Sleazy Daily Beast Article "Outs" and Endangers Olympic Athletes

Douche Bag (my view) Nico Hines

Up until now, I regularly check out The Daily Beast and often have referenced their articles - I did the same with Rolling Stone until it published its fiction based story slandering the University of Virginia.  Now, The Daily Beast is going to join Rolling Stone as an outlet to be avoided.  Why? Beacuse of an utterly sleazy pieces by a scumbag (at least in my view) named Nico Hines who went around the Olympic Village with Grindr and other hookup apps and then "outed" various athletes, many from anti-gay countries where their lives might be endangered on their return home.  While the editors of The Daily Beast have done a disingenuous "We're Sorry!" piece, it is nowhere near enough and does nothing to undo thee damage done to some athletes.  Both Hines and whoever approved his piece need to be fired immediately.  Slate has a piece ripping The Daily Beast a new one and rightly so.  Here are highlights from Slate: 

On Thursday morning, the Daily Beast published an exceedingly gross and bizarre article by a straight, married male writer who lured in gay Olympians through hookup apps for no particular purpose. The entire piece is an astoundingly creepy exercise in Grindr-baiting, which involves a journalist accessing Grindr in an unlikely setting and … seeing what happens. But the Daily Beast piece, penned by Nico Hines, is a uniquely disgusting and irresponsible entry into the tired genre. Hines entices his (often closeted) subjects under false pretenses; effectively outs several closeted athletes who live in repressive countries; then writes about the whole thing in a tone of mocking yet lurid condescension. By 10:30 a.m. ET, the Daily Beast had, in response to criticism, edited out the most identifying details about closeted athletes—but that’s too little, too late. (Update, 9:15 p.m.: On Thursday evening, the Daily Beast took down the piece entirely.)

Hines begins by explaining that his entire assignment consisted of walking around the Olympic Village while using several hookup apps, hoping to learn whether “an Average Joe” can “join the bacchanalia.” He quickly abandons apps like Tinder, which are mostly used by straight people, for Grindr, which is for gay men: “No prizes for guessing that Grindr proved more of an instant hookup success than Bumble or Tinder,” he writes. Presumably, Hines awards “no prizes” because he believes gays are more promiscuous than straight people—a theme to which Hines often returns throughout his vile piece.

Because Hines is not gay, you might find his use of Grindr a bit dishonest. But not to worry: “For the record,” Hines writes, “I didn’t lie to anyone or pretend to be someone I wasn’t—unless you count being on Grindr in the first place—since I’m straight, with a wife and child.” This sentence reflects a stunning amount of ignorance, because, in Hines’ situation, of course being on Grindr in the first place is a lie. Grindr is an app for men who wish to hook up with other men. That is its purpose! To be on Grindr when you do not have that goal, and when you could not possibly have that goal because you are straight, is itself a mendacious deception.

With his dubious premise established, Hines proceeds to out athlete after athlete, providing enough information about each Olympian he encounters for anyone with basic Google skills to uncover their identities. (After several minutes of Googling, I surmised the identities of five of the gay athletes Hines described.) I’m not going to repeat his descriptions, because—as Hines himself acknowledges!—some of them live in “notoriously homophobic” countries and remain closeted at home.

Shortly after Hines’ article published, openly gay Olympian Gus Kenworthy tweeted that the author “basically just outed a bunch of athletes in his quest to write a shitty [Daily Beast] article where he admitted to entrapment.” That is correct, but it’s worth exploring why Hines embarked upon this weird, sleazy quest in the first place. I count two reasons. The first is that Hines simply enjoys tittering with condescension at all the gay athletes who take the bait and engage with him—a straight dude, as Hines emphatically reminds us. Why else zero in on Grindr? The second reason is more repulsive: Hines appears to take pleasure in luring in these Olympians then outing them to all the world.

But the offensive purpose of Hines’ article is really the least of its problems. Far worse is the actual damage it will likely cause to real, live human beings—inevitable onsequences that Hines blithely ignored. Several athletes who are closeted at home (and possibly to their own teammates) will wake up on Thursday morning to the news that the Daily Beast has outed them. Their teammates could ostracize and alienate them; their families could disown them; their countries could imprison them. And for what? A homophobic article about how a straight guy conned gay Olympians from anti-gay countries into hitting on him through Grindr? Hines’ article is a dangerous disaster, a wildly unethical train wreck that should be taken down immediately for the sake of its duped subjects. Hines may view his Grindr-baiting as all fun and games. For the victims of his unprincipled journalism, however, his nasty little piece has the power to ruin lives. 

As I said, I am saying good bye to The Daily Beast.  As for Hines, he needs to be fired and  boycotted by legitimate news outlets.  Perhaps he can get a job with FRC or AFA where lying and seeking to harm gays is an everyday mission. 

Pharma-Douche Martin Shkreli Arrested By The FBI

Martin Shkreli being taken away in handcuffs

Few individuals personify the epitome of vulture capitalism and pharmaceutical company greed more than Martin Shkreli, a former hedge fund operator and douche bag who purchased a pharmaceutical company and then promptly raised the price of a drug used to treat infections that can be devastating for babies and those with AIDS from $13.50 a pill to $750 a pill.  Today, the lime ball and arrogant bastard (who seems to have studied the art under Donald Trump) got his just deserves and was arrested by the FBI on securities fraud and wire fraud charges.  The New York Times has details.  Here are highlights:

It has been a busy week for Martin Shkreli, the flamboyant businessman at the center of the drug industry’s price-gouging scandals.

He said he would sharply increase the cost of a drug used to treat a potentially deadly parasitic infection. He called himself “the world’s most eligible bachelor” on Twitter and railed against critics in a live-streaming YouTube video.

Then, at 6 a.m. Thursday morning, federal authorities arrested Mr. Shkreli, 32, at his Murray Hill apartment. He was arraigned in Federal District Court in Brooklyn on securities fraud and wire fraud charges.

Mr. Shkreli has emerged as a symbol of pharmaceutical greed for acquiring a decades-old drug used to treat an infection that can be devastating for babies and people with AIDS and, overnight, raised the price to $750 a pill from $13.50. His only mistake, he later conceded, was not raising the price more.

Those price increases combined with Mr. Shkreli’s jeering response has made him a lightning rod for public outrage and fodder for the presidential campaign. His company, Turing Pharmaceuticals, and others, like Valeant Pharmaceuticals, have come under fire from lawmakers and consumers for profiting from steep price increases for old drugs.

But the criminal charges brought against him actually relate to something else entirely — his time as a hedge fund manager and when he ran his first biopharmaceutical company, Retrophin. Federal officials described his crimes as a quasi-Ponzi scheme in which he used money from his company to pay off money-losing investors in his hedge funds. An F.B.I. official called his business schemes a “securities fraud trifecta of lies, deceit and greed.”

Still, for many of his critics, Mr. Shkreli’s arrest was a comeuppance for the brash, irreverent executive who has seemed to enjoy — relish, even — his public notoriety.

“Personally, I think Martin Shkreli has become wealthy at the expense of the public good. I don’t believe for a second that his manipulation of drug prices fuels valuable research as he has claimed,” said Katie Uva, a 2006 alumni of Hunter College High School in Manhattan where Mr. Shkreli attended, in an email response to questions. This fall, Ms. Uva started an online fund-raising campaign to match a $1 million donation from Mr. Shkreli to Hunter in the hope of persuading the school to return the donation.

MSMB’s performance wasn’t nearly as hot as Mr. Shkreli let on. From 2009 through 2012, Mr. Shkreli lost millions of dollars trading in the market, according to the accusations contained in the indictment. But he hid those losses, telling investors instead that the funds had strong double-digit returns.

In 2011, Mr. Shkreli started Retrophin, which quickly adopted a controversial business strategy, acquiring old, neglected drugs used for rare diseases and quickly raising their prices.

Soon, however, Mr. Shkreli was embarking on a plan to use Retrophin assets to pay off MSMB investors. . . . When seven MSMB investors threatened to sue in 2013, Mr. Shkreli and Evan Greebel, the lead outside counsel for Retrophin, used $3.4 million in Retrophin funds and stock to settle the investors’ claims, even though Retrophin had no responsibility, the indictment says.

[W]hen Retrophin’s auditor raised questions about the settlements, Mr. Shkreli and Mr. Greebel created fraudulent consulting agreements for the investors, thinking they could pay the money back without upsetting the auditor, the indictment states. From September 2013 to March 2014, they created fake consulting agreements for four investors, paying $7.6 million in cash and stock. Retrophin’s board did not approve of the consulting agreements, the indictment says.

In September 2014, Retrophin ousted Mr. Shkreli as its chief executive. A lawsuit filed this summer by the company mirrors many of the same accusations contained in the federal charges.

There is more, but the take away is that this guy is disgusting.  I hope he gets convicted and ends up being someone's bitch in prison.  It would be all too sweet of a divine justice.  Of course, if you believe Ben Carson's lunatic theories, Shkreli will be gay when he gets out of prison.

Rubio Continues to Prostitute Himself to Christofascists

Every time I begin to remotely think that Marco Rubio in the White House might be a survivable tragedy the man goes and make statements that demonstrate that he is unfit for the office and/or a tawdry political whore.  Case in point?  During an interview on Pat Robertson's delusional CBN channel, Rubio said that religious believers - translate, the American Taliban - are entitled to ignore laws that "violate their faith."  Of course, if a Muslim did what Rubio is giving Christofascists license to do, the hew and cry would be deafening.  As a gay American, I found it particularly offensive that Rubio is stoking Christofascist fantasies that the Supreme Court's same sex marriage ruling can be ignored and is not "settled law."  Right Wing Watch looks at Rubio's self-prostitution.  Here are excerpts:

In an interview today with David Brody of the Christian Broadcasting Network, Sen. Marco Rubio said that the Supreme Court’s rulings on marriage equality and abortion rights in the Obergefell and Roe decisions, respectively, are “not settled law.”

The Republican presidential candidate said that states should “do everything possible within the constraints that its placed upon us” to curtail abortion rights, before insisting that government officials “ignore” Supreme Court rulings if they believe they conflict with “God’s rules.”

“We are clearly called, in the Bible, to adhere to our civil authorities, but that conflicts with also a requirement to adhere to God’s rules,” he said. “When those two come in conflict, God’s rules always win. In essence, if we are ever ordered by a government authority to personally violate and sin, violate God’s law and sin, if we’re ordered to stop preaching the gospel, if we’re ordered to perform a same-sex marriage as someone presiding over it, we are called to ignore that. We cannot abide by that because government is compelling us to sin.”

Brody, unsurprisingly, took that as an endorsement as Kentucky clerk Kim Davis’ stance that she could flout the Supreme Court and refuse to issue marriage licenses to gay couples.

 What a douche bag!! He is in effect, advocating anarchy where the godly folk ignore whatever laws they dislike.

Hate Group Leader Says Homeless LGBT Teens HaveOnly Themselves to bBame

Linda Harvey - the face of hate

Mission America - Linda Harvey's (Harvey is pictured at left) cottage industry hate group - is among the foulest of the stridently anti-gay groups one will find.  Harvey herself pontificates on topics about which she knows nothing and for which she has absolutely ZERO credentials.  To say that the woman is a douche bag would be unduly gracious.  Hate, bigotry and fear mongering are her stock in trade and she and Renew America are proof as to why there needs to be much closer scrutiny by the IRS of supposed "ministries" and far right "charitable" organizations.  No taxpayer should have to indirectly subsidize the lies and filth these groups disseminate.   As noted before on this blog, some 40% of homeless youth are from the LGBT community, may thrown out by their "godly Christian" parents.   Now, Harvey is maintaining that homeless youth have no one but themselves to blame for their homelessness;  Here are details from Gay Star News:

Mission America anti-gay author has made the extraordinary claim that homeless young LGBTI people only have themselves to blame for their homelessness – blaming them for running away from homophobic parents.

‘”Kids are kicked out of their homes just for being who they are,” is how the saying goes,’ Harvey said in a radio clip uncovered by RightWingWatch.org.

‘Well let me offer another possibility that I’ve heard far too often: a parent learns that a son or daughter is claiming to be gay but an underage child still lives at home, so the now-heartbroken parent puts new restrictions on some of the activities like for instance, the teen is no longer going to be having sleepovers with that same-sex friend, or if the friend is a college student or has an apartment, visits over there will not be permitted.

‘What does the teen do? It may become a fight where the teen storms out by choice and leaves voluntarily because the homosexual relationship is more important than that of his or her parents. And when that all-important relationship ends, the teen is too stubborn or already too-involved in alcohol or drugs or the premature independence of the homosexual life and he or she would rather drift than return home.’

Harvey has in the past said that gay people are just heterosexuals who are in denial, that they are not people, that they try to absorb other people’s personalities and that anti-bullying programs aimed at protecting LGBTI young people turn kids gay. 

Note how Harvey throws in the line about gays being hooked on drugs and alcohol in keeping with her past efforts to depict gays as promiscuous alcoholics and drug addicts.  The woman is worse than excrement.  I truly wonder at times what a detailed psychological profile of Harvey would reveal.  Mental illness is about the only explanation I can arrive at for her batshitery.

Paul Ryan - An Utter Douche Bag and Liar

Paul Ryan - douche bag and liar

If readers haven't previously figured it out, I view Paul Ryan (R-WI) as an utter douche bag.  In fact, this asshole who was born into a wealthy family and who has never had to worry about money or where his next meal would come from has taken his hypocrisy to new levels speaking a CPAC - a coven like gathering of racists, religious fanatics and bigots that now passes as a mirror the GOP base - where he recounted basically a made up story that when traced back to its origin has a message 180 degrees the opposite of Ryan's agenda to slash social programs for the poor and relegate the less fortunate to the trash heap.  The man truly makes the Pharisees of the Bible look like pillars of integrity and decency.  And people wonder why I cannot be a Republican nowadays.  The Raw Story looks at the roots of Ryan's dishonesty at CPAC .  Here are excerpts:

Tea Party Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) anecdote criticizing government school lunch programs was apparently lifted from a book about an encounter between a student and a private benefactor.

Wonkette reported on Thursday that Ryan’s remarks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Thursday regarding a “young boy from a very poor family” relying on “a government program” for his lunches was strikingly similar to the premise of the book An Invisible Thread, which recounted author Laura Schroff’s 1986 meeting with an 11-year-old “homeless panhandler” named Maurice, who was receiving lunches through a school program.

Schroff wrote that she offered Maurice a choice between giving him enough money for a week, or taking him to a supermarket to buy him enough food to cover the same amount of time. The book then detailed this exchange:

If you make me lunch,” he said, “will you put it in a brown paper bag?”  I didn’t really understand the question. “Do you want it in a brown paper bag?” I asked. “Or how would you prefer it?”

“Miss Laura,” he said, “I don’t want your money. I want my lunch in a brown paper bag.” “Okay, sure. But why do you want it in a bag?”  “Because when I see kids come to school with their lunch in a paper bag, that means someone cares about them. Miss Laura, can I please have my lunch in a paper bag?”

On Thursday, Ryan recounted nearly the exact same story, attributing it to Wisconsin Department of Children and Families Director Eloise Anderson, who was appointed by Gov. Scott Walker (R). But Ryan said it was Anderson who met a young student who told her he did not want a lunch from a government program, but one served in a brown paper bag.

“He wanted one, he said, because he knew a kid with a brown paper bag had someone who cared for him,” Ryan said. “This is what the left does not understand.”

At the time of their appearance on Huckabee’s show, Schrock and Maurice promoted the Share Our Strength No Kid Hungry campaign. Two months later, the campaign released a statement opposing Ryan’s House budget proposal, which included cutting the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance (SNAP) Program by $125 million.

Note two things: (i) Either way Laura Schroff was going to make sure the boy did not go hungry.   The only issue was as to how she would accomplish this goal; unlike Ryan's budget proposals, she was not going to leave the boy with no way to secure food; and (ii) Schroff and Maurice appeared on behalf of a program that actively opposes Ryan's budget cuts.   Try as I might, my take away conclusion is that Ryan is not a decent person and that he's a liar.  A slippery and canny liar perhaps, but a deliberate liar nonetheless. Sadly, Ryan now represents what the greed driven, racist and homophobic GOP is all about. It's beyond ugly and the fact that Ryan and his allies dress themselves in the cloak of religiosity makes Christianity itself repugnant to more and more Americans.  It will be the "godly folk" not the liberals who kill Christianity.

 

Pat Robertson: Gays Can Change Just Like Murderers and Rapists

The Hampton Roads area of southeastern Virginia desperately needs to diversify its economy and attract new progressive business so as to reduce the area's dependence on federal defense spending.  And some efforts are being made to enhance the area's image.  But unfortunately, time and time again snake oil merchant/televangelist Pat Robertson (head of Regent University a "Christian" university in Virginia Beach) shoots off his mouth and makes the area look like a bunch of knuckle dragging Neanderthals.  The man is a continued embarrassment and unfortunately no one seems to be able to rein him in and tell him to just shut the f*ck up.  His latest tirade against gays will do nothing to improve the region's image nationally and internationally.  Here are excerpts from Right Wing Watch:

Today on the 700 Club, Pat Robertson insisted that gays and lesbians can “change their sexual preference” just like murders, rapists and thieves can change themselves. He later warned that the U.S. is on the verge of adopting hate speech laws.

Robertson, who has repeatedly promoted ex-gay therapy, said that just as gay people can change their orientation, “a murderer can change, a rapist can change, a thief can change.” Robertson was reacting to a case in Ecuador, where a politician was found to have violated his country’s electoral code’s prohibition on discrimination by making anti-gay remarks.

Let's be clear.  In my view, Robertson is a crook, snake oil merchant and utter hypocrite.  Oh, and did I mention that his an arrogant asshole to boot?

Scalia’s Dishonest Gay Adoption Claim

Prior to the U.S. Supreme Court oral arguments in the Prop 8 and DOMA cases, this blog reviewed a number of the amicus briefs filed in the two cases, including the filings by the American Sociological Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, both of which supported gay marriage and stated that there was no legitimate research - i.e., research not funded by and manipulated by Christofacist organizations and their stooges such as the deliberately flaw study by Mark Regnerus - that supported the claims by Prop 8 and DOMA proponents that children suffered if they had same sex parents.  Despite these filings, bigot in chief on the Court, Antonin Scalia made statements that “there’s considerable disagreement among sociologists as to what the consequences of raising a child in a single-sex family, whether that is harmful to the child or not.”  Ezra Klein takes Scalia to task in a piece in the Washington Post for his deliberate effort to distort the real science on the issue.  Here are highlights:

On Wednesday, I wrote about Justice Antonin Scalia’s comment that “there’s considerable disagreement among sociologists as to what the consequences of raising a child in a single-sex family, whether that is harmful to the child or not.”

That’s not what the American Sociological Association thinks. Here’s its official statement on the matter:

The claim that same-sex parents produce less positive child outcomes than opposite-sex parents—either because such families lack both a male and female parent or because both parents are not the biological parents of their children—contradicts abundant social science research. Decades of methodologically sound social science research, especially multiple nationally representative studies and the expert evidence introduced in the district courts below, confirm that positive child wellbeing is the product of stability in the relationship between the two parents, stability in the relationship between the parents and child, and greater parental socioeconomic resources. Whether a child is raised by same-sex or opposite-sex parents has no bearing on a child’s wellbeing.

The clear and consistent consensus in the social science profession is that across a wide range of indicators, children fare just as well when they are raised by same-sex parents when compared to children raised by opposite-sex parents.

Pretty definitive. And here’s the punchline: That paragraph isn’t buried in a press release on its blog or in an editorial from its trade magazine. It’s from the amicus curiae brief that the ASA filed in the very case Scalia was commenting on.

In other words, the official organization representing American sociologists went out of their way to provide the Supreme Court with their “consensus” opinion on the effect of same-sex parents on children. And yet, when struggling for a “concrete” harm that could come from gay marriage, Scalia went with “considerable disagreement among sociologists.” So we’ve gone from a weak claim — “considerable disagreement” over harm is not the same thing as actual harm — to an explicitly wrong claim. Scalia offered no details or evidence of this considerable disagreement among sociologists, and it’s hard to believe he’s a better judge of the profession than the ASA, whose brief he notably declined to mention.

As this blog has argued before, Scalia is so bigoted and so unable to demonstrate even a shred of objectivity on a host of issues that the has come for him to either resign or be removed from the Court.  His continued presence on the Court undermines its integrity and standing.

Paul Ryan’sBudget Assumes Repeal of Obamacare - Except the Tax Increases and Medicare Cuts

In yet another display of Paul Ryan's glaring disingenuousness - and his desire to dupe the cretins in the GOP base - a new analysis of his budget proposal indicates that it assumes the complete repeal of Obamacare except all provisions that raise taxes.  Oh, and did I mention, it continues the Medicare cuts he and Mitt Romney whined about during the 2012 campaign?  That's right, cut all the parts of the Affordable Health Care that involves paying for benefits for Americans, but keep every tax increase written into the law and keep the Medicare cuts.  Naturally, the drooling, knuckle draggers in the GOP base will only hear the "repeal Obamacare"  portion of Ryan's message while they pay more in taxes with zero corresponding public benefits.  Which is exactly what Ryan apparently hopes for.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at Ryan's con job.  Here are highlights:

Every Ryan budget since the passage of Obamacare has assumed the repeal of Obamacare. Kinda. Ryan’s version of repeal means getting rid of all the parts that spend money to give people health insurance but keeping the tax increases and the Medicare cuts that pays for that health insurance, as without those policies, it is very, very difficult for Ryan to hit his deficit-reduction targets.

After criss-crossing the country with Mitt Romney condemning Obamacare’s Medicare cuts, Ryan says they will once again be in his budget. As Talking Points Memo’s Sahil Kapur cheekily tweets, “Paul Ryan was against ACA’s Medicare cuts before he was for them before he was against them before he was for them.”

Ryan has also said he’ll use the new revenue baseline as the basis for his revenue-neutral tax reform plan — that means including both the tax increases of the Affordable Care Act and the “fiscal cliff” deal.

That’s the irony of Ryan’s balanced-budget. Much of it is built on taxes and Medicare cuts that he and his party would never have proposed, and which they in fact fought bitterly, but which they’ve now assimilated into their budget because it’s almost impossible for them to hit their deficit-reduction goals otherwise.

The GOP and the Christofascists truly deserve each other.  Lies and deceit and deception are the stock in trade for both the GOP and the Christofascists.

Hate Group Leader Blames Military Suicide Increase on DADT Repeal

Hate group leader Tony Perkins rants against the Southern Poverty Law Center's designation of Family Research Council as an anti-gay hate group.  Yet he continues to demonstrate precisely why the SPLC was 100% on target in giving the hate group designation to FRC.  It his latest eruption of anti-gay animus, Perkins is blaming the U. S. military's exploding suicide rate on the gays.  That's right, in Perkins' bizarre alternate universe, it is DADT repeal, not (i) the horrors troops are seeing in the fool's errand wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, (ii) the repeated deployments to those hell holes - my son-in-law was on his third deployment when he was seriously wounded last November - and (iii) the military's failure to take mental health issues seriously that is the reason that members of the military are taking their own lives in unprecedented numbers.  Right Wing Watch reports on Perkins' latest foul anti-gay lies:

Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council has joined American Family Association’s Buster Wilson in linking the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell to the military’s suicide rate.  .  .  .  . Perkins said that the Obama administration’s work in “driving Christianity out [and] putting homosexuality in” are “adding additional stress” that leads to a higher rate of suicide. Perkins cited no evidence to back up his claim, but as with his ominous and incorrect predictions regarding the consequences of DADT’s repeal, he apparently doesn’t see a need to substantiate his outrageous allegations.

Perkins: The volume of these decisions coming out of this administration is unbelievable, unbelievable. The stress in our military, when you look how they have used the military for their social experimentation: driving Christianity out, putting homosexuality in, suicide rate going through the ceiling. I think it was last year if I recall the numbers there were 349 suicides in 2012 and I believe that’s more than were killed in combat, that’s the highest number since the Pentagon began tracking suicides back in 2001. And what are they doing? Adding additional stress by this social engineering. Unbelievable.

 What's unbelievable is that anyone moral and sane listens to Perkins - a failed state politician with white supremacist ties - and his fellow Christian Taliban hate merchants.  

Douche Bag Rick Warren: Being Gay Is Like Consuming Arsenic

Many will recall that I - and many other LGBT bloggers - went ballistic when Barack Obama had Christianist snake oil merchant Rick Warren give the invocation at the 2009 inauguration ceremony.  Time and time again Warren has demonstrated that he and his organization deserve a hate group because of the deliberately derogatory and untrue statement Warren disseminates against LGBT citizens.  And that's not even considering his possible role in inciting anti-gay fervor in Africa.  As Think Progress is reporting, the porcine Warren again showed his true colors when he equated being gay with taking poison. As for Warren's "having a feeling doesn't make it right," the same holds true about the tub of lard's "feelings" that he wants to/must cling to the writings of Neolithic goat herders that science is proving false.  Just because Warren is psychologically damaged himself and/or enjoys preying on those who are so he can shake them down for money, doesn't make it right.  Here are highlights from Think Progress:

Megachurch pastor Rick Warren remains as ill-informed on gay identity as ever. Unfazed by the notion that there may be a biological cause for homosexuality, Warren told Piers Morgan on CNN this week that acting on same-sex attractions is no different from “punching a guy in the nose” or consuming arsenic:

WARREN: Here’s what we know about life. I have all kinds of natural feelings in my life and it doesn’t necessarily mean that I should act on every feeling. Sometimes I get angry and I feel like punching a guy in the nose. It doesn’t mean I act on it. Sometimes I feel attracted to women who are not my wife. I don’t act on it. Just because I have a feeling doesn’t make it right. Not everything natural is good for me. Arsenic is natural.

Warren has a long history of opposing marriage equality. Four years ago, he defended his support of California’s Proposition 8 by claiming that same-sex marriage is “equivalent” to incest, pedophilia, and polygamy. He also claimed that gays are “evil” and have “Christ-o-phobia.” Warren tries to offset his anti-gay beliefs by boasting his anti-AIDS work in Africa, but he has ties to conservative anti-gay leaders in Uganda who oppose using condoms to prevent transmission of HIV. The results of his particular efforts are unclear, but studies have shown that abstinence-only efforts have failed to lower HIV rates in Africa, and anti-gay stigma also contributes to the epidemic.

I again have to wonder why responsible and supposedly serious news outlets continue to provide this nasty individual from which he can spew hate and untruths.   The man is disgusting and I surely hope that Obama has severed his ties from this foul douche bag.

Romney: Shut Down Federal Disaster Agency, Send Responsibility To The States

With literally millions of Americans huddling in their homes as Hurricane Sandy bears down on them, there is one point that ALL of us need to remember: Mitt Romney would eliminate FEMA and leave disaster relief to the states.  States that have nowhere near the money or ability to handle serious disasters.  In Romneyworld, it's all about spending as little as possible on regular Americans so that he and his fellow plutocrats can pay as little as possible in taxes.  And as for  the rest of us?  We are on our own.  When talking about the 47% of Americans that he holds in contempt, Romney for once was honest when he stated: it's not my job to worry about these people.  So much for the Gospel message to care for others.  I find the man to be morally repulsive.  If it's not his family and rich cat friends, his attitude is "f*ck them" - be they men, women or children.  Here are highlights from Huffington Post:

During a CNN debate at the height of the GOP primary, Mitt Romney was asked, in the context of the Joplin disaster and FEMA's cash crunch, whether the agency should be shuttered so that states can individually take over responsibility for disaster response.

"Absolutely," he said. "Every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states, that's the right direction. And if you can go even further, and send it back to the private sector, that's even better. Instead of thinking, in the federal budget, what we should cut, we should ask the opposite question, what should we keep?"

"Including disaster relief, though?" debate moderator John King asked Romney.

"We cannot -- we cannot afford to do those things without jeopardizing the future for our kids," Romney replied. "It is simply immoral, in my view, for us to continue to rack up larger and larger debts and pass them on to our kids, knowing full well that we'll all be dead and gone before it's paid off. It makes no sense at all."

To Romney - like so many among the Christofascist and Tea Party circles, most of us are disposable garbage.  A point that is underscored by Romney's desire to repeal the Affordable Health Care Act and leave millions with emergency rooms as their sole source of medical help.  It's morally sick, but it is the face of today's GOP. It is the true face of Mitt Romney.  Are all Mormons this morally bankrupt?

Mitt Romney the Perjurer

While some may argue that Mitt Romney's false testimony in a divorce case back in the 1990's is old news, I would argue that it remains relevant because if Romney was willing to be a perjurer and face potential criminal prosecution to "help a friend" what can we expect of the man in a heated and close political race.  Time and time again on this blog focus has been placed on Mitt Romney's dishonesty.  The man lies without a second thought and it is a trait that goes back at least to the mid-1990's.  TMZ.com has details and here are highlights:

Mitt Romney LIED under oath when he testified in the divorce of his good friend and screwed the friend's wife out of a lot of money in the process ... so claims the ex-wife of Staples' founder TomStemberg.

Multiple sources connected with the divorce tell TMZ ... during Tom's uber nasty divorce case with ex-wife Maureen, Mitt Romney gave a deposition and testified during the trial that Staples was worth virtually nothing. Romney testified that the company was worth very little and Tom was a dreamer and "the dream continues."

Romney characterized the Staples stock as "overvalued," adding, "I didn't place a great deal of credibility in the forecast of the company's future."

Partly as a result of Romney's testimony, Maureen got relatively little in the divorce, but we're told just weeks after the divorce ended, Romney and Tom went to Goldman Sachs and cashed in THEIR stock for a fortune. Short story -- Romney allegedly lied to help his friend and screw the friend's wife over.

And there's more ... Our sources say years later, Maureen, who suffered from MS and had multiple bouts with cancer, got a visit from one of Tom's guys, who gave her papers informing her that Tom was cancelling her health insurance. Our sources say the irony here is that we're told Tom was working as one of then Governor Mitt Romney's chief health care advisers.

Sources tell us ... Tom also got custody of the couple's one child, making allegations of abuse against Maureen. And get this ... in the mid-90s, after the divorce, Tom sent the boy a letter saying, although he loved him, because of issues related to the divorce "it will not be possible for you to be a part of our family for the foreseeable future."

Despite Romney's documented dishonesty, the Christianist continue to rally to his support.  Leading the charge are folks like pathological liar Tony Perkins of FRC and the child rapist enablers and protectors in the Catholic Church Conference of Catholic bishops.  The Catholic Church may condemn gays like myself, but I would argue that few are more morally bankrupt nowadays than today's Republicans (see the post earlier today on the moral case for voting for Obama) and those  like the Catholic bishops who wrap themselves in religiosity and false piety.

Cuccinelli Bars Media from Northern Virginia Anti-Gay Hatefest

It's pretty telling when an elected official bars the media from supposedly open events.  Could it be because they plan on saying hate filled things that play well with extremists that they want to hide from the larger public?  That seems to be the case of Virginia Attorney General Ken "Kookinelli" Cuccinelli who appeared and spoke at what was advertised as a "Virginia Defense of Marriage Summit."  One can be sure that some of Virginia's best known knuckle dragging hate merchants were in attendance.  Obviously, if you are afraid to have the media hear what you are saying or see with whom you are surrounding yourself , perhaps you should not be in attendance in the first place.  Especially if you are the top legal official for the Commonwealth of Virginia.  One can only assume that Kookinelli planned on saying things akin to Mitt Romney during his comments on the 47% while gathered with a group of millionaire cronies/donors.   The Washington Blade reports on this disturbing circumstance.  Here are highlights:

A local church on Friday denied a Washington Blade staff writer access to an anti-gay marriage gathering at which Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli spoke.

A woman who was standing near the entrance of Reconciliation Community Church in Manassas in front of two men wearing dark suits who appeared to be security personnel asked this reporter for identification and proof of media affiliation after he identified himself as a Blade staff writer. He proceeded to show her his drivers’ license and business card. . . . . She then pointedly told him to turn his car around in an adjacent driveway and leave the church’s property.

Pastor John Peyton of the Reconciliation Community Church acknowledged he was asked to host the gathering at which Cuccinelli spoke — the attorney general said on his Twitter account earlier on Friday he was “looking forward to speaking at the Virginia Defense of Marriage Summit tonight!” Peyton told the Blade in an e-mail he “did not bargain for any protesters to come.”

In addition to Cuccinelli; Jackson, Bishop Eugene Reeves of New Life Ministries in Woodbridge, Va., and Phillip Goudeaux of the Calvary Christian Center in Sacramento, Calif., were among those scheduled to speak at Reconciliation Community Church. The Manassas event took place less than a week after Goudeaux described gay men as “predators” who seek to indoctrinate children during an anti-gay marriage gathering at a Baltimore church that Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, Maryland Marriage Alliance Chair Derek McCoy, Jackson, Reeves and roughly 100 others attended.

Shelley Abrams, co-founder of Cooch Watch, told the Blade roughly a dozen members of her group who traveled to Manassas to protest Cuccinelli were also denied access to the church. One Cooch Watch member who arrived at Reconciliation Community Church around 4:45 p.m. told Abrams a woman said “there’s no rally here.”  .  .  .  .  Abrams further stressed churches typically allow Cooch Watch members to attend forums, meetings and other events they host.

“To be denied entry into what’s considered God’s house is appalling,” she said. “Not only that, this is a public official. We are Virginians and we want to hear what he has to say about same-sex marriage. And we were not given that opportunity. There is fear among the ultra-right wing of being exposed and they know that Cooch Watch is here to expose them.”

Equality Virginia spokesperson Kevin Clay also criticized the church’s decision to deny access to the gathering.   . . . . .  Behind closed doors, we suspect he rehashed the same overreaching rhetoric. At Equality Virginia, we expect our elected officials to represent all of the commonwealth’s citizens.”

As I have note before, I've received unconfirmed reports that Kookinelli - like so many virulently anti-gay zealots - may have played/play for our team.  If anyone can confirm this with convincing evidence, nothing would give me more joy than to expose this nasty extremist as a hypocrite.