Dollars for Discrimination

Religious groups protest Madden bill to regulate hiring | Politics West

A reasonable Colorado legislator wants to be sure religious organizations using public funds operate under the same anti-discrimination policies that every other tax dollar recipient abides by.

Currently, religious groups using tax money for social programs can discriminate against job applicants on the basis of religion. Catholic Charities, for example, can refuse to hire Baptists and Focus on the Family can legally turn away qualified atheists. The agencies claim the bill would somehow damage their integrity.

“Faith-based non-profits are spurred to social action by their deeply held religious beliefs,” said Jim Pfaff, president of Colorado Family Action.

“Asking them to compromise their convictions not only breaches their religious liberties, but it is asking them to deny the very tenets that compel them to social action.”

But it's hard to see how the bill would be all that terrible. Religious organizations, such as Focus on the Family, routinely collect private donations to cover overhead. The bill wouldn't disallow discrimination for positions funded by those dollars.

Several years back, then-Governor Bill Owens stripped state funding from Planned Parenthood, arguing that state law prohibited state funds used to abortion. When PP responded by producing accounting data that showed the firewall between abortion services and state funds, Owens refused to believe the organization could credibly make that claim.

Maybe the state's religious organizations remember that sophistry. And maybe they fear being treated the same way. In any case, their argument against the bill rings hollow. Public monies should not be used to discriminate on religious grounds. The spiritual leanings, or lack thereof, of receptionists, computer programmers, security guards or marketing execs should not be used as criteria for employment decisions under any circumstances. This bill merely makes such discrimination illegal for a limited number of positions funded by tax dollars. The religious organizations are free to pursue their missions as they see fit. They shouldn't be free to apply their particular prejudices with taxpayer support.

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Peer Review? I Got Your Peer Review Right Here.

Professional creationist Ken Hamm, owner of the cash cow Creation Museum, is launching "an online technical journal" for creationists in need of another publicity channel. Ostensibly, Hamm's journal will feature only peer-reviewed articles. If those rude mainstream scientists have ridiculed your creationist ideas in the past, fear not - the Answers Research Journal is an exclusive club:

Ken Hamm, president of Answers in Genesis, said submissions will be peer-reviewed, but the journal's guidelines discourage asking non-creationists to conduct those reviews.

See? Your wildest speculations, so long as they seem consistent with at least one version of the current Christian bible, will be safe from corrosion by inconvenient facts.

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A Modest Proposal - Doug Bruce for Vice President

Dan Whipple has a brilliant plan for the next step in slum-lording, TABOR-authoring, press-kicking Doug Bruce's career.

Colorado Confidential:: Doug Bruce for Vice President!

In the brief period during which the Colorado state House has been in session, one thing has become clear: The only reason that Douglas Bruce is in the legislature is that Colorado Springs Republicans were eager to get rid of him. Following the time-honored Peter Principle, they promoted him from the El Paso County Commission to the state House. I think the next step in Bruce's meteoric career should be obvious to everyone. So I'm starting a "Doug Bruce for Vice President" campaign. Using the Colorado Springs Republican strategy, this would have the salutary effect of removing Bruce from the state Legislature while placing him in a position in which he could do little further damage to the commonweal. As Thomas Marshall, 28th veep of the U.S. under Woodrow Wilson, said: "Once there were two brothers. One went away to sea; the other was elected vice president. And nothing was heard of either of them again."

Genius.

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The Huckabee Theocracy

Think Progress » Huckabee: ‘amend the Constitution’ to ‘God’s standards.’

OK, it was bad enough that he has an imaginary friend and no one laughs. But now Mike Huckabee has declared his intention to remake America in his imaginary friend's image, or, at least, what's convenient for Rev. Huckabee to claim that image is.

I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution. But I believe it’s a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God. And that’s what we need to do is amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than trying to change God’s standards so it lines up with some contemporary view of how we treat each other and how we treat the family.

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Don't Fence Me In

Immigration crackdown hits fence builder - Yahoo! News

Mel Kay builds fences. His was the largest fence-building company in Southern California; he rode the nation's housing boom to $150 million in annual sales. His fences are just about everywhere — at gated subdivisions, on military bases, at prisons.

He even built fences at two immigration jails, a Border Patrol station and the U.S.-Mexico border.

Which is the second irony, because he admits now that many of his company's fences were built by illegal immigrants. Federal authorities knew it, and they went after him tenaciously, determined to send him to prison as an example to other employers who hire undocumented workers

See what happens when you go with the low bidder? But seriously, doesn't this tend to support the position of those who claim illegal immigrants are more an asset than threat?

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Romney Can't Count So He Doesn't Count

Rhetoric heats up after New Hampshire primary | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle

What is wrong with this guy? Can't he use a calculator, is his staff reporting numbers they want to believe are true, or is he just willing to say whatever does him the most good?

In Boston, Romney sought to assure his top financial backers that he can win in Michigan and beyond, after disappointing second-place finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire. Romney was born in Michigan and his father was governor.

"It's just getting started," he told hundreds of supporters gathered at a convention center for a follow-up to his campaign's "National Call Day" that raised an unprecedented $6.5 million a year ago. The former Massachusetts governor misstated results when he told them he's received "more delegates than anybody else." An AP analysis of primary results shows he is second in the delegate count, with 19. Mike Huckabee has 31.

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Now Can We Talk about Healthcare?

Measuring the Health of Nations: Updating an Earlier Analysis

By measuring rates of "amenable mortality", or preventable death, a rough measure of the quality of a country's health care system can be obtained. Contrary to Rudy Giuliani's prostate cancer ad, we have some serious ground to make up.

if the U.S. had been able reduce amenable mortality to the average rate achieved by the three top-performing countries, there would have been 101,000 fewer deaths annually by the end of the study period.

Or to put it another way:

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