1. Republican Sen. Sam Brownback once 'hated' the Clintons.
Huffington Post:
Sam Brownback says he harbored a "hatred" of Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton until he experienced a religious awakening in the mid-1990s.
Brownback, a Republican presidential hopeful, details in a new book how the change in outlook led him to make a stunning apology to Hillary Clinton a few years later during a Senate prayer breakfast....
....But Brownback says he realized there is never justification for hating someone regardless of their actions.
He told the prayer breakfast audience that he used to have a "hatred for Bill and Hillary" because of their politics. He spotted Sen. Clinton in the crowd and, speaking directly to her, said he "realized that those thoughts of hatred were wrong. I apologized to her for them. I don't know what she thought, but I believe it made a difference."
This might be the problem with many Republicans. How can they profess to be religious but at the same time foster hatred toward a person or group? Don't many of them say that they 'hate the sin but love the sinner'? Besides, what did the Clintons do that made Brownback hate them????
2) Who loves animals more---Democrats or Republicans? After watching MSNBC's Countdown last night, I would conclude that Democrats like animals more. Keith Olbermann reported the story of Mitt Romney and his Irish Setter. Time Magazine has more details:
The incident: dog excrement found on the roof and windows of the Romney station wagon. How it got there: Romney strapped a dog carrier — with the family dog Seamus, an Irish Setter, in it — to the roof of the family station wagon for a twelve hour drive from Boston to Ontario, which the family apparently completed, despite Seamus's rather visceral protest....
....Ingrid Newkirk, president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, was less circumspect. PETA does not have a position on Romney's candidacy per se, but Newkirk called the incident "a lesson in cruelty that was ... wrong for [his children] to witness...Thinking of the wind, the weather, the speed, the vulnerability, the isolation on the roof, it is commonsense that any dog who's under extreme stress might show that stress by losing control of his bowels: that alone should have been sufficient indication that the dog was, basically, being tortured." Romney, of course, has expressed support for the use of "enhanced interrogation" techniques when it comes to terrorists; his campaign refused to comment about the treatment of his dog.....
Romney's treatment of his family pet was horrible. We own two small dogs. When we've traveled in the past, we treated them with love and respect because they are members of our family.
3. This story was posted at ICasualties:
Originally published at the Houston Chronicle:
Four women who worked for Houston-based Halliburton Co.'s former subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root have filed federal lawsuits against the companies, claiming they endured sexual harassment and, in two cases rape, while working in Iraq.
Attorneys say their clients encountered a sexually-charged atmosphere where women were repeatedly demeaned and solicited for sex despite reporting harassment to supervisors.
The lawyers for women in the alleged rape cases say they are turning to the civil courts in part because they haven't been able to determine whether federal authorities are pursuing criminal prosecutions.....
These women made sacrifices to work away from their families and then they were subjected to sexual harassment and rape? This is horrible. Who'd want to work for any of these companies after reading this?