Politics Plus

We’ve all been aware of the domestic activities of the C-Street members covering up GOP scandals and failing to practice what they preach, but outside the US, their conduct is beyond despicable.

The African nation of Uganda is weighing a bill that would impose the death penalty on HIV positive men who have committed what it calls "aggravated homosexuality."

As if that were not shocking enough, a U.S. author is claiming that a secretive group of American politicians appear to be a driving force in seeing the proposal become law.

The Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009, heavily supported by Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, was first read in October, triggering a wave of condemnation. According to the gay blog Queerty, Joann Lockard, public affairs officer at the Kampala, Uganda embassy, said the law would "constitute a significant step backwards for the protection of human rights in Uganda."

She added: "We urge states to take all necessary measures to ensure that sexual orientation or gender identity may under no circumstances be the basis for criminal penalties, in particular executions, arrests, or detention."

While that condemnation by a U.S. official would seem reflexive, others in U.S. political circles are providing financial and political support for the bill’s sponsors, according to author Jeff Sharlet.

Sharlet’s book "The Family" is an investigative look at a secretive group of fundamentalist Christian lawmakers in Washington, D.C. In a recent interview with NPR’s Terry Gross, he broke the news that The Family’s influence in Uganda is rife.

"[The] legislator that introduced the bill, a guy named David Bahati, is a member of The Family," he said. "He appears to be a core member of The Family. He works, he organizes their Ugandan National Prayer Breakfast and oversees a African sort of student leadership program designed to create future leaders for Africa, into which The Family has poured millions of dollars working through a very convoluted chain of linkages passing the money over to Uganda."

And how did Sharlet discover the connection? "You follow [the] money," he said. You look at their archives. You do interviews where you can. It’s not so invisible anymore. So that’s how working with some research colleagues we discovered that David Bahati, the man behind this legislation, is really deeply, deeply involved in The Family’s work in Uganda, that the ethics minister of Uganda, Museveni’s kind of right-hand man, a guy named Nsaba Buturo, is also helping to organize The Family’s National Prayer Breakfast. And here’s a guy who has been the main force for this Anti-Homosexuality Act in Uganda’s executive office and has been very vocal about what he’s doing, in a rather extreme and hateful way. But these guys are not so much under the influence of The Family. They are, in Uganda, The Family."

Under current Ugandan law, homosexuality is a crime punishable by life in prison. The proposed law would not just condemn HIV positive gay men and "repeat offenders" to death, it would also jail for three years anyone who knows a gay man but refuses to report them to authorities. Further, anyone who defends in public the rights of gays and lesbians would be subjected to a seven year prison term.

In his NPR interview, Sharlet said the bill would "very likely" pass and become Ugandan law. He added that the nation’s president, whom he called a "dictator," has long been in The Family’s fold.

"The Family identified [Museveni] back in 1986 as a key man for Africa," he said. "They wanted to steer him away from neutrality or leftist sympathies and bring him into conservative American alliances, and they were able to do so. They’ve since promoted Uganda as this bright spot – as I say, as this bright spot for African democracy, despite the fact that under their tutelage, Museveni has slowly shifted away from any even veneer of democracy: imprisoning journalists, tampering with elections, supporting – strongly supporting this Anti-Homosexuality Act of 2009."… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Raw Story>

I was actually shocked to learn this, and I asked myself, “Why aren’t they trying to do the same thing here in the US?”  The only answer I could imagine is that they do not have the power… yet.  One thing is clear.  People who would act in such a manner anywhere in the world have absolutely no business in the United States House or Senate, regardless of political party.  Here is a list from Wikipedia.

They need to be eliminated, and lest I be confused with the teabaggers and Faux Noise pundits, I am speaking politically only.  I am NOT calling for violence against them, and I oppose any such call.  That’s how they work.  We’re better than that.  May the next time they stand for reelection be the last.

JFK’s nephew has supported a woman’s right to choose, a position shared by the majority of the voters in his district.  This is what he gets for it.

…"Patrick Kennedy, pictured in May 2009, [different photo here] a US lawmaker and the nephew of ex-president John F. Kennedy, has been barred from receiving communion at his Catholic church due to his support for abortion rights, a newspaper reported Sunday."

US Representative Patrick Kennedy, son of the late senator Edward Kennedy, was told of the move by Roman Catholic Bishop Thomas Tobin, according to The Providence Journal newspaper in the US state of Rhode Island.

Kennedy represents a district in Rhode Island in the US Congress.

"The bishop instructed me not to take communion and said that he has instructed the diocesan priests not to give me communion," the paper quotes Kennedy as saying in a telephone interview.

Kennedy said the bishop had explained the penalty by telling him that he was not a good practicing Catholic because of the positions that he had taken as a public official, particularly on abortion, the report said…

Inserted from <Alternet>

Pat Kennedy was not elected to Congress to represent the wishes of the Catholic Church.  His job as a legislator is to determine what the voters in his district want and vote to carry out their wishes.  For him to allow the dogma of his church to override his sworn duty as a Representative, he would be violating the Constitution.  Now I have nothing against Catholics.  Liberation Theology is a Catholic idea.  However, our Constitution separates religious and secular activities through the establishment clause in the First Amendment.  By punishing Kennedy, Bishop Tobin and, through his representation, the Catholic Church is violating the Constitution and should be given a choice.  They must either end their political interference with the Constitutional duty of their parishioners, or lose their tax exempt status.

Carrie Prejean, darling of the LGBT intolerance set and frequent window dressing on Faux Noise  had dropped her lawsuit against Miss California USA.  Apparently Carrie was caught with her fingers in the …umm… well, it’s not really the cookie jar, but…

LOS ANGELES (CBS/AP) Did the legal battle between former Miss California USA Carrie Prejean and pageant organizers suddenly conclude because organizers presented Prejean with a sex tape starring the religiously devout beauty queen?

Celebrity site TMZ says yes and CNN, last night, said a source with knowledge of the settlement confirmed it. Crimesider has no independent verification of the story at this time.

In August, Prejean sued Miss California USA organizers for libel, slander and religious discrimination…

…The pageant countersued Prejean last month, claiming the buxom blonde still owed them $5,200 for the breast implants they helped her buy.

The dueling lawsuits had the making of a showdown at the ok corral in a string bikini but the warring factions abruptly made peace on Tuesday.

A joint statement released yesterday says Prejean and pageant organizers reached a confidential settlement on both legal fronts and both parties "wish each other the best in their future endeavors."

As for that alleged sex tape reportedly starring Prejean, if TMZ had the tape months ago, as the site claims, why didn’t they post it online or on air? TMZ Managing Editor Harvey Levin claimed in a Wednesday webcast that the tape, which he said features just Prejean, was too graphic for their taste.

Inserted from <CBS>

Apparently the lawyers for the pageant ambushed Carrie during negotiations at which all parties were present.  When they played the tape allegedly depicting auto-eroticism, she objected that it was disgusting.  Then the camera panned to her face.  OOPS!!  That was the end of that lawsuit.  It is also probably the end of Carries career assisting the religious right in forcing their piety codes down the throats of those who do not share their view.  Carrie was scheduled as the featured speaker at the New Jersey Family Council’s Defenders of the Family award and fund raising event.  This group organized to oppose equal protection under the law for LGBT people.  Carrie was not present at last night’s event.

Let me make one thing clear.  If Carrie Prejean, or anyone else for that matter, wants to make a sex tape, I could care less.  That’s her business, not mine.  My bone of contention is that she engaged in this behavior at the same time that she presented herself as a paragon of virtue, a holy victim of discrimination over her religious beliefs, all the while trying to impose the conduct demanded in those beliefs on others.  I object to her hypocrisy, not her peccadilloes.

On Saturday I discussed the J Street Project as a replacement for AIPAC.  They Just had their first annual conference, and the Obama administration appears to be taking them very seriously indeed.

When a politician attends the annual conference of the American Israel Political Action Committee, Washington’s largest pro-Israel lobbying group, his task is simple: assert his commitment to Israel in the strongest possible terms. At the first annual conference of J Street, a new organization that pitches itself as a liberal alternative to AIPAC, the job is slightly more complicated: assert a strong and unshakeable commitment to both Israel and peace.

So it went at this year’s conference, where Gen. Jim Jones, national security adviser to President Obama, delivered the keynote address Tuesday. For all the controversy the conference prompted—several supporters withdrew, participants were criticized, J Street’s mission was questioned—the proceedings Tuesday were notable for their reasonableness. Jones said little Obama hadn’t said at the United Nations in September or that Jones himself hadn’t said earlier this month to the American Task Force on Palestine. "There will be setbacks, challenges, false starts, and false hopes," Jones told the J Street crowd. "But the people of this region have suffered too long for this problem to be neglected."

Judging from the response, Jones delivered. Peace between the Israelis and Palestinians is not just a priority, he said. It’s the top priority: "If there was any one problem I’d tell president he should solve, this would be it." (Presumably, Jones and Obama talk, so it’s puzzling why he posed this conversation as a hypothetical.) Jones also tied a commitment to peace in Israel with efforts to keep Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. When it comes to preventing a nuclear armed Iran, he said, "Nothing is off the table."

Still, Jones’s mere presence mattered almost more than his words. Only a year after its founding, J Street is no longer the obscure liberal lobby that could. It is an influential—and controversial—spokes-group for Jewish Americans who think the United States’ approach to Israel has been too narrow. In its first six months, the group raised $580,000. (AIPAC’s annual donations top $50 million.) Conservative members of the Jewish community have eyed the organization with suspicion, arguing that concessions in the name of peace put Israel in danger. Several members of Congress removed their names from the group’s host committee in recent weeks. (One hundred forty-eight members remain on the list.) Michael Oren, the Israeli ambassador to Washington, declined an invitation to the conference, saying in a statement that the group took stances that "impair the interests of Israel." The White House’s decision to send an emissary was thus considered a minor victory. "You can be sure that this administration will be represented at all other future events," Jones said, to applause… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Slate>

Obama appears on the right page here, but his way ahead is tough, especially considering that the Netanyahu government is in power in Israel.  Netanyahu is the right winger, far more militaristic that Olmert.  Unfortunately, Israel’s version of left still sounds pretty right wing to me.

Ehud Olmert, Israel’s prime minister during the Gaza war, would probably face arrest on war crimes charges if he visited Britain, according to a UK lawyer who is working to expand the application of "universal jurisdiction" for offences involving serious human rights abuses committed anywhere in the world.

Neither Olmert nor Tzipi Livni, the foreign minister during the Cast Lead offensive, and a member of Israel’s war cabinet, would enjoy immunity from prosecution for alleged breaches of the Geneva conventions, predicted Daniel Machover, who is involved in intensifying legal work after the controversial Goldstone report on the three-week conflict. Neither are ministers any longer.

Prosecutions of Israeli political and military figures remain likely despite the failure to obtain an arrest warrant for Ehud Barak, the defence minister, when he visited the UK earlier this month, he said. In the Barak case a magistrate accepted advice from the Foreign Office that the minister enjoyed state immunity and rejected an application made on behalf of several residents of the Gaza Strip.

"This needs to be tested at the right time and in the right place," Machover said. "One day one of these people will make a mistake and go to the wrong country and face a criminal process — and then it’ll be a matter for the courts of that country to give them a fair trial: that’s what the Palestinian victims want."…

Inserted from <Common Dreams>

And this is what Israel calls liberal?  A war criminal?  And Netanyahu is nastier that this guy?  Good luck, Barack!  You’ll need it!

Kudos to J Street.  Time to kick AIPAC with their attendant American Taliban to the curb.