Human Rights
WASHINGTON – The Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender civil rights organization, issued the following statement today after Sen. John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, told the New York Times he remains opposed to adoption by same-sex couples implying that he is opposed to single-parent adoption as well. In the interview, published Sunday, July 13, McCain said, “I think that we’ve proven that both parents are important in the success of a family so, no I don’t believe in gay adoption.”
WASHINGTON – The Human Rights Campaign Foundation, the nation’s largest gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender civil rights organization, today commented on shareholders at Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM) voting with record support for a resolution to add “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” to the company’s official equal employment opportunity policy. The percentage of shares voted in favor of the proposal has grown each of the last nine years, with 39.6 percent of shares voting in favor of the policy this year, which is the first year it has included “gender identity.” The tally represents about 1.74 billion total shares voted in favor of the proposal.
Don't ask for what you never had,' is the underlying message made by supporters of Israel when they claim Palestine was never a state to begin with.
The contention is, of course, easily refutable. Following the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th Century, colonial powers plotted to divide the spoils. When Britain and France signed the secretive Sykes-Picot agreement in 1916, which divided the spheres of influence in west Asia, there were hardly any 'nation-states' in the region which would fit contemporary definitions of the term.
All borders were colonial concoctions that served the interests of the powerful countries seeking strategic control, political influence and raw material. Most of Africa and much of Asia were victims of the colonial scrambles, which disfigured their geo-political and subsequently socio-economic compositions.
The contention is, of course, easily refutable. Following the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th Century, colonial powers plotted to divide the spoils. When Britain and France signed the secretive Sykes-Picot agreement in 1916, which divided the spheres of influence in west Asia, there were hardly any 'nation-states' in the region which would fit contemporary definitions of the term.
All borders were colonial concoctions that served the interests of the powerful countries seeking strategic control, political influence and raw material. Most of Africa and much of Asia were victims of the colonial scrambles, which disfigured their geo-political and subsequently socio-economic compositions.
Norman Baker is an American hero who has been detained against his will for more than three years.
His "crime": owning too much property.
His sentence: a court-appointed guardianship on the brink of costing him everything he spent his life building.
His rights in this case: virtually none, significantly less in many ways than an actual law-breaking criminal.
His future if this continues: long-term de facto imprisonment, followed by abject poverty, if he has anything left at all.
A retired firefighter who once helped save a child's life, Norman Baker is not suspected of terrorism. He has never been charged with any statutory infraction, and has never been in any kind of trouble with the law. But he has been stripped of his right to vote and access to his own assets, which appear to have been weel in excess of $1 million as little as three years ago.
His "crime": owning too much property.
His sentence: a court-appointed guardianship on the brink of costing him everything he spent his life building.
His rights in this case: virtually none, significantly less in many ways than an actual law-breaking criminal.
His future if this continues: long-term de facto imprisonment, followed by abject poverty, if he has anything left at all.
A retired firefighter who once helped save a child's life, Norman Baker is not suspected of terrorism. He has never been charged with any statutory infraction, and has never been in any kind of trouble with the law. But he has been stripped of his right to vote and access to his own assets, which appear to have been weel in excess of $1 million as little as three years ago.
WASHINGTON – State of Washington Governor Chris Gregoire signed into law on Wednesday a Domestic Partnership Expansion bill that will provide more than 160 new rights and responsibilities to registered domestic partners under state law. The bill passed the Senate on March 4 by a 29-20 vote. It passed the House last month by a 62-32 vote.
“The Human Rights Campaign congratulates Equal Rights Washington on this important step forward and thanks Governor Gregoire and fair-minded legislators for taking action that promises real benefits for same-sex couples in Washington and their families,” said Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese. “This new law will provide vital rights and benefits for same-sex couples and their families. For the second time in as many years, the state of Washington has helped move same-sex couples toward full equality.”
A 2007 law created a domestic partner registry that provided specific rights and responsibilities to same-sex couples as well as opposite sex couples with one partner over age 62. The bill the Senate passed will expand on the 2007 law.
“The Human Rights Campaign congratulates Equal Rights Washington on this important step forward and thanks Governor Gregoire and fair-minded legislators for taking action that promises real benefits for same-sex couples in Washington and their families,” said Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese. “This new law will provide vital rights and benefits for same-sex couples and their families. For the second time in as many years, the state of Washington has helped move same-sex couples toward full equality.”
A 2007 law created a domestic partner registry that provided specific rights and responsibilities to same-sex couples as well as opposite sex couples with one partner over age 62. The bill the Senate passed will expand on the 2007 law.
11 January marked the sixth year anniversary of the establishment of the Guantanamo detention camp. Mere months after the start of the 2001 United States invasion of Afghanistan, a large cargo plane landed in a US military base in Cuba's Guantanamo Bay, bringing in a group of hunchbacked, orange-clad, blindfolded, "terrorist" suspects, apparently representing the worst of the worst. They included children and aged men, charity workers, journalists and people who were sold to the US military in exchange for a large bounty.
The debate over this notorious prison has ever since been marred by easy reductionism. The fact is that Guantanamo is neither a warranted compound holding "bad people" -- as explained by the ever straightforward President Bush -- nor is it a dark spot in the otherwise luminous US record for respecting human rights, rules of war and international treaties. If anything, Guantanamo is a mere extension of a long list of untold violations practiced by the Bush administration, which condenses the camp to being a symbol of widespread policy predicated on nonchalantly undermining international law.
The debate over this notorious prison has ever since been marred by easy reductionism. The fact is that Guantanamo is neither a warranted compound holding "bad people" -- as explained by the ever straightforward President Bush -- nor is it a dark spot in the otherwise luminous US record for respecting human rights, rules of war and international treaties. If anything, Guantanamo is a mere extension of a long list of untold violations practiced by the Bush administration, which condenses the camp to being a symbol of widespread policy predicated on nonchalantly undermining international law.
The Clintons are running for a third term in the White House. As expected, their first eight years in office are being given thorough scrutiny. Everything from NAFTA to Bosnia, from Monica to health care, are going rightfully under the microscope.
The disagreements are deep and generally predictable. But it is equally predictable that there is one issue---one man--- being totally ignored by the mainstream media. His case marks the moral low point of the Clinton Era. He deserves to be a part of the primary process.
His name is Leonard Peltier.
There is incontrovertible evidence that Bill Clinton was---and remains---fully aware of the circumstances of the Peltier case. But because of his cowardice, this esteemed Native American activist and spiritual leader was imprisoned not only for every day of Clinton's eight years in office, but now all the way through George W. Bush's.
The disagreements are deep and generally predictable. But it is equally predictable that there is one issue---one man--- being totally ignored by the mainstream media. His case marks the moral low point of the Clinton Era. He deserves to be a part of the primary process.
His name is Leonard Peltier.
There is incontrovertible evidence that Bill Clinton was---and remains---fully aware of the circumstances of the Peltier case. But because of his cowardice, this esteemed Native American activist and spiritual leader was imprisoned not only for every day of Clinton's eight years in office, but now all the way through George W. Bush's.
One of the biggest lies ever told in American industrial history is that “no one died at Three Mile Island.”
In the frenzy to get public funding for still more nuclear reactors, some industry backers now say no one has ever been killed by the nuclear industry AT ALL.
These absurd statements reflect atomic energy's desperate need for federal loan guarantees, which have been slipped into the Energy Bill now before Congress. After fifty years of proven failure, no private sources will invest in this lethal, expensive technology.
Meanwhile billions are pouring into the booming business of green power, including wind, solar power and increased efficiency. These technologies are not only profitable and clean, they don't kill people.
And the reality is that people have, in fact, been killed by the fallout from atomic power, and not just at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl.
At the very birth of fission technology, Lewis Slotin, a top researcher on the Manhattan Project, was fatally irradiated in an early experiment. Patriotic workers were exposed to high radiation doses while building the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
In the frenzy to get public funding for still more nuclear reactors, some industry backers now say no one has ever been killed by the nuclear industry AT ALL.
These absurd statements reflect atomic energy's desperate need for federal loan guarantees, which have been slipped into the Energy Bill now before Congress. After fifty years of proven failure, no private sources will invest in this lethal, expensive technology.
Meanwhile billions are pouring into the booming business of green power, including wind, solar power and increased efficiency. These technologies are not only profitable and clean, they don't kill people.
And the reality is that people have, in fact, been killed by the fallout from atomic power, and not just at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl.
At the very birth of fission technology, Lewis Slotin, a top researcher on the Manhattan Project, was fatally irradiated in an early experiment. Patriotic workers were exposed to high radiation doses while building the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
As the Free Press goes to press, the Antioch College Alumni Association has raised $12 million in donations and pledges in an effort to keep the socially-conscious college from closing next year.
Mysteries still surround Antioch's rapid and poorly explained closing. The Board has bizarrely turned to the "marketing, branding and public relations firm" of Simpson Scarborough to peddle the closing decision.
SimpsonScarborough CEO Christopher Simpson previously worked as an editor and writer for the notoriously right-wing Washington Times – a newspaper owned by Rev. Sun Myung Moon. The dark side of Moon, a self-proclaimed Messiah, is well-documented in the public record. A 1977 congressional report placed Moon on the payroll of the Korean CIA. Moon also has financial ties to former CIA Director George H.W. Bush.
Simpson also previously served as press secretary for the infamously racist U.S. senator, Strom Thurmond. How did the planned demise of America's most socially liberal and activist college end up in the hands of a marketer with such strong right-wing credentials? Revolution Online first raised this question in a July 31, 2007 posting.
Mysteries still surround Antioch's rapid and poorly explained closing. The Board has bizarrely turned to the "marketing, branding and public relations firm" of Simpson Scarborough to peddle the closing decision.
SimpsonScarborough CEO Christopher Simpson previously worked as an editor and writer for the notoriously right-wing Washington Times – a newspaper owned by Rev. Sun Myung Moon. The dark side of Moon, a self-proclaimed Messiah, is well-documented in the public record. A 1977 congressional report placed Moon on the payroll of the Korean CIA. Moon also has financial ties to former CIA Director George H.W. Bush.
Simpson also previously served as press secretary for the infamously racist U.S. senator, Strom Thurmond. How did the planned demise of America's most socially liberal and activist college end up in the hands of a marketer with such strong right-wing credentials? Revolution Online first raised this question in a July 31, 2007 posting.
Karl Rove scoots off the sunken White House ship with his plans for future neo-con dominance safe and secure---in the hands of Democrats unwilling or incapable of challenging his dirtiest deeds.
Elected to end a lunatic war, the Democratic Congress has prolonged it, earning approval ratings even lower than those of George W. Bush, whom Rove designated as a "war president" long before the attack on Iraq.
The Democrats have also signed off on the GOP's all-out assault on the Constitution, meekly certifying a "unitary executive" with totalitarian demands for a blanket suspension of civil liberties, arbitrary detention, official torture and more.
Once again voters will approach a presidential election asking themselves---why vote for Democrats who won't challenge the most catastrophic GOP outrages?
That question must now be asked again about the illegal destruction of 1.5 million ballots from Ohio's stolen 2004 election. The mass shredding includes a wide range of official documents critical to conducting a valid recount in the state that gave Bush/Rove a second term in the White House.
Elected to end a lunatic war, the Democratic Congress has prolonged it, earning approval ratings even lower than those of George W. Bush, whom Rove designated as a "war president" long before the attack on Iraq.
The Democrats have also signed off on the GOP's all-out assault on the Constitution, meekly certifying a "unitary executive" with totalitarian demands for a blanket suspension of civil liberties, arbitrary detention, official torture and more.
Once again voters will approach a presidential election asking themselves---why vote for Democrats who won't challenge the most catastrophic GOP outrages?
That question must now be asked again about the illegal destruction of 1.5 million ballots from Ohio's stolen 2004 election. The mass shredding includes a wide range of official documents critical to conducting a valid recount in the state that gave Bush/Rove a second term in the White House.