In a recent debate between Christine O’Donnell and Chris Coons, both running for a seat in the U.S. Senate from Delaware, began to discuss the issue of the teaching of Intelligent Design Theology and other forms of Creationism in public schools. O’Donnell argued that it’s a violation of freedom of religion if public schools are not allowed to force students to learn the Christian doctrines of Creationism. In fact, O’Donnell went even further, and suggested that the question ought to be whether evolution ought to have as much time in public school science class lectures as Christian theology.

It was during this discussion that Coons talked about the idea of the “separation of church and state”. O’Donnell quickly attacked Coons for doing so. The following is a transcript of the portion of the debate that follows. (in this transcript, “…” represents either an interuption or a section of the discussion that didn’t have to do with the separation of church and state.)

“Christine O’Donnell: Where in the Constitution is the separation of church and state?

…[O'Donnell and Coons discuss efforts by Tea Party activists to repeal multiple amendments to the Constitution.]…

Chris Coons: The First Amendment establishes the separation, the fact that the federal government shall not establish any religion, and decisional law by the Supreme Court over many, many decades…

O’Donnell: The First Amendment does?

Chris Coons:… clarifies and enshrines that there is a separation of church and state that our courts and our laws must respect…

O’Donnell: So you’re telling me that the separation of church and state is found in the First Amendment?

Chris Coons:… if there are settled pieces of constitutional law, like the separation of church and state… that we live with and have lived under for decades, then in my view, it is important to know that you have, on my side, a candidate who believes in and supports those things, and on the other side, a candidate who…

O’Donnell: Let me just clarify. You’re telling me that the separation of church and state is found in the First Amendment?

Chris Coons:… government shall make no establishment of religion.

O’Donnell: That’s in the First Amendment?”

Supporters of Christine O’Donnell have attempted to reinterpret their candidate’s ignorance of the concept of separation of church and state by saying that O’Donnell was asking Coons if he thought that the phrase “separation of church and state” was in the First Amendment. O’Donnell’s own words show, however, that she was asking about the concept, not the phrase. She asked about “the separation of church and state”, which is a concept. She didn’t ask about “the words ‘separation of church and state’” or “the phrase ‘separation of church and state’”.

Chris Coons was also quite clear in that he was talking about the concept of separation of church and state, not any particular phrasing. O’Donnell seemed caught off guard by the actual content of the First Amendment, and could only ask, in an attempted posture of a rhetorical question, whether the concept of the separation of church and state is in the Constitution. Of course, Coons had already answered that question. Yes, the concept of the separation of church and state is in the First Amendment of the Constitution.

It’s true, however, that the explanation Coons gave of the separation of church and state is only partially correct. The fact is that the concept of the separation of church and state is represented not just in the First Amendment, but also in the main body of the Constitution, which explicitly forbids any religious test for public office. The separation of church and state is also strongly implied by the lack of any Christian moral codes in the Constitution, and the lack of any reference to Christians’ two main sources of law and righteousness: The Bible and the Christian god. The only time that the Constitution mentions religion is to state that government should not be involved in it.

Over the objections of the Obama administration and at the insistence of federal judge Virginia Phillips, the U.S. military has today begun accepting the applications of gay Americans to join its ranks.

Conservative and other pro-discrimination pundits predicted that disaster would ensue if this day ever came.

Where’s the disaster?

We’ve written a great deal about the impact of independent expenditures on this year’s congressional elections. Most sources of independent expenditures are corporations, and most of the candidates that benefit from these expenditures are Republicans. Not all of the unethical contributions to congressional campaigns are coming from corporations, however, and not all of them are coming in the form of independent financial expenditures.

In Minnesota’s congressional elections, unethical contributions are coming to some candidates – from a church. The Berean Baptist Church is actively campaigning for Republican candidates across the state, including two incumbents, Michele Bachmann and John Kline.

The church’s pastor, Brad Brandon, handed out voter instruction pamphlets that told church members which candidates to vote for in the upcoming elections. Brandon also gave a sermon in which he named the candidates – none of them Democrats – as endorsed by the church. Americans United for Separation of Church and State has petitioned the IRS to investigate the partisan campaigning.

Churches and other non-profit organizations have the right to campaign for particular political candidates if they choose, but that campaigning comes with an obligation. Non-profit groups can’t claim tax exempt status if they endorse political candidates. Donors to political campaigns also aren’t supposed to claim their deductions as tax exempt, as non-profit groups can.

Brad Brandon and the Berean Baptist Church are trying to have it both ways. They’re claiming special tax exemptions for the church as a non-profit organization, but then they’re also acting as if they’re part of partisan political campaigns. They think that they’re above the law, and that they can do whatever they want, just because they claim to speak for their Messiah.

Will the IRS investigate, or will it look the other way and pretend that nothing is happening? The precedent for IRS action is not strong. Increasingly, churches are openly campaigning for political candidates, serving as political party organizations, and keeping their tax exempt status anyway.

The overall population size of 2,554 species of vertebrates all around the world has decreased by about 30 percent over the last 37 years, according to a new report by the World Wildlife Fund. Populations of vertebrates in tropical areas have shrunk by 60 percent in the same amount of time.

Some of the best moments in political campaigns come from linguistic slips that offer unintentional peeks at candidates’ true agendas. One such slip comes from the campaign of Jon Barela, a New Mexico Republican seeking to replace Democratic incumbent Martin Heinrich in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Barela’s campaign slogan reads, “Putting people back in charge of their destiny, not the government.” Note that the meaning of this phrase isn’t the same as the phrase, Putting people, not the government, back in charge of their destiny.

Apparently, Barela’s campaign isn’t interested in putting people back in charge of the government. If we are to accept his words at face value, Barela wants people to be in control only of their individual fates, and leave the government for someone else to control.

Surely that’s not what Barela really meant to say, but it seems close to the truth nonetheless.

First, consider Jon Barela’s dependence upon corporate special interest groups. Barela’s congressional campaign has benefitted from $695,603 in independent expenditures by groups that hide their donors. That money has been used to attack Congressman Heinrich, giving Barela a better chance of victory on Election Day.

Then, consider Barela’s positions on important issues. Barela wants to expand the federal budget deficit by reducing the amount that extraordinarily wealthy Americans are asked to contribute to society. He wants to reduce regulation of corporations that put Americans at risk. He supports a health care system dominated by insurance companies rather than one controlled by the American people. He wants to reduce the size and power of the one organization that’s legally established to represent all the American people, rather than corporations.

Grammatical slips aside, Jon Barela’s campaign slogan makes no logical sense, because it depicts the people of the United States and the government of the United States as two separate things. Here in the USA, we have a government of the people, by the people, for the people. Unlike the big corporations, our federal government is democratically established by the people of our nation. If the federal government of the United States of America isn’t as good as it ought to be, that’s only because more Americans aren’t as involved in the process of guiding the creation of the government as they ought to be.

The government is dedicated to serving the people of the nation. Corporations are dedicated to making profits by using the people of our nation. Jon Barela has placed himself on the side of the corporations, standing against our government of the people.

Under Barela’s vision, the destiny of the American people would be to sit down and take whatever corporate executives decide they should have. People will be in charge of their destinies only to the extent that they are able to pay the charge for private services that used to be provided by their own government.

It’s that time of year again when temperatures around one half of the globe begin to climb downward. You and I call it the seasons of autumn and winter, but every year some cockamamie conservative political cartoonist decides to call this seasonal change a refutation of global warming. Last year, astonished that it got cold in winter, half-cocked cartoonists John Cole and Lisa Benson (among many others) penned comics for the newspapers in which they declared global warming to be debunked, debunked, debunked! Why, you had to be a loopy hippy to believe in global warming, they declared: time to burn the Al Gore books for heat! Hardy har har.

Thing was, last winter was actually the second warmest winter on record.

I’m not going to call John Cole or Lisa Benson stupid. No, I’m pretty sure they know that it gets cold in winter and that last winter was pretty warm. I’d actually call John Cole and Lisa Benson smart, if amoral. They have a job to do, and they’re good at their job. Their job is to sell papers and satisfy their corporate bosses, not tell the truth. If they can sell papers and/or satisfy their corporate bosses with counterfactual cartoons making fun of hippies and scientists, they’ll do it, truth be damned.

That’s why I’m going to go out on a limb and predict that this year, we’ll see the same sort of political cartoons all over again in the newspapers’ op-ed pages. As it gets colder during winter (shocking!), we’ll see some political cartoonist declaring yet again, contrary to the facts, that global warming is debunked, disproven, a sham, a hoax.

Let’s make it a contest: the first person to post a link to a new “winter is cold, so global warming is a myth” political cartoon appearing in a newspaper wins a free button — this “Global Warming is Real, GOP Denial is Fake” pin. Be on the lookout, and when you see the first one, let me know!

With Republican Joe Miller calling for America to take after East Germany before having a reporter hauled away and arrested for asking the wrong questions, Republican John Yates has seconded the call for an East German border policy:

They ought to be armed and if warned leaflets dropped all over Mexico says that we will shoot to kill if anybody crosses and be serious about this and if they do that then there won’t be anybody killed.

Vote Republican for a more East German America.

On the issue of immigration, political candidates feel the need to speak strongly, even though there is no immigration crisis. The combination of these two factors often leads to absurdity.

That’s what happened to Faye Walters, a Green Party candidate down in South Carolina’s 4th congressional district. Walters says that, if elected, she would “support balanced immigration by allocating immigration quotas to each nation, thereby preventing dominance of any one nationality or ethnic sub-culture in America’s ‘melting pot’ tradition.”

Hmmm… I have the nagging idea that, maybe, one ethnicity has already dominated “America’s melting pot tradition”. Where could I be getting that idea from, I wonder?

“If East Germany can do it, we can do it!” — Joe Miller

Yes, Republican candidate for Senate Joe Miller actually spoke those words yesterday, asking his audience in Alaska why America can’t build its own Berlin Wall.

There are two aspects to Joe Miller’s admiration of East Germany and its very special border fence that are worth mentioning. First is the logistical difference: the Berlin Wall secured just a bit more than 87 miles, a short length that allowed the dictatorship of East Germany to install beds of nails, sand traps, barbs and shoot-to-kill guard towers all along its wall. You’ll have to ask Joe Miller whether he wants to follow East Germany’s example and install death traps along the U.S. border, which is a much longer 9,032 miles along the land. Our coastal border adds many more thousands of miles.

Beyond the whole logistical 87 miles versus 9,032 miles thingamabob, there’s the question of whether the United States really should be holding up East Germany as an exemplar. East Germany put its citizens under constant overt and covert surveillance. It forbade speech that criticized political leadership, hauling away the disobedient. Is that the way we want America to be? That’s the way Joe Miller likes it, having a reporter arrested and dragging him off from a public event in a public place. The crime? Asking questions Joe Miller didn’t like.

Vote Joe Miller to make the United States more like East Germany.

When we pointed out last week that President Barack Obama was breaking his promises to undo the inequality of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and the Defense of Marriage Act by directing his Department of Justice to continue to push for the preservation of those statutes’ discrimination against gays, lesbians and bisexuals, partisan Democrats howled in protest. It wasn’t fair to criticize Obama for failing to end the discrimination when he had the opportunity to do so, they said.

Their justification of Obama’s legal defense of discrimination against gays: It’s the job of the President to fight against efforts to end the government’s discriminatory practices, even when the President thinks that the discrimination is wrong. The partisan Democrats praised Obama, saying that he was just honoring the legal process, and if that meant that gays and lesbians would have to suffer inequality as a result, they’d just have to deal with that. Deep in his heart, the Democrats said, Obama secretly respects gays and lesbians. He just has trouble showing it, that’s all.

That argument makes a twisted, uncompassionate sort of sense – just so long as President Obama is actually consistent in his application of the principle that the actions of the Department of Justice cannot be swayed by political considerations. The problem is that Obama has been far from consistent in his adherence to that principle.

Consider what Barack Obama did when he entered the White House a year and a half ago. A large part of the reason that Obama was elected to become President was that the American people were angry that George W. Bush had violated the Constitution, and broken important laws established under the Constitution. People wanted to see an investigation of the criminal activities of the Bush Administration, and they wanted Bush Administration officials to be prosecuted for those crimes.

Barack Obama wouldn’t do it. He refused to prosecute Bush Administration officials, or even to investigate their many criminal activities. He wouldn’t allow the rule of law to apply to the White House.

Why not? It would be too divisive to investigate George W. Bush and prosecute him for his crimes, we were told by Barack Obama and his team at the Department of Justice. Just forget about it, and move on, they said.

In short, Barack Obama thought it would be politically inconvenient for him to have to follow the proper procedures under the law upon discovery of probable violation of federal laws. He directed the Department of Justice to refrain from pursuing the criminal suspects.

Obama thought that if he made nice to the Republican Party in this way, the Republicans would be his friends, and support him in everything he wanted to do. That political strategy didn’t work out very well for him, as the Republicans seized upon his weakness in order to accuse him of being a Communist Muslim illegal alien at every opportunity.

Forget about Barack Obama’s astounding political naivete for the moment. In the context of Obama’s recent refusal to stop sending his Justice Department’s lawyers into court to defend anti-gay discrimination, what’s relevant is the fact that Obama doesn’t really have any consistent philosophy of following his legal responsibilities, regardless of political inconvenience. Obama and his partisan allies are just using that argument as an excuse to justify his broken promise to end discrimination against homosexual Americans.

It’s essential to remember that the fundamental legal issue at stake isn’t about whether Department of Justice traditions will be upheld, but whether the promises of the Constitution of the United States of America will be upheld. When he became President, Obama swore an oath to protect the Constitution, not to protect the legal habits of the Justice Department.

Every day that Obama directs his staff at the Department of Justice to defend discrimination against Americans on the basis of their sexual orientation is a day that Obama is betraying his Oath of Office.

More information about America’s dirty war in Iraq will soon be released… but it won’t be coming with the help of President Barack Obama. On the contrary, the Obama Administration is protesting the data release.

Reuters is reporting that Wikileaks will soon release 500,000 secret documents about the Iraq War. The exact release date is not known. Watch for it in the news, maybe today, maybe over the next week or two.

Irregular Times’ inbox this morning features not one but four copies of a press release from oil giant Chevron, eager to build hype for its new advertising campaign:

Chevron Corp. (NYSE:CVX) has announced a new global advertising campaign aimed at showing Chevron as a “real people” corporation…

Each print ad is designed with an authentic pop-culture street-art aesthetic, and features a sincere slogan followed by a big red “We Agree” stamp, the signature of Chevron executives, and the Chevron logo.

“Chevron is making a clean break from the past by taking direct responsibility for our own actions,” said Rhonda Zygocki, Chevron vice president of Policy, Government and Public Affairs.

“We were asked to show an agreeable, involved, of-the-people face for Chevron, and we think we came up with some really great ways of doing that,” said Gordon Bowen, Chief Creative Officer of McGarryBowen. “But what’s unique and different here is the honesty. We’ve never been able to do this before.”

“We’re telling truths no one usually tells,” said Zygocki. “We’re changing the way the whole industry speaks.”

Wow! It’s honest! It’s revolutionary! It’s breaking new ground! It’s…

It’s an ad campaign using standard stock photographs with the standard distribution of 2/3 white-skinned and 1/3 brown-skinned people, featuring fake-stonewashed text. The ads direct the public and members of the press to a webpage on which Chevron calls Ecuadorians liars for complaining about massive Chevron toxic spills in the Amazon rainforest, and slaps the label “Reducing Emissions” on its plan to keep right on increasing its CO2 output.

This is exactly what Chevron tried in 2008. It didn’t work then, either.

I read with interest today Kevin Miller’s report in the Bangor Daily News on financing in the campaigns for Governor of Maine. Miller noted that Republican gubernatorial candidate Paul LePage has received more campaign money from the Republican Governors Association than Democratic candidate Libby Mitchell has received from the Democratic Governors Association.

Kevin Miller interprets this difference as a sign of Republican Party confidence in Paul LePage, but a simpler explanation for the difference is that the Republican Governors Association has more money to spend. IRS reports on the activity of 527 political organizations in the 3rd Quarter of 2010 show that:

• The Democratic Governors Association received half again as many contributions (2,186) as the Republican Governors Association (1,461) in the 3rd quarter of 2010.
• The average check written to the Republican Governors Association was nearly five times as large ($21,325.02) as the average check written to the Democratic Governors Association ($4,514.53). As a result, the Republican group ended up with $21.2 million more to spend than the Democratic group, even though fewer people supported it.
• Of the 10 largest contributions to all Section 527 political groups in the nation in the 3rd quarter, 6 of them are contributions to the Republican Governors Association — made by a media mogul, a real estate developer, a casino operator and 3 hedge fund managers.

The advantage to Paul LePage over Libby Mitchell in money from the governors associations doesn’t reflect Republican popularity. It reflects the willingness of unusually well-off Republican contributors to write extra-large checks.