Will Native American women finally get equal protection under the law?

Right now Native American women on reservations are 3 times as likely to be raped as a white woman. Due to an insanely complex series of jurisdictional issues, limited law enforcement, minimal political will and racism, perpetrators of sexual assault and domestic violence against Native American women often commit their crimes with impunity, knowing they will likely never face prosecution. All of this was documented in sickening detail last year by Amnesty International's report Maze of Injustice

Today, Senator Byron Dorgan introduced the Tribal Law and Order Act in the Senate.

The legislation is designed to boost law enforcement efforts by providing tools to tribal justice officials to fight crime in their own communities, improving coordination between law enforcement agencies, and increasing accountability standards.

Will this legislation stop the violence?

I'm getting this in while I can - the interwebs are acting up at Casa Pastor today.

But did anybody else see that our own br t got quoted in the Boston Globe?

This may not make me very popular, but I do have to wonder what it is anybody thinks a non-debate between John McCain and Barack Obama at Rick Warren's church is going to accomplish, other than stoke Warren's ego. The candidates aren't actually going to interact, and they won't take questions from audience members. They might just as well unveil a matched set of campaign ads and save us all 59 minutes.

This is indeed a curious event. What does Faith and Public Life get out of co-sponsoring the forum? Rick Warren is hardly a liberal. While he's good on a couple of issues like poverty and HIV/AIDS, " he opposes abortion, same-sex marriage and supports the death penalty" - and he's endorsed some truly nasty African homophobia.

I was all in favor of the last such event at Messiah College. That allowed Democrats to explore their values in a novel context. I'm sure that this one gives my friends at FiPL a higher profile, but the cost for that is putting a blessing on Warren as a centrist, a benediction I'm not sure he deserves.

But the powers that be within the Democratic party have apparently decided that their top priority in religious outreach this year is getting the kind of people Rick Warren represents. I don't know if that has anything to do with Leah Daughtry's program, or the influence of the usual suspects. It's a bad idea, whoever it belongs to. Here's the partisan ID among selected religious groups, according to the Pew Forum:

And here's how those same people broke for the candidates in a recent poll:

Given the first results, I'm willing to bet that the second is a bit of an outlier, especially since the second is based on Registered Voters, not a solid measure at this stage of the game. But the point remains the same either way. If you look at the numbers, Catholics and mainline Protestants are the swing vote this year, not Evangelicals. So what makes the latter so much more desirable than the former? I've never gotten a straightforward answer to that question.

My dear grandmother, God bless her soul, used to talk about Chuck Grassley as "her Senator." Why a Danish immigrant who worked her way up from having barely two nickels to rub together - before the Depression hit - would endorse a conservative toad like Grassley over an ex-miner like Tom Harkin, I cannot say. She just did.

What would she have said about this?

Evangelical Christians in Iowa, dominant in the state's Republican Party, have denied Sen. Charles E. Grassley his request for a place on the state's delegation to this summer's Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn.

Mr. Grassley may attend the party's Sept. 1-4 nominating convention in St. Paul, but not as a voting delegate.

With a majority of nine out of 17 members on the Iowa Republican central committee, religious conservatives made Iowa Christian Alliance President Steve Scheffler chairman of Iowa's 40-member delegation in a vote immediately after their state party convention July 12.

"The Republican Party of Iowa is moving significantly to the right on social issues," the just-ousted Iowa Republican National Committee member Steve Roberts told The Washington Times. "It hurts John McCain's chances to win this state."

Other party officials said money for the party is drying up because of past mismanagement and current religious dominance, which has turned traditional Republican politics upside down.

"It's pretty well controlled now by the Christian Alliance," Mr. Roberts said. "If somebody came to me and wanted to be a delegate to the national party convention, I used to say, 'Talk to the state party chairman or to Grassley.' Now it's very simple. You go to the Christian Alliance, and they determine who is a delegate, and you have to do exactly as they say."

In recent weeks, religious activists replaced Mr. Roberts as the national Republican committeeman and also replaced the national committeewoman with pro-life advocates who also oppose gay marriage.

Barring Mr. Grassley from voting-delegate status is seen as a blow to him as the senior Republican official in the state, who normally might have led the convention's delegation.

Mr. Grassley had said "yes" when asked by Iowa Republican Chairman Stewart Iverson if he wanted to be a voting delegate to the national convention, Mr. Iverson said.

Political observers in Iowa saw the move against Mr. Grassley as retribution for his having tangled with evangelical pastors in his state. He initiated a Senate Finance Committee investigation of six televangelists for conspicuous personal spending.

Now, there's no love lost for Grassley, who's demonstrated his willingness to use religion to suit political purposes before.

But in addition to demonstrating how state GOP's are marching steadily to the right and on out of the mainstream, this story provides a huge opportunity for progressives willing to use it. Religious concern trolls constantly berate the Democrats for supposedly refusing Bob Casey Sr. a speaking spot at the '92 convention because of his pro-life positions. Can we pretty please with sugar on top do the same here? Oh, sure, the Republicans will deny it. But you and I know better. The modern GOP is so off-the-hook that they bounced a Senator from his delegation for the sin of demanding financial accountability from religious con men.

Repeat as necessary.

(Via our friends at Right Wing Watch.)

Please join our community in prayer.  Just leave your prayer requests and pray for the requests of the community. I welcome all people to join in as the power of prayer/good energy is undeniable.

If you have any favorite prayers or passages or quotes or meditations, please send them to me to share, meeshka1@msn dot com

Please do not argue about the requests of others--you may do that elsewhere!!! If you wish to offer comments of support--please do so! If you choose to rate prayer requests, I like to use a "4" as an AMEN! If you disagree with a request, please just refrain from rating--this is a place where people need to feel they can reveal and unburden their hearts without being criticized. Should any trolls come our way, just surround them with prayer.

Prayer requests remain on the list based upon my judgment.  Removing requests is my decision.  I have no hard and fast rules--I simply act when the list seems to get too long or it seems the request no longer applies.  If I take one off which you would like to remain, please simply request it again.  If the request can be removed earlier, please let me know.  I'm sure we all would appreciate an update.

Thank you!

In about 24 hours, the world will change.

Actually, the world changes everyday--in many ways we notice, and in many more ways we don't.  What I'll personally notice most is the next 24 hours is that the names on my class roster will have faces attached to them, and the new school year will be well underway.  

Belief that things will change takes a combination of faith, hope, and trust. Do I believe that the unpainted, disorganized mess that is still my classroom will become a welcoming haven?  Do I hope that the now bare walls will have inspiring posters and motivating quotations?  Do I trust that the kid who last year was such a irritant will have transformed into a more focused and self-controlled young man, in that rite of passage we call summer vacation?  Do I believe that we all can grow and change? Of course I do, or I wouldn't keep coming back each year.

It's no surprise that Obama has made the words "hope" and "change" such a centerpiece of his campaign--they are the cornerstone of what gets us all out of bed each morning, willing once again to give the world a chance.

So what are you hoping for today?  What do you find you have to leave to faith and trust?  And as always, what are you drinking, and what's for dinner?  This is an open thread.

I love synchronicity. Yesterday morning I was attempting to sort out my thoughts on Austin, and why it was different than the netroots get-togethers in Las Vegas and Chicago. While I pondered weak and weary from a lack of caffeine required most dearly, an e-mail from the Alban Institute came tap-tap-tapping at my Inbox door:

Large Group Methods establish a climate necessary for whole-group events to be effective by breaking through the usual institutional silos, cliques, and hierarchies; leveling the playing field; giving people a voice; and setting up processes for conversations that make a difference.

Large Group Methods develop energy and commitment across the system. The core elements of most include:

• A clear purpose statement
• Stakeholder inclusion
• Interactive processes around concrete tasks appropriate to the purpose of the gathering
• Exploration of the institutional and external contexts before decision and action
• Self-managed small groups
• Focus on a preferred future and common ground
• Responsibility for action by participants

As Hunter pointed out the other day, this year's meeting seemed to lack an overall narrative. The first year it was "We exist!" The second year it was "We're powerful!" This year it was...what?

In future years, I thought, it would be helpful for the conference organizers to set a theme or a storyline for the meeting. That's bound to be difficult. Nolan Treadway was saying at the final panel that it sometimes felt like Netroots Nation was expected to be all things to all people. Inevitable, perhaps, and I certainly wouldn't envy the NN team the task of herding the bloggy cats, but there's nothing wrong with trying.

Setting a theme would go a long way toward meeting the criteria laid out above. Clear purpose, check. Stakeholder inclusion, check, especially if they're given a chance to participate in achieving that purpose. I've suggested to the NN folks that they find some worthy cause to support each year. The Netroots For The Troops project organized by timroff, bleeding heart, and others did a fantastic job of pulling people together, and it helped me a great deal in making sense of the Sunday Morning Thing. Integrating a project like that throughout the conference could do wonders.

"Exploration of the institutional and external contexts" is pretty much what you do at a conference by definition. "Focus on a preferred future and common ground" is easy enough to accomplish, especially with well-selected keynotes. Gore's environmental message on Saturday morning was great; it would have been even better in Pittsburgh, where the conference will be exploring a lot of green issues.

As for "Responsibility for action by participants," well, yes. They tried to do give us some kind of responsibility with Van Jones' keynote on Sunday morning, but of course by then half the people were gone, and half the remainder was too tired and too hung over to really listen. There has to be some way of getting the message to people earlier, perhaps through early distribution of the Sunday keynote. Or some damn thing.

Anyway, between reforming the panel selection process and finding a cheaper venue for next year, the organizers have already significantly improved the conference, I believe. Now, if they'll only defer to my suggestions and do everything I ask, things will go just perfectly in Pittsburgh.

By, like, a lot:

Among the most high-profile Jews in Congress, Lieberman is viewed far more unfavorably than the presumptive Democratic nominee, according to a new poll. Only 37 percent of Jews view the Connecticut Independent in a favorable light compared to 48 percent who have a negative perception. As for Obama, 60 percent of Jews view him favorably while 34 percent view him unfavorably.

The findings were released as part of a recent survey of American Jews by the new progressive pro-Israel group J Street. They seem to upturn some of this year's conventional political wisdom.

You can see the original data at the J Street site.

The results, while perhaps unexpected, are easily explained by an old Yiddish saying: Joe Lieberman iz a shmok. You do the translation.

[editor's note, by PoliSigh] oh noes!  I overslept--but it felt good!  See you tomorrow!

Please join our community in prayer.  Just leave your prayer requests and pray for the requests of the community. I welcome all people to join in as the power of prayer/good energy is undeniable.

If you have any favorite prayers or passages or quotes or meditations, please send them to me to share, meeshka1@msn dot com

Please do not argue about the requests of others--you may do that elsewhere!!! If you wish to offer comments of support--please do so! If you choose to rate prayer requests, I like to use a "4" as an AMEN! If you disagree with a request, please just refrain from rating--this is a place where people need to feel they can reveal and unburden their hearts without being criticized. Should any trolls come our way, just surround them with prayer.

Prayer requests remain on the list based upon my judgment.  Removing requests is my decision.  I have no hard and fast rules--I simply act when the list seems to get too long or it seems the request no longer applies.  If I take one off which you would like to remain, please simply request it again.  If the request can be removed earlier, please let me know.  I'm sure we all would appreciate an update.

Thank you!

One big and one, well, relatively smaller. Big: I neglected to mention when I posted my sermon yesterday that I leaned pretty heavily on P.W. Pruyser's article on Hope and Despair in the Dictionary of Pastoral Counseling. Sorry for the oversight.

The little one: thanks to Antonio in the security department at the Austin Hilton. The little boy's stuffed animal Blue Dog (a.k.a. Max from Clifford the Big Red Dog) apparently hid under a pillow while the rest of the family left for the airport. He seems to have wanted a quesadilla and a dog party without us.

Bad dog.

But Antonio tracked him down on a cleaning cart for us, and will mail him out first thing tomorrow morning. The little boy would have been fine without Blue Dog, but he'll be happy to see his buddy again.

I think I'm going to find a miniature cowboy hat and put it on him before he goes back.

Anyway, thanks Dr. Pruyser, and thanks, Antonio.

First, please accept my gratitude for the outpouring of sympathy and affection expressed in the comments here.  This online "community" does honor to that word.   I'm not sure when I'll get the chance to post again, so let's get on with the news....

As usual, I'm out of pocket when the big story comes along. Fortunately, this story doesn't require much commentary:

Conservative Christian leader James Dobson has softened his stance against Republican presidential hopeful John McCain, saying he could reverse his position and endorse the Arizona senator despite serious misgivings.

“I never thought I would hear myself saying this,” Dobson said in a radio broadcast to air Monday. “… While I am not endorsing Senator John McCain, the possibility is there that I might.” … In an advance copy provided to The Associated Press, Dobson said that while neither candidate is consistent with his views, McCain’s positions are closer by a wide margin.

“There’s nothing dishonorable in a person rethinking his or her positions, especially in a constantly changing political context,” Dobson said in a statement to the AP. “Barack Obama contradicts and threatens everything I believe about the institution of the family and what is best for the nation. His radical positions on life, marriage and national security force me to reevaluate the candidacy of our only other choice, John McCain.”

First he said he wouldn't endorse McCain on a bet or a dare, now he says he just might.

As Steve Benen says, the strangest thing about Dobson's reversal might be that he'll get absolutely nothing out of it. But then, as I've said before, Dobson is a friggin' idiot who wouldn't know how to use his influence to get himself out of a speeding ticket.

He likes to think of himself as a principled man fiercely committed to advancing "family values," but he measures progress by the deference paid to him and his organization. Which means that he's really just a prideful bigot, and an increasingly irrelevant one at that.

There is no way for Dobson to come out of November more influential than he went in. Which doesn't mean that the battle for reproductive rights and equality for gays and lesbians is won; far from it. It just means that this particular idiot is losing his stranglehold on our political system, one miscue at a time.

And it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.