Complaints by Air Force cadets of religious intolerance are getting media attention today. Among the current crop of complaints:

• The Air Force is investigating a complaint from an atheist cadet who says the school is "systematically biased against any cadet that does not overtly espouse Christianity."

• The official academy newspaper runs a Christmas ad every year praising Jesus and declaring him the only savior. Some 200 academy staff members, including some department heads, signed it. Whittington noted the ad was not published last December.

• The academy commandant, Brig. Gen. Johnny Weida, a born-again Christian, said in a statement to cadets in June 2003 that their first responsibility is to their God. He also strongly endorsed National Prayer Day that year. School spokesman Johnny Whitaker said Weida now runs his messages by several other commanders.

• Some officer commission ceremonies were held at off-campus churches. In a letter dated April 6, Weida said the ceremonies would be held on campus from now on.

Here's some background, where we include more incidents, like the school's use of a "Team Jesus" banner and a dust-up over cadet support for Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ.

It was Pope Benedict XVI, formerly known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who inserted the Catholic church into the 2004 election by ordering bishops to deny communion to abortion rights supporters, including candidate John Kerry.

In a June 2004 letter to US bishops enunciating principles of worthiness for communion recipients, Ratzinger specified that strong and open supporters of abortion should be denied the Catholic sacrament, for being guilty of a "grave sin."

He specifically mentioned "the case of a Catholic politician consistently campaigning and voting for permissive abortion and euthanasia laws," a reference widely understood to mean Democratic candidate Kerry, a Catholic who has defended abortion rights. The letter said a priest confronted with such a person seeking communion "must refuse to distribute it."

I linked to the June, 2004 letter in my earlier post on the Pope here, and quoted other language. Here is the language about the Catholic politician:

In March, the Supreme Court decided Roper v. Simmons, which held that executing persons who were under 18 at the time they commited their offense violated the 8th Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Justice Kennedy wrote the majority opinion (pdf), in which he referenced practices and laws of other countries. Here is that section of the opinion:

Could Rep. Tom DeLay be any more irresponsible and ignorant at the same time? Today, he went after Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy:

We've got Justice Kennedy writing decisions based upon international law, not the Constitution of the United States? That's just outrageous," DeLay told Fox News Radio. "And not only that, but he said in session that he does his own research on the Internet? That is just incredibly outrageous.

Words of advice for DeLay: Zip it. You've become a caricature and a laughing stock. You are making a mockery both of the office you hold and your party. You're on your last leg. Is it too much to ask that you go out with a little dignity?

Update: To understand the issue regarding international law, see this post regarding Justice Ginsberg's remarks on the subject in 2003. And in the comments, TChris's excellent analysis:

Munich Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedictus XVI, has a personal history that may make some very uneasy:

Belfast Telegraph September 21, 2000 (available on Lexis.com)

The [Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith] CDF is chaired by Joseph Ratzinger, the Cardinal Bishop of Munich. Ratzinger is well-known in the Catholic hierarchy as the hammer of liberation theology in Latin America. Less well known is the fact that he once a member of Hitler Youth.

What is CDF? It oversees issues regarding faith and morals for the Vatican. According the the Belfast Telegraph article, it released a document that said:

"There exists a single Church of Christ, which subsists in the Catholic Church." In other words, the only true Christian Church is the Roman Church....

So Protestants are now chopped liver? Evangelicals, too?

The new Pope is extremely opposed to homosexuality. He has described it as "an intrinsic moral evil." (Irish News April 17, 2003, Lexis.com)

by TChris

The Commission on Safety and Abuse in America's Prisons began hearings today "aimed at exploring why the corrections system has broken and how it can be fixed." The private commission includes prison and justice administrators, psychologists, former prisoners, and civil rights leaders.

The Commission ... heard testimony, sometimes graphic, from former prisoners and jailers who detailed the horrors taking place behind bars, including rapes and beatings by guards and fellow inmates.

The topic is particularly timely.

One commissioner stated the issue touched Americans when details emerged of soldiers' abuse of Iraqi prisoners but that concern has not translated to the homefront.

by TChris

Can the Transportation Security Administration protect us from terrorists when it can't protect itself from its own employees? TSA employees have been on a spending spree, wasting money that should be spent to enhance security. One of the worst offenders "spent $500,000 on art, silk plants and other decorations for a new operations center and then went to work for the vendor after leaving the agency."

The inspector general found that the project manager and other TSA employees routinely violated agency policies to buy furniture, leather briefcases, coffee pots and other items. They concealed purchases of more than $2,500, including one for $47,449, by splitting them into several credit card transactions, the report said.

TSA employees built themselves a nice fitness center and outfitted their offices with cable tv's. The president thought it would be detrimental to national security to provide TSA employees with the job protections that apply to most federal employees, but the real detriment to security comes from the diversion of funds to unauthorized or unnecessary purchases.

Who, in the Bush administration, will be held accountable? Anyone?

by TChris

Thwarting the administration's (and Sen. Lugar's) hope for a quick committee vote in favor of John Bolton, a Republican today joined Democrats who wanted more time to consider new complaints about Bolton.

"I've heard enough today that I don't feel comfortable about voting for Mr. Bolton," Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, said.

Bolton may be called back to testify before the committee a second time.

Bump and Update: We were right - the church bells did mean a new pope has been elected. The news is just now reporting it. How ironic that the news got out faster from old-fashioned church bells than the high tech media.

The new pope is Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany, "the church's leading hard-liner." He has chosen the name Pope Benedict XVI.

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It's 10:09 a.m. and the cathedral bells just began ringing in Downtown Denver. Is there a new Pope? No, according to latest news articles. The smoke is still black.

It's now 10:13 and the bells are still ringing at this cathedral.

10:42: The bells just stopped ringing.
10:44: Now they are ringing again.

This Modern World [link via Xoverboard.]
Alterman here.

It's also the anniversary of the siege at WACO and the Battle of Lexington and Concord.

Tomorrow will be the 9th anniversary of former President Clinton signing AEDPA, the 1996 "Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act" (AEDPA) that was a response to the Oklahoma City Bombing and severely curtailed habeas corpus and immigrant rights. And the sixth anniversary of the Columbine School shootings.

The Texas legislature is holding hearings today on the establishment of an Innocence Commission. Barry Scheck, Co-director of the Innocence Project, will testify. He will ask Governor Rick Perry for DNA testing in the case of Claude Jones, who was executed five years ago while George Bush was Governor, because of information that has surfaced indicating that Bush knew about a request for DNA testing of a hair sample used to convict Jones and didn't acknowledge it.

Barry Scheck, co-founder of Benjamin Cardozo School of Law's Innocence Project, is scheduled to make the request before the Texas Senate's Criminal Justice Committee, which is holding a hearing on whether to establish a state innocence commission.

.... Scheck is requesting DNA testing on a single strand of hair in the case of Claude Jones, who was executed in December 2000 for armed robbery and murder. According to prosecutors, Jones shot and killed Allen Hilzendager while robbing his liquor store in Point Blank, Texas, in November 1989.

Via Cursor: Media Transparency wonders how the radical right will spend the "deathbed dollars" it received from the Terri Schiavo case.

While Terri Schiavo was still alive, her parents agreed to sell their donor list to a right wing direct mail outfit, and radical right wing Christian groups were raising bundles off the case.