Saluting Rapists

Holiday season cycles around again, and my book, Courage Grows Strong at the Wound, could be the right gift for someone who looks at life deeply and reflectively, or who seeks the miraculous in the commonplace. More info below.

By Robert C. Koehler

Remember that awkward silence that fell across the nation back in ’94 when Bill Clinton’s surgeon general used the M-word?

Jocelyn Elders, speaking at an AIDS conference at the U.N. about reducing the risk of sexually transmitted disease, said that masturbation “is part of human sexuality, and perhaps it should be taught.”

Clinton, rather than defend frank, honest talk about sexuality at the national level and condemn its opposite, caved under the weight of the gasps and titters and fired Elders, explaining that the outspoken surgeon general’s comments reflected “differences with Administration policy and my own convictions.” Differences on masturbation? A couple years later, the Monica scandal erupted and things were a little clearer — oh yeah, this is how we talk about sex in America.

U.S. soldiers fighting for Haliburton, KBR (video)

Intro by Susan Lindauer

This is a thought provoking video that should make you very angry. It depicts war crimes and the hand over of U.S. soldiers to build market share for Haliburton and Kellogg, Brown & Root.  It’s not for our benefit as a nation, or the benefit of our young men and women in uniform who are abused by this system as surely as the Iraqi and Afghan civilians we are fighting.

Whistleblowers win one; lose two

Drs. Gerard Lambert, Margaret Haydon and Shiv Chopra of Health Canada

In a long-running whistleblowing saga, two of three scientists fired by Health Canada (akin to the US Food & Drug Administration) have lost a bid to get their jobs back, though they protected food safety.

In the U.S., however, after a six-year legal battle, the Army Corps of Engineers has agreed to pay nearly $1 million to a former top contracting official who charged that she was demoted after she objected to a $7 billion no-bid contract granted to a Halliburton subsidiary to repair oil fields in Iraq.

USA sues BP, et al. but not well-cementer Halliburton

By Ethan A. Huff
Natural News

The U.S. government has filed a lawsuit against BP and eight other firms involved in Gulf oil drilling for allegedly violating safety regulations. The massive oil spill that took place earlier this year has been dubbed the most heinous environmental disaster in history, and U.S. officials are saying that BP and the other companies involved be held completely responsible for all costs associated with clean-up and restoration.

Fracking PA for Halliburton: Exempt from Clean Water Act

By Jesse Freeston and Malak Behrouznami
The Real News Network (15 min. video)

On the day after the midterm elections, when Republican Tom Corbett won the governorship, the outline of Pennsylvania’s next battleground was clearly drawn. Pittsburgh hosted the largest conference of companies interested in the massive Marcellus Shale gas deposit, thought to hold enough gas to power the entire US for anywhere from two to 30 years. Drilling communities around the country report serious environmental and public health concerns. Pittsburgh itself already has gas development surrounding it, and hundreds marched to the conference to show their objection.

The short film BP and the Government doesn’t want you to see

By Robert M. Young and Edward James Olmos

OlmosProductions; Save our Gulf

10 June 2010 — Shot by Robert M. Young and Edward James Olmos on a trip to the heart of the oil spill in the Gulf. Edited by Stephen Cohen. Robert Young and I jumped on a plane and went to the Gulf of Mexico just to lend our support by documenting what we saw…

Rape and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce

Jamie Leigh Jones, left, a former employee for the military contractor KBR, told Congress that she had been gang-raped by co-workers in Iraq in 2005. Mary Beth Kineston, also a former KBR worker, said she was sexually assaulted by one driver, groped by another worker and fired after complaining. Left, Andrew Cutraro; right, David Ahntholz; both for The New York Times

By MoveOn

In 2005, Jamie Leigh Jones was working for a private contractor in Iraq when she was brutally gang-raped by coworkers.1 Four years later, Jamie is still being denied justice. Jamie can’t file U.S. criminal charges because the rape took place overseas, and a fine-print clause in her contract takes away her right to file a lawsuit in the U.S.2

Why? Because big corporations, led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, have worked for years to prevent workers from suing their employers in almost any circumstance, even sexual assault.3

Rule by fear or rule by law?

By Lewis Seiler and Dan Hamburg, San Francisco Chronicle

 Image at Rense.com
 

“The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers, is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist.”  – Winston Churchill, Nov. 21, 1943

Since 9/11, and seemingly without the notice of most Americans, the federal government has assumed the authority to institute martial law, arrest a wide swath of dissidents (citizen and noncitizen alike), and detain people without legal or constitutional recourse in the event of “an emergency influx of immigrants in the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs.” What new programs?