A GOP Benefactor Switches Parties - A Lesson for RPV?

With the coming fall election here in Virginia it is a safe bet that the Republican Party of Virginia ("RPV") will be trotting out its standard "no tax increase for any reason" message once again. Never mind that basic public services - transportation in particular in the non-rural areas of the state - are inadequate and in need of major infusions of money. Bob "Taliban Bob" McDonnell has said that he wants Virginia to be an attractive place for businesses to locate but he and the far right element in control of the RPV seem incapable of grasping the fact that other things besides low taxes are taken into consideration by companies looking to relocate. Top quality schools for the children of employees and good transportation facilities that are not clogged for hours and otherwise inadequate are important too and do not come about without funding. Nonetheless, the RPV crowd seems clueless to this reality.

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Another important factor can be tolerant, non-discriminatory employment laws so that employees will agree to make a move. Yet the RVP crowd - which is increasingly found in the backwards rural regions of the state - consistently works to keep in place 19th century employment practices here in Virginia. Kathleen Parker - who took huge abuse among members of the GOP for rightly saying that Sarah "Bible Spice" Palin was not ready for prime time - notes in a column how a surprising party switch was made by a formerly generous GOP contributor. While I'm sure that Howard Ahmanson and I would agree on little else (our views on gay rights are 180 egrees apart), he at least has seen the light that the no tax mantra is out of touch with reality. Here are some highlights:

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In what one might call a biblical move, Christian philanthropist Howard Ahmanson -- one of three major funders of the campaign for California's Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriages -- has abandoned the GOP for the Democratic Party.

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In a rare interview Thursday, Ahmanson shared some of his thoughts about why he switched parties. In a word, taxes. Specifically, he was offended by the California Republican Party's insistence during a recent state budget battle that there would be no tax increases for any reason, no matter what. "They're providing one issue, and it's just a very silly issue," Ahmanson told me by telephone.

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So, without fanfare, Ahmanson printed out an online form and mailed in his Democratic Party registration. Thus far, he's heard nothing back, but confesses to hoping he'll receive a little card or something.

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Ahmanson's conversion to the Democratic Party, following decades of donating millions to conservative think tanks and causes, certainly qualifies as a "shocker" in political circles. "What!!!!!" is typical of the response I've gotten as I've sought reactions.

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Ahmanson is certain he'll find friends among Democrats who believe, as he does, that conservative ideas are not exclusively Republican.

More Saturday Male Beauty

More GOP Paranoia

As part of its push back after the stinging electoral set backs it experienced in November, 2008, the Republican Party has tried to depict the Democrats as a party controlled by extremists. Barack Obama has similarly been depicted as not an American and as somewhere between a communist and a Nazi in his political leanings. Truth be told, of course, it is the GOP and not the Democrats who are the ones controlled by extremists. In the GOP's case, it has largely become a group dominated by religious extremists and racists - which is a large part of the reason moderates defected from the party in droves. A new column by George Packer in the New Yorker accurately looks at the more pervasive mental derangement and paranoia that are now prerequisites to being a Republican. Here are some highlights:

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A few days ago, I wrote that the “paranoid style” has been a continual temptation and danger for modern conservatives (whom Hofstadter called “pseudo-conservatives,” owing to their radicalism in wanting to overturn existing laws and institutions). Several readers expressed disbelief that I didn’t mention their left-wing counterparts, . . . There’s plenty of criticism of Klein, Moore, Nicholson Baker, and other paranoid stylists of the left. . . I didn’t mention them in discussing Hofstadter and the current reaction to Obama for this reason: Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, and Glenn Beck have far more power in the Republican Party (it sometimes seems to include veto power) than Klein, Lee, and Moore have in the Democratic Party.

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The reasons are complex, but I would list these: the evangelical and occasionally messianic fervor that animates a part of the Republican base; the atmosphere of siege and the self-identification of conservatives as insurgents even when they monopolized political power; the influence of ideology over movement conservatives, and their deep hostility to compromise; the fact that modern conservatism has been a movement, which modern liberalism has not.

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Goldberg would have even more basis for his complaint if I were the author of a book called “Conservative Fascism” and he were not the author of a book called “Liberal Fascism.”

Fate of Titanic in Hands of Norfolk Judge

It is perhaps ironic that nearly a century after the Titanic struck ice in the North Atlantic, Rebecca Beach Smith, a federal judge in Norfolk will be deciding how to best preserve the largest collection of artifacts from the ill-fated ocean liner and protect the ship's resting place from disturbance in honor of the more than 1500 people who died in the early hours of April 15, 1912. As I have noted before, I have always been fascinated with ocean liners and had the good fortune of having a friend who was representing RMS Titanic Inc. who arranged for me to be present when the first artifacts from Titanic were off loaded in Norfolk. I still have books about Titanic autographed by members of the team that photographed the wreck and brought up artifacts. My friend - now a U.S. magistrate - had the incredible experience of going down to see the wreck. Here are some highlights from the Virginian Pilot:

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Nearly a century after the Titanic struck ice in the North Atlantic, a federal judge in Norfolk is poised to preserve the largest collection of artifacts from the opulent oceanliner and protect the ship's resting place.

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U.S. District Judge Rebecca Beach Smith, a maritime jurist who considers the wreck an "international treasure," is expected to rule within weeks that the salvaged items must remain together and accessible to the public. That would ensure the 5,900 pieces of china, ship fittings and personal belongings won't end up in a collector's hands or in a London auction house, where some Titanic artifacts have landed.

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salvage company, RMS Titanic Inc., wants the court to grant it limited ownership of the artifacts.
At the same time, a cadre of government lawyers is helping Smith shape covenants to strictly monitor future activity at the Titanic wreck 2½ miles beneath the surface of the Atlantic. Amid evidence of the ship's deterioration, experts and government lawyers say the sanctity of the Titanic must be properly protected as a memorial to the 1,522 people who died when it went down.

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Because the Titanic sank in international waters on April 15, 1912, and the ship's owners are long gone, the wreck site and its artifacts have been subject to competing legal claims since an international team led by oceanographer Robert Ballard found it 24 years ago. The courtroom survivor is RMS Titanic Inc., also known as RMST, which gathered the artifacts during six dives. Courts have declared it salvor-in-possession — meaning it has exclusive rights to salvage the Titanic — but have explicitly stated it does not own the 5,900 artifacts or the wreck itself.

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Smith is drawing upon the State Department and NOAA to help craft the covenants to keep the artifacts preserved, intact as a collection and available to the public, and to guide future salvage operations at the Titanic wreck by RMST. At a hearing in November, the no-nonsense judge made clear the stakes. "I am concerned that the Titanic is not only a national treasure, but in its own way an international treasure, and it needs protection and it needs to be monitored," the judge told lawyers in the case.

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International protections have been sought for the Titanic almost since the wreck was discovered. Ballard, who led the team that found the ship, told a congressional hearing in October 1985: "Titanic is like a great pyramid which has been found and mankind is about to enter it for the first time since it was sealed. Has he come to plunder or appreciate? The people of the world clearly want the latter."

One in Six Psychiatrists Has Tried to 'Turn Gays Straight'

The Independent has a new story that ought to shock medical licensing authorities in that it reveals one in six psychiatrists has tried to "cure" gays - even though every legitimate medical and mental health association holds that such cure attempts do not work and indeed can cause severe harm. Engaging in such witch doctor like cure efforts ought to constitute malpractice and put medical licenses at risk. Engaging in such quackery should be off limits to licensed medical and mental health professionals. It is bad enough that religious charlatans are allowed to market bogus programs that prey on families and LGBT individuals who have been taught self-hate by their unloving religious denominations. The article also goes on to recount the experience of one man who underwent shock therapy in an effort to "change." Here are some story highlights:

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Psychotherapists are offering to help "cure" gays and lesbians of their homosexuality without any evidence that such treatment is beneficial or safe. One in six said they had tried to turn gays straight, or reduce their gay or lesbian feelings, even though the mainstream medical view is that this is impossible.

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The idea that homosexuality can be cured has a long and dubious history and the disclosure that a significant minority of therapists and doctors still think it is possible is "worrying", Professor Michael King, of the University College Medical School, said. "Heaven knows what they do. We didn't attempt to ask them because there is no evidence that anything works. We didn't expect it to be happening at this rate and we are really rather concerned. It ought to stop. It is distressing and harmful and there is absolutely no evidence it works," he said.

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Pressure from clients demanding help because of bullying or discrimination or family pressures may have pushed the therapists into delivering it, the professor said. . . . Instead, the therapist should be saying that it is very unfortunate they are being bullied and that they can try to help them come to terms with their situation and learn to cope with it."

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Derek Munn, of the gay rights organisation Stonewall, said: "So-called gay cure therapies are wholly discredited. The conclusions of this research are a welcome reminder that what gay and lesbian people need is equal treatment by society, not misguided treatment by a minority of health professionals."

Saturday Male Beauty

Catholic Diocese Priest Sentenced to 50 Years

The Dallas Morning News is reporting that at least one predator priest (pictured at left) will never be in a position to abuse minors again. Unfortunately, no members of the Catholic Church hierarchy that enabled and/or covered up the activities of sexual predators among the Roman Catholic clergy have been similarly punished. In my view, the fact that the members of the hierarchy have totally escaped accountability is an equally disgusting crime. As the Dallas Morning News has previously reported in 2002, that at least two-thirds of the nation's bishops had allowed priests to keep working after they were accused of abuse. Since then, grand jury investigations outside Texas have implicated some bishops in cover-ups but concluded that the violations were too old to prosecute. I for one, will never have any respect for the Catholic Church until a thorough house cleaning of the hierarchy takes place and those involved are forced from office - and that goes for Benedict XVI. Here are some story highlights:

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The Rev. Thomas Teczar couldn't stomach his 25-year prison sentence for sexually abusing a child. In 2007, he persuaded a Texas appeals court to grant him a new trial. As gambles go, it was a bad one. Jurors in Teczar's second trial sentenced the notorious Catholic priest to 50 years in prison on Friday, his 68th birthday.

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Victims got to celebrate," Eastland County District Attorney Russ Thomason said. "This is effectively a life sentence." Teczar is a central figure in the cover-up scandal that has cost the Fort Worth Catholic Diocese several million dollars, led to the unmasking of several other predator priests and damaged the reputation of veteran church leaders, most notably the late Bishop Joseph Delaney.

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The scandal began unraveling in 1998, when The Dallas Morning News discovered that Teczar had fled Texas a few years earlier after refusing to answer questions from an Eastland County grand jury. Officials there were investigating allegations that two of Teczar's neighborhood friends had molested children and that he had encouraged them to destroy photographic evidence.

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[Bishop Joseph] Delaney initially told The News that Teczar left Eastland County, about 100 miles west of Fort Worth, simply because he didn't want to work there any longer. Later, he admitted knowing about the grand jury investigation . . . The Texas Rangers ultimately tracked down Teczar in Massachusetts and had him arrested.

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Thomason said Friday that he had one big regret about the case. "I would have loved to have prosecuted Bishop Delaney," the district attorney said. "But his death put an end to that. "I believe that he contributed greatly to what happened to our youngsters here in Eastland County."

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"No bishop individually has been criminally charged with concealing clergy sex crimes," said David Clohessy, national director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. . . . . The Fort Worth Diocese has paid about $6 million in civil settlements to six Teczar victims, including the one around whom the criminal case was built. The six were represented in those cases by Dallas lawyer Tahira Khan Merritt, who also assisted Eastland County prosecutors.

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Massachusetts church officials asked the Vatican several years ago to remove Teczar from the priesthood. At last word, there was no decision. "It adds insult to injury," said David Lewcon, a Massachusetts victim of Teczar's who testified at the sentencing hearing. "What is it going to take?"

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As I have asked before, why do people continue to support this utterly corrupt institution that will never remove its morally bankrupt leadership?

Witch Hunt for Gays in Africa

The anti-gay witch hunts for gays in Eastern Africa seem to be escalating. Between the lunatic anti-gay conference in Uganda featuring certifiable fruit loop Scott Lively and now statements by Zambian Vice President George Kunda that citizens should report gays to the law enforcement agencies, half the continent seems to have gone insane. With the brutal poverty, low levels of medical care, frequent inter-tribal killings, hunting down gays and/or forcing them into reparative therapy ought to rank far down the list of priorities for government concern. In my view, this cynical attack on gays is fueled by the desire of government officials to distract attention form the dismal failures of their regimes or to find scape goats for the over all basket case nature of their countries. In the case of Zambia, here are some grime statistics:

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About 68% of Zambians live below the recognised national poverty line with rural poverty rates standing at about 78% and urban rates of 53%. Per capita annual incomes are currently at about one-half their levels at independence and, at $395, place the country among the world's poorest nations. Social indicators continue to decline, particularly in measurements of life expectancy at birth (about 40.9 years) and maternal mortality (830 per 100,000 pregnancies)

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Based on this data, homosexuality is definitely the least of the country's problems. Of course, one must also add to the mix the desire of professional Christians - Pentecostals have been increasing in numbers in recent years - to rake in money or use scare tactics to strengthen their power over a largely poorly educated population. It is truly a sad state of affairs. Here are some highlights on the craziness from Zambia:

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24 March 2009: Vice president George Kunda on Friday charged in parliament that the government was aware of some people who had married to hide their homosexual activities. Answering a question from Chadiza MMD member of parliament Allan Mbewe during the vice president’s question and answer session, on what government was doing to curb homosexuality in the country, vice-president Kunda said the laws available were stiff enough to punish such people.

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“Zambia is a Christian nation and it shall continue to be so because it is part of our constitution. And acts such as homosexuality are not part of the Christian norm. In 2005, this house passed stiff laws against homosexuality. For people having carnal knowledge of each other against the order of nature the punishment is a minimum of 15 years imprisonment. If you have carnal knowledge of an animal you serve a minimum of 25 years”.

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“If you have information about such people, report them to the law enforcement agencies. There are also some people who are bisexual and they marry to cover up their activities, but at the end of the day we know them,”

Friday Male Beauty

HIV/AIDS Disproportionately Affects Black Washingtonians

Recent news coverage has indicated that Washington, D.C., is also the HIV/AIDS capital of the USA and a story from The Edge focuses upon the fact that the situation of HIV/AIDS infection among black Washingtonians is more than twice as bad as that of the overall population. Why? In large part because of horrifically homophobic black churches that pressure men to be on the "down low" and continue to pretend that the problem of HIV?AIDS doesn't exist. In the Norfolk area a number of black churches take homophobia beyond even the extremes of Pat Robertson and the late Jerry Falwell. Like in Washington, HIV/AIDS is terrible problem in the black community. The other thing that was striking from the Edge story was that 63% of new infections are NOT among gay men. HIV/AIDS has become a heterosexual disease, yet the Bible beaters continue to flog gays as the problem. As I have said before, religion could be a force for good in the world, but unfortunately seems to do more harm than good mosy of the time. Like the Nazi Pope, too many black ministers make the problem worse through their refusal to accept that being gay is normal for some of us and not a sin. The real sin is the way religious leaders treat their fellow man. Here are some story highlights:

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As public health officials continue to express concern in the wake of a report that found roughly three percent of the District’s residents live with HIV/AIDS, the epidemic continues to exert a disproportionately high toll on black Washingtonians.

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The report, which the District’s HIV/AIDS Administration released last Monday, indicated 6.5 percent of black men in the city live with HIV/AIDS. This statistic compares with 3 percent of Latinos and 2.6 percent of white males. The report further indicated men who have sex with men accounted for 37 percent of all transmissions.

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"If you look at a city and map out all the poor areas, they are usually going to be the same areas with high HIV/AIDS rates," he said. "There’s a reason for that."Jason Bartlett, deputy director of the National Black Justice Coalition, pointed out he feels cultural homophobia is another factor that contributes to higher rates of HIV/AIDS among black gay men and MSM. Activists, HIV/AIDS service providers and even public health officials have been critical of the black church for institutionalized homophobia and what they contend is an inadequate response to the epidemic. Bartlett stressed he feels religious leaders and others have a responsibility to address these concerns.

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"Our churches, our leaders are afraid to say gay, say LGBT," he said. "When you’re afraid to say it, it’s going to affect public policy."The District’s report comes less than four years after the Centers for Disease Control released the findings of a controversial survey that found nearly half of black MSM in Baltimore, Los Angeles, Miami, New York and San Francisco tested HIV-positive.

Voters Reject Anti-Gay Ballot Initiative

Thankfully, the voters of Gainesville, Florida resoundingly rejected a ballot initiative that would have repealed non-discrimination protections for LGBT citizens. Combined with the pro-gay marriage votes in the New Hampshire and Vermont legislatures this will mark a turning point where voters begin to reject the hate based and divisive message of the Christianists and their GOP allies. I truly hope that people are learning that hate is not a family value and that the quest of the far right to demonize and strip segments of society of their civil rights must be stopped. Here are some highlights from the Gainesville Sun:

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A jubilant cry erupted from Brophy's Irish Pub as City Commissioner Craig Lowe announced the defeat of an amendment that would have terminated the city's anti-discrimination laws. . . . "Today we showed what we are really made of. This has been an experience that none of us has asked for, but we have established that in Gainesville every person matters." Lowe was referring to the approximately 58 percent of city voters who said no Tuesday to Amendment 1 — a ballot initiative that would have made Gainesville's anti-discrimination ordinance the same as Florida's Civil Rights Act.

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It's been a divisive year and a half for Lowe. who in January 2008 paved the way for the city to enact anti-discrimination protections for transgender individuals. Almost immediately following that vote, a conservative political action committee, Citizens for Good Public Policy, launched a campaign to put an amendment on the ballot that would repeal not only the city rights for transgender people but also rights for gay, lesbian and bisexual people who had been protected in the city since 1998.

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Mark Minck, chair for Citizens for Good Public Policy, said Tuesday at a local precinct that regardless of the outcome, he was happy with the turnout. Minck has said throughout the campaign that the goal of the ordinance was not to allow discrimination but rather to keep men out of women's restrooms.

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As with Focus on the Family, note the use of transgender individuals as the bogey man. I'd love to see some ballot initiatives to revoke civil rights of fundamentalist Christians just to give these bigots a taste of their own medicine.

California GOP Hosts Anti-Gay Nut Case

As yet another example of how the once respectable Republican Party has become the roosting place on radical religious extremists and the mentally unbalanced, the The Murrieta-Temecula Republican Assembly, a local chapter of the conservative GOP activist group California Republican Assembly will be hosting Scott Lively as a featured speaker on April 4th. We last saw Lively at an anti-gay convention where he was advocating the imprisonment of gays where he argued they should be subjected to forced "therapy" to "cure" them. As readers may recall, Lively is also the author of the thoroughly debunked "The Pink Swastika: Homosexuality in the Nazi Party." One can only wonder when the Murrieta-Temecula Republican Assembly will be inviting the Imperial Wizard of the Klu Klux Klan to speak or perhaps the leader of some Neo-Nazi group if Mr. Lively represents the caliber of speaker now being sought by the organization. But then, the GOP had Sarah "Bible Spice" Palin as its VP candidate, so being in touch with reality is no longer a GOP requirement for speakers or candidates. Here are some highlights from the Southern Poverty Law Center which tracks hate groups:

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A chapter of a group once described by Ronald Reagan as the “conscience of the Republican Party” has announced plans to host a speech by the author of a book that falsely claims that homosexuals largely orchestrated the Holocaust. The Murrieta-Temecula Republican Assembly, a local chapter of the conservative GOP activist group California Republican Assembly, says it will hear on April 3 from Scott Lively — a man it boastfully describes as “The Pastor Vilified by the Newspapers as a Hater Because of his stand Against the Promotion of Homosexuality.”

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Lively, who runs Abiding Truth Ministries . . . has been thoroughly discredited by real historians. (Lively’s speech to the Murrieta-Temecula group is entitled “The Pink Swastika.”) Lively is also co-founder of the anti-gay hate group Watchmen on the Walls. . . . (The SPLC lists Abiding Truth Ministries as a hate group because of its promotion of clearly false allegations about homosexuals.)

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March has been a busy month for Lively. Just a few weeks ago, he flew to the Ugandan capital of Kampala for an anti-gay conference, where he argued that gays and lesbians should be forced into conversion therapy.

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The Murrieta-Temecula Republican Assembly can be reached as follows: 951-304-2757; contactus@MT-RA.com

More Thursday Male Beauty

More Transgender Bashing From Focus on the Family

Sadly, the less than Christian folks at Focus on the Family are yet again using transgender individuals as a boogey man to try to incite wingnut readers to contact elected officials and better yet, send some money on to FOF. The latest e-mail missive sent out by FOF bears the caption "Men in Women's Bathrooms: Is Your State Next?" It is sicken to see the manner in which Daddy Dobson's foul minions demonize transgender individuals as if they were not human and instead some alien predator species. Here's a sampling of the "loving" message distributed to FOF subscribers:

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The reality of “change” has hit full-force in Washington, D.C., and in many respects, it’s a nightmare. But as bad as things are in Washington, for many pro-family Americans the greatest political danger lurks much closer to home. From Albany to Sacramento, state capitols are the flash points for the most aggressive efforts to redefine family and “re-norm” cultural standards—all the while undermining religious freedom. And changes at the state level often cause the biggest impact in our daily lives . . . and the state of Colorado has served as a testing ground for strategy now being exported across the country.

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I told you last summer about a new Colorado law that gave special “public accommodation” protections to people who self-identify as homosexual or "transgender.” I shared with you how Focus on the Family Action warned lawmakers that this legislation would reap a whirlwind of social problems. We specifically warned them that their vote for this bill would even allow men to use women’s restrooms—right alongside women and even young girls.

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Now, months later, a state agency has issued regulations to enforce the new law, . . . . You see, a number of the new rules deal specifically with restrooms, locker rooms and other locations where “nudity is customary.” But instead of being concerned with public safety and protection of children in these vulnerable public situations, the regulations read more like social engineering that reaches far beyond the sensibilities of the average Coloradan.

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“Transgender status” is defined so vaguely that only a mind-reader could know whether a man is actually “transgendered”—or if he’s really a Peeping Tom, or worse. In other words, a “transgendered” > man entering a women’s restroom might display obvious signs (such > as cross-dressing), or he might appear like any other man.

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In at least a dozen states, religious freedom is being threatened by existing “nondiscrimination” laws. . . . our nation didn’t get into this situation overnight, and it’s going to take a long, committed effort to get out. That’s why I’d like to invite you to team up with us as a monthly financial partner. Your regular support—whether it’s $10 a month or $100 or more—allows us to more effectively plan, budget and carry out our work for the long haul. To set up a recurring gift, select "Monthly" in the Frequency field on our online donation page. Of course, we most certainly welcome gifts of any form right now.

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Demonizing an entire class of people for money. The pieces of silver paid to Judas seem petty ante compared to the disgusting tactics used by FOF to further the message of hate that is FOF's stock in trade. Every LGBT citizen and our fair minded allies need to be aware of just how low FOF and its Christianist allies will stoop in their effort to keep LGBT Americans less than full citizens.

Double Hypocrisy

Christopher Buckley has an interesting post over at the Daily Beast that looks at two examples of extreme hypocrisy: Newt "Family Values" Gingrich and the self-styled "sanctity of marriage obsessed" Roman Catholic Church. Gingrich is thrice married and left his former spouses under less than gracious and a dignified manner yet bloviates about "family values" amongst the wingnuts of the GOP. Meanwhile, we have the Catholic Church which for the proper sum of money can ALWAYS find a way to enter an annulment. Being a rich politician - like a Kennedy for example - doesn't hurt one's prospects for an annulment either. One might even say that Gingrich and the Catholic Church deserve one another since both tend to be devoid of principle and in my view are morally bankrupt. All Gingrich needs to do to be a perfect fit with the Vatican is molest some minors, preferably boys. Here are some column highlights:

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Brace yourselves for a tsunami of punditry this weekend, when the much-married Newt Gingrich is received into the Catholic Church. This would ordinarily be a private occasion, but Newt Gingrich is not ordinary. He is (I hedge) probably the most interesting putative candidate on the Right at this point.

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He—and Mother Church, from whose tender embrace I myself have regrettably lapsed—will both be made out to be appalling hypocrites. Who among us should throw stones, but Mr. Gingrich’s marital history is a matter of public record, and it is not tidy. He first married at age 19, to his 26-year-old former high school geometry teacher and then, so the story goes, presented her with divorce terms after she was wheeled out of cancer surgery.

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Mrs. Gingrich #2 was dumped after her husband had carried on an extra-marital affair with a fetching, blonde congressional staffer named Callista Bisek, who went on to become the present Mrs. Gingrich #3. This Family Values paradigm was complicated by the fact that whilst Mr. Gingrich was filibustering Ms. Bisek over the Speaker’s desk, he was simultaneously leading the impeachment charge against a naughty president of the United States.

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As for Mother Church, she’ll come in for drubbing this weekend for seeming two-faced about the sanctity of marriage. As you know, divorce is still not allowed in the Catholic Church. But here insert a large “however” —she is liberal in the granting of annulments.

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Mother Church can be rigid, but at times—bless her—she can think like a $700 an hour K Street lawyer. Annulments are granted for a number of reasons: lack of discretion (I didn’t realize the bum was a drunk at the time); defective consent (The bum lied—he didn’t want kids all along); psychic incapacity (The bum was a schizophrenic!); prior bond . . . If the church had been this progressive in the matter of annulments back in the 1530s in merry olde England, the Archbishop of Canterbury would today be a Roman cardinal.

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It would be churlish in this Lenten season to suppose that Mr. Gingrich’s conversion is anything but deeply felt and sincere. The stated reason for it is that he wishes to worship alongside his wife, who is described on her husband’s website as “a devoted Catholic.” To the extent her devotedness is assessed alongside her early relationship with the then-married Mr. Gingrich, it should be borne in mind that to be “devoted” is not the same as being “perfect”

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It seems nearly any kind of sexual impropriety is fine with Rome as long as it doesn't involve same sex individuals because then - God forbid - they will be inherently disordered and evil.

Bilerico is Going Dark Temporarily

UPDATED: Here is some additional information from Bilerico Editor in Chief, Bill Browning, concerning the hacker attack on Bilerico Project and its affilaited blogs:
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I wanted to give folks a quick heads up on what's happened to the Bilerico Project and our affiliated sites. All of our sites are currently dark - they've been taken offline by a massive hacker attack.

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We've been fighting off these Eastern European hackers for over a year now; they're the same crowd that took down popular feminist political blog Shakespeare's Sister a year and a half ago. They're professionals and they're nasty.

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Earlier this week, they managed to take us down for about 9 hours overnight but we were able to regain control. They severely compromised the server though, so we had to get a new server up and running quickly. Yesterday, we got the new server racked up and were planning on making all of the switch overs (we also host quite a few Indiana LGBT organizations' websites), but the hackers managed to crack through our defenses again yesterday afternoon.

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This time they firebombed the place; our old server is toast. Unfortunately, none of the data was transferred before they regained control. We have backups and are trying to get the site back up ASAP, but we're still suffering from the lag required to set up a new server from scratch, retrieve as much data as possible from the old server, install all of our attendant software like Movable Type, and then port over the Bilerico database and double check to make sure it all works again since our site was so customized.

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I have no idea when the site will be back up and running. We're hopeful that we can have it all finished by Friday night, but there's no guarantee. The hackers caused massive damage, but co-owner and tech guru Jerame Davis is working feverishly to fix everything.

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Not too long ago Pam's House Blend and other liberal blogs using the same platform went dark as a result of hackers. Now, The Bilerico Project and its affiliated blogs have been attacked and the result is that a new server is being set up as quickly as possible. Bill Browning sent all contributors this note today:

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We will be moving to a new server tomorrow afternoon. As you saw on TBP's front page this week, we were hit by hackers again. We regularly fight off these Denial of Service attacks (we're an LGBT liberal blog; it comes with the territory), but this time our server is toast. They killed it.

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Thanks for your patience as we migrate to the new server. The good news out of all of this is that we'll plenty of room now for even more visitors; we'd almost outgrown our old server capacity! Let's keep up the hard work and continue to grow the Bilerico sites. We may have bumps in the road like this one, but we just keep improving thanks to all of you!

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It's a sad commentary that the wingnuts feel they have to knock down sites since they cannot counter sound arguments with anything but religious fanaticism and untruths. Bilerico should be back up unscathed within a day or so at most.

Thursday Male Beauty

Judicial Homophobia

UPDATED: Barney Frank has a column at Huffington Post that further explains his comments about Scalia. Here are highlights:

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My view that Justice Scalia is prejudiced against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people is based, not on his position on marriage, but entirely on the angry minority opinions he wrote in two Supreme Court cases in which the majority held that gay and lesbian people had certain rights against discrimination regarding private consensual sex and political activity. In those two virulent dissents, Justice Scalia denounced the court majorities not simply for finding that it was unconstitutional to discriminate based on sexual orientation in cases involving political rights and the right to private consensual sex, but he also made it clear that in his view sex discrimination is not only permitted by the Constitution but is very much in society's interest because homosexuality deserves to be treated with not only disapproval, but legal disability.

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Recently, Barney Frank called a spade and spade and voiced his view that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is an anti-gay homophobe. While Frank is taking some heat for speaking the truth, Scalia is only one of many judges and justices on the bench who should not be in their current positions because of their unwillingness or inability to put their own personal anti-gay bigotry. I can name judges right here in Norfolk who are serious homophobes in my opinion and who should never have been put on the bench. Gays appearing before these and similarly bigoted judges are sadly nearly guaranteed to be mistreated and denied the same justice their heterosexual counterparts regularly receive. In the case of Scalia, Frank cites Scalia's own opinions to make his case against Scalia. Here are some highlights from CNN on Frank's statements:

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(CNN) -- Congressman Barney Frank is taking some major heat for making a serious accusation against Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. "I do think this argument that it is unconstitutional for the federal government to pick and choose as to which marriages it will accept is a good one. At some point that's going to have to go to the United States Supreme Court," Frank told the Web site 365gay.com on Friday. "I wouldn't want it to go to the United States Supreme Court now because that homophobe Antonin Scalia's got too many votes on this current court."

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Two opinions written by Justice Scalia in which he makes it very clear that he thinks it's a terrible idea for people who are gay or lesbian to have equal rights. It's not based on his views on marriage. . . . A few years ago, the state of Texas tried to send to prison two men who had private, consenting sex in their own bedroom. And the majority on the court said, "That's unconstitutional. That's an invasion of privacy." [Lawrence v. Texas].

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Justice (Clarence) Thomas said, "Well, I think it's a silly law. I would have voted against it, but I don't think the Constitution prohibits it." Justice Scalia wrote a long, angry dissent in which he made it very clear he thought it was a perfectly good law and that, in fact, homosexuals, as he refers to us, are bad people, and the notion that there ought to be any kind of legal protections is a mistake.

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In an earlier case in Colorado, in which he again vigorously denounced the majority in the court for finding that it was unconstitutional to discriminate against people, again, not in marriage but a basis of their political rights, he said, "Well, of course, we disapprove this. We often disapprove of things like murder." I mean, literally, when he was looking for comparisons to the public disapproval of homosexuality, the first thing he said was murder.

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So unlike many people who have different legitimate views on this, I urge people to read those two opinions in the Colorado case, the Romer case and the Lawrence case. And, again, there is just no question about his absolute view that ... homosexuals are bad people that shouldn't be treated equally.
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I just differentiated between Justice Scalia and Justice Thomas. Justice Thomas said it's a silly law to send people to prison because of private, consenting sex. Scalia basically says "Yes, that's where they belong." So that's exactly the case. . . . And, again, the issue in my mind is his vehement denunciation. Let's put it this way: He says it's taking sides in the culture war if you don't send people to jail for having private, consenting sex. It's got nothing to do with marriage.

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Judicial homophobia is a very serious problem and in my view is something that gay rights organizations need to do much more to expose. I applaud Barney Frank for calling it like it is. One can only look forward to the day when bigots like Scalia and similar homophobic are no longer on the bench and in a position to allow them to inflict their personal bigotry on litigants who ought to be treated no differently than every other citizen.

A Savvy Navigator for South Africa

Back in October, 2008, I wrote about a friend, Jeff Ward, who had started a new business called Savvy Navigator, LLC, of conducting escorted gay friendly tours to South Africa. Now, Out Traveler has done a story on Jeff's endeavor. Jeff has plenty of travel experience both from his background in the airline industry not to mention travels with his TV producer husband. I'm trilled that Out Traveler is giving him much deserved coverage. Here are some highlights:

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A 12-day trip to South Africa can be a daunting adventure to plan well. Tack on looking for gay nightlife, day trips to the country's famed vineyards, and a few days escape to Zambia's thundering Victoria Falls and well...you'll be a travel expert by the time you get home!

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If, however, you'd rather let a tried-and-true gay traveller take over the heavy lifting, there are a bunch of gay tour operators out there with great Africa packages. Created and run by Jeffrey Ward, who earned his travel expert stripes as an executive at gay-friendly American Airlines, the Savvy Navigator has put together a fun-looking trip for this May (and other in November).

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Centering around Cape Town with an optional four-day add-on to Victoria Falls, Savvy Navigator specializes in small groups (no more than 12) and intimate luxury experiences. More than other gay tour operators to the area, Savvy Navigator will focus as much on culinary and cultural luxury as on, say, trips to vineyards and a safari -- both of which are included, too.

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Starting at $5,995 for 12 days, plus $1,995 for the Zambian add-on, plus your own airfare in and out of Africa (domestic flights are included), of course, you'll have to reach deep in these uncertain economic times. With Ward at the helm, though, there doesn't seem to be any doubt you'll have an experience worth every penny.

Wednesday Male Beauty

Christianists Take Glee in Deaths of Young Families

I make no secret of the fact that I find Christianists to be less than nice or good people notwithstanding their constant self-congratulation, self-satisfaction and pretense to be "godly" people. The aftermath of a plane crash in Montana over the weekend, however, brings the true hatefulness of these people into sharper focus. The crash has been widely reported and while the cause remains a mystery, what is known is that the crash killed three young families, including seven young children. The photos in this post are of two of the families wiped out in the crash (click on the photos to enlarge the images). Here is a brief highlight from the New York Times:

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BUTTE, Mont. — The six of them attended college together. They pursued graduate degrees at the same university, then all settled into medical professions and started families around the same time.

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And on Sunday they were all sitting on the same private plane, with their seven young children, headed to a much-anticipated ski vacation at an exclusive resort in Big Sky, Montana. But something went horribly wrong and the plane, which was carrying more people than it was designed for, plunged to the ground about 2:30 p.m., bursting into flames at the edge of a cemetery just short of an airport where it was to make an unplanned and still unexplained stop. No one survived.

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The victims were identified as Erin and Amy Jacobson of St. Helena, Calif., and their children, Taylor, 4; Ava, 3, and Jude, 1; Michael and Vanessa Pullen of Lodi, Calif., and their children, Sydney, 9, and Christopher, 7; and Brent and Kristen Ching of Durham, Calif., and their children, Hailey, 5, and Caleb, 3.

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A very sad story indeed and one that should touch the hearts of most people. Unless one is a religious extremist Christianst. In that case, the story takes on a whole different sick dimension as evidenced by a story on ChristianNewsWire, which describes itself as "the nations leading distributor of Christian press releases." Here is a sampling of how these sickos describe the tragic crash:

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What else is the mainstream news not telling you? The family who died in the crash near the location of the abortion victim's memorial, is the family of Irving 'Bud' Feldkamp, owner of the largest for-profit abortion chain in the nation. Family Planning Associates was purchased four years ago by Irving Moore "Bud" Feldkamp III, owner of Allcare and Hospitality Dental Associates and CEO of Glen Helen Raceway Park in San Bernardino. The 17 California Family Planning clinics perform more abortions in the state than any other abortion provider.

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Although Feldkamp is not an abortionist, he reaps profits of blood money from the tens of thousands of babies that are killed through abortions performed every year at the clinics he owns. His business in the abortion industry was what enabled him to afford the private plane that was carrying his family to their week-long vacation at The Yellowstone Club, a millionaires-only ski resort.

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We warned him, for his children's sake, to wash his hands of the innocent blood he assisted in spilling because, as Scripture warns, if "you did not hate bloodshed, bloodshed will pursue you". (Ezekiel 35:6)

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I don't want to turn this tragic event into some creepy spiritual 'I told you so' moment, but I think of the time spent outside of Feldkamp's - Pam Feldkamp laughing at the fetal development signs, Bud Feldkamp trying not to make eye contact as he got into his car with a small child in tow - and I think of the haunting words, 'Think of your children.' I wonder if those words were haunting Feldkamp as well as he stood in the snow among the remains of loved ones.

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If you ask me, the wrong people died in the crash. Far better the plane had been carrying the management of Christian News Wire and the author of the article rather than seven young innocent children. As usual, the pro-life extremists care more for the unborn (who may not even make it through a full term pregnancy) than they do for the living, including young children.

More Faux News Anti-Pelosi Lies

The boyfriend forwarded me an e-mail he had received from a friend which just by its tone smacked of propaganda being circulated by the GOP and its PR arm, FOX News. Indeed, it sounded like something Rush "Jabba the Hut" Limbaugh might rant about. In it Nancy Pelosi was accused of outrageously extravagant use of military aircraft for her personal travels. wasting huge amounts of taxpayer money and was given the title the "Queen." Recipients of the e-mail were encouraged to "Keep this circulating maybe someone will have enough gumption to do something about it." The only problem with the e-mail is that the facts it recites are not true. But then, when does FOX News worry about whether the stories it puts out are true? ABC News has reported on the matter and here are the real facts (not that some Kool-Aid drinkers won't believe whatever they want nonetheless):
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Watchdog Group Criticizes House Speaker for Travel Perks, but Records Don't Agree

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The treasure trove of documents obtained by Judicial Watch from the Department of Defense regarding Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's use of military aircraft doesn't seem to prove the organization's allegation that Pelosi has made "unprecedented demands" for the flights. In fact, it appears that Pelosi uses military aircraft less often than her predecessor, former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert.

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The documents cover the period from January 2007 to November 2008 and show that Pelosi made the equivalent of 20 round-trips between Washington (Andrews Air Force Base) and San Francisco. That's an average of less than one round-trip per month. In contrast, former Speaker Hastert traveled home to his Illinois district virtually every weekend and, his former aides tell ABC News, he would almost always travel on military aircraft. Like Hastert, Pelosi also occasionally leads Congressional delegations on foreign trips (the documents show six foreign trips: one to Asia, three to the Middle East and two to Europe).

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The documents obtained by Judicial Watch also disprove another frequently repeated rumor about Pelosi's travel: that she regularly flies home to San Francisco in an Air Force C-40, the military equivalent of a Boeing 737. According to the documents, Pelosi did not make any domestic trips on a C-40 during the 23-month period from January 2007 to November 2008. Her trips to San Francisco have all been on smaller executive aircraft, usually an Air Force C-20 (the equivalent of a Gulfstream G-3) or a more plush C-37 (a Gulfstream G-5).

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The Judicial Watch release cites e-mails from the military complaining that Pelosi was frequently reserving military aircraft and then canceling, causing the Air Force to incur costs as crews prepped planes than never went anywhere. These e-mails, however, are from early in her tenure as speaker.

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The only other time the issue of cancelled flights comes up is when Pelosi was forced to cancel flights to California in October 2008, when the House was in the midst of intense debate over the $700 billion Emergency Economic Stabilization Act. The Defense Department official seems to fully understand the situation, writing, "I do not see malice or a lack of urgency on their parts given the weekend Hill proceedings. Obviously we all need to keep leaning forward. It's the right thing to do."

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The Judicial Watch release also cites an e-mail from a Pelosi staffer complaining about the lack of available C-5 aircraft for Congress's 2007 Memorial Day recess, but this has nothing to do with Pelosi's travel. Instead, the staffer was trying to arrange travel for eight Congressional delegations (all such travel is arranged through Pelosi's office).

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The moral is that one should (1) never believe anything FOX News reports until it is confirmed by a credible news source and (2) when you receive an e-mail like this check it out for truth. If it proves to be yet another deliberate smear piece, send the real facts back to other recipients of the e-mail so that the lies can be extinguished.

The GOP's Cheney Problem

In politics it's not uncommon to see numerous politicians who are real jerks, shallow politicians in way over their heads, or even corrupt politicians. Rarely, however, do you find a politician who seems to be the essence of pure evil. Dick Cheney is one such individual who strikes me as pure evil. The man seems to savor the regime of torture he helped usher in and is totally unapologetic for the disastrous mess in which he and the Chimperator left the country. Perhaps the only good thing about Cheney is that he likes to hear himself talk and is currently running his mouth to the dismay of many in the GOP who wish he'd simply disappear forever. As much as I cannot stand Cheney, I hope his ego keeps him talking and reminding the voting public about the nightmare the GOP gave to the nation over the last eight years. Here are some highlights from The Hill:

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Congressional Republicans are telling Dick Cheney to go back to his undisclosed location and leave them alone to rebuild the Republican Party without his input. Displeased with the former vice-president's recent media appearances, Republican lawmakers say he's hurting GOP efforts to reinvent itself after back-to-back electoral drubbings.

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The veep, who showed a penchant for secrecy during eight years in the White House,has popped up in media interviews to defend the Bush-Cheney record while suggesting that the country is not as safe under President Obama.

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Rep. John Duncan Jr. (R-Tenn.) said, “He became so unpopular while he was in the White House that it would probably be better for us politically if he wouldn’t be so public...But he has the right to speak out since he’s a private citizen.”

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The legislator [who requested anonymity] said Cheney, whose approval ratings were lower than President Bush’s during the last Congress, didn’t think through the political implications of going after Obama. Cheney did “House Republicans no favors,” the lawmaker said

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Potential Illinois Senate hopeful Rep. Mark Kirk (R) told The Hill that Cheney would better shape his legacy by writing a book. “Tending a legacy is best done in a memoir,” Kirk said. “I would just encourage everybody who has left office to follow the tradition of the Founding Fathers — to write your memoirs, but to refrain from [criticizing].”

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Rep. Zach Wamp (R-Tenn.), who is running for governor [said] . . . “With all due respect to former Vice President Cheney, he represents what’s behind us, not what’s ahead of us.”

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During an interview on “60 Minutes” that aired on Sunday, Obama fired back at Cheney. Obama said, “I fundamentally disagree with Dick Cheney … I think that Vice President Cheney has been at the head of a movement whose notion is somehow that we can’t reconcile our core values, our Constitution, our belief that we don’t torture, with our national-security interests. I think he’s drawing the wrong lesson from history. The facts don’t bear him out.”