More Saturday Male Beauty

The Disingenuous Return of ‘Drill, Baby, Drill’

For newer readers, I spent nearly the first decade of my law career in oil and gas matters - first as an attorney with a large firm that represented major oil companies in exploration and production matters and then as in-house counsel for a fortune 50 corporation's oil and gas subsidiary. A subsidiary which in some years cash-flowed the entire corporate conglomerate now known as Allied Signal. In the course of my duties I covered everything from pipeline issues, to gas processing plants to overseas offshore production ventures, including the North Sea. As a result, I DO know a thing or two about exploration costs, how long it takes to get a major production discovery on line, etc. And frankly, I want to vomit when I hear idiot politicians who know NOTHING about the industry parroting the "drill baby drill" mantra or sleaze bags from the American Petroleum Institute whining about Obama welcoming Brazil's major offshore discovery while restricting offshore drilling in the USA. Anyone who claims that offshore drilling is a solution to our current gas prices is a liar. Let me repeat that, they are LIARS. Yes, a few years back Brazil made a major discovery. But it will be likely another DECADE or more before the first barrels of production hit the oil market. And in the interests of full disclosure, the largest investment I inherited from my late mother is a chunk of Exxon stock which she never sold because of capital gains issues having purchase Mobil stock some 40 years ago. The New York Times has an editorial that rightly excoriates those - mostly Republicans, naturally - now returning to the "drill baby drill" mantra. Here are highlights from the Times' editorial:
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With the country again facing $4-a-gallon gasoline, the time would seem ripe for a grown-up conversation on energy. What we are getting instead is a mindless rerun of the drill-baby-drill operatics of the 2008 campaign, when gas was also at $4 a gallon. Then, as now, opportunistic politicians insisted that vastly expanded oil drilling would bring relief at the pump and reduced dependence on foreign oil. Then, as now, these arguments were bogus.
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As President Obama observed in a March 30 address on energy issues, drilling alone cannot possibly ensure energy independence in a country that uses one-quarter of the world’s oil while owning only 2 percent of its reserves. Nor can it lower prices, except at the margins. Only coordinated measures — greater auto efficiency, alternative fuels, improved mass transit — can address these issues.
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Still the oil industry and its political allies persist in their fantasies. On Thursday, the House passed the first of three bills that will require the Interior Department to accelerate drilling permits without proper environmental or engineering reviews, reinstate lease sales off the Virginia coast that were canceled after the BP blowout, and open up protected coastal waters — East, West and in Alaska — to drilling.
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Here’s the hard truth: Prices are set on the world market by the major producers, OPEC in particular. Even countries that produce more oil than they need, like Canada, have little leverage. Canada’s prices track ours.
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The Energy Information Agency recently projected what would happen if the nation tripled production on the outer continental shelf. There would be no price impact at all until 2020 and only 3 cents to 5 cents a gallon in 2030.
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By contrast, the agency found, raising the fuel efficiency of America’s cars would do real good. Increasing the fleetwide average from roughly 30 m.p.g. today to 60 m.p.g. in the next 15 years, an ambitious but not implausible goal, could bring prices down by 20 percent.
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Some politicians get it. Senator Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat, is drafting a bill that seeks to repeal $4 billion in annual taxpayer subsidies to the oil industry and use the proceeds to develop more efficient cars and alternative fuel sources.
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Repealing these breaks would reduce the deficit and yield revenues to be invested in cleaner fuels, while having no real impact on prices. Mr. Obama may not be able to persuade the House of these simple truths. But he can and must seize whatever opportunities are offered in the Senate, involving himself, not just rhetorically, in the hard but necessary struggle for a sane energy policy.

Plea Deal For Student Involved In Tyler Clementi Case

I often don't like plea deals - it depends on the circumstances, of course - because the guilty often get away with far less that what they truly deserve even in instances of very serious crimes. In the the Tyler Clementi case, however, if Molly Wei indeed fully cooperates in helping prosecutors nail Clementi's roommate, then the plea deal may be justified. Moreover, while Wei may have been a co-conspirator, it was still Dharun Rhavi who set up the secret video camera and no doubt laughed it up at Clementi's tragic expense. Frankly, I hope prosecutors make an example of Rhavi so that others will perhaps think twice before doing something to cruel to another human being. By all accounts, Tyler Clementi was an amazing talent and it is indeed a crime that he took his own life because a vicious action of his roommate. Here are highlights from Reuters:
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Part of the deal requires Molly Wei, 19, of West Windsor to testify against Dharun Rhavi, the roommate of Tyler Clementi who leaped off the George Washington Bridge last fall after learning he had been spied upon. Clementi, 18, was a Rutgers freshman and promising violinist.
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Wei pleaded not guilty in Middlesex County Superior Court on Friday to watching the webcast with Ravi and a judge accepted her application into a pretrial intervention program that could drop the two counts of invasion of privacy against her. In exchange for dismissing the charges, Wei must testify against Ravi, complete 300 hours of community service, undergo counseling on cyberbullying and take classes on dealing with people of alternative lifestyles.
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Clementi's family accepted her deal in a statement that noted "Wei's actions, although unlawful, were substantially different in their nature" from Ravi's. "Actions have consequences," the Clementi family said in the statement. "We wish Ms. Wei will become a person who will make better decisions, will help people and show kindness to those she comes in contact with."
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Hate crime charges against Ravi were handed down last month by a grand jury that issued a 15-count indictment which also charged invasion of privacy and evidence tampering.
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Prosecutors accused Ravi, 19, of Plainsboro, New Jersey of setting up the filming of Clementi's encounter with another man, and advertising the live video stream on Twitter. He was accused of staging a cover-up by deleting the Twitter post and replacing it with another one intended to mislead investigators as well as asking witnesses not to testify against him.

Saturday Male Beauty

The So-Called GOP Presidential Debate

Like it seems most everyone else, I did not watch the recent debate of would be GOP presidential contenders since - to use Pam Spaulding's term - it looked like a clown car act. For a political party that once prided itself on intelligence and some minimum level of being in touch with objective reality, the list of would be contenders who were present certainly seemed to exemplify a party wide lobotomy. Dana Milbank has a column in the Washington Post that equates the event with an old movie “Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead.” Milbank indeed has a point. And what is truly scary is the fact that since the GOP base - those folks who will have a great deal of say in who does well in the primary contests - is now so controlled by the utterly ignorant, religious extremists, and unhinged that it will be hard for a sentient candidate to win the primaries. It's all self-inflicted damage that started when the party leadership sold its soul out of short term expediency to the Christofascists. The emergence of the "Tea Party" has only accelerated the descent of the GOP into the world of the mentally unbalanced. Here are highlights from Milbank's column:
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Hollywood is reportedly at work on a remake of the 1991 film “Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead.” This, however, is unnecessary, because a remake is already playing. It’s called the Republican presidential primary. In the original, a mom leaves her kids with a babysitter for three months, but after the babysitter dies of a heart attack, the children fend for themselves for the summer.
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The GOP nominating contest so far follows a very similar plot. With the grown-ups (played by Jeb Bush and Mitch Daniels) out of town, the field has been left in the custody of caretakers (played by Mitt Romney, Donald Trump and Newt Gingrich). When even the babysitters fail to show up at the first debate of the season, the juveniles run the thing themselves.
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If there’s any good news for the Republican Party to come out of the first presidential debate, it’s that the Associated Press and Reuters didn’t cover it.
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In the absence of adults, the first presidential debate favored the noisiest, and the least likely to win. Cain, a man who wants to return to the gold standard, had the most successful line of the night when he defended his inexperience. “I ask people, ‘Most of the people in elective office in Washington, D.C., they have held public office before. How’s that working for you?’ ” the former Godfather’s Pizza boss said. “We have a mess!”
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There remains a hope that a white knight will arrive to rescue Republican primary voters from this lackluster field, but there is growing concern among party elders that such a person may not exist.
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There’s Mitt Romney, but he’s the paternity-denying father of Obamacare. There’s Donald Trump, but he’s the midwife of the birther campaign. Gingrich has been rejected by his peers and married three times. Could it be that Herman Cain really is the best they’ve got?
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Late in the debate, Santorum was asked about a suggestion by one of the missing grown-ups, Daniels, that Republicans should call a “truce” on social issues. “Anybody that would suggest that we call a truce on the moral issues doesn’t understand what America is all about,” Santorum inveighed. We’ll just have to let the kids fight it out on the playground.
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Frankly, if Santorum - aka, frothy mix - represents what America's all about, then I suspect a majority of Americans will want to leave the country. Rather than run for office, Santorum ought to be spending his funds on quality mental health care.

Anti-Gay Groups Plan on Increased Spending

The Gospels of Christ speak of giving one's money to the poor, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked and giving shelter to the homeless, but that message is apparently totally lost on the hate merchants and modern day Pharisees of the Christian Right. Or should I say, the American Taliban? Instead of following Christ's dictates, these folks plan on pumping more money into denigrating and demonizing LGBT citizens and doing all they can to continue to make life a living Hell or as many of us as possible. It's indicative of what an ugly thing conservative Christianity has become and why it's a version of religion that I cannot see die soon enough. Interestingly, the sources of this additional spending - the Mormon Church, Catholic Church or wealth haters? - is not revealed. The Colorado Independent has coverage and here are some details:
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Anti-gay rights groups around the country will see a cash infusion over the next two years through a plan called “Ignite an Enduring Cultural Transformation.” And the groups are remaining mum about who is responsible.
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The campaign, which largely targets states where Republicans won control of legislatures or governorships, has garnered the support of Republican political superstars such as former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (Va.), Sens. Marco Rubio (Fla.) and Jon Kyl (Ariz.), and Rep. Trent Franks (Ariz.). The groups intend to pass anti-gay marriage amendments, curtail abortion rights and, in at least one case, ban “transgender bathrooms.”
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Family policy councils — a creation of Colorado Springs-based Focus on the Family in the 1980s — have launched the Ignite plan in 15 states. Each family policy council has a three-prong plan to achieve their legislative goals over the next two years: lobbying for legislation, mobilizing pastors and social conservatives and supporting candidates that have backed their initiatives. Each group has used a stock brochure containing nearly identical wording to explain their plan and to solicit funds. In many cases, an Ignite plan was launched with an anonymous matching-grant donor.
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Requests for information from many of the policy councils were denied, and Focus on the Family told The American Independent that they have no involvement, declining to offer information on any organization that might back the plan.
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As the story reports, The Family Foundation in Virginia spends big dollars to try to turn the Commonwealth into a quasi-theocracy where Christianist rights already trump the rights of all others and where the Republican Party is increasingly an arm of the Christian Taliban:
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Family Foundation of Virginia plans to spend $1,170,277 over the next two years to push legislation on “wrongful death for the unborn,” school choice and religious liberty protections. The group’s revenues over the last four years have averaged $510,000. They did not return a request for information on the campaign and increased spending.

Like many of the family policy councils, the Family Foundation got a year-end bump from a matching grant: “In order to get us off to a strong start in implementing this plan, a small group of The Family Foundation’s donors have offered to match every contribution The Family Foundation receives before December 31 — up to $25,000!” the group said in a recent fundraising pitch.
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And the group has been busy this year. It’s former executive director, Martin Brown, was tapped by Gov. Bob McDonnell to head Virginia’s Social Services Department. Under Brown’s leadership, the state social services board has tightened adoption rules so that agencies may discriminate against gay and lesbian couples. The Family Foundation lobbied heavily for the pro-discrimination policies.
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Its plan (PDF), which was sent to donors, includes this endorsement from House Majority Leader Eric Cantor: “It is difficult to imagine how Virginia would look today without The Family Foundation’s vigilant grassroots programs and the dedicated men and women who are the heart and soul of this proud institution.”
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The boyfriend and I have a decent life here in Virginia, but we are clearly third or fourth class citizens. Thus, my advise to LGBT individuals contemplating a visit - or worse yet a move to Virginia - is do not do it. And be sure to tell EVERYONE that you are avoiding Virginia because of its blatant discriminatory laws and policies.

Stephen "Threeway" Baldwin Whines About Minority Persecuting Majority

Stephen Baldwin, the youngest of the acting Baldwin brothers and former star in a movie entitled "Threeway" (see the photo at left) - to whom time has been way less than kind (see the photo below) -has been whining in a Wall Street Journal interview about “a very small minority” persecuting the majority of Americans who do not - at least according to Baldwin who seems a tad too invested in the whole issue, if you know what I mean - support equality for LGBT citizens. and same sex marriage in particular. Apparently, to Baldwin, the U. S. Constitution's promise of equal protection and protection from religious based discrimination means nothing. Rather, it's all about the sensibilities of bigots and those who perhaps like Baldwin are not all that comfortable with their own sexuality. Here are some highlights from the Advocate on this whiner's drivel:

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Gay people seeking equal marriage rights are “a very small minority” asking the majority of Americans to change their ways, conservative actor-director Stephen Baldwin says in new online video interview.
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“For society, and a majority of our society, to be asked by a very small minority to change its ways — and everybody can interpret that for themselves; that can be constitutional, that can be by law, that can be by faith — the homosexual community wants to go and start its own churches and get married, they’re free to do that,” Baldwin tells Lee Hawkins in the interview, posted on The Wall Street Journal’s website.
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He does not address the lack of rights caused by the lack of legal recognition of same-sex unions, but he suggests he may lose out on some Hollywood job offers because of his stance.
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I suspect that should Baldwin lose out on some job offers, his "stance" will have little to do with it. I'd venture it's more due to the fact that he's fat and ugly - physical characteristics that seem to perfectly match his ugly bigotry.

Friday Male Beauty

Writing A Falsified American History

Speaking of liars, the New York Times did a piece the other day on David Barton (pictured at left), a Christian dominionist who writes fictional versions of the history of the United States to support the efforts of Christianist to dupe the masses and impose a Christianist theocracy in place of the nation's current constitutional government. Barton displays utter contempt for real history and would be a laughable figure but for the fact that fools and demagogues of the far right - including many in today's round up of Republican candidates - either quote Barton or rely on him as if he were a legitimate historian. Truth be told, Barton has about as much legitimacy as a historian as Sarah Palin has as a serious intellectual. Chris Rodda, a Senior Research Director, Military Religious Freedom Foundation and author of 'Liars For Jesus' (a free PDF version of the book is available here) is beside herself that anyone takes Barton as anything more than a serious whack job and has a post venting on Huffington Post. The whole situation underscores America's vulnerability to demagogues due to the fact that so many Americans know nothing of real history - a subject relegated time and time again to a low status in our public schools. First, here are highlights from the Times story:

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Mr. Barton is a self-taught historian who is described by several conservative presidential aspirants as a valued adviser and a source of historical and biblical justification for their policies. He is so popular that evangelical pastors travel across states to hear his rapid-fire presentations on how the United States was founded as a Christian nation and is on the road to ruin, thanks to secularists and the Supreme Court, or on the lost political power of the clergy.

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Many historians call his research flawed, but Mr. Barton’s influence appears to be greater than ever. Liberal organizations are raising the alarm over what they say are Mr. Barton’s dangerous distortions, including his claim that the nation’s founders never intended a high wall between church and state.
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“I’ve met with several of the potential candidates this time, always at their call,” Mr. Barton said of the Republican presidential hopefuls. They usually seek specific advice, he said: whom to hire or contact in a particular state, how best to phrase a sensitive point. . . . Among the possible Republican presidential candidates who seek his advice are Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich and Representative Michele Bachmann.

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[M]any professional historians dismiss Mr. Barton, whose academic degree is in Christian education from Oral Roberts University, as a biased amateur who cherry-picks quotes from history and the Bible. “The problem with David Barton is that there’s a lot of truth in what he says,” said Derek H. Davis, director of church-state studies at Baylor University, a Baptist institution in Waco, Tex. “But the end product is a lot of distortions, half-truths and twisted history.”

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Groups like Americans United for Separation of Church and State have long challenged Mr. Barton’s conclusions. Now, his critics are ratcheting up their alarms. The liberal group People For the American Way recently devoted a report to Mr. Barton, warning about his “growing visibility and influence with members of Congress and other Republican Party officials.”

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Chris Rodda isn't as kind as the Times and calls out Barton for what he is: a liar. I would add, a deliberate liar. Barton and those like him pose a clear and present danger to the U.S. Constitution and freedom of religion as envisioned by the Founding Fathers. Here's a part of her take on Barton from Huffington Post:

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After nine years of battling Barton's lies, the first three or four of which were spent writing my book, Liars For Jesus: The Religious Right's Alternate Version of American History, I'm at a point of utter frustration as I watch this Christian nationalist liar get more and more influential. Jon Stewart's interview was the tipping point. If Jon couldn't nail this shameless and obvious history revisionist to the wall, I don't know who can.

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A lie can be told in a few words. Debunking that lie can take pages. That is why my book (which is only the first volume of what will be a three volume series) is five hundred pages long. Nobody is going to be able to adequately prove to any audience that Barton's lies are lies in an interview like Jon Stewart did last night, and David Barton is never going to agree to debate anyone that he knows can defeat him.

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If you haven't seen it already, please watch the Daily Show interview, particularly the online extended interview. Then download my book and read it, or watch the videos on my website. I'll be outside on this beautiful spring day playing with my dog, knowing that I've now done everything I possibly can to fight the scourge of David Barton.

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Barton is indeed a prime example of professional Christians being synonymous with the term pathological liars. As for the sheeple who believe such bullshit, Bob Felton has a good description at Civil Commotion:

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Barton won’t be influenced, of course, and neither will the morons who want to believe his lies. After years of watching these clowns up close, I’m convinced that there is an intellectual dysfunction at work, not quite a bona fide mental illness but something very close. They need their fictions, the way an addict needs his crack; they cannot face the world without them.

Removing the Fog of War

My prior post commented on the need to clearly recognize the disaster and high crimes of the Bush/Cheney years. Timothy Egan has a column in today's New York Times that makes a similar case and I maintain that until Americans open their eyes to the real history of those benighted years, the nation stands likely to repeat the same errors and to fall for the same lies and jingoism again. As the saying goes, those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it. If the The Chimperator and the "America right or wrong" crowd really cared about the nation, they would not be constantly trying to sweep the nasty truth under the rug. Let's face it, the ENTIRE Iraq War was built on lies and sadly the mainstream media was to lazy to ever ask the hard questions required or do real investigative journalism. The result has been billions of dollars squandered and countless lives needlessly lost. Here are highlights from Egan's column:
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Birthed in a big lie about weapons of mass destruction, the war in Iraq was in desperate need of a hero in 2003 when Jessica Lynch wrecked her Humvee and was knocked unconscious in enemy territory. Nine days later, the 19-year-old Army clerk was rescued by American soldiers from an Iraqi hospital.
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That much was true. From there — in newspaper articles, countless talk-radio fabrications and a book — Lynch was transformed from a nameless casualty to “the little girl Rambo from the hills of West Virginia who went down fighting,” as she said in later testimony.
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Give her credit: for her service, and for her fierce honesty in the face of myth-making, official and for-profit. It’s more than the defense brass did in her case, or that of the other poster boy for military mendacity, the Army Ranger Pat Tillman. He was killed by his own troops in Afghanistan — a truth the Pentagon thought we couldn’t handle, so they spun a tale of heroism in the face of hostile fire.
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But before closing the book, we do need something more detailed than the contradictions of the last few days [of revelry over the death of Bin Laden].
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Why? Because, almost from the beginning, the trillion-plus-dollar “war on terror” has been abused by fabulists. What followed a horrific crime against innocents in New York and elsewhere started with the correct impulse: get the killer. Then, of course, the killer got out of our sights in Tora Bora and President Bush steered the nation into a disastrous and bankrupting war against a country that had nothing to do with the mass homicide on American soil.
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The Lynch and Tillman episodes were emblematic of the whole phony campaign at the top. If the White House was willing to go to war on false pretenses, why shouldn’t low-level commanders follow suit on the ground?
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“They used me to symbolize all this stuff,” said Private Lynch, in one of many admirable attempts to set the record straight. “It’s wrong.” She never fired her weapon. “I’m not about to take credit for something I never did,” she said. “I’m just a survivor.”
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The coverup of this awful fratricide appeared to involve the highest levels of the Army while Tillman’s parents were looking for answers. “This lie was to cover their image,” said the soldier’s mother, Mary Tillman, in her congressional testimony. “They blew up their poster boy.”
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With the Bin Laden raid, the apologists for torture are trying to institutionalize a story that he never could have been found and killed without the United States taking leave of its professed values in war. This, despite the fact that military officials have said repeatedly that the best information came from detainees who were not tortured.
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The private in the Humvee, Jessica Lynch, said it better than any man with a row of stars on his lapel. “The truth of war is not always easy to hear,” she told members of Congress, “but it is always more heroic than the hype.”

Bush and Cheney, et al, Are Still War Criminals

Former Chimperator Bush is apparently feeling peevish that his administration "hasn't been given enough credit" for his contributions to the war on terror. Hence, his childish refusal to join President Obama in New York City yesterday. Bush and his sycophants continue to try to re-write the history of misrule and high crimes during the eight years of the Bush/Cheney nightmare. It is so very important that we not forget what was done to ruin the honor of this nation - and that doesn't even touch upon the economic catastrophe that flowed from Republican deregulation efforts during that same time period. Andrew Sullivan has a dead on assessment of just what the Chimperator and Emperor Palpatine Cheney brought to the USA - with the help, of their Republican enablers in Congress. Here's Andrew's summation of the Bush/Cheney years:
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Not only do these war criminals and shoddy lawyers [John Yoo] refuse to take accountability for their crimes, they tell clear untruths about how the capture of bin Laden was achieved and distort history.
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So let us be very clear. The war criminal Dick Cheney presided over the worst lapse in national security since Pearl Harbor, resulting in the deaths of more than 3,000 people. This rank incompetent failed to get bin Laden at Tora Bora, and then dragged the US on false pretenses into a war in Iraq, empowering Iran's dictatorship, and killing another 5,000 more Americans on a wild goose chase. He presided over the deaths of more than 8,000 Americans, and tens of thousands of Iraqis during his criminally incompetent years in office.
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What on earth are we debating? How have these delusional maniacs managed to even get us onto this turf? Because they have to. Because when the full truth of these past years are fully in focus, they will be revealed as some of the greatest criminals ever to have wielded power in America.

More Thursday Male Beauty

Illinois Catholic Charities Threatens To Turn Away Gay Couples

Like many of the gay hating religious denominations and their affiliated agencies, Illinois Catholic Charities wants to suck in $30 million in taxpayer funds to run its adoption and foster care programs but wants the special right to turn away those that they deem sinful. I'm sorry, but the minute organizations like Illinois Catholic Charities accept the first dollar of taxpayer derived funds, they forfeit their right to make religious based judgments against others. I hope the state of Illinois hangs tough and tells Illinois Catholic Charities to either cease in religious based discrimination or lose 100% of public funds. Yes, it might cause short term disruptions in services, but it is far past time that religious organizations be allowed to have their cake and eat it too. Oh, and while the state is at it, how about some criminal prosecutions of priests and bishops for the obstruction of justice flowing from the sex abuse cover up conspiracy. Here are high lights from Huffington Post on the blackmail efforts of Illinois Catholic Charities:
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One of the largest adoption agencies in Illinois is threatening to turn away couples with civil unions, despite state law demanding they do otherwise.
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Catholic Charities has more than 3,000 children in its foster care and adoption agencies, representing around 20 percent of all such services in the state, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. In recompense, the state pays the organization around $30 million a year.
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But when the state's new civil unions law goes into effect on June 1, heads of those agencies are saying that they do not plan to serve gay couples in those unions.
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"The Catholic Church is not going to be OK with Catholic Charities processing applications from anyone in a civil union," Trish Fox, the head of the Catholic Charities of Peoria, told Chicago Public Radio. "And all we're asking is that we can continue what we've always done, which is refer cohabitating couples, heterosexual or homosexual, to another agency."
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The language of the civil unions law, though, is clear on the subject: if an agency receives state dollars, it cannot discriminate against same-sex couples -- that is, it must treat people in civil unions as it would treat married couples.
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Anthony Martinez, Executive Director of The Civil Rights Agenda, said in a press release that it's as simple as that. “If an organization receives state funding, they must serve all residents of that state equally," Martinez said. "I don’t want my tax dollars to fund discrimination in any form, and that is exactly what the Catholic Charities are asking for: the right to discriminate.”

Brazil's Top Court Approves Same Sex Civil Unions

Yet again what was once part of what egocentric Americans considered to be part of the so-called developing world has rocketed ahead of the USA in terms of equality for all citizens and true separation of the civil laws from religious based discrimination. Today, Brazil's Supreme Court ruled that that nation must also civil unions for same sex couples. It was a 10-0 vote, with one abstention despite the heavy lobbying of the Roman Catholic Church. Meanwhile, the USA continues to allow a narrow - and hate based - version of Christianity to trump the plain meaning of the U.S. Constitution which was drafted by those who wanted to involvement of organized religion in the civil laws and government. I suspect the Founding Fathers would be appalled at what an empty promise the nation they founded now presents in terms of freedom of religion and separation of church and state. Our neighbors to the south, however, get the message that the Christianists seek to thwart. Here are highlights from ABC News:

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Brazil's Supreme Court ruled Thursday night that civil unions between same-sex couples must be allowed in this nation with more Roman Catholics than any other.
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In a 10-0 vote, with one abstention, the justices said gay couples deserve the same legal rights as heterosexual pairs when it comes to alimony, retirement benefits of a partner who dies, and inheritances, among other issues. The ruling, however, stopped short of legalizing gay marriage.
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Brazil's ruling sets a judicial precedent that must be honored by all public institutions, including notary publics where civil unions must be registered.
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"This is a historic moment for all Brazilians, not just homosexuals. This judgment will change everything for us in society — and for the better," said Marcelo Cerqueira with the gay rights group Grupo Gay da Bahia. "Gays, lesbians and transsexuals will be recognized as being more human. We'll be more accepted by having our rights honored."
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The request for the Supreme Court to recognize civil unions came two years ago from the Brazilian attorney general's office, largely because legislation that would give same-sex couples the rights enjoyed by married heterosexual couples has been stalled in Congress for more than a decade.
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Luis Roberto Barroso, a law professor at Rio de Janeiro State University, argued in a friend-of-the-court appearance before the justicies that allowing same-sex civil unions would mean "overcoming historical discrimination."
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"The implications of a homosexual relationship are the same as those of a heterosexual one. To not recognize that is to say that the affection they (gays) have has less value and can be disrespected," said Barroso.
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Note how the Brazilian LGBT rights spokesman states that the ruling will make LGBT Brazilians more human under the law. Here in the USA, the whole basis behind laws barring same sex marriage and civil unions is precisely to keep LGBT Americans less equal and by extension, less human. Bravo to Brazil. As I have noted before, I ponder how much longer I want to remain in the USA which has proven to be a total fraud in terms of affording equality and religious freedom to its citizens.

Pool Party Season Begins!

One of the Sunday afternoon past times the boyfriend and I enjoy is attending pot luck/pool parties hosted by friends with pools. One of the first parties of the season was on Sunday - yours truly is relaxing in the background at left while the young guys pose for photos. As usual, there was tons of food and a good time was had by all - even if the still freezing (in my view) water in the pool caused only the bravest to decide to play volleyball.

It's Bryan Fischer, Not GLAAD Who Hates the First Amendment

Besides being habitual liars - indeed, if their lips are moving it's best to assume they are lying - one thing that the anti-gay hate groups like the American Family Association and professional Christians continue to do is project their own thoughts and motivations to those who oppose their agenda of imposing a poisonous version of Christianity on all. The latest example is AFA windbag and nutcase Bryan Fischer who has accused GLADD of hating the First Amendment to the U. S. Constitution because GLAAD criticised a Houston Fox affiliate that aired a segment featuring Fischer - a spokesman for a registered hate group - suggesting that watching the hit show Glee will make kids gay and cause them ultimately to contract AIDS. Fischer, of course has zero credentials (he speaks only his religious fanaticism and religious based bigotry) that would make him an educated authority on sexual orientation or HIV/AIDS. In his verbal diarrhea response to GLAAD Fischer charges GLAAD with his own agenda - the dismantling of First Amendment protections for all but Christianists. Here's a sampling of Fischer's disingenuous batshitery:

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My appearance on the Houston Fox affiliate last week has generated something of a national furor. Entertainment Weekly, the Miami Herald, New York Magazine, the Hollywood Reporter and others have done stories on GLAAD’s call for Fox to apologize for even giving me any air to breathe.

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GLAAD, which stands for the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, has taken umbrage with me for saying on Fox that homosexual behavior "is conduct that bears enormous psychological and physical risk to those that engage in it" and "is just as risky and just as dangerous as injection drug use."

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GLAAD put almost immediate pressure on the Fox affiliate to apologize for giving me any air time at all, being the fans they are of the First Amendment and all, and according to GLAAD, Fox at first said they would. But subsequently, the Fox station has had an apparent change of heart and has yet to issue the promised apology.

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Fischer would not know the "truth" if it beat him over the head with a 2x4. He wants nothing less than a nation that conforms to his version of Christofascism. One has to wonder why any credible news outlets provides him with a platform. Oh, I forgot. Fox News isn't a credible news outlet.

Thursday Male Beauty

Ken "Kookinelli" Cuccinelli Proves He's and Idiot - and Embarrassment to Virginia

It's unclear whether Virginia's mentally unstable Attorney General was endeavoring to be funny or what, but his tweet about wanting to be one of Osama Bin Ladens 72 virgins was a lead balloon. Meanwhile, some of us find the thought of Kookinelli being Bin Laden's bitch rather entertaining. As I've noted before, there are those unproven rumors that Cooch has played for the LGBT team in the past.

Is the GOP Backing Away from Its Assault on Medicare?

The members of the Congressional GOP have been faced with fury and anger at numerous town hall meetings as constituents begin to realize just who is going to get thrown under the bus under the House GOP's deficit plan - and its not going to be the obscenely wealth or big business. Last night, there was a report in the Washington Post that the realization was hitting that the draconian proposal on Medicare was DOA in the Senate - and radioactive with voters - and that a Plan B needed to be developed. The Post reported as follows:

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Senior Republicans conceded Wednesday that a deal is unlikely on a contentious plan to overhaul Medicare and offered to open budget talks with the White House by focusing on areas where both parties can agree, such as cutting farm subsidies.
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On the eve of debt-reduction talks led by Vice President Biden, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (Va.) said Republicans remain convinced that reining in federal retirement programs is the key to stabilizing the nation’s finances over the long term. But he said Republicans recognize they may need to look elsewhere to achieve consensus after President Obama “excoriated us” for a proposal to privatize Medicare.
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Frankly, Eric Cantor is an embarrassment to Virginia and the man doesn't care whether or not the elderly - or at least the non-wealthy elderly - go without needed medical care or if they end up living off of dry dog food in their sunset years. I also do not understand how Cantor who is Jewish aligns himself with the Christianists who in the final analysis are also anti-Semites. I guess in his hunger for power, Cantor will happily work with those who hate him. In any event, now, Huffington Post reports that Cantor is backing away from the position reported by the Washington Post - perhaps under pressure from the loons of the Tea Party and the Christian Right who have ripped out the message of caring for the sick and poor from their Bibles. Here are highlights from HuffPo:
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WASHINGTON -- House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s (R-Va.) office sharply disputed on Wednesday night a report that GOP leaders are abandoning an attempt to dramatically overhaul Medicare as a part of budget negotiations.
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On the eve of bipartisan, bicameral debt and deficit reduction talks with the White House, the Washington Post reported that Republican leadership is ready to give up on House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) plan to gradually turn Medicare into a voucher program.
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Not true, said Cantor’s chief spokesman, Brad Dayspring. “Eric made very clear that our position is the Ryan budget which -- as you know -- assumes a debt limit increase and includes Medicare, Medicaid and $715 billion in mandatory savings," Dayspring said. "Whether the Democrats will agree to the proposals we've outlined is yet to be seen, but that is our starting point so we don't continue to kick the can down the road and make real cuts and real reforms this year."
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Asked whether that meant Republicans were sticking with Ryan’s version of Medicare reform once talks began at the Blair House with Vice President Joseph Biden on Thursday, Dayspring replied: "The starting point is the Ryan budget, period."
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“Obviously Cantor is scared out of his mind by angry seniors at their town halls, but, there are no backsies in Congress. They already voted to end Medicare,” Eddie Vale, a spokesman for the new pro-reform outlets Know Your Care and Protect Your Care, emailed before the Post toned down its headline.

More Wednesday Male Beauty

Maggie Gallagher's Past Statements Prove NOM Is All About Imposing It's Religious Views on All

Most of the time the mouth pieces for the National Organization for Marriage and professional Christians like Tony Perkins (and Victoria Cobb at the odious Family Foundation in Richmond) pose and posture as if they were acting as the protectors of religious liberty and/or constitutional principles. It's all a lie, of course, and from time to time these theocrats slip up and let their real motivations show. In other instances, their past statements come back to expose them and bit them in the ass (and Maggie Gallagher has one big ass to bit). Blogger friend Jeremy Hooper at Good As You has unearthed some of Ms. Gallagher's past statements that prove that her anti-gay marriage stance is ALL about forcing "Catholic marriage" on all. The statements also show just how Gallagher and NOM are when they talk about "the sin of contraception." The only religious freedom that these folks want is the right to impose their religious beliefs on EVERYONE regardless of others' faith or creeds. It's all about Maggie and those like her. Here are highlights from Jeremy's blog:
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[W]e criticize National Organization For Marriage Chair Maggie Gallagher for refusing to acknowledge that her (and her organization's) fundamental reason for opposing CIVIL equality lies not in constitutional reads but rather in canonical law. . . . But it turns out that back in 2006, before Prop 8 brought so much attention to those who deny basic fairness and shined heightened scrutiny on the justifications these "culture warriors" use to carry out the ignoble civil rights mission, Maggie actually was being a little more honest about her motivations. And not just when it comes to marriage, but also to things like "the sin of contraception," as she lashed out against the overall "culture of death." Here are some snips and a link to M.G.'s full piece:
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If the Catholic Church’s teachings are based on natural law, available to rational people of good will, how is it that the Church finds it so difficult to defend its vision of marriage. . . . This latest iteration of a culture of death represents an institutional attack on the capacity of the Catholic Church to transmit faith into the future.
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V. CAN WE SAVE CATHOLIC MARRIAGE?
This daunting question can be translated along operational lines: can we do a better job of transmitting a Catholic marriage culture to Catholics and their children?
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Persuading people of the sin of contraception may be important, but it is even more important to persuade them that babies, families, sex, love, and marriage are good. IF MARRIAGE IS NATURAL, WHY IS DEFENDING IT SO HARD? TAKING UP THE CHALLENGE TO MARRIAGE IN THE PEWS AND THE PUBLIC SQUARE
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Maggie, Brian, Robert George, Jennifer Roback Morse, the Haas family, Opus Fidelis, and everyone else at NOM have every right to use their Catholic beliefs against whatever "evils" they perceive in the world. However: THEY NEED TO OWN THEIR MOTIVATIONS! At this point, NOM is essentially like a Catholic variation on the Southern Baptist Convention: Working alongside others for the common fight, but nevertheless working from the foundation of their chosen, personal faith. But unlike SBC, NOM tries with all of its organizational might to hide their religious basis,
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And that deceptive public positioning is unfair to this entire debate. Without Catholic motivation, there would be no NOM. Period. If we can have the fortitude to acknowledge this fact, then they, the believers who signed up to stand with their faith, should be able to do so as well.

California AG Files Brief Against Prop. 8 Proponents; NYT Slams Attacks on Judge Walker

The litigation in Perry v. Schwarzenegger seems to go on and on with constant new twists and turns. Today, the New York Times printed a main page editorial that eviscerated the Proposition 8 supporters who have resorted to seeking to have Judge Vaughn Walker's ruling set aside because he is gay. Meanwhile, California Attorney General Kamala Harris has filed a brief with the California Supreme Court arguing that the Prop 8 proponents lack standing to appeal Judge Walker's district court ruling. I concur with both the Times editorial and AG Harris' legal analysis. First, these highlights from the New York Times editorial:
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Given ample chance during a 13-day trial to offer an argument apart from prejudice, proponents of Proposition 8, the prohibition against same-sex marriage in California, found no evidence. Now they are trying to disqualify Vaughn Walker, the now-retired Federal District Court judge who ruled that the measure was unconstitutional.
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After the trial, Judge Walker said he is gay and involved in a long-term relationship. Last week, Proposition 8’s lawyers argued that the ruling should be tossed out because he had had a duty to recuse himself, or at least disclose the relationship at the start of the case. The claim is bogus.
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It is well established that personal characteristics, like race, sex, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation, do not by themselves invoke the rule that judges must step aside if their “impartiality might reasonably be questioned.”
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There is no basis to think Judge Walker’s personal relationship played a role in his ruling on the evidence and on whether a constitutional reason exists to limit anyone’s freedom to marry. The idea that a seasoned, Republican-appointed jurist was unfit to hear the case, and that his decision should be set aside on flimsy ethics grounds, is preposterous.
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The editorial gets to the heart of the matter. The Prop 8 supporters offered no evidence to support their position other than anti-gay animus and religious based discrimination, neither of which provide justification for discriminatory civil laws. Now, that the case is on appeal, the Christo-fascists have another problem: the issue of their standing to appeal the case when the State of California has refused to do so. As discussed before, past U. S. Supreme Court decisions indicate that they do not. The Ninth Circuit put the issue to the California Supreme Court as an issue of state law and now the state's Attorney General has filed a brief against a finding of standing. Here are highlights from the Washington Post:
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California’s attorney general has again come out against the state’s same-sex marriage ban, this time telling the state Supreme Court the proponents of successful ballot initiatives do not have the right to defend their measures in court.
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Kamala Harris, a Democrat who succeeded Gov. Jerry Brown in January as attorney general, submitted an amicus brief Monday in the ongoing legal dispute over the voter-approved ban known as Proposition 8.
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In it, she argued that only public officials exercising the executive power of government have authority to represent the state when laws passed by voters or the Legislature are challenged.
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“California law affords an initiative’s proponents no right to defend the validity of a successful initiative measure based only on their role in launching an initiative process,” Harris wrote.
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Proposition 8’s sponsors asked the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to allow them to step in, but the court punted the question to the California Supreme Court earlier this year, saying it was a matter of state law. If the sponsors are not permitted to intervene, the lower court ruling overturning Proposition 8 will stand.
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Harris contended in her brief that rather than empowering citizens, granting the sponsors of initiatives the ability to overrule the governor and attorney general’s judgment “would rob the electors of power by taking the executive power from elected officials and placing it instead in the hands of a few highly motivated but politically unaccountable individuals.”

Wednesday Male Beauty

NOM's Racially Motivated Involvement in Anti-Gay Bronx Rally

Former NOM operative Louis Marinelli who had an epiphany and switched to a pro-gay marriage position continues to be a torn in the wide asses of Maggie Gallagher and Brian Brown as he writes about NOM cynically joining anti-gay Bronx Democrat State Senator Ruben Diaz for an anti-gay, anti-marriage equality march extending over 40 blocks. Marinelli pin points the efforts of the lily white NOM organization to manipulate black Americans into carrying NOM's water and disguising the fact that NOM in reality does give a rat's ass about black citizens. It's the same pattern that one sees in Virginia all the time as black pastors are co-opted into doing the work of the former segregationists crowd at The Family Foundation. Marinelli's blog post on this topic is most revealing. Here are some highlights:
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Brian Brown lives in a quiet town in Connecticut – a far cry from the Bronx. Aside from the obvious reason as to why the President of the National Organization for Marriage would make his way into the city to take part in this rally, the truth of the matter is that it presents NOM with an underlying opportunity.
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NOM is in the business of promoting non-white Americans that oppose marriage equality. It’s good for their image if they can present an illusion of broad interracial opposition to same-sex marriage. Of course this isn’t something at they do openly but it is certainly a strategy well-known to those within their circle. I was one of them and I have e-mail correspondence from the summer bus tour that demonstrates their fixation on exploiting blacks who showed up at the rallies as part of NOM’s public relations strategy. Look for them to do this with the Hispanics in the Bronx on the 15th.
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Maggie Gallagher wanted us to arrange interviews with any of the [black] Bishops that came to the rallies in Harrisburg, PA and Washington, D.C., the last two stops of the summer bus tour. That e-mail included quoted text from an e-mail between Maggie and Matt Haas which wrote: I believe these are COGIC bishops, black bishops. That’s why I’m saying make sure we feature and focus on thjem. [sic] Get interviews. Any Catholics [sic] bishops that show up interview them too! Maggie
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NOM wanted to play the race card and quickly the work became sifting through the hundreds of photos we had to choose which ones were the best. Now, determining which ones are the best is subjective to opinion but in this case it was clear that the best photos were the ones that showed as many black people as possible.
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For example, in an e-mail written by Joe Giganti of Opus Fidelis to just about everyone on the tour team, Mr. Giganti selected a handful of photos that he considered the best and called them “2-TO-1 BLACK/STRONG SHOTS”. He listed the eight photos and gave a short comment for each of them.
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Specifically, one of those select eight images was Image 2933. Mr. Giganti singled this photo out, according to his own comments, because it was of a “black woman signing a petition”. Although we had photos of white people signing our petition, NOM didn’t choose any of them because the black woman was of greater political value.
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But the image that really caught Mr. Giganti’s eye was Image 2930. His comments wrote: This is a great contrast shot of our people all happy and smiling (majority black, only one non-black in the picture) versus the angry counter-protesters. (Josh, this would be a good post. Luke / Colton: We may not a spot right now but keep this one close for future use – maybe a dynamic picture that rotates between positive, happy shots of our people versus our angry foes?) [sic]
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I feel it is necessary to get this message out now that I’ve heard of NOM’s plan to take part in the anti-marriage equality rally/walk in the Bronx later this month. I don’t think the people who show up that day, even though they are opponents of marriage equality, should be used as political pawns by anyone, especially by an organization which I’ve just demonstrated is fixated on doing so.
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If I were an advisor to Senator Diaz, I’d recommend rescinding the invitation to NOM for Brian Brown to take part in the event. Unless, that is, he wants to allow a New Jersey-based organization take advantage of his constituents living in the Bronx.