$29.95 buys Dick Cheney
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
On sale at HeroBuilders.com. Only this shooting plastic bastard doesn't look like he's had four or five heart attacks.
Hat tip, Raw Story.
As promised, it's the latest edition of the Bush Approval Map. If you joined us late, the map features the state-by-state opinion polls from SurveyUSA. I've taken Bush's Disapproval Rating and subtracted it from his Approval Rating, which gives us a Net Approval Rating.
. A month will appear for five seconds.
It's hard to see this household appliance as a deadly weapon, but here you go.
An Anderson man is dead after being strangled with a vacuum cleaner hose, and his common-law wife is charged with his murder. Anderson County Sheriff's deputies said they received the call at about 9:30 p.m. Sunday.
A spokesman for the sheriff's office said Evelyn Pressley admitted to killing Jerome Powers. Deputies said Pressley beat and strangled Powers with vacuum cleaner accessories.
No one believes that Fox is "fair and balanced," but the ridiculous perversion of what is called journalism needs to cease when this sort of nonsense comes out. (Raw Story):
A simple search of Federal Election Commission records reveals that many News Corp. employees, including chairman and chief executive officer Rupert Murdoch, have made direct, personal donations to the Senator's re-election campaign, as well as other mostly Republican candidates.John @ AmericaBlog actually has a post up that addresses this fallacy of journalism being pure and devoid of political slant (on either side). It's disingenuous to say that reporters have no political opinions, or for that matter, if you watch Faux News for 30 seconds or so, don't express them.
Records indicate that in November, 2005, Murdoch personally donated $2,100 to Santorum's campaign. This wasn't he first monetary gift Murdoch made to Santorum; the right wing media mogul shelled out $1,000 to elect the Senator in 2000.
...A review of declared donations indicates that, with few exceptions (such as Chernin's donations to Berman for Congress and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and Greta Van Susteren's donation to her sister's campaign for Senate) higher-ups at the "fair and balanced" cable news outlet overwhelmingly give GOP.
...why are being an activist and a journalist mutually exclusive? This came up in the context of CNN's Lou Dobbs going after the Dubai Ports. CBS News' blog quoted a media observer making the following point:The MSM itself plays dumb on this as well, preferring to pretend objectivity exists in its ranks rather than show its bias one way or the other -- and declare it."To me, you're either an advocate or a journalist. You shouldn't pretend to be both."Now, I don't pretend to be an expert on the history of journalism, but I did watch the movie "Good Night, and Good Luck" yesterday. It's about CBS reporter Edward R. Murrow taking on red-scare-baiting Senator Joseph McCarthy. Now, I don't pretend to be as great as Edward R. Murrow, though I can certainly aspire. But much of what he had to say to and about McCarthy reminded me of a lot of what we do on the blogs, and in our activism work, every day.
And to take this off of myself, how did Murrow's public criticism of McCarthy differ in any way from Lou Dobbs' criticism of the Dubai deal? I can't find any difference.
The Internet is a revolutionary force for free speech, civic organizing, and economic innovation precisely because it is open and accessible to all Internet users equally. On a free and open Internet, small ideas can become big ideas overnight. As Internet advocacy groups, charities, non-profits, businesses, civic organizing groups, and email experts, we ask you to reconsider your pay-to-send proposal and to keep the Internet free.
A pay-to-send system won't help the fight against spam - in fact, this plan assumes that spam will continue and that mass mailers will be willing to pay to have their emails bypass spam filters. And non-paying spammers will not reduce the amount of mail they throw at your filters simply because others pay to evade them.
Perversely, the new two-tiered system AOL proposes would actually reward AOL financially for failing to maintain its email service. The chief advantage of paying to send CertifiedEmail is that it can bypass AOL's spam filters. Non-paying customers are being asked to trust that after paid mail goes into effect, AOL will properly maintain its spam filters so only unwanted mail gets thrown away.
Visits are way up over the past year, thanks to Blenders passing the word on, and newbies who decided to return...
Only it's not the kind of experience the bible beaters appreciate very much.
Web-based Divine Productions goes out of its way to promote products that clearly offend and mock Christianity and the Catholic Church. Through its website, the company is offering sex toys like a "baby Jesus b--- plug," a "jackhammer Jesus," and a "diving nun."How did these pious folks find this web site anyway? Just asking -- I've never been to this site before, and I'm one of those deviant homos. I would assume their NetNanny or whatever other porn filter they have on their browsers would have kept their tender eyes away from these images.
[Former pastor and recovered sex addict] Gene McConnell is director of Authentic Relationships International, an organization that reaches out to men and women who are struggling with addiction to pornography. "It is clear that [porn] providers like this have to expose their customers to more destructive ideas to get their customers to come back for more," he says.
The distributor sells its products by using religious imagery and terminology to make fun of biblical characters, among them Jesus, the Virgin Mary, Judas, and Moses. Company advertising employs slogans such as: "Let Judas make a martyr out of you"; "help Moses part the ---- sea"; or "find out what it means to be truly touched by God" by using "God's immaculate --- ."
McConnell believes Divine Productions "is using sex to communicate hate to the religious community."
...Syndicated radio talk-show host Paul McGuire says "it is amazing to the me that major media groups do not see this as a frontal assault on Christianity."
[Welcome Towleroad and Raw Story readers...]
Carlisle should be eligible for parole in 10 years, said his attorney, Cynthia Umstead.Carlisle was so "traumatized" by the encounter with Speigner that he killed the man, stole the professor's credit card to buy beer, cigarettes and gasoline later in the day while joyriding with friends. Even worse, he rented the car to another friend and was finally arrested while smoking dope inside the car, which he had upfitted with a new tag and freshly tinted windows. G-ddamn.
...Carlisle had testified that Speigner picked up Carlisle under the guise of wanting to buy marijuana, then tried to force the then-19-year-old to engage in sex with him.
Prosecutor Joe Roberts contended that Carlisle deserved the maximum sentence...
...even though Raymond Carlisle pulled a gun, chased Prof. Speigner from his car, and then shot him when the Prof got back to his car and tried to drive away. Then Carlisle took Prof. Speigner’s wallet and his car and left him to bleed to death. Carlisle’s excuse? Why, gay panic, of course. And it worked, by God.***
This ruling is a mixed bag, because it prevents Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) laws from being used to stop abortion protestors from congregating and harassing clients outside clinics. The RICO legal strategy was initially and successfully devised by NOW.
The Supreme Court dealt a setback today to abortion clinics in a two-decade-old legal fight over anti-abortion protests, ruling that federal extortion and racketeering laws cannot be used to ban demonstrations.Shakes Sis and The Moderate Voice have posts up.
The 8-0 decision ends a case that the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had kept alive despite a 2003 ruling by the high court that lifted a nationwide injunction on anti-abortion groups led by Joseph Scheidler and others.
Anti-abortion groups brought the appeal after the appellate court sought to determine whether the injunction could be supported by charges that protesters had made threats of violence.
In today’s ruling, Justice Stephen Breyer said Congress did not intend to create “a freestanding physical violence offense” in the federal extortion law known as the Hobbs Act.
When the blasts at the White House are coming from a WingNutDaily columnist, you know this Administration is going downhill fast. Jerome R. Corsi is co-author (with sleazebag John O'Neill) of the Kerry slimefest Unfit for Command, so it's interesting to see him take out Bush on the ports deal.
I've posted on Neil's little cash cow before -- No Child Left Behind: the Bush family cashes in too
Investors from the United Arab Emirates helped fund the $23 million Neil Bush raised for Ignite!, the learning systems company that holds lucrative No Child Left Behind Act contracts in Florida and Texas. The "Cow" is an Ignite! portable computer designed to work in a classroom, providing interactive instruction aimed at improving students' scores on standardized tests. If you loved Billy Carter and "Billy Beer," you're certain to love Neil Bush and the "Ignite! Cow."
Neil Bush's frequent travels to Dubai are documented by Datamatix, a Dubai-based information technology company that has featured Neil Bush as a speaker. The Datamatix website features several prominent photographs of Neil Bush addressing a Dubai conference, identifying Neil Bush as "the brother of U.S. President George Bush."
...Anti-Bush Internet websites have been touting the Neil Bush connection with Dubai for months, although the story has been largely shut out of the mainstream media. Many times over, Neil Bush has won the distinction of being the "black sheep" of the Bush family. In 1988, Neil Bush was a director of the failed Silverado Savings and Loan, which collapsed in a scandal that ultimately cost taxpayers an estimated $1 billion. For his role in the savings and loan debacle, Neil Bush was personally fined and permanently banned from any further activities in banking. In a messy divorce ending a 23-year marriage with Sharon Bush, the mother of his children, Neil Bush gave a deposition in which he admitted multiple sex romps with Oriental prostitutes during his many "business trips" to Asia.
They allege that employees of RCA, Sony/BMG, and Aiken himself "engaged in collusion to prevent public disclosures they believed might be harmful to their product".So as part of their false advertising charge, is one of the problems that they cannot masturbate to his poster without imagining him sleeping with a guy? What damage has been done? The guy's a singer, not a sex god for Dobson's sake. If these chicks only knew how many of the celebrities they moon about are g-a-y.
The angry ladies go on to state, "This is tantamount to a manufacturer concealing information about a defective product. Therefore these actions were both unfair and deceptive to consumers."
A spokeswoman for the group says, "As consumers, we feel ripped off. It is obvious now that the private Clay is very different from the manufactured packaged public Clay that was marketed to us."
A big decision, and in the right direction. The conservative Toms River, NJ school board refused to suck up to the fundie parents who wanted transgendered teacher Lily B. McBeth fired. Cretin parent Mark Schnepp, as you read in my earlier post, said that McBeth's presence in the classroom is an affront to his convictions "violates my religious beliefs."
A school board in one of the most conservative counties in New Jersey Monday night refused to bow to pressure from a small group of parents who demanded the removal of a transgendered teacher.About 100 people showed up, the majority supportive of McBeth.
Lily B. McBeth took a leave of absence from her job as a substitute teacher with the Eagleswood School District last year and at age 69 transitioned. When her physical transformation was complete she petitioned the board to return to work. The board voted 41 to 1 to return her to her old job.
When a small group of a parents realized that Mr McBeth was now Ms McBeth they demanded the board rescind its decision. One parent, Mark Schnepp, took out a full-page newspaper ad urging parents to attend the Board of Education's Monday meeting.
...But most of the speakers praised McBeth calling her well liked by children and an asset to the school system. Prior to the meeting the school board met privately with McBeth and her attorney. After listening to both sides of the issue during the public meeting the board, without a vote, said it would not amend its early decision.Bluejersey.net's jmelli weighed in, noting Ocean County's bigots are 0 for 2 (after Laurel Hester's victory), citing a Blender commenter:
"This is a historic night for transgender rights," Steven Goldstein, the chair of Garden State Equality told 365Gay.com.
Mr Schnepp may subscribe to a religion that prohibits his children from getting a quality education from gifted teachers, but that doesn't mean the rest of us have to. Tata said it best: "Welcome to the public schools, where you and your child will meet the public, whether you like it or not." Just one month after the late Laurel Hester was granted domestic partner benefits, we have another triumph over bigotry in Ocean County.
Kathy @ Birmingham Blues pointed me to an editorial in the Decatur Daily by a highly-regarded pastor in Alabama, James L. Evans of Auburn First Baptist Church. She says that he is "a wonderful progressive Baptist pastor who has statewide readership. He has been an ally to the LGBT community for a long time, and he gets the attention of the moderate straight community."
Senate Majority leader Bill Frist recently announced on the floor of Senate that he was once again calling for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. His reference is to the so-called Marriage Protection Amendment brought to the floor during the last political season.And Evans brings home the lunacy of the whole matter in terms that the average, God-fearing voter can understand.
The reason it's back again, Frist explains, is out of fear that some state may take action to legalize gay marriage, and because of Article IV of the U.S. Constitution, the so-called "full faith and credit" clause, marriages in one state are legal in all states.
Alabama gubernatorial candidate Roy Moore also is trumpeting the need for a state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. Even though there is already a law that prohibits same-sex marriage in Alabama, Moore believes it is not enough. Alabama needs a hedge against what other states might do.
Curiously, both Frist and Moore's initiatives will reach their climax around the first of June. The significance for Alabama is obvious. The Republican primary is June 6. Moore has stated publicly that the gay marriage ban will attract concerned Christian voters, many of whom also may support his candidacy.
In Alabama, the last thing we need to worry about is a surge of gay couples flooding the courthouse with marriage requests. In Alabama, we need to worry about the future of our public school system. We need to be concerned about the status of our healthcare safety net for children and senior adults. We need to be worried about an unfair tax structure and grossly ineffective constitution.Democrats can learn from Evans when combatting the Repugs ready to toss down the gay card and playing pious. (should Dems ever bother to reframe the issue -- they are so timid it's pathetic).
We have some serious issues before us here in Alabama, but gay marriage is not one of them. It is a wedge issue, a whip designed not to inspire voters to vote for better government, but to frighten voters into electing a savior.
And the last time I checked, that job was already taken.
Mr. Bush's overall job rating has fallen to 34 percent, down from 42 percent last month. Fifty-nine percent disapprove of the job the president is doing. For the first time in this poll, most Americans say the president does not care much about people like themselves. Fifty-one percent now think he doesn't care, compared to 47 percent last fall.
Just 30 percent approve of how Mr. Bush is handling the Iraq war, another all-time low.
By two to one, the poll finds Americans think U.S. efforts to bring stability to Iraq are going badly – the worst assessment yet of progress in Iraq. Even on fighting terrorism, which has long been a strong suit for Mr. Bush, his ratings dropped lower than ever. Half of Americans say they disapprove of how he's handling the war on terror, while 43 percent approve.
The sources said they envision Cheney being persuaded to step down as he becomes an increasing liability to President Bush.
There is a growing rift between the president and the vice president and their staffs, the sources said, citing Cheney's delay in informing the president of the accidental shooting of the vice president's hunting colleague.
Cheney could face a new crisis by the end of the year with possible accusations from his former chief of staff Lewis Libby, who faces charges in connection with the CIA leak probe. Libby told a grand jury unnamed "superiors" directed him to relay the content of a National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq in July 2003.
The White House, according to Insight, anticipates Libby putting Cheney on the defensive with claims the vice president ordered Libby to relay classified information – a charge that could lead to a congressional probe and even impeachment proceedings.
"Nothing will happen until after the congressional elections," a GOP source told Insight. "After that, there will be significant changes in the administration and Cheney will probably be part of that."
Courtesy of the hardest working man w/P'shop, Mike Tidmus, riffing on the "ex-gay" nonsense in St. Louis over the weekend, where some of the fundies were worked up over the "reimagining" of the Exodus "I questioned homosexuality" billboards...
Oh no! It appears someone has vandalized my beautiful header graphic. And, I worked so hard on it! I strongly suspect it might have been those used-gays. Of course I don’t have a shred of evidence to support that contention, but then Josh Montez at Focus on the Family’s In Focus website had no proof that a couple of billboards promoting the Cash Won Out conference in Saint Louis were, in fact, attacked by gay activists, when he blubbered out, “Billboards advertising this weekend’s Love [sic] Won Out Conference in St. Louis are defaced, presumably by gay activists opposing the meeting.”
Jasmyne Cannick's Black America's Infatuation With Butch Men Up in Heels is a must read. She asks the question:
While images of Black men dressed as woman have become a popular part of Black American culture in entertainment, does the success of the Black actor who plays a role in drag depend on that actor's heterosexism in real life?It's interesting when you look at the contrast in acceptance in the black community of Tyler Perry in drag in Madea's Family Reunion, Martin Lawrence as Big Momma, or Damon Wayans and David Allen Grier as flamers Blaine Edwards and Antoine Merriweather on In Living Color versus RuPaul, who is openly gay. His success has largely come from white audiences. Jasmyne notes how this represents the unaddressed homophobia in the religious black community.
But what if Tyler Perry were gay? Would Madea continue to be as popular among Black churchgoers? Probably not. At least with his assumed heterosexuality, Christians can rest at ease that they are not supporting anything gay because after all, it is just a role. RuPaul, while a great performer, was openly gay and therefore never found the wide spread acceptance and fame that Madea has.
Boy, it's not a good week to be a celebrity. Weaver was best known for his TV roles in Gunsmoke and McCloud, two series I didn't watch back in the day.
Well, howdy, Blenders! Your token (or is that "tokin'"?) straight white male barista has been away from the coffeehouse for awhile. I've been putting the finishing touches on my website's migration away from ValueWeb hosting, Blogger publishing, and Haloscan comments. I've moved to my own domain, hosted completely (posts & comments) on my own dedicated server at IdeaServed (Portland's #1 Webhost - support local business!) using the Movable Type publishing system.
The settlement means the Silver Ring Thing, which doles out silver rings to remind young people of their promise to abstain from sex, will not be eligible for federal money unless it changes its program to ensure the money isn't used for religious purposes.
The organization has received more than $1 million in federal funding during the past three years, the Associated Press reported.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed suit against the program in U.S. District Court in Boston in May.
So we don't have to deal with fools like these people anymore.
Pastors of some of the largest evangelical churches in America met recently in Inglewood to polish strategies for starting five million new churches worldwide in 10 years -- an effort they say they hope will hasten the End Time.In what can only be described as a surreal and disturbing sign of things to come in terms of pandering to the holy rollers, likely 2008 prez hopeful Rudy Giuliani recently spoke before the pastors' group in Orlando, shilling his upcoming book on "what it takes to be a leader in time of crisis."
The Rapture and Second Coming of Jesus always has been the ultimate goal of evangelicalism. But when that would occur was any Christian's guess.
The "Billion Souls Initiative" of the Global Pastors Network aims to shorten the path to Judgment Day by partnering church resources with the latest communications systems to spread the gospel.
In an interview at Faith Central Bible Church in Inglewood, James Davis, president of the campaign, said, "Jesus Christ commissioned his disciples to go to the ends of the Earth and tell everyone how they could achieve eternal life.
"As we advance around the world, we'll be shortening the time needed to fulfill that great commission," he said. "Then, the Bible says, the end will come."
Her father was a shoeshine man who died when she was a child, her mother was a maid who brought her along on jobs, yet Octavia Butler rose from these humble beginnings to become one of the country's leading writers - a female African American pioneer in the white, male domain of science fiction.
She remains the only science fiction writer to receive one of the vaunted "genius grants" from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, a hard-earned $295,000 windfall in 1995 that followed years of poverty and personal struggles with shyness and self-doubt.
One of the Rotting CryptkeeperTM's clan actually writes Jeremy of Good As You -- and he writes her back.
US leader crashed by trying to 'pedal, wave and speak at same time'. This story is on the release of details of a 2005 bicycle crash at the Gleneagles golf resort in Scotland, where the Chimperor collided with a police officer. Bush was getting a little R&R while at the G8 summit.
He may be the most powerful man in the world, but proof has emerged that President George Bush cannot ride a bike, wave and speak at the same time.Here's how the crash unfolded -- The Scotsman reports that the facts were kept under wraps for "fear of embarrassing Bush" by the local police. When you read this, it's obvious why.
...After a hard day's discussion with fellow world leaders, the president was looking for some relaxation. Instead, he ended up the subject of a police report in which the leader of the free world was described, in classic police language, as a "moving/falling object".
"[The unit] was requested to cover the road junction on the Auchterarder to Braco Road as the President of the USA, George Bush, was cycling through." The report goes on: "[At] about 1800 hours the President approached the junction at speed on the bicycle. The road was damp at the time. As the President passed the junction at speed he raised his left arm from the handlebars to wave to the police officers present while shouting 'thanks, you guys, for coming'.Remember, he also took a dive off of his bike at the ranch in Crawford back in 2004.
"As he did this he lost control of the cycle, falling to the ground, causing both himself and his bicycle to strike [the officer] on the lower legs. [The officer] fell to the ground, striking his head. The President continued along the ground for approximately five metres, causing himself a number of abrasions. The officers... then assisted both injured parties."
...Jim McDermott, a Democrat Congressman, last night quipped: "Not only does he break the law over here on eavesdropping and spying on our own citizens, but it seems he can't even keep to your law when it comes to riding a bike. It's another example of how he can't keep his mind on the things he should be thinking about."
Did you notice at the tail end of the article, it said the officer he hit was out of work for 14 weeks?! In my post, I went back and looked at how his injuries were described at the time as "minor". It's total bullshit - this is exactly the same as Cheney's hunting "accident." These guys have both seriously hurt people with impunity.Hat tip, Raw Story.
Blender NancyP has turned in a great first-hand report on Exodus/Daddy Dobson's ex-gay roadshow, Love Won Out, which was held in St. Louis over the weekend (my post here). Her account follows this report on what went on inside.
Alrighty then.
Professional heterosexual Melissa Fryrear, Gender Issues Analyst for Focus on the Family.
One of the speakers, Melissa Fryrear, said she had been "saved" from her lesbianism. She said that often homosexuality is the result of a fractured parent child relationship or sexual abuse. "Ever wonder why some lesbians look mannish?" she asked the audience. "It’s a vulnerability to be a woman. That suit of armor to keep you from being hurt."
Speakers also promoted books and other material on sale at the conference, including a $50 boxed set called "Male Homosexuality Package," that included books called "Coming out of Homosexuality" and "You Don’t Have to Be Gay."
Nancy added that she had her two seconds of fame as a signholder in a long shot on one of the local TV news programs, she noted it was a local FOX affiliate to boot -- they actually gave the story more airtime and more positive focus than other area TV stations.
St. Louis responds to LWO: A billboard promoting the conference was modified into a positive message, affirming and celebrating gay identity. This happened sometime just before the day of the conference. Photo: St. Louis Independent Media Center
This event was like Pride with a wind chill of 5 above zero. People were incredibly cheerful, despite the 30 degree weather with winds up to 30 mph. Also the hour - we wanted big turnout when people were coming and going from the conference. Consequently, some 500 people showed up at the 6:30 AM rally on a Saturday morning on Mardi Gras weekend, a fine turnout. The afternoon (4:00PM) session was less well attended, with perhaps 150 at the peak, and weather was still tough. We were jumping up and down to stay warm, and constantly repairing the flimsier signs that were blowing to pieces. I was trying to hang onto my pole of the 2-person 8' lgbt physicians' group banner, and making jokes about going sailing in the Midwest cornfields.
I think it must have been obvious that we were having a good time, waving at passersby and conference attendees. At least two teens in the conference managed to take "long bathroom breaks" or some such, and snuck outside and talked with the teen and college student contingent we had, and I saw a number of teens, in back seats of cars driven by parents, who gave us the thumbs up when entering or leaving the conference. There were also the confused or polite attendees who waved back when we waved at them, the attendees who scowled and hurriedly rolled up their windows or accelerated onto the road when we waved and smiled, and the stony-faced.
The cops were pretty happy with us - we set up liaison people well in advance, provided our own foot-traffic control/security folks, and cleaned up after ourselves, obeyed the rules, and tried to keep the noise down - and the event provided them extra overtime time-and-a-half that is probably hard to get in the glossy and dull suburb. Perhaps one of the most unusual moments was when one of the homeowners across the street pulled out some extra gloves and coats and loaned them to us for the day. I later found out their names, and it turns out that I know and work with them, one is a medical lab. tech. in my hospital department, the other is a professor at the medical school.
I feel proud of our community for pulling together this peaceful, cheerful event in the course of 10 days, yes, TEN DAYS, dropping everything and squeezing a few more hours into the days to get the preparatory work done. I was "sign queen", and we had several dozen people stop by one of the three sign-making sessions, contributing their creativity and generally having a good time. People opened their facilities to us - the local lgbt coffeehouse owner, a UCC with a lesbian pastor, Eden Seminary (UCC). The security people trained. The parking people lined up local churches willing to let us use their lots for the day, attendants for the lots, and shuttle busses. The liason person talked to all the pertinent police and city officials beforehand. The media folks lined up experts and interviews with local media, and our own pediatrician-of-the-air, whose usual on-air topic is something on the order of "what to do when your child has diarrhea", put on his activist hat and gave several radio, tv, and newspaper interviews, as did several ministers. Everybody did publicity within the community, to get turnout.
This was a movement-building event, engaging not only the usual suspects (political mavens), but community members who never participated in such an action before. In my opinion, FOTF/Exodus did us a favor. And I hope they have an opposition-research person reading this blog, to find out this.
One can't doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed... Our mission has failed because Iraqi animosities have proved uncontainable by an invading army of 130,000 Americans. The great human reserves that call for civil life haven't proved strong enough. No doubt they are latently there, but they have not been able to contend against the ice men who move about in the shadows with bombs and grenades and pistols.Over at Unclaimed Territory, Glenn Greenwald smartly digs up an earlier quote from Howard Dean that the DNC chair was scorched on by the right wing.
...The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, elucidates on the complaint against Americans. It is not only that the invaders are American, it is that they are "Zionists." It would not be surprising to learn from an anonymously cited American soldier that he can understand why Saddam Hussein was needed to keep the Sunnis and the Shiites from each other's throats.
Saying the "idea that we're going to win the war in Iraq is an idea which is just plain wrong," Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean predicted today that the Democratic Party will come together on a proposal to withdraw National Guard and Reserve troops immediately, and all US forces within two years. . . .Surf over to Glenn's pad for a collection of winning quotes from the knob-ends of the right (including the horrid Malkin and Michael Reagan -- the latter issued a death sentence for Dean!), who took turns blasting Dean for the above quote.
"I've seen this before in my life. This is the same situation we had in Vietnam. Everybody then kept saying, 'just another year, just stay the course, we'll have a victory.' Well, we didn't have a victory, and this policy cost the lives of an additional 25,000 troops because we were too stubborn to recognize what was happening."
There is a “brittleness about her” that could prove a weakness in November 2008. But Rove added that the “hard-driving” Clinton will easily vanquish Democratic primary rivals like New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, who are merely “preening for the vice presidential slot.”That brittleness crap from Rove is just the beginning of the misogyny campaign against sHillary, but quite frankly they don't need to start that sh*t to find plenty of fault with the senator from NY, such as her transparent pandering of the center-right crowd on a host of issues.
...“She is the dominant player on their side of the slate,” Rove said of Clinton. “Anybody who thinks that she’s not going to be the candidate is kidding themselves.”
...“For somebody who is philosophically very liberal, she’ll be a very cautious candidate at times,” he said. “That cautiousness will serve her well a lot of times — not always, but a lot of times. “For example, her cautiousness had her vote for the Iraq war,” he said. “Her cautiousness has led her to do things to sort of try to position herself as a centrist.”
Asked to describe Clinton’s weaknesses, Rove said, “her personal philosophy and her brittleness about her.”she conducts herself. But it will also be settled in part by who the Republican nominee is and how he or she conducts themselves.”
At the end of 2005, the former first lady had $17 million in her campaign account and was working hard to expand her national base of contributors.
..."She's raising money she won't even need" for her state race, said former Sen. Alfonse D'Amato, a New York Republican powerbroker.
Leftover money could be used for a presidential campaign in 2008 if she runs.
That about sums this one up from Paul. Read and weep.
What was this woman thinking? She was more concerned about the urine being body temperature for the test, but not the fact that she was going to whip out a fake wang-dang doodle for the test. Paul had me rolling.
Microwaved Penis Turns Out To Be Fake. Now I have to admit that the above headline got my attention. The story in a nutshell is that a couple go into a convenience store and ask to warm something up in the microwave there. The clerk notices that the item that they place in the microwave is apparently a severed penis and calls the cops.
Now here is where an admittedly already strange story starts to get seriously weird. It turns out that the woman is due to take a pre-employment drug piss test and she is trying to find a way to beat it. These morons get hold of one of those fake dicks with a pee reservoir, you know, the thing designed for GUYS to hang out of their pants in front of the drug inspector, which they fill with the boyfriend's clean pee.
I don't know what kind of job she was applying for, but my guess is that unless it was one where the cash register has pictures of food items on the buttons instead of numbers, she probably isn't qualified. I just hope that the mastermind of this plot was the drug addled woman and not her substance free boyfriend.
But the 20 episodes of the "Night Stalker" series, in which he played a rumpled, grumpy Chicago news reporter whose determination to follow every lead allows him to save society from the dangers of the supernatural, seemed to define his career.He also appeared in a few episodes of the X-Files in 1998 and 1999 (another favorite show of mine), playing Agent Arthur Dales. McGavin won an Emmy in 1990 as Candice Bergen's opinionated father in an episode of "Murphy Brown."
The episodes in which he played Carl Kolchak on ABC in 1974 and 1975 were distinguished by his portrayal of the dogged shoe-leather reporter and combined the appeal of the newsroom drama with the attractions of fantasy and the occult.
I received this update on the Virginia marriage amendment from Josh Israel, of the Virginia Partisans Gay and Lesbian Democratic Club.
Josh took a lot of heat a couple of weeks ago (the post "Spineless Leadership") for not pushing Governor Tim Kaine to vote against the marriage amendment that is going to be on the ballot this fall. Josh responded in the comments of another thread on this, explaining the logistical issues and the dilemma ahead. A snippet:
This week, State Senate Democratic Caucus Chair Mary Margaret Whipple of Arlington (one of our strongest allies in the State Senate) pushed through an amendment to the referendum text to include the ENTIRE text of the proposed amendment, rather than the inaccurate abbreviated version. This full version passed both the House and Senate unanimously---the Republicans who had earlier killed a similar effort on a party-lines vote shifed course and decided that they'd allow voters to actually know what they were voting on.
Now, it is going to be our job to make sure every fair-minded Virginian knows what this amendment could do and we will do everything we can to defeat this dangerous and dangerously worded amendment.
Constitutional amendments must be proposed by our state legislature and ratified by a popular vote--the Governor's power in the matter is the same as any Virginian: speaking out for or against a proposal and ultimately voting for or against it as a voter, should it make it to the ballot...To make it clear, I didn't suggest that Kaine had the power to stop an amendment in its tracks, that's clearly not possible -- what one of his roles is, as Josh pointed out, is to ensure the amendment language is accurate -- which is why you have Kaine making the ridiculous statement that he was "not comfortable" with the current language, but that he'll still sign off on an amendment that he basically agrees with. He is against same sex civil equality when it comes to marriage -- that's his position. That is also the core problem -- clarifying what the voters will see on the ballot is one matter -- agreeing on the overall principle of the amendment and to not speak out as to why it should be defeated is another.
Governor Kaine, though not yet with us on marriage equality, has also announced that he is opposed to the dangerously written amendment as passed by the legislature and has announced that he will vote against it (and I'd add, he made no empty promises on this--he said repeatedly during the campaign that he opposed same-sex unions but supported employment non-discrimination).
The Partisans also blasted the Republican legislature for passing the proposed constitutional amendment (HJ 41) itself and vowed to do everything in their power to ensure that the amendment is defeated in November. The amendment not only writes into the state constitution that only heterosexual marriages shall be valid in Virginia, it also prohibits any legal status for relationships of unmarried people "that intends to approximate the design, qualities, significance, or effects of marriage" and bans any recognition of any other "union, partnership, or other legal status to which is assigned the rights, benefits, obligations, qualities, or effects of marriage."You know what, Bob? Flipping a coin on the backs of your gay and lesbian citizens (never mind all the others that may be affected by your cavalier position) is f*cking sick. If that's the best judgment you can use on legislation before you, you need to step aside for someone who actually thinks about the best interests of all Virginians.
Even supporters of this legislation, such as anti-gay Delegate Bob Marshall (R-Manassas) have conceded publicly that the language of the amendment could have dangerous unintended consequences. Marshall said last year that he "voted for it almost like flipping a coin."
In his opinion, requested by a state lawmaker, McDonnell said Kaine's executive order "is beyond the scope of executive authority and, therefore, unconstitutional." In an interview, McDonnell said the governor had usurped the legislature's right to make law.This state is so full of batsh*t sick bigots that I don't know how gay folks are going to be able to make a stand there. The straight allies are sorely needed in this fight.
"He is not free to set a policy on his own that is beyond the scope of that which has been authorized by the General Assembly," McDonnell said. He also said the Virginia Supreme Court has never recognized gay people as a protected class.
"The General Assembly has clearly set various policies about nondiscrimination on the basis of race, sex and national origin," McDonnell said. He added: "To the contrary, [lawmakers] have . . . rejected a statewide policy of nondiscrimination regarding sexual orientation."
At a rare Anchorage news conference Thursday, Rep. Don Young urged state lawmakers to help pay for the big bridges in Anchorage and Ketchikan and blamed Sen. John McCain for spoiling public opinion of the embattled projects.
...After Hurricane Katrina leveled New Orleans in the fall, Young became a fixture in national media as critics asked why Congress was spending hundreds of millions of dollars for bridges in Alaska instead of to rebuild Louisiana.
Young and Sen. Ted Stevens fought to keep federal earmarks for $223 million for a Ketchikan-Gravina Island bridge and $229 million for the Knik bridge proposal. Alaska got the $452 million, but the earmarks are gone, meaning state lawmakers can use the money for other projects. In retrospect, Young said he wouldn't have pursued the projects any differently. He said he was a victim of circumstance. And U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona.
A potential contender in the next presidential race, McCain's criticism of the bridges helped the project become a national joke for comedians and personalities like Jay Leno, David Letterman and Rush Limbaugh, Young said.
"I will never work for John McCain. Ever. I may support Hillary Clinton if he gets the nomination," Young told an audience at the Palmer Rotary.
Speaking in Shona, one of Zimbabwe's two major tongues, Mugabe denounced homosexuality.Even with those clear cut wild remarks, there has been a lot of talk about whether Mugabe's up to the job anymore.
"Leave whites to do that," he declared. Mugabe told the cheering throng that same-sex marriage is a threat to mankind and condemned churches that bless gay unions.
He said his government would jail any clergy who performed a blessing ceremony for gay couples in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe is heavily Anglican and the speech was applauded by Anglican priests in the crowd.
Mugabe routinely refers to gays as dogs and has on two occasions ordered police to round up and imprison gays.
As we mentioned earlier this week, the Daddy Dobson ex-gay roadshow known as Love Won Out was heading for St. Louis. Well, they've teamed up with some local pastors who are spewing the nonsense. Promoters claim more than 1,300 people have registered, and are coming from 28 states. Yes, the gay bars will be crowded.
***
"The movie 'Brokeback Mountain' may win best picture of the year, the issues are being discussed very openly now and, in the media, it's in your face everyday. The church has been silent on this issue for so long, and now we want to offer an opportunity to those who are dissatisfied with that lifestyle."-- Mark Friz of St. Paul's Evangelical Free Church in Creve Coeur
"Churches decades ago didn't respond properly to this issue...what the conference is giving out is "simply information." I guarantee you, there's no peace in their [homos] life ... there's no comfort."-- Leroy Gill Jr., pastor of Jubilee Community Church in north St. Louis
"My feeling is, homosexuals are not born. Homosexuals need help. They need to be told the truth...I love people. I love homosexuals. I love sinners. But this is God's word. They damn themselves to Hell."-- Willie Kent, pastor of the Community Fellowship church in the Central West End
FWIW, we had about 500 polite protesters at the morning action "Love Needs No Cure" at the St. Louis Love Won Out conference. What was cool was that for every car passing to turn into the church lot, other cars were honking and waving. Only 4 cars flipped the bird or otherwise were significantly hostile - most of the attendees were trying to be stony-faced.Nancy, if you write up an account of what went on from your group's POV, I'll be happy to post it.
Well, off for the afternoon action, now that I have eaten and warmed up. 40 degrees, 10-15 mph wind, and a 2 person 8' banner without windholes - I felt we were about to fly away like Dorothy.
Mr. Larson said the influence of demons varies according to location, with some parts of the United States and certain countries having more demonic activity than others.Larson has toured the country over the last six years, building exorcist teams to handle demon cast-outs and healings. He claims to have trained 100 teams, including the Toledo team -- Rev. Louis C. Roy's Oasis Christian Fellowship.
"I've never had a problem finding demons in the Pacific Northwest, for example, because it has been such a non-church, non-religious area. Demons are more free to operate," he said. "Ironically, the other place is the Bible Belt. The devil is where he's not expected to be. It's what happens when people have too much religion and not enough spirituality."
There is a finite number of demons in the world because God created a set number of angels, he said. The evil spirits are those who followed Lucifer when he rebelled against God and were cast out of heaven. But demons are becoming more active, Mr. Larson said, as seen in the increased incidents of violence, drug abuse, sexual abuse, and criminal behavior among Americans today.
"There has been exponential growth of demonic activity today than when I started 30 years ago," he said. "It's rampant."
The Sunshine State GOP gave the goons at Florida4Marriage after an initial boost of $150K back in October. Their efforts failed, as not enough signatures were acquired to move the amendment measure forward. (St. Pete Times):
Determined to get a gay marriage ban on the ballot for Florida voters, the state Republican Party has doubled its initial investment in the effort to $300,000.Governor Jebbie Bush tries to play it cool, saying in the article that he was unaware of the party contribution, and says the amendment isn't necessary because Florida law already bars same-sex marriage.
State Senate President Tom Lee said the additional $150,000 came after Florida4marriage.org, the political committee working to amend the state Constitution, failed to get enough signatures in time to qualify for the 2006 ballot.
Lee, R-Valrico, said he embraced the extra $150,000 donation because Florida4Marriage still wants to get the measure on the ballot in 2008. "I supported it because I know it's an important issue to Republicans. I know it may not be more important than tax cuts, it may not be more important than property rights or whatever, but it is an element, just as the sanctity of life issues are an element of importance of our party," Lee said. He noted that lawmakers in 2005 spent days debating whether to try to force feeding tubes back into Terri Schiavo.
State Democratic Party spokesman Mark Bubriski had a different take: "It looks like they're afraid they can't win on the issues that actually matter to Floridians - issues like port security, offshore drilling, prescription drugs and class size reduction," he said.
Voters need to let Party officers know that the GOP needs to focus on the issues that are important to everyone in Florida like homeland security, hurricane prepardness, a strong economy, education, property ownership protection, education, transportation and healthcare. Let the RPOF know you don't support this kind of wasteful spending. Contact the RPOF or by phone at 850.222.7920.Hat tip, Eva at Lloydletta.
Things just keep going from bad to worse for Katherine Harris. The GOP's 2000 Florida recount heroine is facing almost certain defeat in her upcoming 2006 Senate race, a campaign her one-time Republican backers in DC pulled out all the stops to prevent. Now comes the news that Harris accepted $32,000 in illegal campaign contributions from Duke Cunningham's bagman, Mitchell Wade of defense contractor MZM.She's trailing Nelson by 15 points and she's so radioactive, the Chimperor is not coming anywhere near her on the campaign trail.
Michael Crowley in The New Republic details Harris' fall from grace among national Republicans. Celebrated with flowers and marriage proposals after her successful efforts as Florida Secretary of State to block Al Gore's 2000 recount hopes, Harris' repeated stumbles and polarization of the Florida electorate has alienated the national GOP. Despite her personal wealth, fund-raising success and name recognition, Harris just squeaked by in her two house races in 2002 and 2004. Her high disapproval numbers were only made worse by "ThreatGate," Harris' fabricated claims in 2004 about the Bush administration's supposed thwarting of over 100 terrorist plots, including a mythical attempt to destroy the electrical grid in Carmel, Indiana.
The result for Harris is a dismal showing to date in her 2006 Senate race against the unpopular Democrat Bill Nelson.
The Women's Missionary Union is too independent for the men of the Southern Baptist Convention, so it is mulling whether to bring the body under the control of the SBC. It's not enough to desire womb control; thought and freedom of association is apparently too much for these men to take from their females. Have they placed an order for burqas yet? (WaPo):
Formed in 1888, the Woman's Missionary Union is considered an "auxiliary" _ or helper _ to the denomination, but it has always been self-governing and financially independent.Hat tip Holly.
Now the executive committee of the SBC is considering a motion to place the women's group under the direct authority of the convention. Top Baptist officials stress that it's early in the process and such a step is unlikely. But if approved by both groups, the change would likely stop the Woman's Missionary Union from continuing its work with more moderate Baptist churches that are not affiliated with the SBC.
"Surely one reason this is happening is the desire to keep these Baptist women from connecting with non-SBC Baptist groups," said Bill Leonard, dean of the Wake Forest University Divinity School and an opponent of the conservative takeover of the denomination. Leonard said the Southern Baptist Convention is "very nervous about entities they cannot control."
.."The WMU has been the one organization controlled and run by women," said Robert Parham, executive director of Baptist Center for Ethics, a Nashville group that often criticizes the conservative direction of the Southern Baptists. "Taking control of the WMU solidifies male dominance of the SBC."
Parham said Southern Baptists are wary of female leadership, noting that in recent years the denomination has ruled that women should not be pastors and that wives should "graciously submit" to their husbands.
The emails are said to be explosive, and may prove that Cheney played an active role in the effort to discredit Plame Wilson’s husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, a vocal critic of the Bush administration’s prewar Iraq intelligence, sources close to the investigation said.Torture Boy/Attorney General Alberto Gonzales had already withheld tons of emails, citing executive privilege and national security as concerns of the White House.
Sources close to the probe said the White House “discovered” the emails two weeks ago and turned them over to Fitzgerald last week. The sources added that the emails could prove that Cheney lied to FBI investigators when he was interviewed about the leak in early 2004. Cheney said that he was unaware of any effort to discredit Wilson or unmask his wife’s undercover status to reporters.
Cheney was not under oath when he was interviewed. He told investigators how the White House came to rely on Niger documents that purportedly showed that Iraq had tried to purchase uranium from the African country. Cheney said he had received an intelligence briefing on the allegations in late December 2003, or early January 2004, and had asked the CIA for more information about the issue.
Cheney said he was unaware that Ambassador Wilson was chosen to travel to Niger to look into the uranium claims, and that he never saw a report Wilson had given a CIA analyst upon his return which stated that the Niger claims were untrue. He said the CIA never told him about Wilson's trip.
However, the emails say otherwise, and will show that the vice president spearheaded an effort in March 2003 to attack Wilson’s credibility and used the CIA to dig up information on the former ambassador that could be used against him, sources said.
Former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, charged with perjury in the CIA leak case, cannot be told the identity of another government official who is said to have divulged a CIA operative's identity to reporters, a federal judge ruled Friday.
At the same time, U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton said Libby could have copies of notes he took during an 11-month period in 2003 and 2004 while serving as chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney. The judge also set the stage for a showdown in late April over the defense's plans to subpoena reporters and news organizations for notes and other documents in the leak of Valerie Plame's identity.
During a hearing Friday afternoon, Walton said Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald can keep secret the other government official's identity because that person has not been charged and has a right to privacy.
The judge put off deciding whether Libby can have access to highly classified presidential daily briefs, summaries of intelligence on threats against the United States that Libby and Cheney received six days a week from a CIA official.
Walton said he is concerned that Libby's request could "sabotage" the case because President Bush probably will invoke executive privilege and refuse to turn over the classified reports.
Coulter raised some controversy in her speech when she said that Democrats don't want democracy to succeed in Iraq. She said, "They don't think the little brown boys could handle democracy," to which students responded, "We don't tolerate racism here. Go back to Germany."
...During her question-and-answer session, Coulter responded to both fans and protesters. One comment that drew strong audience reactions came from a young man who asked her if she didn't like Democrats, wouldn't it just be better to have a dictatorship? Coulter responded with a jab at the way the student talked.
"You don't want the Republicans in power, does that mean you want a dictatorship, gay boy?" she said.
IU College Republicans President Shane Kennedy defended Coulter's comments by stressing that the speech was for entertainment and attendees should have expected Coulter to say controversial comments. "I think the guy could have been more respectful to her," he said. "I mean, we already know that she was going to be controversial and she was just saying what people were thinking. If you are going to talk like you are gay, then Ann Coulter is going to call you gay. Of course, she said it in a spiteful tone, but it was expected."
I can understand discomfort of a parent (in this uptight culture) who may have a difficult time having a conversation with their child to explain the concept of "transgendered," but this excuse by a NJ parent as to why substitute teacher Lily McBeth should not be able to teach in a public school -- "it's against my religion" -- is bullsh*t. The claim by the Methodist father is that the school board is violating his rights if McBeth enters a classroom. (365gay):
The Eagleswood School District will meet Monday to hear a parent's demand that a transgendered substitute teacher be either fired or parents allowed to have their children taught by someone else.Please tell me where in Mark Schnepp's bible is there a definition or condemnation of the transgendered?
Lily B. McBeth became a substitute teacher after retiring from her job as a medical marketing executive. At age 70 she says she knows something about kids. Before transitioning last year she fathered and raised three of her own.
The school district says that her teaching record is among the best in the state. But none of that is good enough for parent Mark Schnepp. Schnepp has two children attending school in district. He says that the idea of someone who had a sex change teaching his children is an affront to his convictions. "It violates my religious beliefs," the 39-year-old told the Asbury Park Press.
...New Jersey courts have ruling in other cases that it is illegal to discriminate against the transgendered, but the state's nondiscrimination law does not specifically name transsexuals as a protected category.
The law absolutely protects Lily McBeth, but make no mistake: Her situation proves why we want the state legislature to amend the state's Law Against Discrimination specifically to include the transgender community. It would give the case law extra power," said Barbra Casbar, vice-chair of Garden State Equality.
Still catching up with mail...some good stuff to click over to:
Laurel's partner, Stacie Andree, and Dane Wells, a co-worker who helped Laurel in her fight for equality, have found a way to help Laurel's dream come true despite her passing. They have announced the creation of the Laurel Hester Scholarship Fund/TPLF, c/o The Personal Liberty Fund, P.O. Box 11335, New Brunswick, NJ 08906-1335. The scholarship will be for the benefit of "young adults who have shown leadership in the LGBTI community." It will be administered by the New Jersey Lesbian & Gay Coalition, an organization that includes about 25 groups as members.* Alaska stonewalling on election 2004 security concerns: The Brad Blog is covering the bizarre refusal of a long-standing public records request the 2004 election database that was created by Diebold's voting system. It's been revealed that the company's contract with the state claims the information to be a "company secret," and the state stepped in to stop the request, giving the smells-to-high-heaven reason that the release would pose a "security risk" to the state of Alaska.
The South Park episode revolves around a nearby town's discovery that a statue of the Virgin Mary has begun bleeding. The event is dubbed a miracle and the people flock to see the statue, including Pope Benedict XVI, who ultimately pronounces that the statue is menstruating.* Paul also has a great post up at his pad about our tax dollars at work regarding torture, er, interrogation of prisoners at Guantanamo (via The Houston Chronicle):
Military interrogators posing as FBI agents at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, wrapped terrorism suspects in an Israeli flag and forced them to watch homosexual pornography under strobe lights during interrogation sessions that lasted as long as 18 hours, according to one of a batch of FBI memos released Thursday.The real FBI agents had to step in to say that any confessions extracted under those circumstances wouldn't be admissable in court. Gee, I wonder why.
When people take the approach that if an anti-gay-marriage although pro-civil-union politician runs, that's better than nothing, basically they are saying our civil rights and equality are NOT the most important thing our government can support and protect, that it is okay to back-burner those issues or let some people be second-class, be not as good, be not quite as worthy, for however much longer, so that some _real good_ can be accomplished.Thankfully we have a good number of straight allies in the fight, Willy, and we'll need help from every one of them to educate people who don't have civil equality on their radar. The "New Dems" aren't interested in talking about it, so changing minds is really only going to happen at the grassroots level, perhaps even more effectively at the person-to-person level. It will take gays kicking open the closet door (and straight allies "coming out" as supporters) in strong numbers. You just wish that the Dems would lead the way and not show such cowardice.
And I watch as my gay friends and my str8 friends and acquaintances come to this decision over and over: we will sacrifice your (or our, if you are gay) rights and equality so that we can have the hope of a better life or so that we can defeat the forces of evil. Yet these same people, str8 or gay, are so quick to condemn exactly that same argument regarding domestic spying, that we can sacrifice the rights of some to achieve other gains, that the ends justifies the means.
To me it seems clearly hypocritical. You aren't protecting what may have been good about this country in either case. You are destroying the good. You are an enabler. You are part of that awful process, and I find the middle-grounders in this, the "be patient, wait while we do other things that are more important," to be more depressing to think about or deal with than the people on the far right, who at least are not being hypocritical. I think those on the right pretty much believe what they say when they say gay marriage is simply a ploy for "special rights" and an attempt to destroy society. I may not agree, but I don't see the internal discrepancy that I see in the "gay people wait for their rights while we elect people who will protect everyone's right not to be spied on, etc." Sorry, but I can't understand why civil rights would not be an all or nothing thing, and both these issues in some ways involve rights to privacy and freedom of association.
The polarization between right and left seems to exist to some degree between all the varieties of right and left, although to me the left seems more damaged by it. I don't see myself persuading anyone I know not to vote for the middle ground on equal rights issues. I sure as hell don't see any of them changing me in the least.
In a way I suppose I would like to thank the middle-grounders and the "yes, it's not fair, but you have to be realistic" crowd for making me stop and think about just what is going on here. After growing up in the sixties and seventies feeling completely "other," a queer in a str8 world, an atheist in the Bible Belt, a socialist in the Democrat-becoming-Republican solid south, you'd think it'd have been hard for me to feel even less welcome, but that's pretty much what the marriage debate has done for me. And it's not the right who's done it; it's the compromise crowd.
Gay-Straight Alliance, anyone? I can see what we queers are giving up here. Can someone remind me what the str8s are giving up in not supporting in every possible way fair and equal civil rights for all?
Survey USA's latest ranking of U.S. Senators by approval ratings came out this week. Bush-humping McCain came out on top (!?), and Little Ricky is almost dead last. I don't see how the Empty Wig managed to make it to #62.
1 AZ McCain, John R Sr 72% 24% 48%You can also take a look at your governor's rankings for this month here. The bottom five: Missouri's Matt Blunt, the Governator in CA, Louisiana's Kathleen Blanco, Alaska's Frank Murkowski, and Ohio's Bob Taft at #50 (no surprise there).
1 IL Obama, Barack D Jr 71% 23% 48%
3 ME Collins, Susan R Jr 71% 24% 47%
3 SD Johnson, Tim D Sr 71% 24% 47%
5 RI Reed, Jack D Sr 68% 22% 46%
5 ME Snowe, Olympia R Sr 71% 25% 46%
7 HI Inouye, Daniel D Sr 69% 24% 45%
8 NE Nelson, Ben D Jr 68% 24% 44%
9 VA Warner, John R Sr 65% 22% 43%
10 ND Conrad, Kent D Sr 68% 26% 42%
11 VT Leahy, Patrick D Sr 68% 27% 41%
12 NM Domenici, Pete R Sr 65% 26% 39%
13 IA Grassley, Charles R Sr 65% 27% 38%
14 VT Jeffords, James I Jr 65% 28% 37%
15 ND Dorgan, Byron D Jr 65% 30% 35%
15 DE Carper, Thomas D Jr 63% 28% 35%
17 MS Lott, Trent R Jr 64% 30% 34%
17 IN Lugar, Richard R Sr 62% 28% 34%
19 AK Stevens, Ted R Sr 63% 30% 33%
20 SC Graham, Lindsey R Sr 62% 30% 32%
20 NM Bingaman, Jeff D Jr 60% 28% 32%
22 NY Schumer, Charles D Sr 62% 31% 31%
23 IN Bayh, Evan D Jr 61% 31% 30%
23 WV Byrd, Robert D Sr 63% 33% 30%
23 WV Rockefeller, Jay D Jr 62% 32% 30%
26 MS Cochran, Thad R Sr 60% 32% 28%
26 TX Hutchison, Kay R Sr 58% 30% 28%
26 AL Sessions, Jeff R Jr 58% 30% 28%
29 ID Crapo, Michael R Jr 58% 31% 27%
29 WY Enzi, Michael R Jr 58% 31% 27%
29 CT Lieberman, Joseph D Jr 59% 32% 27%
29 MD Mikulski, Barbara D Jr 59% 32% 27%
29 AL Shelby, Richard R Sr 58% 31% 27%
29 WY Thomas, Craig R Sr 57% 30% 27%
35 TN Alexander, Lamar R Jr 56% 30% 26%
35 KS Roberts, Pat R Jr 56% 30% 26%
35 HI Akaka, Daniel D Jr 58% 32% 26%
35 DE Biden, Joseph D Sr 60% 34% 26%
35 NE Hagel, Chuck R Sr 59% 33% 26%
35 OR Wyden, Ron D Sr 57% 31% 26%
41 MA Kennedy, Edward D Sr 61% 36% 25%
41 CT Dodd, Christopher D Sr 57% 32% 25%
43 MT Baucus, Max D Sr 58% 34% 24%
43 CA Feinstein, Dianne D Sr 57% 33% 24%
43 UT Hatch, Orrin R Sr 58% 34% 24%
46 UT Bennett, Robert R Jr 52% 29% 23%
46 ID Craig, Larry R Sr 56% 33% 23%
46 NY Clinton, Hillary D Jr 61% 38% 23%
46 SD Thune, John R Jr 60% 37% 23%
46 LA Vitter, David R Jr 58% 35% 23%
51 WI Kohl, Herb D Sr 56% 34% 22%
52 AR Pryor, Mark D Jr 56% 35% 21%
53 NV Ensign, John R Jr 52% 32% 20%
54 MO Bond, Kit R Sr 55% 36% 19%
54 CA Boxer, Barbara D Jr 55% 36% 19%
54 KS Brownback, Sam R Sr 54% 35% 19%
54 PA Specter, Arlen R Sr 55% 36% 19%
58 WA Murray, Patty D Sr 54% 36% 18%
58 VA Allen, George R Jr 51% 33% 18%
60 MI Levin, Carl D Sr 53% 36% 17%
60 OR Smith, Gordon R Jr 51% 34% 17%
62 NC Dole, Elizabeth R Sr 51% 35% 16%
62 WI Feingold, Russell D Jr 54% 38% 16%
62 NH Gregg, Judd R Sr 52% 36% 16%
62 CO Ken Salazar D Jr 54% 38% 16%
62 AR Lincoln, Blanche D Sr 54% 38% 16%
62 KY McConnell, Mitch R Sr 53% 37% 16%
62 GA Isakson, Johnny R Jr 50% 34% 16%
69 OK Coburn, Tom R Jr 52% 37% 15%
69 MN Coleman, Norm R Jr 53% 38% 15%
69 TN Frist, Bill R Sr 53% 38% 15%
69 FL Nelson, Bill D Sr 49% 34% 15%
73 MA Kerry, John D Jr 55% 41% 14%
73 IL Durbin, Richard D Sr 51% 37% 14%
75 WA Cantwell, Maria D Jr 50% 37% 13%
75 MD Sarbanes, Paul D Sr 49% 36% 13%
77 IA Harkin, Tom D Jr 52% 40% 12%
78 AZ Kyl, Jon R Jr 47% 37% 10%
78 MI Stabenow, Debbie D Jr 49% 39% 10%
80 CO Allard, Wayne R Sr 47% 38% 9%
80 RI Chafee, Lincoln R Jr 49% 40% 9%
80 GA Chambliss, Saxby R Sr 48% 39% 9%
83 NC Burr, Richard R Jr 43% 35% 8%
84 KY Bunning, Jim R Jr 46% 39% 7%
84 OK Inhofe, James R Sr 48% 41% 7%
84 MO Talent, Jim R Jr 48% 41% 7%
84 OH Voinovich, George R Jr 49% 42% 7%
88 SC DeMint, Jim R Jr 48% 42% 6%
88 FL Martinez, Mel R Jr 46% 40% 6%
88 NV Reid, Harry D Sr 49% 43% 6%
88 NH Sununu, John R Jr 46% 40% 6%
92 MN Dayton, Mark D Sr 47% 42% 5%
93 AK Murkowski, Lisa R Jr 49% 45% 4%
94 TX Cornyn, John R Jr 40% 38% 2%
95 NJ Menendez, Robert D Jr 36% 36% 0%
96 OH DeWine, Mike R Sr 43% 44% -1%
97 LA Landrieu, Mary D Sr 46% 49% -3%
97 PA Santorum, Rick R Jr 43% 46% -3%
99 NJ Lautenberg, Frank D Sr 37% 47% -10%
99 MT Burns, Conrad R Jr 42% 52% -10%
Last month I posted about these guys, clearly are a few fries short of a happy meal, who dropped trou for a gay military-themed porn site, ActiveDuty.com, and didn't think anyone would find out. The members of the 82nd 'Airporn' were moved from their barracks during the investigation, but the news today is that they are in hot water and will be booted. (AP):
Three of the soldiers face courts-martial on charges of sodomy, pandering and engaging in sex acts for money, according to a statement released by the military. Four other soldiers received what the military calls nonjudicial punishments. The Army has recommended that all be discharged.After this stint in the military, I'm sure these young men will have a more lucrative future "onscreen" anyway.
The charges do not mention the name of the site, but the division had previously been investigating allegations that soldiers appeared on a gay pornography Web site. A spokesman for the division said Friday's charges were a result of that investigation. The military-themed Web site did not make any direct reference to the division or Fort Bragg, a sprawling post about 70 miles south of Raleigh.
"As far as we're concerned, it's isolated to the unit, and our investigation determined that these seven individuals were the only ones" involved, said 82nd Airborne spokesman Maj. Thomas Earnhardt.
In a move yet to be publicly announced, Bush last month named Rev. Herbert Lusk, a former Philadelphia Eagles football star and current pastor of Philadelphia’s Greater Exodus Baptist Church, as one of five new members of the presidential AIDS advisory panel, known as PACHA, according to a current PACHA member.Lusk's church's charitable wing has received a cool million of faith-based bucks as far back as 2002 -- so he's been on Dear Leader's payroll for a while.
Lusk is a member of the board of advisers for the Alliance for Marriage, a conservative religious organization that lobbies lawmakers to support a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.
...Lusk heads a multi-million dollar faith-based social services agency in Philadelphia that he founded called People for People. Lusk told the New York Times the organization receives about $10 million a year in government funds, with at least $1 million a year coming from federal, faith-based grants.
[Lusk] railed against gay marriage, abortion and what he termed as Christian-bashing, and warned that those who trifle with "people of god" will face consequences.
"Don't fool with the church," said Rev. Lusk, "because the church has buried many a critic, and all the critics we have not buried we're making funeral arrangements for."
Rev. Lusk has been a figure of controversy since he spoke in support of Mr. Bush from his church in 2000 and was subsequently accused by the leader of Americans United for Separation of Church and State of breaking tax regulations that forbid churches from endorsing candidates. Rev. Lusk has denied any wrongdoing.
...The VILE acronym is appropriate because "Brokeback Mountain" is truly an example of "loser entertainment." It is a winner, however, for the militant homosexual lobby, which wants to force the public to accept, sanction, and celebrate its "lifestyle."The best part of the post is actually at the end, when Kincaid jumps off the reality cliff.
...In addition to their street protest, the VILE group issued a detailed statement explaining how "Brokeback Mountain" functions as pro-homosexual propaganda. The second-rate acting and beautiful scenery are backdrops to an attempt "to convince the American public to condone a self-centered, obsessive, disordered 'love' as more important than the misery inflicted on the families, wives and children that this 'love' affair wounds and disassembles," the statement explains.
...The film, the release goes on, "attempts to brainwash the viewer into empathy for destructive, self-centered behavior." Hence, abnormal behavior is depicted as normal. What's more, those of us who react negatively to this abnormal behavior are being led to believe that we are abnormal, and that we should just "get with it" and learn to appreciate degeneracy.
Hollywood is a very corrupt place in many ways. One reader has sent me a note, asking, "Did you ever check out the number of registered sex offenders in Hollywood? Very dense, relative to other areas. I wonder why." He recommended a website where you can find the names and addresses of sex offenders in a given area.Blender Adrian, who sent me this one, said:
Take a look. Just type in the 90210 zip code and California. And take a look at some of the mug shots. This is the side of Hollywood you won't see on Oscar night.
I love the last two paragraphs where he implies that there are more registered sex offenders in Hollywood than other places. Funny...because if you go to the Family Watchdog website and put in the AIM's address in Washington, DC they have 642 sexual offenders in their zip code where as the Hollywood zip code only has 536.
Wow, what does they say about Washington, DC?
Shakes Sis on McCain backing the Chimp on Dubai Ports World:
DNR News (via Gawker) has determined, based on sales/circulation, which magazines attract the most gay or straight readers (of course they are referring to men here).
Gayest
1. GQ, 10.39% of male readers are gay/bi
2. Entertainment Weekly, 10.35%
3. TV Guide, 5.46%
4. People, 5.1%
5. Newsweek, 4.74% (tie)
6. Time, 4.74% (tie)
7. Men’s Health, 4.68%
8. National Geographic, 4.1%
9. Consumer Reports, 3.96%
10. U.S. News, 3.9%
Straightest
1. North American Hunter, 99.9% of male readers are straight
2. North American Fisherman, 99.5%
3. Four Wheeler, 99.45%
4. Guns & Ammo, 99.43%
5. Sporting News, 99.41%
6. American Rifleman, 99.37%
7. Cycle World, 99.25%
8. Stuff, 99.23% (tie)
9. Field & Stream, 99.23 (tie)
10. Midwest Living, 99.23 (tie)
Another beauty from Mike Tidmus, a take-off on the cover of the book by John Paulk, who is now probably one of the most famous "ex-gays" ever, considering he was famously caught by author Wayne Besen (of Anything But Straight) exiting a DC gay bar (see snippets from that encounter below).
"I was walking around DuPont [Circle], and I needed to use the bathroom, so I walked in, but I did not know Mr. P's was a gay bar," Paulk said. "Once I was inside, I thought, 'Oh, this is a gay bar, and I probably shouldn't be in here.'"
..."I thought I'll go in and go to the bathroom," Paulk said. "I wandered back, thinking it was weird to be in a gay bar again. I got a glass of water, sat down and chatted with patrons, including a gentleman who was married." Paulk said he had not been inside a gay bar since 1987.
...Paulk said he was in the gay bar "only 20 minutes," primarily to use a bathroom. Yet Herschaft said Paulk was in the bar "at least 40 minutes" and socialized with a number of men during that time, including "speaking intimately with one man."
Paulk denied encountering Besen until he exited the bar. Besen disagreed and provided a photo of Paulk inside the gay bar. In an interview Tuesday night, the bouncer at Mr. P's, Robert Rosa, confirmed that Paulk encountered Besen inside the bar. Rosa confronted Besen as he attempted to photograph Paulk, enforcing bar policy prohibiting photographs inside the establishment.
Paulk said that after the confrontation with Besen, he exited the establishment out of fear for his life. "He came to me and said he was being pursued, and asked if there was another exit other than the front door," said John Mako, owner of Mr. P's.
Herschaft recalled Paulk as calm until the encounter with Besen. "He was smiling, laughing, and socializing," Herschaft said. "He offered to buy me a drink."
"Until I tried to photograph him, I would say he was having a gay old time," Besen said. "I didn't know that using the bathroom involved 40 minutes of socializing in a bar and offering drinks to strangers."
Trey at Daddy, Papa & Me passed this smart bit of business along (as did Kathy at Birmingham Blues).
State Sen. Robert Hagan sent out e-mails to fellow lawmakers late Wednesday night, stating that he intends to "introduce legislation in the near future that would ban households with one or more Republican voters from adopting children or acting as foster parents." The e-mail ended with a request for co-sponsorship.The best part is that Hagen freely admits that he has no scientific evidence to support the claims that Republicans are unfit to adopt kids (though we here at the Blend can come up with plenty of unscientific reasons), which is equally valid as Hood's "evidence" that gay parents would be harmful to children.
Hagan, Hood.
...Hagan said his legislation was written in response to a bill introduced in the Ohio House this month by state Rep. Ron Hood, R-Ashville, that is aimed at prohibiting gay adoption.
"We need to see what we are doing," said Hagan, who called Hood's proposed bill blatantly discriminatory and extremely divisive. Hagan called Hood and the eight other conservative House Republicans who backed the anti-gay adoption bill "homophobic."
Hood's bill, which does not have support of House leadership, seeks to ban children from being placed for adoption or foster care in homes where the prospective parent or a roommate is homosexual, bisexual or transgender.
To further lampoon Hood's bill, Hagan wrote in his mock proposal that "credible research" shows that adopted children raised in Republican households are more at risk for developing "emotional problems, social stigmas, inflated egos, and alarming lack of tolerance for others they deem different than themselves and an air of overconfidence to mask their insecurities."
I just love it. I mean, they could easily change, those Republicans, if they wanted to have children. it isn't inborn. What if their children ended up Republican? We can't have that! Though i guess you could argue that just because the parents are Republican doesn't mean the children will be. Look at me for example, raised by two Republicans, now I'm a Democrat.You can thank Hagan for taking a stand in a state that is filled with legislative bigots. His contact info:
Raw Story reporter Melissa McEwan (aka bloggrrl Shakes Sis) has an news article up on teen groups pushing Congress for comprehensive sex education in the face of misleading and inaccurate abstinence-only programs funded by the Bush Administration -- 11 out of 13 abstinence-only curricula examined were found to contain errors and distortions. Lovely.
• A 43-day-old fetus is a "thinking person."Teen advocates have decided to take action and work to make funding available for comprehensive sex education. From the Raw Story article:
• HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, can be spread via sweat and tears.
• Condoms fail to prevent HIV transmission as often as 31 percent of the time in heterosexual intercourse.
• One curriculum, called "Me, My World, My Future," teaches that women who have an abortion "are more prone to suicide" and that as many as 10 percent of them become sterile. This contradicts the 2001 edition of a standard obstetrics textbook that says fertility is not affected by elective abortion, the Waxman report said.
In response to federal budget requests which would increase funding once again for abstinence-only sex education, Advocates for Youth has launched two new campaigns domestically and abroad—the Keep it REAL campaign and the Fix the Gap campaign, which seek to prioritize sex education programs that include information about contraception and the HIV prevention.Read the rest; these young people are making a difference and countering the tide of ignorance-promotion.
"We launched the campaigns for several reasons," Caeden Dempsey, Advocates for Youth's Program Manager, said. "First, to educate the public on the importance of comprehensive sex education, which includes information about both abstinence and contraception. Secondly, to affect policy change; specifically, increase Senate support for the REAL Act, and increase Senate and general House support for global funding of comprehensive HIV prevention education. And finally, to build capacity among young organizers to advocate on their own behalf."
Advocates for Youth, which operates on a premise of Rights, Respect and Responsibility, currently has 15,000 young people nationwide as part of their Youth Activist Network.
"Advocates for Youth believes that all young people have the right to balanced, accurate, and realistic comprehensive sex education and HIV prevention education," Dempsey said. "Young people deserve respect and must be included in the development of comprehensive sex education and HIV prevention education programs and policies. Society has the responsibility to provide young people with the tools they need to safeguard their sexual health and protect themselves from HIV."
A Marist College's Institute for Public Opinion poll:
Twenty-seven percent of voters said they were not likely to vote for a woman candidate in 2008 no matter which party ticket she headed, according to the poll sponsored by WNBC-TV in New York City. Of that 27 percent, almost one-third said they wouldn't back a female candidate because "women are not up to the job" while 10 percent said it was because the presidency is "a man's job."I may think sHillary is a horrible choice for a Dem nominee, but it isn't because she's a woman. Crap, after this pretend man's man cowboy wagging his dick around for the last while, a change of gender in the Oval Office would actually be welcome.
Like it or not, in today's America, gay marriage is an extremist and deeply polarizing issue. If this becomes the focus for any national candidate, that candidate is likely doomed. And if a candidate, like Hillary Clinton needs some distance from such polarizing issues in order to take back the White House and Congress, she needs as much support as possible and she needs the votes.I just cannot get behind Clinton or any of these faux Dems interested in their own political ascendancy, because they have every intention of tossing gays under the bus each and every time.
In my view, for a prominent gay leader to call for a financial and political boycott of one of the few and rare responsible Democratic leaders who would actually put this country back on the right track, a democratic, humanist track, is grossly irresponsible and terribly misguided.
Oh my NESD. I'm watching Anderson Cooper. I'm listening to Rep. Jerrold Nadler. They're talking about the Dubai port deal. Nadler is talking about how it is not racist to suspect a UAE company, because UAE supported terrorists, looked the other way to let 9/11 happen, whatever. I wasn't following really closely.
"I think at the root of it all is the fact she wonders whether Al really loves her. Gay rumors have followed their marriage from the beginning. It's probably caused her to question what's really going on. He seems to be hanging with his friends at odd hours."Al signed a prenup that says if the marriage lasts for less than two years, he gets zip (they married November 13, 2004).
The National Enquirer revealed in November how rumors over 47-year-old banker Al's sexuality had hurt the relationship. The insider said: "Al goes away for days. Star says he's working out of town. But she knows he's working less. He's living like a king."
Star, 43, appeared on TV on February 8 with a Band-Aid where her wedding ring usually is. At a booksigning session in White Plains, N.Y. later that day, she said: "I got 1,000 messages asking me if something was wrong and I said no. I told them not to worry. It's a nice thing that people are that loving - I appreciate it."
In her new book, "Shine," the "View" hostess portrays the 35-year-old banker as nothing short of a superstud.Stallion Al, before the wedding, had to deal with a past that just wouldn't go away, according to the New York Daily News.
"The first time he held me in his arms sexually, it was almost frightening because we knew our erotic interest in each other could take over every other thing," Star writes breathlessly. "We had an intoxicatingly sexual connection the first two months of our relationship."
So volcanic was their lust that they consulted their pastor, who advised them to remain celibate until their wedding. "It wasn't an easy decision," recalls Star. "Al is a beautiful man. He's got the legs of a stallion. He'd be a perfect Ralph Lauren model."
Ever since Wall Street banker Al Reynolds proposed to "The View" host on Feb. 15 during the NBA All-Star Game, there have been whispers that her betrothed used to play on the other team. At least part of the time.And Al's bachelor party didn't do much more to stop the tongues from wagging at the time. (SoVo):
One friend recalls Reynolds sharing a house in the Fire Island community of Water Island. Another remembers him showing up at a mostly male Halloween party dressed as Bam-Bam from "The Flintstones." "He wore a little Speedo swimsuit, and carried a bone," says the source.
We already knew that Mr. STAR JONES, nee AL REYNOLDS, had plenty of friends of Dorothy from the super gay Halloween party he attended last month (dressed as a male stripper, no less). But his bachelor party, apparently, was equally enthralling.The sanctity of marriage strikes again.
The Friday before his Nov. 13 nuptials to Jones, Reynolds hosted the festivities at New York’s Time Hotel. The theme was “Roman Baths” and we all know Romans and bathhouses are notorious for their staunch … heterosexuality.
Anyway, a “spy” at the party told New York Post gossip column Page Six, “You had to sign a confidentiality agreement to get in and then you were sent to the penthouse, where they made you get naked.”
It gets better.
At the party, there were about 60 men sitting around in bathrobes when 10 topless female dancers came out.
“They were butt-ugly except for two of them who simulated lesbian sex on the bed. Ten people left immediately,” the spy says, not noting whether they left because the dancers were ugly or because they were expecting male dancers.
Now it looks like Reynolds will be forced to stay out of the bathhouse for the next two years.
Human Rights Watch has been monitoring with grave reservations several restrictions placed on the rights of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community in Poland over the past number of years. We are aware that you yourself have supported restrictions on that minority's rights in your prior capacity as mayor of Warsaw, as have members of your party and government in public statements.OK. It's pretty clearcut that this man and his allies are sick people who have no business being dog catcher, let alone leaders in Poland. What must it feel like to be gay or lesbian under this oppressive regime? Guess what -- the Freepi couldn't give a crap.
In 2004 and 2005, as mayor of Warsaw, you banned Gay Pride marches-a peaceful exercise of the freedom of assembly which had taken place several times in previous years without incident. You declared that you were opposed to "propagating gay orientation." In 2004, you refused even to meet with the organizing group, the Campaign Against Homophobia-reportedly stating, "I am not willing to meet perverts." On the other hand you approved counter-demonstrations by conservative groups opposed to the march, the League of Polish Families and the All-Polish Youth. In the same year, a "March for Tolerance" organized by the Campaign Against Homophobia in Cracow was attacked by over two hundred demonstrators, many skinheads from the All-Polish Youth, who pelted them with eggs, bottles, and rocks, and shouted "Send the fags to the hospital!" and "Perverts, get out of Cracow!"
...Also in 2005, following the example of Warsaw, the mayor of Poznan banned a March for Equality and Tolerance in Poznan-one sponsored not only by the Campaign Against Homophobia but by human rights, women's, and student organizations. When a small number of marchers persisted in assembling, members of the All-Polish Youth assaulted them, throwing projectiles and shouting "Gas the fags!" and "We'll do to you what Hitler did to the Jews!" In this case, police intervened against the marchers rather than the attackers, arresting sixty-eight of them.
Since you assumed the presidency, your political allies have continued to make ominous statements threatening state action against the public expression or defense of homosexuality. Prime Minister Kasimierz Marcinkiewicz has told the press that if a homosexual "tries to 'infect' others with their homosexuality, then the state must intervene in this violation of freedom." Jaroslaw Kaczynski, leader of the Law and Justice Party, and your brother, called during the 2005 election campaign for banning gays and lesbians from teaching. In January 2006, he condemned a situation where "gay people are allowed to conduct perverse demonstrations in the streets, but it is forbidden to discuss the issue of moral censorship."
We are also concerned by the election by the Sejm, on January 26, of Janusz Kochanowski as Ombudsman for Human Rights. Mr. Kochanowski has stated in the past that "a culture favorable to pedophilia has come to Poland. … This culture already accepts homosexuality and wants it to be seen as equal to heterosexuality. And there is a link between pedophilia and homosexuality: the majority of pedophiles are homosexual."
That statement is untrue. Further, the mentality it reflects--one in which myth and stigma are used to vilify a minority and nullify its right to participate in society--is inimical to Poland's vibrant democracy. Fears of "infection" and blatant invocations of prejudice cannot be allowed to decide how citizens exercise their rights. Gays and lesbians marching in the streets pose no conceivable threat to other Poles. To suppress their freedoms threatens all people's equality.
Hat tip. PageOneQ.
Actual Freeper Quotes™
"I would advise the Poles to tell them to KMA, but they would drop to their knees in a heartbeat."
"I guess they don't consider it hate to have a wall pushed over on them."
"rising homophobia in Poland and other eastern European states Find out what is causing this and do more of it.........."
"On January 26, the Sejm (or Polish parliament) elected as Ombudsman for Human Rights the lawyer Janusz Kochanowski, who has claimed that pedophilia and homosexuality are linked."
"He's wrong actually, as they are not linked. Just like cancer and plague are not either. (sarcasm)"
"All those Polish jokes were wrong. Poland is the only country in Eurabia that is sane."
"I note the ongoing comingling of terms ("rights", "human rights" and the debatable "homosexual rights" expression) and consider this to be, quite literally, a reassertion of pre-World War II social perspectives."
"Homosexuals threaten lives. Screw the supposed rights."
"It would be nice if they would separate a person's status as a 'person deserving of equal status to all other person's' and a person's actions as a person. 'Queer' should not be a noun, but verb. Thus all persons can be held to be equal, while not all actions, obviously, are not held to be equal."
"Poland better be ever watchful. The EU is going to try to impose its agenda on Poland."
"Could someone tell me what rights are being threatened? Among "normal" homos (I've never thought I can write those 2 words in one sentence;) in Poland there is an opinion that they have all the rights they need and they are not discriminated against. So wtf? The answer is simple. Some acrivists want to earn some money for their "activism"."
"Don't forget we are (Poland) the EU, well part of it. So is Italy, Ireland, Spain, Slovakia, Lithuania...It's not easy to impose that agenda once you are not alone..."
"Well, I've just finished a post-graduated studies on European law. And I found out an interesting thing relating to one of the basic freedoms - freedom of movement among EU member countries. The thing is, that it's very possible, that - according to EU law - Poland will have to respect status of gay marriage, if it had a place in other EU country. So if - let's say - Dutch, or Spanish, or Swedish gay couple get "married" in their country and decide to move to Poland - Polish authorities may have to accept it, no matter that such "marriages" are not allowed in Poland. When I asked a question related to this issue - the lecturer answered in our Prime Minister's way - "well, that's a very good question"."
"Human Rights Watch ..........more like Homo Perversion Rights Nazi's. Hold your ground Poland! I pray we will gain the support to follow in your footsteps. These folks HRW, are the biggest perverts on the planet! And should be banned."
"there doesn't seem to be ANY fear on the part of the Poles, just dis-like for the homos abhorant behavior which makes my American (with Polish heritage) chest swell with pride yet again"
"I agree. I'm so sick and tired of the filth and corruption of innocence that these perverts promote. It is the ultimate form of selfishness to be blunt. It's a sexual, psychological, and cultural example of unparalleled self-centeredness. It drives me to distraction that these monsters want more and more and more. Their greed and lust for innocent children (that they are more than willing to ruin just to increase their numbers and influence) goes to show that...I don't even know what to say. I just know that they need to be either stopped, shot, or somehow sent SOMEWHERE where they cannot spread their perverted doctrine and attack our children."
"All the figures I've read show that two thirds of child molestation is same sex. And the vast majority of homosexuals were molested as children. It's key. It's done to them, they get twisted, they do it to others, creating a new generation of homosexuals. It needs to stop."
"I am not willing to meet perverts."
"That is without doubt the funniest comment from a leader to a group of fruits that I have ever read."
What's there to worry about, folks? You've stocked up on duct tape and plastic sheeting, right? Rest easy, America, George W. Bush (and Michael Chertoff in the background) are on the case.
US Supreme Court to Hear Partial Birth Abortion CaseCan you say "wedge issues" boys and girls? I thought that you could. Iraq is a civil war, Iran wants nukes, Afghanistan is a narco-terrorist state (again), Palestine is ruled by Hamas, Dubai is running our ports, China is holding our debt, North Korea is batshit crazy, New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are still a disaster area, our soldiers and journalists are dying in Mesopotamia, we have the greatest budget deficits and oil company profits in history, seniors are being shafted by the new Medicare plan, and more people are in poverty than ever before... and God's Oil Party and wingnuts like Princess Talibania are overwrought about a rarely-used medical procedure and gay people adopting and marrying (first they're pissed about rampant anti-family promiscuous queer hedonism, now they can't have the queers being respectable monogamous family folk) and nakedly unabashed about how that will play out in the upcoming elections.
The Supreme Court announced yesterday that it would rule on the constitutionality of a ban on the inhumane practice of partial-birth abortion. [Partial Birth? Is that like "a little bit pregnant"?]
I was in Washington DC during the previous Supreme Court decision regarding partial birth abortion in 2000, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor provided the tie-breaking vote in the 5-4 decision overturning the ban on such abortions.
The High Court got it wrong in the 2000 Stenberg v. Carhart decision, which overturned a Nebraska law banning partial birth abortion.
President Bush signed a law banning such abortions in November 2003, but activist judges in the states of California, Nebraska and New York overturned the law. [Damn activist judges, interpreting the Constitution and all that! How dare they try to provide an exception to the ban when the life of the mother is in danger!]
I applaud the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to hear arguments in the partial birth abortion case, Gonzales v. Carhart. Sandra Day O'Connor cast the deciding vote in the Stenberg case. O'Connor was replaced last month by conservative Justice Samuel Alito, who appears likely to join Justices Scalia, Thomas, Roberts and Kennedy in upholding the federal partial birth abortion ban at issue in Gonzales. We must hope and pray for a just decision to outlaw this barbaric practice. [...and instead return to good ol' family values, like our women dying in childbirth. If it was good enough for the pioneers of the 19th century, it's good enough for us!]
It is clear that an overwhelming majority of Americans oppose partial birth abortion. The Supreme Court will hear the arguments for the 2003 law banning partial birth abortions this Fall and the court's possible 5-4 decision upholding such a law will probably be issued before the 2006 elections.
Vagina MonologuesEr... context dearie, context. The woman is describing her first sexual experience at age 13 at the hands of a 24-year-old woman. Is it rape? Yes, even though the 13-year-old consented. Is it a message that consensual statutory rape is good? Apparently the 13-year-old who grew up to write it thought so... but in the context of the play she's just describing her sexual experiences. It's no more "promotion" of rape than, say, an individual voting for George W. Bush is promoting of torture, my Christian friend.
I wanted to pass along information about an event at Boise State University this Friday. I was recently contacted by a group of concerned BSU students who informed me that the Women's Center is sponsoring and promoting a production called The Vagina Monologues. To promote this production the Women's Center has sold vagina shaped lollipops on campus! Is this what higher education is about? [Eek! Vagina shaped lollipops! Everyone knows lollipops are supposed to be testicle shaped and popsicles are supposed to be penis shaped!]
The Vagina Monologues is quite vulgar as women describe their sexual experiences. One portion of the show includes a 13 year old describing her rape by a lesbian as a "good rape." This message that rape or molestation can be good is absolutely sick.
Jessica Bruton with the campus group Network of Enlightened Women, Brandon Stoker the President of College Republicans and Jon Sawmiller with the Conservative Student Coalition are coordinating an event to speak out against this production. It seems that BSU students are fed up with the one sided agenda being pushed by the BSU "elite." Many students are alarmed by the obscene nature of the performance.Here's a radical idea: don't go see the f*cking play! Have you considered that the BSU "elite" (why is it rich conservative people with country club memberships and penthouses always refer to poor liberal college professors as "elite"?) may just be putting on popular, award-winning plays that might draw an audience? I can understand how uptight conservative Christians get their knickers in a bind about women being unashamed of sex and sexuality and openly talking about the parts that God created on them, but why are they so uptight about other people who aren't uptight about it?
This passionate group of students (motivated to take a stand on their campus) are inviting the public to join them demonstrate against the Friday night presentation of the Vagina Monologues.
The education and awareness demonstration will be this Friday, February 24th at the Student Union Building Special Events Center. They will be meeting in the Cataldo room of the SUB at 5:45, then march to the demonstration at 6:15. The event will be from 6:15 pm to 7:15 pm.
Oh, beautiful body! You are as LORD God created it. Pure and supple, strong yet yielding, my golden hair to my pedicured toes. You are my gift from God, pledged to Jesus, a sacred temple into which no offending substances may enter, no offending thoughts may harbor, and no boys may touch.
You are a marvel of God's creation. From my smiling face and sparkling eyes, to my lithe arms and flat stomach, to my hips and belly that, someday, God willing, will be fruitful and multiply, to my... Eeek! Oh, disgusting! It's slimy! Ick! Gross! Gag me with a spoon!
South Dakota is going full steam ahead with womb control measures (and, sorry Ohio, you're on deck again -- more later), with an onerous bill that solidly cleared its Senate in a 32-12 vote. The state is the first to pass a law banning abortion under almost any circumstance, and the intention is to force the long-desired Roe v. Wade showdown in the Supreme Court for the Christofascists.
House Bill 1215 would ban most abortions in South Dakota. It now goes back to the House, which passed an earlier version and must now decide whether to accept changes made by the Senate. The bill would then go to Gov. Mike Rounds.Shakes Sis, Amanda at Pandagon, and Jill at Feministe weigh in. Shakes:
Republican Sen. Bill Napoli of Rapid City said, "This bill is as straightforward and as honest as it can be. It just says no more abortions unless the life of the mother is threatened." Republican Sen. Tom Dempster of Sioux Falls said, "This bill ends up being cold, indifferent and as hostile as any great prairie blizzard that this state has ever seen.''
Democrat Sen. Julie Bartling of Burke said the time is right for the ban on abortion. "In my opinion, it is the time for this South Dakota Legislature to deal with this issue and protect the rights and lives of unborn children," she said during the Senate's debate. "There is a movement across this country of the wishes to save and protect the lives of unborn children." Republican Sen. Stan Adelstein of Rapid City had tried to amend the bill to include an exception for abortions for victims of rape. The amendment lost 14-21.
This issue is not just about women who may, at some point, want or need abortions. It's about all women-and our standing in society, our autonomy. Control over my own body, of which legalized abortion is a significant part, is part of how I define and understand myself and my role in our culture. Taking that away from me is taking away a part of myself, and make no mistake, that's what this fight is really about.Amanda's post title says it all - "South Dakota women might as well die for fucking":
Between abstinence-only "education", anti-contraceptive activism and laws banning women from terminating life-threatening pregnancies, it appears the wingnut opinion on the proper lifecycle of the womb-body is-one begins as a bright-eyed, innocent virgin, loses your virginity in some weird post-wedding masculinity rite, preferably with maximum blood, fall pregnant immediately, and then die in childbirth so everyone can remember you fondly. God apparently fucked up, as far as the Wingnutteria is concerned. If he was thinking correctly, then he would have made women more like actual flowers, who reproduce and then wither away.Jill nails it:
This ban additionally states that "life begins at the time of conception," which again demonstrates that politicians probably shouldn't be making laws about medicine when they have no idea what they're talking about (hello there, "partial-birth" abortion!). "Conception" isn't a medical term. Fertilization is, but pregnancy doesn't start at fertilization - it starts at implantation. And if "life" in South Dakota starts at "conception," they're going to have a skyrocketing miscarriage rate, as about half of fertilized eggs naturally don't implant in the uterus and get flushed out. Perhaps the next initiative will require women to save their used tampons and pads, or at least give them a proper burial, considering the possibility that there's a baby on them.If that bold move by South Dakota doesn't take your breath away, take a look at this morally ambiguous doozer out of Ohio, H. B. No. 287, which attempts an end-run under the guise of "protecting" doctors. Hat tip to Blender tarminian, who wrote:
The purpose of this bill is to exempt the Amish (or other religious sects) from rules and regulations on freestanding birth centers.In this bill, parents can still sue if the doctor purposefully withholds information parents might need to determine whether or not to seek abortion if there is a tragic defect of some sort, but this bill clearly is chipping away at reproductive freedom if a doctor can say that a "mistake" was made in diagnosis of a severely troubled pregnancy. From a story in the Columbus Dispatch.
Along the way one of the Ohio wingnuts added language that will exempt these centers from being sued if "because of an act or omission an abortion was not performed". So, basically if the doctor doesn't provide information to the client that their baby has any number of conditions that would be problematic or incompatible with life after birth they have no ability to get legal remediation for the mistake.
A proposal that wraps medical malpractice and abortion controversies into the same package passed a Senate committee yesterday and could potentially pass the full Senate next week.
...If approved, Ohio would become the seventh state to prohibit wrongful-life or wrongful-birth lawsuits, where parents sue a doctor for failing to provide them proper information about the birth defects of a fetus. In two such cases pending before the Ohio Supreme Court, mothers said that if doctors provided them with the proper information, they would have terminated the pregnancies.
But Anne Valentine, a Columbus lawyer speaking for the Ohio Academy of Trial Lawyers, said the proposal lets doctors off the hook for making mistakes. Under the bill, a doctor that misreads a test result or performs the test improperly could not be sued if a child is born with a defect that should have been caught. The amendment, attached to an unrelated bill dealing with licensing birthing centers, would still permit a lawsuit if the doctor willfully withholds information about a medical diagnosis.
The bill provides no recourse for a family that must deal with the emotional and financial trauma of raising a child with potentially painful, debilitating, or fatal birth defects that, because of a doctor’s mistake, were not discovered sooner, she said. "Information about the health of a fetus has ramifications for a family that most of us cannot fathom," Valentine said.
...Valentine noted that abortions are legal, and legislators were protecting doctors who deny parents the chance to make a legal choice.
A Kentucky white supremacist is exercising his first amendment right to spew his agenda on cable access, but Insight Communications, the cable company, has shuttled the broadcast from primetime to midnight because of the bad PR surrounding the programming. Ransdell is a real winner. (Cincinnati.com):
Public access gives a video stage to everyone from government leaders to teachers. But something else is being channeled through the airwaves in Northern Kentucky.Sweet. I think more of Ransdell's views need to be seen. After all, he shares political opinions held by the some of the Republican base that has been courted by the Rove machine. Read and see, despite the outrageous, coarse expression of racism, homophobia and anti-Semitism, how some of the views sound mighty familiar...I could be right in Freeperville, or LGF.
With a cardboard sign and microphone, Robert Ransdell advocates a white separatist agenda during his own primetime slot. "The purpose of the program is to make white Americans aware of some things they might not be aware of in this community," Ransdell said.
..."In the next couple of weeks we're going to be airing some educational cartoons," Ransdell said. "We have cartoons that are meant to educate people about what has happened in this country."
MTV has morphed in the past five to ten years however. Many of you probably avoid MTV altogether and you may not have noticed the changes or you may only be partly aware of what young White teenagers are being fed by Sumner Redstone and his ilk these days.Is this a vote Karl Rove and Ken Mehlman counts as part of "the base" of their party? They'll never admit it, but the leap from this guy to the likes of Don and Tim Wildmon at the American Family Association -- which has a hotline to the White House and the Republican leaders on the Hill on speed-dial -- is a small one indeed. Looks at the filth the AFA puts its reputation behind:
There are hardly any music videos anymore. Instead the Jew Redstone and his MTV network has put our children on a steady diet of degenerate, racially and morally destructive programming that focuses on social relationships and dating. And I mean all relationships, even those which were not tolerated by America when it was a healthy nation. Upon viewing this parade of toilet bowl programming that is currently featured on MTV, one who is in the minority of truly morally and spiritually healthy White Americans would ask, just what is next?
What is the next bit of culturally destructive filth that Redstone and his MTV network is going to peddle as fashionable programming to our young people? Well folks "Next" is next.
"Next" is a dating show that appears regularly on MTV. The gimmick of the show is to place five individuals, always eighteen to twenty-five years of age, on a RV bus while one other individual dates the bus occupants in succession. The dater can reject anyone who comes out of the bus on the basis of physical appearance or lack of compatible personality and go on to the next person. If the dater enjoys the date with the former bus occupant then they can ask the former bus occupant to go on another date with them or "take the money". The money is the dollar amount of the time spent with each other on the date. [example : 32 minutes = 32 dollars].
While the date is taking place the other four occupants of the bus engage in conversation. The conversation is always laced with sexual innuendos and other degenerate bantering. There is absolutely no educational value to this show, unless you consider learning the latest joke about your various bodily functions educational. Of course this is very much in line with all MTV programming.
You really could write a list noting all of the morally and racially destructive aspects of this show.
In fact let me list them for you.
1- The show often promotes race-mixing. Whenever a White female or male is the "picker" there is almost always at-least one non-White on the RV bus to choose from.
2- Overall the show promotes that love and happiness can be found at first sight, that physical appearance is all that matters in forming a relationship. While I defiantly believe that you must have a physical attraction present on the part of the man and the woman both for a relationship to work, it cannot work on just that one aspect alone.
3- The overall moral tone. This show does not go ninety seconds without some sort of sexual joke or innuendo.
However the most disturbing and disgusting aspect about this show is the high degree of promotion of homosexuality on the show. Each half-hour episode has two sets of "pickers" and daters. The sampling of episodes I have viewed have been almost fifty-percent homosexual dating.
You may have noticed when reading my brief description of the show a few paragraphs back that I referred to the daters as "persons" and "individuals". This is due to the fact that this show features, seriously, about half of all of the dates, males dating males and females dating females.
Most of the gay dates are male however. I will not go into detail about the perversion of the dates or the conversation that goes on between the four homosexuals that are waiting on the bus. I assure you it would really turn the stomach of any morally healthy White person.
Believe me though, I didn't decide to write an article about this show because the talk and behavior was tame. It is very disturbing. It really shows us how arrogant the Jews are right now. They are cramming some really degenerate stuff down our throats.
I am certain that the greater majority of these sick individuals would not have chosen this sick existence if the media had not been in the hands of the Jews. If it were not for shows like "Next" most of the males I've seen on this show would be perfectly normal. They have chosen a lifestyle that will probably cause them to die a horrible death from AIDS and cause them to be rejected from all of normal healthy society.
To be sure the Jewish media bosses have convinced many of our people that it is wrong to condemn homosexuality. Many people don't have the courage to stand up against this rotten sickness that has been promoted by the vermin that control our mass media.
However this does not change the fact that most White Americans have an instinctive abhorrence for homosexuals. It is in our nature to see these freaks as the demented individuals they are. And all of this is evident in the legislation that has been passed, or is pending, that restricts gay marriage and gay adoption, which is a particularly disturbing phenomenon. With the exception of a few liberal enclaves that are thoroughly multiculturalized, for the most part White America has rejected these freaks. In the privacy of the voting booth White Americans are standing up for decency regarding the issue of homosexuality.
'Bean'Bean is also working with his local MoveOn organization to launch a sHillary "NO!" campaign. More on that soon.
Registered Democrat, Monroe County
Registered Member, MoveOn Progressive PAC
Contributor, Julien's List (GLBT blog)
Rochester, NY 14615
Dear Empire State Pride Agenda Representative:
Today, I read this article about Executive Director Alan Van Capelle's decision to not support Senator Hillary Clinton in any future endeavors given her stances and policies.
The article I mention is linked to a GLBT blog, Pam's House Blend here:
Given driving out to your offices, throwing my arms around Alan Van Capelle's neck, and intimately kissing him breathless for finally standing up to a Turncoat Liberal like Clinton would be (1) inconvenient, (2) time consuming, (3) awkward, (4) likely a tad embarrassing for all involved, and (5) a rather probable way to get arrested (although, believe me, when I read the article, doing as described *WAS* my first instinct), I quelled my enthusiasm and decided to write this note instead.
A note is more civil, after all.
THANK YOU SO MUCH for finally taking a stand for GLBT liberals - and for GLBT liberals in a state reputed for *BEING* liberal, at that.
When I first moved to New York State in 2004 from a Hate State (Ohio), I was initially impressed with Senator Clinton's "newsmaker" face and comments.
As she started shilling for the Iraq war, defending her husband's DOMA legislation, cheering for CAFTA in light of NAFTA as New York job losses continue, co-supporting "Flag Burning Legislation" with a GLBT-hating-and-baiting Republican nut-job from Utah, and finally saber-rattling at Iran in the pages of Salon Magazine . . . and then she has the tasteless gall to come and ask GLBT folks for votes and money?
This series of events rather left a bad taste in my mouth.
I sincerely, vigorously, unabashedly, unashamedly, and publicly thank both the Empire State Pride Agenda and Director Alan Van Capelle's courage to stand up and say, "Hey! No more 'something for nothing, lady!'"
Please note I copied the publishers (who are, in some degree, also my friends) on this letter: the GLBT community needs and deserves to know that (1) not only did someone finally say "Enough!" to the Spineless, Self-Serving, Democratic Turncoats like Clinton who sell out their supporters . . . but that (2) one of the GLBT people you support by your work is willing to publicly support you, too.
VERY well done - and so tastefully, too: thank you! Thank you so very much!
The only possible way I could be any happier this moment is if you managed to get the South-Central Republican-Lite Carpetbagger back on a train to Arkansas!
Warmly,
'Bean
Cc: Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, via Senatorial
website
So, the FCC is considering making shit a bad word. I usually use sh*t myself when typing, but it's more of a stylistic matter rather than an objection to the word as profanity.
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission is considering a proposal to rule that the word "s***" is profane and violates decency limits in certain contexts, the source said, declining further identification. The agency has already declared the word "f***" off-limits in most cases.So is it bad for a rock star to utter a profane word live during an awards broadcast, but it's ok in a movie with a military theme that calls for salty language? What kind of criteria are we talking about up in the hallowed halls of the FCC? If you're a broadcaster possibly facing a fine, you're going to err on the side of caution, and thus there is a chilling effect overall on content they are willing to put on the air -- which is what the PTC wants.
...The expected action against television broadcasters would be the first in well over a year by the FCC despite a push by FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, a Republican, for stricter enforcement of federal broadcast decency limits.
Federal regulations bar television and radio broadcast stations from airing obscene material and limit them from airing indecent material, such as profanity and sexually explicit content, except in late-night hours when children are less likely to be in the audience.
...The Parents Television Council, which has argued for stricter enforcement of federal decency limits, warned in late 2005 that continued inaction by the FCC would lead to racier programming.
The FCC also did not take action against broadcast television stations that aired the World War Two movie "Saving Private Ryan" even though many profane words were used in the dialogue.
City officials are hoping to harness the power of dog doo. San Franciscans already recycle more than 60 percent of their garbage, but in this dog-friendly town, animal feces make up nearly 4 percent of residential waste, or 6,500 tons a year — nearly as much as disposable diapers, according to the city.Imagine how much fuel economy the U.S. could achieve if we bagged and burned all the sacks of bullsh*t coming out of the politicians' mouths in Washington.
Within the next few months, Norcal Waste, a garbage hauling company that collects San Francisco's trash, will begin a pilot program under which it will use biodegradable bags and dog-waste carts to pick up droppings at a popular dog park.
The droppings will be tossed into a contraption called a methane digester, which is basically a tank in which bacteria feed on feces for weeks to create methane gas.
The methane could then be piped directly to a gas stove, heater, turbine or anything else powered by natural gas. It can also be used to generate electricity.
Blender Mykull sent this my way...a surreal interview about gays and Hollywood on The O'Reilly Factor, of all places, with Tab Hunter, who has an autobiography out about his glory days in Tinseltown (and in the closet), and Harry Hamlin, who starred in the ahead-of-its-time gay-themed Making Love (1982).
O'REILLY: But they want to believe that a Tab Hunter and a Harry Hamlin are actually romancing the girl.
HUNTER: But you are.
O'REILLY: But you're not if you're really gay.
HUNTER: But it's all Hollywood. It's all make believe anyway. It's all a lot of B.S., as you know.
O'REILLY: Go ahead, Mr. Hamlin.
HAMLIN: I believed that, too, when I made "Making Love." And I'm an actor, a repertory theater actor. I played this role, thinking, well, I'm just playing a guy, I'm playing a role, and I'll be able to get away with this. People won't confuse me with the person that I'm playing.
It's so weird that when you play a role that has a different sexual orientation, they seem to cross over, and they don't get it. You could play an ax murderer or you could play a rapist or whatever and get away with that, but for some reason when you cross the sexual boundary, it makes a difference.
O'REILLY: I'm with you.
HUNTER: That is a good point because they do associate you, though, basically with what you play on the screen. I mean, they do.
O'REILLY: They do.
HUNTER: They do.
O'REILLY: And they want to believe it. They want to believe it. But we are in a different world. And Ledger and Gyllenhaal aren't going to be hurt, I don't think. I think that picture will win.
This is so tiring -- what do they want on the air -- 24/7 of 700 Club? One of the many tentacles of the Wildmon's American Family Association, OneMillionMoms.com, is calling Desperate Housewives "one of the most vulgar and tasteless programs on television." And with that, OMM plans a one-year boycott of advertisers.
"We want to identify companies that sponsor 'Desperate Housewives' and ask moms not to buy their products for a period of one year," said Donald E. Wildmon, chairman of OneMillionMoms.com, in a statement. "So instead of boosting sales because of their sponsorship of the program, the company or companies selected will lose sales.
"ABC says the show is watched by 15 million people each week. That means that 265 million don't watch the show but still end up paying for it by the products they buy," he said.
Wildmon says he doesn't buy the argument that people who don't like a particular show should simply turn off their TV. "Will they also tell us that if we don't like drunk drivers on the highway to stay off the highway? Sure we can turn the TV off. But why should we have to do that? Why do our children need to be exposed to such trash? Why do the networks keep putting out trash and more trash?"
A well-known country music singer has jumped on the homosexual cowboy "bandwagon" with the release of the first "homosexual cowboy" song. The hoopla over the homosexual cowboy flick Brokeback Mountain has spilled over into the music scene with Willie Nelson's release of "Cowboys Are Frequently Secretly Fond of Each Other."To delve more deeply into the help Stephen can give you to avoid that bandwagon, he's prepared a special 4 CD audio series, TESTIFY! (for $35). Look at some of the scintillating offerings of personal testimony...
Stephen Bennett, a former homosexual and a Christian evangelist, had this reaction to the song's release. "I think Willie Nelson's braids are pulled too tight," Bennett says. The ministry leader suspects Nelson is just taking advantage of the "gay western" fad. "I don't understand why everybody is jumping on the bandwagon of homosexuality," says Bennett. "It is like the 'in thing' today. And, of course, with this movie Brokeback Mountain, everybody is jumping in now to do what they can to capitalize on this newest, latest fad that people are accepting." The founder of Stephen Bennett Ministries is now a married man with children who has found his career in Christian music.
* A Faithful Friend - The Story of Kathy (The Woman Who Led Stephen Bennett to Christ)And his ministry is there to help keep you from falling off the het wagon...
* A Real 'Wonder Woman': The Deliverance of Linda Carter from Lesbianism
* A Senior Citizen Set Free from Lesbianism: The Testimony of Janet
* From 'Drag' to Riches: The Testimony of Jerry
Stephen Bennett Ministries, Inc. (SBM) serves several purposes. First and foremost, SBM encourages men and women to successfully and permanently overcome their unwanted same-sex attraction (SSA.) SBM firmly believes no one is born homosexual; that inmost cases, unnatural homosexual attractions tragically develop early on in the childhood; and by biblically dealing with the root cause(s) of one's same-sex attraction, homosexuality can be completely overcome - just as drug addiction, alcoholism or any other sinful behavior. Men and women can then effectively move on to healthy heterosexuality - as part of God's natural, perfect design and plan for man and woman.
CNN's Andrea Koppel reports: "The Dubai-based company at the center of a controversy over the management of six U.S. seaports has hired former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole to lobby on its behalf against bipartisan criticism of the deal, a Dole aide said Wednesday.
"The 1996 Republican presidential candidate was "engaged" by Dubai Ports World shortly after lawmakers on both sides of the aisle began expressing their strong opposition to the deal, said Mike Galloway, an aide to the retired senator.
..."Dole is a special counsel in the Washington office of the law firm Alston & Bird. DP World hired the firm in 2005 to help shepherd its purchase of the British-based firm Peninsular and Oriental, which currently manages the U.S. ports, Galloway said.
British Pol Advises American Christians to Get Involved in Politics. The Christofascist tornado has been tearing across this country for years; has this dude been under a f*cking rock? Get him on a phone with the Wildmons and Daddy Dobson.
A member of the British House of Lords has told the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) convention in Dallas that biblical preaching could be outlawed unless Christians become more politically active.Let's see...the presidency...check...the Congress...check...the Supreme Court...almost checked. I don't know what's left for the goons to take over, Taylor.
Recently the British Parliament nearly passed legislation that would have amended that nation's Racial and Religious Hatred Bill and outlawed incitement to religious hatred. The measure lost by a single vote -- the vote of Prime Minister Tony Blair, who left early, confident that the bill would pass without him.
John Taylor, a member of the House of Lords, spoke at this week's NRB gathering in Texas. Taylor said passage of the bill could have led to pastors being arrested for so-called "hate speech." Unless Christians take action, says Taylor, clergy in his country -- as well as in the United States -- could fall victim to such statutes, should they be enacted.
"There's an old saying that things won't change until people change," Taylor says. "So we can moan about these [political] institutions and so forth, or we can basically get in there. We are called to be salt and light -- so why don't we take over the Senate and Congress and so forth?"
Sarah Vowell, the excellent NPR contributor with the cartoon voice (from The Incredibles) always cracks me up with her turn of phrase. Last night on the Daily Show, she let loose with this one, which I'll try to paraphrase to the best of my memory:It's amazing what a disaster the Bush administration has been. It's hard for me to even watch the news, much less research the news deeply in order to write my pieces for the show. I know it's your stock in trade, but it depresses me... you know, when I was watching Bush at his first inauguration, I was so worried about him rolling back affirmative action or pollution controls... in retrospect, I'm ashamed at what little imagination I had for how bad he could be.Or something like that. If someone can find the exact quote, I'd appreciate it (TiVo doesn't arrive until next week...)
LINCOLN, Nebraska (AP) -- Eight workers at a Nebraska meat processing plant claimed the record $365 million Powerball jackpot Wednesday, each getting about $15.5 million after taxes.You know, good for them, and I'm especially happy that hard-working blue-collar folks and immigrants get to be millionaires. But I'm left wondering, .how's life going to be back at the plant for the rest of the workers? All of a sudden you have eight people quit. That makes the remaining workers' jobs a little bit harder, doesn't it?
The seven men and one woman, introduced by Gov. Dave Heineman, all work at a ConAgra ham processing plant near the U Stop convenience store where they bought the winning ticket for Saturday's lottery.
At least three of the winners Wednesday are immigrants.
Quang Dao, 56, who like Dung Tran, 34, came to the U.S. from Vietnam about 16 years ago, said he was looking for freedom when he headed for America.
"After I hit the lottery, it also changed my family's life in Vietnam," he said.
Alain Maboussou, a 26-year-old who fled his war-torn homeland in Central Africa, said he planned to earn a degree in accounting now.
"It's too early for me to retire, but I did four days ago. I'm going to be working for myself now," Maboussou said. He said of his three-month-old daughter, Katherine, "she's going to be happy for the rest of her life."
"I don't think they have a reason to be jealous," Maboussou said of the rest of his colleagues, "because when it's a pool day, we ask people to put in five bucks. So if you wasn't there, or you didn't put five bucks in, sorry."
In a memorandum to board members, Alan Van Capelle, the executive director of the group, the Empire State Pride Agenda, said Mrs. Clinton was "a complete disappointment," taking issue with her opposition to same-sex marriage and her support for the Defense of Marriage Act.He's still going to vote for her, mind you, since, well, what's the alternative? More from an article on 365gay.com:
...In his memo, which was reported on Tuesday on the Politicker Web site of The New York Observer, Mr. Van Capelle said that he refused to "lend my name and sell tickets" to any fund-raiser sponsored by a gay group for Mrs. Clinton's re-election campaign.
"We have become a community that throws money at politicians, and we demand nothing in return. And that's what we get: nothing. It's the wrong message to send."Educating her? What's left to do, man!? She's aware of the issue. Her support for civil equality regarding marriage is a no-go because it interferes with her political ambitions, period.
The Senator's staff disputes Van Capelle's position, saying she has always been a strong supporter of LGBT rights. New York State Senator Thomas K. Duane (D-Manhattan) who is openly gay, said that Van Capelle's position was strident.
Duane told the New York Times that Clinton was a strong advocate on LGBT issues, noting that she has helped secure federal funding for critically important programs, including AIDS treatment.
"Would we like her to be 100 percent on the marriage issue? Yes," he said. "But it's important for us to continue educating her on the issue."
Republican gubernatorial candidate Ken Blackwell's new cable TV and radio ads attacking opponent Jim Petro are so bare-knuckled that the chairman of Blackwell's own party has called them "smear tactics."Sadly, I think Ohio's GOP has been burning its political house down quite well on its own -- before Blackwell came and sprayed on the kerosene.
"Ken Blackwell should have a better strategy for winning this primary than simply burning down the house," Ohio GOP Chairman Bob Bennett said.
But Blackwell said Tuesday he has no intention of changing the tone of the ads or his campaign, and charged the chairman was playing favorites. "I'm the chairman's prodigal political son," Blackwell said. "(Ohio Gov.) Bob Taft and Jim Petro are his favorites."
...The Blackwell TV ad, seen on cable systems around the state but not in the Cincinnati market, takes aim at both Taft and Petro, attempting to tie Petro, the Ohio attorney general, to the ethical lapses of the governor and the "coingate" scandal.
In the ad, images of former GOP fundraiser Tom Noe, the subject of a 53-count indictment this month, and Taft, convicted of misdemeanor offenses last year, are followed by a grim-looking photo of Petro and a voiceover that says Petro "has used the special counsel program as a fundraising ATM."
It's bad enough that all the usual checks on big national security deals like this were bypassed, it's worse that the Secretary of Defense had no idea what was going on, but it is unfathomable that the President himself would be unaware that operations at six American ports had been sold from the British to the United Arab Emirates (motto: enjoy our beautiful beaches and relax before your next jihad destination!).WASHINGTON - President Bush was unaware of the pending sale of shipping operations at six major U.S. seaports to a state-owned business in the United Arab Emirates until the deal already had been approved by his administration, the White House said Wednesday.
Defending the deal anew, the administration also said that it should have briefed Congress sooner about the transaction, which has triggered a major political backlash among both Republicans and Democrats.
Bush on Tuesday brushed aside objections by leaders in the Senate and House that the $6.8 billion sale could raise risks of terrorism at American ports. In a forceful defense of his administration’s earlier approval of the deal, he pledged to veto any bill Congress might approve to block the agreement.
I've been writing about the battle between the progressives and the poll-watching triangulating 36-year-losing-streak so-called moderate DLC types for some time now. HuffPo's Bob Burnett sees some of the same issues:Paraphrasing Bob Dylan, “Something’s happening, but you don’t know what it is, do you Mr. [Brooks]?” The N.Y. Times conservative pundit [David Brooks] has unwittingly wandered into the middle of a fight for the heart of the Democratic Party. A battle between tactics-based apparatchiks and values-based loyalists. Between the DC-based Dem “intelligentsia” and those of us who inhabit the real world.
This is a fight that has great bearing on what should be the Democrats’ signature issues—national security. Unbeknownst to most voters, the Dems have actually prepared a sensible plan for protecting America. Only the public can’t see it because they don’t trust the Dems anymore than the trust the GOP. The latest Gallup poll “On dealing with corruption in Government,” found that only twelve percent of Americans saw the Democratic Party as more trustworthy than Republicans.
Ironically, the fight for the heart of the Democratic Party will not be decided by the issue of Iraq or the Economy or the other issues vying for media attention. This fight will be about morality. What set of values will the Democrats embrace?
Daddy Dobson's "ex-gay" road show, Love Won Out, is heading to St. Louis on Feb. 25. One of the organizers and host of the program, LWO's Mike Haley, says there will be record-breaking attendance at the conference.
"We could not be more pleased with the response," said Mike Haley, host of Love Won Out and a former homosexual. "We will have people coming from at least 23 different states on Saturday, and we're set to break our all-time record with more than 1,300 attendees.You know what that means -- all the gay bars will be packed with partiers, friends. At the very least, I'm sure the LWO folks will be there doing homo research, a la LaBarbera.
In an attempt to unseat U.S. Senator Rick Santorum in this fall's election, Pennsylvania Democrats have selected a pro-life candidate to appeal to the state's values voters. The Democrats hope their candidate, Bob Casey, Jr., will help them re-connect with pro-family citizens.Casey is one of those "New Dems" that the party is in love with these days, so there's not much for progressives on that front; the only real plus is that he supports laws banning discrimination based on sexual orientation -- a clear distinction he's decided to draw vs. man-on-dog Santorum. No wonder the gay bomb is being lobbed.
However, Diane Gramley of the American Family Association of Pennsylvania says Casey has made a huge blunder by agreeing to be the keynote speaker at a fundraiser sponsored by the Human Rights Campaign, the largest homosexual advocacy organization in the world. "He touts himself as a pro-life Democrat; that is one reason why the Democratic Party has fallen in line behind him so readily," Gramley says, "because, of course, Senator Santorum is pro-life, so they're thinking [they've also] got a pro-life candidate."
But now, the pro-family spokeswoman notes, "Bob Casey Jr. is scheduled to speak at a Human Rights Campaign black-tie gala." What that means, she explains, is that as Casey addresses the crowd at the $175 per plate dinner, "part of the proceeds from that will be used to fight our Marriage Protection Amendment that was just introduced here in Pennsylvania on January 24." Meanwhile, Gramley says Casey's devotion to pro-life issues also leaves room for doubt because she cannot seem to find any comments on pro-life issues on his website.
If you are a believer who vocally opposed the event, I would encourage you to find someone who went and hear for yourself what it really was. If you are someone who is homosexual and opposed the event, contact some of the activists who attended and hear for yourself what really went on.For the record, I didn't oppose the event; I just thought it was hysterical and over-the-top. After all, the rainbow sticker and the "we're taking it back!" message pretty much says it all -- the guy protests a bit too much. These clownish events need the light of the exposure upon them.
When I was a young person struggling with same-sex attractions, I often tried to decode behavior around me. How did normal guys operate? How did they greet each other? How did they walk, laugh, dress and how could I copy them?Now back to Crouse's claim that the event had nothing to do with gay-bashing and was only about men exploring their Dobson-approved manliness and connection to the Creator. Peterson saw something quite different going on.
If I were my queer youth self sitting in the Mr. Hetero audience, here are some of the messages that I would have heard.
The Events
The Best Use of Duct Tape
Highlights: men demonstrated how they used duct tape to remove lint from their clothing, trim down unsightly body hair and clean the gunk out of their belly buttons.
What I learned: Straight men value self grooming albeit in a primitive fashion.
Name the Food
Where blindfolded straight men identified different junk foods by tasting them.
Highlight: When Jimmy identified the first item to be Lays Original Potato Chips, Pastor Tom Crouse was not going to let that past. As a literalist, he wanted to hear Lays Classic. The crowd pressured him into relenting.
What I learned: Straight men value junk food and have leanings towards being literal when it comes to written texts.
Wedding Proposal
Where men demonstrated how they proposed to their wives or how they will propose to prospective wife.
Highlight: After hearing some pretty lame and self-centered proposals (and cute ones too) contestant Pat, stole the show. He hopped off the stage, knelt before his wife seated in the front row and proposed to her anew thanking her for being so patient with him then he expressed his commitment to a partnership where they help each other grow in life, love and faith. A stunning moment of healthy relating. Many women in the audience (oh and me too) dabbed the tears away from our eyes.
What I learned: Most straight men don't know how to talk to women yet somehow stumble along, but some may genuinely care about healthy, loving partnerships. (Hey so do I!)
Talent
Highlight: The crowd went wild when Jimmy belted out a 1980's rock anthem. Lots of other performances, some less than noteworthy, but all done with heart.
What I learned: Straight men can be goofy and even play with queer themes, but only as part of an act.
Strength (or tearing up Oprah's O magazine).
Tom Crouse totally backpeddled on this one. He said he didn't understand what the fuss was about in the press. He claims he chose Oprah's magazine simply because it was the thickest one. Lame, lame, lame and it sounded like a lie. This event wasn't about strength, if it were, then why did each man get just one magazine to tear up? It was a symbolic gesture. (yes and they also tore up one Sports Illustrated, but not the coveted swimsuit issue).
This event was NOT about strength. It was about power and the fear that power is being lost to folks who shouldn't have it.
The entire audience was white, except for the young Black minister imported from Springfield, MA who endorsed the event with an opening prayer.
I've heard white folks talk with derision about Oprah for years. Why? I reckon it is because she is a strong, independent, successful, unmarried rich Black woman who gets women to talk to each other about the issues and their lives (oh, and gets lots of folks to read books). But Tom Crouse cannot say this from the platform or behind the mic (and perhaps he hasn't even articulated it for himself yet but lives with a vague disdain for Oprah without ever investigating what it is all about).
What I learned: some straight white men choose to do something that is offensive, doggedly stick to it,then think they can get away with a thoughtless and disingenuous explanation about it,(and most often they do).
The real danger that was preached to us (and put on the big screen and t-shirts) is that heterosexuality is designed by God, and in effect everything else is deformed, defective and demonic.The rest of Peterson's post is moving and personal as he engages with young people who attended the event, and describes the painful and damaging messages sent by people like Crouse. Another post with more thoughts on the Mr. Hetero Contest by Peterson is here. He also points to another on-the-scene report from the Worcester Independent's Mike Benedetti. Here are snippets that made me laugh out loud:
Hearing that message explicitly and implicitly, it is no wonder that 22-year-old Jonathan, raised in the church with a preacher father, lived a double life for years, hiding his same-sex attractions. Imported from a Bible school many hundreds of miles away, Jonathan shared his testimony with us of how he repented of homosexuality.
I have no doubt that he has repented, but I feel pretty sure that like the hundreds former "ex-gays" and handful of current "ex-gays" I know, he still struggles with same-sex attractions. But he knows that to survive in his heteronormative Christian family, church and college, he has to live free of homosexuality or at least proclaim that he is free.
Sadly when he slips up one too many times or even begins to questions things, he will most likely find himself on the outside, maybe even homeless. (yes, it happens all the time in good Christian homes and many queer Christian youth end up taking their own lives).
One could not help but note three major Hetero things that were missing from this pageant:Hat tip, Christine.
* The Three Stooges
* Procreation
* Anything that might lead to procreation
...Crouse described the Mr. Hetero competition as the "First ever. Last ever too, the way this one is going."
The PA played Queen's "We Are the Champions" and Crouse sang along. (How is this resisting the Gay Menace?)
My recommendations for future Mr. Heteros:
* Make the thing a celebration of heterosexuality. Nix the stuff about being saved from homosexuality. It derails the event, and attracts protesters.
* Find some way to not have to pay $6500 for police protection. Otherwise you'll end up deep in the red.
* Hold it in a church rather than a concert hall. You're not going to get enough people to fill the hall. There was a monster truck rally this weekend, which attracted all the real heteros.
* Don't ask people to pay to watch a bunch of amateur hams goof around on stage. It's kind of entertaining, but this stuff should be free, not $12 .
A weird Supreme Court news day. First, the big story that folks are talking about most -- the fact that late-term abortions are back on the table. The battle to control the wombs of America is in full swing, and Alito stands to be the deciding vote on the matter.
The Supreme Court said Tuesday it would consider reinstating a federal ban on what opponents call partial-birth abortion, pulling the contentious issue back to the high court on conservative Justice Samuel Alito's first day.We all knew this was coming, including the f*cktard lazy Dems who didn't put up a real fight or have a game plan for the Alito nomination. We'll be paying the price for that bit of business for decades.
...It is the first time the court has considered a federal restriction on abortion, and conservatives said they expect the membership change to affect the outcome.
"This is the frontline abortion case in the country," said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the conservative American Center for Law and Justice, who represents members of Congress in the case.
...Abortion rights groups were worried, however, that the new court could make it easier for legislators to limit women's access to abortions.
"Today's action means the core principle of protecting women's health as guaranteed by Roe v. Wade is in clear and present danger," said Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America.
"This is a very important decision for minority religious freedom in this country," said lawyer John Boyd, who represents about 130 U.S. members of O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao do Vegetal who live in New Mexico, California and Colorado.
The tea, which contains an illegal drug known as DMT, is considered sacred to members of the sect, which has a blend of Christian beliefs and South American traditions. Members believe they can understand God only by drinking the tea, which is consumed twice a month at four-hour ceremonies.
A trial judge found the government's evidence that the drug is harmful was equal in weight to information provided by the sect that said its method of use in tea is not.
Roberts, in writing the opinion for the court, said the government had failed to prove that federal drug laws should outweigh the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which Congress passed in 1993 to prohibit burdening a person's exercise of religion.
...The Bush administration had argued that the drug in the tea not only violates a federal narcotics law but a treaty in which the United States promised to block the importation of drugs including dimethyltryptamine, also known as DMT.
When will the endless homo-bashing stop? The unintended consequence of passing a bill that will prevent a gay parent from visiting a child from a former relationship is that it could affect the ability of grandparents or step-parents as well. But the bible-thumpers don't care about that or the fallout by preventing gays from adopting the kids the hets won't take -- it's all about punishing the homos.
A bill to prevent a court from awarding parental rights against the wishes of the biological or adoptive parent passed the Utah House on Tuesday.Barlow claims she is now "ex-gay," converting to evangelical Christianity, and thus the lawsuit.
The legislation stemmed from a case involving two lesbians who broke up and where a judge give one of the women visitation rights despite the objections of the other who was the birth parent.
The bill was sponsored by Rep. LaVar Christensen (R-Draper) who also sponsored Utah's constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage and is involved in suit challenging Salt Lake City's domestic partner benefits.
...The case, Jones v Barlow, is now before the Utah Supreme Court.
Keri Lynn Jones and Cheryl Pike Barlow met in 2000 and were together about three years. "Probably after we were dating six months maybe, we decided we wanted to have a baby in the next year so we spent a lot of time talking to our attorney," Jones contends in court papers.
Jones contends they intended to rear the girl - now 5 years old - together and took several steps to establish legal relationship for her and the baby. Barlow disputes that she ever intended for Jones to have a legal relationship to the child.
High-five for Amy Dickinson, the Chicago Tribune's advice columnist. She slaps down a bigot who clearly doesn't know how to be neighborly to the fabulous gay folks living nearby.
Dear Amy:Hat tip, Anne.
My husband and I have lived in our quiet suburban Denver neighborhood for six years.
About two years ago two young gay men moved in across the street. They've taken the ugliest, most run-down property in the neighborhood and remodeled and transformed it into the pride of the street.
When it snows, they shovel out my car and are friendly, yet they mostly keep to themselves.
Last month I went out to retrieve my newspaper and watched them kiss each other goodbye and embrace as they each left for work.
I was appalled that they would do something like that in plain view of everyone. I was so disturbed that I spoke to my pastor. He encouraged me to draft a letter telling them how much we appreciate their help but asking them to refrain from that behavior in our neighborhood.
I did so and asked a few of our neighbors to sign it.
Since I delivered it, I've not been able to get them to even engage me in conversation.
I offer greetings but they've chosen to ignore me.
They have made it so uncomfortable for the other neighbors and me by not even acknowledging our presence.
How would you suggest we open communications with them and explain to them that we value their contributions to the neighborhood but will not tolerate watching unnatural and disturbing behavior. - Wondering
***
Dear Wondering:
You're lucky that these gentlemen merely choose to ignore you.
Your neighbors could respond to your hospitality by hosting weekly outdoor "gay pride" barbecues and inviting all of their friends to enjoy life on our quiet suburban street.
I can hold out hope that they will choose to do this, but I'm spiteful in that way. Your neighbors sound much more kind.
In your original petition to these men, you basically stated that while you value them when they are raising the standard on your street and shoveling your driveway, you loathe them for being who they are.
The only way to open communication with your neighbors would be to start by apologizing to them for engaging your other neighbors in your campaign. Because you don't sound likely to apologize, you are just going to have to tolerate being ignored.
"After careful review by our government, I believe the transaction ought to go forward," Bush told reporters who had traveled with him on Air Force One to Washington. "I want those who are questioning it to step up and explain why all of a sudden a Middle Eastern company is held to a different standard than a Great British company. I am trying to conduct foreign policy now by saying to the people of the world, `We'll treat you fairly.'"See my earlier post on the port fracas here.
Bush called reporters to his conference room on the plane after returning from a speech in Colorado, addressing a controversy that is becoming a major headache for the White House. He said the seaports arrangement was "a legitimate deal that will not jeopardize the security of the country."
...Two Republican governors, New York's George Pataki and Maryland's Robert Ehrlich, voiced their own doubts a day earlier.
But Bush said sternly he would not back down.
"They ought to listen to what I have to say about this. They'll look at the facts and understand the consequences of what they're going to do," he said. "But if they pass a law, I'll deal with it with a veto."
Somehow, homophobe Kansas Senator Sam Brownback wasn't on the top of my list of the folks I would imagine The Rotting CryptkeeperTM picketing, but lo and behold...
Wearing vests covered in military patches, a band of motorcyclists rolls around the country from one soldier's funeral to another, cheering respectfully to overshadow jeers from church protesters.Hat tip, Holly.
They call themselves the Patriot Guard Riders, and they are more than 5,000 strong, forming to counter anti-gay protests held by the Rev. Fred Phelps at military funerals.
...The bikers shield the families of dead soldiers from the protesters, and overshadow the jeers with patriotic chants and a sea of red, white and blue flags.
"The most important thing we can do is let families know that the nation cares," said Don Woodrick, the group's Kentucky captain. "When a total stranger gets on a motorcycle in the middle of winter and drives 300 miles to hold a flag, that makes a powerful statement."
...Shirley Phelps-Roper, a daughter of Fred Phelps and an attorney for the Topeka, Kansas-based church, said neither state laws nor the Patriot Guard can silence their message that God killed the soldiers because they fought for a country that embraces homosexuals.
"The scriptures are crystal clear that when God sets out to punish a nation, it is with the sword. An IED is just a broken-up sword," Phelps-Roper said. "Since that is his weapon of choice, our forum of choice has got to be a dead soldier's funeral."
Sixteen states have some sort of measures on tap to ban gays from adopting, in a continuation of the culture wars being used to drum up votes in the fall election.
Steps to pass laws or secure November ballot initiatives are underway in at least 16 states, adoption, gay rights and conservative groups say. Some — such as Ohio, Georgia and Kentucky — approved constitutional amendments in 2004 banning gay marriage.Of course it is always couched as somehow protecting the children by the wingers.
The aim is to replicate 2004, says Julie Brueggemann of the gay rights group PROMO: Personal Rights of Missourians. She says marriage initiatives mobilized conservative voters in 2004 and helped President Bush win in closely contested states such as Ohio. Republicans "see this as a get-out-the-vote tactic."
Republican pollster Whit Ayres is skeptical. Adoption, he says, "doesn't have the emotional power of the gay marriage issue because there is no such thing as the phrase 'the sanctity of adoption.' "
The article also cited recent polls indicating that there isn't public support for this kind of bigotry -- asked about a constitutional amendment to ban adoptions by gays and lesbians, 58% of Missouri voters polled in November and 62% of Ohio voters this month said they would vote against it.
"Marriage or any civil union has been declared unconstitutional (in Ohio), so why would they be able to adopt children?" asks the Rev. Russell Johnson, chairman of the Ohio Restoration Project, a conservative Christian group. "These people cannot reproduce. ... Experimenting on children through gay adoption is a problem."
Johnson led the fight in 2004 to get marriage on the ballot and vows to do the same with adoption this year if legislators don't act. The group plans to tout the adoption ban in a mailing to nearly 500,000 supporters in mid-March.
But if gay marriage unites most conservatives in opposition, gay adoption does not. Already, there are splits among Republicans.
"This is not an issue about gays," says Ohio House Speaker Jon Husted, a Republican, who was adopted as a child. "This is about children." Although he favored legislation to ban same-sex marriage in Ohio, he opposes the adoption bill and has no plans to schedule a hearing to discuss it.
"Conservatives may well overreach if they try to ban gays from adopting children," Brookings Institution political analyst Thomas Mann says. "Americans have become more tolerant of same-sex relations, and this action may strike them as unnecessarily punitive."
[UPDATE: Below I joked about the AFA having a direct line to Bill Frist's batphone. Look at this AP story, right on time: Frist Calls for Halt to U.S. Ports Deal.]
New York Gov. George Pataki and Maryland Gov. Robert Ehrlich on Monday voiced doubts about the acquisition of a British company that has been running six U.S. ports by Dubai Ports World, a state-owned business in the United Arab Emirates.What's Ehrlich smoking? Did he really expect this administration to consult with anyone before doing something like this? That would break protocol, darling. You silly governors just need to trust your Dear Leader and his competent, altruistic minions.
The British company, Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co., runs major commercial operations at ports in Baltimore, Miami, New Jersey, New Orleans, New York and Philadelphia.
Both governors indicated they may try to cancel lease arrangements at ports in their states because of the DP World takeover.
"Ensuring the security of New York's port operations is paramount and I am very concerned with the purchase of Peninsular & Oriental Steam by Dubai Ports World," Pataki said in a news release. "I have directed the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to explore all legal options that may be available to them."
Ehrlich, concerned about security at the Port of Baltimore, said Monday he was "very troubled" that Maryland officials got no advance notice before the Bush administration approved the Arab company's takeover of the operations at the six ports. "We needed to know before this was a done deal, given the state of where we are concerning security," Ehrlich told reporters in the State House rotunda in Annapolis.
You know this port issue may be the straw that breaks the camel's back. I have a friend who has many Repub and right wing friends and he says that they are going ape sh-t over the idea of handing the ports over. These people who never before would admit that anything the Chimp did was less than divinely inspired are really pissed at him now. Cheney's shooting might be fun to joke about, this might turn into the real story of the year.And Paul's right. The base is growling. The Kool-Aid drinkers, the "my Chimperor right or wrong" crowd has lost its cookies over this one. Look at the American Family Association. Don and Tim Wildmon most certainly have picked up the Bill Frist batphone and let him know this press release was going out.
Help Keep Our Country Secure By Keeping Control Of Our PortsThe Freepi are all over the map on this as well. Some are steaming mad, others are STILL trying to defend the administration. Those knuckledraggers will be the last to turn the lights out.
Normally we don't ask you to participate in issues such as this, but we feel that this one justifies your involvement.
Our port operations in New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, New Orleans, Miami and Philadelphia have been, or soon will be, purchased by Dubai Ports World, a state-owned company in the United Arab Emirates, a firm that manages port facilities. The purchase was cleared by an obscure federal panel, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, with little fanfare.
The United Arab Emirates government is generally pro-U.S., but the September 11 hijackers traveled easily through the country, and Al Qaeda-linked groups have used its banking system. Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma is pleading with the administration to reverse the decision. At a press conference outlining his opposition, he said, "Handing the keys to U.S. strategic ports to a regime that recognized the Taliban is not a sound next step in our war against terror."
Several Senators and Representatives are calling for hearings into the matter. This is a matter which deserves a full and complete hearing. Ask President Bush to override the agreement and conduct a special investigation into the matter.
To read the Washington Times article on this, click here.
Click Here to send a letter to President Bush now!
Thanks for caring enough to get involved.
Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem, Executive Chairman, Dubai Ports, commented: “This is a major step in DPI’s global expansion strategy. The acquisition will give DPI an important platform in the North Asia region, notably in Hong Kong, China and Korea and further expands our global network in Europe and the Americas. We look forward to working with our new and existing partners, customers and the relevant governments and regulatory bodies to contribute to the fabric of the local social environment.The Star-Ledger asked people in Newark, Bush supporters, about how this deal was flying with them.
...Michael Ward, Chairman, CSX Corporation:”On behalf of CSX, I am delighted to join the announcement of the agreement to sell CSX World Terminals to Dubai Ports International...Ward added that the transaction will be “another important step in our continuing efforts to focus on the North American railroad business. CSX is focused on leadership in the U.S. rail industry through safe, reliable service to customers and consistent, continuous improvement quality in all aspects of our performance.”
On any day, the docks of a busy waterfront like Port Newark can be a place to hear some of the most colorful phrases the English language has to offer.Again, envision a Democrat in the White House making a deal like this under the radar. If the Dems cannot capitalize on this as a valid national security issue, the party is toast.
But yesterday was something special.
At the mention of the Bush administration's approval of the sale of port operations to a Dubai-based company, longshoremen, truck drivers, mechanics and waitresses gushed with harsh words.
"Horrendous. Scary and horrendous," said Tom DiDomenico, a longhoreman from East Hanover, uttering one of the few printable reactions by customers at the Port Eatery on Corbin Street in Newark. "I'm a big Republican and I think Bush has lost his mind."
... As is the case at most U.S. ports, government inspectors at Port Newark are able to check only about 5 percent of the containers unloaded from arriving ships. Some experts warn such lapses could allow terrorists to sneak in weapons or other materials.
"Even now, sometimes I don't know what I'm pulling," said Oscar Marquez, a Jersey City truck driver who makes frequent stops at the port to pick up cargo unloaded from ships. "You want to turn this all over to these guys?"
Today there will be a kickoff at Harvard of a campaign by gay and lesbian veterans who are speaking out for the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." (Boston Herald):
The seven-week, nationwide speaking tour, which will begin at 7 p.m. at the John F. Kennedy School of Government's Starr Auditorium, will feature seven former service members who argue that the law keeps able-bodied Americans from serving in the military at a time when it is desperate to recruit and retain troops because of the war in Iraq.And we all know what the impact of that lunacy was. Over the last ten years, our government has wasted an estimated $363 million discharging able-bodied men and women who have received training in essential positions (for instance, Arabic translators), simply because of sexual orientation.
"A lot of people have never known a gay or lesbian person and, as a result, have all sorts of misconceptions about what gays and lesbians are like, and no idea what impact 'don't ask, don't tell' has had on national security," said Alex Nicholson, an Army veteran and founder and director of the "Call to Duty Tour."
In 1993, shortly after taking office, President Bill Clinton suspended a Department of Defense policy banning gays and lesbians from the military. The Joint Chiefs of Staff and influential members of Congress, however, opposed Clinton's attempt to permanently lift the ban.
The compromise was "don't ask, don't tell," under which the military was not to inquire about the sexual orientation of prospective service members, and gays and lesbians were not to reveal their sexual orientation. Those who did or were "found out" would be subject to dismissal.
Hat tip, PageOneQ.
Actual Freeper Quotes™
"I got good news and bad news for you. The Good news is that your protests for more gays in the military have been heard and acted upon. The Bad news is that you are leaving for Iran in half an hour to attack their nuclear sites."
"Three percent has no business trying to push around the other 97 percent. They should be thankful for "Don't Ask" because they can be left alone. That is really a right in America; the right to be left alone."
"...gay and lesbian veterans...Oxymoron."
"Please explain this to me."
"I know of a Korean war vet who is a homosexual. It's not an oxymoron."
"I agree...the don't ask don't tell Clinton policy was a bunch of B.S. I'm all for the FIBO policy...Find Out...Boot Out!"
"But, but, but they always say we know a lot of people who are homosexual."
"AIDS advocates even tell us that "Anyone can get it," when they want our money. But they say, "It's almost impossible to get it," when they want to push their lifestyle on any and all aspects of society. If the military is having such a tough time recruiting, opening up the ranks to avowed homosexuals will make it 10 times worse."
"Since their admission of their perversion means they were ineligible to serve in the first place, we should pursue all legal means to revoke any and all military benefits that these sexual degenerates might be receiving."
"these clowns are trying to give the impression that they are "macho" guys & are not a stereotype...wrong. Many years ago I worked on the General Staff & the new protocol officer could have been the precursor for "Queer Eye"!! He flitted around the hallways, giggled and everything was "fabulous"....it to the point that the general "hid him" when he had big wigs in town..."
"I have nothing against gays as long as they dont lay their perversions on me. I dont care how many times they bend over and take on their partner, why do they insist on telling me about it. Nobody knows they are queer until they advertise it. Dont ask Dont tell sounds like a good idea for every day life too."
"You know why they want out?? Because unlike men and women who recognise each other they could be standing next to another queer and not know it themselves , missing out on another chance to get their ashes hauled. They dont recognise each other and that cuts down on their opportunities."
"If the military's Don't etc. policy is repealed and isn't immediately replaced with a nohomosexualsnever policy, the military will have taken a giant step to uselessness or alternatively, a giant step to total technicalization and elimination of troops as necessary for anything dangerous."
"You are pretty slow arent you. That's the policy until 1993. It was defacto dont ask dont tell. Yes the US Military needs fasion designers, artists, actors and other irresponsible sodomists it to "round out" it's full spectrum warfare. //sarcasm guess we need the sodomites to deal with the middle eastern homos."
"The deviants want to force themselves and their life style choices onto the majority of non deviants and then have special laws and enforcement created to protect them from critcism or from the retaliation by those who are sick of their constant whinning, crying,complaining and bitching. Naturally they also want special power..special priveleges..and extra consideration for promotion. Their greed and lust for power and tyranny of the minority never diminishes,never abates..in fact when appeased it only gets worse...and always to the detriment of the mission..."
"Wow a whole 7 people. You think the military could get the job done without them? Yep."
"Sorry, if you are a veteran, there are so many more important issues you should be concerned with, besides your preferred method of orgasm. You want to serve, fine, serve, and keep your perversion out of it. The military is for self control and self discipline, not activism."
"I'd like to see a bunch of vets get together and speak out on the other side of this issue. I've read some comments here and there over the years of FR and used to have them saved for threads like these. It's obvious to anyone who is not a part of the "gay" agenda that homosexuals do not belong in the military. For many obvous reasons."
"Policy should be: Ask, and if it's the wrong answer, show 'em the door. And if it turns out later they lied, dishonorable discharge at the very least."
"These men and women have fought and in some cases died for this Country. How DARE you suggest that they are not entitled to all the same benefits as are any other patriotic American Veteran. Shame on you!
Wingnuts on parade again; major knickers in a twist over a book. (AgapePress):
A school district in Maine has reaffirmed its reinstatement of a sexually explicit book several parents want removed from the local high school's curriculum. The Orono School Committee recently voted to retain the controversial novel Girl Interrupted in the ninth grade English literature class at Orono High School.
Girl Interrupted, a novel written by Susanna Kaysen, was affirmed for use in the high school curriculum over the objections of parents and local residents who take exception to the profuse profanity and sexual content in the book. Michael Heath, head of the Christian Civic League of Maine (CCLM), says this graphic work of fiction has no place in schools where impressionable young people will be exposed to it.
"It's a book about an 18-year-old," Heath explains, "who ends up in a mental asylum and has a number of conversations with mentally disturbed people -- conversations of the most graphic sort, especially sexual. The f-word [appears] 30 times in one page, and this is being given to freshmen in high school as literature. It's absolutely horrifying."
The Institute of Marriage and Family Canada is pleased to announce its official opening effective Thursday, February 16, 2006. The IMFC, located close to Parliament Hill, is an initiative of Focus on the Family (Canada). The purpose of the IMFC is to be a think tank and research resource for Canada’s decision makers.Quist is a true believer; he spent six years as executive assistant to former British Columbia Conservative MP Reed Elley.
Executive Director, Dave Quist stated, “Today is the first step in adding a new dimension of research and background to the important policy issues that involve marriage and family. Family is the foundation upon our society. Without a strong family, society will weaken.”
The IMFC will initially have five staff, concentrating on creating and collecting research from both within Canada as well as around the world and bringing it into a Canadian context. “I am very excited by the opportunity to bring new insights and research forward to the people that shape Canada’s social and family policy,” continued Quist.
Now, however, there is a whole range of groups, all with the same basic agenda starting to congregate in Ottawa intent on becoming close to government and bent on ramming their agenda down the throats of a majority who do not share their beliefs nor their views.There's plenty to chew on in Dave's post, so go read the rest.
Tristan Emmanuel says many Canadian Christians tell him that Canada is a lost cause and that they plan to give up and move to the United States.
Concerned Christians Canada Inc, another for-profit organization has made no effort to hide their disdain for those who do not share their views. They are affiliated with Tristan Emmanuel, a dangerous homophobe and somebody with whom Harper has had personal dealings. CCCI is nothing short of a pure political movement which has been involved in the nomination and election of candidates. From their own literature:CCC will aggressively, consistently and methodically combat the liberal stranglehold on the national agenda. We will ensure that the social conservative agenda is part of the national agenda.They have been active fundraisers and the Conservative Party owes them.
Another group is the Institute for Canadian Values. They have established a "national think-tank" and profess to be a non-religious organization. Nothing could be further from the truth and their own literature contradicts this claim. Again, they promote regressive political action and the marginalization of any group who does not share their view. They have also worked to elect the Conservative Party and expect repayment in the form of legislation and regulations.
Citizen Impact Canada is a London, Ontario based lobby group which promotes an anti-gay, anti-abortion and anti-science education agenda. They have been of little consequence on the national scene up to now and they were unsuccessful in returning either of their candidates to parliament in the last election. That fact notwithstanding, they are notorious for their proselytizing and feel they have a stake in legislation which will marginalize homosexuals, women and which will introduce Christian creationism into school classrooms.
Blender Ann, who sent in the report about the anti-discrimination rally in Asheville over the weekend, passed along word that a pastor there has stepped up to challenge the bigotry on gay civil equality.
Pam,Here is a snippet of the great news, from the Asheville Citizen-Times:
Wanted to give you a head’s up about news concerning the aftermath of the rally to protest GLBT workplace discrimination in NC.
...As you know, at the rally on Saturday the Rev. Lane Calloway challenged her fellow clergy to cease performing marriage ceremonies until GLBT folks have the right to marry in NC. Well, the next day, one of the clergy present at the rally, Rev. Joe Hoffman, First Congregational United Church of Christ, took her up on the challenge. Step by little step, progress is being made, civil disobedience is being demonstrated, and hearts and minds are being won over.....step by small step.
The Rev. Joe Hoffman, pastor of First Congregational United Church of Christ in Asheville (http://www.uccasheville.org/), made the announcement in his Sunday morning sermon in an effort to treat his gay and lesbian parishioners the same as heterosexuals — a move that he believes is a first in this area.
“When I sign that piece of paper for marriage, as an agent of the state, I give (heterosexual couples) about 1,100 rights and privileges that gay and lesbian couples do not get,” Hoffman said. “I believe in equal rights for all people. As a minister, I was participating in a system that was unjust.”
...Hoffman said he made the decision on a personal level and says he is not speaking for his church, made up of more than 200 members.
“I hope it will prompt people to think,” Hoffman said. “I hope they will question what this is all about. I think for heterosexuals, it will be a small inconvenience to have a religious ceremony and then get it legalized. But I hope it calls attention to the great injustice that people who are gay and lesbian live with every day.”
As Pam noted below, the Smirking Chimp is smack dab in the middle of Operation Kick The Oil Addiction photo op tour. Will we get as much effective action from this posturing as we did from Operation Gulf Coast Three Days Later, Operation Mission Accomplished, and Operation Grandstanding On Pulverized Towers? Only time will tell, but I'm not encouraged by the lack of firefighters in his latest photographs.This morning, I want to speak to you about one part of this initiative: our plans to expand the use of safe and clean nucular power. Nucular power generates large amounts of low-cost electricity without emitting air pollution or greenhouse gases. Yet nucular power now produces only about 20 percent of America's electricity. It has the potential to play an even greater role. For example, over the past three decades, France has built 58 nucular power plants and now gets more than 78 percent of its electricity from nucular power. Yet here in America, we have not ordered a new nucular power plant since the 1970s. So last summer I signed energy legislation that offered incentives to encourage the building of new nucular plants in America. Our goal is to start the construction of new nucular power plants by the end of this decade.After I stopped laughing, I had these four initial thoughts:
Jesse Kornbluth has this great post up at HuffingtonPost today. Go read the whole thing. Here's a taste:This topic switch started with the release, by an Australian TV show, of a fresh wave of photos from Abu Ghraib. The horrors aren't random --- the "story" they tell is of systematic attacks on Islamic values. In what amounts to S&M gay porn, our interrogators strip the Iraqis of their heterosexual masculinity, then force them to reenact somebody's idea of gay scenarios.I love the first comment posted after the post: "Weissman (me)'s law states the situation. 'Men who are down on homosexuals in public have been down on homosexuals in private.'"
... That day after I studied the Abu Ghraib images, I stumbled over gay sex again. This time, it was in a conversation with a Media Guru about the upcoming Academy Awards. He saw a ratings disaster. "After Jon Stewart's opening segment," he said, "everyone will change the channel."
"What makes you think so?"
"This country isn't going to show up to watch 'Brokeback Mountain' win a bunch of awards."
... So here's my question: Why are so many Americans --- most of them living where there's no uncloseted homosexual for miles --- so full of fear and hate for gay men? (Gay women are another story; just ask any horny guy.) Why is gay sex unacceptable within our borders, but ideal to export to foreign torture chambers? Why, of all our urgent issues, is homosexuality right up there at the top?
... Then Slater suggested a more provocative question: Why are people on the Christian and political Right so angry when they seem to be winning?
I suggested some sort of twisted sexual rage --- their religions limited their sexual expression and that made them jealous of those who felt unfettered by religious constraints.
Slater had another response: The Christian Right and the political conservatives are not winning. And they know it. That's what infuriates them.
The 5,000-acre tomato field in southwestern Florida sure doesn't look like heaven. Bulldozers scrape the land flat while clusters of Porta Pottis signal an undeniable earthiness. But soon a massive cathedral will rise from this barren spot. Reaching 100 feet in the air behind a 65-foot crucifix, the Oratory will anchor Ave Maria, a whole new town and Roman Catholic university 30 miles east of Naples. Ground was officially broken last week, and the plan is to build 11,000 homes—likely drawing families who already hold the church at the center of their lives.Let's see, I would love to see a study down the road of the number of STDs and unplanned pregnancies that crop up in Ave Maria Town.
For Tom Monaghan, the devout Catholic who founded Domino's Pizza and is now bankrolling most of the initial $400 million cost of the project, Ave Maria is the culmination of a lifetime devoted to spreading his own strict interpretation of Catholicism.
Though he says nonbelievers are welcome, Monaghan clearly wants the community to embody his conservative values. He controls all the commercial real estate in town (along with his developing partner, Barron Collier Cos.) and is asking pharmacies not to carry contraceptives. If forced to choose between two otherwise comparable drugstores, Barron Collier would favor the one that honored that request, says its president and CEO, Paul Marinelli.
...The ACLU of Florida is worried about how he's playing the game. "It is completely naive to think this first attempt [to restrict access to contraception] will be their last," says executive director Howard Simon. Armed with a 1946 Supreme Court opinion that "ownership [of a town] does not always mean absolute dominion," Simon will be watching Ave Maria for any signs of Monaghan's request's becoming a demand. Planned Parenthood is similarly alarmed. So far, Naples Community Hospital, which plans to open a clinic in Ave Maria Town, says it will not prescribe any birth control to students.
About 30 students at Strathmore Secondary College last week rallied behind Year 12 classmate Stephanie, 17, after she was told by teachers to change out of the T-shirt for school photos.The part of this story that I love is that the other students showed support for the young woman by wearing T-shirts that said, among other things, "Nobody knows I am bulimic", "Nobody knows I'm pregnant," and "Nobody knows I'm on steroids."
Stephanie, who did not want her surname published, said she had worn a T-shirt bearing the slogan "Nobody knows I'm a lesbian" to school on several occasions without concerns being raised by staff or fellow students.
"I've had it for ages," she said. But she said things changed when she wore it on school photo day, sparking concern among Year 12 co-ordinators.
She was quickly asked to take the T-shirt off. "They said it was because certain parents would complain," Stephanie said.
Her mother, Susan, said she had had the controversial T-shirt printed for her daughter when she was about 15. Susan said her daughter was brave to wear the T-shirt in public and particularly at school.
"I'm proud of her," she said. "I love her and I don't care what she is."
According to WorldNetDaily, it's a woman's world. The cards are just completely stacked against you. Read and weep for your brothers in arms.
Crooks and Liars has the video.RUSSERT: Was alcohol in any way, shape or form consumed during the afternoon? And should we accept the [Vice] president’s “a beer” as literally one beer?Matalin didn’t answer it:MS. MATALIN: What Katharine Armstrong was answering is a literal fact going to the question she was asked, which is always the case on the Armstrong ranch, you don’t drink and hunt, and you don’t hunt with drinkers. And that’s what the sheriff reported, that’s what she reported. It is true that the vice president had a beer at lunch, and let me ask anybody sitting at this table who knows the vice president, has known him for many years, has seen him in social situations, he’s known not to be a drinker. But let me ask you a more logical question—you think the Secret Service would let the vice president out, tanked up, with a loaded gun, or let him be around anybody who’s drunk with a loaded gun? It just defies common sense that the press would even go there. And that’s why these adversarial question-and- answer periods set up the presumption that Cheney would be drunk, or having to deny that Cheney was drunk, as opposed to presuming what we all know, that he doesn’t drink, he wouldn’t hunt and drink, the Secret Service wouldn’t let anybody around him who is drinking and hunting.
"At about 8 a.m. Sunday, a Cheney aide called strategist Mary Matalin, who regularly advises the Vice President. The aide read her a statement about the accident that Cheney had considered releasing before he decided to encourage Armstrong to go to the (Corpus Christi) Caller-Times.
"But the statement 'didn't say much of anything,' Matalin says—not even that Cheney was the shooter. Matalin then spoke with a second aide and with Cheney's family and heard different versions of what had happened in the shooting. She decided no statement should be released amid the confusion. Matalin spoke with Cheney, and, she says, they agreed that 'a fuller accounting, with an eyewitness,' would be preferable."
This could help efforts in the Sunshine State to stop the current petition drive for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. The wingers of Florida4Marriage already failed to raise the necessary signatures to continue the amendment process, so the fact the the GOP lawmakers are going to make things even more difficult for them to gain momentum is an extra blessing, even though that wasn't the specific intent. (365gay):
Florida Republicans are preparing a bill to limit the way names are collected on petitions to amend the state constitution.The proposed amendment that Florida4Marriage was pushing would be extremely restrictive, banning civil unions, domestic partnerships and contracts between same-sex individuals that approximate those that convey with marriage.
Last year lawmakers passed legislation shortening the length of time citizen groups have to collect names - a move that a group trying to get a proposed amendment that would ban gay marriage put before voters claim was responsible for them coming up short this year.
Now GOP politicians want to tighten the law, forcing hired guns that collect the signatures to swear they registered are voters in the state and wear pins saying they are being paid to collect the names.
The aim is to prevent fraud in the gathering of signatures. The new legislation on its own has nothing to do with the marriage issue. It's more about political survival - a bid to head off a liberal group's effort to block lawmakers from redrawing political districts.
When the Rev. Larry Davis fleeced his flock, the scandal pitted family members against one another and destroyed long-time friendships and marriages.Hat tip Holly.
Most of all, critics say, the former General Motors factory supervisor-turned-preacher betrayed his congregation's trust. On Friday, Davis was sentenced to 2½ years in federal prison for bank fraud and tax evasion. Authorities said he gambled away and otherwise stole up to $730,000 in church funds over three years.
Although Ilene Shelton is still listed on First Baptist Church of Cold Spring membership rolls, the long-time member said she no longer tithes, and she hasn't attended First Baptist in the two years since the scandal broke. "I honestly don't think there's a fitting punishment for something like this," Shelton said. "I always thought that pastors were as close as you could get to God. Now I'm deeply hurt by one of the finest pastors that I have ever known in my lifetime. It's a great betrayal."
But Davis did good things, too. During his nearly 20-year tenure at First Baptist Church of Cold Spring, membership doubled from 600 to 1,200, and Davis was among those who helped bring the Rev. Billy Graham mission to Cincinnati in 2002. Like many families who once worshipped with Davis, Stuart Oehrle has mixed emotions. The Cold Spring resident recalls "the good Larry" who counseled the Oehrles during their young daughter's losing battle with cancer and delivered a moving eulogy at her funeral.
"He did a lot of good things," said Oehrle, who now attends a Christian church in Campbell County that he declined to name. "But the interesting thing is while he was doing these good things he was also stealing from the church and gambling. To this day, there are still people who will never quite trust again because of what happened with Larry. Church is the last place you expect your trust to be broken."
I guess the alternate title for this one should be "It's a Man's World, part II." This doozer was brought to my attention by my colleague at Pandagon, jedmunds.
Oh, his wife didn't sign this real piece of work; she did, however, provide this little document to the cops.
This country, as you know, is filled with the deranged. And then there's Travis Frey, a 33-year-old Iowa man who is facing charges that he tried to kidnap his own wife (not to mention a separate child pornography rap). Frey, prosecutors contend, apparently is a rather demanding guy. In fact, he actually drew up a bizarre four-page marriage document--a "Contract of Wifely Expectations"--that sought to establish guidelines for his spouse in terms of hygiene, clothing, and sexual activities. In return for fulfilling certain requirements, Frey offered "Good Behavior Days," or GBDs. Each GBD, Frey wrote, could be redeemed by his wife to "get out of doing the things" he requested daily.
Hygiene & Self-careWhen Mr. Frey is sentenced to some time in the clink, what kind of contract will he be signing when he becomes some burly inmate's b*tch?
You will shave every third day, which includes underarms, chest, legs, and public area (navel to anus), all areas are to be completely clean shaven. Above your vaginal slit you may have a patch of pubic hair in any shape, that must be centered above your vaginal slit, it will measure no greater than 2.0? X 1.0?, and will maintain a hair lenth of less 1/3?.
Clothes & Other Apparel
You will wear only thigh-highs & garters, and only thong panties. The only exception would be during your menstrual cycle, at which time you could wear either or both. Half of your shoe purchases will be high-heels, 2? or more. You will then wear these high heels more often. …You be able to keep 5 pairs of non-thong panties of your choice for use during menstrual cycle.
Sleepwear & Sleeping
When we are at home … you will be naked within 20 minutes of the kids being in bed, and then sleep naked, unless instructed otherwise. If I am not home when the kids go to bed you are still to be naked before I return home. The only exception will be during your menstrual cycle.
…When we are in bed together I can cuddle, spoon, hold or touch you in any way, as long as it does not excessively disruptive to your sleep.
My-Time
When we are at home … from when you are to be naked until 12:00 am, or for three hours, which ever is later, will be My-Time. This time you will devout solely to me, whereas you will be in my service to do ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING I want, which may or may not be sexual in manner.
… During My-Time you WILL NOT:
1. Argue about anything with me or to me
2. Complain about anything to me, or about me
3. Cry, sob, whine, or pout
4. Sigh, moan, sulk, or otherwise show displeasure or unhappiness
5. Raise your voice at or to me
6. Be condescending to, or about me
7. Ask for anything from me or for me
8. Be distracted from me, by other things
During My-Time, you WILL:
1. Be subservient, submissive, and totally obedient
2. To do what you are asked, when you are asked, exactly how you are asked
3. Be cheerful and adoring towards me
4. Be close at all times, unless otherwise told to
5. Perform any and all sexual acts, excluding anal penetration and/or ingestion of cum, when told to
Good Behavior
Since there will be no trading, negotiations, or concilliations of any kind you are given chances to earn Good Behavior Days (GBD’s). To receive GBD’s you are to be totally compliant with everything requested or expected of you, and perform everything with complete and total enthusiasm. GBD’s will be given when you do things from the descriptions below when not expected…
Each GBD can be used to “get out of” doing the things request or expected of you for an entire day with the following exceptions: birthdays anniversary, shaving, and sleepwear … GBD’s can be redeemed anytime after you received them to the end of the next quarter. You must notify me by 12:00 pm of the day you are using a GBD or it can not be used.
(…)
Fellatio, Intercourse, and Other Sex ActsFellatio must last, at least, 5 min. and may include climax. Intercourse includes anal and vaginal intercourse. Sex acts can be oral, anal or vaginal, and include but are not limited too: stripping, hand-jobs, fingering, masturbation, dildoing, vibrators, and object insertions. All applications of lube to myself, you, or any object, will be done by you.
Fellatio must last, at least, 5 min. and may include climax. Intercourse includes anal and vaginal intercourse. Sex acts can be oral, anal or vaginal, and include but are not limited too: stripping, hand-jobs, fingering, masturbation, dildoing, vibrators, and object insertions. All applications of lube to myself, you, or any object, will be done by you.Photos
You are to pose for 20 photos per quarter on demand … Outfits, toys, and poses will ALWAYS be chosen by me. You must be freshly shaven on the day that photos are taken regardless of your shaving schedule…
I'd rather have my toenails pulled out with pliers than watch this. Kid Rock just makes my stomach turn (please, someone give this man a bar of soap). Stapp, btw, has been in the news recently for public intoxication while trying to board a plane at LAX.
A videotape showing Kid Rock and former Creed frontman Scott Stapp engaging in explicit sexual activity with four female fans on a tour bus has been acquired by California company Red Light District, the distributor of the notorious 2004 Paris Hilton sex tape "One Night in Paris."So, is the intention of that paragraph saying that Rock and Stapp didn't boff one another just there to clear up any possibility of homosex speculation harming their reps?
The company has launched a 40-second preview clip of the 45-minute tape at the Web sites KidRockSexTape.com and ScottStappSexTape.com and says it plans to release the entire video at some point this year.
..Joseph says his attempts to contact Rock and Stapp, who do not engage in sex acts with each other on the tape, have so far been unsuccessful. "This wasn't just shot by one person -- there were a lot of people holding the camera," he says. "Because of that, it's not necessary that we need (Rock and Stapp) to sign off on this. We left messages for them but they didn't respond, so maybe they didn't take it seriously."
She's coming to the Tar Heel State this week, no surprise, with her hat out. Bleh. (Charlotte Observer):
As Russ said, she's a "triangulating carpetbagger who's rattling sabers against Iran, pandering to the wingnuts with the Flag Burning Amendment and pandering to the bluenoses with her anti-sex scene video game bloviating."
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., will hold what's billed as an "intimate reception" in Charlotte next week to raise money for her Senate re-election campaign.
Clinton will be the guest at a $1,000-per-person fundraiser Feb. 25 at the home of Johnny Taylor, a Charlotte executive and chairman of the Society for Human Resource Management. Co-hosts include the Rev. Claude Alexander and former ambassadors Mark Erwin of Charlotte and Jeannette Hyde of Raleigh. Also co-hosting is Springs Industries CEO Crandall Bowles. Bowles and Clinton were classmates at Wellesley College.
A spokesman for Clinton declined to discuss the event, other than to say it's closed to the press and the public. The reception is to raise money for Clinton's re-election campaign. She's widely expected to run for president in two years.
Blender Ann in Asheville has been following and covering the saga of photographer Laurel Scherer of All Terrain Images, who had a business relationship with Wolf Laurel Ski Area as an independent business taking pictures of skiers and slopes. After marrying her partner in Massachusetts and returning to NC, the Asheville Citizen-Times printed their wedding announcement, and the owners of the resort area, Orville English and Rick Bussey promptly dropped Laurel (but continued to use her work). See my original Blend post on this, Bigotry in NC ski country.
Folks are actively pulling their individual and group ski trips from Wolf Laurel Resort because of their bigotry. But then again, in an article in today's local paper, they report that Wolf Laurel was so busy yesterday they had to turn people away. I hope that will change soon. Pam, it was inspiring to see so many enthusiastic supporters stand for two hours in freezing temperatures while being whipped about by the wind, snow and sleet.Here's Ann's report, along with pictures:
Yesterday here in the Land O' the Sky, the weather was horrid! The temperature hovered between 32-33 degrees along with driving snow and sleet accompanying ten mile an hour winds. Brrrrrrrrrrr!! However, it didn't stop a crowd of over one hundred peaceful protesters from attending a local rally against workplace discrimination for GLBT employees. The rally was sponsored by the North Carolina and Asheville chapters of the National Organization for Women (NOW).
The protest was planned after the much publicized discrimination experienced by All Terrain Images at the Wolf Laurel ski resort and was focused on ending workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Along with Laurel Scherer, owner of All Terrain Images, the agenda included speakers from NOW, Equality NC, supportive local clergy, and many others. In addition, a new Asheville based employment equality group, People for Employment Equality for Gays and Lesbians, was formally introduced at the rally. This group was formed by citizens who are concerned that sexual orientation is not covered under N.C.'s anti-discrimination legislation.
There were many speakers, but one definitely stood out. Rev. Lane Calloway, former state NOW president, urged the men and women of the cloth to take the bold step of ceasing all marriage services, "I ask the fellow clergy present at the rally today to stop and think about the possibility of no longer performing marriage services. You can bless our brothers and sisters that want to marry but stop acting as an agent of the state. It is the only time that the church acts as an agent of the state, no other time. So why the heck are we doing this?" The remark brought cheers and thunderous applause from the rally supporters.
Along with local GLBT publication, Out In Asheville, the protest rally was covered by the national GLBT-focused LOGO channel for an upcoming documentary that focuses on coming out in the workplace and its consequences.
Romney, attending a private dinner Friday night with 50 political activists in Spartanburg, "wanted us to think about helping him with a ground game in Spartanburg County if that came to be," Spartanburg County GOP Chairman Rick Beltram said.He has an uphill battle getting the chunk of the fundie vote that has a problem with the fact that he's a Mormon.
Romney downplayed his presidential aspirations. "My job is to activate the activists, to make sure we re-elect Gov. Mark Sanford and Republican candidates across the state," Romney said after the dinner. "Before anyone's talking about running for president, we've got to concentrate on building our base."
Romney's visit a year ago created a stir back home after he told Spartanburg Republicans that same-sex couples "are actually having children born to them. ... It's not right on paper. It's not right in fact. Every child has a right to a mother and a father."
Critics said he was trying to appeal to conservative Republicans in South Carolina even though he had backed a change in the Massachusetts Constitution that would provide same-sex couples the same rights his state's law gives other couples, but ban gay marriage.
...For instance, Romney already has donated $2,000 to the Spartanburg County GOP and gave local officials $500 on Friday. In 2004, Romney gave $50,000 to Statehouse candidates.
But moderate Republicans aren't the ones who could derail a Romney candidacy. His obstacle is the evangelical base—a voting bloc that now makes up 30 percent of the Republican electorate and that wields particular influence in primary states like South Carolina and Virginia. Just as it is hard to overestimate the importance of evangelicalism in the modern Republican Party, it is nearly impossible to overemphasize the problem evangelicals have with Mormonism. Evangelicals don't have the same vague anti-LDS prejudice that some Americans do. For them it's a doctrinal thing, based on very specific theological disputes that can't be overcome by personality or charm or even shared positions on social issues. Romney's journalistic boosters either don't understand these doctrinal issues or try to sidestep them. But ignoring them won't make them go away. To evangelicals, Mormonism isn't just another religion. It's a cult.But back to the rest of the 2008 field, folks who are also planning to troll for support through the state. Cat Killer Bill Frist, Sen. George Allen, Rudy Giuliani and Bush humpin' John McCain all plan to hit the circuit.
Democrats aren't on the sidelines. For instance, U.S. Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware will be the keynote speaker at Democratic conventions in Spartanburg and Greenville counties on March 20.
The attention is easy enough to explain. "We are the first-in-the-South primary and everybody all over the country has acknowledged that the road to the White House runs through South Carolina," state Republican Party Chairman Katon Dawson said.
State Democrats are trying to stay at the head of the primary lineup. State Democratic Party Chairman Joe Erwin says he's continuing discussions with Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean for a repeat of a first-in-the-South primary in South Carolina.
Fellow conservative religious leaders have expressed concern and even open criticism over Pat Robertson's habit of shooting from the hip on his daily religious news-and-talk television program, "The 700 Club."Crazy Pat didn't go bonkers overnight. He's been committing word vomit for quite some time now. How about more wacky wisdom from the past:
The Christian Coalition founder and former GOP presidential candidate has said American agents should assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and suggested that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's stroke was divine retribution for pulling Israel out of the Gaza Strip.
..."He is in a very visible leadership position and comments such as recent ones related to Mr. Sharon and so many others are misinformed and presumptuous and border on arrogance," said David Dockery, president of Union University, a private college affiliated with the Tennessee Baptist Convention. Dockery suggested Robertson might want to consult other theologians "before making these pronouncements so quickly."
"It puts the evangelical movement in a bad light when that happens because people make broad generalizations, rightly or wrongly, all the time," said Dockery, who also is chairman of the board for the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities.
Robertson, through a spokesman, declined to be interviewed by The Associated Press.
...Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's ethics and religious liberty commission, has said he was "stunned and appalled that Pat Robertson would claim to know the mind of God concerning whether particular tragic events ... were the judgments of God."
(sources: 1, 2, 3)
There is no such thing as separation of church and state in the Constitution. It is a lie of the Left and we are not going to take it anymore.
--Pat Robertson, address to his American Center for Law and Justice, November, 1993. Let's see, now: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." How could the prohibition against Congress making laws respecting an establishment of religion be anything but the separation of church and state?
"The Constitution of the United States, for instance, is a marvelous document for self-government by Christian people. But the minute you turn the document into the hands of non-Christian and atheistic people they can use it to destroy the very foundation of our society."
--The 700 Club, Dec. 30, 1981
How can there be peace when drunkards, drug dealers, communists, atheists, New Age, worshipers of Satan, secular humanists, oppressive dictators, greedy moneychangers, revolutionary assassins, adulterers, and homosexuals are on top?"
-- The New World Order, (1991) p.227
"It is interesting, that termites don't build things, and the great builders of our nation almost to a man have been Christians, because Christians have the desire to build something. He is motivated by love of man and God, so he builds. The people who have come into [our] institutions [today] are primarily termites. They are into destroying institutions that have been built by Christians, whether it is universities, governments, our own traditions, that we have.... The termites are in charge now, and that is not the way it ought to be, and the time has arrived for a godly fumigation."
-- New York Magazine, August 18, 1986
If the widespread practice of homosexuality will bring about the destruction of your nation, if it will bring about terrorist bombs, if it'll bring about earthquakes, tornadoes and possibly a meteor, it isn't necessarily something we ought to open our arms to.
-- Pat Robertson, The 700 Club television program, August 6, 1998, on the occasion of the Orlando, Florida, Gay Pride Festival 199
"You say you're supposed to be nice to the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians and the Methodists and this, that, and the other thing. Nonsense, I don't have to be nice to the spirit of the Antichrist. I can love the people who hold false opinions but I don't have to be nice to them."
--The 700 Club, January 14, 1991
"Individual Christians are the only ones really---and Jewish people, those who trust God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob--are the only ones that are qualified to have the reign, because hopefully, they will be governed by God and submit to Him."
--Defending his stance that only Christians and Jews are fit to hold public office, The 700 Club, January 11, 1985
"If anybody understood what Hindus really believe, there would be no doubt that they have no business administering government policies in a country that favors freedom and equality."
--The New World Order, page 219
"You don't dare say America or Christianity is a better way of living. When I said during my presidential bid that I would only bring Christians and Jews into the government, I hit a firestorm. 'What do you mean?' the media challenged me. 'You're not going to bring atheists into the government? How dare you maintain that those who believe the Judeo-Christian values are better qualified to govern America than Hindus and Muslims?' My simple answer is, 'Yes, they are.'"
--The New World Order, 1991
"There will never be world peace until God's house and God's people are given their rightful place of leadership at the top of the world. How can there be peace when drunkards, drug dealers, communists, atheists, New Age worshipers of Satan, secular humanists, oppressive dictators, greedy money changers, revolutionary assassins, adulterers, and homosexuals are on top?"
--The New World Order, p.227
"[The] feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians."
-- Fundraising letter from Pat Robertson that was an in-kind contribution to the Iowa Committee to Stop ERA, as reported in The Washington Post, August 23, 1993
"Many of those people involved with Adolph Hitler were Satanists, many of them were homosexuals--the two things seem to go together."
-- "The 700 Club," 1/21/93, ADL report on Religious Right, page 131
A Supreme Court ruling is not the Law of the United States. The law of the United Sates is the Constitution, treaties made in accordance with the Constitution, and laws duly enacted by the Congress and signed by the president. And any of those things I would uphold totally with all of my strength, whether I agreed with them or not.... I am bound by the laws of the United States and all 50 states ... [but] I am not bound by any case or any court to which I myself am not a party.... I don't think the Congress of the United States is subservient to the courts.... They can ignore a Supreme Court ruling if they so choose.
-- Pat Robertson, speaking to a group of Washington Post writers, as reported in the Washington Post, June 27,1986
Blogger is allegedly back, according to John at AB, but I'm not taking any chances.
Laurel Hester, partner of Stacie Andree, and described as "New Jersey's Rosa Parks", passed away this morning at their home in Point Pleasant. Although I never met Laurel, I will remember her for her unselfish, relentless courage - from her 24-year career in the county prosecutor's office through the most physically and emotionally painful last year of her life. Laurel always fought for justice and her bravery inspired countless others to join in that fight. Without a doubt, Laurel left the world a better and more just place than she found it.And from Michael Jensen at The Big Gay Picture, who interviewed Laurel during the height of her battle with the NJ Freeholders who tried to deny her the ability to leave her pension to her partner.
I know how many of you have followed Laurel and Stacie's struggle with the freeholder's of Ocean County, NJ. Your thoughts, prayers, and support for both Laurel and Stacie touched them both deeply. I've little doubt Laurel lived as long as she did not only because she had something to fight for, but because she believed she was fighting for every one of us. Her passing is a terrible loss, but know that Laurel died content having finished her life the way she had always lived it--doing the right thing in the most honorable and ethical way possible.Related:
On Countdown Friday night, Keith Olbermann interviewed Texas defense attorney Charles Parnham who finally said what everyone watching the coverage of Vice President Dick Cheney's hunting accident has been thinking.
Cheney acted like he was covering up crime after he shot Harry Whittington last week - not calling local authorities in investigate, not notifying the press, etc. - because he was. Parnham suggested that people who cause accidents because they were behaving imprudently were charged with criminal negligence every day. Even in Texas.
...If you look at the sequence of events after the shooting, every action taken or avoided by the vice president, his hostess Katherine Armstrong and the hunting party appears to have been part of a deliberate effort to avoid scrutiny.
ITEM:U.S. Has Royalty Plan to Give Windfall to Oil Companies: "The federal government is on the verge of one of the biggest giveaways of oil and gas in American history, worth an estimated $7 billion over five years." (NY Times, 2/13)***
ITEM: The House committee's report on Katrina is now available -- all 379 pages (pdf) and 141 appendices (pdf) -- conluding the Katrina response was disasterously "late, uncertain and ineffective." Why does Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff still have a job and why isn't everyone demanding he step down for such failures?
"I don't agree with what you did that day," Mock said. "I can't imagine placing a belt on any one of my children. But how you raise your son, sir, is your business. "My job as a judge is to follow the law, even when I don't necessarily agree with it, so as a matter of law, the court is going to make a finding of not guilty." The verdict outraged one corporal-punishment critic, who said state laws are too lax.You might recall my earlier post on this case, where Republican Malone told his son as he beat him that he just wanted to "whip the black off of" his son. (Hat tip, Holly)
"Our laws don't protect children," said Nadine Block, executive director of the Center for Effective Discipline.
A Jackson County Circuit Court judge today overturned a Missouri Department of Social Services decision denying a woman's application to become a foster parent because she is a lesbian. The American Civil Liberties Union, which represents the applicant, Lisa Johnston, in challenging the denial, hailed the ruling as an important move towards increasing the pool of qualified foster parents for the nearly 2,000 children in Missouri who need foster homes.***
"We're really relieved that the court has recognized that banning lesbian and gay people from being foster parents is bad for Missouri's foster children," said Johnston, who along with her partner Dawn Roginski had hoped to foster a special-needs child before her application was denied. "We were saddened when we found out that our loving each other was the only reason the state had for denying us the opportunity to give a child a home."
Today's decision is in line with the beliefs of 58 percent of Missouri citizens, according to a recent poll on their feelings about gay parents.
Now, it appears that the Miami janitors are about to vote to strike. Making this NYT mag "profile" truly poor form. So just as Shalala confesses in an almost satirical interview by Edward Lewine she can't do without the help making her bed every morning, U of Miami janitor Maritza Paz can't even clear seven bucks an hour and is staggering under the burden of trying to pay off her $33,000 medical bills for two life-saving operations.The interview also includes references to her new 29-foot motorboat, French antique furniture and, well, more unfortunate things that wage-slaves at the university can't relate to.
Mayor Ron Packard said the change spares the city council from "issuing proclamations on issues I consider divisive and not appropriate for our community."
...The Bay Area is sweepingly thought of as gay-friendly, but attitudes vary greatly across cities, and even streets. San Francisco and San Jose host parades, Oakland changes Lake Merritt's lights from white to pink every summer, and Mountain View declares a gay pride month. A decade ago, Palo Alto became the first city in Silicon Valley to offer registration for domestic partners.
Yet officials in Menlo Park, Santa Clara and Cupertino say they can't recall a gay pride day in their cities' history.
There's no permanent fix to restore the posts to the main page that Blogger hosed between yesterday and today, but they still exist with all of your comments at the following links:
[Note: I'm moving this post up this AM because PageOneQ also covers the dust-up started by our posts as well as this DNC press release. I've also added more commentary after the release.]
A Year of Progress for DNC LGBT OutreachComments, questions for the DNC?
To: National Desk, Political Reporter
Contact: Damien LaVera of the Democratic National Committee
Communications Staff, 202-863-8148
WASHINGTON, Feb. 16 /U.S. Newswire/ -- This week marks the one year anniversary of Howard Dean taking the helm of the Democratic National Committee. Under Dean's leadership, the DNC has dramatically expanded and improved its outreach to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities across America. Today, Dean issued the following statement on the progress of those efforts:
"In the past year, the DNC has made tremendous progress in expanding and improving outreach to our friends and family in the LGBT community. I am proud to say that, because of the organizational reforms implemented when I became Chairman, we have dramatically increased the resources brought to bear in our LGBT messaging, organizing, and outreach efforts. Under the leadership of the American Majority Partnership, our Party is moving into a new era in reaching out to our closest allies.
"The Democratic Party has never been more committed to protecting equal rights for the LGBT community. We are standing strong with the community, fighting the Republican Party's repugnant efforts to exploit the politics of fear and division and scapegoat LGBT families for electoral gain. I am proud to lead a Party that will never resort to such shameful tactics. As long as I am chairman, this Party will always help provide the LGBT community every opportunity to live the American Dream."
The following is a fact sheet on the DNC's accomplishments in enhancing DNC outreach to LGBT communities and empowering those communities in Dean's first year as Chairman:
Establishing the American Majority Partnership.
The DNC has replaced the old "political desk" system with the American Majority Partnership, an integrated approach to constituent outreach that incorporates LGBT outreach throughout the work of the DNC and seeks to identify common issues of concern to all the Democratic Party's core communities.
-- AMP is located directly in the Chairman's Office, giving outreach to constituent groups the visibility and importance it deserves and helping ensure that LGBT outreach is never subordinate to other work within the DNC.
-- AMP is implementing an expanded, institutionalized and permanent LGBT outreach program, replacing the traditional system of establishing isolated "political desks" and simply parachuting LGBT organizers into targeted states weeks before an election.
-- AMP has specific goals to address the LGBT community, including working with LGBT elected officials to develop state-specific strategies for LGBT outreach and messaging, participating in Pride and other community events, and sponsoring national LGBT political conferences and meetings.
-- By instituting a DNC-wide working group on LGBT outreach and messaging, AMP has dramatically increased the resources brought to bear addressing LGBT issues.
Investing in the LGBT Community.
In order to help empower the LGBT community, the DNC has made a significant, permanent investment in building a nationwide capacity to organize the LGBT community. This investment is being made earlier than ever before, and is for the first time intended to build a permanent capacity in the LGBT community. Highlights of the effort include:
-- The DNC is providing organizers to all 50 states and equipping them with state-specific information about the LGBT community and training in how to communicate with the LGBT community. This unprecedented nationwide commitment institutionalizes LGBT outreach throughout state parties.
-- The DNC is assisting state parties in developing state-specific messaging and outreach on LGBT issues.
Extensive Consultation with LGBT Community Leaders
Under Dean's leadership, the DNC has maintained the Democratic Party's open door policy with our allies in the LGBT community, and expanded its efforts to build collaborative relationships with LGBT organizations, elected officials and community leaders.
-- In his first three months as party chair, Dean met with over 30 LGBT leaders from 20 diverse LGBT organizations to discuss strategy and reassure the community about his commitment to LGBT issues.
-- Dean and senior DNC staff continue to meet with LGBT organizers and community leaders across America. To date, Dean has met with more than 500 state and local LGBT leaders in communities across the country.
Speaking out on Issues that Matter to the LGBT Community.
Throughout the past year, the DNC and Dean have aggressively sought to stand up with our friends in the LGBT community and fight Republican efforts to scapegoat LGBT families by:
-- Assisting the successful challenge of anti-LGBT ballot initiatives and legislation in places like Maine and Oregon, and fighting Governor Schwarzenegger's veto of California marriage equality bill.
-- Issuing official statements from Dean and the DNC on matters of concern to the LGBT community, including recognition of Pride in 2005, National Coming Out Day, World AIDS Day, victories by openly LGBT candidates, and the recent hate crimes in Massachusetts.
-- Establishing a new "blog" section on the DNC website dedicated solely to LGBT outreach and current issues, highlighting the work of LGBT activists and organizations.
Say the words "gay marriage" and watch the lefty politicians scramble for a place to hide.That's precisely what all the punting has been about at the national level. The Dems want SCOTUS to make the call and take the heat off of elected officials (and prospects). Of course, as I said above, with this Supreme Court, it's a gamble we could easily lose.
Many of them secretly support the idea. But they won't risk saying that in public.
So instead of vindicating the rights of a group they supposedly support, they are burrowing into their little holes, hoping this will all blow over.
Maybe, they hope, the state Supreme Court will save them and establish the right to gay marriage by judicial fiat.
"Most legislators are rooting for that, even if they wouldn't vote for it," says Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen). "If the court says it's legal, we don't have to do anything. There are a lot of people in the Legislature hoping that's the way it turns out."
Step into Maryland Comptroller (and former Gov.) William Donald "Cro-Magnon" Schaefer's mind. Try to find something there other than cobwebs. (Baltimore Sun):
Comptroller William Donald Schaefer was unapologetic yesterday after making suggestive comments to a young female aide to the governor during a meeting of the state Board of Public Works.The sorriest aspect of this is that the woman, Elizabeth Krum, 24, suffered sexual harassment on the job (the article doesn't indicate whether this was the first incident), and Schaefer, according to the article, has a history of being tolerated by his peers (in both parties) for this kind of offensive behavior in the workplace.
The incident sent some jaws dropping and drew laughter from others in the crowd of more than 100 state officials, lobbyists, journalists and business leaders attending the session.
Responding to Schaefer's request for tea, the woman, an executive assistant in Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s front office, set down a thermal mug in front of the comptroller. Schaefer, 84, watched her walk away, then beckoned for her to return. When she obliged, he told her, "Walk again," staring after her as she left a ceremonial conference room at the State House.
Schaefer defended the comment in a profanity-laced rant at reporters after the meeting. "That's so goddamn dumb, I can't believe it," Schaefer said when asked about the appropriateness of his remark. "She's a pretty little girl." She "ought to be damn happy that I observed her going out the door," Schaefer said. "The day I don't look at pretty women is the day I die."
The comptroller briefly broke away from reporters to talk to the woman in private, but returned to say he had not apologized. "The one who's offended is me," he said, for being subjected to questions about the encounter.
McClellan ducks Cheney alcohol-related questions. Read Ron Brynaert's Raw Story article about the Scottbot at the White House briefing yesterday. When reporters peppered him (oops!) with questions about Darth's drinking, he seemed to do the equivalent of a reboot rather than answer anything.
When asked whether the Vice President's actions were a metaphor for the Bush Administration's "inability to come clean" such as the perceived "lack of cooperation" in the Abramoff scandal and Katrina investigations, McClellan responded that "only the most partisan of people or conspiracy theorists" would say something like that and that "most Americans reject it."
One reporter aggressively interrogated McClellan about Vice President's admission in the Fox interview that he had a beer four to five hours before shooting Harry Whittington. She said that it all wasn't "in a nice neat package like the White House wants," that "there was alcohol at lunch," that the Vice President's blood level wasn't checked at the time, and that he wasn't interviewed by local police until the following day.
"I don’t think you characterized the full picture there," McClellan responded, " I believe most Americans believe the issue has been covered thoroughly. I reject this characterization."
The same reporter suggested that the "average American" wouldn't be able to avoid the police or blood alcohol tests. But McClellan kept side-stepping the questions, and advised the press to look at the sheriff department's report, which said that alcohol wasn't involved, though the Vice President did have at least one beer before the incident.
There's an article and audio for this piece by NPR's Barbara Bradley Hagerty, entitled Marriage Plays Starring Role in Politics… Again. It covers the state of marriage amendments around the country and has a great interactive map accompanying it.
Changing the constitution may seem like overkill, since Virginia already has a law defining marriage as between a man and a woman. But "it's absolutely necessary," says State Sen. Steve Newman, a Republican. Newman believes that it is only a matter of time before a couple will move from Massachusetts or Vermont, where same-sex unions are legal, and demand that their union be recognized in Virginia. And while a state court might not recognize such a union, a federal court easily could.There's an interesting portion of this article that deals with what Russ and I have been blogging about today regarding the DNC and the slow-to-the-game advocacy groups like HRC that in 2004 were always caught off guard, behind the curve, playing defense, or actively running from the fight entirely when it came to dealing with the AmTaliban. Have any lessons been learned?
"We're speaking directly to the federal courts, and saying, 'States have a right to define what marriage is for each individual state'," he says. "And so when someone comes to Virginia with a marriage license from that state, it is important that Virginia acts and puts this within their constitution, where there is the most protection."
19 other states have already done the same political calculus and amended their constitutions. Aside from Virginia, nine others could do the same this year: South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Alabama, Wisconsin, Arizona, Illinois, Idaho and Colorado. This delights Republicans, who have only to look back to the 2004 election, when marriage amendments swept across the country from Oregon to Kentucky.
"A lot has changed between 2004 and 2006," says John Green, a senior fellow at the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. "President Bush is not nearly as popular. There are scandals in Washington. The war in Iraq is lingering on. And there are other policy problems. So it may very well be that Republicans will look to social issues, and phenomena like the marriage amendments, as being especially important in an environment where they don't have as many things going for them."Jeezus, it's like the light bulb just went on.
At the same time, Green says, Democrats -- and especially gay rights activists -- have had two years to think about what happened in 2004.
"One of the rules of politics is that mobilization often creates countermobilization," he says. "And in 2004, with regard to the marriage amendments, most of the action was on the right; there wasn't as much opposition on the left. And it may very well be that individuals on the left have learned a lesson in that, and may come out in force in 2006 to oppose these amendments."
..."I think we are doing things differently," says Seth Kilbourn, who heads the marriage project for the Human Rights Campaign. His gay rights group has learned some lessons. The first is to start the counterattack earlier. In 2004, most of the marriage amendments popped up in late summer, giving his group little time to react. But this year, they have 10 months to mobilize. In Wisconsin, for example, gay rights activists have set up a speakers bureau that's identified hundreds of people who will talk to their communities and civic clubs about why marriage should be available to same-sex couples.
The second lesson, Kilbourn says, is to simplify the message. "In 2004, we made the campaigns a lot about arguing that amendments go too far, that the effects are unknown, that you should be careful what you put in the constitution," he says. "But this time around, we're going to be much more direct about the underlying issue, which is marriage for same-sex couples. We need to make the case for why marriage for same-sex couples is good, why it is the true measure of equal treatment under the law. That will improve the vote."
Columnist Rips Evangelical Leaders for Becoming 'Trojan Horse' for the Left (AgapePress). You have to think hard when reading that headline, trying to imagine in what universe evangelicals would somehow be the puppets of the homos, abortionists and wanton environmentalists, but we'll get to that later.
Some of the signatories have star power, at least in evangelical circles. Among them are Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Community Church and author of the blockbuster book, The Purpose Driven Life; Duane Litfin, president of Wheaton College' David Neff, editor of Christianity Today; and Todd Bassett, national commander of the Salvation Army.Along those lines of disagreement with a dollop of unhinged railing, comes the wisdom of Brannon Howse, who is the co-host of a weekly Christian radio show, believing that the environmental initiative somehow promotes abortion and the Homosexual AgendaTM, calling the unity of environmentalists and the above-mentioned Christian leaders an "unholy alliance."
But the names of other evangelical heavyweights are conspicuously absent.
"I don't see James Dobson. Is there a more influential evangelican than James Dobson?" observes Richard Land, the president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. "I don't see Chuck Colson. I don't see Franklin Graham. So these are obviously prominent evangelicans and I -- please don't in any way think that I am denigrating anyone who's on this list -- but it is not an exhaustive list of evangelical leaders, let's put it that way."
Land, along with Colson and Dobson, wrote a letter opposing the Evangelical Call to Action because, he says, there is not consensus about climate change among evangelicals. Land says the Bible makes clear that God expects human beings to take care of the earth. But "human beings come first in God's created order," he adds. "And that primacy must be given to human beings and for human betterment. If that means that other parts of nature take a back seat, well, then they take a back seat."
"These are radical, leftist groups that have funded everything from same-sex marriage initiatives to abortion to distribution of abortion pamphlets and materials and 'education' on abortion. They've sponsored United Nations conferences on the issues of same-sex marriage and global warming and abortion."-- Brannon Howse, "Christian" columnist, on the evils of the new evangelical climate initiative
According to Howse, "evangelicalism cannot afford to take its cues from ... Rick Warren and other leaders" who he says have shown "such unbiblical discernment" in signing on to such an initiative. Those signers, he suggests, are being used for stealthy purposes.
"These liberal foundations, these globalist foundations, have simply placed a Trojan horse inside evangelical circles," he continues. "They have just co-opted some of the nation's Christian leaders to now do their bidding and to give them cover."
I write a lot. I write articles for Oregon NORML and The Oregon Herald. There's also my own blog, although not lately, since I've been swamped and have run into some roadblocks in getting it moved to a new web host. Then there is my dKos diary and the multitude of comments I post all over the web.
Some good news! In NH, it was rejected in committee. In West Virginia, there was wingnut whining. (365gay):
In West Virginia the House of Delegates voted largely along party lines in a procedural vote to kill a proposed amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman.Now a bit of bad news...in New York, though it's not the final stage:
..."Courts throughout the country are attacking statutory enactments on the definition of marriage," said Delegate Tim Armstead (R-Kanawha) who led the effort to pass the amendment. "It's very important that we do this."
A midlevel New York state appeals court ruled on Thursday that it is not unconstitutional to prevent same-sex couples from marrying.
The court was considering an appeal by the American Civil Liberties Union of a lower court ruling that said only the legislature could decide whether gay and lesbian couples can wed.
..."In our opinion, the Legislature is where the changes to marriage" should be addressed, Justice John Lahtinen wrote in the 5-0 Appeals Court decision.
The ruling follows a similar decision by an Appeals Court in Manhattan last December that overturned a lower court ruling that it was illegal to deny marriage to same-sex couples.
...New York State Pride Agenda, the state's largest LGBT rights group, called the decision disappointing but not unexpected.
"We have always believed this issue would have to go to the highest court in New York, the Court of Appeals, for a decision," Pride Agenda Executive Director Alan Van Capelle said in a statement. "We will be looking to the high court to reaffirm this important principal of equal treatment by ruling in our favor."
...he merely acted within the letter of the law that had yet to be written.(AP) West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller, the Intelligence Committee's top Democrat, said the White House had applied heavy pressure to committee Republicans to prevent them from conducting thorough oversight. He said legislation can't be considered by the full Senate because lawmakers don't have enough information.Hey, I love this new idea in legal temporal shifting! I'm not breaking the law by possessing cannabis sativa, because it may be possible "to fix" the 1970 Controlled Substances Act to authorize my pot smoking!
"No member of the Senate can cast an informed vote on legislation authorizing or conversely restricting the NSA's warrantless surveillance program, when they fundamentally do not know what they are authorizing or restricting," Rockefeller said.
It remains unclear what any changes in law may look like. Roberts indicated it may be possible "to fix" the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to authorize the president's program. Perino said the White House considers suggestions put forward by Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, the starting point, particularly his proposal to create a special subcommittee on Capitol Hill that would regularly review the program.
DeWine's proposal would authorize Bush's program and exempt it from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. That law set up a special court to approve warrants for monitoring inside the United States for national security investigations.
Illinois Family Institute Executive Director Peter LaBarbera said today that Chicago Mayor Richard Daley "has his priorities all mixed up," after learning that Daley will not even bid for the Republican National Convention, after excitedly courting the "Gay Games" and spending lavishly on the 1996 Democrat convention.Also:
The Chicago Sun-Times reports today that Daley will not join the many other cities bidding for the 2008 Republican convention, so he can focus on launching a campaign for the 2016 Summer Olympics.
..."To not even bid on the Republican convention after having a Howard Dean moment celebrating Chicago's landing the 2006 'Gay Games' says a lot about the Mayor's partisan and confused priorities," LaBarbera said. "Perhaps if this were a convention of homosexual Republicans, he would be showing some interest."
This pic is running on the IFI site with Peter's caption - More than sport: The "Gay Games" has links for Steamworks, below, and another Chicago homosexual bathhouse --where men go for anonymous sex with other men--in the "Parties & Events" section of its website. Above is the "Gay Games" float in the 2005 Chicago "Gay Pride" parade.
..Mayor Daley spent millions of Chicago taxpayer dollars to create and improve what one homosexual journalist called "America's First Official Gay Neighborhood," the "Boys Town" section of Lakeview that is marked by eleven pairs of tax-funded, 23-foot-high pillars to celebrate the city's homosexual citizens. The pillars are adorned with the rainbow colors adopted as a symbol by homosexual activists (while others resent the appropriation of the rainbow to mark behavior long considered immoral).
There has been a rift growing within the Democratic Party between the progressives who have the silly idea of picking a principle and sticking to it versus the DLC-moderate-Republican-Lite wing who are desperately trying to find just the right triangulation to woo both lovers of liberty and the knuckle-dragging pre-Enlightenment crowd.
Wake me up when we have our democracy back.
"I have certainly advocated declassification. I have participated in declassification decisions," Cheney said. Asked for details, he said, "I don't want to get into that. There's an executive order that specifies who has classification authority, and obviously it focuses first and foremost on the president, but also includes the vice president."
New Jersey's ban on same-sex marriage has landed in the lap of its high court and arguments were heard yesterday. Blogger Jay Lassiter of Lassiter's Space was in on a conference call last night debriefing about the going-on in the court.
...the judges asked just the types of engaging questions that we hoped they would:The overall feeling, coming out of the court, was that the questions asked indicated strong engagement and positive sign.
*How can the state justify baring gays from marriage?
*What compelling interest does the state have to draw the line between gays and straights?
It seemed like the Court's questions focused on 3 areas.
1) How to best interpret NJ constitutional doctrine.
2) If the court does recognize expanding the definition of marriage, what are the limits?
(eg: if we strike down the dividing line between gays and straights, is bigamy next? I should note that this red-herring-of-an-argument has floated around each case challenging the traditional idea of marriage including mix-race couples back in the olden days. In the NJ case, the Court seemed to recognize that bigamy, etc was *not* at issue here.)
3) The final focus of the proceedings asked if Gay Marriage was a matter best left to the legislators to decide. Should the legislature's preogative be underminded by a four judge majority? One judge's reply hinted that NJ has a long tradition of relying on the State Supreme Court to enforce constitutional rights.....that the court must not defer to the legislators when they (state legislators) violate their (gay and lesbian) constituents' constitutional rights.
Closing arguments were straight forward:
The plaintiffs asserted that NJ has a traditon of public policy against deiscrimination. The argument that there is a guarantee of equality in the constitution, that "similarly situated people should not be differentiated unless the state can provide a compelling reason to do so."
The state countered that the state is entitled to make the gay/straight marriage distinction based on "history" and "tradition."
Thanks Holly, this is a truly bizarre story.
Police officers fired a stun gun to subdue a man who was found in bed with the body of a 48-year-old woman who authorities said had been dead for several days.
An autopsy on Tuesday found no wounds to Sandra Warrix and the cause of her death was not immediately determined, Noble County Coroner Terry Gaff said.
...The 53-year-old man found with Warrix was being held at an Auburn mental health center on a 72-hour emergency hold, county Prosecutor Steve Clouse said. Authorities did not release the man's name. "At this time it is premature to suppose that foul play was involved in the death of Ms. Warrix," Clouse said in a statement. "Although the initial circumstances have raised questions concerning the death, it would be irresponsible to jump to conclusions."
A relative of Warrix called police Monday night, saying she had not been seen or heard from in days. An officer arriving at Warrix's home in the town about 30 miles north of Fort Wayne found the man lying next to her in bed, Chief Deputy Doug Harp said.
The man ordered officers from the house and the county's special operations group later entered the home after several unsuccessful attempts to talk with the man. Officers fired two stun gun shots at the man after he did not respond to police commands, Harp said.
It was unclear whether the man lived with Warrix, but the relative knew him, Harp said.
[Welcome Raw Story readers...UPDATE (8PM): The DNC issued a press release late today, "A Year of Progress for DNC LGBT Outreach, which outlines specifics regarding the reorganization of its outreach program. You can read it and comment here.]
Gay Democratic Party activist and fundraiser Jeff Soref of New York City said he resigned from the DNC and from his position as chair of the gay caucus in August largely because of Dean’s decision to eliminate the gay outreach desk.
"It took us many years to win that position, have it funded and make it effective," Soref said.
Soref said he told Dean "it was not credible" to simply assume that combining all constituent groups into one program without a specific gay coordinator or director would be effective because it would likely result in less attention to the specific concerns of gay Democrats.
"I thought this system could lead to us being re-marginalized by the party," Soref said in an e-mail message to the Blade. "I have seen or heard nothing since that makes me feel that is not happening," he said.
Focus On Our Core ValuesWhat did you think about the civil equality section? Oh, oops...I'm sorry, you didn't skim past it. IT'S NOT THERE.
Never Backing Down: Governor Dean has lived up to Martin Luther King, Jr.’s call to never remain silent about the things that matter. From the failed management of the war in Iraq to the moral crisis of 45 million people without access to healthcare, he has shown honesty and backbone and encouraged more Democrats to do the same.
A Clear Agenda: Working with other party leaders, we have created and begun to communicate a clear agenda for change:
Honest Leadership and Open Government -- We will end the Republican culture of corruption and restore a sense of responsibility to elected office, and we will pass fundamental reforms that make government more honest, open, and accountable to the American people than ever before.
Real Security -- We will protect Americans at home by getting serious about homeland security, and address the real threats abroad by capturing or killing Osama bin Laden and focusing on actual (not imagined) nuclear proliferation. We will be prepared for the threats of tomorrow, and we will always tell the truth to our troops and the American people.
Jobs in America that will Stay in America -- We will keep good jobs from leaving and ensure that every job in America is a fair deal. We will balance the budget, ensure that the tax code is simple and fair, and create jobs by making America energy independent.
A Strong Public Education System -- We will strengthen our nation’s public schools to restore opportunity and optimism for every American.
A Health Care System that Works for Everyone -- We will join every other industrialized country by making sure everyone has access to affordable health care. We will change a corrupt, inefficient system into one that makes sure the world’s wealthiest country is also the healthiest.
GLBT Outreach: Under the leadership of Chairman McAuliffe, the DNC in partnership with the Kerry campaign, embarked upon the most comprehensive GLBT pride outreach program in the history of a national political party and presidential campaign. During this election year, the DNC manned tables and marched in more than 75 gay pride events in 22 states, taking the DNC's message of equality and fairness to more than four million GLBT and allied voters. This year's DNC Convention was a historic one for the GLBT community, with a record number of GLBT delegates, standing committee members, DNC members, and staff.The message is clear -- the Dems are going to avoid the gay issue like the plague again. They are not interested in reframing the issue and not ready to counter the AmTaliban. The Democrats are just not "comfortable" enough to fight at the national level for our rights. Thanks for the heads-up, Howard.
Cheney spoke and he took responsibility -- or did he? (E&P):
In an exclusive interview with Fox News' Brit Hume this afternoon, Vice President Dick Cheney took full responsibility for shooting his hunting companion, who has until now been pictured as the guilty party. The interview will not air in full until 6 p.m., but according to Hume, in summarizing the contents, the vice president remained "totally unapologetic" about the long lag in reporting the shooting to the public -- and also said that he had consumed one beer at lunch that day.I interpret this act to mean (given this Administration's behavior) that by apologizing, he's hoping for sympathy and to get the media to shut this story down.
...Hume indicated that Cheney called last Saturday's accidental shooting "one of the worst days of my life," but that the vice president was certain that he handled it correctly by waiting nearly a day to make it public. He also revealed that Cheney disclosed having a beer with lunch that day, but stressed that it was several hours before the shooting occurred. [Well isn't that special? Now that this has been uncovered, what else is there we don't know?]
Ranch owner Katharine Armstrong has said no one hunting that day had any beer. The Los Angeles Times reported on Tuesday that it had been told that the hunters that day "broke for a lunch of antelope, jicama salad and camp bread, washed down with Dr. Pepper." Armstrong later modified her remarks, saying there may have been beer in coolers but she didn't think anyone who was hunting that day had any.
In an e-mail statement Wednesday to NBC News, the vice president’s press secretary referred NBC News to the Kenedy County Sheriff’s Department report on the incident, which said it did not believe alcohol use was a factor in the shooting.
At a news conference Wednesday outside Whittington’s hospital in Corpus Christi, reporters asked hospital officials whether Whittington’s blood-alcohol level had been tested. The officials responded with a "no comment."
He's going to be on Faux News at 2PM, interviewed by Brit Hume; it will air later on Hume's show. Won't that will be a challenging interview? Geez.
Vice President Dick Cheney has granted his first interview more than 72 hours after a hunting incident in which he accidentally shot a man in the face.At least we know Cheney won't claim national security this time. Or at least I can't imagine how he could tie it to the War on Terror...never mind, anything is possible at this point. Maybe Whittington had a big target on his jacket with a picture of Osama on it, and Dark Lord Cheney just had an itchy trigger finger.
FOX News Channel's Brit Hume will interview Cheney on Wednesday afternoon. The interview will be broadcast on "Special Report With Brit Hume" at 6 p.m. EST.
Apparently, I'm one of the 22%.NEW YORK - Tina, crank, chalk and ice may sound like innocuous monikers for a “party” drug but the substance that is all the rage in New York’s hedonistic gay bathhouses is eroding progress made in the fight against AIDS.Unfortunately, meth is set to invade the East Coast. Fortunately, that's where Congress is, and maybe they'll take notice of the problem, force the pseudoephedrine behind the counter (against the pharmaceutical industry's lobbying), start an international effort to track the production on the nine ephedrine labs worldwide, and put some serious money toward funding drug treatment in this country.
Use of crystal meth, or methamphetamine -- what used to be known as “speed” -- has become rife among the sexually-promiscuous in the gay community. That drug use has spurred an increase in unprotected anal sex that has alarmed city health officials and AIDS activists.
Highly addictive and readily available, the drug’s effects when smoked include impaired judgment, loss of control and a voracious sexual appetite [Voracious? How about "all-consuming unquenchable"]. Coupled with a sense of invulnerability, it creates a perfect environment for spreading AIDS, experts say.
Bathhouses, popular venues for some gay men seeking no-strings-attached sex, are the front line of the problem. Drug use, though prohibited, is widespread and some patrons stay high for an entire weekend binge, engaging in sex with dozens of partners.
Here's the AC360 blog by CNN Correspondent Susan Roesgen.
In -- in case you think this disaster is over, remember, there are tens of thousands of people without homes, families who face eviction from the hotel rooms they have been crammed in to, and still bodies unidentified and missing.
And, in Arkansas -- take a look at the pictures on the screen there -- 11,000 mobile homes that have been sitting empty in the city of hope for months now, tied up in red tape. And now, according to a Homeland Security inspector who testified yesterday, they are literally sinking in the mud.
Yesterday, federal officials said the trailers may end up in the dumpster, unused by Katrina victims. They were meant to shelter them. And they -- according to this inspector, they may be unused. The math behind this is mind-boggling. It's enough to make you scream -- 10,777 mobile homes sitting empty in Hope -- the average cost per trailer, almost $28,000 -- that's the number we came up with when we did the math, based on the numbers that FEMA has so far released -- which adds up to a potential loss of $301.7 million.
That's taxpayer money, your money, my money. Why aren't the mobile homes installed where they're needed? FEMA's rules and red tape.
I'm wondering when the Yellow Elephants are going to step up -- the Pentagon really needs them now, according to this article.
Struggling to boost it ranks in wartime, the Army has sharply increased the number of recruits who would normally be barred because of criminal misconduct or alcohol and illegal drug problems, again raising concerns that the Army is lowering its standards to make recruiting goals.
Last year, almost 1 in 6 Army recruits had a problem in their background that would have disqualified them from military service. In order to accept them, the Army granted special exceptions, known as recruiting waivers.
...There was a significant increase in the number of recruits with what the Army terms "serious criminal misconduct" in their background. That category includes aggravated assault, robbery, vehicular manslaughter, receiving stolen property and making terrorist threats, said Douglas Smith, a spokesman for the Army Recruiting Command at Ft. Knox, Ky.
The number of recruits in that category increased to 630, from 408 in 2004, reversing at least a four-year trend in which the number of recruits with serious criminal misconduct in their background had declined, Army statistics showed.
That's the actual headline. No embellishments on this story, which comes out of Spotsylvania, Virginia. Gee. I wonder how "fresh face of the Democratic party," Governor Tim Kaine, upholder of values, feels about these crime-fighting tactics going on in his state. (KSBWChannel):
Spotsylvania County Sheriff Howard Smith said he stands by the practice of allowing detectives to receive sexual services in the course of their investigations so they can catch suspects in the act.
Court documents show that four times last month, county detectives allowed women at a massage parlor to perform sex acts on them. In one case, a lawman left a $350 tip. Smith ac
