Congrats Al!
From Karen for Namaste'

This year's Nobel Peace Prize laureates, Rajendra Pachauri, right, of the U.N. climate panel, and Al Gore show their certificates on the podium in Oslo on Monday.

Halliburton:  GOP Legacy of Crime
From TomCat for Politics Plus

11jones I realize there are some ambiguities regarding private contractors’ legal status in Iraq, but this truly nauseating scandal, if accurate, should put a whole lot of people behind bars.

A Houston, Texas woman says she was gang-raped by Halliburton/KBR coworkers in Baghdad, and the company and the U.S. government are covering up the incident.

Jamie Leigh Jones, now 22, says that after she was raped by multiple men at a KBR camp in the Green Zone, the company put her under guard in a shipping container with a bed and warned her that if she left Iraq for medical treatment, she’d be out of a job.

“Don’t plan on working back in Iraq. There won’t be a position here, and there won’t be a position in Houston,” Jones says she was told.

Jones filed a federal lawsuit against Halliburton and its then-subsidiary KBR, arguing that she had been held against her will in a shipping container, without food or water, for 24 hours. She eventually convinced a Halliburton guard to let her make a phone call, and she contacted her father in Texas, pleading for help.

He got in touch with their congressman, Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas), who told the State Department that they needed, as ABC News’ report put it, to “rescue an American citizen — from her American employer.”

The encouraging news came when the State Department reacted to Poe’s call. The ridiculous news came when U.S. officials failed to follow through.

Poe says his office contacted the State Department, which quickly dispatched agents from the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad to Jones’ camp, where they rescued her from the container.

According to her lawsuit, Jones was raped by “several attackers who first drugged her, then repeatedly raped and injured her, both physically and emotionally.”

Jones told ABCNews.com that an examination by Army doctors showed she had been raped “both vaginally and anally,” but that the rape kit disappeared after it was handed over to KBR security officers.

11cheney_halliburton This was two years ago — and no charges have been brought against anyone. From the piece: “In fact, ABC News could not confirm any federal agency was investigating the case.”

Legal experts say Jones’ alleged assailants will likely never face a judge and jury, due to an enormous loophole that has effectively left contractors in Iraq beyond the reach of United States law.

“It’s very troubling,” said Dean John Hutson of the Franklin Pierce Law Center. “The way the law presently stands, I would say that they don’t have, at least in the criminal system, the opportunity for justice.”

... [emphasis added]

Inserted from <The Carpetbagger Report>

Just when I thought that nothing the GOP and their paid minions might do can shock me any more than I already have been, they proved me wrong again.  I shall say no more for now, because words fail me.

Our tax dollars at work
From Two Crows for Preserve, Protect and Defend

Dogs can now be allowed to accompany their owners out to dinner.

In June, 2006, Florida's Governor Jeb Bush signed a 'dining with dogs' bill. The legislation gave local governments the OK to let restaurants permit dogs to eat with their owners in outdoor dining areas [something that had been occurring informally for a long time, anyway].

The measure created a three-year pilot program after which time the state would revisit the issue to determine whether it was a good idea.

Allowing dogs to dine will be up to the local city or county, and then even if local restrictions were waived to allow it, it would still be up to the restaurant owner as to whether to participate.
*_*_*
Of course, I have nothing against dogs eating with their people. We’ve been sharing our meals with them at home for millenia with no discernible adverse effects. And, if people are squeamish, they can always move to a dog-free zone.
My concern is this: what MIGHT Jeb have been doing rather than assigning the research into such a bill to a subordinate? What might that subordinate have been doing other than handling this meaningless gesture?
I’ve got a few suggestions:
How about spending some time and money on Florida’s education system?
Or looking into environmental concerns?
Or making sure the voter registration system is truly fair and equal?
Or hurricane preparedness?
The list just goes on and on. . . .

BProperty Rights vs. Keeping Them Icky Vrown People Out
From Tom Harper for Who Hijacked Our Country

Cognitive Dissonance is that uneasy feeling you get when you have two deeply-held beliefs that conflict with each other.

Tens of millions of Americans will reflexively yell out “Property Rights!” whenever an endangered species needs to be protected or a business owner has to comply with safety regulations. And a lot of these same people also think illegal immigration is the root of all of America’s problems, and the government needs to do whatever it takes to keep THEM out. Mass searches and deportations, building a huge fence along the U.S.-Mexican border — whatever it takes to keep those slimy ethnic creatures out of our country — do it!

Here comes the cognitive dissonance. This could be a wedge that splits conservatives into two bitterly divided camps.

The Homeland Security Department wants to complete 370 miles of border fencing by the end of 2008. A lot of property owners in Texas and Arizona don’t want this fence running through their property. And Homeland Security is threatening to confiscate the property of any landowner who doesn’t cooperate.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said "vee can do ziss zee easy vay or zee hard vay The door is still open to talk, but it's not open for endless talk.”

Juan Salinas, the county judge of Hidalgo County, Texas, said: "I tell you, on this one issue, the Farm Bureau, the United Farm Workers, Democrats and Republicans, white, black, brown, everybody is against the border fence. It just doesn't make sense. We've been trying to talk to them about using other ways. It's a disappointment that, again, the Department of Homeland Security is not listening to local taxpayers.”

Local people are opposed to the fence for cultural, economic and environmental reasons. The Rio Grande is the only source of fresh water for a lot of ranchers and this fence would cut off their access to it. And the local economies depend on cross-border traffic. It doesn’t just flow one way — many Americans do volunteer work south of the border and lots of extended families live on both sides of the border. Twenty years ago we were urging the Soviet Union to tear down the Berlin Wall; now we’re planning to build one.

OK, Righties — which is it? Which side are you on — the KGB Homeland Security Department, or the “property rights” and “local autonomy” that you’re always screaming about? Well???
 

Sam Donaldson Warns of Excessive Influence of Religion in Government
 From Ron Chusid for Liberal Values

Newsbusters and other conservatives are upset that Sam Donaldson warned about the increased influence of religion on public policy in recent years. Donaldson hedged on the actual terminology of Christian theocracy. What Donaldson is speaking of falls far short of total theocracy with government based completely on religious rule. Donaldson is correct in his warnings about increased religious influence on public policy. The transcript from the discussion on This Week is below the fold.

Donaldson was speaking most directly about Mitt Romney’s recent speech along with the emergence of Mike Huckabee as a front runner. It should also be recalled that two other Republican candidates, John McCain and Ron Paul, have also made claims that this is a Christian nation. Conservatives have increasingly been promoting a revisionist history which denies our heritage of separation of church and state and the intention of the founding fathers to create a secular government. We have a president who believes God chose him to be president and advised him to go to war in Iraq. Some have also claimed that Rumsfeld’s decisions on the war were also inspired by God.

There are many examples of the increased influence of religion on public policy. Conservative challenges to abortion rights, funding of stem cell research, intrusion in end of life decisions in the Terri Schiavo case, and opposition to the rights of homosexuals are the most prominent examples in recent years. Republicans have also attempted to set by legislation the moment when a fetus can feel pain regardless of the medical facts.

In education there have been the attempts to sneak in teaching on creationism (even if called intelligent design) and limit teaching of evolution. However it is not only biology that faces attacks. Religious fundamentalists attack established science on cosmology when they disagree about the origins of the universe, and object to geology when they disagree over the age of the earth. Many believe that dinosaurs and humans coexisted. The Bush administration has even backed religious fundamentalists who object to the geological age of the Grand Canyon, preferring the view that it was created in the biblical flood. Many Republicans insist upon teaching abstinence-based sex education in place of effective sex education.

Following is a transcript as posted by Newsbusters from This Week starting at 10:36am on December 9, 2007. Emphasis is from the posting at Newsbusters. As Newsbusters describes its mission as “exposing and combating liberal media bias” it should be noted that this was presented in an opinion segment and not presented as news. From the perspective of Newsbusters it might still be relevant for them to note cases of members of the media holding views which differ from theirs.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Let’s turn to Republicans. Mitt Romney did give his big speech on faith in America this week. He said very clearly that he would not be taking any, he would not be influenced by the leaders in his church. But then he made a turn in his speech and listen to this:

MITT ROMNEY: The notion of the separation of church and state has been taken by some well beyond its original meaning. They seek to remove from the public domain any acknowledgment of God. Religion is seen as merely as a private affair with no place in public life. It’s as if they’re intent on establishing a new religion. The religion of secularism. They’re wrong.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Sam, we’ve all been talking about the echoes of John F. Kennedy. That was actually a repudiation of John F. Kennedy who, in 1960, said that the separation of church and state is absolute and that religion is a private matter.

SAM DONALDSON: That’s right and that’s far we’ve come. He talks about the public square. Now, he would say, “I’m don’t mean a Christian theocracy in the White House.” But it’s getting much, much closer. When I first came to this town, chaplains began the sessions of the Senate and the House with a prayer.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Still do.

DONALDSON: People talked about the pledge of allegiance. Still do. And that was just fine. But now, religion has crept into public policy. On the floor of the Senate or the House, you hear God evoked for a tax cut or making it permanent. [All laugh] I think God is too busy to worry about those things. But Mitt Romney’s speech, I think, was very, very frightening to people, who think the encroachment into government, into the White House, or into the Congress, on religious matters, making decisions on public policy– It’s wrong.

10:45

STEPHANOPOULOS: Look at the impact he’s having right now. The cover of “Newsweek” this morning calling him “Holy Huckabee, the unlikely rise of a preacher politician.” That is the cover for their new poll showing him 22 points ahead of Mitt Romney in Iowa. 39 for Huckabee. 17 for Romney. Fred Thompson, all the rest, down into, into single digits. And, George, I’ve talked to the Romney campaign. Now, they don’t believe it’s a 22 point lead for Mike Huckabee. They do believe that Huckabee’s ahead right now and he’s on his way, unless he can be brought down and there’s plenty to bring him down with, to win this caucus on January 3rd.

GEORGE WILL: Well, 40-some percent of the Republican caucus goers are born-gain evangelical Christians.

DONALDSON: In Iowa.

WILL: They are going to vote for a man, evidently, who in 1998, in Iowa, in 1998 said, Mr. Huckabee said, he went into politics to take back this nation for Christ. Well, that is not a really sound general election position.

DONALDSON: He’s running as the Christian leader. He says so in his ads. And that’s just a step from saying, “I’m running as the Christian president.” Well, fine if he’s going to be a personal Christian. Jimmy Carter was, others have been. But it’s clear that, talk about a Christian theocracy in this country, many evangelical Christians believe, although they might abandon those exact words, that’s what we should have, that government should favor people who have the right and understand what God wants us to do. And that, of course, runs against not just Thomas Jefferson, but all of the history of our Founding Father’s attempts to write a Constitution which prescribes that.