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Jefferson-Jackson Liveblog Hits the Home Stretch — Clinton and Obama
Here's what's happened so far. Hillary Clinton has taken the stage.
10:49 - Smack down of Obama! Here's Clinton: "Change is just a word if you don't have the strength and experience to make it happen. We must chose a nominee who has been tested and elect a president who is ready to lead on day one."
10:51 - Clinton is emphasizing her experience in the White House. "As First Lady, I fought my heart out for health care." She might not have won, she says, but she laid the ground work for the progress universal health care is making now. The Clinton crowd here is huge, and going absolutely bananas.
10:52 - "We love you, Hillary!!!!" shouts a girl behind me. The Clinton people have rally sticks, made popular at baseball games. They are very loud and very annoying.
More Clinton after the jump. Also, Obama. This is going to be good.
Posted by Jonathan Stein on 11/10/07 at 8:36 PM | Comments (4) | E-mail | Print | Digg | Reddit | StumbleUpon
Jefferson-Jackson Liveblog Continues
Explanation of the JJ Dinner here; part one of the liveblog here.
9:09 - Bill Richardson is speaking, and appears to be wearing heels. On second thought, they may be cowboy boots. Richardson is having trouble getting any verbal momentum going. He is jumping from "restoring the American Dream," to following the Constitution on the matter of torture (does the Constitution mention torture?), to his plan on the war in Iraq. His whole campaign may come down to that war — he is the only candidate who will commit to having all troops out by the end of 2009.
9:15 - Now health care, now education reform, now greenhouse gases. This is what Richardson does. He jumps from policy to policy to policy without an over-arching narrative.
9:19 - "I've heard one thing that I like about Iowa," says Bill. "Iowa likes underdogs!" You better hope so.
9:20 - Richardson urges Democrats not to "tear each other down." Suggests criticism only on policy grounds. Problem is, the Dems are all pretty much the same on policy. Oh, and I've seen some advance copy from the Obama speech, and it's got some sharp but coded words about Hillary.
Biden after the jump.
Posted by Jonathan Stein on 11/10/07 at 7:04 PM | Comments (1) | E-mail | Print | Digg | Reddit | StumbleUpon
Jefferson-Jackson Dinner — Most Exciting Live Blog Ever!
Okay, let's get it on.
8:13 - Nancy Pelosi takes the stage, which is in the shape of a square and surrounded on all sides. Pelosi, like all speakers today, will have to speak while walking in a circle.
8:14 - Pelosi says "all the eyes of the world are on this dinner tonight." The disproportionate amount of power that Iowa has in American presidential elections really is ridiculous.
8:15 - Peeking at Marc Ambinder's blog, I see John McCain had a kind of insane day today, filled with bucketloads of attack politics.
8:20 - The Hillary Clinton supporters here are wearing shirts that read, "TURN UP THE HEAT. TURN AMERICA AROUND." New slogan?
More after the jump, including the Edwards speech.
Posted by Jonathan Stein on 11/10/07 at 5:59 PM | Comments (0) | E-mail | Print | Digg | Reddit | StumbleUpon
Iowa's Most Important Dinner — Happening NOW
I'm in the Veterans Auditorium in Des Moines for the Iowa Democratic Party's annual Jefferson-Jackson Dinner. For voters nationwide, the JJ, as it's called, is a blip on the radar. But here in Iowa it's huge, particularly in the year before an election. One Obama supporter described it to me thusly: "If the Iowa Caucuses are the Super Bowl, this is the halftime show."
Six presidential candidates will be speaking to 9,000 of Iowa's most prominent (and richest) Democrats. Also on hand are assorted politicos from the Midwest. Former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack and current Ohio governor Ted Strickland wandered by when I was waiting in the consession line, for example. Nancy Pelosi is the master of ceremonies.
This is an only-in-Iowa event. A rambunctious crowd of young supporters for every candidate have packed the balcony level and are shouting slogans and chants at an ear-rattling volume. They also have coordinated sign gimmicks, like at halftime of a college football game. The youngsters spent all day putting thousands and thousands of signs up inside this auditorium and on the streets surrounding it. Media from all over the world is here.
The JJ can make or break a candidate in this state. Iowans credit the 2003 JJ with making John Kerry's Iowa victory. Before the event, Kerry was down in the polls, looking up at frontrunner Howard Dean. But Kerry unveiled a new stump speech and a new slogan, as many candidates do here, and it propelled him to a caucus win, and eventually the nomination.
I'll be liveblogging things as they happen. If you've got nothing better to do on a Saturday evening, I invite you to follow along.
Posted by Jonathan Stein on 11/10/07 at 4:27 PM | Comments (0) | E-mail | Print | Digg | Reddit | StumbleUpon
If Grover Norquist Speaks, Does Anyone Still Listen?
So Grover Norquist thinks that Fred Thompson is the "worst" GOP candidate out there. His major sin? He has refused to sign a pledge from Norquist's group, Americans for Tax Reform, refusing to ever raise taxes. Also, he has said that rich people might have to pay higher premiums for Medicare and is opposed to federal tort reform.
Norquist's remarks apparently came during his regular Wednesday off-the-record meeting in D.C. with the grand poobahs of the GOP, which used to be the place to be in D.C. if you wanted to know what was going on in politics. In the old days, such a pronouncement would leave a candidate shaking in his boots. But ever since the news broke that Norquist had been deeply involved in some of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff's Indian tribe schemes, and Democrats took over Congress, he seems to have been relegated to the sidelines, at least publicly. It will be interesting to see how much his attacks on Thompson will really matter. After all, Thompson's positions are pretty fiscally responsible, something Republicans used to care about...
Posted by Stephanie Mencimer on 11/09/07 at 1:22 PM | Comments (1) | E-mail | Print | Digg | Reddit | StumbleUpon
Columbia Dating Scientists Up the Heeby-Jeeby Factor
Number one on Slate's "most read" list at the moment is "An Economist Goes to a Bar and Solves the Mysteries of Dating." The name pretty much says it all: A bunch of researchers from the economics department at Columbia ran a speed-dating service for students at a favorite campus watering hole. After each mini-date, participants were asked to rate their partners on variables such as attractiveness, intelligence, and ambition. Their findings were a cliché come true: Men "did put significantly more weight on their assessment of a partner's beauty, when choosing, than women did," and "intelligence ratings were more than twice as important in predicting women's choices as men's." As for ambition, men "avoided women whom they perceived to be smarter than themselves. The same held true for measures of career ambition—a woman could be ambitious, just not more ambitious than the man considering her for a date."
What does it all mean? Simply refer to this neat little paragraph that sums up the researchers' findings:
So, yes, the stereotypes appear to be true: We males are a gender of fragile egos in search of a pretty face and are threatened by brains or success that exceeds our own. Women, on the other hand, care more about how men think and perform, and they don't mind being outdone on those scores.
Never mind the depressing fact that these unimpressive, Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus-ish attitudes are present at Columbia, where your typical student is supposed to be busy learning how to "work across disciplines, embrace complexity, and become a fluid, fearless, forward-looking global citizen and scholar." Far more unsettling is the fact that a key point seems to have evaded both the researchers and Slate: Complex and fluid though it may be, Columbia University is most certainly not a microcosm of the larger world. Just because 400 Columbia students (who most likely have a slightly different relationship with the terms "ambition" and "intelligence" from the rest of the population) embraced these unfortunate stereotypes doesn't mean everyone else does.
The researchers' creepiest conclusion by far, though, was that "women got more dates when they won high marks for looks." From whom did the women win these high marks? Not their speed dating partners, but "research assistants, who were hired for the much sought-after position of hanging out in a bar to rate the dater's level of attractiveness on a scale of one to 10." File under: Ewwww!
This all brings us to the ultimate question: Don't Columbia economists have better things to do than scope out co-eds at a campus bar?
Posted by Kiera Butler on 11/09/07 at 1:01 PM | Comments (5) | E-mail | Print | Digg | Reddit | StumbleUpon
Beating Up On Barney Frank
One of the GOP's most reliable fundraising pitches in the run-up to the 2006 mid-term elections was a vision of Democrat Barney Frank as the chair of the House Financial Services Committee. The gay congressman from Massachusetts was supposed to be the devil incarnate for the credit card and banking industry. Now that Frank has actually taken over the committee, though, one group he really seems to have pissed off is a bunch of liberal consumer advocates unhappy with his efforts to address the meltdown of the subprime lending industry.
Posted by Stephanie Mencimer on 11/09/07 at 11:21 AM | Comments (2) | E-mail | Print | Digg | Reddit | StumbleUpon
Andrew Sullivan Ruminates on the Power of Obama's Face
Many people on the blogosphere have taken note of Andrew Sullivan's ode to Barack Obama in the Atlantic. Sullivan argues that Obama is the only candidate who can break America out of the pro-Vietnam/anti-Vietnam culture war that has gripped America for forty years. The frontrunners, Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton, whether they like it or not, "are conscripts in their generation’s war. To their respective sides, they are war heroes."
I'm not sure I agree with Sullivan's central premise, did I find this supporting argument about Obama interesting:
What does he offer? First and foremost: his face. Think of it as the most effective potential re-branding of the United States since Reagan. Such a re-branding is not trivial—it's central to an effective war strategy...
Consider this hypothetical. It's November 2008. A young Pakistani Muslim is watching television and sees that this man—Barack Hussein Obama—is the new face of America. In one simple image, America's soft power has been ratcheted up not a notch, but a logarithm. A brown-skinned man whose father was an African, who grew up in Indonesia and Hawaii, who attended a majority-Muslim school as a boy, is now the alleged enemy. If you wanted the crudest but most effective weapon against the demonization of America that fuels Islamist ideology, Obama's face gets close. It proves them wrong about what America is in ways no words can.
This is an argument that Obama himself doesn't make. Perhaps it's because we're in highly homogeneous Iowa (read: 96 percent white), but Obama didn't mention his race once in the time I spent with him. By comparison, Hillary Clinton mentioned her gender on multiple occasions in the time I spent with her. The speakers that introduced her often highlighted it.
The closest Obama came to mentioning his race was in response to a question after the third event he did on the day I followed his campaign. He said that he would be uniquely qualified to resurrect America's standing the world because he would "put a new face" on American leadership. He has a grandmother who lives in a small village in Kenya. He lived in Indonesia. He can listen to the rest of the world in a way no other politician can, and he can get the rest of the world to listen back.
But never once was the word "black" mentioned, nor "African-American." Maybe Obama is as "post-race" as some claim, and maybe that's why he does as well as he does.
Posted by Jonathan Stein on 11/09/07 at 10:17 AM | Comments (4) | E-mail | Print | Digg | Reddit | StumbleUpon
Utah To Offer Cops "Sweat Your Meth" Treatments
The Scientologists are an enterprising bunch, aren't they? The latest:
The state of Utah is paying $50,000 to the Bio Cleansing Centers of America to treat eight current and retired police officers allegedly sickened from busting up meth labs. The center's detoxification treatment, which seems to consist mostly of sending the overweight cops to the sauna for hours on end, is based on the teachings of Scientology. It's similar to a controversial clinic in New York, set up with a huge donation from the nation's most famous Scientologist Tom Cruise, to treat 9/11 rescue workers. Scientology's late founder L. Ron Hubbard claimed that toxins could be flushed from the body through sweating and taking megadoses of vitamins, among other things, hence the sauna treatments.
Normally state attorneys general get called in to scrutinize such programs for peddling unproven therapies to gullible customers, but in Utah, it's actually the state AG who got the whole thing going. Not only that, but Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff wants the state to throw another $140,000 at the program to expand the treatment to more officers, despite a dearth of evidence showing that it actually works.
Utah residents seem to have an affinity for dubious health care practitioners. The state is home to "celluloid valley," the dietary supplement industry, which has made billions selling bogus natural therapies to unsuspecting consumers. The Scientologists and their sauna should feel right at home there.
Posted by Stephanie Mencimer on 11/09/07 at 10:17 AM | Comments (2) | E-mail | Print | Digg | Reddit | StumbleUpon
Do You Speak Urdu?
Mother Jones is pursuing an investigative project that requires the services of an Urdu speaker. You give us about 20 minutes of your time, and we'll give you a free subscription to the magazine. If that's not enough, you'll also get the satisfaction of helping us to break a big story. Those who are interested may write to [email protected]. Many thanks...
Posted by Bruce Falconer on 11/09/07 at 7:19 AM | Comments (2) | E-mail | Print | Digg | Reddit | StumbleUpon
Obama Gets "Vision," Richardson Doesn't
In my recent article on Bill Richardson, I wrote, "Richardson articulates a platform, not a vision." The New Mexico governor has a habit of listing policy proposals—including incredibly obscure and tiny policy proposals—without explaining how they fit into a narrative or theme that makes the case for his presidency.
I want to provide an example of a campaign that avoids this mistake, to better illustrate what I'm saying. At a event in Bettendorf, Iowa, yesterday, Barack Obama proposed the following things:
- A middle class tax cut of up to $1,000 for working families.
- Elimination of income tax on retirees making less than $50,000 per year.
- Guaranteeing paid sick days and family leave days.
- Doubling funding for after-school programs and giving a $4,000 tax credit to college students.
- Cracking down on mortage fraud and predatory credit card policies, ending abusive payday lending practices, and reforming bankruptcy laws.
In all of these areas, Obama matched concrete policy proposals with an explanation of how they will make the lives of everyday Americans more stable and more prosperous. He discussed taxes, retirement, family issues, education, college affordability, and housing, all within the context of what Obama called a "plan to reclaim the American dream." The whole speech was about the American dream, and about how, under Obama's leadership, it will get easier, not harder, to achieve.
That's policy matched with vision. And that's what Richardson lacks.
Posted by Jonathan Stein on 11/08/07 at 10:18 PM | Comments (1) | E-mail | Print | Digg | Reddit | StumbleUpon
Rudy Giuliani Tells Those Darn Kids If You Don't Vote, "It's Your Fault"
At a Rudy Giuliani event at University of Northern Iowa this afternoon, a public speaking instructor asked Giuliani what he would say to young people who are disillusioned by politics.
"I'll tell you what I'd say," Giuliani said. He clapped his hands fiercely. CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! CLAP! "Wake up! Look at America!" he said. "You are so lucky. You live in the best country in the world." He explained that America offers opportunity that no other country does, and that if young people are not so excited about America, they should try traveling abroad, because they'd return relieved to live in the old U.S.A. He repeated over and over some version of the line, "Just take a look at what you have around you, look at what you can do. You are very, very lucky."
Sometimes, Giuliani said, you need to "move your perspective around."
Giuliani didn't deny that there are imperfections in American politics that turn young people off, but claimed that young people could change what they didn't like. "You get a chance to vote. And if you pass it up," he said, "it's your fault."
Afterwards, students I asked about Giuliani's response were a little stunned. "Umm, I guess there's not a whole lot I can say about it," said Justin Brinker, a 22-year-old junior.
"Uhhh... I though it was all right," said Dane Embury, a 22-year-old senior. "But I still think it's going to be an issue." He shrugged his shoulders. "I dunno."
The lack of policy proposals that might appeal to young voters, or resurrect their faith in the system, wasn't missed. Jess Paulsen, a 20-year-old junior said, "I don't know. I think it might have been better to add in how he's going to, kinda, do something about student loans. And bring up education in general. Because this is a university and that's why people are here."
John Edwards has a whole agenda for college affordability, which includes a national initiative that pays for one year of public-college tuition, fees, and books for more than 2 million students. It also includes an overhaul of the student loan system and a simplification of the financial aid application process. Barack Obama just proposed a tax credit worth $4,000 for tuition and fees every year. He wants greater support for the American community college system.
Point is, the Democrats have proposals that illustrate (1) an awareness that political disillusionment occurs in part because college-age voters don't believe Washington cares about the squeeze that is being put on them, and (2) a willingness to address the problems of youth voters, even though youth voters don't organize and fight for their needs, and often don't even vote.
But that's not what you get from Rudy Giuliani. Rudy Giuliani is the daddiest member of the daddy party. You kids don't get no stinkin' Pell Grants. You get tough love.
Posted by Jonathan Stein on 11/08/07 at 9:29 PM | Comments (11) | E-mail | Print | Digg | Reddit | StumbleUpon
Surge of Homeless Vets
For those looking into the real costs of the war in Iraq, as Mother Jones did in our Iraq 101 package, it's been evident for some time that as soldiers returned from war, rates of homelessness would spike.
The New York Times reports:
"We’re beginning to see, across the country, the first trickle of this generation of warriors in homeless shelters," said Phil Landis, chairman of Veterans Village of San Diego, a residence and counseling center. "But we anticipate that it’s going to be a tsunami."
In fact, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are turning heroes into homeless people faster and more efficiently than Vietnam did.
Special traits of the current wars may contribute to homelessness, including high rates of post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, and traumatic brain injury, which can cause unstable behavior and substance abuse, and the long and repeated tours of duty, which can make the reintegration into families and work all the harder.
If that weren't depressing enough, because women are seeing far more combat in 21st century wars, more of them are turning up homeless, too. One major risk factor is sexual abuse: 40 percent of homeless female vets report being raped by other American soldiers while on active duty.
And in case you weren't thinking it already, all this for what, exactly?
Posted by Cameron Scott on 11/08/07 at 2:02 PM | Comments (10) | E-mail | Print | Digg | Reddit | StumbleUpon
Huckabee Fever Hits Iowa, Sorta
Mike Huckabee spoke to a crowd of about 100 people in Cedar Rapids this morning. I hate to confirm all the cliches about the Arkansas Governor, but his campaign appeal really does rest on his folksy, down-to-earth charm and his good humor. People at the event said they were considering supporting Huckabee (there were precious few true believers) because he is "genuine," "honest," and/or "charming."
To wit. He opened his speech with a fictional story that made no point about his campaign or his personal history—it was simply a longish joke about a condemned man who would rather hang than listen to a politician campaign. Ba dum.
And from that, Huckabee moved to another story, this time a true one about a woman at a gala dinner in Arkansas who confused Huckabee with a different politician and was unapologetic about it afterwards. "You politicians all look the same to me," she told Huckabee. It's a head-scratcher why he chose to tell us.
As for the body of the speech, Huckabee spoke at length about how abortion is a moral issue that cannot, like Fred Thompson argues, be decided at the state level. That's Huckabee's bread and butter—as a former Baptist minister, he has unique appeal amongst the Christian Right. He took a hard-line approach on illegal immigration, pimped his fair tax idea that scraps the IRS and the income tax in favor of a "consumption tax," and emphasized that the American health care system needs to focus on prevention. It's time we started "killing snakes instead of treating snake bites," he said.
At one point, when an audience member was asking a question, one of the "Mike Huckabee for President" signs taped behind the Governor fell off the wall. Huckabee turned around while the person was still talking, picked the sign up, and smacked it back on. "I don't want anyone saying Huckabee's campaign is falling in Iowa," he said.
After the event, Huckabee's national field director, who also happens to be his daughter, said that Huckabee has to place in the top three in Iowa to stay in the race.
Oh, and after the event, I asked Huckabee if he was disappointed and/or suprised by social conservative Sam Brownback's endorsement of John McCain.
"I would be dishonest to say I wasn't disappointed, but I wasn't that surprised," he said. "I knew that Sam and John McCain were good friends from the Senate. For me, what's more important than just having the Senator's support is having his supporters' support." Huckabee smiled and said, "John McCain can take Sam, I'll take the supporters."
Posted by Jonathan Stein on 11/08/07 at 11:56 AM | Comments (4) | E-mail | Print | Digg | Reddit | StumbleUpon
Bob Novak Sees Everything Through a Political Lens
Bob Novak is claiming that social conservatives have had just about enough of Fred Thompson and his moderate views. On a recent Meet the Press appearance, Thompson opposed a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, opposed the congressional intervention in the Terri Schiavo case, and opposed a constitutional amendment to ban abortions (though such an amendment has been part of the Republican Party platform since 1980).
And it's this last that is really getting people. On abortion, Thompson said, "You can't have a [federal] law" that "would take young, young girls... and say, basically, we're going to put them in jail." Despite his 100 percent pro-life voting record, Thompson is clearly just not avid enough. Here's Novak:
Thompson's comments revealed an astounding lack of sensitivity about abortion. He surely anticipated that Russert would cite his record favoring states' rights on abortion. Whether the candidate just blurted out his statement or had planned it, it suggested a failure to realize how much his chances for the Republican nomination depend on social conservatives.
Here's what I want to point out. As should be obvious, Thompson's comments revealed a lack of sensitivity about politics; they showed a high level of integrity about abortion. Novak can't distinguish between the two. For him, evaluating a stand or a position on principle is a non-starter, a moot point. A position can only be evaluated based on politics, and how it will help election chances. Blergh.
Posted by Jonathan Stein on 11/08/07 at 9:03 AM | Comments (3) | E-mail | Print | Digg | Reddit | StumbleUpon
Blackwater Implicated in More Killings
Add another series of killings to our Blackwater timeline. Steve Fainuru reports in this morning's Washington Post that a Blackwater sniper killed three Iraqi security guards employed by Iraq's national television station. The incident, which appears to have been inadequately investigated, occurred a full seven months prior to the most recent spate of killings in a Baghdad traffic circle on September 16. According to Fainuru:
Last Feb. 7, a sniper employed by Blackwater USA, the private security company, opened fire from the roof of the Iraqi Justice Ministry. The bullet tore through the head of a 23-year-old guard for the state-funded Iraqi Media Network, who was standing on a balcony across an open traffic circle. Another guard rushed to his colleague's side and was fatally shot in the neck. A third guard was found dead more than an hour later on the same balcony.
Eight people who responded to the shootings -- including media network and Justice Ministry guards and an Iraqi army commander -- and five network officials in the compound said none of the slain guards had fired on the Justice Ministry, where a U.S. diplomat was in a meeting. An Iraqi police report described the shootings as "an act of terrorism" and said Blackwater "caused the incident." The media network concluded that the guards were killed "without any provocation."
The U.S. government reached a different conclusion. Based on information from the Blackwater guards, who said they were fired upon, the State Department determined that the security team's actions "fell within approved rules governing the use of force," according to an official from the department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security. Neither U.S. Embassy officials nor Blackwater representatives interviewed witnesses or returned to the network, less than a quarter-mile from Baghdad's Green Zone, to investigate.
The incident shows how American officials responsible for overseeing the security company conducted only a cursory investigation when Blackwater guards opened fire.
So, maybe you didn't know that Blackwater had snipers in Iraq? Well, they do. You can even watch them work on YouTube. This footage was taken in 2004. It shows a Blackwater sniper cooly picking off insurgents attacking the Coalition Provisional Headquarters in Najaf.
Posted by Bruce Falconer on 11/08/07 at 6:50 AM | Comments (5) | E-mail | Print | Digg | Reddit | StumbleUpon
Homeland Insanity
USA Today: "John William Anderson, who was born on July 4, 2001, is on TSA's watch list. He was first stopped in 2004 when his mother and grandmother took him on his first plane ride to Disney World." Anderson's mom Christine tells the paper, "No one can give any answers to why my son is on the list or really how to get him off." More than 15,000 want to get off U.S. terror list, USA Today reports. With the recent trial and conviction on 13 counts of bribery related charges of U.S. government security contractor Brent Wilkes, his Congressional benefactor/bribee Congressman Duke Cunningham serving eight years in jail, and the endless Orwellian insanities of the post-9/11 system as described above, anyone else get the sense that the whole homeland security project is more about enriching contractors and filling congressmen's ATMs rather than anything to do with security? Then again, just what is under young John Anderson's hat?
Posted by Laura Rozen on 11/08/07 at 6:31 AM | Comments (1) | E-mail | Print | Digg | Reddit | StumbleUpon
House of Representatives Passes ENDA
Today marks the first time in U.S. history that either body of Congress has passed employment protections that cover lesbian, gay and bisexual citizens. Unfortunately, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, as it is currently written, does not include gender identity, which made it difficult for supporting organizations such as the Human Rights Campaign, to continue to support it. However, a decision was made by all involved that it would be better to support the current version of the bill than to let it be defeated.
Posted by Diane E. Dees on 11/07/07 at 3:36 PM | Comments (15) | E-mail | Print | Digg | Reddit | StumbleUpon
Bush Still Peddling Progress in Iraq. Sigh.
I'm not sure why it never gets old to bring attention to Bush's constant reiteration that we are freedom fighters and that Iraq is making progress. Maybe because the further along we get in this quagmire, the more absurd these comments become. This from a press conference with French president Nicholas Sarkozy held this afternoon:
If you lived in Iraq and had lived under a tyranny, you'd be saying: God, I love freedom, because that's what's happened...we're making progress.
Well, according to our figures, more than 4 million of these thankful Iraqis have fled this newfound freedom.
Posted by Leigh Ferrara on 11/07/07 at 2:25 PM | Comments (9) | E-mail | Print | Digg | Reddit | StumbleUpon
Alabama Ends Most Discrimination Against HIV-Positive Prisoners
Thanks to several years of work by the American Civil Liberties Union, AIDS Alabama and several state legislators, HIV-positive prisoners in Alabama will now get what other prisoners get: access to visitation, educational programs, substance abuse treatment, and religious services. Though it may seem hard to believe in the 21st Century, HIV-positive individuals incarcerated in Alabama prisons have been kept segregated to the point that they have been denied help taken for granted by other prisoners.
Alabama is the only state in the U.S. that segregates HIV-positive prisoners from the general prison population. At the women's prison in Wetumpka, HIV-positive prisoners have been maintained in total isolation behind barbed wire. Excluding prisoners fom community-based corrections programs, in addition to being a violaton of their rights, has also cost the state of Alabama as much as $7,000 per prisoner.
The Alabama Department of Corrections has agreed to provide HIV-positive prisoners access to visitation, education, substance abuse treatment and other rehabilitation services, and religious services, but not to provide them with any access to work release programs. The ACLU and its allies will continue to work to try to end this last vestige of discrimination against those who are HIV-positive.
Posted by Diane E. Dees on 11/07/07 at 2:07 PM | Comments (3) | E-mail | Print | Digg | Reddit | StumbleUpon
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