


title: Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends (1981 TV series)

text: Some of the sound effects used in the series originated from Universal Television's "Battlestar Galactica" and "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century". Adding Ms. Lion, a pet, as a character was another attempt to emulate the "Super Friends" (specifically the characters Wonder Dog and Gleek).


text: Firestar actress Kathy Garver recalled that though the storyboards for each episode were completed before the voices were recorded for it, "... we really just worked from script. We'd do a roundtable to get the feeling of how the show was going, and then we would record."


text: Originally broadcast on NBC as a Saturday morning cartoon, the series ran first-run original episodes for three seasons, from 1981 to 1983, then aired repeats for an additional two years (from 1984 to 1986). Alongside the 1981 "Spider-Man" animated series, "Amazing Friends" was later re-aired in the late 1980s as part of the 90-minute "Marvel Action Universe", a syndicated series that was used as a platform for old and new Marvel-produced animated fare (the newer programming featured "", "Dino-Riders" and on occasion "", which was a pilot for a potential X-Men animated series). Toei Animation, and Daewon Media contributed some of the animation for this series.


text: During the first season, each episode contained a cold open, which was and remains unusual for a children's cartoon. When the same episodes were re-aired later in the series' run, these teaser sequences were edited to fit after the titles and episode card. Still, the original sequence infrequently showed up on NBC's re-airings. Stan Lee did not originally narrate the episodes from this season.


text: In the second season, the show aired along with a newly produced Hulk animated series as The Incredible Hulk and the Amazing Spider-Man. The two shows shared one intro which showcased the new title. In place of the cold opens from the first season, Marvel Productions created 12-second previews aired immediately preceding the episodes. Stan Lee began narrating the episodes in the second season. Marvel Productions also added narrations by Lee to the first-season episodes at this time to give the series cohesion. Neither first nor second season narrations appear on the current masters, and they have not aired since the NBC airings (as seen on the Stan Lee narration list at Spider-Friends.com).


text: For the third season, the characters' billing was reversed and the show was called, The Amazing Spider-Man and the Incredible Hulk. It remained that way for most of the remaining years. NBC did air the show individually in mid-season (post 1986) after it was not initially announced for their fall schedule. Only some of the Stan Lee narrations for the third season are on the current masters. The missing narrations have not aired since the NBC airings.


text: Peter Parker (Spider-Man), Bobby Drake (Iceman), and Angelica Jones (Firestar) are all college students at Empire State University. After working together to defeat the Beetle and recovering the "Power Booster" he stole from Tony Stark (a.k.a. Iron Man) the trio decide to team-up permanently as the "Spider-Friends". They live together in Peter's aunt's home with her and a pet dog named Ms. Lion, a Lhasa Apso who was adopted by Firestar. Together, the superheroes battle various supervillains.


text: Some stories featured team-ups with other superheroes including but not limited to Captain America, Thor, Sunfire, and the mid-1970s X-Men.


text: A number of characters in the series were original characters that did not appear in the comics prior to the premiere of the series:


text: One of the series' main characters, Firestar was created specifically for this series when the Human Torch was unavailable (due to licensing issues). The original plan was for Spider-Man to have fire and ice based teammates, so Angelica Jones/Firestar was created. Her pre-production names included "Heatwave", "Firefly", (both having already been names of DC Comics villains) and "Starblaze".


text: Firestar did not appear in Marvel's mainstream comic book universe until "Uncanny X-Men" #193 (May 1985). She appears as a member of the Hellions, a group of teenage mutants who functioned as rivals to the New Mutants (a similar group under the tutelage of Charles Xavier). After leaving the Hellions, Firestar becomes a founding member of the New Warriors and later serves as a distinguished member of the Avengers along with her fellow New Warrior, Justice. She is currently a member of the X-Men.


text: Hiawatha Smith is a college professor at the Spider-Friends' university. He is the son of a heroic Native American chief who fought against the Axis during World War II.


text: Hiawatha Smith's home is adorned with decorations from various cultures including Hindu and native African tribes. Producer and story editor Dennis Marks created the character and admits to basing him on Indiana Jones.


text: Smith's father passed down to his son the mystic knowledge of their people and a map leading to a vast Nazi treasure of wealth and advanced technology sought by the Red Skull. Smith often employs a boomerang in battle. He possesses a supernatural ability to communicate with animals.


text: Lightwave's real name is Aurora Dante. Like her older half-brother Bobby Drake (a.k.a. the superhero Iceman), Lightwave is a mutant. She can manipulate and control light. Her other light-based powers include laser blasts, photonic force fields and solid light pressor beams. She can also transform herself into light; in such a form, she is able to exist in the vacuum of outer space.


text: Lightwave's only appearance was in "Save the GuardStar", the final episode of the 1980s cartoon. She is voiced by Annie Lockhart. Bobby Drake explains that they share the same mother.


text: An agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., Lightwave is considered a traitor, due to mind control by rogue S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Buzz Mason. Mason induces Lightwave to steal assorted devices to create a "quantum enhancer" which would increase her powers 1,000 times. With such power, Lightwave would be able to control the GuardStar satellite which orbits the Earth and controls all defense systems and communications systems for the United States. Mason expects world conquest since he controls Lightwave.


text: Iceman, Firestar, and Spider-Man attempt to stop Lightwave. However, she is powerful enough to defeat them. Aboard a space vessel, Buzz Mason forces Iceman into outer space, dooming Iceman if he remains there for long. Spider-Man convinces Lightwave to realize that the half-brother she loves is in mortal danger. Her reaction breaks Mason's control over her, and she saves Iceman and disables Mason long enough for Spider-Man to subdue him.


text: Presumably, with Mason's role realized, S.H.I.E.L.D. restores Lightwave's good standing. As this is Lightwave's only appearance, her fate is unknown.


text: Videoman is an intangible two-dimensional being with lightning bolt-shaped horns that is mostly composed of electronic data gleaned from a video arcade. Videoman makes three appearances in the series where there are two version of him.


text: In Season 1, Videoman first appeared as an angular humanoid energy construct created by Electro. Its abilities include moving through and manipulating electronic circuits and projecting rectangular pulses of energy. Videoman is used by Electro to suck in and entrap Spider-Man, Flash Thompson, Firestar and Iceman into a video game display where Electro attempts to destroy the four. However, Flash is able to save himself and the others by escaping through the monitor and into Electro's electronic components to save the others.


text: This first villainous version of Videoman makes one other appearance in Season 2's "Origin of Ice-Man", with the additional abilities of bringing video game characters to life and draining the unique bio-energy of mutants, temporarily suppressing Iceman's powers and weakening Firestar, as well as being able to emulate their powers for its own use. This time, Videoman is defeated when the Spider-Friends trick it and its video game minions into attacking one another.


text: In the Season 3 episode "The Education of a Superhero", nerdy Francis Byte is an avid video game player who is especially engrossed into gaining the high score on a game called Zellman Comman at the local arcade. The villain Gamesman sends a hypnotic signal that entrances over 300,000 people in the city. However, it does not affect Francis' girlfriend Louise, Spider-Man, and Firestar, nor does the signal affect Francis' mind, which is distracted from entrancement by Louise and the game. Louise walks away from Francis, then also gets affected and hypnotized after having her pleas disregarded by Francis. He (unbeknownst to any others) plays the arcade machine so rigorously that it and other arcade machines (most of which are emitting the hypnotic waves) explode. The explosion somehow transforms Francis into Videoman.


text: Francis discovers that he can become his new blue and white, red-eyed alter-ego Videoman at will. However, he is completely inexperienced with his handling of such powerful abilities. He tries to help the trio (which has awakened Iceman from his trance) against a hypnotized mob, but they repel his offers due to his inexperience. He then tries to save Louise from the Gamesman, but he is easily blackmailed into manipulating a military communications satellite system in return for Louise's freedom, an offer that is then reneged upon by the Gamesman. Enraged at the trickery, Videoman helps Spider-Man and the others free Louise and also reverses his stoppage of the military computer. After the Gamesman is defeated, Francis accepts an invitation to join the X-Men, while Louise accepts him and his abilities.


text: The Complete Seasons 1–3 box set has been released in the UK. This release did not include any of the Stan Lee narrations from the first or second season. Only some of the Stan Lee narrations were in the third season. The first lot of releases by Liberation Entertainment have gone out of print, due to Liberation Films going into bankruptcy. Clear Vision released all 3 seasons on DVD in 2010. This new edition have improved image quality and include German dubbing, while removing the 5.1 audio track and English subtitles. This release has also gone out of print, since Clear Vision ceased operations in 2016. The discs are in Region 2, PAL format.


text: The series was available for instant streaming via Netflix from 2011 to August 2015. As part of the acquisition of 21st Century Fox by The Walt Disney Company, the copyrights to the New World library were transferred to TFCF America, Inc., a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company, effective March 15, 2019. Consequently, the series became available on the Disney+ streaming service, as a part of U.S. launch on November 12, 2019.


text: The episode "The Quest of the Red Skull" was excluded due to its direct depictions of Adolf Hitler, the Nazi swastika and the phrase 'Heil Hitler'. In 2020, Disney+ placed a warning on the 3rd episode (entitled "Sunfire") for a racially insensitive portrayal of Sunfire. In the episode, Sunfire is portrayed as speaking English with a Japanese accent.


text: Adam Levine of "Looper" said, "The mutant duo became a memorable pairing for Spider-Man, and the series has been fondly remembered in the decades since for its quaint stories, colorful villains, light-hearted nature, and iconic introductions by creator Stan Lee. The animation was a step up from previous attempts, even if it was still relatively simplistic, and stories explored more of Peter Parker's personal life than the 1960s series before it." James Whitbrook of "Gizmodo" ranked 5th in their "Spider-Man's Best Cartoons" list, stating, "The trio had an excellent dynamic that elevated Amazing beyond its sister show, and as campy as it could be, there’s a reason why it remains beloved by many."


text: "IGN" ranked "Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends" 59th in their "Top 100 Animated Series" list, saying, "The animation was predictably budget for the time, particularly when viewed in this post-"Spectacular Spider-Man" world of ours, but it was fun nonetheless." Olivia Fitzpatrick of "Collider" ranked "Spider-Man and His Amazing Friend" 3rd in their "Every 'Spider-Man' Animated Series" list, asserting, "Speaking of classic, "Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends" remains a beloved staple of Spider-Man media."


text: Scenes from "Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends" were re-cut, edited, and re-dubbed into comical shorts as part of Disney XD's "Marvel Mash-Up" shorts for their "Marvel Universe on Disney XD" block of programming that includes "Ultimate Spider-Man" and "" where scenes from "Spidey and His Amazing Friends" were also mixed with some scenes from the 1981 "Spider-Man" cartoon. The cast consists of Dave Boat as Spider-Man, J. Jonah Jameson, Beetle, Sandman, Norman Osborn, Shocker, Thor, Doctor Strange, Wolverine, Colossus, Sprite, Thunderbird, Red Skull, and Magneto, Tom Kenny as Iceman, Firestar, Aunt May, Green Goblin, Mysterio, Kraven the Hunter, Swarm, Captain America, Professor X, Nightcrawler, and Loki, J.P. Karliak as Black Cat and Bruce Banner, James Arnold Taylor as Chameleon, Captain America, Iron Man, and Cyberiad, Dee Bradley Baker as Lizard, Jeff Bennett as Cyclops and Juggernaut, and Travis Willingham as Storm, Ka-Zar, and Doctor Doom.


text: In the 1984 film "Missing in Action" starring Chuck Norris, the "Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends" episode "Along Came Spidey" can be seen on a television.


text: In her civilian identity, Angelica Jones resembles Peter's girlfriend from the comic books, Mary Jane Watson. This was played up in issues of "Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane" in which Firestar appeared.


text: "Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends" was nominated for Best Children's Television Series at the 1982 Young Artist Awards.


text: The first comic book that directly referenced the "Amazing Friends" show was "Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends" #1 (December 1981), a one-shot that adapted the pilot episode, "The Triumph of the Green Goblin". Though the comic version altered the story to bring it in line with established Marvel Universe continuity (such as making the Green Goblin identity a costume as in the comics, rather than a physical transformation as in the episode), it was not considered part of said continuity. It is the first appearance of Firestar in a comics story, though the version of Firestar that exists within Marvel continuity would not appear until "Uncanny X-Men" #193 (May 1985).


text: The story was reprinted in England in late 1983 in the weekly Marvel UK title "Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends". It was reprinted in the U.S. as "Marvel Action Universe" #1 (January 1989), released to coincide with the airing of "Amazing Friends" reruns on the television series of the same name and on the 2017 trade paperback "X-Men Origins: Firestar".


text: In the Marvel mainstream continuity, Spider-Man, Firestar and Iceman have made sporadic team-ups in "Amazing X-Men" #7 (July 2014) and "Iceman" #3 (November 2018).


text: The mainstream Marvel Universe version of Firestar debuted in the pages of "Uncanny X-Men" #193 as part of Emma Frost's Hellions team. Firestar was given an origin story in a self-titled mini-series (March – June 1986). The character went on to be a founding member of the New Warriors, and later a member of the Avengers.


text: One change to Firestar from the TV show to the comic books was her powers. In the cartoon, they were fire based. However, Marvel had a number of characters who could control and/or create fire, so they changed her mutant ability to the power to emit and control microwave energy.


text: To commemorate the 25th anniversary of the show, Marvel released "Spider-Man Family: Amazing Friends" #1 on August 9, 2006. The comic starts with an all-new story, "Opposites Attack", which is officially set before "Web of Spider-Man" #75. After that is a Mini Marvel tale, "Spider-Man And His Amazing <del>Friends</del> Co-Workers" (note that the strikethrough of "Friends" was a deliberate inclusion in the title). Both stories were written by Sean McKeever.


text: The remainder of the one-shot is composed of reprints of "Untold Tales of Spider-Man" #2 and "Spider-Man 2099" #2.


text: An arc in "Ultimate Spider-Man" is titled "Spider-Man And His Amazing Friends" and issue #118's cover, showing Spider-Man, Iceman, and Firestar, is a homage to the series title screen. Johnny Storm and Kitty Pryde are also said to be members of the team. Instead of Angelica Jones, Firestar is Liz Allan. Since then, in "", Spidey, Iceman, and the Human Torch have begun living together at Aunt May's house and have been working as a team as another homage to the series (because Liz, as Firestar, was a member of the X-Men in this continuity; this team roster also reflects the original intent of "Amazing Friends" to use the Human Torch before licensing issues forced the creation of Firestar).


text: In 2007's "Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe—Spider-Man: Back in Black" one-shot, the villain Videoman is given a brief biography from his "retcon" appearance in the "Spider-Man Family" one-shot. There is also an annotation describing an "Earth 8107", where an alternate reality Videoman was created by Electro to battle that world's Spider-Man. Later, in the same reality, Francis Byte is mutated by an exploding arcade console to become a new Videoman, and later "possibly" join the X-Men. Essentially, this places the events of "Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends" — or at the very least, the episodes "Videoman" and "The Education of a Superhero" — in an alternate-Earth continuity of the Marvel Comics Multiverse.


text: The Spider-Friends of Earth-1983 (described as a "kinder, gentler than most" world), except for Ms. Lion, are apparently killed by a dimension-hopping Morlun, set on draining the life out of every variation of Spider-Man across the multiverse.


text: At the "Street Cart Named Desire Festival", Peter sees Angelica, but doesn't seem to recognize her when explaining to Mary Jane that she's the only redhead that he's interested in. Bobby and Angelica briefly catch up before returning to their dates which are then interrupted by an ice monster attack. Iceman, Firestar, and Spider-Man suit up and defeat the attacker together. The team-up is called "Iceman and His amazing Friends" both on the issue's cover and by Iceman in the story. Afterward, the trio chat and Angelica and Bobby commiserate about men on dating apps.


title: U. G. Krishnamurti

text: Uppaluri Gopala Krishnamurti (9 July 1918 – 22 March 2007) was an intellectual who questioned the state of spiritual enlightenment. Having pursued a religious path in his youth and eventually rejecting it, U.G. claimed to have experienced a devastating biological transformation on his 49th birthday, an event he refers to as "the calamity". He emphasized that this transformation back to "the natural state" is a rare, acausal, biological occurrence with no religious context. Because of this, he discouraged people from pursuing the "natural state" as a spiritual goal.


title: U. G. Krishnamurti

text: He rejected the very basis of thought and in doing so negated all systems of thought and knowledge. Hence he explained his assertions were experiential and not speculative – "Tell them that there is "nothing" to understand."


title: U. G. Krishnamurti

text: He was unrelated to his contemporary Jiddu Krishnamurti, although the two men had a number of meetings because of their association with the Theosophical Society.


title: U. G. Krishnamurti

text: U.G. was born on 9 July 1918 in Machilipatnam, a town in coastal Andhra Pradesh, India, and raised in the nearby town of Gudivada. His mother died seven days after he was born, and he was brought up by his maternal grandfather, a wealthy Brahmin lawyer, who was also involved in the Theosophical Society. U.G. also became a member of the Theosophical Society during his teenage years and mentions having "inherited" his association with the Theosophical Society from his grandfather. South Indian actress Gautami is his very close relative.


title: U. G. Krishnamurti

text: During the same period of his life, U.G. reportedly practised various austerities and apparently sought "moksha" or spiritual enlightenment. To that end, between the ages of 14 and 21, he undertook a variety of spiritual exercises, determined to find out whether moksha was possible. Wanting to achieve that state, he had also resolved to prove that if there were people who have thus "realized" themselves, they could not be hypocritical. As part of this endeavour, he searched for a person who was an embodiment of such "realization".


title: U. G. Krishnamurti

text: He spent seven summers in the Himalayas with Swami Sivananda studying yoga and practising meditation. During his 20s, U.G. began attending the University of Madras, studying psychology, philosophy, mysticism, and the sciences. He dropped out of the Master's program with the idea that the answers of the West – to what he considered were essential questions – were no better than those of the East.


title: U. G. Krishnamurti

text: In 1939, at age 21, U.G. met with renowned spiritual teacher Ramana Maharshi. U.G. related that he asked Ramana, "This thing called moksha, can you give it to me?" – to which Ramana Maharshi purportedly replied, "I can give it, but can you take it?". This answer completely altered U.G.'s perceptions of the "spiritual path" and its practitioners. Later, U.G. would say that Maharshi's answer – which he perceived as "arrogant" – put him "back on track".


title: U. G. Krishnamurti

text: In 1941, he began working for the Theosophical Society, in C.W. Leadbeater's library. Shortly after, he began an international lecture tour on behalf of the Society, visiting Norway, Belgium, Germany and the United States. Returning to India, he married a Brahmin woman named Kusuma Kumari in 1943, at age 25.


title: U. G. Krishnamurti

text: From 1947 to 1953, U.G. regularly attended talks given by Jiddu Krishnamurti in Madras, India, eventually beginning a direct dialogue with him in 1953. U.G. related that the two had almost daily discussions for a while, which he asserted were not providing satisfactory answers to his questions. Finally, their meetings came to a halt. He described part of the final discussion:


title: U. G. Krishnamurti

text: After the break-up with Jiddu Krishnamurti, U.G. continued travelling, still lecturing. At about the same time he claims to have been "puzzled" by the continuing appearance of certain psychic powers. In 1955, U.G. and his family went to the United States to seek medical treatment for his eldest son, and stayed there for five years.


title: U. G. Krishnamurti

text: He ultimately separated from his family and went to live in London. While sitting one day in Hyde Park, he was confronted by a police officer who threatened to lock him up if he didn't leave the park. Down to his last five pence, he made his way to the Ramakrishna Mission of London where the residing Swami gave him money for a hotel room for the night. The following day, U.G. began working for the Ramakrishna Mission, an arrangement that lasted for three months. Before leaving the mission he left a letter for the residing "Swamiji" telling him that he had become a new man.


title: U. G. Krishnamurti

text: About this time, Jiddu Krishnamurti was in London and the two Krishnamurtis renewed their acquaintance. Jiddu tried to advise U.G. on his recent marital troubles, but U.G. didn't want his help. Jiddu eventually persuaded him to attend a few talks he was giving in London, which U.G. did, but found himself bored listening to him.


title: U. G. Krishnamurti

text: In 1961, U.G. put an end to his relationship with his wife. Their marriage had been a largely unhappy affair, and by that time he described himself as being "detached" from his family, emotionally as well as physically. He then left London and spent three months living in Paris, using funds he had obtained by selling his unused return ticket to India, during which time he ate a different variety of cheese each day. Down to his last 150 francs, he decided to go to Switzerland where he still had a small bank account. By mistake he went by train to Geneva, rather than Zurich, where the bank account was.


title: U. G. Krishnamurti

text: After two weeks in Geneva, U.G. was unable to pay his hotel bill and sought refuge at the Indian Consulate. He was listless, without hope, and described himself as "finished" – he requested that he be sent back to India, which the consular authorities refused to do at the state's expense. A consulate employee in her 60s named Valentine de Kerven offered U.G. shelter. Valentine and U.G. became good friends, and she provided him with a home in Switzerland.


title: U. G. Krishnamurti

text: For the next few years, the questions regarding the subject of enlightenment – or anything else – did not interest him, and he did nothing to further his enquiry. But by 1967, U.G. was again concerned with the subject of enlightenment, wanting to know what that state was, which sages such as Siddhārtha Gautama purportedly attained. Hearing that Jiddu Krishnamurti was giving a talk in Saanen, U.G. decided to attend. During the talk, Jiddu was describing the state and U.G. thought that it referred to himself. He explained it as follows:


title: U. G. Krishnamurti

text: The next day U.G. was again pondering the question "How do I know I am in that state?" with no answer forthcoming. He later recounted that on suddenly realising the question had no answer, there was an unexpected physical, as well as psychological, reaction. It seemed to him like "a sudden 'explosion' inside, blasting, as it were, every cell, every nerve and every gland in my body." Afterwards, he started experiencing what he called "the calamity", a series of bizarre physiological transformations that took place over the course of a week, affecting each one of his senses, and finally resulting in a deathlike experience. He described it this way:


title: U. G. Krishnamurti

text: U.G. could not, and did not, explain the provenance of the calamity experiences. In response to questions, he maintained that it happened "in spite of" his pre-occupation with – and search for – enlightenment. He also maintained that the calamity had nothing to do with his life up to that point, or with his upbringing. Several times he described the calamity happening to him as a matter of chance, and he insisted that he could not possibly, in any way, impart that experience to anybody else.


title: U. G. Krishnamurti

text: According to U.G., his life-story can be separated into the pre- and post-calamity parts. Describing his post-calamity life, he claimed to be functioning permanently in what he called "the natural state": A state of spontaneous, purely physical, sensory existence, characterised by discontinuity – though not absence – of thought. U.G. also maintained that upon finding himself in the "natural state", he had lost all acquired knowledge and memories, and had to re-learn everything, as if "...the slate had been wiped clean".


title: U. G. Krishnamurti

text: After his calamity experience, U.G. often traveled to countries around the world, declining to hold formal discussions yet talking freely to visitors and those that sought him out. He gave his only formal post-calamity public talk in India, in 1972.


title: U. G. Krishnamurti

text: His unorthodox non-message philosophy and the often uncompromising, direct style of its presentation, generated a measure of notoriety and sharply-divided opinions. At the extremes, some people considered him enlightened, while others considered him nothing more than a charlatan. The clamour increased as books and articles about U.G. and his newly expounded philosophy continued appearing.


title: U. G. Krishnamurti

text: Several of his group discussions and interviews have been published in books, or are carried verbatim on various websites. There is also a variety of audio and video documents available online.


title: U. G. Krishnamurti

text: U.G. was known for his unusual health and diet preferences. Carrying with him a "portable kitchen" in a tiny suitcase throughout his travels, he consumed a great deal of salt and cream, and stated "no meal should take longer than a few minutes to prepare." After 1949, U.G. never saw a doctor or took medication, believing the body would take care of itself. Often complimented for good looks in his old age, U.G. would respond "that's because I don't eat healthy food, I don't take vitamins, and I don't exercise!"


title: U. G. Krishnamurti

text: On 22 March 2007, U.G. died at Vallecrosia in Italy. He had slipped and injured himself and was bedridden for seven weeks before his death. Three friends, including long-term devotee Mahesh Bhatt, were by his side when he died. In February 2007, he had dictated his final speech, "My Swan Song".


title: U. G. Krishnamurti

text: U.G. had asked that no rituals or funeral rites be conducted upon his death; also, he did not leave instructions on how to dispose of his body. His body was cremated by Bhatt the next day. True to his own philosophy, U.G. did not want to be remembered after his death.


title: U. G. Krishnamurti

text: U.G. emphasised the impossibility and non-necessity of any human change, radical or mundane. These assertions, he stated, cannot be considered as a "teaching", that is, something intended to be used to bring about a change. He insisted that the body and its actions are already perfect, and he considered attempts to change or mould the body as violations of the peace and the harmony that is already there. The psyche or self or mind, an entity which he denied as having any being, is composed of nothing but the "demand" to bring about change in the world, in itself, or in both. Furthermore, human self-consciousness is not a thing, but a movement, one characterised by "perpetual malcontent" and a "fascist insistence" on its own importance and survival.


title: U. G. Krishnamurti

text: U.G. denied the existence of an individual mind. However, he accepted the concept of a world mind, which according to him contained the accumulation of the totality of man's knowledge and experience. He also used "thought sphere" (atmosphere of thoughts) synonymously with the term "world mind". He stated that human beings inhabit this thought realm or thought sphere and that the human brain acts like an antenna, picking and choosing thoughts according to its needs. U.G. held all human experience to be the result of this process of thought. The self-consciousness or "I" in human beings is born out of the need to give oneself continuity through the constant utilisation of thought. When this continuity is broken, even for a split second, its hold on the body is broken and the body falls into its natural rhythm. Thought also falls into its natural place – then it can no longer interfere or influence the working of the human body. In the absence of any continuity, the arising thoughts combust.


title: U. G. Krishnamurti

text: In its natural state, the senses of the body take on independent existences (uncoordinated by any "inner self") and the ductless glands (that correspond to the locations of the Hindu "chakras") become reactivated. U.G. described how it is the pineal gland, or the "Ajna Chakra", that takes over the functioning of the body in the natural state, as opposed to thought.


title: U. G. Krishnamurti

text: U.G. also maintained that the reason people came to him (and to gurus) was to find solutions for their everyday real problems, and/or for solutions to a fabricated problem, namely, the search for spirituality and enlightenment. He insisted that this search is caused by the cultural environment, which demands conformity of individuals as it simultaneously places within them the desire to be special – the achievement of enlightenment thus viewed as a crowning expression of an individual's "specialness" and uniqueness. Consequently, the desire for enlightenment is exploited by gurus, spiritual teachers, and other "sellers of shoddy goods", who pretend to offer various ways to reach that goal. According to U.G., all these facilitators never deliver, and cannot ever deliver, since the goal itself (i.e. enlightenment), is unreachable.


title: U. G. Krishnamurti

text: According to U.G., "The so called self-realization is the discovery for yourself and by yourself that there is no self to discover. That will be a very shocking thing because it's going to blast every nerve, every cell, even the cells in the marrow of your bones."


Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream is a 1990 non-fiction book written by H. G. Bissinger. The book follows the story of the 1988 Permian High School Panthers football team from Odessa, Texas, as they made a run towards the Texas state championship. While originally intended to be a "Hoosiers"-type chronicle of high school sports holding together a small town, the book ended up being critical of life in the town of Odessa. It was later adapted for television and film.


title: Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream

text: Bissinger was a journalist for "The Philadelphia Inquirer" when he was selected as a Harvard Nieman Fellow. It was while he was at Harvard that the idea to write a book focused upon the role high school football plays within American society, in particular rural society, took hold. Bissinger returned to "The Inquirer" briefly, received a Pulitzer Prize, and then took off in search of a community for which high school football was paramount. He settled on Odessa, Texas. Permian High School and its football team, the Permian Panthers, had a substantial, rich history of winning in Texas' 4A and 5A division, having won championships in 1965, 1972, 1980, and 1984. Bissinger moved his family to Odessa and spent the entire 1988 football season with the Permian Panther players, their families, their coaches, and even many of the townspeople in an effort to understand the town and its football-mad culture.


text: In the 5A playoff semifinals, Permian meets Dallas Carter Cowboys, a predominantly black team. In a hard fought game in the rain at Memorial Stadium in Austin, the Panthers are defeated 14–9. Dallas Carter, led by future Miami Hurricanes and New York Giants linebacker Jessie Armstead, goes on to win the state championship, but faced severe penalties for their grade tampering, giving the state championship to Judson High School.


text: Bissinger discusses the Midland Lee game, as Permian's arch rival. The game is played on October 28, 1988. He introduces the characters of Gary Gaines, Mike Winchell, Don Billingsley, Boobie Miles, Ivory Christian, Brian Chavez and Jerrod McDougal and gives insight into their personalities, thoughts and their pregame rituals. Former star, Boobie knows his performance against Midland Lee will be important for his future. He hasn't played well since August when he injured his knee in a preseason scrimmage, but the coaches never put Boobie in the game. Permian puts up a valiant fight but lose 22–21. After the game, a furious Boobie storms out of the locker room and quits the team two days later.


text: Bissinger begins the book at the start of the 1988 football season in August and how Gaines is preparing for it. Bissinger then chronicles the history of Odessa. It was founded in the 1880s by land speculators from Zanesville, Ohio. They advertised the land as being as fertile farmland like in Kansas and Iowa. However, the settlers quickly discovered that it was dry and arid. The town saw little growth until 1926 when oil was discovered in the Permian Basin (hence the high school's name). Almost overnight, the town boomed and it saw more growth in a month than it had seen in ten years. The population increased dramatically and money was everywhere. In town, the roads were so muddy that the oil workers, (nicknamed boomers), often had to bring in cattle to pull the equipment to the oil fields. According to the book, "diarrhea, lawlessness, overcrowding, bad water, prostitution, and a rat problem" plagued the town. Out in the oil fields, the boomers worked round the clock to make their money. Meanwhile, Odessa High School's football team garnered success by winning the state championship in 1946 and making it back to the championship in 1953, thus laying the foundation for football fanaticism. Another boom in the 1950s led to the opening of Permian High School in 1959. Permian proved quickly that it was not going to play second to Odessa High. They became known as the embodiment of Odessa: small, white and overachieving. Meanwhile, due to demographic shifts and oddly drawn boundaries, Odessa High became populated with mainly poor whites and poor Hispanics—while a substantial majority of the city's relatively small black population ended up in the Permian attendance zone. This is not to say, however, that Permian didn't have its share of poor people from all major ethnic groups.


text: Bissinger talks about the Watermelon Feed held at Permian in August as a preseason celebration. He then chronicles the history of Permian football. Since its founding in 1959, it had won the state championship in 1965, 1972, 1980 and 1984. Despite the fact that it only won one state championship in the 1970s, Permian had statistically been the winningest team in the state of Texas. Bissinger then discusses the pressure that Gaines is constantly under because of how intensely devoted the Permian fans are. High school football is used as a distraction for the once thriving community of Odessa which had gone into a slump when the second boom ended.


text: This chapter focuses upon the black star fullback, James "Boobie" Miles, who is Permian's ticket to the state championship. Bissinger uses Boobie as an example of the negative effect high school football can have its players. Boobie is not a good student and doesn't have to worry about grades because he will most likely get a football scholarship to a major college. The dream seems all too real until, in August, during a scrimmage in Lubbock, Boobie injured his knee. With the season opener only a week away, no one knows what to do. Now the pressure is on quarterback Mike Winchell. Meanwhile, junior running back Chris Comer is called up to replace Boobie.


text: This chapter focuses upon the life of Mike Winchell, Permian's starting quarterback. Mike lived with his mother. His father, Billy, died when Mike was just thirteen. Billy had always been keen on Mike's playing football when he was a little kid. Mike's older brother, Joe Bill, took over that role but, in 1988, Joe Bill had moved out. Mike was very intelligent and received an offer of admission from Brown University but had prospects of playing football only at a smaller college. Don Billingsley is Permian's starting Tailback and son of the legendary Charlie Billingsley who played football in the 1960s. Don, whose mother had been a Permian cheerleader while Charlie played football, moved from Blanchard, Oklahoma to Odessa in 1986 before his sophomore year. Don and Charlie had always had a rocky relationship but it was all made better by football. Don was always inspired by his father's stories and always tried to live up to him. Yet, sometimes he faltered because he sometimes fumbled the ball on key plays.


text: Bissinger discusses the issue of race relations in Odessa which he describes as the ugliest racism he had ever witnessed. The town didn't desegregate until the 1980s and even then the schools were racially divided. Many viewed football as exploiting the talented black athletes by using them and then spitting them out afterwards.


text: Bissinger begins by discussing the life of Permian linebacker Ivory Christian. He originally thought he would go to Ector High School, where many poor blacks went, until Permian was desegregated in the early 1980s. Ivory had ambitions of becoming a minister at a Baptist church. Ivory gains these ambitions when he has a life changing dream that involves a dark tunnel and light. Because of this dream, Ivory decides that he will change his partying ways and turn his life over to God. Because of this decision, he becomes ambivalent towards football, what it represents, and for its beginning the inner battle between Homeric and Christian values.


text: Bissinger spends the chapter discussing the situation at Permian High School. He highlights the misplaced priorities as well as bad spending. More money is spent on sports medical supplies than the entire English department. The teachers make less money than the coaches who are financially at the mercy of the boosters who seldom care about education. Permian's SAT scores have plummeted dramatically since the 1970s and no one seems to care as long as Permian wins football games. As a result, everyone including the football players suffers. As the season progresses, Permian begins winning games.


text: Bissinger discusses the Permian–Odessa High game. The cross town rivalry is fueled by the cultural difference between the schools. For one thing, Permian also got the majority of the Ector County education budget while Odessa High typically got what was left (which wasn't that much). Odessa High had once been the beacon of hope in the city. It won the 1946 state championship and did well overall. Then, Permian opened in 1959. The middle class whites went to Permian and the Mexicans went to Odessa High. Also, Permian hasn't lost to Odessa in over twenty years. Permian wins the game 35–7.


text: Bissinger discusses the political views in Odessa which has long been a Republican voting city. The 1988 election is coming up and it is clear that majority of its residents are going to vote for Republican candidate and then Vice President George H. W. Bush, who lived in the area in the 1940s and 1950s. They had loved Ronald Reagan so the choice was clear. Many view Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis as far too liberal and think he is out to destroy their way of life from his comfortable home in Massachusetts. Meanwhile, Permian rolls over Midland High School winning 35–0. Bissinger also discusses the life of Brian Chavez, the Permian tight end. Chavez is extremely smart and has ambitions of going to Harvard. His father Tony is a successful lawyer originally from El Paso, Texas. Tony had enlisted in the United States Army after high school. After he was discharged, he took his GI Bill money and decided to take law classes at Texas Tech in Lubbock eventually graduating with a law degree in 1978. He supported the family by working as a police officer in El Paso. On his trips between the two cities, he drove through Odessa and thought it was dirty, seedy and trashy, and so decided to work in Midland. However, once he graduated, he got a job offer in Odessa and moved his family there. In 1982, the family moved to the Country Club estates, the nicest part of town. Tony was, in many ways, the embodiment of the American dream.


text: Bissinger discusses Boobie's football career after his injury. He thought the injury wasn't that serious and constantly tried to convince the coaches he could play. He played as a backup in several games but never got any serious playing time. But as Boobie's career is falling Mike Winchell's is soaring.


text: Bissinger discusses the Permian-Midland Lee rivalry. Even though the two towns were very similar, the hatred ran deep. Odessans viewed Midland as a town full of rich snobs and Midlanders view Odessa as a city full of rednecks, money burners and drunks. In 1983 an article in "Forbes" magazine named Midland one of the nicest places to live in America. At the same time, "Newsweek" named Odessa "Murder Capital U.S.A." with a record 29.8 murders per 100,000 residents. Bissinger traces the roots of the hatred to the second oil boom of the late 1970s and early 1980s. The boom had been brought by the oil embargo by OPEC as well as the Iranian Revolution, the 1973 Oil Crisis, the 1979 Energy Crisis and the Carter Energy Policy. Oil prices skyrocketed and for the second time in forty years the boom was on. People were making money left and right in both Midland and Odessa. There were stories of welders who could barely read making as much as $90,000 a year. Stories abounded of business men buying Lear jets and building huge homes for no other reason than the fact that they could. The oil executives thought they were in control of everything and didn't realize it was all circumstantial. Once the embargo ended, the boom was over. The final nail in the coffin was the closing of the First National Bank of Midland in October 1983 as a result of the 1980s oil glut and the Permian Basin never fully recovered. Bissinger also discusses the effects that the Reagan 1980s had on the Odessa-Midland Area.


text: After Permian loses to Midland Lee the fate of the season is unclear. Gaines is now under tremendous pressure and wonders if he will still have a job in a year's time. In two seasons Gaines had only gotten as far as the third round of playoffs. Boobie Miles quietly quits the team. Meanwhile, Jerrod McDougal, the Permian defensive tackle who knew he wouldn't play football in college, was devastated at the prospect of the season ending so early. Permian, Midland High and Midland Lee are all tied with one district loss each and only two can go to represent the district in the 1988 playoffs. It will be decided in a coin toss.


text: Permian ends the regular season beating the San Angelo Bobcats 41–7. But now it all comes down to a coin toss. Coach Gaines and Mike Belew drive to meet the head coaches of Midland High and Midland Lee. The event is held at a truck stop on the south side of Midland at 2:00 am local time. The location is undisclosed and it is broadcast live on TV. When the coin toss finally happens there it is originally thought to be a tie. Then it turns out that Permian and Midland Lee landed heads and Midland High landed tails. The two teams will continue their seasons while Midland High's season is over.


text: The playoffs have finally arrived. Permian first defeats Tascosa High School in Amarillo 21–7. They then play Andress High School in El Paso in the Sun Bowl, winning 41–13. The Saturday after Thanksgiving, Permian beats the Irving Nimitz Vikings, a team ranked sixth in the state, 41–7. Bissinger also explores the fates of many famous Permian players and how many of them ended right back in Odessa. He cites these stories as key examples of the false world Permian football can have on its players. Permian then beats Arlington Lamar 21–7. But now it was on to play the team many called the best high school football team in the state if not the country—the David W. Carter High School Cowboys from Dallas.


text: Bissinger spends the chapter discussing the football players at Dallas Carter High School, which is an all-black upper-middle-class high school. The football obsession at Carter dwarfs the one at Permian. Players skipped classes, left school to get lunch, and had their grades fixed by teachers so that they could play. This led to a court case when a teacher, Will Bates, refused to lie about the algebra grade of a key player, Gary Edwards. The case was won and Dallas Carter got to continue their season. During the week of the game the coaches from Permian and Dallas Carter meet to decide where the game will be played. They eventually agree on Texas Memorial Stadium at the University of Texas at Austin. They also agree on a racially mixed officiating crew to minimize any possible bias from that source.


text: A week later, Dallas Carter won the 1988 Texas state championship. For the players, the sense of entitlement and the feeling that they could do whatever they wanted to reach an all-time high. Gary Edwards got a full scholarship to the University of Houston. However, in May 1989, Edwards and several other players committed an armed robbery in Dallas. They were arrested and they were tried in September. It was then discovered they had committed as many as ten robberies prior. Edwards, who initially thought he would just get probation, was sentenced to 16 years in prison. After some review it was decided that because of grade changing on the player's action, Dallas Carter was stripped of its state championship.


text: Bissinger then discusses the fates of the 1988 Permian Panthers. Brian Chavez went to Harvard but quit the football team after only one day because there was no bond. He instead decided to play rugby. Boobie Miles played football at Ranger College, a junior college. Jerrod McDougal attended Odessa College and then Midland College. Although he missed football he could find happiness in the knowledge that Permian football would go on forever. Don Billingsley went back to Oklahoma and at first played football for East Central University but then he severely injured his knee and needed surgery. Ivory Christian went to play for Texas Christian University but quit playing football after his freshman year. Mike Winchell played football for Baylor University but said it wasn't as great as Permian and lost a lot of his abilities.


text: 1989 saw the price of oil rise as high as $20 a barrel. Yet that same year saw 46% of the nation's oil imported, the highest in twelve years. As a result, West Texas continued to suffer economically. That year Odessa was named the second-worst place to live in America by the "Places Rated Almanac". Meanwhile, Permian was dominating on the football field. They redeemed themselves, beating Midland Lee 17–13. Permian continued to win in the playoffs and eventually got to the state championship. Among the players was quarterback Stoney Case who would eventually go on to play in the NFL for the Arizona Cardinals and Baltimore Ravens. Before the game Gary Gaines told the players, "Everybody in this room has paid a dear, dear price. That ought to make your effort that much more intense, that much more fanatical, because of all the hard work and sacrifice that's gone into getting you here. It ought to make you play that much harder. You represent a lot of people. We're gonna represent them well and we're gonna win this sucker!" The players then took the field. Odessa had gone through a ridiculous amount of change in the 1980s going from a place where anything was possible to a place where nothing was certain and everything was finite. Yet football had always been there. Bissinger ends the book by saying, "It would always go on just as Jerrod McDougal had realized, because it was a way of life. The Permian Panthers ended the decade the same way they had begun it. Two days before Christmas, they became the state football champions of Texas."


text: While Bissinger, who had taken a leave of absence from reporting for "The Philadelphia Inquirer" to follow the team and write "Friday Night Lights", was writing the book, the University Interscholastic League (UIL) investigated the Permian Panthers football program, alleging that Bissinger took players out to eat and paid for the meals while interviewing them for the book, a violation of amateur rules. He also paid for Boobie Miles's car for an interview.


text: The book's release during the 1990 season coincided with the investigation of the team for holding illegal off-season practices, which resulted in the team being declared ineligible for the playoffs and thus not participating in the post season for only the second time since 1980. Permian's absence from the playoffs allowed San Angelo Central into the playoffs for only the 3rd time since 1966. The negative reaction to the playoff situation was exacerbated by the book, and many residents of Odessa received the book with responses ranging from mild indignation to threats of physical violence aimed at the book's author.


text: In response to the negative reaction in Odessa, a local bookstore cancelled a book signing by the author, and T-shirts possessed by locals bore the words, "Buzz off, Bissinger".


text: However, over time, the accuracy of the story has held up. The book has been reprinted frequently, including a 2000 reprint with a new afterword by the author detailing the team's accomplishments in the early part of the 1990s followed by the demise of the program in the latter part of the decade.


text: In 2002, "Sports Illustrated" named "Friday Night Lights" the fourth-greatest book ever written about sports, and its fourth place position made it the highest rated book focusing on football. In 2015, the book was reissued as a 25th anniversary edition and included a new afterword by Bissinger in which he provided an update on players from Odessa's 1988 team.


text: "Friday Night Lights" has been a frequent target of censors; the novel appears on the American Library Association list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2000–2009 at number 89.


text: The book inspired the short-lived television series "Against the Grain" (1993) starring a young Ben Affleck.


text: A movie version of "Friday Night Lights" was made and then released in the United States on October 6, 2004. It starred Billy Bob Thornton as Permian Coach Gary Gaines. The film was a box office and critical success and, in turn, spawned the NBC television series of the same name, which ran for five seasons from 2006 to 2011.


title: 2004 Democratic Party presidential primaries

text: From January 14 to June 8, 2004, voters of the Democratic Party chose its nominee for president in the 2004 United States presidential election.


text: Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts was selected as the nominee through a series of primary elections and caucuses culminating in the 2004 Democratic National Convention held from July 26 to July 29, 2004, in Boston, Massachusetts. Kerry went on to lose the general election on November 2, 2004, to incumbent Republican President George W. Bush.


text: The following candidates received more than 1% of the national popular vote or were included in multiple major national polls:


text: Ten candidates vied for the nomination, including retired four-star general Wesley Clark, former Vermont Governor Howard Dean, and Senators John Edwards and John Kerry. For most of 2003, Howard Dean had been the apparent front-runner for the nomination, performing strongly in most polls and leading the pack in fund-raising. However, Kerry won the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary, which gave him enough momentum to carry the majority of the rest of the states.


text: Despite being characterized by many as an election on Iraq, the economy and jobs were repeatedly cited as voters' top or one of top three concerns during the course of the primary season. In Iowa, of those who cited the economy as their most important issue, 34% supported Kerry, while 33% supported Edwards, with Dean trailing at 16% and Gephardt at 12%.


text: Eventual nominee John Kerry, much like other Democrats adopted policy stances of tax-cuts for the middle class, increased spending for Social Security, and assisting small businesses. On the aspect of job creation, Kerry strongly supported the creation and safety of infrastructure-related jobs, like those in the railroad industry. During the course of the primary Kerry continued to advocate positions such as fiscal responsibility and end state fiscal crises by giving states increased fiscal aid.


text: Runner up John Edwards ran a position of support for the middle class as well as budget caps and enforcement. Strongly opposing Social Security privatization, and interested in middle class tax cuts, Edwards's main economic theme was support for the middle class touting his own struggle, growing up the son of a poor mill worker in South Carolina. Another major component of Edwards's message was to be able to reinstate fiscal responsibility.


text: Howard Dean, despite taking many of the same positions of his rivals including Edwards and Kerry, had a starkly different approach on the issue of Social Security and tax cuts. On taxes, Dean favored repealing the Bush Tax cuts not only for the wealthiest of Americans as Senator Edwards and Senator Kerry proposed, but for all, including middle and lower classes.


text: After the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration argued that the need to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq had now become urgent. Over the course of several months, Bush presented several premises for war, but the turning point was the allegation that Saddam's regime had tried to acquire nuclear material and had not properly accounted for biological and chemical material it was known to have possessed, potential weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in violation of U.N. sanctions. This


text: situation escalated to the point that the United States assembled a group of about forty nations, including the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, and Poland, which Bush called the "coalition of the willing", to invade Iraq without UN authorization.


text: The coalition invaded Iraq on March 20, 2003. Most contenders for the nomination were supportive of the effort. Only Dean and Kucinich firmly questioned the aims and tactics of the administration, setting themselves apart in the eyes of war protesters. John Kerry, who had voted in favor of coalition invasion, said Bush had “failed miserably” in building that coalition and that "We need a regime change not just in Iraq. We need a regime change here in the United States." Republicans criticized Kerry for speaking out against a wartime president.


text: The invasion was swift, with the collapse of the Iraq government and the military of Iraq in about three weeks. The oil infrastructure of Iraq was rapidly secured with limited damage in that time. On May 1, George W. Bush landed on the aircraft carrier USS "Abraham Lincoln" in a Lockheed S-3 Viking, where he gave a speech announcing the end of major combat in the Iraq war. Clearly visible in the background was a banner stating "Mission Accomplished". Bush's landing was criticized by opponents as being overly theatrical and expensive. The banner, made by White House personnel (according to a CNN story:) and placed there by the U.S. Navy, was criticized as premature. Nonetheless, Bush's approval rating in the month of May rode at 66%, according to a CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll.


text: On May 3, 2003, Democrats met at the University of South Carolina in the first formal debate between the nine challengers for the nomination. The candidates disagreed on the war against Iraq, health insurance, President Bush's tax cuts, but united in criticizing Bush's handling of the economy.


text: On May 31, 2002, Vermont Governor Howard Dean formed a presidential exploratory committee. Though this was almost two years before the Iowa Caucus, Dean hoped the early start would give him some much needed name recognition. As a governor of a small state, Dean was not well known outside of New England.


text: In December of that year, John F. Kerry, U.S. senator from Massachusetts, announced on NBC's "Meet the Press" his plans to form an exploratory committee for a possible 2004 presidential run, anticipating a formal announcement "down the road some months". Kerry's experience as a decorated Vietnam veteran generated some excitement among Democrats tired of being on the defensive about their candidates' suitability in the role of "commander in chief".


text: Two weeks later, former Vice President and 2000 presidential candidate Al Gore announced on the CBS program "60 Minutes" that he would not seek election to the presidency in 2004. Gore had recently wrapped up a nationwide book tour and had been widely expected to run.


text: Other potential candidates were likely waiting to see what Gore's plans were, and thus the floodgates opened in January 2003. Senator Joseph Lieberman, Gore's 2000 vice presidential running mate, had previously promised not to run should Gore seek their party's nomination. Freed from that obligation, Lieberman announced his intention to run. Additionally, many other candidates announced their intention to form committees (a formality usually indicating an official run): U.S. Sen. John R. Edwards of North Carolina, U.S. Rep. Richard A. "Dick" Gephardt of Missouri, and Reverend Al Sharpton of New York. In February, more candidates announced their intentions: former Senator from Illinois Carol Moseley Braun, U.S. Representative from Ohio Dennis Kucinich, and Senator Bob Graham of Florida.


text: There were other potential candidates for whom some speculation was buzzing about a potential run. These candidates felt it necessary to officially state that they would not seek the party nomination. These included United States Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, U.S. Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, and former U.S. Senator Gary Hart from Colorado.


text: In April, Democratic fund-raising totals for the first quarter of 2003 were reported. John Edwards raised $7.4 million, John Kerry raised $7.0 million, Dick Gephardt raised $3.5 million, Joe Lieberman raised $3.0 million, Howard Dean raised $2.6 million, Bob Graham raised $1.1 million, and Dennis Kucinich and Carol Moseley Braun raised less than $1 million each.


text: In June 2003, Howard Dean aired the first television advertising of the 2004 campaign, spending more than $300,000. During that time, he formally announced his run for president, filing to form a presidential election campaign with the FEC. Later that month, liberal advocacy website MoveOn held the first ever online Democratic "primary", which lasted just over 48 hours. It was an unofficial and nonbinding affair, but with important symbolic and financial value. Of 317,647 votes, Howard Dean received 44%, Dennis Kucinich 24%, and John Kerry 16%. Had any candidate received 50% of the vote, the candidate would have received MoveOn's endorsement and financial support. Instead, MoveOn supported all the candidates.


text: In July, the Democratic fund-raising numbers for the second quarter of 2003 were reported and announced. Howard Dean surprised many raising $7.5 million, John Kerry raised $6 million, while John Edwards and Joseph Lieberman raised roughly $5 million each. Dean's strength as a fund-raiser was attributed mainly to his innovative embrace of the Internet for campaigning. The majority of his donations came from individual Dean supporters, who came to be known as "Deanites", or, more commonly, "Deaniacs". His campaign's innovative use of the Internet helped to build a strongly supportive grassroots constituency, much of which remained intensely loyal to him long after the end of his candidacy.


text: By autumn of 2003, Dean had become the apparent front-runner for the Democratic nomination, performing strongly in most polls. Generally regarded as a pragmatic centrist during his time as governor, Dean emerged during his presidential campaign as something of a populist, denouncing the policies of the Bush administration (especially the 2003 invasion of Iraq) as well as fellow Democrats, who, in his view, failed to strongly oppose them.


text: During his presidential campaign, critics on the right labeled Dean's political views as those of an extreme liberal; however, in liberal Vermont, Dean, long known as a staunch advocate of fiscal restraint, was regarded as a moderate. Many critics on the left, who supported fellow Democrat Dennis Kucinich or independent Ralph Nader, charged that, at heart, Dean was a "Rockefeller Republican"—socially liberal, while fiscally conservative.


text: Over the summer of 2003, several organized groups began a nationwide campaign to "draft" retired four-star general Wesley Clark for the Democratic Party's nomination for the 2004 presidential election. CNN on August 13 showed a commercial by one of these groups and interviewed Clark. He disavowed any connection with the "draft Clark" groups, but said he had been considering his position and that within a few weeks he would likely make public his decision on whether to


text: run. He also fueled speculation with a television interview in which he first declared himself a Democrat.


text: On September 17, 2003, in Little Rock, Arkansas, Clark announced his intention to run in the presidential primary election for the Democratic Party nomination, becoming the tenth and last Democrat to do so (coming many months after the others): "My name is Wes Clark. I am from Little Rock, Arkansas, and I am here to announce that I intend to seek the presidency of the United States of America." He said, "We're going to run a campaign that will move this country forward, not back."


text: His campaign focused on themes of leadership and patriotism; early campaign ads relied heavily on biography. His late start left him with relatively few detailed policy proposals. This weakness was apparent in his first few debates, although he soon presented a range of position papers, including a major tax-relief plan. Nevertheless, many Democrats flocked to his campaign. They were drawn by his military background, and saw such foreign policy credentials as a valuable asset in challenging George W. Bush post-September 11. Advisors and supporters portrayed him as more electable than Howard Dean, who was still the front-runner for the party's nomination. Despite the burst of enthusiasm for Clark in late 2003, Dean maintained a strong lead in the polls for the latter half of the year. Clark won the Democratic Presidential Primary in Oklahoma, the only state carried by Clark in the primary election.


text: Criticism of Clark began almost the moment he entered the race. Originally heralded as an antiwar general, he stumbled in the first few days of his candidacy. He was perceived as changing his answer on how he would have voted on the Iraq war resolution. His supporters argued that his perceived indecision was due to lack of experience with the media and their insistence on short "sound bite" answers.


text: Throughout the early campaigning season, the Iowa caucuses appeared to be a two-way contest between former Vermont Governor Howard Dean and Missouri Congressman Richard Gephardt. Dean, the national front runner, had been able to pour money into Iowa and New Hampshire. In total, Dean spent nearly $40 million in the two states. Gephardt, coming from neighboring Missouri, won the state's caucus in 1988 when he first ran for the party nomination.


text: However, days before the Iowa caucuses were held, negative campaigning by Dean and Gephardt took a late toll on the two campaigns in Iowa as well as nationally. This, along with the resurgence of John Kerry and the emergence of John Edwards as major contenders in Iowa, put the Gephardt and Dean campaigns on edge.


text: A poll released by the "Des Moines Register" days before the caucus was held showed Dean and Gephardt had lost all of their lead in Iowa. In the poll, Kerry led with 26% of those surveyed, Edwards came in second with 23%, Dean came in third with 20%, and Gephardt came in fourth with 18%.


text: On caucus night, as results were being tallied, it became evident that Kerry and Edwards were in a battle for first and Dean and Gephardt were in a battle for third.


text: <nowiki> </nowiki>After all votes were tallied, John Kerry received 38% of the delegates, John Edwards received 32%, Howard Dean received 18%, and Richard Gephardt received 11%.


text: After his poor showing, Gephardt dropped out of the race. Kerry and Edwards claimed newfound momentum, while Dean attempted to downplay the results, which resulted into his infamous Dean scream.


text: In the New Hampshire primary, Kerry was able to defeat Howard Dean once again, beating him 38%-26%. The final debate before the primary was held at Saint Anselm College; Kerry's performance was superior to the others, helping him win the primary a few days later. Kerry carried nearly all constituencies during the primary according to exit polling data. Clark came in third with 12%, Edwards fourth with 12%, and Lieberman fifth with 9%.


text: Edwards's late stage momentum, as well as his departure from the negative campaigning which characterized other leading candidates, carried him into a surprising second-place finish in Iowa with the support of 32% of caucus delegates, behind only John Kerry's 38% and ahead of former front-runner Howard Dean at 18%. He finished with 12% in the New Hampshire primary one week later, essentially tied for third-place position with retired general Wesley Clark. The following week, Edwards won in South Carolina and nearly beat Clark in Oklahoma.


text: After Dean's withdrawal from the contest, Edwards became the only major challenger to Kerry for the nomination. However, Kerry continued to dominate, taking in wins in Michigan, Washington, Maine, Tennessee, Washington, D.C., Nevada, Wisconsin, Utah, Hawaii and Idaho. Remarking on an unexpectedly strong finish in Wisconsin on February 17, Edwards humorously cautioned Kerry: "Objects in your mirror may be closer than they appear." Many other candidates dropped out during this time, leaving only Kerry, Edwards, Sharpton and Kucinich in the running. Dean, while not officially running, did not release his delegates, and still put in a strong showing considering that he was no longer mounting an official campaign.


text: Edwards maintained a positive campaign and largely avoided attacking Kerry until a February 29, 2004, debate in New York City, where he attempted to put Kerry on the defensive by characterizing the front-runner as a "Washington insider" and by mocking Kerry's plan to form a committee to examine trade agreements.


text: In Super Tuesday, March 2, Kerry won decisive victories in the California, Connecticut, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio and Rhode Island primaries and the Minnesota caucuses. Dean, despite having withdrawn from the race two weeks earlier, won his home state of Vermont. Edwards finished only slightly behind Kerry in Georgia but, failing to win a single state, chose to withdraw, making Kerry the presumptive nominee. President Bush called Senator Kerry to congratulate him that evening.


text: On March 11, after meetings with Democratic superdelegates in Washington, D.C., and former primary election opponents, Kerry accumulated the 2,162 delegates required to clinch the nomination. The DNC's website acknowledged him as the party's nominee at that time, four and a half months prior to the Convention.


text: On July 6, John Kerry selected John Edwards as his running mate shortly before the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston, Massachusetts, held later that month. Senators Kerry and Edwards were formally nominated by the Democratic Party at the convention. The Kerry/Edwards ticket was on the ballot in all 50 states, plus the District of Columbia. In New York, the ticket was also on the ballot as candidates of the Working Families Party.


text: New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson served as chairman of the convention while former presidential advisor to Bill Clinton Lottie Shackelford served as vice chairman. Defining moments of the 2004 Democratic National Convention included the featured keynote speech of Barack Obama, a Honolulu native and candidate for the United States Senate from Illinois, Bill Clinton's opening night speech and the confirmation of the nomination of John Kerry as the candidate for president and of John Edwards as the candidate for vice president. Kerry made his Vietnam War experience a prominent theme. In accepting the nomination, he began his speech with "I'm John Kerry and I'm reporting for duty."


text: Kerry and Edwards faced incumbents George W. Bush and Dick Cheney of the Republican Party in the 2004 presidential election. Following his official nomination at the convention, Kerry received only a small bounce in the polls and remained "neck and neck" with Bush. This was the first time in recent political history that a candidate failed to receive a substantial boost in post-convention poll numbers. Some political pundits attributed this small boost to the unusually small number of undecided voters as compared with previous presidential elections.


text: The general election was won by Bush, who defeated Kerry. The election was fought primarily on the issue of the conduct of the War on Terror. Bush defended the actions of his administration, while Kerry contended that the war had been fought incompetently, and that the Iraq War was a distraction from the War on Terror, not a part of it.


text: There were 4,353 total delegates to the 2004 Democratic National Convention, of which 802 were superdelegates: party leaders, even including some of the candidates, who were not bound by any state's primary or caucus votes and could change their support at any time. A candidate needed 2,162 delegates to become the nominee. Except for the Northern Mariana Islands and Midway Atoll, all states, territories, and other inhabited areas of the United States offered delegates to the 2004 Democratic National Convention. John Kerry won 4,255 votes at the convention, including those won by all of his former rivals except Dennis Kucinich, who received 37 votes. There were 26 abstentions.


title: Great Palace of Constantinople

text: The Great Palace of Constantinople (, "Méga Palátion"; Latin: "Palatium Magnum"), also known as the Sacred Palace (, "Hieròn Palátion"; Latin: "Sacrum Palatium"), was the large imperial Byzantine palace complex located in the south-eastern end of the peninsula now known as Old Istanbul (formerly Constantinople), in modern Turkey. It served as the main imperial residence of the Eastern Roman or Byzantine emperors until 1081 and was the centre of imperial administration for over 690 years. Only a few remnants and fragments of its foundations have survived into the present day.


title: Great Palace of Constantinople

text: When Constantine I refounded Byzantium as Constantinople in 330, he planned out a palace for himself. The palace was located between the Hippodrome and Hagia Sophia.


title: Great Palace of Constantinople

text: The complex of palaces was rebuilt and expanded several times during its history. Much of the complex was destroyed during the Nika riots of 532 and was rebuilt lavishly by the emperor Justinian I. Further extensions and alterations were commissioned by Justinian II and Basil I. However, it had fallen into disrepair by the time of Constantine VII, who ordered its renovation. From the early 11th century onwards the Byzantine emperors favored the Palace of Blachernae as an imperial residence, though they continued to use the Great Palace as the primary administrative and ceremonial center of the city. It declined substantially during the following century when parts of the complex were demolished or filled with rubble. During the sack of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade, the palace was plundered by the soldiers of Boniface of Montferrat. Although the subsequent Latin emperors continued to use the palace complex, they lacked money for its maintenance. The last Latin emperor, Baldwin II, went as far as removing the lead roofs of the palace and selling them.


title: Great Palace of Constantinople

text: One of the biggest halls of the Great Palace known as the "Trullo hall" hosted Third Council of Constantinople, recognized as the ecumenical council by both Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches and Quinisext Council or "Council in Trullo".


title: Great Palace of Constantinople

text: Consequently, when the city was retaken by the forces of Michael VIII Palaiologos in 1261, the Great Palace was in disrepair. The Palaiologos emperors largely abandoned it, ruling from Blachernae and using the vaults as a prison. When Mehmed II entered the city in 1453, he found the palace ruined and abandoned. As he wandered its empty halls and pavilions, he allegedly whispered a quote from the Persian poet, Saadi:


title: Great Palace of Constantinople

text: Much of the palace was demolished in the general rebuilding of Constantinople in the early years of the Ottoman era. The area was initially turned into housing with a number of small mosques before Sultan Ahmet I demolished the remnants of the Daphne and Kathisma Palaces to build the Sultan Ahmed Mosque and its adjoining buildings. The site of the Great Palace began to be investigated in the late 19th century and an early 20th-century fire uncovered a section of the Great Palace. On this site prison cells, many large rooms, and possibly tombs were found.


title: Great Palace of Constantinople

text: Initial excavations were carried out by French archaeologists at the Palace of Manganae between 1921 and 1923. A much larger excavation was carried out by the University of St Andrews in 1935 to 1938. Further excavations took place under the directorship of David Talbot Rice from 1952 to 1954, which uncovered a section of one of the south-western buildings at the Arasta Bazaar. The archaeologists discovered a spectacular series of wall and floor mosaics which have been conserved in the Great Palace Mosaic Museum.


title: Great Palace of Constantinople

text: Excavations are continuing elsewhere, but so far, less than one quarter of the total area covered by the palace has been excavated; total excavation is not presently feasible as most of the palace currently lies underneath the Sultan Ahmed Mosque and other Ottoman-era buildings.


title: Great Palace of Constantinople

text: The palace was located in the southeastern corner of the peninsula where Constantinople is situated, behind the Hippodrome and the Hagia Sophia. The palace is considered by scholars to have been a series of pavilions, much like the Ottoman-era Topkapı Palace that succeeded it. The total surface area of the Great Palace exceeded . It stood on a steeply sloping hillside that descends nearly from the Hippodrome to the shoreline, which necessitated the construction of large substructures and vaults. The palace complex occupied six distinct terraces descending to the shore.


title: Great Palace of Constantinople

text: The main entrance to the palace quarter was the Chalke (Bronze) gate at the Augustaion. The Augustaion was located on the south side of the Hagia Sophia, and it was there that the city's main street, the Mese ("Middle Street"), began. To the east of the square lay the Senate house or Palace of Magnaura, where the University was later housed, and to the west the Milion (the mile marker, from which all distances were measured), and the old Baths of Zeuxippus.


title: Great Palace of Constantinople

text: Immediately behind the Chalke Gate, facing southwards, were the barracks of the palace guards, the Scholae Palatinae. After the barracks stood the reception hall of the 19 Accubita ("Nineteen Couches"), followed by the Palace of Daphne, in early Byzantine times the main imperial residence. It included the Octagon, the emperor's bedchamber. From the Daphne, a passage led directly to the imperial box ("kathisma") in the Hippodrome. The main throne room was the Chrysotriklinos, built by Justin II, and expanded and renovated by Basil I, with the palatine chapel of the Theotokos of the Pharos nearby. To its north lay the Triconchos palace, built by the emperor Theophilos and accessible through a semicircular antechamber known as the Sigma. To the east of the Triconchos lay the lavishly decorated "Nea Ekklesia" ("New Church"), built by Basil I, with five gilded domes. The church survived until after the Ottoman conquest. It was used as a gunpowder magazine and exploded when it was struck by lightning in 1490. Between the church and the sea walls lay the polo field of the "Tzykanisterion".


title: Great Palace of Constantinople

text: Further to the south, detached from the main complex lay the seaside palace of Bucoleon. It was built by Theophilos, incorporating parts of the sea walls, and used extensively until the 13th century, especially during the Latin Empire (1204–1261) whose Catholic emperors from Western Europe favoured the seaside palace. A seaward gate gave direct access to the imperial harbour of Bucoleon.


title: Federal pardons in the United States

text: A federal pardon in the United States is the action of the President of the United States that completely sets aside the punishment for a federal crime. The authority to take such action is granted to the president by the U.S. Constitution. A pardon is one form of the clemency power of the president, the others being commutation of sentence, remission of fine or restitution, and reprieve. A person may decide not to accept a pardon, in which case it does not take effect, according to a Supreme Court majority opinion in "Burdick v. United States". In 2021, the 10th Circuit ruled that acceptance of a pardon does not constitute a legal confession of guilt, recognizing the Supreme Court’s earlier language as dicta.


title: Federal pardons in the United States

text: Under the Constitution, the president's clemency power extends to all criminal offenses, except in cases of impeachment. All requests for executive clemency for federal offenses are normally directed to the Office of the Pardon Attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice for investigation and review, but the president may bypass that office. President Donald Trump frequently issued pardons and commutations after conferral with his White House staff, though clemency was granted to some applicants through the Office of the Pardon Attorney.


title: Federal pardons in the United States

text: The Constitution grants the president the power to pardon "[o]ffenses against the United States." An offense that violates state law, but not federal law, is an offense against that state rather than an offense against the United States, however, the Supreme Court has never ruled on this matter or in the Presidents power to grant a habeas corpus petition for a state offense where it has been denied by a Federal Court.


title: Federal pardons in the United States

text: The full extent of a president's power to pardon has not been fully tested, dicta in Ex parte McCardle infoms that it is absolute. Pardons have been used for presumptive cases, such as when President Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon, who had not been charged with anything, over any possible crimes connected with the Watergate scandal, but the Supreme Court has never considered the legal effect of such pardons. There is disagreement about how the pardon power applies to cases involving obstructions of an impeachment. Also, the ability of a president to pardon themselves (self-pardon) has never been tested in the courts, because, to date, no president has ever taken that action. There has also been speculation as to whether secret pardons are possible.


title: Federal pardons in the United States

text: The U.S. Supreme Court has interpreted the provision to include the power to grant pardons, conditional pardons, commutations of sentence, conditional commutations of sentence, remissions of fines and forfeitures, respites and amnesties.


title: Federal pardons in the United States

text: Alexander Hamilton defended the pardon power in "The Federalist Papers", particularly in Federalist No. 74.


title: Federal pardons in the United States

text: At the Virginia Ratifying Convention, the delegate George Mason argued against ratification partly on the grounds that "the President ought not to have the power of pardoning, because he may frequently pardon crimes which were advised by himself."


title: Federal pardons in the United States

text: Pardons granted by presidents from George Washington until Grover Cleveland's first term (1885–1889) were hand written by the president. After typewriters came to be used for regular White House business, pardons were prepared for the president by administrative staff requiring only that the president sign them.


title: Federal pardons in the United States

text: All federal pardon petitions are addressed to the President, who grants or denies the request. Typically, applications for pardons are referred for review and non-binding recommendation by the Office of the Pardon Attorney, an official of the United States Department of Justice. The number of pardons and reprieves granted has varied from administration to administration. Fewer pardons have been granted since World War II.


title: Federal pardons in the United States

text: A federal pardon can be issued prior to the start of a legal case or inquiry, prior to any indictments being issued, for unspecified offenses, and prior to or after a conviction for a federal crime. Ford's broad federal pardon of former president Richard M. Nixon in 1974 for "all offenses against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 20, 1969 through August 9, 1974" is a notable example of a fixed-period federal pardon that came prior to any indictments being issued and that covered unspecified federal offenses that may or may not have been committed. The legal effectiveness of such a form of pardon has not been tested in court.


title: Federal pardons in the United States

text: The Justice Department normally requires that anyone filing a petition for a pardon wait five years after conviction or release prior to receiving a pardon. The constitutionality of open pardons, such as Ford's pardon of Nixon, has never been judicially tested in the Supreme Court and is open to question.


title: Federal pardons in the United States

text: While clemency may be granted without the filing of a formal request, in most cases the Office of the Pardon Attorney will consider only petitions from persons who have completed their sentences and, in addition, have demonstrated their ability to lead a responsible and productive life for a significant period after conviction or release from confinement.


title: Federal pardons in the United States

text: The Supreme Court ruled in "United States v. Wilson" (1833) that a pardon could be rejected by the convict. In "Burdick v. United States" (1915), the court specifically said: "Circumstances may be made to bring innocence under the penalties of the law. If so brought, escape by confession of guilt implied in the acceptance of a pardon may be rejected, preferring to be the victim of the law rather than its acknowledged transgressor, preferring death even to such certain infamy." Commutations (reduction in prison sentence), unlike pardons (restoration of civil rights after prison sentence had been served) may not be refused. In "Biddle v. Perovich" , the subject of the commutation did not want to accept life in prison but wanted the death penalty restored. The Supreme Court said, "Just as the original punishment would be imposed without regard to the prisoner's consent and in the teeth of his will, whether he liked it or not, the public welfare, not his consent, determines what shall be done."


title: Federal pardons in the United States

text: Federal pardons issued by the president apply only to federal offenses; they do not apply to state or local offenses or private civil offenses. Federal pardons also do not apply to cases of impeachment. Pardons for state crimes are handled by governors or a state pardon board.


title: Federal pardons in the United States

text: One limitation to the president's power to grant pardons is "in cases of impeachment." This means that the president cannot use a pardon to stop an officeholder from being impeached, or to undo the effects of an impeachment and conviction.


title: Federal pardons in the United States

text: In "United States v. Wilson" (1833), the U.S. Supreme Court held that a pardon can be rejected by the intended recipient and must be affirmatively accepted to be officially recognized by the courts. In that case, George Wilson was convicted of robbing the US Mail and was sentenced to death. Due to his friends' influence, Wilson was pardoned by President Andrew Jackson, but Wilson refused the pardon and the Supreme Court held that his rejection was valid and the court could not force a pardon upon him; and consequently the pardon must be introduced to the court by "plea, motion, or otherwise" to be considered as a point of fact and evidence.


title: Federal pardons in the United States

text: According to Associate Justice Joseph McKenna, writing the majority opinion in the U.S. Supreme Court case "Burdick v. United States", a pardon is "an imputation of guilt and acceptance of a confession of it[.]" Federal courts have yet to make it clear how this logic applies to persons who are deceased (such as Henry Ossian Flipper, who was pardoned by Bill Clinton), those who are relieved from penalties as a result of general amnesties, and those whose punishments are relieved via a commutation of sentence (which cannot be rejected in any sense of the language). Brian Kalt, a law professor at Michigan State University, states that presidents sometimes (albeit rarely) grant pardons on the basis of innocence, and argues that if a president issues a pardon because they think an individual is innocent, then accepting that pardon would not be an admission of guilt.


title: Federal pardons in the United States

text: A presidential pardon restores various rights lost as a result of the pardoned offense and may lessen to some extent the stigma arising from a conviction, but does not erase or expunge the record of the conviction itself. Therefore, a person who is granted a pardon must still disclose their conviction(s) on any form where such information is required, although the person may also disclose the fact that they received a pardon. Also, as most civil disabilities arising from a criminal conviction, such as loss of the right to vote and hold state public office, are imposed by state rather than federal law, they may be removed only by state action.


title: Federal pardons in the United States

text: The legal and constitutional ability of a president to pardon himself (self-pardon) is an unresolved issue. During the Watergate scandal, President Nixon's lawyer suggested that a self-pardon would be legal, while the Department of Justice issued a memorandum opinion on August 5, 1974, stating that a president cannot pardon himself. The 1974 memo laid out a scenario in which, under the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, the president could declare himself unable to perform his duties and could appoint the vice president as acting president. The acting president could then pardon the president and "thereafter the president could either resign or resume the duties of his office." The informal Nixon memo only addressed the presidential self-pardon in 69 words with no citations and lacks legal analysis, and is thus not authoritative on the issue.


title: Federal pardons in the United States

text: On July 22, 2017, President Donald Trump tweeted, "While all agree the U.S. President has the complete power to pardon, why think of that when only crime so far is LEAKS against us. FAKE NEWS", prompting a series of news article and online commentary regarding the president's ability to pardon relatives, aides, and possibly even himself in relation to the 2017 Special Counsel investigation, which ultimately concluded President Donald Trump could not be indicted at the time. "The New York Times" reported that during Trump's closing days in office he told aides he was considering pardoning himself.


title: Federal pardons in the United States

text: Common arguments against self-pardons include the themes of self-judging and self-dealing, the unjust nature of the president being above the law, violations of the public trust, the inclusion of the word "grant" in the relevant clause (one cannot grant something to oneself), the definition of "pardon" (because one cannot grant forgiveness to oneself), and the inadequacy of other safeguards such as political consequences. However, such arguments have been disputed, and since the Supreme Court has issued constitutional rulings that affirmed the president's "unlimited" pardon power, a constitutional amendment or a Supreme Court decision on a self-pardon would be required to settle the constitutionality of a self-pardon.


title: Federal pardons in the United States

text: Constitutional issues of the pardon power have been raised in multiple Supreme Court cases. In "Ex parte Garland", the Supreme Court majority ruled:"The power thus conferred is unlimited, with the exception stated. It extends to every offence known to the law, and may be exercised at any time after its commission, either before legal proceedings are taken, or during their pendency, or after conviction and judgment. This power of the President is not subject to legislative control. Congress can neither limit the effect of his pardon, nor exclude from its exercise any class of offenders. The benign prerogative of mercy reposed in him cannot be fettered by any legislative restrictions."In "Marbury v. Madison", Chief Justice John Marshall wrote regarding the presidential powers:"[T]he President is invested with certain important political powers . . . [for] which he is to use his own discretion, and is accountable only to his country in his political character, and to his own conscience . . . [.] [W]hatever opinion may be entertained of the manner in which executive discretion may be used, still there exists, and can exist, no power to control that discretion . . . [.] [T]he decision of the executive is conclusive."


title: Federal pardons in the United States

text: The pardon power was controversial from the outset; many Anti-Federalists remembered examples of royal abuses of the pardon power in Europe, and warned that the same would happen in the new republic. Critics such as the Anti-Federalists have argued that pardons have been used more often for the sake of political expediency than to correct judicial error.


title: Federal pardons in the United States

text: In the 18th century, George Washington granted the first high-profile federal pardon to leaders of the Whiskey Rebellion on his final day in office.


title: Federal pardons in the United States

text: In the 19th century, Andrew Johnson controversially issued sweeping pardons of thousands of former Confederate officials and military personnel after the American Civil War.


title: Federal pardons in the United States

text: In the 20th century, Gerald Ford pardoned former president Richard Nixon on September 8, 1974, for official misconduct which gave rise to the Watergate scandal. Polls showed a majority of Americans disapproved of the pardon, and Ford's public-approval ratings tumbled afterward. Other publicly controversial uses of the pardon power include Jimmy Carter's grant of amnesty to Vietnam-era draft dodgers on his second day in office, January 21, 1977; George H. W. Bush's pardons of 75 people, including six Reagan administration officials accused or convicted in connection with the Iran–Contra affair; and Bill Clinton's commutation of sentences for 16 members of FALN in 1999.


title: Federal pardons in the United States

text: In the 21st century, Clinton's pardons of 140 people on his last day in office, January 20, 2001, including billionaire fugitive Marc Rich and his own brother, Roger Clinton, were heavily criticized.


title: Federal pardons in the United States

text: President Donald Trump issued his first pardon to former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio on August 25, 2017; Arpaio had been convicted of criminal contempt in federal court. The pardon of Arpaio was relatively unusual in being issued early in Trump's presidency. It was met with widespread criticism from political opponents. On November 25, 2020, Trump announced, via Twitter, that he had pardoned former General and Trump National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. Flynn had pleaded guilty to one count of making false statements to the FBI, an offense which prompted Trump to fire Flynn as his national security advisor 23 days after taking office. On December 23, 2020, Trump pardoned 26 friends and allies, including his longtime ally Roger Stone, former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, and Charles Kushner, his son-in-law's father.


title: Federal pardons in the United States

text: A symbolic use of the presidential pardon is the National Thanksgiving Turkey Presentation in November, in which a domestic turkey is pardoned from being killed for Thanksgiving dinner and is allowed to live out its life on a farm.


title: F.C. Crotone

text: Football Club Crotone S.r.l., commonly referred to as Crotone, is an Italian football club based in Crotone, Calabria. They play in the third division of Italian football, the Serie C. Founded in 20 settembre 1910, it holds its home games at Stadio Ezio Scida, which has a 16,547-seat capacity.


title: F.C. Crotone

text: The club is based in the ancient Greek settlement of Kroton, one of the first Greek colonies in what is now known as modern day Italy. The club is proud of their Greek origins with their banners and slogans and regularly depicting Greek icons such as soldiers of Sparta.


title: F.C. Crotone

text: The first team from Crotone, "Società sportiva Crotona", was founded on 20 September 1910, but without adhering to Italian Football Federation, and the following main teams of Crotone, like "Milone Crotone", did not participate before 1921-1923 in several minor leagues including "Prima Divisione" (which later would be known as Serie C). Following World War II, a new club, "Unione Sportiva Crotone" replaced the previous one, playing seven seasons in Serie C.


title: F.C. Crotone

text: In 1963, the club was relegated to Serie D, but returned to the third division the following year, remaining there for fourteen consecutive seasons, missing promotion in 1977 when finishing third behind Bari and Paganese. In 1978, following the Italian football league reorganisation, Crotone was relegated to Serie C2 and the following year was declared bankrupt. A new club, "Associazione Sportiva Crotone", began competing again in the "Prima Categoria" (eighth division).


title: F.C. Crotone

text: Crotone was promoted to Serie C2 in 1984–85, but only for one season. The team's name was changed to "Kroton Calcio", and the club was promoted again to C2 after the 1986–87 season, where it played until 1991. A second bankruptcy led to the foundation of Football Club Crotone Calcio with Raffaele Vrenna as chairman, starting in the "Promozione" (7th level). Crotone gained successive promotions to Serie C2 and C1, winning in the play-offs against Locri and Benevento, respectively.


title: F.C. Crotone

text: Under Antonello Cuccureddu, Crotone first reached Serie B in 2000, returning to the second level two seasons later. Again in division two in 2004, after disposing of Viterbese in the promotion play-offs, it remained in the category until the 2006–07 season.


title: F.C. Crotone

text: After being beaten by Taranto in the 2008 play-offs, Crotone returned to the second division the following season, defeating Benevento.